Last-ditch Mass. marriage suit expected to failAnn Rostow, PlanetOut Network


In the days leading up to May 17, opponents of same-sex marriage filed a number of last-minute court motions in a final effort to evade the first legal gay marriages in Massachusetts. One such motion was a federal lawsuit, filed against the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, all seven justices of that court, as well as the state Department of Public Health, the state health commissioner and the city clerks throughout the state.

The suit attempted to make the offbeat claim that the court's pro-marriage ruling, along with the state government's acquiescence to legalizing same-sex marriage, effectively usurped the Massachusetts government in a manner that violated the federal Constitution. The claim was based on a little-used constitutional provision that pledges that the U.S. government will protect states from "invasion," and defend them "against domestic violence." The official plaintiff, an anti-gay activist named Robert Largess with dubious standing to sue, asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the state clerks while the underlying legal issues were addressed.

The federal suit was filed after marriage opponents exhausted their efforts on a state court basis. Not surprisingly, the suit was quickly dismissed by Judge Joseph Tauro, at which point the petitioners appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Like the lower court, the First Circuit declined to issue a restraining order against the clerks, but agreed to hear arguments on June 7. Mr. Largess and company then asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency restraining order. On Friday, May 14, the full court declined.

Nearly a month since the onset of same-sex marriages, Monday's promised hearing before the First Circuit is something of a nonevent. Legal analysts found the original lawsuit a stretch, and its main purpose -- to wangle a delay in the start of same-sex marriages -- has already become a lost cause. Since no individual plaintiff has even made a successful constitutional claim based on Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution (known as "the Republican guarantee clause") it's not likely that Mr. Largess will be the first.


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Recall Effort Fails in Gay Marriage Issue
Associated Press


PORTLAND, Ore. - A recall petition drive has failed against two county commissioners who approved gay marriage licenses in March.

Chairwoman Diane Linn and fellow commissioner Lisa Naito both said they were relieved the petition drive led by the Christian Coalition missed the Monday deadline to submit the 37,000 signatures needed to place the recall on the ballot.

"It would have been costly and time-consuming," Linn said of a recall vote, estimating it would have cost taxpayers at least $300,000.

John Belgarde, executive director of the Christian Coalition, said about 35,000 signatures were gathered.


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Germany to allow same-sex marriages
Ben Aris in Berlin
The Guardian

Germany's justice minister has vowed to introduce legislation to permit same-sex marriages before the end of the summer, overriding the objections of the country's powerful conservative lobby.

Brigitte Zypries said the government would bypass the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament where conservatives hold the majority, to grant gay and lesbian couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, Ms Zypries, a member of the ruling Social Democratic party, said: "Gay and lesbian couples are a social reality in Germany. Therefore we will grant them, as far as is compatible with constitutional rights of marriage and family, the same rights as [heterosexual] couples."

Gay couples have been able to register their relationships since 2001, but the new laws will grant them almost all of the same rights as married heterosexuals. In addition to tax benefits, gay and lesbian couples will inherit pensions and property from their partners if they die. They will also be entitled to alimony and property if they get divorced and be barred from testifying against their partners in trials.


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Quebec Declares War! Homophobia is the Target
by Ric Kasini Kadour

     In a move that in the U.S. would be considered a great leap in understanding and support for lgbtqs, representatives of Fondation Émergence, which receives funding from several levels of the Canadian government from local to federal, proclaimed June 2nd to be the second annual National Day Against Homophobia.

     The theme of this year's campaign is Declaration of War on Homophobia. Posters show either a man or a woman dressed in camouflage making a fist and holding a rose.

     "This day is a privileged movement for students to talk about the facts of homosexuality, for employers to establish programs at work, for the media to present stories and reports on homophobia, for public officials to proclaim the first Wednesday in June a Day Against Homophobia, for individuals and organizations to take the initiative, for a symbolic gesture," the group explains.


      During a press conference at Sky Bar in Montreal's gay village, the group outlined a media and poster campaign, along with a day of events to include a round table of community activists, journalists, and academics, a dinner in honor of Senator Laurier La Pierre and a 'Solidarity Cocktail Party' later in the evening.


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Inside the gay museum
London's mayoral candidates agree on one thing: the need for an institution that chronicles our homosexual past. Its proposer, Peter Tatchell, explains what he'd put in it
The Guardian

Cardinal John Henry Newman is buried in the cemetery adjacent to the country house of the Oratory Fathers at Rednal Hill. Much to the horror of the Catholic establishment, which has tried to suppress all knowledge of Newman's homosexuality, he lies in the same grave as his lifelong male partner, Ambrose St John. Inseparable in death as in life, the two men have a joint memorial stone that is inscribed: "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem" (From shadow and images into truth). Their epitaph sums up why a lesbian and gay museum is a timely idea: it would help bring the hidden history of queer Britain out of the shadows and into the light.

I first had the idea for a gay museum in 1972, when I was a 20-year-old activist in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). During those early struggles for queer human rights, it suddenly dawned on me that we were fighting a great liberation struggle handicapped by an almost total lack of knowledge of our own past. Our minds were colonised by a straight version of history, where we queers were invisible.

The battles of those who went before us, like the 19th-century gay rights pioneer Edward Carpenter, were unknown. Even the homosexual law reform campaigns of the 1960s, led by Allan Horsfall and Antony Grey, were (and still are) largely undocumented. Our existence was erased from the historical record. Apart from Oscar Wilde, the only queers who came to public attention were mass murderers, spies, child abusers and men entrapped by the police in public toilets.

Unlike other communities, we had no families, and no stories of tragedies and triumphs to pass from generation to generation. Queers were a people without any sense of a collective past. We were expunged from all official records - except the criminal ones, which documented grisly accounts of trials, imprisonment and executions for the "abominable crime of buggery".

Minister Asks Parents To Take Kids Out Of Public Schools


A new national movement among the Christian community calls for parents to pull their children out of public schools. The movement is known as the Exodus Mandate. A South Carolina Minister named E. Ray Moore founded the movement in 1997.

"The state shouldn't be running schools," says Moore. "They should get out of the education business altogether and let families and churches do it."

Moore believes children should either be home schooled or enrolled in private Christian Schools where they can learn in a healthy environment.


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Lawmakers hope to remove gay rights as issue in property tax bill
By KEVIN McGILL
The Associated Press


BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Language in a proposed constitutional amendment that could deny homestead property tax exemptions to homosexual couples may soon be removed from the measure.

The legislation — an overhaul of the homestead exemption provisions in the constitution by Sen. Reggie Dupre, D-Houma — was originally drawn up to ensure that widows and widowers who have adult children will not lose their homestead exemption.

But legislators led by Sen. Robert Adley, D-Benton, changed the language to state that people who co-own a home and who are not related — by blood, adoption or marriage — are not entitled to the exemption.

Adley said Monday that his reason behind the language change has been widely misinterpreted and misunderstood by reporters. He said he offered it to keep the issue from becoming entangled with the homosexual rights debate.

Fargo holds first Pride parade
Associated Press


FARGO, N.D. - There were no floats, fire engines or marching bands, but an estimated 150 marchers, spanning two city blocks, took part in this city's first Pride parade.

Members and supporters of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community formed a historic line at noon Sunday in downtown Fargo.

"I'm incredibly happy," said Bob Uebel of the Pride Collective. "Even if we'd marched with 25 or 50 people, I'd still be happy. The thing was to do it."

The parade was a new addition to FM Pride, an annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community celebration now in its third year.


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Judge bars New Paltz mayor from marrying gay couples


KINGSTON, N.Y. (AP) _ A state Supreme Court judge on Monday permanently barred the mayor of New Paltz from marrying gay couples who do not have a license but left unanswered the question of whether same sex unions were constitutional.

Ulster County Supreme Court Justice Michael Kavanagh said the decision regarding who may marry in New York must be made by the state Legislature or the courts.

"The mayor by his office is obligated to comply with the law and abide by it," Kavanagh wrote. "A public officer may not question the constitutionality of a statute and refuse to comply with its provisions."

Mayor Jason West was sued after performing more than two-dozen same-sex weddings on Feb. 27, drawing this Hudson Valley village into the growing debate over same sex unions. Gay marriages began in Massachusetts on May 17, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny licenses to same-sex couples.

COUNTY LOSES APPEAL TO CONTINUE TEACHING BIBLE CLASS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS


The federal appeals court in Cincinnati has upheld a ruling that ended the teaching of Bible classes in an East Tennessee county's public schools.

