02.28.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:20 pm by pikapp44
Hawaii lawmakers effectively killed a proposal to create civil unions for gay couples by declining to vote on the legislation.
After five hours of testimony, though, the committee declined to vote. Representatives offered little explanation to the public, but it was a sign that the bill lacked enough support to become law.
Civil unions had been suggested as a way for the state to sidestep a controversy over gay marriage, but they proved to be nearly as contentious.
Opponents argued that civil unions were being used as a step toward legalizing gay marriage. Proponents said they want the legal guarantees granted to married couples, such as tax breaks, adoption rights and health benefits.
“This is essentially a re-examination of the same-sex marriage issue except with a different title,” said Kelly Rosati, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Catholic Church and executive director for the Hawaii Family Forum.
Gay rights advocates said the law was needed in order to give same-sex couples equal rights as heterosexuals.
“For me, it’s very clear cut that it’s gender discrimination,” said Scott Orton, who is gay. “I would like to take on a partner in the future and have the same rights as a married person.”
Hawaii nearly legalized gay marriages more than a decade ago before stiff public opposition came from family advocacy groups, the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church.
A decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court would have allowed same-sex marriages, but a 1998 constitutional amendment and a law defined marriage as between two people of opposite sexes.
Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey already have civil union laws. Massachusetts is the only state to allow same-sex marriages.
Permalink
02.27.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:41 pm by pikapp44
Antigay bias has flared up in Hollywood and pro basketball recently, and soon the topic will be thrust dramatically into a new forum: a reshaped Congress likely to pass the first major federal gay rights bills.
Wary conservative leaders as well as gay rights advocates share a belief that at least two measures will win approval this year: a hate-crimes bill that would cover offenses motivated by antigay bias, and a measure that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also on the table–although with more doubtful prospects–will be a measure to be introduced Wednesday seeking repeal of the ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military.
All three measures surfaced in previous sessions of Congress, at times winning significant bipartisan backing but always falling short of final passage. This year, with Democrats now in control and many Republicans likely to join in support, the hate-crimes and workplace bills are widely expected to prevail.
”With liberals in control, there’s a good possibility they’ll both pass,” said Matt Barber, a policy director with the conservative group Concerned Women for America. ”They’re both dangerous to freedom of conscience, to religious liberties, to free speech.”
If approved by Congress, the bills would head to the White House. Activists on both the left and right are unsure whether President Bush would sign or veto them. For gay rights leaders, whose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage have been rebuffed by many states, the congressional votes are keenly anticipated after years of lobbying.
”This is a major step in our struggle,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. ”I know there’s a lot of despair on the other side.”
The workplace bill, titled the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, is the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations. The bill that emerges is expected to expand on earlier versions to cover not only sexual orientation but also gender identity, thus extending protections to transgender employees. Churches and small businesses would be exempt.
For many Americans, ENDA’s provisions would be familiar. More than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, as do 17 states and many local governments. And publicly, there is increasingly little tolerance for overt antigay bias. The National Basketball Association swiftly repudiated retired all-star Tim Hardaway after he spoke this month of hating gays, while TV actor Isaiah Washington apologized and sought counseling after using a gay slur in reference to a fellow actor on Grey’s Anatomy.
Advocacy groups also say there have been huge strides in regard to protections for transgender people, with nine states, scores of major corporations and more than 70 colleges and universities now banning discrimination based on gender identity. California’s ban, in effect since 2003, has not triggered a flood of litigation, but it has prompted employers to proactively improve their policies for dealing with transgender employees, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
According to the FBI, about 14% of the 7,163 hate crimes reported in 2005 targeted gays or lesbians.
Permalink
02.26.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:09 pm by pikapp44
In their 14-year relationship, Patricia Spado and Olive Watson spent only five nights apart. They lived in New York, spent summers in Maine, and shared the more practical pieces of a life together—a home, a joint bank account. But in a time long before civil unions or same-sex marriage, Watson wanted to ensure that her partner would be taken care of when she was no longer there. So, at a small courthouse in coastal Maine, she adopted Spado.
Fifteen years later, the adoption is being challenged in courts in Connecticut and Maine as Olive Watson’s family parcels out the family fortune—and contests their newfound heir. The case, according to gay activists, is rare and offers an example of how far same-sex couples have gone to attain financial and inheritance protections that married couples take for granted.
