07.31.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 5:12 pm by pikapp44
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak release a 36-page opinion July 25 that compares Ponce De Leon High School Principal David Davis’ actions against gay students last year to a witch-hunt.
Smoak says Davis led a “ relentless crusade” against gay students when he barred students from wearing pro-gay slogans, symbols and stickers at the high school located in a rural town in Florida’s panhandle. The principal was called down for leading “morality assemblies” when students began to show support for one student who had been harassed for being gay.
In May Smoak ruled that Davis and the Holmes County School Board violated incoming Senior Heather Gillman’s and other students’ First Amendment rights to express their opinions. This month he ordered that the school board pay $325,000 in court fees to the ACLU, which represented Gillman.
Smoak noted that Davis did not remove magazines with sexually suggestive ads from the school library, nor did he punish a boy who made sexual advances to a girl. However he suspended 11 students who wore pro-gay symbols and supported one student who was harassed for being lesbian.
“(The principal) embarked on what can only be characterized as a “witch hunt” to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire,” Smoak wrote. “He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to insure that the letters “GP” or the words “Gay Pride” were not written on their bodies
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07.30.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:38 pm by pikapp44
Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has vowed to fight Amendment 2, Florida’s proposed ban on same-sex marriage, The Miami Herald reported Tuesday.
“We have a big challenge ahead of us,” Ros-Lehtinen, a House leader on gay issues, told members of the Miami Log Cabin Republicans Sunday night.
If passed in November, Amendment 2 would ban gay marriage, civil unions, and publicly recognized domestic partnerships, the Herald reported.
“Most [Amendment 2 supporters] would like to frame it as a gay issue,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “It’s not that at all. Most of the domestic partnerships in Florida are heterosexual.”
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07.29.08
Posted in Gay Portal at 12:29 pm by pikapp44
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility company that powers most of Northern California, has donated $250,000 to the fight against Prop. 8, the proposed amendment that would exclude same-sex couples from marriage equality:
PG&E Announces $250,000 Contribution to Fight Prop. 8
So the company that routinely takes folks out of dark ages is helping to lead folks away from The Dark Ages? Fitting.
It’s unclear if the local “pro-family” communities will retaliate against PG&E.
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07.28.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 4:16 pm by pikapp44
Mars Inc. has pulled its newest television commercial for Snickers candy bars after communication with the Human Rights Campaign. “Following conversations between the Human Rights Campaign and senior Mars representatives, the company has agreed to pull its most recent ad using stereotypes of gay men to sell its Snickers product line,” HRC workplace director Daryl Herrschaft said in a press release.
The ad depicts a man speed-walking in an effeminate manner reminiscent of gay male stereotypes. The walker is then ridiculed by Mr. T as the former wrestler shoots Snickers bars from a gun, telling him to “be a man.”
“These kinds of acts perpetuate the notion that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community is a group of second-class citizens and that violence against GLBT people is not only acceptable but humorous,” Herrschaft said.
In 2007, another offensive Snickers commercial was aired during Super Bowl XLI. “Following that, HRC began a constructive dialogue with Mars on workplace inclusion for GLBT employees,” Herrschaft said. “We were of course surprised to see the company return to the same practice it had just recently rejected.”
However, “HRC applauds Mars for taking swift and appropriate action” in the removal of both commercials. “We are hopeful that Mars will make the necessary changes in their organization to ensure this does not happen yet again,” Herrschaft said.
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07.21.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:32 pm by pikapp44
Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve in the US military, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The Washington Post reported that the number of Americans who support gays in the military is up from 62% in 2001.
Eighty percent of registered Democrats support the repeal of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ a policy banning openly gay service men and women from the military. Enacted 15 years ago under the Clinton administration, the push for the repeal of DADT is gaining momentum. The Post reported that support from Republicans has doubled from 32 to 64 percent since DADT was enacted.
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 2:31 pm by pikapp44
The gay community of greater Fort Lauderdale has been put through another homophobic incident.
After numerous physical attacks against LGBT people — including the murder of teenager Simmie Williams Jr. in February — and verbal attacks from Fort Lauderdale’s antigay mayor Jim Naugle, three south Florida homes were vandalized by homophobes early Friday, the Miami Herald reports. The attack occurred in Wilton Manors, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale with a large gay population.
