Bettendorf moves ahead on sexual orientation ordinance


BETTENDORF, Iowa Bettendorf has taken a first step in adding sexual orientation to its civil rights ordinance.
The City Council last night approved the first reading of an ordinance that extends protection from discrimination to gays and lesbians. The vote was six-to-two.

The ordinance change must be approved two more times.

Aldermen Norm Voelliger and Tim Stecker voted against it.

Voelliger said he felt the issue was a federal, not a local one. Stecker said he was concerned the city was going too far in extending rights to groups that are not protected under state or federal law.


~

SAN FRANCISCO - Sexual disease alert via the Net New Health Dept. program for gays
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer

 
These e-cards appear funny, sexy and hip, but if you're lucky, you won't be seeing one in your inbox anytime soon.

They're the newest way for gay men diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease to tell their sex partners about their condition.

The program is called InSPOT -- an acronym for Internet Notification Service for Partners or Tricks -- and it premieres today, paid for by the San Francisco Department of Public Health STD Services and run by a local group called Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS)


~

Activists hit out at Equality Commission
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


The government's plans for a single Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) are "flawed", and will lead to a weakening of power, according to gay rights activist group Outrage.

The CEHR proposals unveiled by the government earlier this year will replace the existing bodies dealing with equality and form an umbrella group for all minority groups.

But Outrage says the body will lead to a weakening of the Commission for Racial Equality's (CRE) powers by diluting them to fit the five other equality strands of disability, sexual orientation, religion, age and gender.

The knock on effect of this is that the powers available for those working with lesbian and gay groups will also be weakened, the group says.


~

Pope maintains campaign against gay marriages

Pope John Paul II kept up his campaign against gay unions today, telling Spanish-speaking pilgrims that marriage and childbirth were essential to civilisation.

The pope made his remarks in Spanish during his weekly general audience, five days after the Spanish government proposed legislation to allow homosexuals to marry and adopt children.


~

Gay Marriage Law Up to Canada's Top Court
By COLIN McCLELLAND
Associated Press Writer


Canadian clergy are watching closely as the Supreme Court turns its attention at long last to the government's proposal to legalize same-sex marriage.

Some are worried they will have to perform such marriages against their beliefs if, as expected, the plan passes muster. The court was scheduled to begin hearings on the matter Wednesday.

"We are very confident that the Supreme Court will confirm what many judges have said across the country," said Laurie Arron of gay advocacy group Egale Canada.


~

HRW wants killers of Lesbian rights activist brought to book


Dakar, Senegal, 10/06 - New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Freetown government to bring to justice those responsible for the "brutal murder" of FannyAnn Eddy, a Sierra Leonean lesbian/gay rights activist.

Eddy, 30, and founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association was found dead on the morning of 29 September.

HRW said in a release Tuesday that while Eddy was working alone in the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association`s offices the previous night, her assailant or assailants apparently broke into the premises, raped her repeatedly, stabbed and broke her neck.

"FannyAnn Eddy was a person of extra-ordinary bravery and integrity, who literally put her life on the line for human rights," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at Human Rights Watch.