God forbid
HOLY SHIT ITS YOU! -Alyssa [Official Best Reaction for Showing of an Amber Benson Picture: http://www.coldarrow.com/plcochet/Chance%205.jpg]
by MellindraX » Sun Sep 07, 2003 7:37 pm
HOLY SHIT ITS YOU! -Alyssa [Official Best Reaction for Showing of an Amber Benson Picture: http://www.coldarrow.com/plcochet/Chance%205.jpg]
by Gatito Grande » Sun Sep 07, 2003 11:15 pm
Quote:
Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003
SURVIVING PARTNER OF SEPTEMBER 11th VICTIM TESTIFIES BEFORE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON BANNING SAME-SEX CIVIL MARRIAGE RIGHTS
Keith Bradkowski Lost His Partner of 11 Years; Was Left Without Basic Protections and Benefits
WASHINGTON — Fighting back tears before a Senate subcommittee this afternoon, Keith Bradkowski, who lost his partner of 11 years, Jeff Collman, in the September 11th attacks, gave testimony at a hearing on the legal viability of the 1996 anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Bradkowski said that without the rights and protections of a civil marriage license, same-sex couples are left vulnerable where most other Americans are not.
"Jeff died without a will, which meant that while I dealt with losing him, I also had huge anxiety about maintaining the home we shared together. Without a marriage license to prove I was Jeff's next of kin, even inheriting basic household possessions became a legal nightmare," said Bradkowski. "The terrorists who attacked this country killed people not because they were gay or straight - but because they were Americans. It is heart wrenching that our own government does not protect its citizens equally, gay and straight, simply because they are Americans."
The General Accounting Office found in a 1997 study that there are more than 1,000 federal rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities that same-sex couples are currently denied as they are not permitted civil marriage licenses. Those rights include protections as fundamental as being able to visit a partner in the hospital and make decisions for them should they be unable to, the ability to inherit property without a will or tax penalties, and access to social security survivor benefits.
The hearing today was called by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution Civil Rights and Property Rights, and was entitled "What is Needed to Defend the Bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act of 1996?"
"It was extremely gratifying to see Sens. Feingold, JFK, Durbin, Leahy, and Schumer speak out at the hearing against the deeply discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment," said HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg. "Sen. Cornyn, who called the hearing, stood alone in his efforts."
HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch also submitted written testimony at the hearing, in which she explained the myriad roles that gay Americans play in this country.
"Gay Americans are whole and complete human beings that serve in Congress, risk their lives by defending the country in the armed forces, and make valuable contributions across every spectrum of the society" said Birch in her testimony. "We are patriotic citizens who are proud of our country, even as some in our nation are not proud of us. Gay Americans are tax payers who have paid and paid for decades for an American infrastructure that does not serve and protect us."
While Sen. Cornyn said that the point of this afternoon's hearing was simply to gather information on whether or not DOMA would be susceptible to court challenges, witnesses for and against same-sex marriage protections spoke about the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which would amend the U.S. Constitution for only the 18th time since the bill of rights, to permanently define marriage in this country as being between on man, and one woman. It would also deny each state the right to decide family law and relationship recognition for itself. If the FMA were to pass, it would be the first time that the constitution has been amended to specifically deny rights and protections to a single group of Americans.
Six witnesses testified in total at the hearing, four of whom support permanently banning gay couples from attaining the rights and protections of civil marriage: Rev. Dr. Ray Alexander Hammond, Pastor, Bethel AME Church; Maggie Gallagher, President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy; Gregory S. Coleman of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP; and Michael P. Farris Chairman & General Counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association and President and Professor of Government of Patrick Henry College. Only two witnesses were allowed to testify against the FMA, including Bradkowski and Dale Carpenter of the University of Minnesota Law School, who maintained that FMA goes against the conservative principle of federalism.
"The FMA would impose a single, nationwide definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It would prohibit state courts or even state legislatures from authorizing same-sex marriages," said Carpenter. "Purporting to protect the states from gay marriage, the FMA tramples federalism."
Out by Ben Varkentine » Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:30 am
Ben
"We are all one. And if we do not know, we will learn it the hard way."
-- Bayard Rustin, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington
by kajo 2000 » Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:14 pm
Quote:
Settlement in lawsuit over teen's suicide
Friday, September 12, 2003
The mother of a high school football player in Minersville, Pa., who committed suicide has settled a lawsuit claiming police were responsible because they threatened to tell his family he was gay. Under the agreement, Madonna Sterling and her attorney will get $100,000 from the borough of Minersville. The settlement, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, sends a clear message to government officials to stay out of the private lives of lesbian and gay teenagers.
