Bias against gays lingers in schools
By ANDREW MOLLISON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON — The sixth-grade boy with a crush on silver-haired Mona Mendoza came up to her after the physical education class at a Seattle middle school and told her, "Miss Mendoza, I have a problem. I hear you are a lesbian."

"Well, I am," she recalled telling him.

"But, Miss Mendoza, my Dad told me that if you were a lesbian, you'd be fired."

"If I lived in some places, that would be true. But not in Seattle, because it's in our (union) contract," she replied. "Yes, I am a teacher, and yes, I am a lesbian."

That drew smiles from the teachers at a workshop here on how to improve the education and safety of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual staff, students and their supporters, especially those who are also racial or ethnic minorities, or poor.


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School board to consider anti-discrimination policy
By: JOANNA CORMAN - (CA)

MURRIETA ---- Nearly a year after a series of race-related attacks at a high school, the Murrieta Valley Unified School District is considering a policy that would define different types of discrimination against students and give them a procedure spelling out how the district would respond to complaints of harassment.

The district has had a policy addressing discrimination against employees since its inception in 1990, but never one focusing on students, said Alan Young, the district's director of student support.

The school board first considered a "student nondiscrimination and harassment" policy along with two similar ones, in December. But the policies were tabled for revisions, partly in response to an investigation by the federal Office for Civil Rights.

The agency is investigating a claim filed by Crystal Farr and Chris Goulding, a Murrieta couple whose teenage son, Sam Farr, was the victim of a racially motivated attack at Murrieta Valley High last August.


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(check-out the homophobia bias in the title of the article)

Gays try to find their place in sports world
Mixed signals given by athletes regarding others' sexual preference
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:39 a.m. ET July 03, 2004

ATLANTA - Rosie Jones walked off the green, signed a few autographs and pondered the reaction.

No boos. No taunts. No under-the-breath putdowns.

Nothing but encouragement. “Go get ’em, Rosie!” one fan shouted.

Surprising?

“Kind of,” Jones conceded. “I didn’t really think people would treat me bad, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I guess people have respect for my game.”


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NEA groups protest award to gay studies activist
By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Leaders of two groups within the National Education Association objected yesterday to plans of union leaders to confer a human rights award tonight on the founder of a homosexual network in schools.

    Heads of the NEA Republican Educators Caucus and NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus formally protested plans to give the award to Kevin Jennings of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), whose stated goals "extend to incorporating homosexual concepts into all curriculum."

    NEA President Reg Weaver was given a tape recording of a GLSEN conference in 2000 at Tufts University, where Mr. Jennings was keynote speaker and Massachusetts Department of Education HIV/AIDS coordinators discussed with teenage students ways to perform various homosexual acts.

    The recording, made by a participant and publicly distributed, caused a public outcry and led to the dismissal of state education department employees and the state-funded GLSEN contractor.


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Presbyterian vote rejects gay ordination
Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) legislative assembly narrowly rejected a measure Friday to allow regional governing bodies to ordain gay clergy and lay officers.

Under the 259-255 vote, the current interpretation of church law forbidding the ordination of gay clergy will remain binding on the church, including on the regional bodies, known as presbyteries.

Conservative Presbyterians had warned that a vote for gay ordination at the denomination's national meeting could cause the largest split in the church since the Civil War, when slavery split the church into Northern and Southern factions.

Opponents of the proposal said a network of 1,300 congregations with 450,000 members was poised to break away. The network, called the Confessing Church Movement, holds as a central doctrine the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman


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London hosts annual gay/lesbian festival


London, England, Jul. 3 (UPI) -- London police were prepared for tens of thousands of people to participant Saturday in the city's annual Gay Pride parade and festival, the BBC reported.

The event was to start with a parade from Hyde Park to Victoria Embankment, followed by a rally in Trafalgar Square and a music festival in Finsbury Park.


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Thousands expected at Dublin's Gay Pride
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 3rd July, 2004
 
 
Thousands of people are expected in Dublin city centre today for the annual Dublin Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Pride Parade.

The parade, which will include floats and street theatre, will assemble at Parnell Square North at 1.45 p.m. and move off at approximately 2.15 p.m. Up to 5,000 are expected to attend the event.