Gay rights groups gear up for "murder music" protest
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


The campaign against music that contains homophobic lyrics will continue this weekend, with a protest aimed to coincide with the start of Jamaican star Buju Banton's UK tour.

Banton, who has recorded songs in the past calling for gay men to be shot, killed or have acid poured on them, is set to start his tour in London on Sunday, at the Coronet in Elephant and Castle.

Despite having recent high profile successes in the campaign, including the retraction of MOBO nominations for Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel, the group behind the protest is urging gay people to join the protests outside the venue.


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Gays On TV Are Disappearing


(Hollywood, California) Gay characters on American television have become an endangered species the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have said.

GLAAD said that the number of LGBT characters on network TV has dropped to its lowest level since the organization began tracking in 1996.

Nevertheless, GLAAD said that cable dramas and the reality genre have improved their inclusion of gays and lesbians. NEWS

"When you turn to cable and reality TV, you see us - our lives, our relationships, our diversity," said GLAAD Executive Director Joan M. Garry.  "But when you turn to network comedies and dramas, you're seeing portraits of an America where gay people and families are nearly invisible.  That's not the America we live in."


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a “clandestine purges” of gays on a HIV panel, denial of rights of queers, limiting marriage by trans folks and enforcing arbitrary gender codes, denying adoption..

is this not the creation of second class citizenry, fascism in the making... will we next not be allowed to walk on the sidewalk...

when you standup again an illegal war and this bush regime, will you also stand up for the rights of queers...

when you send your petitions around and they mention nothing of the hate, discrimination and arbitrary targeting of queer by the bush monsters as a straw"man"(sic) for the illegal plans... you are letting queer hang out to die... when there are queer rallies do you show up... do you write you congress people to stop this hate... ?... do you send money to those trying to stop this in the courts?

what are you doing today to stop the rise of fascism again queers and and the creation of a white hegemony of upper-class straight white christian floks...

its time to stop this government.. do not at all cost let bush get reelected...

Gay Republican criticizes Bush on appointees
Driscoll alleges ‘purges’ of gays
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.


A gay former member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS has accused the Bush administration of conducting “clandestine purges” of gays on the AIDS panel, saying the action is symbolic of the president’s record on gay appointments.

Gay Republican activist James Driscoll, who Bush appointed in 2002 to the AIDS advisory panel, said the administration dropped him from the panel, known as PACHA, earlier this year and replaced him with a “safe straight, white male.”

“Gays represent at least 4 percent of the electorate, according to exit polls,” Driscoll said. “We are more numerous than Jews, as numerous as Asians, and in 2000 we gave Bush more votes than did African Americans,” he said, referring to exit poll data on various ethnic groups that voted for Bush.

“Yet our representation [among Bush administration appointees] is a tiny fraction of those groups’ and includes no important appointments,” Driscoll said


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Massachusetts "out of state" gay marriage law challenged
Christopher Curtis, Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network


The LGBT rights organisation that argued successfully for same-sex marriage in the US state of Massachusetts is trying to ensure that same-sex couples from out of state will be able to enjoy the same rights as Massachusetts residents as soon as possible.

On Thursday the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) appealed a judge's August 18 decision that effectively kept out-of-state same-sex couples from getting married in Massachusetts.

While GLAD is taking the case to the appeals court, it is also asking the Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court, to get involved.


"This matters, because we don't want to wait two years to get people the rights they deserve now," GLAD staff attorney Michele Granda told the PlanetOut Network.


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Suit Challenges Georgia Gay Marriage Amendment
by Mark Niesse
The Associated Press


(Atlanta, Georgia)  A lawsuit filed Thursday asks Georgia courts to remove a proposal to ban gay marriage from the ballot because it's misleading to voters.

The lawsuit says the ballot question is deceptive because voters will only see the part of the amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. The amendment also bars civil unions and limits the jurisdiction of state courts.

"The legislation will try to trick the voters," said Rep. Karla Drenner, a Democrat from Avondale Estates and the Legislature's only openly gay member. "This vote is not just about gay marriage. ... It cuts much broader and much deeper than just defining marriage."

The lawsuit was filed in Fulton County superior court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and Lamda Legal, a civil rights organization that supports homosexuals. It seeks a quick hearing so there would be time to remove the measure before the Nov. 2 election.


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NY Judge Refuses To Void Gay Marriages
by Michael Virtanen
The Associated Press


(Albany, New York) A state judge Thursday refused to invalidate gay marriages performed in New Paltz, while still preventing village officials from performing more same-sex unions without marriage licenses.

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Kavanagh ruled the couples would have to be named parties to the case with the right to be heard in court, and the lawsuit has failed to do that.

Matthew Staver, head of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel, said they plan to name the couples and try to have the marriages invalidated. "We will proceed to do that," he said.

More than 200 same-sex marriages have been performed in the Hudson Valley village this year, with clergy presiding now at about a dozen every other week, said E. Joshua Rosenkranz, attorney for Mayor Jason West.


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Gay Hate Singers Nominated For Hip-Hop Awards
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(New York City) Five singers who advocate the murder of gays and lesbians have been nominated for the prestigious Source Hip-Hop Music Awards 2004, to be held in Miami on October 10.

Elephant Man, Sizzla, Vybz Kartel, T.O.K., Beenie Man (pictured) have been nominated in the category ‘Dancehall-reggae artist of the Year’.

All have released records variously inciting the shooting, burning, drowning and hanging of lesbians and gay men.


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Gays "betrayed" by Democratic candidate in Georgia


By coming out in support of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, congressional candidate John Barrow has outraged gay rights activists who say the Democrat has flip-flopped after courting gay votes during the primary. Before and immediately after the July 20 Democratic primary, Barrow said in debates and interviews that, as a Baptist, he personally opposed same-sex marriage but opposed amending the U.S. Constitution to ban it. But the Athens attorney's campaign manager, Roman Levit, now says Barrow supports a Senate version of the amendment. Levit says Barrow opposed an earlier version in the House that also would prohibit domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples.


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Judge says ruling ahead in anti-gay T-shirt case
  Student's message offensive, says lawyer for school district
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER


If Poway High School officials can let students promote tolerance of homosexuality, they should allow a religious student with an opposing viewpoint to wear it on his shirt, a lawyer proposed to a federal judge yesterday.

A lawyer for the school district said it wasn't that simple.

The message on the shirt – "Homosexuality is shameful" – is offensive and could have disrupted classes, even though it's biblical, said district lawyer Jack Sleeth.

He asked U.S. District Judge John A. Houston to throw out the case.


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Gay man cheers arrest in case
By Travis Gettys
Enquirer contributor

NEWPORT - Carl Fox said the death threat he received last year was not the first time he's been victimized because he's an openly gay man who speaks his mind, but he said the arrest of a suspect in the case is an encouraging sign.

Fox, 46, said he has been threatened and assaulted and had his property damaged many times because of his sexual orientation.

But he said police and prosecutors haven't always vigorously pursued the perpetrators.



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Custody battle may affect gay rights
By Toby Coleman
Staff Writer

ina Burch says she never wanted to tell this story.

It starts in 1999, when she helped her lesbian lover, Christina D. Smarr, find a man to impregnate her. It moves through pregnancy, the birth of a healthy boy and the establishment of an untraditional two-mom household in Clay County.

“If anybody asks,” Burch recalls telling her teenage daughter after the boy’s birth on Christmas Day 1999, “keep this within the family.”

That ended in a snap two years ago, when Burch fell asleep at the wheel and got into a wreck that killed Smarr. Burch and Smarr’s parents fell into a pitched custody battle for the boy. Soon, the world began learning about Burch’s unusual story.