01.31.08
Posted in Gay Rights, WIOD 610 Radio at 5:55 pm by pikapp44
The American Civil Liberties Union claims a Florida Panhandle school kept students from having rainbow stickers on their notebooks, suppressing their right to free speech.
A lawsuit against Ponce de Leon High School was filed Thursday in federal court.
A message was left with the school’s administration.
The ACLU says the school told them any form of expression in support for gay rights would “likely be disruptive.” It also claims the school board’s attorney said a rainbow sticker could mean students are members of an “illegal organization.”
In the complaint, the ACLU asks the court for an injunction to stop the school from further suppressing the First Amendment rights of the students.
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:52 pm by pikapp44
Hundreds of same-sex couples from throughout Oregon braved snowy mountain passes and rainy Portland streets to protest a court ordered delay in implementing the state’s domestic partnership law.
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01.30.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:26 pm by pikapp44
The campaign of leading Republican presidential hopeful and U.S. senator John McCain launched an automatic mass-telephone call in Florida that the Human Rights Campaign is calling offensive, according to an HRC press release.
The Arizona senator’s campaign has set up a call targeting his main rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
The call, featuring a woman’s voice, claims Romney has treated “social issues voters as fools,” according to Politico.com.
“Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us,” says the voice. “He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn’t changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now it’s something different.”
“It’s ironic that Sen. John McCain is using the same tactics that George Bush used against him in 2000,” HRC’s executive director Joe Solomonese said in the release, “surreptitiously trying to exploit anti-gay prejudice for voters…. So much for John McCain being above that.”
McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told Politico.com that the calls were a response to a call that Romney sent out this weekend, which mentioned McCain’s perceived similarities with Democrats Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
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01.29.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:46 pm by pikapp44
The top three Democratic presidential candidates are fairly equal in their level of support of equal rights for LGBT people, according to a story in The New York Times.
Although none of the candidates support same-sex marriage, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are in favor of same-sex civil unions, a transgender-inclusive ENDA, and a repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Alan Van Capelle, executive director of New York State LGBT advocacy group Empire State Pride Agenda, told the Times, “You would need a magnifying glass to see any real or substantive differences between the three candidates.
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01.28.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:53 pm by pikapp44
New Mexico’s house of representatives passed a bill Thursday that would permit domestic partnerships for gay and straight couples. The measure, proposed by former presidential candidate and current governor Bill Richardson, will give registered unmarried couples the same rights and benefits as married couples, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News. The vote was 33–31 along party lines, with Democrats supporting the bill, HB9. The legislation would also recognize same-sex partnerships legalized in 10 other states and Washington, D.C.
The bill will go to the senate next, where a similar measure failed in 2007.
Under the legislation, registered partners would be able to obtain medical coverage through their partner’s health insurance plan, visit a partner in the hospital, or take medical leave to care for each other. They would also be afforded rights to make property and inheritance decisions on behalf of a dead or dying partner. The law would also grant couples the same responsibilities in child support, visitation, and custody in divorce.
In 2003, Richardson enacted an executive order to extend similar rights to gay employees of the state.
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01.27.08
Posted in D's Thoughts at 1:45 am by pikapp44
Gay.com versus PrideDating.com? You might be surprised at the outcome…
So this is clearly David vs. Goliath. PrideDating.com, a new gay dating site versus the mighty Gay.com. Clearly gay.com wins right??? Well, maybe not – read on:
The problem with gay.com, who I personally love in many ways, is that it focuses on TOO MANY things. It does a lot of things ‘well’ but not great. So in order to make this a fair fight, let’s make it apples to apples – the gay personals of gay.com versus the gay personals of PrideDating.com.
Let me get my opinion out of the way right now – PrideDating.com is by far the clear and away winner of this contest when it comes to gaypersonals.
So let me tell you why:
First of all, the technology of Pride Dating is light years ahead of the competition. It’s new, just came out in late 2007 and is rapidly growing with new gay pesonals every day. In fact, if it was available I wouldn’t be surprised if it was called gaypersonals.com … and get this, everything is FREE. That’s right every single thing on this amazing gay dating site is free right now. You can email other gay men and gay women with no credit card required. Gay.com charges to even send messages.
Pride Dating has gay photo personal profiles that open in cool ‘ajax’ windows, a smooth instant messenger, a gaychat system and even a gay webchat recorder where you can add a gay video to your profile. It’s also got hot lists, gay photo personal tagging, and many other unique features.
So as great as gay.com is, it’s just not focused on gay personals the way PrideDating.com is. So, in my opinion, if you haven’t created a gay personal ad profile on PrideDating.com and started gay cruising, you should…or you may just miss outJ
—– David Sillerben
Author BIO
David Sillerben is an editor for Date Site Reviews, an online gay dating review site. His latest reviews include PrideDating.com – A New Gay Personals Site.
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01.25.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 10:32 am by pikapp44
As Gay-rights activists observe the presidential campaign and the rest of the electoral landscape, their high hopes often are mixed with frustration.
Even as they expect to support whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination, many activists are disappointed that the three leading contenders rarely mention gay-rights topics unless responding to a question.
“They don’t want to broach civil unions, marriage, equalizing benefits for same-sex couples,” said Jennifer Chrisler, head of the Family Equality Council, which supports gay and lesbian families. “The vast majority of politicians don’t lead, they follow.”
There are other frustrations as well.
Activists were dismayed that the Democratic-led Congress failed to approve two much-anticipated bills late last year - one defining anti-gay assaults as a federal hate crime, the other prohibiting anti-gay job discrimination.
And at a time when they hoped to be making advances, gays and lesbians are on the defensive in at least two states - facing a likely ballot item in Florida that would ban same-sex marriage and a measure in Arkansas aimed at banning them from adopting children or serving as foster parents.