A three-judge panel sustained the February 2002 ruling by District Court Judge R. Allen Edgar that the classes, which had been taught in Rhea County schools for 50 years, violated the separation of church and state.

Rhea County school superintendent Sue Porter says she's disappointed, but not surprised. She says the school board will likely discuss whether to mount further appeals when they meet Thursday night.

The appeals judges said that despite school officials saying the classes were value-driven -- teaching responsibility and positive morals -- they were "also teaching the Bible as religious truth."


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Crowd gathers in Florence for marriage preservation rally
Associated Press


FLORENCE, Ala. - A crowd gathered at a marriage preservation rally in Florence to defend the traditional male-female marital structure.

"Citizens of the Shoals for the Preservation of Marriage" organized the rally, which was moved from the front of the Lauderdale County Courthouse to the city parking deck because of rain.

Organizers estimated the turnout Sunday afternoon at 1,500.


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Study: Ballot Questions on Gay Marriage Harmful to Communities
Gfn.com News


AMHERST, Mass.—This fall voters in a number of states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah, will go to the polls to vote on whether same-sex couples should be denied equal marriage rights. A new report shows these elections may carry significant negative psychological and social consequences for local residents and for the community at large.

Research compiled by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, or IGLSS, says these referenda can affect the lives of both gay/lesbian/bisexual and heterosexual people in several ways.

The report, "The Dangers of a Same-Sex Marriage Referendum for Community and Individual Well-Being," finds that referenda on same-sex marriage can lead to serious negative psychological consequences for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

"These elections create high levels of psychological and social stress for many LGBT individuals as well as for the children of lesbian and gay families," said Glenda Russell, author of the report and the Acting Executive Director of IGLSS. "Studies have demonstrated that these elections can lead to increased anxiety, depression, alienation, and isolation in LGBT people."

Gay groups join election push
Ben Townley
Gay.com UK


Lesbian and gay rights campaigners have joined the growing call for a higher turnout at this week's elections, as the threat of a British National Party (BNP) victory looms large.

Veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell is leading the push, in a bid to encourage more LGBT people to vote on Thursday June 10th and stop right wing extremists grabbing seats from disillusioned voters in the local, European and London elections.

It follows an increased fear that parties such as the BNP, which represent racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic policies amongst others, could be on the verge of a break through at the polling booths, as voters desert the main parties or voting at all.

A recent poll suggested that 5% of those planning to vote in London, would vote for the BNP - exactly the amount needed for the party to gain a seat in the London Assembly.



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Coalition asks federal court to halt gay marriages in Mass.
The Associated Press


BOSTON -- A coalition of conservative groups and lawmakers asked a federal appeals court today to stop gay marriages, saying the state's highest court overstepped its bounds by changing the traditional meaning of marriage when it cleared the way for same-sex couples to wed.

Gay marriages began in Massachusetts on May 17, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny licenses to same-sex couples.

The groups urged the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put an immediate stop to the weddings, arguing that only elected lawmakers -- not judges -- have a right to define marriage and that any change in that traditional definition should be left to a vote of the people.

In March, lawmakers narrowly approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages and establish civil unions. However, that proposal must survive another vote of the Legislature, and won't go before voters until November 2006, at the earliest.


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‘Wife’ goes home a winner
BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic


The 2003-2004 Broadway season was, to put it mildly, a wildly eclectic year. And the 58th annual Tony Awards, presented Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall, only underscored this fact.

The top prize for best play of the season went to Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife," the one-man (40-character) chronicle of the life and times of a German transvestite who managed to survive the second half of the 20th century. The show had an important pre-New York run in Chicago, and will return here early next year, with Jefferson Mays, whose tour de force performance earned him a Tony for best leading actor in a play, reprising his role.

Gay groups join election push
Ben Townley
Gay.com UK


Lesbian and gay rights campaigners have joined the growing call for a higher turnout at this week's elections, as the threat of a British National Party (BNP) victory looms large.

Veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell is leading the push, in a bid to encourage more LGBT people to vote on Thursday June 10th and stop right wing extremists grabbing seats from disillusioned voters in the local, European and London elections.

It follows an increased fear that parties such as the BNP, which represent racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic policies amongst others, could be on the verge of a break through at the polling booths, as voters desert the main parties or voting at all.

A recent poll suggested that 5% of those planning to vote in London, would vote for the BNP - exactly the amount needed for the party to gain a seat in the London Assembly.



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Coalition asks federal court to halt gay marriages in Mass.
The Associated Press


BOSTON -- A coalition of conservative groups and lawmakers asked a federal appeals court today to stop gay marriages, saying the state's highest court overstepped its bounds by changing the traditional meaning of marriage when it cleared the way for same-sex couples to wed.

Gay marriages began in Massachusetts on May 17, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny licenses to same-sex couples.

The groups urged the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put an immediate stop to the weddings, arguing that only elected lawmakers -- not judges -- have a right to define marriage and that any change in that traditional definition should be left to a vote of the people.

In March, lawmakers narrowly approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages and establish civil unions. However, that proposal must survive another vote of the Legislature, and won't go before voters until November 2006, at the earliest.


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‘Wife’ goes home a winner
BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic


The 2003-2004 Broadway season was, to put it mildly, a wildly eclectic year. And the 58th annual Tony Awards, presented Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall, only underscored this fact.

The top prize for best play of the season went to Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife," the one-man (40-character) chronicle of the life and times of a German transvestite who managed to survive the second half of the 20th century. The show had an important pre-New York run in Chicago, and will return here early next year, with Jefferson Mays, whose tour de force performance earned him a Tony for best leading actor in a play, reprising his role.

Left introduces gay marriage bill


Paris, France, Jun. 7 (UPI) -- Leftist lawmakers introduced a draft bill to legalize gay marriage Monday, after a mayor performed the country's first same-sex wedding.

The bill was sponsored by National Assembly deputy Noel Mamere and other members of France's Greens Party.

On Saturday, Mamere -- who is also the mayor of the French town, Begles, near Bordeaux -- celebrated the wedding of a gay male couple.

He faces potential legal and administrative sanctions for the marriage, which the conservative government maintains is against the law.


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Anti-Gay Marriage Rally
NewsChannel 19's Melissa Stephens Reporting


As Massachusetts becomes the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage, supporters have been celebrating what they see as a civil rights victory. However, a large group in the Shoals sees it as a threat to the traditional Christian family, and Sunday they held a rally to speak out.

Letting their voices be heard was the idea at this rally in downtown Florence on Sunday afternoon. This group of an estimated 2,000 people gathered inside a downtown parking garage, to let the country know how they feel about same-sex marriage.

"San Francisco can do what they want, Massachusetts can do what they want," said one local minister at the rally, but in the Shoals, they want to make a proclamation for the preservation of marriage.

"We want to honor God and his idea of biblical based marriage," said Ann Cink, one of the organizers of the rally. "God had an intent when he created man and woman, and we should honor that," Cink continued.



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France may annul gay marriage
The Associated Press


BORDEAUX, France (AP) - The state prosecutor on Monday began an effort to annul the marriage of a gay couple, two days after they exchanged vows in the first such union in France.

But one of the lawyers for the two men, Stephane Chapin and Bertrand Charpentier, said he would take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Prosecutor Bertrand de Loze asked to have the couple appear in court. A date was not set.

The couple was married Saturday in the town of Begles, near Bordeaux by the town mayor, Noel Mamere, a Green party lawmaker known as a political provocateur.


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Winston-Salem congressional candidate defends attack ads
Associated Press


GOP congressional Vernon Robinson says his radio ads and fliers scorching Republican competitors for the party's 5th District nomination boost his campaign, though they're unlikely to make any friends.

The Winston-Salem city council member advertises unlike any of the other seven candidates trying to succeed U.S. Rep. Richard Burr, R-N.C. His mailing arguing against gay rights arrived in an envelope with 13 pictures of gay and lesbian couples.

A radio ad designed to sound like the game show "Jeopardy" accused his opponents of supporting gay rights, compared state Sen. Virginia Foxx to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, and called Jay Helvey and Ed Broyhill "bankrupt businessmen."


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Military losing battle over soaring sexual harassment claims
By Richard Yallop and Michael McKinnon, FOI editor


REPORTS of homosexual harassment in the Army and Navy have soared as confidential documents reveal major failings in the ability of the Australian Defence Force to deal with sexual intimidation.

An internal report obtained by The Australian shows the total number of sexual harassment complaints inside the Defence Forces doubled last year to 122. And out of those 51 were complaints by men against other men.

