03.31.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:02 pm by pikapp44
A New York appeals court has vacated the ruling of a lower court that a gay man was not entitled to spousal health insurance benefits even though he and his spouse were lawfully married in Canada.
When Funderburke requested that his retirement health benefits be extended to his spouse, just as benefits are extended to other married retirees, the school district refused.
Lambda cited legal opinions that were issued in 2004 by New York’s Attorney General and by the State Comptroller, both clearly saying that out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be recognized in New York.
During the appeals process, the Department of Civil Service agreed to extend benefits to same-sex spouses of public employees under the New York State Health Insurance Program, citing “legal and policy concerns” with its prior policy denying recognition
Even though New York State recognizes same-sex marriages performed in areas where they are legal, gay and lesbian couples cannot marry in New York.
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03.27.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:54 pm by pikapp44
Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean came under attack for speaking out against conservative gays and lesbians as well as Republicans of color.
“They can’t become more diverse,” Dean said at a speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Tuesday. “Who in their right mind, if they were African-American or Hispanic or Asian-American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?”
LGBT conservative group, Log Cabin Republicans issued a statement Wednesday against Dean’s comments. The group’s president, Patrick Sammon, said in the statement that Dean’s assertions are insulting to African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, or gays and lesbians who support the Republican Party. Sammon also called for Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s stances on Dean’s words.
“Governor Dean needs to explain his callous assertion,” said Sammon. “It’s unfortunate that the chairman of the Democratic Party would rather divide people than engage in a thoughtful debate about policy ideas or a vision for our country’s future.”
Dean is currently involved in a lawsuit by the party’s former LGBT outreach director Donald Hitchcock. The suit claims that party officials discriminated against him and his partner Democratic activist Paul Yandura, who criticized the DNC for not being proactive on LGBT issues.
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03.26.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 9:13 pm by pikapp44
Philadelphia’s Liberty City Democratic Club, one of three Pennsylvania chapters of the National Stonewall Democrats, has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Stonewall’s Steel City Democratic Club in Pittsburgh had previously endorsed Clinton while the Capital Region Club in Harrisburg has not voted on the matter.
One Liberty City cochair, who asked not to be identified for this story, said the club was pleased to make an endorsement based on the wishes of the membership.
In a prepared statement from her campaign, Clinton said, “I am honored to receive the support of the Liberty Democratic Club. LGBT Americans have been a part of this campaign from the start and I look forward to working with members of the Liberty Democratic Club to ensure that their voices are heard in this important Pennsylvania primary.”
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03.24.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 2:30 pm by pikapp44
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama battled to refocus his campaign on the five-year-old Iraq war and the slumping U.S. economy, ending a week that saw him clobbered over incendiary remarks by his longtime Chicago pastor.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, blasted away on the war and economy as well, while pressing demands to reinstate delegates in Michigan and Florida.
Clinton won both contests, but the national Democratic party said they would not be counted because the state votes were held too early and violated party rules.
It was a particularly troubling week for Obama. National polling showed his fortunes slipping dramatically in the aftermath of the remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
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Posted in Gay Rights at 1:57 pm by pikapp44
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says Madison Square Garden and the Rangers need to do more to stop anti-gay slurs from being used at hockey games.
A group of gay hockey fans told The New York Times that they’re most upset by the chant at fan Larry Goodman. He calls himself “Dancin’ Larry” and often dances during breaks in the game.
Quinn said she hopes to meet with Garden or Rangers officials soon to discuss remedies.
After complaints from Quinn and The New York City Gay Hockey Association, the Rangers posted a warning on its scoreboard. It said fans engaging in offensive language and behavior will be tossed out.
A Madison Square Garden spokesman says insensitive behavior is unacceptable at any event at the arena.
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03.21.08
Posted in Gay Rights at 2:41 pm by pikapp44
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean had to spend two days this month getting deposed in a nasty lawsuit that has roiled the DNC and the gay community. Why he authorized the firing of the DNC’s gay and lesbian outreach director, Donald Hitchcock.
Hitchcock filed his suit against the DNC last spring, a year after he was fired, alleging the DNC discriminated against him because he’s gay and retaliated against him because his life partner, well-known Democratic activist Paul Yandura, publicly criticized the Democratic Party for not doing more to fight anti-gay ballot initiatives. Hitchcock is asking for unspecified damages and severance pay.
The lawsuit and Dean’s deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sleuth, has dredged up long simmering tensions between the DNC and gay Democrats.
Dean sparked the ire of the gay community when he said in an interview in May of 2006 on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club” hosted by evangelist Pat Robertson that the Democratic Party platform from 2004 states “marriage is between a man and a woman.”
Later, in hopes of quelling the firestorm, Dean apologized, saying he “misstated the Democratic Party’s platform, which does not say that marriage should be limited to a man and a woman, but says the party is committed to full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and leaves the issue to the states to decide.”
