Anti-bias committee is selected
By Eric Flowers
The Bulletin
At the urging of gay-rights advocates, Bend city councilors Wednesday night created an additional position for an openly gay woman on a committee charged with reviewing the city's proposed anti-discrimination ordinance.

Sara Wiener, a Bend business owner and lesbian, was the final person added to the list of people who will be asked to review the city's proposed law. If adopted, the ordinance would make it illegal to deny a gay, lesbian or transgender person a job, housing or other accommodations, such as a seat at a restaurant.

Wiener said she had sent a letter to Mayor Oran Teater and Councilor John Hummel, who sponsored the ordinance. However, her name did not appear on the list of people who had volunteered for the committee, which was provided to other councilors at the meeting. When the council was challenged at Wednesday night's meeting by a member of the audience about not having a gay person on the committee, Wiener again volunteered to serve.

"It wasn't so much that I wanted to serve, but I knew gay people had to be represented. If I didn't offer who was going to?" Wiener said during a break in the meeting.
~

FCPS Considers Anti-Hate Policy Change
By Brian McNeill

Two years ago, the Fairfax County School Board found itself in the midst of an emotional debate over whether or not "sexual orientation" should be included in the school system’s nondiscrimination policy.

After a decision by Attorney General Jerry Kilgore in November 2002, the initiative was effectively killed. The school board, Kilgore said, was legally prohibited from protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination without a legislative act by the General Assembly.

~~

WASHINGTON D.C. - DontAmend.com, one of the leading organizations working to prevent the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, was the victim of a computer hacking attack on April 29, forcing the organization to temporarily shut down its huge email list of close to 20,000 people. The list was turned into an open posting system by the hacking, with literally 20,000 people being copied on routine administrative messages, causing a cascade of spam into subscribers' email boxes. DontAmend.com has issued an apology to its subscribers and a plea for financial support so that they can get the now secured list up and running on a new server.
~

Hundreds stand up against Bush
By Sarah Mieras
KALAMAZOO - A tight line of more than one hundred state and local police cross Sprinkle Road on Kalamazoo's southeast side. Behind them police mounted on horseback move in creating a wall in front of the entrance to Wings Stadium. A voice rings out into a crowd of close to a thousand people carrying picket signs and coffins draped in American flags.

"Sprinkle road is now a police zone. If you step off the curb you will be forcefully arrested."

The air of silence over the city is broken for the first time all day as military helicopters circle overhead.

"This is now a police state, if you step off the curb you will be arrested."