03.30.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:19 pm by pikapp44
A gay couple inquiring about a hotel room in South Carolina were turned away because of their sexual orientation.
Jason Pickel and Darren Black Bear told local television station WLTX that they were searching for a home in the Sumter, S.C., area and needed a place to stay during their search. When calling the Affordable Suites of America, a long-term stay hotel, they asked about pricing and other details on the room.
“She asked who the room was going to be for, and I said for my partner and I,” Pickel said in the news report. “She said, ‘Oh, we don’t rent to multiple people of the same sex.’ I said, ‘So you don’t rent to gay couples? She said, ‘No, we don’t rent to gay people at all.’”
Posing as an interested customer, someone from the station contacted the hotel, inquiring about same-sex couples staying in the room. The receptionist told them their policy about accommodating gay couples: “Our policy is we don’t rent to two people of the same sex if we only have one bed.” The receptionist explained further that the corporate policy provides living space for only one person. The station member asked if they could just share the bed.
“I suppose they could, but most men don’t want to,” she said.
The station then contacted the hotel’s owner, who said the policy was not intended to exclude gays and that any couple would be allowed to stay at the hotel.
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03.29.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:05 pm by pikapp44
Former NBA player Micheal Ray Richardson was suspended by the Continental Basketball Association on Wednesday for anti-Semitic comments the Albany Patroons’ coach made in a newspaper interview. Richardson will miss the rest of the CBA’s best-of-five championship series after he told the Albany Times Union that he had ”big-time Jew lawyers” working for him.
”They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean? Which I think is great,” Richardson told the Times-Union. ”I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people.”
The paper also reported that Richardson yelled at a heckler, using profanity and a gay slur, at Tuesday’s Game 1 of the championship series against Yakima. Albany lost the first game at home. Game 2 was Wednesday night.
Patroons owner Ben Fernandez denounced Richardson’s comments. During his suspension, the league is investigating the allegations against Richardson. ”We will not tolerate—and the league will not tolerate—bigots,” Fernandez said.
Richardson will not be allowed to watch the team practice or be present at any of the games. ”It’s terrible and I don’t think it’s fair,” Richardson said. ”But I want to make an apology if I offended anyone because that’s not me.”
Assistant Coach Derrick Rowland took over in Richardson’s absence.
The Patroons apologized to the public in a release issued Wednesday. ”The Albany Patroons’ organization sincerely apologizes to any individuals or ethnic groups that these alleged statements may have offended.”
Richardson was the fourth overall pick in the 1978 draft. He joined the NBA out of Montana and played eight seasons with the New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors, and New Jersey Nets.
His NBA career ended because of drug use in 1986, when NBA commissioner David Stern banned Richardson for life after he violated the league’s drug policy three times.
Richardson began his comeback in 1988, joining the ranks of ex-NBA players in European leagues. His right to play in the NBA was restored that year but he stayed in Italy, where he was a leading scorer and fan favorite.
Richardson failed two cocaine tests in 1991, though he disputed the results.
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03.27.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 3:56 pm by pikapp44
According to a recent national survey conducted by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive, 72% of heterosexual adults say their feelings toward their favorite male professional athlete would not change if the player revealed he is gay.
The results demonstrate an increase from August 2002, when heterosexual adults were asked the same question and 66% responded that their feelings wouldn’t change if a player came out.
“Openly gay and lesbian athletes have become far more visible in the nation’s major media with the coming-out of WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes and the very recent publication of the New York Times best seller Man in the Middle by former NBA pro John Amaechi,” said Bob Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs. “Not only does public acceptance of gay athletes seem to be on the rise, but there’s slight progress in feelings that others are becoming more accepting as well.”
The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive in collaboration with Witeck-Combs in the United States between March 6 and March 14, among 2,510 adults (aged 18 and over), of whom 2,037 indicated they are heterosexual.
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03.26.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:55 pm by pikapp44
The Jewish Theological Seminary announced Monday that it will begin accepting LGBT students into its rabbinical and cantorial schools.
The decision comes three months after a panel of scholars who interpret Jewish law for the Conservative branch of Judaism voted to allow the seminaries to decide on their own whether to admit openly gay students.
But the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards left enough leeway to allow synagogues that consider same-sex relations contrary to Jewish law to bar gay clergy from their pulpits.
The decision also comes two weeks after the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, based at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, admitted a gay man and a lesbian for the fall semester.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, based in New York City, is the movement’s flagship rabbinical school.
Following the ruling by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards in December the JTS initiated a study in which the views of a wide range of constituencies were solicited and seriously weighed, and likely consequences considered the JTS said Monday.
Chancellor-elect Arnold M. Eisen said he personally heard from hundreds of Conservative Jews on the matter during his travels around the country this year and through correspondence, email, and the JTS website.
“The immediate issue was the ordination of gay and lesbian students as rabbis and cantors for the Conservative Movement,” he said.
“But the larger issue has been how we can remain true to our tradition in general and to halakhah in particular while staying fully responsive to and immersed in our society and culture. How shall we learn Torah, live Torah, teach Torah in this time and place?”
Eisen said that “I believe that the nature of our communities in contemporary America, the moral convictions we hold, and the mission of JTS, argue strongly for accepting gay and lesbian students for ordination.”
Reform and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism have admitted LGBT students for some time.
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03.25.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:27 pm by pikapp44
After four lesbians were asked to leave an International House of Pancakes in Grandview, Mo., a group is organizing a demonstration against the chain restaurant.
