Massachusetts Tells Gay New Yorkers To Stay Home
by Michael J. Meade
365Gay.com Newscenter

(Boston, Massachusetts)  Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Friday night said that same-sex couples from New York will not be allowed to marry in his state.

Earlier today New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer (D) notified Romney about an opinion issued by Spitzer in March saying that although gay marriage is illegal in the New York, the state would recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The letter was in response to one sent by Romney to all governors and attorneys general advising them that unless they notify him gay marriage is legal in their states same-sex couples would not be allowed to tie the knot.

Romney is relying on a 1913 law that says marriage licenses cannot be issued to out-of-state couples if their marriages would be "void" in the couples' home states.  The law dates back to a period when interracial marriage was legal in Massachusetts but illegal in most other states.


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New Hampshire Gay Marriage Ban Becomes Law
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(Concord, New Hampshire) New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson Friday signed legislation that prevents the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The new law takes effect immediately, just three days before gay marriage becomes legal in neighboring Massachusetts.

New Hampshire already had a law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, but it makes no reference to other marriages performed outside of the state. 

Legislators said they had to act quickly to stop same-sex couples from getting married in Massachusetts and then returning home to demand benefits.


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Fox Takes Gay-Themed Reality Show One Step Further
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two straight men will do their best to pass themselves off as gay as they compete for $50,000 in an upcoming Fox television special, "Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay," the network said on Thursday.

The two-hour show, set to air June 7, marks the latest in the burgeoning TV sub-genre of gay-themed reality shows, such as "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the previous Fox offering "Playing It Straight."

"Queer Eye," in which five gay men teach a heterosexual slob how to dress, dine and design, caught on quickly with gay and straight audiences alike, first on the Bravo cable channel and then on its sister broadcast network NBC.

But "Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay" has raised the eyebrows of at least one gay activist group, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which questioned the show's premise as potentially offensive and the "inflammatory" tone of the original press release announcing it.


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TV told queer dressing and phony tones are out
    
TV personalities have been asked to abandon "queer" dressing and "colorful" hairdos and mind their language.

A rule issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV also said "crime-related" overseas productions should not be imported in principle.

Many of Shanghai's TV producers and personalities were asked to sit in meetings to study the rule yesterday.

"The rule intends to reduce the negative impact of queer dressing and behavior on youngsters," said Xu Caihua, an official at the Shanghai Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and Television. "The state administration published similar regulations before, but they were not followed closely. Now the administration is exercising great efforts to get the new rule implemented. "Shanghai will strictly follow the rule."


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Gay, Jewish - and proud of it
By Jay Michaelson

Imagine learning that, because of how you were born, God hates you. Imagine being raised in a traditional religious world, where obeying God is the primary value, and then, just as you were becoming a bar or bat mitzvah, coming to realize that you are incapable of doing so. Over the next several years, you try your hardest: You fight against the urge, repress it, deny it, even try to change it with aversion therapy. You can't tell anyone, because even to reveal the truth would cast you out of the community. But, in private, you try, and try and try - and fail. What would you do?

Until recently, the only alternatives in the traditional Jewish world were to lie, to die or to leave. As they have throughout history, many gay Jews conceal their identities and marry people of the opposite sex. Today, they fill chatrooms and listservs with their private struggles. Many others cannot cope, and choose to end their lives. Although statistics for the Jewish community are not available, studies show that 30 percent of gay youth attempt suicide by the age of 16. About 276,000 American teenagers try to kill themselves every year, and it is estimated that a third of these attempts are related to homosexuality.

Many gay Jews leave behind the Orthodox world, or Judaism entirely, after experiencing what's sometimes called a "Huck Finn moment." In Mark Twain's novel, a turning point occurs when Huck decides he'd rather help Jim, the runaway slave, even though he's been taught he'll go to hell as a consequence. "Well, I guess I'll go to hell then," Huck says, and follows his conscience instead of his religion.

Gay Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg is unsatisfied with these alternatives. His new book, "Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition" refuses to lie, die or leave. The book was born of Greenberg's own years-long struggle as an Orthodox rabbi with a secret. When he did finally admit to himself and others that he was gay, he said, "I realized I would have to leave the rabbinate or make sense of it."