”It shows what people are driven to when they don’t have access to marriage and the conventional way of forming a family,” said Mary Bonauto, an attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based group that won the legal battle that introduced same-sex marriage to Massachusetts.
At stake is a share in multimillion-dollar trust funds that Olive Watson’s father, Thomas Watson, who built International Business Machines into today’s IBM computer colossus, set up for his grandchildren. He died in 1993, unaware of the adoption. His wife, who died in 2004, apparently learned of it from her daughter.
With the deaths of both parents, the trusts’ beneficiaries—grandchildren, at least 18 of them—became eligible for cash payouts at age 35. But when Spado’s lawyer notified the trusts that she was a potential beneficiary as a legal granddaughter, the family challenged the claim in probate court in Greenwich, Conn., where Thomas Watson lived at the time of his death.
Spado and Olive Watson aren’t together anymore. They separated in 1992, and while Spado received about $500,000 from Watson, there is nothing in court records to show any arrangement beyond that.
A judge ruled that Thomas Watson did not recognize Spado as his granddaughter and did not intend for her to benefit from the trusts. ”It is reasonable to conclude that Watson intended to benefit only those grandchildren who had a typical parent/child relationship with his children,” Judge David Hopper wrote.
The size of the estate has not been estimated in court documents, and principals in the case did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Spado and Watson also did not respond to questions about the case.
Spado has appealed. In the meantime, the family trusts are trying to have her adoption annulled in Maine, where they would have to prove deception or fraud.
Briefs filed with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which heard an appeal on a technicality, indicate that the judge who approved the adoption never knew that Olive Watson and Spado had a sexual relationship.
New York, where the couple had been living at the time, barred the adoption of a gay partner, but Maine had no such restriction. Nor did it have a provision like Connecticut’s that prohibits a person from adopting someone older—Spado, 44 at the time, was a year older than her adoptive mother.
However, the Maine adoption law required that the adoptee had to be living in the state, and the two sides are at odds on whether spending part of each summer vacation on Maine’s North Haven island met that requirement.
The couple met in 1978 while Spado was working in Los Angeles. Watson rented a residence in California in order to be with her lover, who later abandoned her career and moved with Watson to New York.
They held joint bank accounts, owned real estate together, and exchanged durable powers of attorney and health care proxies. Watson amended her will to name Spado as sole beneficiary.
After their breakup, Watson paid Spado the $500,000 settlement in exchange for relinquishing her claim to certain real estate. But the settlement was apparently not intended to terminate Spade’s right to her inheritance as a granddaughter.
According to a court brief filed by Spado in Maine, a letter signed by Watson shortly after the breakup confirms ”our agreement that I have not and that I shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my adoption of you.”
Permalink
02.21.07
Posted in Gay Rights at 11:35 am by pikapp44
A high level investigation into allegations of homophobia, illegal gag orders, cronyism, and retaliation against Special Counsel Scott Bloch is being stymied by intimidation of those who made the complaints two federal employee groups say.
The Office of Personnel Management began the probe of Bloch in 2005 under Inspector General Patrick McFarland following a year of complaints by members of Congress, Federal Globe - the LGBT organization for federal civil servants, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - a watchdog group.
Now those groups say the Office of Special Counsel is trying to stonewall the investigation. This month employees at the agency were told to inform OSC management when they are contacted by investigators and that any contact with investigators must be in a special conference room at OSC headquarters.
The groups say the directive is an attempt to silence them.
After an inquiry from investigators in the probe the OSC has backed down on the meeting place, issuing a second directive saying the meetings could take place elsewhere.
The Office Of The Special Council is the agency that protects whistleblowers and investigates complaints of discrimination by federal workers, but, Bloch has refused to take on complaints of discrimination based on sexuality.
The OPM Inspector General investigation into Bloch is the third probe into Bloch’s operation.
The Government Accountability Office and a U.S. Senate subcommittee both have ongoing investigations into mass dismissal of hundreds of whistleblower cases, crony hires, and Bloch’s targeting of gay employees for removal while refusing to investigate cases involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Before being named Special Counsel by President Bush, Bloch served at the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
Bloch’s stonewalling complaints of discrimination by LGBT federal workers dates to February 2004 when he ordered references to sexual orientation removed from the Office of the Special Counsel website. Since 1998, when President Bill Clinton issued an executive order prohibiting bias in the civil service, the OSC has taken that to include sexuality.
A month after the references disappeared from the OSC website Bloch said gay workers were no longer protected.