The previous year there were only 12 complaints of sexual harassment of males by other serving males.

The report on unacceptable behaviour in the Australian Defence Force, obtained under Freedom of Information legislation, reveals an alarming rise in male sexual assaults against females in the Navy, up to 27 in 2002-03.


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Gays celebrate their new married status
By Iliana Limón
Tribune Reporter

Mary Houdek was lounging on the couch when she spontaneously asked her girlfriend of six months to marry her.

"I don't know why it popped into my head, but I knew instantly I wanted to be with her forever," Houdek said. "I just blurted it out because it felt so right."

Norma Vasquez gleefully agreed, but she had to wait nearly 17 years to finally marry the love of her life.

They were the first couple to receive a same-sex marriage license from Sandoval County on Feb. 20. They were married that evening and retreated to their Rio Rancho home riding a cloud of euphoria.


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Gay, lesbian couples hold massive wedding reception
By: Associated Press


(Albuquerque-AP) -- Sunday was a day to celebrate for same-sex couples who were issued marriage licenses by Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap several months ago.

The couples gathered with family and friends in Albuquerque for a big wedding reception.

Back on February 20th, Dunlap issued some 66 licenses to same-sex couples. She stopped when Attorney General Patricia Madrid issued a letter saying the clerk’s actions were illegal under state law.

Dunlap tried again in March, but the county and Madrid’s office got a temporary restraining order.

Dunlap says she may start issuing the licenses again this week.  Her attorney, Paul Livingston, says that’s because the restraining order is no longer valid.

Anti-Gay Marriage Campaigns May Have Broader Implications 
by Margo Williams
365Gay.com Newscenter


(Boston, Massachusetts) A study on the likely effects of ballot questions on same-sex marriage indicates the issue is likely to have a major negative impact on communities and gay families.

This fall voters in a number of states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah, will go to the polls to vote on whether same-sex couples should be denied equal marriage rights. 

The report, by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, a think tank in Amherst, Massachusetts, shows that these elections may carry significant negative psychological and social consequences for local residents and for the community at large.  

Research compiled by the IGLSS finds that referenda can affect the lives of both gay/lesbian/bisexual and heterosexual people in several ways.

Anti-gay-marriage petition drive hits hectic pace
The clock is ticking for people seeking 100,840 signatures
PETER WONG
Statesman Journal


Two weeks down, less than four weeks to go.

For supporters of a state constitutional ban on marriage for same-sex couples, it has been a hectic couple of weeks since they got the go-ahead to begin circulating petitions. The proposal would write into the Oregon Constitution a definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Like sponsors of other initiatives, they have until July 2 to gather the signatures required to qualify their measures for the Nov. 2 general-election ballot. They will need 100,840 valid signatures for a constitutional amendment.

“We’ve gotten thousands of requests for petitions,” said Tim Nashif, a spokesman for the Defense of Marriage Coalition, organized by the Oregon Family Council. “We are optimistic.”


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Gay Couple's Relationship To Get Bishop's Blessing
Episcopal Church Divided On Issue


GREENBELT, Md. -- Two men from Greenbelt, Md., are preparing to have their 10-year relationship blessed by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

The Right Rev. John Bryson Chane will conduct the ceremony Saturday for Michael Hopkins and John Clinton Bradley, and in doing so, will establish a new level of acceptance for homosexual couples.

Last year, the Episcopal Church voted to allow bishops the option to bless same-sex relationships in their dioceses.

According to the Washington Post, Chane will be only the second bishop in the nation to publicly bless a same-sex relationship. The other is the Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles.

Through a spokesman, Chane said he's not out to make a political statement, but other church members say his actions will only further divide an already fractured denomination.


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Gay Boycott Of Coors Gaining Steam -- Again



DENVER -- A national boycott of Coors beer is being resuscitated after spending years simmering under the surface. The revival is coming with the U-S Senate candidacy of former Coors Chairman Peter Coors, who has said he supports a constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.

The boycott started in 1974 as a protest of Coors Brewing Company's anti-union position, but grew to include the gay community over company lie-detector tests asking whether prospective employees were homosexual.

The boycott faded in 1995 after the company began supporting high-profile gay causes and offering its gay employees benefits. The company is placing full-page ads in gay newspapers and magazines around the country explaining that it is independent from the political views of its former chairman.

But anti-Coors sentiment is rising in some parts of the country. A group called the National Lawyers Guild, which stresses social activism, is running ads in about a dozen gay publications. The ads say that Coors profits are flowing to Coors family members who support what they call right-wing homophobic groups.


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Row over anti-gay sex education group deepens
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


The row over a Christian group that visits schools in Northern Ireland to teach sex education is deepening this week, after it was criticised by a candidate for the European Parliament for its homophobia.

The Love for Life project has been visiting children throughout the Ulster region, but was criticised last month for statements on its website that suggest sexuality can be changed.

Now Eamon McCann, a Environmental Alliance party candidate in this week's European elections, has called for the region's educational authorities to strip the group of its funding until it removes the online references.

"[Love for Life] presents homosexuality as a phase or aberration, or a condition brought about by trauma," McCann told the Belfast Telegraph.


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Court's authority over marriage law challenged
By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Lawyers in Massachusetts are preparing for a federal court hearing today on whether the state high court had the power to change the state's marriage law by itself.
 
   "We will argue that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court exceeded its power when it redefined marriage from the 'union of one man and one woman' to the 'union of two persons' " in the Nov. 18 high court decision, Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, said of today's hearing before the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

    The so-called Goodridge decision, named after the homosexual couple that brought the issue to court, legalized same-sex "marriage" in Massachusetts as of May 17.
 
   When the Massachusetts court bypassed the legislative and executive branches to change state marriage law, it upset the separation of powers in the state and violated the plaintiffs' rights, under the "guarantee clause" of the U.S. Constitution, to have a republican government, said Mr. Staver, who with other conservative lawyers represent 11 Massachusetts lawmakers and a Boston resident.


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Anglican Church warned of "devastating consequences"
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


The Anglican Church has been warned of the "devastating consequences" of supporting lesbian and gay relationships, from dissenting evangelicals within.

The comments came after the Church's Canadian branch agreed to postpone a debate on whether same-sex relationships should be endorsed, but made an amendment "affirming the sanctity and integrity" of lesbian and gay relationships.

But the amendment has angered some bishops attending the Canadian synod, with nine taking to the stage and declaring their opposition.

They said that by supporting same-sex relationships, the Canadian Church would be straying too far from scriptures.

Their protest was quickly matched by the Archbishop of the West Indies Drexl Gomez, who released a statement on Saturday attacking the amendment.


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Bigotry of black churches takes toll
By Cynthia Tucker


ATLANTA -- Though President Bush rarely mentions it -- too many conservatives in Congress are uncomfortable with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions -- conservative preachers and right-wing activists can't let go of gay marriage. They're still using its "threat" to traditional families to rally their parishioners, lest they forget to be judgmental and slip into love and mercy.

Nowhere are the front lines in the battle against gay marriage tended with more care than in conservative black churches, where ministers regularly denounce homosexuality as an abomination.

It is a curious approach they no doubt would characterize as "tough love," as they pray for the gay members of their flock to be delivered from their affliction.

It's too bad that some of that prayer time is not devoted to fervent supplication that black churchgoers be delivered from the affliction of homophobia.

Bigotry fuels the scourge of AIDS in black America, and the plague is making its greatest inroads into the population from which come the worker bees of the black church: black women.

Coalition: 'Shrek' wrecks family values
MIKE ARGENTO


Some people see "Shrek 2" as harmless family entertainment, a film that kids from 8 to 80 can enjoy.

Others, though, see it as part of an effort that, one day, will lead not only to gay marriage, but marriage between people of the same sex who were once the opposite sex, or something like that.

And, if that's not bad enough, Larry King is involved, sort of.

Something called the Traditional Values Coalition has issued a parental advisory about "Shrek 2," claiming the movie furthers what it calls "the transgender agenda," an "effort to deconstruct the biological reality of male and female."

And here you thought it was just a nice, little cartoon.

The coalition's advisory says, "Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see 'Shrek 2,' may wish to consider the following: The movie features a male-to-female transgender (in transition) as an evil bartender. The character has five o'clock shadow, wears a dress and has female breasts. It is clear that he is a she-male. His voice is that of talk show host Larry King."


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Greens launch European gay rights pledge


The Green Party's Euro-election LGBT pledge includes five key commitments:


* Ensure all EU member states comply with the EU directive outlawing discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the workplace.

