Activist group plans billboards featuring gay community members
Associated Press


A activist group for gays plans to put up seven billboards next month featuring gays and lesbians in the Greensboro area to help fight prejudice.

Among those featured on the billboards, paid for by the Triad Equality Alliance, are Jeff Everette and Mike Barringer, partners of five years.

"We're everyday people just like everybody else," Everette said. "People need to know we're out there trying to make a living and working alongside them."

The ad includes their photographs and the words, "We are your neighbors ... and we are gay."


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GLMA ANNOUNCES PRESENTERS/PROGRAM FOR 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE; Hundreds Expected for October 21-23 Meeting in Palm Springs

 
The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association's Annual Conference 10/21-23/04 presents cutting edge information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex health; topics include health aspects of marriage, HIV among Asians and Pacific Islanders, sexually transmitted diseases in lesbians, transgender health, introducing sexual minority health topics in medical school curricula, adolescent health issues, smoking, depression, and HPV. 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (PRWEB) September 25, 2004 -- The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association announced its lineup of presenters and sessions for Moving Forward Together, GLMA’s 22nd Annual Conference, scheduled to open in Palm Springs on Thursday, October 21, 2004, four weeks from today. Kenneth Haller, MD, GLMA President, said of the upcoming three-day Continuing Medical Education conference, “We are very excited by the range topics and the diversity of speakers represented on this program. I’m positive that the hundreds of health care professionals who attend will find this program to be informative and stimulating.”



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Being Turkish and Gay in Germany  
Gay pride and the Turkish community don't always mix

 
Germany may be considered a tolerant place for homosexuals. But continuing social stigma still makes it difficult for many of the country's gay and lesbian immigrants to be open about their sexuality.
 
An unusual advertising campaign is making waves in Berlin: Posters and billboards of young good-looking men aren't anything new. But these ads are funded by the Lesbian and Gay Federation of Germany with the aim of bringing homosexuality out in the open within Berlin's large Turkish population.
 
With over 120,000 Turkish immigrants, Berlin is home to one of the biggest Turkish communities outside of the country. Despite being an important part of the liberal German capital, sexuality is still a difficult issue for the Turks in Berlin. The new poster campaign hopes to change all that by bringing homosexuality out into the open.
 
Showing five good-looking young mean wearing baseball caps, sweatshirts and low slung jeans, the bright yellow poster could be a typical advertisement for casual streetwear. Except that the slogan reads: "Kai is gay. Murat too. They belong to us. Always." Kai is a typical German name, Murat a typical Turkish one.



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Dist. 214 violating diversity policy, union says
By Erin Holmes Daily Herald Staff Writer


A year ago, when some parents were urging Northwest Suburban High School District 214 to halt productions of "The Laramie Project," Mike O'Shea was fiercely proud of the board.

Its members demanded the show, set in the aftermath of the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, should, and would, go on.

O'Shea isn't so proud now. 

The teachers union president told board members this week their month-old decision to deny health benefits to same-sex partners of staff - a vote he said made him "very disappointed" - is in violation of the district's own diversity policy.


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Rallies against gays planned
By Phillip Rawls
The Associated Press

A Kansas church group that proclaims "God hates fags" plans to picket next month in Alabama over two killings that police said may be due to the victims' sexual orientation.

The Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., said Friday about 18 members of his congregation will be in Alabama to picket at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, a gay community center in Mobile, and five mainline churches in Bay Minette.


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S.Africa Gays, Lesbians March to Celebrate Freedom
By Dinky Mkhize


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Thousands of gays and lesbians held a noisy march on Saturday to celebrate South Africa's gay rights laws, unprecedented on a continent where many regard homosexuality as an un-African taboo.

South Africa's post-apartheid constitution was the first in the world to recognize the rights of gays, and same-sex couples are now allowed to adopt children and be included in their partners' wills.

Marchers in colorful costumes, many carrying yellow and green banners with pro-gay messages, walked or rode on top of trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles in a long procession.

Dozens of police kept a close watch but the event was peaceful.


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Officials say marriage ban could hurt Ohio's economy
Sandy Theis
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief


Philadelphia lures gay tourists with a travel guide titled "The City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection)."

Washington, D.C., coined its own slogan: "Where more than just the cherry blossoms come out."

But as cities across America roll out rainbow carpets, Ohio is poised to vote on what experts say is the most far-reaching anti-gay marriage measure in the nation.

The state's big-city mayors are trying to defeat the proposed amendment to the state constitution, expected to be on the Nov. 2 ballot.

"This isn't about marriage," Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman said this week. "It's about the economic future of Ohio."


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Civil rights groups ask for election investigation
Voting machines were not delivered to New Orleans on time for Sept. 18 vote.
By Doug Simpson
Associated Press


New Orleans — Two civil rights groups have asked the Justice Department to investigate an election in which they claim voting machine problems prevented up to 58,000 voters, many of them black, from casting ballots.

New Orleans, where nearly 70 percent of voters are black, was the only part of the state where voting machines were not delivered on time in the Sept. 18 election. Voters cast ballots in a number of local elections, plus a statewide constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The NAACP and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now said in a letter to the Justice Department that a federal investigation is required "in light of possible violations" of the Voting Rights Act.

"Our concerns are that we have been closed out of the election process for so long and we don't want anything else to thwart it any further than it already has been," said Beulah Labostrie, president of the Louisiana chapter of ACORN. "We, particularly in the African-American community, do not want any obstruction in the ability for all to vote.


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Judge pulls surprise in gay marriage lawsuit
By Dave Williams


ATLANTA — A court cannot rule on the legality of a referendum banning gay marriage in Georgia until after voters have decided the question at the ballot box, a Fulton County Superior Court judge declared Friday.

In a surprising conclusion to a hearing that lasted more than an hour, Judge Constance Russell gave attorneys in a lawsuit challenging the referendum three days to respond in writing to her interpretation of a state Supreme Court case that neither side had cited either in written briefs or during Friday’s oral arguments.

“If you think it’s off the wall, you’ve got until Monday to tell me that,’’ Russell told lawyers representing the two sides.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and Lambda Legal, an organization that advocates equal rights for homosexuals, filed the suit last week on behalf of half a dozen plaintiffs, including two Democratic state lawmakers from Atlanta.