Rhea County Gay Day Group Faced Violence
There are a number of issues that have not been addressed publicly. We as well as the Dayton officials received a huge number of threats of violence.

There are only 14 police offers available to provide us with protection. We have 2,500+ people coming to this event. They could not protect us in the city because there were too many entrances to cover and no weapon laws in place.

June Griffin has been on the radio all week advocating violence against us. We have organized hate groups busing people in from all over America.

We had no choice but to move the event to the city park where we can be better protected. They would not issue a permit for the parade because 14 officers could not protect us inside the city.

We could have pressed the issue. We had an attorney from Lambda Legal who worked on our behalf and after reviewing the information everyone involved agreed that public safety had to come first and the event had to be moved to the park.

The police are going to keep the protesters out of the park. Weapons are prohibited from the park. We have been given complete authority to have the police remove anyone from the park who causes problems.

Rhea County Gay Day Organizers.


~

Conservative Episcopal churches ban bishop-elect
AP
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A man set to be Ohio's next Episcopal bishop has been banned from five northeast Ohio churches that disagree with his support of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.

Bishop-elect Mark Hollingsworth Jr. was asked Wednesday to stay out of the churches. He is scheduled to be consecrated the 11th bishop of the Diocese of Ohio on Saturday.

In an act of independence, the churches have been assigned their own bishop for spiritual oversight by a national network of conservative churches, said the Rev. R. James Tasker, pastor of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Bay Village.


~

Gay man claims foul; Assessor may sue
By Vanessa Turner
A decision by the Calaveras County Board of Equalization to give a gay Valley Springs man a tax break has the county assessor threatening suit. The Board of Equalization is made up of the Board of Supervisors' members. Matt Greenwood asked the board to override a "discriminatory" property reassessment by Assessor Randy Metzger.

And they did.Now Metzger said he has no choice but to sue."I represent the people," Metzger said. "It was basically a gift of public funds."


~

Toddler Gets Three Gay Parents Court Rules
by Peter Hacker
365Gay.com Newscenter
(Auckland, New Zealand) In what is believed to be a world first, a two year old boy will have three gay parents: a gay dad who donated his sperm, a lesbian mom who bore him, and her same-sex partner following a court ruling in Auckland, New Zealand.

The decision ends a tug of war between two sets of same-sex couples that began before the baby was born.

The names involved in the case are protected by New Zealand family law and cannot be printed, but court documents made available to New Zealand's Star-Times newspaper show the complexity of the case.

The two-year-old boy was conceived after a contract was drawn up for joint custody between the lesbian couple and their friends, a Sydney gay couple. 


~

Iowa governor weighs fight on gay appointee
By Eric Ferkenhoff, Globe Correspondent  
CHICAGO -- Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa is exploring whether he can skirt a Senate panel's vote and install an openly gay lawyer to the state education board despite a narrow rejection of the appointment following a divisive two-day debate in the state capital.

The Senate Education Committee voted, 24 to 22, against the appointment of Jonathan Wilson, a contract and real estate lawyer at one of Iowa's top firms who previously served on the Des Moines school board before a defeat in 1995 after admitting he was gay. Three Republicans joined 19 Democrats Tuesday in favor of Wilson's appointment. All of the no votes were cast by Republicans.

"One has to ask the question: Who's next?" Wilson said in an interview after the vote. "Will it be the Jews because they're not Christian? Will it be the Catholics because they're not Protestant? I believe it is an example of grown-up bullying and name-calling that we see on school playgrounds."

Vilsack, a Democrat, said the Senate's action shamed the state while opponents portrayed it as a victory to safeguard the state's children against Wilson and others who would push "a gay agenda" in Iowa's public schools.