The Women's Marriage March
Majority of Same-Sex Couples Who Took Vows Are Female
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer

SAN FRANCISCO -- Last August, while visiting friends in Vancouver, Esther Lee and Lisa Chun, romantic partners for six years, decided to get married. They knew the marriage would have no standing in the United States. But they had never had the option to marry before. So they figured: Why not?


In February, Lee and Chun wed in San Francisco, where they live, during the first weekend that the city began its month-long experiment in granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. They knew the city's burst of civil disobedience might not stand up in court. But they wanted to be part of the historic moment, symbolic or not.

Come July, they are getting married again. They are going to Boston for the Democratic National Convention -- Chun is an at-large delegate -- and so have another excuse to get hitched. "This time," Lee said, "I want a cake."

Lee, 31, a district representative for California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, and Chun, 48, a former investment banker who runs a property-management company, have been hoping to legally marry for years. They have no idea whether any of their marriages will hold -- opponents of gay marriage are fighting its legality in Massachusetts, and oral arguments for and against the same-sex marriage licenses granted in San Francisco are scheduled to be heard in the California Supreme Court on Tuesday. But Lee and Ch




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Somerville responds to Reilly's gay marriage order
The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) - The mayor of Somerville, whose city clerk has defied an order not to give marriage licenses to gays and lesbians from other states, asked Attorney General Thomas Reilly on Monday for clarification on the issue.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, whose clerk has given out about 65 same-sex marriage licenses as of Monday, criticized Reilly in the letter for enforcing a view upheld by Gov. Mitt Romney that a 1913 law forbids out-of-state couples from marrying.

"As matter of law and policy, I believe the Somerville City Clerk has acted correctly in issuing these licenses," Curtatone wrote.

Responding to a letter sent last week by Reilly, Curtatone also asked if last week's letter constitutes "an official cease and desist order."


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Araujo Trial Hears 'Panic' Testimony
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(Hayward, California)  A psychologist testified Monday that the three men on trial for the killing of transgendered teen Gwen Araujo panicked when they discovered she was biologically male.

The defense is claiming a variation on the "gay panic" defense, shifting the blame from the defendants to the victim.  While the technique has had only limited success in winning acquittals in gay homicides, attorneys for the three men hope to convince a jury their clients so "revulsed and shocked" they killed Araujo out of panic.

If they are successful the jury could find the accused guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.

Attorney Michael Thorman called psychologist Andrew Pojman to testify.  Pojman said that people with the kind of maturity the defendants had would "go into a panic," on finding Araujo was biologically male.

"It would flip them out," he said.


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Churches key to signatures for Ore. gay marriage ban
By BRAD CAIN, Associated Press Writer

SALEM -- The drive to place a gay marriage ban on the fall ballot got off to a low-key start this past weekend, with sponsors estimating they collected 5,000 signatures at a dozen Portland churches.

But organizers say the campaign will quickly expand to a statewide effort in which 1,500 churches and several thousand volunteer petition gatherers will join forces to help qualify the measure for the ballot.

They will need to gather at least 100,840 valid signatures by the July 2 deadline.

"Collecting that many signatures in this short amount of time is something that's never been done before," said Tim Nashif of the Defense of Marriage Coalition. "But we are pretty confident and hopeful."


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Why the black church opposes gay marriage
Whose Dream?
by Keith Boykin
May 24th, 2004 4:20 PM

Maybe it was destiny. As the nation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision on May 17, gays and lesbians launched a new chapter in their own struggle for equality. But the black clergy that lit the fire for change half a century ago is now out to dampen that flame, at least where same-sex marriage is concerned.

"If the KKK opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them," Reverend Gregory Daniels, a black minister from Chicago, announced from the pulpit in February. A few eyebrows were raised, mostly in the gay community, but that reaction was overshadowed by the disappointment with a much more prominent Chicago minister, Reverend Jesse Jackson. In a speech at Harvard Law School in February, Jackson spoke out against same-sex marriage and rejected comparisons between the civil rights and gay rights movements. "Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution," he said, and "they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote."