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Gov eyed out-of-state gay tax
By Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Saturday, May 15, 2004

Gov. Mitt Romney is retreating from a plan to slap a tax bill on out-of-state gay couples who get married here - a move activists feared would allow Romney to ferret out and nullify some gay marriages.

     The short-lived plan would have had the Department of Revenue insist on ``enforcement of income tax obligations'' on out-of-state gay couples who claim Massachusetts residency, as they must in order to obtain a marriage license starting Monday.

     Activists protested that a DOR dragnet would allow Romney to track down out-of-state gays who lied about their residency - and then declare their nuptials void.


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'Homosexual' Hindi film moves to UK
Saturday, 15 May , 2004, 16:57

A Hindi movie about drag queens or eunuchs is all set to premiere in the UK next Thursday. 'The Pink Mirror' starring Ramesh Menon and Edwin Fernandes has been denied a certificate in India because of its homosexual content.

"The Censor Board has refused to give it a certificate - not even an adult certificate - because they consider it full of obscenity and vulgarity," director Sridhar Rangayan was quoted by BBC, as saying.

The 40-minute long movie explores the gay landscape and tells the story of two drag queens - Shabbo (Edwin Fernandes) and Bibbo (Ramesh Memon).


The movie revolves around the two drag queens who battle it out with a gay teenager to win afftections of a handsome young man.


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School Skit Raises Eyebrows
AP

Lyons school officials will start screening entertainment for the high school's annual pre-prom dinner.
They made the decision after a couple of juniors hit a sour note with school board members with a racy skit about Adam and Eve.

The students prepared the skit "The Apple Bit'' for class. They were asked by prom sponsors to present it during the pre-prom dinner last month.

Included among complaints by board members is that the skit contained sexual innuendo that Adam might be homosexual.

Next week the school board plans to discuss the skit and a new procedure for reviewing student material.

Lyons School Superintendent Edwin Church says the students are
"top-notch,'' and didn't mean to offend anyone.



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this is a somewhat incomplete list.. but usable.. it misses then entire "trans" population.. but what is new.

Some notable events

1566: The Spanish military executed a Frenchman for homosexuality in St. Augustine, Fla. in the earliest known case of punishment of homosexual activity in America.

1610: First law passed against sodomy. Punishment was death.

1870: Urnings, first gay periodical, published by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.

1895: "America the Beautiful" written by Katherine Lee Bates (who had a 25-year relationship with Katharine Colman). (more...)


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You May Now Kiss [Label Here]
By JAMES BARRON

he law is one thing. Language is another.

Tomorrow, the day same-sex marriage is to become legal in Massachusetts, may be the beginning of a new social era. But the prospect of same-sex weddings also has some couples, their families, their friends and the officials who will marry them struggling with the terminology of marriage.

Once they have said, "I do," how should they be referred to? Husbands? Wives? Spouses?


"Undoubtedly different people will use different terms," said Arnold M. Zwicky, a visiting professor of linguistics at Stanford. "Everybody will make their own decision. I'm betting that `partner' is the one that's used most often. It's the one that my gay friends in Massachusetts are using now for themselves and have already told me they're going to continue to use."


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Rosarian cancels gay choral shows amid content flap
By Mary McLachlin, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH -- An experimental bridge of cooperation between a Catholic school and a gay choral group collapsed Thursday when Rosarian Academy canceled two concerts scheduled for this weekend by the Voices of Pride Gay Men's Chorus of the Palm Beaches.

The academy had allowed the 30-man chorus, formed last year, to use the school's music room since October for rehearsals. Members had sold more than 500 tickets for their debut performances Friday night and tonight in the Machlin Memorial Theatre on Rosarian's North Flagler Drive campus.

Each side claimed Friday that the other had violated their contract and was responsible for the cancellation.

School spokesmen said the chorus director, Tom Pilecki -- who also directs productions for Rosarian -- chose to cancel the concerts rather than comply with the principal's demand to change or drop unspecified "adult" content from the show.