No room to haggle at inn
By Patrick Cronin
pcronin@seacoastonline.com


HAMPTON - Rebecca Tanguay and her friend Michaela Anthony want a Hampton Beach motel to pay them $50,000 each for allegedly discriminating against them by not letting them rent a room in 2002.

But the motel owners, who said they will give the women $250, say they could be forced out of business if they have to pay up.

And now the matter is headed to court.

Tanguay and Anthony went before a representative from the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission (HRC) Thursday to see if they could reach a compromise with the owners of the Hampton Harbor Hotel, Valerie Kelley and her husband Raymond.

The Rhode Island natives filed a complaint with the state’s HRC in 2002 claiming the owners of the hotel discriminated against them on the basis of age, sex and sexual orientation


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Bar owner convicted of threatening lesbian couple
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GANDER, Nfld. -- The owner of a bar on Newfoundland's Baie Verte Peninsula has been convicted of uttering threats against a lesbian woman and her partner.

Paul Toms of La Scie was convicted yesterday of threatening Amelia Welshman and her partner Barbara Dawes in the Cape Lounge.

During the trial, Welshman testified the couple feared for their lives last September while Toms shouted obscenities at them.

In court, Judge Donald Luther agreed Toms had been provoked the evening of the incident.


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Study: Gays over 50 involved in family caregiving

NEW YORK (AP) _ Like the baby-boom population at large, gay New Yorkers over 50 years old are heavily involved in the care of sick or frail family members _ and are often expected to shoulder more of the work, a new study says.

It concludes that such caregivers are handicapped by policies that discriminate against same-sex relationships.

"Despite the fact that they are taking care of parents, children, partners and siblings in need, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) caregivers are not provided with the same social, emotional or financial support afforded to other caregivers," the study said.

The report, called "Caregiving Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender New Yorkers," was released Friday by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. It was based on a survey of 341 New Yorkers over 50 from those categories. The research was done by the institute, the Pride Senior Network and the Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University.


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Lawmakers to consider Federal Marriage Amendment next month

The U.S. Senate in mid July will take up a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, forcing lawmakers to cast a tough political vote just weeks before the Democratic presidential convention in Massachusetts. President Bush has urged Congress to move on the amendment, but sponsors acknowledge the difficulty of getting the two-thirds majority to approve it.

"We're not certain we'll be successful in this effort," Sen. John Cornyn said at a news conference to announce that the measure, known as the Federal Marriage Amendment, would be debated on the Senate floor the week of July 12. Cornyn and the measure's chief sponsor, Sen. Wayne Allard, denied that they were stirring up a divisive political issue two weeks before Democrats gather in Massachusetts, the first state to recognize same-sex marriages. "This was an issue that was thrust upon us by the Massachusetts supreme court," Cornyn said. "We didn't pick the battle; we didn't pick the timing."

Allard said there were at least 11 pending court cases on the issue around the country. "We must not stand still when the courts are being used to challenge and distort civilization's oldest, most venerable social institution," he said.

Steven Fisher, spokesman for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, said the July vote is "an attempt to inject politics into a debate that affects real Americans' lives." Congress, he said, "should focus on the real priorities of the American people: jobs, the economy, and the war in Iraq."