Was this the Jesse Jackson I thought I knew? I first met him in 1984 when he brought his Rainbow Coalition to my college campus for a presidential campaign that openly included gays and lesbians. I was with him again in the 1990s at Harvard Law School, when he came to lend his support to our movement for faculty diversity. I traveled with him to Zimbabwe in 1997 to speak up for gays and lesbians in that country. All along I had assumed that he supported full civil rights for us, but apparently I was wrong.


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GOP Senators Told To Use Memorial Day To Push Anti-Gay Amendment
by Paul Johnson
365Gay.com Newscenter

(Washington)  The Republican Leadership in the Senate is urging GOP Senators to use Memorial Day as a forum to condemn gay marriage.

The move is aimed at breathing new life into the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex couples from marrying Roll Call reports.

The Capitol Hill paper says that Republican Senators were issued talking points on the amendment twice last week, first as part of the GOP’s weekly message plan Tuesday and later in a Memorial Day recess packet.

“This is a national crisis that requires a national response — a federal constitutional amendment,” according to one of the talking points contained in both packets, Roll Call reported.


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French Favour Same-Sex Marriage, Not Adoptions

(CPOD) May 24, 2004 – Many French residents support the concept of wedlock for gay and lesbian partners, according to a poll by CSA published in Valeurs Actuelles. 50 per cent of respondents favour marriages between homosexual couples, while 46 per cent disagree.

France has allowed civil unions for gay and lesbian couples since 2000. Begles mayor Noel Mamere will conduct the country’s first ever same-sex wedding in June, claiming that there are no regulations in the country or the European Union (EU) that could thwart such a ceremony.

Support is lower for allowing gay and lesbian partners to raise children. Only 33 per cent of respondents favour allowing homosexual couples to adopt.


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PM thwarted on gay marriage ban
By Emma-Kate Symons, Social affairs writer and Ross Fitzgerald


JOHN Howard's early election fever could ruin his plans to protect traditional marriage and outlaw recognition of foreign gay unions before he goes to the polls.
Despite the Prime Minister's public endorsement of cabinet's plan to insert the words "man" and "woman" into the Marriage Act, effectively banning Australian recognition of gay marriages formed in countries such as Canada, the amendments are yet to go before parliament.

Senior Coalition figures have told family groups the reforms are unlikely to be finalised before the election - depriving Mr Howard of a "wedge" issue that could cause problems for Mark Latham's Labor.

Greens MP Michael Organ yesterday introduced a private member's bill that would remove barriers to same-sex marriage, gay adoption and access to IVF, as well as equality with heterosexual couples in the areas of superannuation, employment and health entitlements. ALP gay rights group Rainbow Labor has agitated for reform, but the Opposition is not expected to support the Greens proposals, also opposed by the Government.


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Is New Coors Boycott Brewing?
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(Denver Colorado)  Some gay activists across the country are calling for a new boycott of Coors Beer with the entry into the race for US Senate by Coors Chairman Peter Coors.

During a Monday debate between Coors and his chief rival for the GOP nomination in Colorado, former Rep. Bob Schaffer, Coors said he supports amending the US Constitution to prevent gays from marrying.

Previously, Coors said he supported the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but was not sure it belonged in the Constitution. 

Coors' growing support for the proposed amendment, and the large contributions made by other members of the Coors family to extreme right wing groups, has led gay bar owners in Chicago to stop stocking Coors products.


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Far-flung legal and advocacy groups collide in SF gay marriage debate
LISA LEFF
Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO - Long before San Francisco's mayor decided that California's constitution required him to allow gays to marry, the Alliance Defense Fund often found itself on the losing side as it fought what it considered to be "a radical homosexual agenda."

Now, by virtue of good timing and persistence, the Arizona-based Christian law firm has what legal experts think is a clear shot at victory Tuesday when it goes before the California Supreme Court to argue against the city's decision to sanction nearly 4,000 gay marriages.

