10.29.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:04 pm by pikapp44
A high school student can pursue nominal damages from an eastern Kentucky school district over its required antiharassment training, an appeals court ruled Friday.
The U.S. sixth circuit court of appeals ruled 2–1 that the Boyd County school district’s policy imposed a “chill” on student Timothy Allen Morrison’s ability to profess his Christian beliefs and opposition to homosexuality. The ruling sends the case back to U.S. district judge David Bunning for a hearing on damages. Judge Karen Nelson Moore, joined by Judge John R. Adams, wrote that the allegation of a policy stifling free speech is enough to allow Morrison to seek damages. To make his case, the judges said, Morrison must show that the policy would “deter a person of ordinary firmness” from exercising free speech rights.
Messages left for the Alliance Defense Fund, the Scottsdale, Ariz.–based Christian legal group that represented Morrison, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the school district, were not immediately returned. Morrison sued the school district, claiming that the mandatory antiharassment training threatened him with punishment for expressing religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality. Morrison is a professed Christian who believes his religion requires him to speak out against what he sees as behavior that doesn’t comport with his understanding of Christian morality.
The policy was later changed to allow students to opt out of the training and exempt speech that would normally be protected off campus. In the dissent, Judge Deborah Cook said Morrison chose not to speak out against homosexuality and thus didn’t risk being punished. Cook said that Morrison suffered no actual harm from the policy and that holding a trial for damages to award “a single dollar” serves no purpose and “trivializes” the business of the federal courts in protecting the Constitution.
“We cannot find a school district constitutionally liable for chilling student speech every time a student chooses caution over risking possible discipline,” she wrote.
The training sessions were part of a settlement in 2004 of a three-year dispute between the school district and a now-defunct gay rights group that wanted recognition as an extracurricular group. At issue was the federal Equal Access Act, which says districts can’t bar student groups from access to school facilities based on religious, political, or philosophical orientation if the districts let other groups meet on campus.
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10.26.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:14 pm by pikapp44
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Mississippi appellate court judge Leslie Southwick to the U.S. court of appeals in New Orleans, despite raging objections to his record on gay and African-American civil rights.
Lawmakers first voted 62–35 to end debate on Southwick’s nomination. They subsequently voted 59–38 to seat the 57-year-old native Texan to the fifth circuit, one of 12 federal appellate courts one rung down from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The vote, a rare Republican victory in a Democratic-led Senate, was sealed after the nomination survived its main obstacle, a test tally moments earlier in which a dozen Democrats sided with Republicans to thwart a filibuster. That left Democrats without the power to block Southwick’s confirmation, even after a heated debate that raised the pain of civil rights struggles in the fifth circuit, which serves Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
Citing a disturbing antigay custody opinion from 2001, the Human Rights Campaign called the Senate’s performance “a vote against the dignity and safety of our families and an insult to the millions of dedicated GLBT parents raising happy and healthy children across this country.”
The far-right Focus on the Family, in turn, called the green light long overdue.
“Judge Southwick’s confirmation is a tribute to his unequaled reputation as a fair jurist,” said Focus judicial analyst Brice Hausknecht. “The country benefits from another jurist who will interpret the law rather than create it from the bench.”
In August, after Southwick’s nomination appeared to be stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California cast a tie-breaking vote to send Southwick to the full Senate by a 10–9 margin. The senator from San Francisco was roundly criticized by progressive groups, including gay activists.
Southwick now joins three other conservatives nominated by President Bush for the fifth circuit. He is the first, however, to be confirmed by a Democrat-controlled Senate.
Although Bill Clinton named two judges to the fifth circuit in the 1990s, those nominees were successfully blocked by then–Senate majority leader Trent Lott through the end of the Clinton presidency, leaving Bush with a raft of vacancies and a friendly Senate.
Under these circumstances, Southwick’s journey through the confirmation process was thus another disappointment from the new leaders of Congress, who in theory had the power to prevent his confirmation. The 17-member court now includes 11 Republicans and four Democrats, while two seats remain empty.
Southwick sat for more than a decade on the Mississippi court of appeals, where, according to the left-wing Alliance for Justice, he compiled the highest pro-business rating of any judge on the court, voting in favor of corporations and institutions in 160 of 180 employment and business tort cases.
Notably, one of the rare employees to win Southwick’s judicial vote in a wrongful-termination case was a social worker who called a black colleague a “good ol’ n—–” in an executive meeting. Southwick joined the 5–4 majority that reinstated the woman with back pay, ruling that her comment “was not motivated out of racial hatred or racial animosity directed toward a particular coworker or toward blacks in general.”
The gay community focused on the case of a bisexual mother, who had raised her 8-year-old daughter with help from the child’s father under a voluntary arrangement. The father, with a family of his own, contributed financially and saw the girl on a regular basis. When the mother decided to move to another town and start a business with her female partner, the father sued for custody and won.
The lower court’s decision was upheld by the Mississippi court of appeals with all 10 members sitting. Eight judges, including Southwick, joined the majority opinion. At issue was not simply the mother’s relationship, but the relative financial resources of both parents, the step siblings, the school district, the environment, and the best interests of the child.
