Caught on film: Thug is snapped after gay attack
Matt Eley

POLICE hunting a crazed knifeman who stabbed a man in Highgate because he was gay have issued CCTV footage in a bid to trap his attacker.

Detectives have launched an attempted murder investigation following the attack on an N20 bus in Highgate, which resulted in a man being stabbed four times and left for dead.


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Five state union contracts protect same-sex benefits


LANSING (AP) — Benefits for gay state employees would be extended to their domestic partners in proposed contracts with five unions, but could be denied under a newly approved constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Nearly 38,000 state employees are holding ratification votes on tentative contracts reached a week before the Nov. 2 election. Voters that day approved Proposal 2, which adds language to the Michigan Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

If the contracts are approved, the state would provide same-sex domestic partner benefits as of Oct. 1, 2005. But David Fink, director of the Office of the State Employer, said, “We are concerned that this benefit negotiated in response to union demands could violate the new constitutional amendment.” Fink negotiated the new contracts on behalf of the state.


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Dueling gay boycotts
Two recent protests declare success, despite lack of measurable proof
By VAN GOWER


Recent controversies over gay issues prompted two boycotts from opposite sides of the ideological fence, and organizers of each protest deemed their efforts successful — despite lacking any concrete way to quantify their impact.

On Oct. 8, Boycott for Equality called for gays nationwide to make their voices heard in the U.S. economy by staying home from work, refusing to spend money, and refraining from using cell phones for the entire day. Gay businesses were also encouraged to close.

An Atlanta gay couple, Dale Duncan and Joe Henderson, organized the grassroots boycott in February and began promoting it following President Bush’s endorsement of a proposed federal constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.


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Group to seek gay marriage ban
Wayne Hoffman
The Idaho Statesman


A trio in the state's religious right have formed a new group and plan to raise "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to put gay marriage to a vote in Idaho's 2006 general election.

Former Idaho Family Forum Director Dennis Mansfield, defeated one-term state GOP Rep. Henry Kulczyk and Republican Sen. Gerry Sweet announced the plan Thursday in front of the Senate chambers, where the amendment stalled last winter.

The new group is called "Marriage Yes! One Man. One Woman." Organizers said they will introduce a bill next year to ban homosexuals from marrying and make Idaho the 12th state in the nation to say no to gay unions.


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Gay-marriage defeat puts legal arrangements in question 
By Peter Smith
The Courier-Journal


Like many other unmarried couples, Joan Callahan and Jennifer Crossen have signed documents giving each other some of the legal rights that married couples receive automatically.

Crossen has named Callahan as guardian of her son in the event of her death. They have put all of their property in both names, including their Lexington horse farm. And they have signed powers of attorney enabling each to make medical and health-care decisions for the other.

But after last week's passage of a Kentucky constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, Callahan and Crossen made an appointment with their lawyer to make sure their documents are still valid.


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Petition filed to ban gay marriage in D.C.
Board of Elections to consider initiative next week
By LOU CHIBBARO JR. and KEN SAIN


A Northeast D.C. woman hopes to add the District to the list of U.S. jurisdictions that prohibit same-sex marriage. She has started a group called D.C. Citizens for Marriage that intends to place before District voters a referendum that would permanently ban gay marriage in the nation’s capital.

Ward 4 resident Lisa L. Greene filed the necessary paperwork with the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics on Oct. 4. That body has scheduled a Nov. 18 hearing to determine if Greene’s initiative meets the criteria required for a referendum.

“I don’t have a problem if someone is a lesbian or a homosexual,” Greene said. “But I feel their personal preferences should be kept private. If two people want to live together, that’s their choice. It’s my belief that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman only.”


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Coach butted lesbian ace
 FULL NEWS INDEX
By ROBIN PERRIE

A TOP women's soccer coach headbutted a star player for having a lesbian affair with a teammate.

The FA launched a probe after Lyn Stanley, 20, was left with a broken nose after the attack by Pauline Godward, 44.