After intense pressure from Federal Globe and from Democrats on The Hill, the White House said it would honor an Executive Order signed by President Clinton that assured LGBT workers had civil rights protections.
But with Bloch’s approval, several union contracts negotiated with various branches of the government removed the list of categories that are protected replacing them with the more nebulous phrase “any class protected by law.”
Appearing in May 2005, before the the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia, Bloch said that his interpretation of the Clinton executive order cannot be used to protect gay workers because it does not specifically name LGBT workers.
“It is not something I can prosecute in my agency,” Bloch told the committee. “I am limited by the enforcement statutes that you give me.”
Permalink
02.16.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, D's Thoughts at 3:27 pm by pikapp44
The NBA banished Tim Hardaway from All-Star weekend in Las Vegas because of his antigay remarks. Hardaway, who played in five All-Star games during the 1990s, was already in Las Vegas to make a series of public appearances this week on behalf of the league. But after saying, ”I hate gay people” during a radio interview, commissioner David Stern stepped in.
”We removed him from representing us because we didn’t think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us,” Stern told reporters Thursday at the opening of a fan festival at a Las Vegas casino, part of the NBA’s All-Star weekend. Stern said he had not spoken with Hardaway, who left Las Vegas on Thursday, but he planned to do so.
While Stern said a discussion about openly gay players could be part of future rookie orientation programs, he doesn’t see a need to address the league. ”This is an issue overall that has fascinated America. It’s not an NBA issue,” Stern said, pointing to the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage at the state and federal levels.
”This is a country that needs to talk about this issue,” he said. ”And, not surprisingly, they use sports as a catalyst to begin the dialogue.”
Hardaway apologized for his comments, which came a week after John Amaechi became the first former NBA player to say he was gay. ”As an African-American, I know all too well the negative thoughts and feelings hatred and bigotry cause,” Hardaway said Thursday in a statement issued by his agent. ”I regret and apologize for the statements that I made that have certainly caused the same kinds of feelings and reactions.
”I especially apologize to my fans, friends, and family in Miami and Chicago. I am committed to examining my feelings and will recognize, appreciate, and respect the differences among people in our society,” he said. ”I regret any embarrassment I have caused the league on the eve of one of their greatest annual events.”
The NBA brings in many former players to take part in various All-Star events. Hardaway had already represented the league in Las Vegas earlier this week at a Habitat for Humanity event and a fitness promotion. The former U.S. Olympian was also scheduled to be an assistant coach at a wheelchair game Thursday night and later appear at the fan-oriented Jam Session until Stern told him he was no longer welcome.
”His views are not consistent with ours,” Stern said.
Permalink
02.14.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:10 pm by pikapp44
The Republican Party should stop spending money to advance a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Florida, says newly elected Republican governor Charlie Crist. “I just think that their money can be better spent on other things that may be more pressing, like elections,” Crist told the St. Petersburgh Times. “The people care about issues like insurance premiums. They care about property taxes. They care about public safety.”
According to the paper, Crist is known for pragmatism over ideology and a lack of enthusiasm for wedge issues. But he did express support for a measure banning same-sex marriage before being elected.
“He’s certainly allowed to express his opinion,” John Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer and chairman of the effort to amend Florida’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage, told the Times. “I cannot imagine that he would reverse his position as a strong supporter of this effort. It’s good policy for him, it’s good politics, and it’s a historical thing that’s going to happen. It needs to happen.”
As for Crist’s opposition to party support for the amendment, Stemberger said, “I think he should reevaluate his position.”
The Florida Coalition to Protect Marriage, a political committee, received $300,000 last year from the Republican Party of Florida, more than half of the marriage group’s reported total. Jim Greer, Crist’s handpicked choice to be chairman of the state Republican Party, said he has not yet decided whether to contribute any more party money to the effort.
Permalink
02.02.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:05 pm by pikapp44
A new poll shows for the first time that a majority of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly in the military. The Harris Interactive survey reveals that 55 percent of those polled say openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military, and 57 percent agreed with former joint chiefs of staff chairman John Shalikashvili’s assertion last month that openly gay people will “not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Only 19 percent of those polled said that gays could serve if they kept their sexual orientation secret, and 18 percent said they shouldn’t be allowed to serve at all. In 2000, 48 percent said that gays should be allowed to serve openly.
On the specific question of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the military’s official ban on openly gay servicemembers, 46 percent of respondents said they opposed the policy, the same as in 2000.
Permalink