"Historically, if you look at a lot of school prayer cases and early abortion cases, the Christian side lost because we didn't show up. There were no public interest law firms that echoed the voice of the Christian community," said Benjamin Bull, ADF's chief counsel.

Acting on behalf of three San Francisco residents who oppose gay marriage rights, the ADF won a half-hour at the podium Tuesday by filing its petition two days ahead of Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office also gets a half-hour, followed by an hour of arguments by the city.



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Advocacy groups participating in California's gay marriage cases
Associated Press


ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND:

Mission: "Provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense and advocacy of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and traditional family values."

Year Founded: 1993

Annual revenues: $15.7 million in 2002

Legal Victory: In 2003, a federal appeals court agreed with ADF that a Bronx church should be allowed to rent space at a public middle school in New York despite a Board of Education policy barring the practice.


Leaders: ADF President Alan Sears, a former assistant U.S. attorney who directed the Commission on Pornography under Attorney General Edwin Meese, is co-author of "The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today."


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Gay American Murdered In Mexican Prison
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(Laredo, Texas) A gay American man accused of killing a man in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico has been brutally stabbed to death in prison only a month after the US government said he was being tortured by guards, and only one day after prison officials assured a consular official that he was safely separated from the general prison population.

Washington is demanding answers to questions surrounding the killing of Mario Medina, 23.  The US State Department wants to know how his killer got to him if he were segregated.

Medina was stabbed 88 times. The State Department also wants to know if more than one prisoner were involved in the slaying.

Mario Medina, 23, and his partner Hiram Oliveros, 28, both of Laredo, Texas, have been held by Tamaulipas state authorities since March 26 as suspects in the slaying of a newspaper editor Roberto Mora. The body of Mora, editor of El Manana, was found March 19.  Police say he had been stabbed 26 times.


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Cardinal Wants Communion Denied To Rainbow Sash Movement
Memo Reminds Priests Of Church Policies


CHICAGO -- Cardinal Francis George is sending a controversial letter to parishes across Chicago. The cardinal is saying that a small group of gay Catholics should not be given communion on Sunday.

The controversy about denying those Catholics communion has been brewing this political year. Now, NBC5's Mary Ann Ahern reports that a memo by George to the priests of Chicago directs them to refuse giving communion to the Rainbow Sash Movement, which plans to attend Mass at Holy Name Cathedral Sunday.

In the memo, George says the Rainbow Sash Movement disagrees that "genital homosexual relations are objectively mortally sinful.

"The policy of the U.S. Conference of Bishops is not to give communion to those wearing the sash," George reminded.

"It's almost you have to check what city you are going to be in to see who can receive communion," said the Rev. Richard Prendergast, a suburban priest.


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New Mexico company gives gifts to gay couples married in Massachusetts
The Associated Press

SANTA FE (AP) - A New Mexico company offered free wedding gifts to gay couples married in Massachusetts, requiring only a copy of the wedding certificate and a note saying what marriage means to them.

Santa Fe-based Nambe, known for its elegant, modern designs of housewares including bowls, serving trays and vases, offered married gay couples its Nambe

Planar crystal bowl set in an offer that lasted from May 17 through May 24.
Bob Borden, vice president of design at Nambe, said the company is one of several highly registered brands for bridal gifts, and the offer was reaching out to a new demographic group of married couples.

"We're a company that celebrates weddings, and it fit right within our overall marketing scheme. To judge what is right and wrong is really not our responsibility," Borden said. "For us, the more people that get married the better."


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Dictionaries take lead in redefining modern marriage
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Now that Massachusetts has legalized same-sex "marriage," will major dictionaries expand their definitions of the word "marriage" itself?

    The answer is simple: They already have.

    Advocates of traditional marriage who once relied on dictionary definitions to bolster their case for the preservation of "one man-one woman" marriage might have to cite another authority.

    Boston-based Houghton Mifflin, publisher of the American Heritage Dictionary, added a "same sex" clause to its definition of marriage in 2000.

    "A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage," the addition — or "sub sense" — states.

    "But we'll be altering that in the future to reflect the Massachusetts decision," editor Joe Pickett said.