* Ban homophobic and transphobic discrimination in access to goods and services, such as insurance and mortgages.

* Legalise same-sex marriages and registered partnerships across the EU.

* Extend the EU definition of "family" to include LGBT partnerships.


* Adopt non-homophobic, gay-friendly policing policies throughout the EU.


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Senate approves budget, purchases vans for Tipsy Taxi
By KATY TANG


The senate passed the resolution after agreeing to change the wording so that the ASUCD Senate specifically would be taking a stance on the issue, and not just ASUCD in general.

George Andrews, a third-year student and member of Davis College Republicans, was present at the meeting and said that it is "totally inappropriate" for student government to pass the resolution.

"You're supposed to be doing stuff at the student level," he said.
However, Sen. Caliph Assagai said that universal marriage freedom is a human rights issue.

"It's not just [a lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex] issue," he said. "This is just another example of heterosexual privileges. [The senate] is not standing up for same-sex marriage per se. We're standing up for equal rights."

Gender and Sexuality Commission Chair Angelina Malfitano noted that the city of Davis also passed a similar resolution, and said that anyone who did not want to take a stance on the issue was supporting "heterosexual privilege.

Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission Chair Pamela Palpallatoc said that 10 percent of any population is LGBTI, and it is better to make marriages among the LGBTI community legal because many are going to "have marriages anyway."

"Part of the push for diversity is LGBTI equality," she said.

Police: Northern Ireland attack was homophobic
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


Police are appealing for information after a man was stabbed and beaten in his home during what they believe was a homophobic attack.

The 20-year-old Londonderry man was attacked after inviting some people back to his home in the Corrody Road area. Police say that a row broke out, which resulted in the unnamed man receiving his injuries.

Although he was hospitalised, his injuries are not thought to be life threatening.

Police have arrested one man, but are looking for more witnesses at the attack, which took place at 7am on Saturday morning.


The report is the latest in a string of attacks on gay men in the Londonderry area, as well as Northern Ireland as a whole.


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Foes of gay marriage wage untraditional fight
Supporters of a constitutional state ban gather signatures at churches, raising questions about religious political activity
JAMES MAYER


With four weeks left, supporters of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage are relying on churches and mailed-in petitions to gather the 100,840 valid signatures they need to make the November ballot.

The mostly behind-doors campaign is taking place after Sunday church services and in the homes, workplaces and neighborhoods of supporters. It's a departure from the traditional approach of collecting signatures in heavily trafficked public places.

And that makes it harder for opponents to be there to persuade people not to sign. That's significant, because it's easier and cheaper for opponents to attack a measure before it gets on the ballot than it is to defeat it at the polls.

There have been no reports of violations of signature-gathering rules, but opponents say they are working on filing complaints.



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Who's unfriendlier to gays?
Apparently, that's the candidate who should win


It's amazing to consider what passes for an attack ad these days. Consider a recent salvo from Bob Schaffer, who has been desperately trying to save his U.S. Senate campaign from being stopped by a silver bullet.

In a recent mass-mailing flier, former Congressman Schaffer notes that the Coors Brewing Co. was labeled by a magazine article as "'one of the most GAY FRIENDLY companies in the nation' for granting benefits to SAME-SEX couples."

The magazine didn't put the operative words in all-caps. The Schaffer team did that for maximum effect, and, no doubt, reading comprehension.

The target of Schaffer's salvo was Peter Coors, chairman of the brewing company that bears his family name. And though businessman Coors recognizes the legitimacy of same-sex couples, candidate Coors says marriage "is between a man and woman. I oppose the activist judges who try to change the traditional definition of marriage."


~

(this is probably a trans murder, but is not being reported as one...)

After new start, man goes missing
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff  

When Cameron Wideman III was 12 a repeat sex offender raped him. Afterward, his mother said, he became a magnet for danger. He was arrested several times on prostitution charges. He battled cocaine addiction on and off for years. He started crossdressing and staying out all night at age 16.

Madeline Wideman worried about her son's streetwalking, and told him so. Whenever he was beaten up, she said, she took care of him.

But after years of self-destructive habits, life started to turn around for the 29-year-old Medford man when he moved into a safe house three months ago. The counselors enrolled him in a vocational program and began to rebuild his fragile self-esteem, family members said.

Wideman stopped hustling. He was hired to be a medical assistant. After years of bouncing from relatives' couches to shelters because he was unemployed and impoverished, Wideman was scheduled to start work last Tuesday.


~

Canada expelled for affirming gay unions
Conservatives irate over wording. Disagreement over same-sex marriage could turn Anglicanism into 2 rival churches
 
Jonathan Petre And Jonathan Wynne-Jones
London Daily Telegraph


Conservative archbishops representing more than half of worldwide Anglicanism demanded the expulsion of the Canadian Church yesterday for describing homosexual relationships as holy.

In a significant blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, traditionalist leaders lambasted the Canadian general synod for affirming that same-sex unions had "integrity and sanctity."

They said the Canadians should be ejected, along with the liberal American Episcopal Church, which backed the consecration of Anglicanism's first openly-gay bishop last year.

Their intervention has badly damaged efforts by Williams and other Anglican leaders to broker peace between the factions on homosexuality.


~

Transgendered woman sues former employer
By AVIVA L. BRANDT
The Associated Press


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Rachel Vanderthorne is secure in her womanhood, even though she was legally a man as recently as two years ago.

"I was born a girl, but I had boy stuff," Vanderthorne said, referring to her male genitalia. "I want to be accepted as who I am. It's a struggle, but I'm signed on for the duration."

Vanderthorne, 47, was an auto transmission specialist for 18 years until she was injured on the job. She then was retrained to be a customer service representative in auto dealerships' service departments.

She discovered she was good at working with customers, as good as she had been working on cars, and said she often set records for the number of repair orders she wrote.


~

All-party backing for gay museum
Tania Branigan
The Guardian

All the main mayoral candidates in London are backing proposals to open a gay museum recognising and celebrating Britain's "secret history" of homosexuality.

Ken Livingstone, the current mayor, and his Conservative and Liberal Democrat challengers have pledged support for a permanent institution, including everything from early accounts of "molly houses" - the gay bars of the 18th century - to banners and T-shirts from the recent campaign against Section 28.

"I'm afraid whoever you elect, you're going to get it. What's not to like?" asked Steve Norris, the Tory candidate, admitting he "stole" the idea from the Green party's Darren Johnson, who included it in his gay-friendly manifesto for London.

"It's part of the way in which we show London to be a welcoming and enjoyable society.

FIVE SOLDIERS KILLED, FOUR WOUNDED 6/7/2004
SOLDIER COLLAPSES, DIES ON GUARD DUTY 6/7/2004
MORTAR ATTACK KILLS ONE SOLDIER, WOUNDS ONE 6/6/2004
MARINE DIES OF WOUNDS JUNE 3 6/5/2004
TWO SOLDIERS KILLED, TWO WOUNDED IN IED ATTACK 6/5/2004

The love that dared to speak its name
By Leslie Feinberg

The love that had dared not speak its name raised its voice in the 1860s in Germany. As its demands rose, they were amplified by support from the revolutionary groundswell of workers who were organizing and fighting to win basic democratic rights.

From the first challenges to sexual oppression in the 1860s, the left wing of the emerging socialist movement--those revolutionaries who were fighting to shatter the manacles of capitalism as well as the mental shackles of ideological reaction--supported this strug gle against state repression and for sexual liberation.

In 1862, a young lawyer named Jean Baptiste von Schweitzer was convicted of a homosexual act in a city park. Von Schweitzer was a member of the socialist German Workers Association, headed by Ferdinand Lassalle. Some in the group wanted to expel Von Schweitzer. But Lassalle defended him, arguing that sexuality "ought to be left up to each person" whenever no one else is harmed.

Not only wasn't Von Schweitzer expelled; he became president of this socialist workers' organization after Lassalle's death.

McCann says ''homophobic'' Love for Life should not be funded
by Ian Parsley

The Socialist Environmental Alliance candidate for Europe, Eamonn McCann, yesterday called on education authorities not to consider funding the Love for Life organisation unless it removes what McCann called homophobic references from its website.

The website contains an entire section giving advice to young people who are or think they may be gay, said McCann. Its main point is to urge them to “change”. The section is shot through with distaste for gay sexuality. It presents homosexuality as a phase or aberration, or a condition brought about by trauma. It is designed to make any young gay person feel anxious and isolated.

