Student Victim of Anti-gay Vandal
Reported By:  The Associated Press


STATESBORO, Ga. (AP) -- A gay student at Georgia State University was targeted by a vandal who spray-painted "fag" and "queer" on his car, the Statesboro Herald reported Saturday.

The crime happened just days after the state's Supreme Court threw out a four-year-old hate crimes law, saying it was overbroad.

Joseph Buckel, 18, told police that when he went outside to his car on Halloween morning it was painted with derogatory words.


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Leno for president 2008!!


Undaunted Leno revs up marriage issue
Phillip Matier & Andrew Ross


Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, San Francisco state Assemblyman Mark Leno will bring the fight for same-sex marriage back into the spotlight, making it the first order of business when the Legislature reconvenes next month.

Leno, who is gay, is calling for the state to change its definition of marriage from a contract "between a man and a woman'' to a contract "between two persons.''

In other words, legalize same-sex marriage.

Considering the blowback from Tuesday's national election -- and the perception among prominent Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein that same-sex marriage hurt them at the polls -- one might think revving up the marriage issue so soon would be the last thing on Democratic legislators' minds.


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we need to walk up the war is now at our door steps, they have guns, and the backing of the church and the president!!!


Businesses with gay clienteles vandalized
Windows have been shot out at one concern six times. Some are worried that such crimes are increasing.
By Abigail Chin
Denver Post Staff Writer


Six times this year, managers say, vandals have shot out the windows of Rocky Mountain Pink Pages - a magazine with offices on Colfax Avenue that showcases gay-friendly businesses.

Most of the drive-by pellet-gun shootings have happened in the dark of night and early morning.

But the vandals seem to have gotten more brazen lately: In the most recent incident, they shot holes in Pink Pages' windows at noon - while employees were inside.  

"What if they start using bullets?" said Ronnie Suba, general manager of Pink Pages, which was hit by vandals twice last month, police said.


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MSU may reconsider gay policy
Associated Press

BOZEMAN - Montana State University is reviewing its policy allowing gay couples married in other states to rent family housing in light of Tuesday's approval of a statewide ban on gay marriage.

Leslie Taylor, MSU's legal counsel, said Friday she needed to analyze the impact of Constitutional Initiative 96 and how it could affect school policy


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Gay parade protests discrimination
Agence France-Presse


More than 2,000 gay activists marched in Taipei yesterday calling for an end to discrimination as organizers accused police in the southern Kaohsiung city of infringing their rights by raiding a gay bar.

"We are saddened by this improper police action," said organizer Ashley Wu. Organizers of the annual parade alleged that the police abused their power to raid the bar where a press conference was being held.

Police maintained that they were conducting a legitimate inspection but the bar owner refused to cooperate. He was detained for questioning and released later.

"I demand an apology from the police," the bar owner told reporters at the parade, saying he already appealed to the Presidential Office and the National Police Agency.


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Florida's Southern Baptists Want Constitutional Ban On Gay Unions


JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A state constitutional ban on same-sex marriages will soon go before the Legislature and voters for approval if the state's Southern Baptists get their way.

The Florida Baptist Convention, which holds its 150th annual meeting Monday and Tuesday in Jacksonville, is expected to call for the passage of a state constitutional amendment upholding the "biblical definition" of marriage between one man and one woman.

"We're going to begin some type of process of saying we want to see a state marriage amendment similar to what was passed in other states this election," said the Rev. Tommy Green, pastor of First Baptist Church in Brandon and the outgoing president of the 1 million-member convention


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Old man mugged in Tokyo's gay quarter


An old man has been robbed of almost 130,000 yen in cash after being held at knifepoint after being accosted while walking through Tokyo's gay quarter in Shinjuku, police said.

The 61-year-old man from Kyushu was marched at the point of a paper cutter into a public women's toilet in a park in Shinjuku 2-Chome, bound in adhesive tape and had his jacket containing the cash stolen from his back on late Friday night


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Gay married couples in Ore. rush to protect their benefits
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer


Kelly Burke was happy to be at home after the election, watching her 3-year-old son convert a box into a spaceship. But she was dreading the arrival of a letter that could change their lives.

"The mailman came this morning and I panicked," said the stay-at-home mom on Nov. 3, one day after Oregon voters decisively approved a ban on gay marriage.

