06.11.07
Posted in D's Thoughts at 4:07 pm by pikapp44
Gov. Deval Patrick became the first sitting Massachusetts governor to march in the Boston’s gay pride parade Saturday, just days before state lawmakers were expected to vote on a ballot question that could ban same-sex marriage.
The Democrat, who walked with his daughter, Katherine, and Mayor Thomas Menino in the 37th annual parade, said he wanted to keep Massachusetts a state where same-sex couples could marry legally.
Patrick said the 2003 court decision that paved the way for same-sex marriage ”affirmed the principle that everyone comes before the court as equals.”
”That is an argument we need to make to representatives and senators this week,” he said. ”What experience has taught us is that the sky hasn’t opened up, families are still intact.”
In 2003, the Massachusetts supreme judicial court barred the state from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But it also ruled last year that lawmakers must vote on the proposed ballot question, instead of letting die without a vote, as some lawmakers advocated.
If the ballot question receives support from 50 of 200 state lawmakers at a Constitutional Convention scheduled for Thursday, it would be placed on the 2008 ballot.
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06.08.07
Posted in Advocate Articles at 11:42 am by pikapp44
Isaiah Washington has lost his job on the hit ABC medical drama ”Grey’s Anatomy,” five months after creating a furor with his use of an anti-gay slur.
Washington’s contract option was not renewed for next season, series producer ABC Television Studios said Thursday in Los Angeles.
”I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” Washington said in a statement released through his publicist, Howard Bragman, without elaboration.
He drew fire after using the anti-gay epithet backstage at the Golden Globe Awards in January while denying he’d used it previously on the set against cast mate T.R. Knight.
Gay rights groups and cast member Katherine Heigl, who publicly denounced Washington, were among his most vocal critics.
”This is something that will have changed the scope of his life,” Heigl told Entertainment Weekly last month. Washington was ‘’sorry and embarrassed” for the mistake, she said.
Washington tried to make amends and said he was seeking therapy.
He also met with officials from the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and filmed a public service announcement in which he said ”words have power” to hurt or heal.
The May finale of ”Grey’s Anatomy” opened the door for the departure of his character. Burke was on the verge of marrying Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), but her doubts at first delayed and then derailed their splashy wedding. Later, Yang found that Burke cleared out his favorite possessions from their apartment.
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 11:39 am by pikapp44
When an Advocate reader was shopping for a Father’s Day card, he came across one greeting he thought highly offensive.
The cover of the card featured a photo of an idyllic, upscale picnic spread: plaid blanket, wicker basket, a bottle of wine and two glasses, a round of bread, a fruit plate. Above the photo, the card read, “Dad, how about a Father’s Day picnic?” The punch line inside: “Too queer? Yeah, I thought so too.”
The reader said that he saw the card in two separate supermarkets and complained both times to store managers. But his greatest disappointment was in the card company.
“Hallmark has long marketed its products with the slogan ‘When you care enough to send the very best,’ ” he said via e-mail. “For my money, ‘the very best’ does not include the use of slurs against a part of the company’s customer base.”
The Advocate brought this card to the attention of Hallmark’s media liaison, Deidre Parkes, who said that the company would pull the cards from shelves immediately.
“[Hallmark’s business unit] reviewed it today and did all agree that it was in poor judgment to include the card in the line,” Parkes said in an e-mail Thursday. “We are stopping the shipping of the card, and we will not produce it again. Hallmark’s intent is never to offend, and we’re truly sorry if that is the case here.”
Earlier this year the greeting card giant introduced a line of 176 cards called Journeys, intended for dealing with life’s more delicate issues, like coming out, anorexia, and divorce.
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06.07.07
Posted in Advocate Articles at 5:14 pm by pikapp44
Worries that the lovable George O’Malley on the ABC show Grey’s Anatomy may not return for the fall season can be laid to rest. T.R. Knight, who plays George on the hit show, will not only return but will also receive a raise. Knight will earn $125,000 per episode, plus a small piece of the show’s profits, according to Entertainment Weekly. Since the May 17 season finale, fans were left not knowing whether Advocate cover boy Knight would remain on the show after failing his intern exam on the final episode of the season
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06.06.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:36 pm by pikapp44
Edwards said he doesn’t feel his belief in evolution is inconsistent with his belief in Christ and he doesn’t personally feel gays should be married, although as president he wouldn’t impose his belief system on the rest of the country.