Dean also irked plenty of prominent gays when he eliminated the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) outreach desk at the DNC. The decision prompted longtime Democratic Party activist Jeff Soref, heir to the Masterlock fortune, to resign as chairman of the DNC’s gay caucus.
During his deposition this month, Dean defended his ties to the gay community, saying the DNC, under his stewardship, reached out to the gay community ” in many ways” and that the committee had “more senior staff with decision-making capability who were gay and lesbian than there had been previously.”
Matt Foreman, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Task Force, was so outraged by Dean’s “700 Club” mistake that, at the time, he sent back a $5,000 donation his organization had received from the DNC. Foreman says the Hitchcock lawsuit is just one of many problems the DNC has with the gay community.
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03.20.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:29 pm by pikapp44
A Florida state senator has introduced a bill that would reverse a 30-year law that bars gay and lesbian couples from adopting children. Sen. Nan Rich’s proposed measure would instruct judges to consider the child’s best interest when placing them in a permanent home, according to WFOR, a South Florida CBS TV affiliate. A gay friend or relative would be considered as an adoptive parent if they were the child’s legal guardian when the parents died.
More than 3,900 children in Florida’s foster care system do not live in a permanent home.
Gov. Charlie Crist, who has publicly supported civil unions for same-sex couples, has come out against Rich’s proposed legislation. State senator Ronda Storms is also working against the legislation; she has pledged to maintain the adoption prohibition against gay couples. And she just happens to chair the committee to which the measure has been assigned, and she has refused to bring it up for debate or a vote, according to WFOR.
Rich has the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the National Council of Jewish Women. She is the senate’s Democratic policy chair and sits on the committees for children, families, and elder affairs.
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03.19.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:33 pm by pikapp44
Nearly 300 people gathered outside the state capitol in Oklahoma City Tuesday to protest antigay comments made by Rep. Sally Kern, but the Oklahoma lawmaker refused to apologize, according to reports from the Associated Press.
“I see no reason to apologize for what God says, that homosexuality is a sin,” Rep. Kern told the AP. “I will not apologize. I did not say anything false. I did not say anything malicious or hateful. They are trying to vilify me. That is their tactics.”
Gay and lesbian groups called on Kern to apologize and asked the state legislature to adopt hate crimes legislation that would add protections for LGBT people.
“Hateful speech leads to hate crimes,” said Rob Howard, executive director of the Cimarron Alliance Foundation in Oklahoma City. He and other speakers highlighted the contradiction of Kern taking an oath to uphold the state Constitution but then condemning a segment of her own constituents.
Kern declined to meet with the groups, the AP reported, though she defended their right to express their point of view. “That’s great they came to the Capitol. This is a free country. They’re exercising their First Amendment right,” she said.
Kern noted that more than 30,000 emails had been sent to her, some of them threatening, and said an activist had attempted to intimidate her husband who is a Baptist minister.
“They’re sending out letters and making calls in my district. And they really want me to come down and talk to them?” Kern said. “It would be like throwing myself to the lions. That’s a metaphor. When I am wrong, and it is brought to my attention, I will apologize.”
Kern’s remarks attracted national attention after they were recorded and posted on YouTube by the Washington, D.C.-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund earlier this month.
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03.18.08
Posted in Gay Rights at 7:16 pm by pikapp44
GLBT voters in Fla. are not only growing in visibility, but their influence is Increasingly being felt in state and local politics.
An article in the Mar. 17 Miami Herald reported that this Nov., it may be the case that recently elected municipal and county officials who are openly gay may be joined by a greater number of gay local officials and maybe even an openly gay counterpart in the state legislature: a first for the state, should it happen.
But straight politicians have also taken note, and begun pursuing the GLBT vote, the Miami Herald reported.
As the Miami Herald article points out, however, the Fla. GLBT community still faces considerable anti-gay sentiment in the state. In Nov., a ballot question is scheduled to appear before voters that may determine whether Fla. joins a long list of other states to constitutionally exclude gay and lesbian families from marriage equality.
In other words, the state’s government may possibly be on the verge of including its first openly gay legislator, but the work of equality and acceptance is far from over.
But in just five years, a larger share of the Fla. citizenry has become openly GLBT, enough so that politicians see the demographic as less a liability than a voting bloc.
The Miami Herald cited the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute’s tally, which shows that the state of Fla. now includes 23 elected officials who are openly gay. A number of gay hopefuls are in contests for this year’s elections for seats ranging from County Commissions to the State House.
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03.17.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:07 pm by pikapp44
LGBT activists say soon-to-be New York governor David Paterson will be a boon for LGBT rights and a healer in Albany.
He has been there in every critical fight over the last two decades,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, naming hate-crimes legislation introduced in 1987 and passed in 2000, the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) passed in 2002, and the ongoing fight to legalize same-sex marriage.
Paterson was also an early supporter of same-sex marriage, going on record as early as 1994. According to LGBT activist and Democratic political consultant Ethan Geto, he took a critical part in lobbying for passage of Gov. Spitzer’s marriage equality bill in the New York State assembly last year.
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