Prior to the New Hampshire primary, the Boston-based gay newspaper Bay Windows - which circulates across New England - was approached by representatives of several Democratic candidates seeking an endorsement, editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar said.
Instead, Ryan-Vollmar wrote a biting column asserting that none of the front-runners - Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards - had shown enough courage on gay issues to deserve the customarily generous financial support of gay donors.
“They’ve merely settled on what the Democrats have staked out as a safe, consensus position, just far enough ahead of where the party was in 2004 to give a sense of progress but not so far as to threaten Middle America,” Ryan-Vollmar wrote. “That’s not leadership, it’s poll-tested and party-approved pandering, pure and simple.”
Rather than donating to any presidential candidate, gays and lesbians should give money to state and local candidates who support marriage rights, she wrote.
Kerry Eleveld, news editor of The Advocate, a prominent gay-oriented news magazine, drew a distinction between activists with major national gay-rights groups and local activists without ties to Washington powerbrokers.
“The grass-roots activists are upset that the candidates haven’t been more out there, especially on the issue of same-sex marriage,” she said. “The lobbyist activists think in terms of electability. They’re always going to be a little more practical and give more leeway to the candidates.”
The president of the largest national gay-rights organization, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, is upbeat about the campaign. His group co-sponsored a televised forum last August in which the Democratic candidates addressed gay-rights topics, and he believes most gays and lesbians remain enthusiastic about the Democratic field despite some impatience.
Solmonese also sees an easing of anti-gay rhetoric across the political scene - a contrast to 2004 and 2006 when voters in more than 20 states approved measures to ban gay marriage.
“Among those people who use the politics of fear, there’s typically an element of American society that’s put forward as a wedge issue, and in this election it’s illegal immigrants,” Solmonese said. “It doesn’t seem to be us.”
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, noted that the campaign rhetoric is dominated by overarching issues - the economy, Iraq, health care - that virtually all voters, including gays, agree are paramount.
“These campaigns are driven by polling data,” he said.
Beyond presidential politics and the Florida ballot measure, some activists point to other developments as reasons for optimism.
For example, a grass-roots group, the National Stonewall Democrats, is working to boost the number of gay and lesbian delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Spokesman John Marble said the goal is to have more than 320 such delegates out of a total of 4,049; that would be up from 282 gay delegates in 2004.
The long-term hope is that these gay delegates stay active in politics.
“In four or eight years, when the Democrats are competing again, we’re hoping to present them with infrastructure we built this year,” Marble said. “They’ll have to interact with our community in much deeper ways.”
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01.24.08
Posted in Gay Portal, Gay Rights at 4:30 pm by pikapp44
The shameful Fox News host made a mockery of Heath Ledger’s death and reveled in homophobia on his radio show Tuesday night.
The uproar was almost instantaneous and Gibson had NO remorse or apology on his show Wednesday. In fact, he defended his actions!
According to Think Progress:
On his radio show yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson responded to ThinkProgress’ criticism of his comments mocking the death of Heath Ledger, saying that it was just “a little Brokeback Mountain joke” and there is “no point in passing up a good joke.”
Without offering any sort of apology, Gibson defended his callous comments by claiming that “for months and months and months,” his show has consistently made fun of the line, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Brokeback Mountain. “I’m not giving that up,” exclaimed Gibson:
GIBSON: How many months did we live off that line, Brokeback Mountain?
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN CLIP: I wish I knew how to quit you.
ANGRY RICH: Several.
GIBSON: I mean, it was going on for months and months and months.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN CLIP: Wooee, yeah!
GIBSON: I’m not giving that up.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, host Joe Scarborough described the homophobic undertones of Gibson’s “little Brokeback Mountain joke,” calling it “mean-spirited and hateful” that “if you make a movie about being gay, your death becomes a punchline.”
When Gibson’s sidekick, Angry Rich, read him a negative comment left by a ThinkProgress reader (which the site does not endorse) calling the Fox News host “a closet homosexual,” Gibson responded by laughing and quipping “well, I’m still breathing”:
ANGRY RICH: You’re “a closet homosexual.” That’s the first one.
GIBSON: Oh, I am?
ANGRY RICH: Apparently.
GIBSON: Ha ha ha, well I’m still breathing. There’s the difference right there.
If you are as offended by Gibson’s despicable behavior as we are, click here to find out the many ways you can contact his employers.
And hopefully people will start reaching out to and asking Fox’s advertiser’s to boycott the channel and radio network!
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01.22.08
Posted in Gay Portal at 3:40 pm by pikapp44
The National Gay Basketball Association will host the West Coast Classic III in Los Angeles January 19-20. Twenty teams from the United States and Europe will compete in three men’s divisions and one women’s division.
For more information about forming a team or watching the competition, visit the NGBA’s West Coast Classic website.
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01.18.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:57 pm by pikapp44
The Democratic National Committee’s executive committee on Friday approved 25 delegates — seven of whom are LGBT — to the 2008 Denver Democratic Convention’s standing committees on platform, rules, and credentials, according to a DNC press release. Alabama state representative Patricia Todd, Ingrid Duran of Virginia, AIDS Action official Diego Sanchez of Massachusetts, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis head Dr. Marjorie Hill will join the Platform Committee. Clare Lucas of Washington, D.C., and Evan Low of California were appointed to the Rules Committee, and Vermont congressional chief of staff Bob Rogan was chosen for the Credentials Committee.
The appointments were recommended by Howard Dean, the committee’s chairman. LGBT delegates on the Platform Committee represent 16% of the committee’s members, the largest percentage in the convention’s history, according to the DNC.
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