The website directs young people with queries about their sexuality towards a number of Jewish and Christian Church-based groups. It does not refer to a single one of the many gay and lesbian organisations, which provide support, information and advice to young people. It would be wrong that a group with such an irresponsible attitude to gay and lesbian young people should be given access to school students. It would be doubly wrong if this were to be funded by the State.

Gay young people already have to put up with a great deal of ignorance, hostility and bullying. Love for Life could only aggravate the situation.

Separate and unequal
By MATTHEW VAN DUSEN
Star-Tribune staff writer Sunday, June 06, 2004

The prison van winds its way north and east to Lusk.
Guards at the Wyoming Women's Center are transporting a prisoner from the Laramie County Detention Center. They pass small towns along the Union Pacific railroad where the mile-long coal trains rumble by. No one says much.

The prisoner, Miki Ann Dimarco, passed six bad checks in February and March of 1998 for a total of $742.85 but was released on probation. Her probation officer then revoked her for a lack of verifiable identity, among other things. On May 2, 2000, after 38 days in the Laramie County Jail, she is being transferred.

No one knows who Dimarco is. She rearranges nine digits and offers them as her Social Security number, but it always comes out as invalid or as someone else's number. She is evasive when asked direct questions about her life.

Her evasiveness stems, in part, from her gender identity. Though she has lived her life -- and was sentenced -- as a woman, prison officials had gotten advance word that Dimarco has incomplete male genitalia: a small penis and no testicles. Dimarco is an intersexual -- commonly, but incorrectly, called a hermaphrodite.


~

Certificate Could Be Valid If No Legal Action Is Taken

(Muskogee-AP) -- A same-sex couple who sought to wed under Cherokee law may be able to get their marriage application certified when a moratorium on issuing or registering applications is lifted on June 14.

Barring a legal protest, a marriage certificate issued in May to a lesbian couple would be valid.

Attorney Mark Bonney, who is helping the couple, says the Cherokee Nation's law does not define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

It only requires people to be 18 and mentally capable to marry.


~

Episcopal Church Growing More Comfortable With Gay Bishop 
by Rachel Zoll
The Associated Press


(New York City) A year after the election of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, the church remains intact -- splintered but not split. Most Episcopalians have stuck with their church and a dissident network of conservatives is growing more slowly than its founders hoped.

And yet the fallout and tension continues, particularly overseas, with worldwide Anglican unity in doubt.

"The church has reached a polarizing crossroads," said the Rev. John Sorenson, a moderate in the conservative Diocese of Albany, N.Y.

"Differences that those of us moderates used to think were a normal part of the church have reached a point where the conservative wing of the church is no longer willing to put up with the liberal wing -- and the conservative wing is intent on winning."

Germany proposes further rights for gay couples


BERLIN : Germany is considering extending more rights to gay couples, three years after first recognizing same-sex partnerships, Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said in a weekend newspaper interview.

"Lesbian and gay couples are a social reality in Germany," Zypries told the daily Berliner Zeitung.

"That is why we also want to grant them, to the extent it complies with the constitution and its unique protections of marriage and family, the same rights as married couples."

Zypries, a member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, said that the center-left government planned to expand the 2001 legislation that gave homosexual couples the chance to register their partnerships and receive some of the rights and privileges of marriage.


~

Jerusalem Mayor Against the LGBT Community: “I tried to stop the parade but failed.”



Mayor Uri Lupolianski was interviewed Friday on “Radio Jerusalem” regarding the Jerusalem Pride Parade. He blasted the LGBT community in the city and the Pride Parade. The mayor said that he is working to cancel the WorldPride celebrations planned for next year in Jerusalem.

About this year’s parade: “This is a horrible parade. It is not only ugly; it's also a provocation. It's not appropriate for the city, and it offends the sensibilities of its residents. Even people distant from Jerusalem must grasp that this is a sacred city for the Jewish people, and the world as a whole. This isn't Paris, and it isn't London. I'm not talking about what a person does privately in his home - a parade in public is something else.”

“Jerusalem is the Holy City, not just for religious people, but in its very essence. There is a difference between everyone dancing his own dance as usual, and having a parade, which is an attempt to jump up and stomp on the toes of the general public. If somebody has some sort of deviant trait, it doesn't mean that he has to raise its banner in public."

Lupolianski said that he could not prevent the parade, even though he tried. “If I had the legal means to stop a parade that harms the city and its residents, I would prevent the parade. I tried to do so, but it was made clear to me that I don't have the authority." Lupolianski compared Pride to a parade of Jews with pork in the middle of an Arab neighborhood. “They came just to arouse anger, to fight and bring about disgusting things,” he added.



~

Archbishop's gay comments 'threat to young' - researchers
Researchers are accusing the Anglican Church's new head, Archbishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, of endangering young people for calling for a world without gays.


The head of a Maori sexuality research project at Auckland University, Clive Aspin, said yesterday that struggles in coming to terms with sexuality were a significant factor in a high suicide rate among young men.

Dr Aspin said comments such as those from Archbishop Vercoe, who was quoted as saying homosexuality was not morally right, threatened to have long-term and permanent damage to youngsters grappling with sexuality.

Early research findings from interviews with more than 70 people of all ages showed Maori had always had an open and embracing attitude towards sexual diversity.

Project researcher Leonie Pihama also rejected a claim by Richard Randerson, dean of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell, Auckland, that most Maori would probably find homosexuality culturally very difficult.


~

Lesbian couple wants San Diego country club to treat them as spouses
MICHELLE MORGANTE
Associated Press


SAN DIEGO - Late in the day, when most others have cleared the course of rolling hills and serene lakes, B. Birgit Koebke, golfs alone at her country club. If a group happens to be ahead of her, they no longer allow her to play through.

"I just sit there and wait," she says. "They've made it impossible for me to enjoy the club."

Koebke, a 47-year-old television sales executive, is a longtime member of the Bernardo Heights Country Club. She is also lesbian, and her extended drive to win club golfing privileges for her partner of 12 years, Kendall French, has left few members willing to play with her.

Koebke hopes the California Supreme Court will hear her argument that the state's civil rights laws should require the club to give French, her state-registered domestic partner, the same benefits given to spouses.

Gay/Labor Pioneer Howard Wallace Elected

One of the most influential organized labor bodies in the U. S. has elected gay/labor pioneer Howard Wallace to the position of Vice-President of Community Activities by acclamation. The Council represents over 81,000 members of more than 140 affiliated local unions and constituency groups. Wallace currently represents Pride at Work (PAW) on the Executive Committee of the Council. PAW serves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers and is part of the AFL-CIO. Wallace was a founder and one of its first national co-chairs.

Walter Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer of the Council, called Wallace "a highly effective organizer who has always been there for us and has definitely made history." He will have a voice and vote of all standing committees of the organization. Howard retired from the 90,000-member Health Care Workers Local 250 last year after serving on staff for 14 years. Prior to that, he was on the national staff of the United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO. Wallace promised to "launch joint projects of many progressive segments of San Francisco."

Wallace has been a civil and human rights activist since he was a junior in high school 50 years ago. He launched numerous coalitions of mutual support between the lgbt community and the labor movement beginning in the early '70s. He was a leading organizer of national boycotts of Florida orange juice, Coors Beer and Shell Oil Co.


In 1975 he organized Bay Area Gay Liberation, a large mass action organization. He has received numerous community awards of recognition.

IthacaMarriage.org
The official informational page for the lawsuit of the 25 Same Sex Couples v. City of Ithaca and New York Department of Health

Gay Sergeant: Hutchison’s Office Lied
By Christopher Curtis


A discharged staff sergeant says the official word from the office of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas regarding his recent visit to her is a set of lies.

“Kay Bailey’s office has always been more responsible than that,” said Noel Freeman in disbelief.

Last week, Freeman was part of a delegation of former military men and women who lobbied lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to overturn “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the policy which keeps gays and lesbians from serving openly. Freeman left the military after coming out while attending Texas A&M University in December 2000. “I decided I couldn’t live in fear anymore and so I notified my commander that I was gay.”

Out of the 92 different legislative offices visited, only the office of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, would not let the military delegation inside. Instead, the delegation, which included Retired Brigadier General Virgil Richard, were forced to stand outside.

Those Evil Gay People
by Eleanor Brown


We scare the bejeezus out of heterosexuals. But how does one cope with such fear? As I read through what gay people are responsible for (uhm, the destruction of Greek civilization, to start), I am reminded of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a charming tract mailed to me one sunny day many years ago.

