Gay police 'need stronger backing'
Rosie Cowan, crime correspondent
The Guardian
Brian Paddick, the UK's highest-ranking openly gay policeman, called yesterday for greater effort to deal with diversity in the force, after two gay officers were beaten up in a homophobic attack.

One of the two off-duty Metropolitan police officers required hospital treatment for a broken nose, and his partner was severely bruised, when they were assaulted in south London on Thursday night. A man, who is not a police officer, has been arrested.

But Mr Paddick, a deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, said: "The colleagues who came to assist them were very uncomfortable with the situation.

"Despite the progress since the McPherson report [on the Met investigation of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence] much more needs to be done on all aspects of diversity.


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Gay Vice President?: Historians debate the private life of William Rufus De Vane King
By JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer
As a U.S. vice president, William Rufus De Vane King was a "Jeopardy!" question waiting to happen.

Entombed under a huge oak tree in Selma, the city he helped found, the obscure King is best known as the only member of the executive branch sworn in outside the United States. He was inaugurated in Cuba in 1853 and died weeks later.
But with the nation debating gay marriage and civil rights for homosexuals, King is gaining new attention for another part of his life that local admirers would rather not discuss. According to some historians, rumors that circulated 150 years ago were accurate: King and James Buchanan, who years later would become the nation's 15th president, were a devoted homosexual couple.


Neither man ever married, yet they lived together for years in an arrangement that was fodder for critics and political opponents of the time, including Andrew Jackson, the seventh president.


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THOUSANDS MOBILIZE AGAINST FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT UPON LAUNCH OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN MEETUP
By Myles Weissleder  
WASHINGTON - April 16, 2004 -- Over 7,000 fair-minded Americans signed-up to "Meetup" to oppose an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution during the week following the launch of the Human Rights Campaign's Meetup. HRC launched its new Meetup initiative Thursday, April 8, in partnership with Meetup.com -- dramatically expanding its grassroots organizing to oppose any efforts to write discrimination into the Constitution.
"No one wants discrimination written into our nation's founding document and fair-minded Americans across the country are speaking out," said HRC President Cheryl Jacques. "The early success of our Meetup initiative demonstrates the groundswell of opposition to using the Constitution to deny rights to any American."

Meetup.com is a free online service that organizes real-world gatherings of communities with common interests.
"Meetup exists to help everyone organize local group meetings. Being non-partisan, people Meetup about vastly different topics,"said Scott Heiferman, Meetup CEO.  "We're happy to help revitalize local community for everyone."

In the first week after launching, 7,413 people had signed-up at hrc.meetup.com to come together April 27, 2004, in 436 locales to take action against the Federal Marriage Amendment, an effort to permanently deny marriage rights to same-sex couples by amending the U.S. Constitution. At the first Meetup, participants will learn about the work that HRC is doing to defeat the amendment and will write handwritten letters to their Senators and Representative urging them to oppose any effort to write discrimination into the Constitution.