Like many housewives, Burke, 35, relies on her spouse's employer for her own health insurance. But because Burke is a lesbian, it was only this spring -- after Multnomah County momentarily flung open the door to gay marriage -- that she became a legal "spouse" by marrying her partner of 15 years, Dolores Doyle.

The change in legal status meant she became one of a number of married gay and lesbian spouses in Multnomah County who began receiving comprehensive medical insurance through their partner's employer.


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Gay community fears new era of intolerance
Equality campaigners are in despair at the rise of the homophobic right
Peter Beaumont in Washington
The Observer


In the bars and cafes of Dupont Circle, the centre of Washington DC's gay scene, the mood is funereal. The American gay community, already reeling from a 'broad and widespread assault' under a Bush presidency, now feels under siege from the country itself.

A week before polling day Washington hosted its annual High Heels Race, a sprint by drag queens that drew large and noisy crowds, both gay and straight. It was a moment of celebration, alive with the optimistic anticipation of a Kerry victory. This weekend, after 11 states voted strongly against gay marriage and civil unions and elected Republicans who had run 'gay-baiting' campaigns, gay advocates are talking about their worst crisis since the Reagan administration or even the Stonewall riots of 1969.

Some are talking about leaving America for good. Performance artist Tim Miller fought a high-profile funding battle with the National Endowment for the Arts that went to the Supreme Court. After travelling to Britain tomorrow for a series of shows, he says he may not return. The Californian, like thousands of gay Americans, is caught in a double bind: he is in a country he feels is rejecting him, and in a relationship with a partner who the authorities will not allow to live in America without the protection of marriage or civil union, which it is not prepared to give. 'My partner has a UK passport,' said Miller. 'We are never sure whether he can stay. What little political hope we had for change has been wiped out. On Monday there were limits on Bush's power. On Tuesday night we had to have a serious conversation about whether we wanted to carry on struggling and feeling like third-class citizens.

'We have this overblown idea here that we live in the freest country in the world. But in reality we are scraping the barrel with our rights. When I pack to travel to London tomorrow it is going to have a real poignancy. We are used to setbacks, but this time it has hit people hard. It is just despair.'


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Black churches that spurn gays
Marriage debate has strained relationship
Darryl Fears, Washington Post


Los Angeles -- On the Sunday that a minister preached that God did not love people like her, Jacquelyn Holland wanted to storm out of the church. But she sat and listened to the sermon, even as her homosexual orientation was called "an abomination" and equated with "murder, a heinous crime," Holland said.


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Controversy: Is freedom just another word?
An individual's right to express opinions versus school rules
Dena Sloan
Globe Staff Writer


A pink triangle, a rainbow and "I'm Gay and I'm Proud."

The messages are not often seen in the halls of Webb City High School. But after Brad Mathewson refused to turn his gay-pride T-shirt inside out last week after school officials told him it violated the school's dress code, the school district has become embroiled in the battle over students' free-speech rights while on school grounds.

Mathewson said it was unfair that he was told not to wear the shirt. He also objected to his message being silenced when other students were allowed to display bumper stickers calling for a ban on gay marriage. Officials from the American Civil Liberties Union said the move was unconstitutional because it infringed on Mathewson's right to free speech.

"The school has picked one side of a political issue," said James Esseks, a litigation director for the ACLU. "That is never, ever constitutional, in any context."




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Florida Relegates Some Gay Parents To 2nd-Class Status
By SHERRI ACKERMAN sackerman@tampatrib.com


TAMPA - Listening to her son pray each night thrills Cathy James.

``It's just like every day you see this little person developing,'' she said. ``You see a little of you; you see a little of your partner. ... It's just really cool.''

Twenty years ago, James didn't give much thought to being a parent. As a lesbian, she considered her options limited.

Today, she's mom to 10- year-old Tyler, the son conceived by James' partner through artificial insemination


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49th Parallel Gay Divide
by Beth Gorham, Canadian Press


(Washington) There's a new map of North America making the rounds where all the so-called blue states that went Democratic in this week's U.S. election are now part of Canada.

It's a joke, winding its way via e-mail across the continent, but it belies the wide divide between Canada's view of the world and the views of Americans who re-elected President George W. Bush.

And it reinforces the notion that many Democrats are more comfortable with Canada's liberal take on social policy and its tradition of separating politics from religion.

``There's queasiness in the blue states, with Bush's political style, his conservatism, the evangelical religiosity he wears on his sleeve,'' says Stephen Newman, a political scientist at York University in Toronto.