Shurtleff promises to defend Amendment 3
Senators keep option open to hire outside counsel
By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News


      Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff tried once again Wednesday to convince lawmakers that he'd do a good job defending the recently passed anti-gay marriage amendment, even though he opposed it.

      About all Shurtleff left the closed-door meeting with, however, was in effect an agreement by Republican members of the Senate to postpone a decision on hiring outside legal counsel to defend the state in the event of a lawsuit over Amendment 3.



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Sexual orientation not included in anti-discrimination policy
By Cara Parell
Senior Reporter


Auburn senior Warren Davis wasn’t kicked out of his fraternity because his brothers disliked him. He was kicked out because of fear.

“People are so concerned about image,” Davis said. “I was kicked out of my fraternity not because they hate gay people, but because they were afraid to publicly accept me.”

At a recent Auburn Gay and Lesbian Association meeting, Davis sat in a room with nine other members and admitted he didn’t come to the meetings his first few years at Auburn because he was afraid.

This is the usual turnout for the weekly meetings, but current members are certain more students are interested.


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I am so so tired of reading these reactions.. all queers need to leave montgomery country ... or organize and stop this.. hey.. PA.. if your queer show up, call do something

Sex-ed critics intend to fight
By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Pastors and parents of Montgomery County said yesterday they are uniting in opposition to a new sex-education program in high schools that they think promotes homosexuality.

    School officials "have definitely stepped over the line in assuming the majority of parents in this county accept this," said Tim Simpson, pastor of 500-member Greenridge Baptist Church in Clarksburg and parent of a high school student.


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oh, how the media kowtows to the political winds.... I am sure this will play well during sweeps week, especially in jesus land


BULLY PULPIT
By DON KAPLAN


ABC is preparing a major investigation of the Matthew Shepard gay-bashing murder that contends it may not have been a hate crime — but a mugging gone wrong.

Friends and family of Shepard — who became a national symbol of the senseless violence against gays — as well as gay activists are upset about the report, scheduled to air on "20/20" later this month.


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Gay Activists Gather for St. Louis Meeting
CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press


ST. LOUIS -Organizers of the first national gay and lesbian conference since last week's presidential election say resounding voter passage of gay marriage bans in 11 states has been hard to bear, leaving members devastated and fearful.

Matt Foreman of New York, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, likened the blow to a death, with soul searching in order.

"Our movement needs to regroup and buckle down," said Sue Hyde of Cambridge, Mass., director of the "Creating Change" conference that runs Thursday through Sunday.

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Democrats search for scapegoats


IN THIS year’s episode of the Democratic Party’s “Post-Election Blame Game,” Ralph Nader isn’t the chief villain. He can’t be. After a campaign filled with frantic slanders against him, Nader got fewer than 500,000 votes. John Kerry lost the popular vote by seven times that much.

Instead, the favorite target for abuse this year is an actual Democrat, but one comfortably removed from the national party leadership--San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Newsom is being blamed for spurring a mass turnout by the religious right for George Bush--by announcing earlier this year that his city government would defy California law and grant marriage licenses to gays and lesbians.

“The thing that agitated people were the mass weddings,” said openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)--sounding not unlike the homophobes who hate him. “It was a mistake in San Francisco, compounded by people in Oregon, New Mexico and New York. What it did was provoke a lot of fears.”


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Same-sex benefits to increase with PSU health-care merger
By Kayur Patel
Collegian Staff Writer

Two of Penn State's traditional health care plans are merging to create a new plan with extended benefits and eligibility requirements for Penn State employees.


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Welcome to Brazil!
Terry Gilliam, standing on the shoulders of Orwell, showed us the America of 2004 almost 20 years ago.
by James Heflin


Terry Gilliam's 1985 black comedy Brazil is set at "8:49 p.m., somewhere in the 20th century." Brazil is full of the trappings of a culture that never exactly existed but is still familiar, a ravaged, blackened environment, packed with clunky typewriter/computer consoles, strange cars, and the neon-lit streets of a futuristic film noir. This is a decidedly British dystopia, its citizens the unassuming, go along to get along sorts Americans frequently think Brits to be. (Gilliam, though American himself, was a member of British comedy troupe Monty Python.)

Brazil opens with a televised conversation between a spokesman of the "Ministry of Information" and a journalist who pitches softball questions and receives answers which are either irrelevant or just plain ignorant. The world of Brazil is beset by horrific acts of terrorism, and the Ministry of Information spokesman understands why: "bad sportsmanship." The spokesman further claims that progress has been made against the terrorists, and delivers a stunner when it's pointed out that attacks have been going on for 13 years: "beginner's luck."


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New gay row erupts in Italy
John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian


Allegations of homophobia were yesterday again being levelled at Silvio Berlusconi's allies with the revelation that one of the Italian prime minister's leading supporters had fired the head of his private office, who was spotted at a gay party.

Dario Mattiello, secretary to Mr Berlusconi's former culture minister, Domenico Fisichella, was dismissed after a photograph was published of him at a gay nightspot in Rome in June. Mr Fisichella, a member of the hard-right National Alliance, is deputy speaker of the Italian senate.

Mr Mattiello was quoted by the daily La Repubblica as saying he had been sacked 11 days after his visit to the gay haunt but had only recently decided to take legal action.

Franco Grillini, an MP and honorary president of the gay rights group, Arcigay, said the incident was "in blatant violation of the most basic liberal values of contemporary Europe". Last month Mr Berlusconi's Europe minister, Rocco Buttiglione, was rejected as a candidate for the European commission after branding homosexuality a sin.


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Group says Democrats betrayed gays on marriage issue

 
"They used us like an ATM."

That was the judgment of the president, and other leaders, of the Indiana Stonewall Democrats toward the party they thought they could trust, the one that bills itself as inclusive and opposed to all discrimination.

The sentiment was served up, like a slab of stale wedding cake, in the wake of last week's election after it was learned that one Democratic candidate in Indiana had courted votes by coming out loudly in favor of marriage between a man and a woman. He promoted his message with a flier that gay Hoosiers say was deliberately insulting and hateful to them.

Candidate Vern Tincher, of Terre Haute, was among 29 or so Hoosier Democrats who received direct financial support from the Stonewall Democrats, the state organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Democrats and their friends.



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Alta's Klein reiterates stand against gay marriage may change if voters wish


RED DEER, Alta. (CP) - The premier who has long promised to fight gay marriage in Alberta brought confusion and a little derision to the issue Wednesday with suggestions a decision may now be up to voters.

Klein, meeting with constituents in central Alberta, reiterated that his caucus has ruled against gay marriages but added it doesn't necessarily have the last word. "If Albertans tell me - I've not asked them to tell me - but if they do, spontaneously, tell me they want to do something differently, I'll listen," he said Wednesday.

In the campaign's lone leaders debate Monday, Klein was adamant his Progressive Conservative government would use any legal means necessary to see that marriage "remains between a man and a woman."