From afar, fund boosts supporters of gay marriage
By and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff  

For generations, Massachusetts legislative campaigns have been parochial affairs won with local money, as candidates wore holes in their shoes at backyard barbecues and cocktail parties to snare a handful of $50 checks.

But now that Massachusetts has become the country's battleground over gay marriage, local candidates are getting a boost from national money, thanks to the brave new world of the Internet.

With the click of a mouse and the tap of a few keys, supporters of gay marriage from Maine to Florida and California to the Carolinas are contributing to the campaigns of two-dozen Massachusetts legislative candidates who have pledged to uphold last year's high court ruling legalizing gay marriage.

SupportEquality.org, a new website, is funneling donations to the campaign coffers of hand-picked lawmakers in tight


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Activists discuss how to win same-sex couples' rights
Rachel Evans


On August 13, the federal government and the Labor opposition voted in the Senate to ban same-sex marriage by passing the Marriage Amendment Act, which defines marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman.

The legislation was passed just days after the closing of submissions to a Senate inquiry into the issue. The Greens and the Australian Democrats opposed the bill. The major parties rushed the legislation through in the knowledge that there are three same-sex couples preparing court cases to have their marriages, which were performed overseas, recognised.

Prominent gay rights activist Rodney Croome, from the Equal Rights Network, is investigating a High Court challenge to the legality of the legislation. He told Green Left Weekly that a campaign for its repeal is needed. “The legislation is not going to be repealed in a hurry, but this shouldn't stop us calling for that, as well as highlighting the way both major parties have fallen prey to anti-gay campaigners and fundamentalist churches. We need to channel the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex [LGBTI] community's anger into effective action, right up until the federal election and beyond, if we are to have any hope of achieving law reform in the near future.”


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Activists hold vigil for slain transgender woman


SAN FRANCISCO Transgender rights activists are planning community vigil tomorrow night to remember Tony Green, a transgender woman found dead in a San Francisco motel last week. The 46-year old Green was born male but identified as a woman. She also went by the name Delicious.

Police would not release details about the killing, but activists are calling it a case of anti-transgender bias. Green was last seen alive at her home the morning of August 12. Friends said Green knew she was transgender from the age of seven.

Activists said the 200 killing of Newark transgender teenager Gwen Araujo has helped raise awareness about anti-transgender violence.


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Officials had feared violence at high school
   Gay, straight teens polarized; suit filed
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER


The animosity between gay and straight students at Poway High School was so volatile last spring that school officials said they had to prevent a teenager from wearing an anti-gay slogan on a T-shirt in class.

AdvertisementAdministrators feared that violence might erupt over the shirt, according to legal papers that for the first time detail the school district's side of a controversy that has spilled into the courts.

The campus was so polarized that the district was slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit by gay and lesbian students on one side and fielded at least one threatening phone call from a parent opposed to homosexuality.

On April 22, sophomore Tyler Chase Harper, 16, wore a shirt with hand-written anti-gay phrases, including "Homosexuality is shameful." He wore it the day after a campus observance of tolerance of gay and lesbian people called "A Day of Silence."