Graffiti was scrawled on cars and homes, though one of the homes hit was not owned by anyone gay.
Victim Ron Helfrich seemed to take the attack in stride, telling the Herald, “Maybe I’ll just write an ‘I love’ on top of the word gay and add an ’s’ to the end.”
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07.18.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Portal at 5:52 pm by pikapp44
Finance company Prudential announced Wednesday that in a partnership with the Human Rights Campaign it will begin marketing its long-term care insurance plans to LGBT consumers and couples, according to a Prudential press release.
Sales representatives for Prudential’s long-term care resources have been trained to handle some of the unique financial challenges gays and lesbians face. A 2006 study by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force shows that 90% of gay and lesbian seniors have no children to help them, while only 20% of heterosexual seniors are childless. Assets for married spouses are protected when one spouse is in a nursing home or long-term facility, but there is no such protection for same-sex couples. When a spouse dies, surviving heterosexual widows and widowers also can receive Social Security benefits that remain out of reach to gay and lesbian partners. Federal and state tax laws also exclude same-sex couples from cost-cutting benefits that straight couples are privy to.
“Having choices and protecting retirement assets and personal savings from long-term care costs should be important to everyone; however, it may be especially significant for the LGBT community,” Prudential vice president Eric Holtzman said in a statement. “The reality is the LGBT community lacks the traditional support that married heterosexuals enjoy and as a result face a greater need for long-term care insurance. Our financial professional training program will allow us to deliver a planning experience sensitive to the specific needs of this community.”
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07.16.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 2:25 pm by pikapp44
A subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to hold a hearing on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy July 23, reports the Washington Blade.
The event will be the first hearing in which lawmakers have evaluated military policy toward gays since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was enacted in 1993.
The law prohibits gays from being open about their sexual orientation while serving in the armed forces. About 12,600 service members have been expelled from the military since 1993 as a result of the policy, according to the Blade.
Among those on the witness list is former Marine Corps staff sergeant Eric Alva, who is gay and was the first U.S. soldier wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and former Air Force captain Cholene Espinoza, a lesbian.
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07.15.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:06 pm by pikapp44
A 1913 law preventing out-of-state gay and lesbian couples from tying the knot in Massachusetts may be repealed next week.
The antiquated law has its roots in racial bigotry — it was originally designed to prevent interracial couples from dodging the laws in their state of origin and marrying in Massachusetts. It was quickly forgotten once interracial marriages were federally legalized.
Ninety-one years later, gay rights advocates celebrated when the Massachusetts supreme judicial court legalized same-sex marriage in 2004.
According to Marc Solomon, executive director of gay rights advocacy group Mass Equality, it was at that point that the 1913 law was “dusted off by Governor Romney in his quest to reduce the number of same-sex marriages performed [in Massachusetts].”
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney used the law, which had never been repealed, to prevent out-of-state gays and lesbians from traveling to the Bay State to wed.
May of this year marked another marriage celebration — this time for California, which legalized same-sex marriage on May 15.
The groundbreaking decision took civil rights one step further: California had no residency requirement for the marriages. Tourists flocked (and continue to flock) to the West Coast to get hitched, bringing with them new wedding revenue, with no end in sight.
For Solomon, California’s court decision was “a wake-up call — we have one piece of unfinished business: to eliminate the residency requirement.”
New York governor David Paterson has instructed the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, so some might wonder why Massachusetts hasn’t recognized out-of-state marriages yet. Solomon is not worried, though. “We have the strong support of the senate speaker, the house speaker, and the governor [Deval Patrick].… I think the outcome is going to be favorable.”
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07.11.08
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:53 pm by pikapp44
A scene in Will Smith’s new blockbuster Hancock takes a “cheap, unfunny shot at gay people,” according to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Ireland’s Breaking News website reported Thursday that the offending scene involves Smith’s character dismissing images of other superheroes, saying, “Homo. Homo in red. Norwegian homo.”
GLAAD told Breaking News that “the slur sends a message that it’s OK to discriminate against gay people.”
Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the action flick, refused to comment.
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