”I have a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ,” Edwards said, but he said the United States shouldn’t be called a Christian nation.
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06.05.07
Posted in D's Thoughts at 3:35 pm by pikapp44
President Bush’s nominee to become the next surgeon general of the United States has a questionable record on gay issues. John Holsinger, a Kentucky cardiologist and professor, was nominated on May 24, but his past writings and activities betray a decidedly antigay bias.
In a paper titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” for example, Holsinger claimed that his understanding of biology and anatomy prevented him from believing that gays and lesbians deserved equality.
Holsinger, along with his wife, also founded the Hope Springs Community Church, a well-known “ex-gay” ministry where, according to the church’s pastor, gays and lesbians undergo conversion therapy to rid themselves of their homosexuality. Such therapy has been denounced by nearly every major medical organization in the country, including the American Psychological Association.
“Dr. Holsinger has a record that is unworthy of America’s doctor,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said in a statement, referring informally to the post of surgeon general. “His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in antigay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans. It is essential that America’s top doctor value sound science over antigay ideology.”
Holsinger’s nomination must be approved by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, whose Democratic members include presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois, and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:32 pm by pikapp44
Candidates generally like to tout their differences, but all eight Democratic candidates who participated in the Manchester, N.H., debate Sunday night found rare unanimity in their view that the military’s ban on gays and lesbians serving openly should be repealed.
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06.04.07
Posted in D's Thoughts, E's Thoughts at 1:30 pm by pikapp44
We read about the lesbian who sued eHarmony. We decided that she should have used PrideDating.com. That company is new and hot and it would have helped her meet her next partner.
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:26 pm by pikapp44
A Northern California woman sued the online dating service eHarmony on Thursday, alleging it discriminates against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
Linda Carlson said she tried to use the Internet site in February to meet a woman but could not based on her sexual orientation. When Carlson wrote to eHarmony to complain, the company refused to change its policy, according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The lawsuit claims that by only offering to find a compatible match for men seeking women or women seeking men, the company was violating state law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
”Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age,” Carlson said in a statement.
The lawsuit names Pasadena-based eHarmony.com Inc., company founder Neil Clark Warren and his wife Marylyn, the company’s former vice president, as defendants. It seeks class-action status, a jury trial and unspecified damages.
The company, which conducts extensive personality profiling before introducing couples with matching values and interests, denied the allegation.
”The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages,” a company statement said. ”Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it’s just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted.”
Warren is a clinical psychologist who has written several books about dating and relationships.
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Posted in Advocate Articles at 1:23 pm by pikapp44
The California supreme court announced in a unanimous decision that a San Francisco superior court must reconsider whether Marjorie Knoller, who served time for the fatal dog mauling of lesbian Diane Whipple, should have been sentenced under a more severe murder conviction and thereby be returned to prison, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.
The court ruled that while the judge who dismissed the jury’s second-degree murder conviction interpreted the statute too narrowly, the standard used by the appeals court to reinstate the conviction was too broad.
“The court of appeal set the bar too low…. But the trial court set the bar too high,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote in the court’s decision.
Knoller, who already served 33 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, may face a 15-year-to-life sentence.
Dennis P. Riordan, who represented Knoller in her appeal, was quoted by the Times as saying that he found the decision “fair” and that he is sure a trial judge will once again throw out the case, due to insufficient evidence to support a second-degree murder conviction. Deputy Atty. Gen. Amy Haddix counters Riordan, saying that the second-degree murder conviction will be reinstated.
“We’re very pleased with the result,” Haddix said, according to the Times. “We are pretty optimistic about our chances in superior court.”
Knoller was charged with the 2001 murder of Whipple, who was killed by Knoller’s two dogs while she was trying to enter her own apartment. The dogs, both Presa Canario–Mastiff mixes, weighed more than 100 pounds each and had threatened other people in the months before the mauling. Knoller and her husband were keeping them for a state prison inmate they had befriended.
Whipple, 33, was a college lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College of California. She was living with her life partner, Sharon Smith, at the time of the attack.
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