Lyn and Emma Foster, 16, began a relationship while playing together in midfield for Co Durham's Chester-le-Street ladies side.

But they got the boot after word of the fling spread.


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Gay-marriage defeat puts legal arrangements in question


LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Gays and lesbians fear that last week's passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions may be the first step toward a gradual erosion of their legal rights.

Leaders on both sides of the amendment fight have said same-sex couples shouldn't be worried, because laws governing contracts and similar legal documents are separate from laws about marriage.

But legal observers and advocates on both sides also say the courts ultimately may decide what's affected by the amendment.

"People sort of make assumptions that once they have an arrangement in place, once they've signed papers, once they've talked a lawyer, that they're safe," said Sam Marcosson, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Louisville and an advocate for gay legal rights. "That's not a safe assumption now."


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Doctor Refuses To Treat HIV-Positives
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


(Denver, Colorado) A complaint has been filed accusing the Lasik Vision Institute and its Glendale, Colo.-based doctor, Paul Cutarelli, of refusing to perform eye surgery on two HIV-positive patients.

The complaint, to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, was made by the Legal Center for People with Disabilities, a Colorado-based not-for-profit advocacy group on behalf of the two patients.

According to the complaint an employee at the Lasik Vision Institute office in 2003 told a man who was seeking vision correction surgery that Cutarelli would not operate on the man after he informed her that he was HIV-positive, Eric Maxfield, an attorney at the Legal Center tells the Denver Post.

The Legal Center also alleges that an HIV-positive woman was denied Lasik surgery without any examination to determine if her HIV status would affect her standing for the procedure.


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Manitoba gay marriage rules violate rights: MP
CTV.ca News Staff


Federal Conservative Justice Critic Vic Toews says it is illegal to force marriage commissioners in Manitoba to perform same-sex marriages.

"[Commissioners] should not be compelled to choose between his or her faith and the official functions that they're carrying out," the longtime Manitoba MP told CKY News in Winnipeg.

This comes less than two months after a Manitoba judge ruled that the current definition of marriage is discriminatory. After that, marriage commissioners began issuing licences to same-sex couples in the province.

There are about 600 commissioners in Manitoba; so far, 11 have resigned because they were required to perform same-sex marriages.


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LGBT: Couples' benefits will stay
By Drew Paul
Executive Staff Writer


Questions quickly flooded into the Office of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgendered Life last week after Georgia voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage by an overwhelming margin on Nov. 2.

Many faculty and students expressed concern that the amendment would roll back Emory’s policy of awarding same-sex and straight couples the same benefits, including health insurance, courtesy scholarships and access to University libraries and the Woodruff P.E. Cente


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Anti-Gay Vote Not As Influential As Thought Survey Shows
by Will Lester, Associated Press


(Washington) This presidential election has been described by many as one in which morality mattered most to voters. But that perception may be driven at least partially by how pollsters asked voters about their priority issues.

Whether voters named "moral values" their key issue partly depended on whether that subject was included in a list of choices provided by pollsters, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released Thursday.

When "moral values" was included in poll questions, it was named more often than any other issue. But when voters were just asked to name the issue most important in their vote for president -- without being given a list of answers -- moral values trailed the war in Iraq and the economy, according to the Pew survey.


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USNA Grads Renew Application For Gay Alumni Chapter


ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- After a year of preparation, a group of former Naval Academy midshipmen announced on Veterans Day they will try again to establish the first official gay and lesbian alumni chapter of any U.S. service academy.


Leaders of the would-be chapter say they've resolved objections raised by the Naval Academy Alumni Association last December, when the panel rejected the chapter's application to be officially recognized. The group, now with 66 members, tweaked its bylaws to clarify they don't exclude straight graduates.

And they established a geographic base -- Castro, the predominantly gay section of San Francisco. The military college's alumni association emphasized that new chapters have to be "geographic in nature," the association's spokesman said last year. It's not the group's sexuality that the association objects to, officials said.