"I am totally appalled and disgusted," read the accompanying note, decrying the gay-positive content of a student handbook I'd been involved with. "As a freelance journalist I will do everything in my power to sensationalize this 'filth' of yours... WORLDWIDE. Let the Christian people know that the Golden Calf is back in Babylon." Then there was a bunch of stuff
about how I'm mindlessly following the evil teachings of the Jews.

The Protocols (a well known fake) are a plan to bring forth the Kingdom of the anti-Christ. The instructions include for Jews to seduce youth, prey upon vice, destroy family life, destroy respect for religion, introduce filth into literature, propagate poisons like alcohol and drugs, and divert the masses with lotteries and other games. Plus destroying financial stability (world bankruptcy and all that).

Sound familiar? In 2004, replace the word "Jew" with the word "gay." The same weapons of hatred and fear are used over and over. And we have yet to eradicate anti-Semitism, which means homophobia has a long way to go, as well. But in a way, we should be thankful for the nutters.

Newark council OKs policies for affordable housing
Officials also agree to anti-discrimination
ordinance
By Linh Tat, STAFF WRITER


NEWARK -- In a spirit of inclusiveness and making people feel that they belong in the community, the City Council has unanimously passed an anti-discrimination ordinance and an affordable-housing program.

The first prohibits discrimination based on an individual's sex or sexual orientation, while the second provides more opportunities for teachers, public safety personnel and others who work in the community to afford living in Newark.

The anti-discrimination ordinance is the product of eight months of collaboration between the city and Not in Newark, a group of parents, students and community leaders that formed after the 2002 slaying of a local transgender teen.

"The fact that you did not just listen with your ears, but you listened with your heart ... you have opened the door to people feeling safe," Pat Skillen, president of the local Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays group, said to council members.


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Mobilizing for Recall in Westminster
California
Posted by: Debra Berube
By Joel Rubin


Parents and teachers unite in a bid to oust two school district trustees. Their campaign is built on more than a single issue, they insist. -------

A group of Westminster mothers and teachers, eager foot soldiers in the grass-roots battle to recall school district trustees Judy Ahrens and Blossie Marquez-Woodcock, clustered around Mary Mangold's kitchen counter.

Pushing aside a plate of homemade frosted cookies, they pored over computerized lists of registered voters, consulted neighborhood maps and talked strategy for getting at least 7,200 voters to sign petitions to put the recall on the November ballot.As the women grabbed their clipboards, Mangold, who lives just a block away from Ahrens, warned that, on these streets, some doors were sure to be shut in their faces. "I've sold Girl Scout cookies in this neighborhood for four years," Lisa Mathews said confidently. "People will open their doors for me."

Tensions are still simmering in the Westminster School District, weeks after resolution of a political ruckus. The turmoil began when Ahrens, Marquez-Woodcock and trustee Helena Rutkowski, citing religious beliefs, took a stand against the gender language in a state antidiscrimination law ‹ a move that threatened to cost the district millions of dollars in state funding.

Trustees eventually adopted antidiscrimination language acceptable to the state, but parents and teachers are still pursuing a recall of Ahrens and Marquez-Woodcock. (Rutkowski, whose term expires in November, is not targeted.)

Team Bush Is On A Crusade

A mighty army of religious warriors is being assembled on the president's behalf.
(The New Republic) This column from The New Republic was written by Michelle Cottle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karl Rove is no idiot. I realize this observation sounds obvious. But it bears repeating -- often -- as Democrats and Washington's chattering class become increasingly excited about conservatives' increasingly public criticism of the Bush administration.

Perhaps more than any other field, politics embraces the kick-a-guy-when-he's-down outlook. Thus, with W. suffering a popularity slump due to his breathtakingly mismanaged Iraq odyssey, it's unsurprising that many on the right have begun to grouse about other Bush moves that they see as ideologically impure.

Sure, the tax cuts were great. But what about the massive deficits run up on W.'s watch? The White House can jaw about the cost of fighting terrorism all it wants, but a budget analysis conducted by, of all folks, the Heritage Foundation indicates that less than half of new spending under Bush has been related to defense or homeland security. Conservatives are less than thrilled about the president's big-government prescription-drug bill -- not to mention his noxious, federally intrusive No Child Left Behind program. And speaking of intrusive, a colorful mix of right-wingers (including the leadership of the Eagle Forum, the American Conservative Union, and the Free Congress Foundation) think the Patriot Act could use some serious tweaking before John Ashcroft starts implanting spy-cams in everyone's underpants.

Australian PM blasts broadcaster for showing lesbian life on children's TV


SYDNEY : Australian Prime Minister John Howard lashed out at the national broadcaster for screening a children's television show depicting a lesbian couple as a reflection of the diversity of family life.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation's popular "Play School" program sparked a storm here last Monday by airing the story of a girl called Brenna going to a fair with her two "mothers".

"This is just a very foolish thing for the ABC to do," Howard told rival broadcaster Channel Nine in an interview screened on Sunday. "This is an example of the ABC running an agenda in a children's program."

Howard, who has been in the United States and Europe since the row began, said in the interview filmed in Britain that if the ABC wanted to debate the issue, it should have done so on its current affairs shows and not Play School.

Not-so-gay Paris clamps down


The government quickly made good on its longstanding threat to block the marriage and punish Mamere.

"I have started a sanctions procedure against the mayor of Begles," Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin told journalists in Paris one hour after the wedding ended.

Mamere, he said, "decided, in contradiction with the rules of the civil code ... to celebrate a marriage between two people of the same sex" despite a warning from Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin this week that the ceremony would be "illegal" and thus invalid.


De Villepin added: "I intend to make sure the law of the republic and the authority of the state are respected."


~

Clerk considering again issuing gay marriage licenses

By: Associated Press

(Bernalillo-AP) -- Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap may start issuing same-sex marriage licenses again this week, disregarding a court order that her attorney says is illegal and invalid.

Dunlap’s attorney, Paul Livingston, says he advised his client there is no valid order in place, and the order that was in place was illegally gotten, improper and inappropriate.

Livingston said the temporary restraining order is no longer in effect because the case has been heard by Judge Louis McDonald, fulfilling a Supreme Court requirement.

He said temporary restraining orders cannot be extended indefinitely; there is a process by which they must expire or be converted into preliminary injunctions, which was not done in this case.

Deputy Attorney General Chris Coppin insists the order remains in effect until the state’s claims are addressed.

MARINE DIES OF WOUNDS JUNE 3 6/5/2004
TWO SOLDIERS KILLED, TWO WOUNDED IN IED ATTACK 6/5/2004

Mich. Mayor Officiates at Mass Gay Wedding
ADRIENNE SCHWISOW
Associated Press


FERNDALE, Mich. - The mayor of this Detroit suburb officiated at the mass wedding of nearly a dozen gay couples outside City Hall on Saturday in a symbolic demonstration of support for legalizing same-sex marriage in Michigan.

Although the ceremony carried no legal weight, the 11 couples who exchanged vows and rings left feeling married.

"I can't stop quivering," said Melvin Rodgers Berta, 41, clutching the ringed hand of his partner of three years, Leroy Berta, 46.

"It's just like the day we met," Leroy Berta said.


~

Bordeaux Union Prompts Discussion of Gay Marriage in France
Weekend Edition - Saturday audio
June 5, 2004

While the debate over gay marriage continues in the United States, a union today between two men near Bordeaux has begun a debate in France as well. Frank Browning reports.


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Sex-change (sic) patient's file put on the net
By Danielle Teutsch
June 6, 2004

Page Tools

A sex-change recipient, whose highly sensitive medical records were published on the internet after a hospital error, was paid $1600 and offered free counselling by the Health Department to stop her taking legal action.

Sally Black's (not her real name) psychiatry case-management file from St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, contained information about her history of self-harm, and the fact she was taking hormonal medication to enable her to live as a female.

Ms Black, 25, spoke to The Sun-Herald because she was still angry about how she was treated by the management of St Vincent's and the NSW Health Department.

"It was the process. They screwed me over," the woman said. "What makes me most angry is that they couldn't say sorry."

WAR ON GAY HATE CRIMES
By Nicola Jolly

CUMBRIA’S gay community will be urged to report any abuse they suffer in a new project to be launched by police next week.

From Tuesday, more than a dozen liaison officers with special training will be the points of contact for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Cumbria police say hate crimes against these groups are “grossly under-reported” and they want to get a truer picture of the situation.


Around 30 to 40 incidents are reported every year but the real figure could be five or six times higher.