Promo, the Missouri LGBT equality organization, is coordinating a demonstration to take place Friday at 5:30 p.m. Protesters plan to arrive with brooms at the restaurant to “clean up the corporate brush-off,” a statement read.
“This is a clear act of discrimination, even if IHOP does not understand that it is,” the Promo regional field organizer said in the press release. “The couple of pecks that caused these individuals to be asked to leave would not have been considered inappropriate if the couples were heterosexual.”
The four women—Toni and Jackie Smith, Blair Funk, and Eva Sandoval—were sharing a booth at the restaurant. There, Funk and Sandoval shared a short kiss, which attracted the manager’s attention.
Funk told Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks that the manager said to the four women, “I have to tell you, we’ve had some complaints about public displays of affection, and we’re a family restaurant. We can’t accept it, and we won’t accept it.”
While the state of Missouri does not have a law protecting the rights of gays, Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia, and University City have policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Marcia Nieto, guest services representative for IHOP, issued an apology, which was obtained by Queerty.com. In it Nieto stresses that the women were not asked to leave but “were asked to refrain from bold displays of public affection as guests had found it offensive.”
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03.20.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:09 pm by pikapp44
At least 219 gay couples applied to join in civil unions during the first month the legal institution was available in New Jersey, a state agency said in a report issued Tuesday.
Civil unions offer gay couples the legal benefits of marriage — but not the title. New Jersey lawmakers created the institution last December in response to a state Supreme Court ruling two months earlier that said it was unconstitutional to deny gay couples access to the protections of marriage.
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03.19.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:44 pm by pikapp44
Defense secretary Robert Gates declined to say Sunday whether the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should apologize for his remark that homosexual acts are immoral or whether it was a slur on gay members of the armed forces. Marine Corps general Peter Pace made the remark last Monday in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. The next day, following criticism from several lawmakers and gay rights groups, Pace said he regretted having stated a personal opinion but did not apologize.
“I think General Pace has made pretty clear that he wished he had avoided his personal opinion,” Gates said on Face the Nation on CBS. The secretary said he did not plan to ask Pace to do anything more in regard to the remark.
Asked if Pace’s comment was a slur on members of the armed forces, Gates said: “I think I’ll leave it at the fact that I don’t think this is an issue where personal opinion has any place.” As far as Pace apologizing, Gates said, “I think we should just move on from this point.”
Gates said Pace is a man of enormous principle and integrity and tremendous skill. “I think the American people are lucky to have him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” he said.
In the newspaper interview, Pace said that while he supports the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allowing gays to serve in the military, he believes that “homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.”
“I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying through our policies that it’s OK to be immoral in any way,” he said.
Gates indicated that he was not reviewing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which President Clinton signed into law in 1994. President Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said Sunday he is not aware of any plans by the White House to review the policy. He told CNN’s Late Edition that the policy allows all Americans to participate in the military, “and that’s a good thing.”
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03.16.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:49 pm by pikapp44
Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico and 2008 presidential candidate, announced Thursday that he believes “don’t ask, don’t tell” should be repealed. Responding to Joint Chiefs chairman Peter Pace’s antigay comments earlier this week, the onetime congressman said he doesn’t agree that homosexuality is immoral and that discrimination against gay people in the U.S. military should end.
“I voted against it when I served in Congress,” Richardson told the AP in Santa Fe, referring to the ban on openly gay service members, signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton in the 1990s. “People should not be judged based on their sexual orientation. Throughout my entire career I have fought for equal rights and against discrimination of any kind.”
Richardson added that Pace’s remarks were “unfortunate” and called on President Bush to condemn them. In his interview with the AP he also pointed to his own pro-gay record: his support of civil unions and his signing into law a state measure that provides civil rights protections for gays and lesbians.
Two of his competitors for the Democratic presidential nod, senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, also disavowed Pace’s comment’s Thursday, according to the AP, finally saying that they disagree that homosexuality is immoral after avoiding the issue earlier in the week.
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03.15.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:11 pm by pikapp44
At a press conference outside the Florida state senate chambers in Tallahassee Wednesday, a state senator announced that she would work to end the state’s 30-year-old ban on adoptions by gays. Democratic state senator Nan Rich of Weston said she was sponsoring a bill that would finally repeal the ban on gays and lesbians adopting children, reports Florida Today.
Critics of the ban say that it is unfair and hypocritical, since the state permits members of the LGBT community to be foster parents. Last year, the foster children of gay and lesbian caregivers held a demonstration at the state capitol, protesting that the law prohibited them from being adopted by those they considered to be their parents
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03.14.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:48 pm by pikapp44
Asked if she believed homosexuality was immoral, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton declined to answer the question in a television interview this morning and said it was for “others to conclude.”
General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he personally believed homosexuality was immoral and that this view was a factor in his opposition to gays serving openly in the military.
Mrs. Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, supports allowing gays to serve, which would amount to a change in her husband’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. She has also been aggressively courting gay voters and groups in recent weeks. Some gay groups have been critical of Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to support gay marriage, however, though she does support civil unions.
Asked on ABC News today if she agreed with General Pace’s view that homosexuality was immoral, Mrs. Clinton said: “Well I’m going to leave that to others to conclude.” She added, “I’m very proud of the gays and lesbians I know who perform work that is essential to our country, who want to serve their country and I want make sure they can.”
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