The majority stated that they took the mother’s sexual orientation into account, but added that this factor alone could not and should not determine the outcome.
But one member of the eight-judge majority, Judge Mary Libby Payne, drafted her own concurring opinion, a three-page diatribe against homosexual parents, articulating the state’s public policy and concluding that sexual orientation alone was perhaps grounds for losing custody. Southwick was the only judge to join Payne’s concurrence, distinguishing himself from his colleagues in embracing the most extreme interpretation of the law.
For LGBT advocates, the implications were inescapable. Although Southwick did not write the three-page analysis, his agreement was a deliberate act and reflected a harsh antigay mind-set that did not bode well for future gay litigants in the fifth circuit.
Despite intense opposition from gay and other civil rights groups, Senate majority leader Harry Reid did not aggressively lobby his party in opposition to Southwick and may have traded a Southwick vote for GOP help in negotiating with the White House over future Democratic bills, according to The New York Times, citing Roll Call.
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10.25.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 6:23 pm by pikapp44
Fort Lauderdale being chosen as the Favorite Gay Resort Town by the readers of Out Traveler in the magazine’s annual poll. Fort Lauderdale top gay resort town for its gay accommodations, stretches of beach, plethora of gay bars.
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10.24.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:16 pm by pikapp44
Garry Trudeau says topics in his ”Doonesbury” comic strip that were at first shocking to some readers are not so anymore, such as one character’s revelation 30 years ago that he was gay.
”Now I can pretty much write about gay issues and not hear from anyone,” Trudeau told students at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, on Monday. ”Certainly popular culture has a role to play in destigmatizing.”
The 59-year-old cartoonist talked about his work process and the challenges he ha faced over his nearly 40-year career.
”I find it really hard,” he said of his work. ”It’s no less hard than when I started.”
Trudeau said his syndicated political satire, which has 30 ongoing characters, has been pulled from newspapers over the years because of its content and political themes.
But Trudeau does not see it as censorship. ”I’ve been careful not to call it that … I call it editing.”
He said a newspaper in Maine ”got so freaked out” about a strip that showed a man and woman in bed together in the ’70s that they replaced it with the weather report. Another paper yanked the whole strip for a week.
”That always backfires for them,” he said.
Trudeau, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, still draws the strip in pencil and sends it to a man who inks it and another assistant who adds color.
In recent years, with his children grown, Trudeau said he has had more time to do research.
He has met with soldiers and created a military blog called ”The Sandbox” on his Web site for their stories, collecting the best entries in a new book.
Trudeau said he decided that ”the one thing the global war on terrorism doesn’t have is its own literary magazine.”
In an effort to dramatize the seriousness of war, he had B.D., one of his main characters, lose a leg while fighting in Iraq. But just as shocking to readers was that the veteran character was missing his signature helmet.
”I heard over and over that that was what really hit people,” Trudeau said.
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10.23.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:41 pm by pikapp44
A gay rights group has urged Barack Obama to cut ties with a gospel singer who it says spreads false information about homosexuality being a choice.
Donnie McClurkin is among several gospel singers scheduled to raise money for the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate at a concert in South Carolina this weekend.
McClurkin has drawn attention from gay rights activists for his views on homosexuality.
”I don’t believe that it is the intention of God,” McClurkin said Monday in a telephone interview. ”Sexuality, everything is a matter of choice.”
McClurkin said he does not believe in discriminating against homosexuals. ”What people do in their bedrooms and who they are as human beings are two different things,” he said.
In a statement, Obama said he believes gays and lesbians are ”our brothers and sisters” and should be afforded the same respect, dignity, and rights granted all other citizens.
”I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts our community so that we can confront issues like HIV/AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country,” Obama said. ”I strongly believe that African-Americans and the LGBT community must stand together in the fight for equal rights. And so I strongly disagree with Reverend McClurkin’s views and will continue to fight for these rights as president of the United States to ensure that America is a country that spreads tolerance instead of division.”
The statement did not say whether McClurkin will still perform on the tour.
”We strongly urge Obama to part ways with this divisive preacher who is clearly singing a different tune than the stated message of the campaign,” Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, said in a statement.
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10.22.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 5:49 pm by pikapp44
With author J.K. Rowling’s revelation that master wizard Albus Dumbledore is gay, some passages about the Hogwarts headmaster and rival wizard Gellert Grindelwald have taken on a new and clearer meaning.
The British author stunned her fans at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Friday night when she answered one young reader’s question about Dumbledore by saying that he was gay and had been in love with Grindelwald, whom he had defeated years ago in a bitter fight.
”You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me,” Dumbledore says in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in Rowling’s record-breaking fantasy series.
The news brought gasps, then applause at Carnegie Hall, the last stop on Rowling’s brief U.S. tour, and set off thousands of e-mails on Potter fan Web sites around the world. Some were dismayed, others indifferent, but most were supportive.