Gay marriage advocates may take petitions to voting polls
By JOAN HAINES Chronicle Staff Writer

Voters may find advocates at the polls Tuesday asking them to sign -- or refrain from signing -- petitions to add language to the Montana Constitution defining marriage only as a union between a man and a woman.

Solicitations concerning Constitutional Initiative 96, which would ban same-sex marriage, are legal as long as voters are not prevented from casting their ballots, said Janice Doggett, chief legal counsel for the Montana secretary of state.

However, election officials can restrict where petition gatherers are located "as long as they're fair to everyone," Doggett said Friday

And when voters are approached at the polls, they can always say they're not interested in talking with advocates.


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Visitation-rights case raises same-sex issue
Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic


When David and Brandy Jo Riepe divorced in 2000, they agreed to share custody of their 4-year-old son.

After the divorce the boy lived mostly with his father, spending one night a week and alternate weekends with his mother.

A year later, David remarried. His new wife, Janette Rae Smith Riepe, assumed a significant role in the young child's life, loving him, feeding him and even becoming involved in his classroom.
Then tragedy struck: That fall, David was killed in a traffic accident.

The child went to live with Brandy, his biological mother, who did not allow any contact with the stepmother, Janette.

What followed was an unorthodox legal battle over visitation rights. It bounced through the Coconino County Superior Court and eventually led the Arizona Court of Appeals to look at different ways to define "parenting" for the case.

there is a survey at this site, please take it...

"Marriage Amendment
A group of Maine residents affiliated with Families for America has started a petition drive aimed to direct the Legislature to consider joining a federal constitutional convention. The goal of the convention would be an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage. Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman?"


Same-sex marriage foes target Congress
By PAUL CARRIER, Portland Press Herald Writer


AUGUSTA — Maine opponents of same-sex marriage have joined a national effort to pressure Congress to introduce a constitutional amendment that prohibits the marriages or gives states the power to ban them. The effort involves referendum drives in participating states. The ballot questions, if approved, would require legislatures around the country to decide annually whether to call for a constitutional convention.

The Maine campaign, which is being led by Lewis Hassell of Winterport, is part of an effort to persuade 34 states - a two-thirds majority - to call a constitutional convention unless Congress votes on its own to submit a constitutional ban to the states for ratification.

If 34 states call a constitutional convention in the face of congressional inaction, the convention would have the same power Congress has to draft a constitutional amendment and submit it to the states. Either way, 38 states - a three-fourths majority - would have to ratify any change in the U.S. Constitution before the amendment takes effect.

The Secretary of State's Office has told Maine organizers that they can begin circulating petitions for the proposed referendum.


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Brutal assault was gay-bashing, he says
By Joan Treadway
Staff writer

Paul Willis, a local writer, has a pleasant last memory of early morning Sunday, before darkness lifted. He and another writer, from out of town, had been chatting in a Bourbon Street bar, and he agreed to help the man find his way back to his accommodations, near the French Quarter.

Willis' next memory, from a few hours later, is more gruesome: "I found that I was at Charity Hospital, covered with blood."

Willis, 41, who is well-known in New Orleans as the acting executive director of the Tennessee Williams Festival, was released from the hospital Friday afternoon, the victim of what he and others believe was gay-bashing, a brutal attack that doctors told him probably will leave him blind in his right eye.

Officer Johnette Williams, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Police Department, said that the incident, which occurred about 4:30 a.m. in the 1200 block of Royal Street, is being investigated and has not yet been classified, as a hate crime or anything else.

White urges protestors to do more for gay rights
BY ROBIN EVANS
San Jose Knight Ridder Newspapers


SAN JOSE, Calif. - (KRT) - As the limousine carrying them to a church in San Jose passed some gay protesters, Mel White remembers Jerry Falwell saying: "If they weren't here to give us attention, I'd have to invent them and pay for them myself."

That was in the 1980s, when White was ghost-writing the Moral Majority founder's biography. Like Falwell and other fundamentalist Christians, White, a former pastor raised in that faith, believed homosexuality was a sin. But he no longer believes as he once did. He came out in 1993 and has been countering anti-gay messages ever since.

As White returns to the region this weekend, as speaker and co-grand marshal at Gay Pride events in Santa Cruz, gays and the religious right are once again entwined in a public morality debate. With defense-of-marriage legislation pending in 38 states and President Bush supporting a constitutional ban on gay marriage, White says, those who support full rights for gays need to do more than just vote to keep religious conservatives from gaining political ground.

"Unless we do something, soon, we won't have the right to disagree," he said. "I'm talking about boycotts, strikes, protest. I'm calling for war, but a non-violent war."


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Bishop Olmsted Suspends Priest for Refusing to Remove Name from Gay Document

PHOENIX, June 4, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Following Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's April order that nine priests and one religious brother remove their names from a document by an activist organization for homosexual clergy, all have complied except for Fr. Andre Boulanger. Last week bishop Olmsted suspended Fr. Boulanger from priestly ministry.

The document, No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, stated "Homosexuality is not a sickness, not a choice, and not a sin. We affirm that GLBT persons are distinctive, holy, and precious gifts to all who struggle to become the family of God."

Within two weeks of bishop Olmsted's order, eight of the ten had removed their names; last week, the ninth, but Fr. Boulanger defiantly persisted in his stand.

A suspension means a priest may not celebrate Mass, preach or hear confessions. Olmsted told Fr. Boulanger his suspension stands "until such time as I have assurance from you that you do indeed believe and teach what the Church teaches about the call to holiness for homosexual persons," according to an Arizona Republic article.


~

Homophobia kills, literally
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Though President Bush rarely mentions it -- too many conservatives in Congress are uncomfortable with amending the Constitution to ban same-sex unions -- conservative preachers and right-wing activists can't let go of gay marriage. They're still using its "threat" to traditional families to rally their parishioners, lest they forget to be judgmental and unwittingly slip into love and mercy.

Nowhere are the front lines in the battle against gay marriage tended with more care than in conservative black churches, where ministers regularly denounce homosexuality as an abomination. It is a curious approach they would no doubt characterize as "tough love," as they pray for the gay members of their flocks to be delivered from their affliction.

It's too bad that some of that prayer time is not devoted to fervent supplication that black churchgoers be delivered from the affliction of homophobia. Bigotry fuels the scourge of AIDS in black America, and the plague is making its greatest inroads into the population from which come the worker bees of the black church: black women.

Black women accounted for 72 percent of the new cases of HIV among women from 1999 to 2002; studies have found that a black woman is 23 times more likely to be infected than a white woman.

French government moves to punish mayor for holding "illegal" gay wedding


A shopkeeper and a male nurse exchanged rings and kisses in France's first gay wedding, but the conservative government immediately moved to punish the mayor who presided over what it considered was an "illegal" ceremony.

Noel Mamere, mayor of the suburb of Begles in the southwestern city of Bordeaux and a leading figure in the opposition Greens party, celebrated the wedding of 31-year-old shopworker Bertrand Charpentier and 34-year-old nurse Stephane Chapin in a blaze of publicity at the municipal building where he works.

"I'm proud of this wedding.... I don't consider myself an outlaw," Mamere told the couple, who arrived at the building in a brown Rolls-Royce to applause from gay rights supporters, while dozens of opponents held a small protest nearby and 200 police kept watch.

"Our wedding is a first. I hope many more will follow," he said


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Groups: Gay Marriage Issue Not Congress's
JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press


WASHINGTON - A grouping of Christian, Jewish and Sikh organizations is urging Congress to reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

Twenty-six organizations, ranging from the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church, USA, to the 60,000 represented by the Alliance of Baptists, said in a letter to Congress that it was not government's job to enshrine laws reflecting a specific religious view.

"We believe the federal marriage amendment reflects a fundamental disregard for individual civil rights and ignores differences among our nation's many religious traditions. It should be rejected," they wrote this week.


Spurred by the legalization of gay marriages in Massachusetts, a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage has the strong backing of some of the nation's larger religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church's Conference of Catholic Bishops, the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention and the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals.



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Missouri to host nation's first gay marriage vote since re-emergence of issue
DAVID A. LIEB
Associated Press


JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Ever a bellwether state, Missouri will provide the nation's first ballot-box battle on gay marriage since the contentious issue flared up following the court-ordered allowance of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts.

Missouri is one of at least seven states this year where voters will decide on proposed amendments to state constitutions limiting marriage to one man and one woman. But Missourians will be voting in August, with most of the rest in November.

