Gay homeowner's death center of assessment fight
By RON DeLACY
BEE STAFF WRITER
SAN ANDREAS -- The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors recently nixed a property tax increase imposed on a gay man after the death of his partner and joint tenant in homeownership.

In effect, the supervisors, acting as the county Board of Equalization, gave the man the same break a surviving spouse would get.

So the county's tax assessor plans to sue the supervisors.

"When they're the Board of Supervisors they can help people out," Assessor Randy Metzger said Monday. "But when they're the Board of Equalization they have to follow the law, and in this case they didn't do that."


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Police probe gay raid on Christians
By MIKE D'AMOUR, CALGARY SUN
Police are reviewing several videotapes of a Christian meeting that was stormed by gay protesters. "An investigation is ongoing," confirmed Calgary police Const. Doug Jones, the hate-bias crime co-ordinator for the police cultural resource unit.

"What we are looking at, if we can identify (the protesters) is mischief charges, disturbing a peaceful assembly kind of stuff."

The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. held its national convention at Calgary's Coast Plaza Hotel in the city's northeast on Saturday when about seven females and a male wearing bandannas over their faces came into the room.

On a videotape viewed by the Sun, the protesters were heard chanting: "Right wing bigots go away, Gay Militia is here to stay."


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More Messages of Hate Found at SUNY Geneseo

More messages of hate found on the SUNY Geneseo campus. This time the graffiti was targeted at gay and lesbian students.

Last week, these students performed the play "The Laramie Project."  It's about the Wyoming community's reaction to the beating death of gay college student Matthew Shepard in 1998. After Saturday night's performance, their display boards and posters for the play were destroyed and defaced.

Throughout the day today, cast members sang in circles and wrote messages of tolerance on sidewalks in chalk.

"We put this together in a matter of a day," said Geneseo student Beth Pinkerton. "Just basically trying to let Geneseo know that this stuff does happen here. It still happens, it happens here. It's not something you hear about in a different town, it's here, it's everywhere and something has to be done about it. People have to know what goes on."

In January, swastikas were found painted on a dorm and a campus dining hall. Officials don't know who was behind either incident.


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Students protest treatment of gays with Day of Silence
By Beth Sneller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The halls of Naperville's schools may seem a little quieter today.

Dozens of students at Neuqua Valley, Naperville North and Naperville Central high schools have taken a vow of silence to protest the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies.

They're observing the Day of Silence, an annual national movement in colleges and high schools.

"It's to make a point, really," said Naperville North junior Ron Chernobrov, president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance. "People get bored of hearing about discrimination. They don't listen after a while. We need to do something to remind them."