”Jo Rowling calling any Harry Potter character gay would make wonderful strides in tolerance toward homosexuality,” Melissa Anelli, Webmaster of the fan site http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, told the Associated Press. ”By dubbing someone so respected, so talented, and so kind as someone who just happens to be also homosexual, she’s reinforcing the idea that a person’s gayness is not something of which they should be ashamed.”
”’Dumbledore Is Gay’ is quite a headline to stumble upon on a Friday evening, and it’s certainly not what I expected,” added Potter fan Patrick Ross of Rutherford, N.J. ”[But] a gay character in the most popular series in the world is a big step for Jo Rowling and for gay rights.”
Dumbledore may now be the world’s most famous gay children’s character, but he’s hardly the first. And Tango Makes Three, a story by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell that features two male penguins raising a baby penguin, topped the American Library Association’s latest list of books attracting the most complaints from parents and educators.
In 2005, PBS decided not to distribute an episode of Postcards From Buster that had been criticized by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for including lesbian characters. The Potter books themselves have long been threatened with removal from school and library shelves, with some Christians alleging that the series promotes witchcraft.
In Rowling’s fantasy series Gellert Grindelwald was a dark wizard of great power who terrorized people much in the same way Harry’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort, was to do a generation later. Readers hear of him in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in a reference to how Dumbledore defeated him. In Deathly Hallows, readers learn they once had been best friends.
”Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this brief boyhood friendship in later life,” Rowling writes. ”However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate?”
As a young man, Dumbledore, brilliant and powerful, had been forced to return home to look after his mentally ill younger sister and younger brother. It was a task he admits to Harry that he resented, because it derailed the bright future he had been looking forward to.
Then Grindelwald, described by Rowling as ”golden-haired, merry-faced,” arrived after having been expelled from his own school. Grindelwald’s aunt, Bathilda Bagshot, says of their meeting: ”The boys took to each other at once.” In a letter to Grindelwald, Dumbledore discusses their plans for gaining wizard dominance: ”If you had not been expelled we would never have met.”
Potter readers had speculated about Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past.
”Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said Friday of Dumbledore’s feelings about Grindelwald, adding that Dumbledore was ”horribly, terribly let down.”
Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his ”great tragedy.”
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10.19.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:34 pm by pikapp44
Democrats on Thursday sent to the full House legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, despite bitter complaints from some because transgender workers would not be protected under the bill.
Democratic leaders pushed forward the current bill after discovering that including transgender workers in the legislation would cause it to fail in the full House, and promised to try and get additional legislation in the future.
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10.18.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 11:54 am by pikapp44
Two lesbians who staged a sit-in in the Denver clerk and recorder’s office after they were denied a marriage license have been charged with trespassing and will face trial, according to the Associated Press.
Kate Burns and Sheila Schroeder, both of Englewood, Colo., pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the charge. Their trial is scheduled for Dec. 17.
When the clerk and recorder’s office closed during their September visit, Burns and Schroeder refused to leave, arguing that they deserved the federal benefits offered to heterosexual married couples.
In last November’s mid-term elections, Colorado voters approved a ban on gay marriage and rejected a proposal to give same-sex couples some of the legal benefits given to married couples.
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10.16.07
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:38 pm by pikapp44
Gay brothers who are convinced their sexual orientation is as deeply rooted as their Mexican ancestry. They are among 1,000 pairs of gay brothers taking part in the largest study to date seeking genes that may influence whether people are gay.
If fresh evidence is found suggesting genes are involved, perhaps homosexuality will be viewed as no different than other genetic traits like height and hair color. The federally funded study, led by Chicago-area researchers, will rely on blood or saliva samples to help scientists search for genetic clues to the origins of homosexuality. Parents and straight brothers also are being recruited.
Initial results aren’t expected until next year — and won’t provide a final answer — skeptics are already attacking the methods and disputing the presumed results.
Previous studies have shown that sexual orientation tends to cluster in families, though that doesn’t prove genetics is involved. Extended families may share similar child-rearing practices, religion and other beliefs that could also influence sexual orientation.
Many gays fear that if gay genes are identified, it could result in discrimination, prenatal testing and even abortions to eliminate homosexuals, said Joel Ginsberg of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.
However, he added, ”If we confirm that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic, we are much more likely to get the courts to rule against discrimination.”
There is less research on lesbians, Sanders said, although some studies suggest that male and female sexual orientation may have different genetic influences.
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10.11.07
Posted in Advocate Articles at 3:16 pm by pikapp44
About one fifth of large New York law firms do not have gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender partners or associates, according to new data by Building a Better Legal Profession, a grassroots organization composed of law students. The findings, released Wednesday in Washington, D.C., are part of a larger report rating law firms in six markets — New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Northern California, and Southern California — on the diversity of their partners and associates.
In New York, 14 of the 69 New York firms included had no openly LGBT partners, while 16 had no LGBT associates. Women, another category rated, made up less than 25% of partners at every Manhattan firm surveyed, according to the report.
Sullivan & Cromwell, which faced allegations of sexual harassment from a gay associate earlier this year, topped the list in the partner category, with 10 partners identifying as LGBT.
In D.C., 17 out of the 42 firms included in the survey had no openly LGBT partners, while nine of them had no out associates
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