Consequently, supporters and opponents alike are looking to Missouri - a state that generally mirrors the nation demographically - as a test of whether similar amendments might succeed elsewhere.

Missouri "is going to be a sort of bellwether of how this is going to play out in November" and also could build momentum for an effort to amend a gay marriage ban into the U.S. Constitution, Kristie Rutherford, director of state affairs at the Washington-based Family Research Council, said Friday.


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City Hall turns away gays
BY DEBORAH S. MORRIS
Staff Writer

Dozens of gay couples came to the city clerk's office Friday hoping to receive marriage licenses but were turned away after the clerk's office handed them each a 50-page packet outlining the limits to the rights of same-sex couples.

"He was cordial," said Sando Scherrod, 27, of the East Village, who came with his partner of eight years, Bert Ongkeo, 29. "But after reviewing our ID's, he apologized and said he could not give us an application and instead gave us this. It took, like, a minute."

About 75 couples began gathering on City Hall's steps around 7:30 a.m., an hour before City Clerk Victor Robles' office opened. By 8:50 a.m., dejected but not surprised, pairs began to emerge with the thick packets in hand.

The packet included an advisory opinion from the city Law Department explaining same-sex marriages are not lawful in the state, city rules that govern the application process at the City Clerk's office, a court decision and an informational handout explaining the benefits of the city's domestic-partnership program.


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Log Cabin expands national ad campaign into Texas

The gay political group Log Cabin Republicans will begin airing its 30-second television commercial--which seeks to stop the Federal Marriage Amendment--in San Antonio this weekend during the Texas Republican Party state convention.

"The antifamily constitutional amendment tramples on the principles of freedom and equality that the U.S. Constitution is meant to protect," said Log Cabin Republicans executive director Patrick Guerriero. "Supporting this amendment is a violation of the GOP's conservative principles."

Log Cabin's commercial includes excerpts from statements made by then vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney during his 2000 debate with Sen. Joe Lieberman. Referring to the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, Cheney said, "That matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area." Log Cabin kicked off its ad campaign on March 10. The Cheney commercial has been airing in Washington, D.C., and 11 states.

"Leaders of the Texas GOP should understand that they can be good and loyal Republicans by opposing efforts to write discrimination into the Constitution," said Carla Halbrook, a Log Cabin national board member from Dallas.

Bloomberg Vetoes Gay Benefits  
by Doug Windsor
365Gay.com Newscenter


(New York City) New York mayor Michael Bloomberg Friday vetoed legislation to require all city contractors to provide equal employment benefits to all employees, whether they are married or in domestic partner relationships. 

Bloomberg waited almost the full thirty-day time period he had to reject the legislation.

The measure passed city council last month on a 43-5 vote. It would require contractors that do more than $100,000 of business each year with NYC to offer the equal benefits.

The legislation would have made health coverage available to tens of thousands of additional people in the New York City region and hundreds of thousands across the country.

Call to limit gay presence on TV
Producers say they will comply with Culture Ministry's request


The Culture Ministry will next week ask all television stations to cut down on images portraying homosexual behaviour, a senior ministry official said yesterday.

Dr Kla Somtrakul, deputy permanent secretary for Culture, said some television programmes clearly showed homosexual behaviour and if unchecked some of them could cross the line to obscenity. Kla also dismissed as misquotes recent press accounts reporting him saying that no homosexuals would be hired at the ministry.

Next week, the ministry would send a letter requesting television stations not to air "sexually deviant" homosexual messages but leave the final decision to the stations' own judgement.

Television producers said they would cooperate, although they played down the ministry's concerns.


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Top bishop's vision - a world without gays
By CATHERINE MASTERS

The new head of the Anglican Church has a vision of a world without homosexuality.

Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, 75, is a controversial replacement for Archbishop John Paterson, who has headed New Zealand's largest church for seven years.

Bishop Vercoe is a staunch supporter of the Treaty of Waitangi and has been outspoken over the years on homosexuality, immigration and the place of women in the church.

In his first big interview since his appointment, he told the Weekend Herald he believed that homosexuality was unnatural and not morally right.

The Brazilian resolution and Beyond
Our struggle goes well beyond the Brazilian resolution. With or without the UN, we will give voice again and again until our existence and rights are recognized.

   
An interview with Rosanna Flamer-Caldera and Kursad Kahramanoglu, Co-Secretaries General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

After the text was first introduced in 2003, it is now the second time the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) postpones the debate over the Brazilian resolution… What happened in Geneva this year?

State of Homophobia world wide

Memorial Day push for FMA flops
Senators targeted by religious right hold firm against marriage ban
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.


WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) last week urged his fellow Republican senators to promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as they traveled through their home states during the Memorial Day weekend.Santorum reportedly tried to portray same-sex marriage in Massachusetts as a “national crisis that requires a national response — a constitutional amendment.”

Santorum chairs the Senate Republican Conference, which sets the agenda for Senate Republicans. But newspaper and television news stories over the holiday weekend — and reports from a coalition of civil rights groups — indicates that little or no mention of a constitutional amendment (FMA) surfaced among GOP senators during the three-day holiday weekend.

What surfaced instead were emotional speeches by politicians and leaders of veterans groups paying tribute to U.S. military service members who died in action during World War II and in current U.S. military action in Iraq.


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Pawlenty willing to take gay marriage ban off table
Associated Press


MINNEAPOLIS - Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he would take the divisive issue of a constitutional gay marriage ban off the table in order to reach a special session agreement.

The proposal by Pawlenty - who supports a gay marriage ban - would enable DFLers to adjourn without a vote on the issue if they choose.

The Legislature adjourned its regular session May 16 without reaching agreement on any of its major spending and borrowing bills.

Thursday, Pawlenty said he would propose to Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, that leaders of both parties agree in advance on the issues, such as sex offender bills and a state borrowing bill, they would hear, and in what order. If the Senate did not want to take up any other issues afterward - such as gay marriage - it could adjourn, Pawlenty said.

Gay rights advocates fear losing benefits
Marriage ban could have side effects
By Susan Finch


If the Louisiana Constitution is changed to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, gay rights advocates say, domestic partnership registries and health insurance benefits that some employers extend to same-sex partners could be in jeopardy, too.

They are concerned that the "defense of marriage" amendment, which is awaiting final passage by the Legislature, could have broader, unintended consequences. Lawmakers are divided on the question, and employers -- public and private -- that offer such benefits are watching the matter closely.

Representatives of the city of New Orleans, Lockheed Martin and Tulane University, all of which offer health insurance to same-sex domestic partners, said last week they don't think the proposed amendment will affect their programs.

Shell Oil, meanwhile, isn't sure what impact the amendment would have on its employee health plan, which also covers same-sex domestic partners, spokeswoman Mary Dokianos said.



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Gay marriage divides France
By Alexandra Fouché
BBC News Online


Ever since a mayor in the south-west of France announced he would celebrate the country's first gay marriage in his town hall, a fierce debate has raged in the country over whether it was right.

The plan, condemned by the right-wing government, has opened rifts within political parties, sparked objection from Roman Catholic authorities and caused dissension within the town council in Begles, where the marriage is to be held on

Sociologists, psychologists and politicians have all been chipping in with their opinion as to whether it was appropriate to allow gay people to marry - and whether gay marriage opened the path to parenting rights.

A similarly heated debate occurred five years ago when gays were legally allowed to enter a civil union called the Pacs, which gave more rights to cohabiting couples, regardless of their sex.

A recent poll suggested that 64% of French people supported same-sex weddings.


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‘Faith-based’ AIDS head
Grogan said to be administrator, not policy maker
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has named an attorney in charge of one of President Bush’s faith-based initiative programs as the new executive director of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Joseph Grogan, an official with the Compassion Capital Fund, began work at his new job at the presidential AIDS panel last month, according to members of the panel. The Compassion Capital Fund is an HHS program that helps religious groups apply for federal funds to provide social services to low income people.

The executive director of the panel, known as PACHA, traditionally has served as an administrator, with the co-chairs of the panel acting as policy makers. But one of PACHA’s recent executive directors, Patricia Ware, emerged as a strong advocate for conservative causes, including abstinence-only programs for HIV prevention.

Sources familiar with PACHA said controversy surrounding Ware’s actions prompted the White House to instruct Thompson to transfer her to another job at HHS last year. Thompson replaced her with Josephine Robinson, who has been acting as the panel’s interim executive director.

HHS spokesperson Bill Pierce said Grogan expects to serve in an administrative support capacity at PACHA similar to his work on the HHS faith-based program