"No amount of money can replace what our client lost because of the actions of the police, but in paying this settlement the police department is acknowledging the role it played in Marcus Wayman's death," said David Rudovsky, who represented Sterling as a cooperating attorney for ACLU. "And an important part of Marcus's legacy is the message that his case sends to government officials that they must respect young people's privacy about their sexual orientation."
Wayman was in a parked car with a 17-year-old male friend when police stopped to question the two, found condoms while searching the car, and arrested them for underage drinking. At the Minersville police station, officers lectured the two teens about the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality and threatened to tell Wayman's grandfather that Wayman was gay. After the 18-year-old Wayman was released from police custody, he went home and shot himself in the head. Sterling sued the town and the officers for police misconduct, discrimination, and violation of the right to privacy.
In an earlier ruling in Sterling's case, the third circuit court of appeals in Philadelphia ruled that the police had violated Wayman's constitutional rights when they threatened to tell his family that he was gay. The court rejected an argument that lesbians and gay men are not protected by the right to privacy and ruled instead that "It is difficult to imagine a more private matter than one's sexuality." The police officers had asked the federal appeals court to let them out of the case on the basis that it was not clear that the right to privacy protects lesbians and gay men. The appeals court denied that request and sent the case back to the lower court for a trial, which ultimately resulted in the settlement.
"We hope Marcus's family can take some comfort in knowing his case has already affected the lives of other gay teens," said James Esseks, litigation director of the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "It tells law enforcement officials as well as guidance counselors and teachers that they can't reveal someone's sexual orientation without facing serious financial consequences. We've already used the precedent set in this case to help a boy in Arkansas whose school outed him to his parents, and we won't hesitate to use it again whenever a government official violates a young person's right to keep his or her sexual orientation private."
In the Arkansas case, school officials "outed" 14-year-old Thomas McLaughlin to his parents without his permission, made him read from the Bible, and disciplined him initially for discussing his sexual orientation and then later for discussing that punishment. An ACLU lawsuit relying in part on the ruling in Wayman's case brought about a cash settlement for McLaughlin and important policy changes throughout his school district.
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"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson
by Warduke » Fri Sep 12, 2003 2:05 pm
Quote:
Man in Ca. Dog Mauling to Be Freed
SAN FRANCISCO - The man whose two huge dogs mauled a neighbor to death in their apartment building gets out of prison Friday after serving little more than half his four-year sentence.
Robert Noel, 62, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2001 death of Diane Whipple. He will be on parole for at least three years.
Noel and his wife, Marjorie Knoller, were convicted in 2002. She, too, was sentenced to four years in prison.
The couple's Canary Island dogs attacked Whipple, 33, in their apartment hallway as she fumbled for her keys. The couple were widely reviled after Noel suggested Whipple may have attracted the dogs' attention with her perfume or even steroids.
Noel, who served most of his time in Oregon, was transferred last week to a state prison in Susanville.
Knoller, 48, is at a prison in Chowchilla and is not scheduled for release until next March.
Both were lawyers who specialized in lawsuits on behalf of inmates.
by tyche » Fri Sep 12, 2003 4:14 pm
Quote:
www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=1522
Female First Responders, Gays Push for 9-11 Equity
By Asjylyn Loder
As the nation learns to tell the story of Sept. 11, 2001, two groups--female rescue workers and surviving same-sex partners--are struggling to be included in that narrative.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Over the past two years, since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the nation has learned to tell a story of itself, a story of grief and unity, of challenges met, of heroism, courage and fortitude. It is a story that has bound the nation together, a powerful real-life parable that illustrates an emerging new national identity.
For some, however--female rescue workers and surviving same--sex domestic partners--grief and loss have been compounded by a sense of being
shut out of this story, and out of the benefits, recognition and sympathy accorded to other survivors. As the nation observes a day dedicated to remembrance and survival, these groups struggle to rekindle the fleeting sense of unity and compassion that characterized the days immediately after the attacks, and to remind the nation that they were also there.
"September eleventh was one of those instances that humanized this issue in a very profound way," said Ross Levi, legislative counsel with the Empire State Pride Agenda in a telephone interview from the organization's Albany office. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, same-sex partners whose spouses perished in the attacks were left in legal limbo without the benefit of the legal marriage rights which Levi's organization champions. "Our challenge has been to get that right thinking and apply it in a general context, that our families have the same needs on September 11, 2003, as they did on September 11th, 2001," he said.
Losing Common Ground
When the names of those lost are read at Ground Zero, Jeff Collman's will be among them. Collman, a flight attendant who died aboard American Airlines flight 11, is survived by his same-sex partner, Keith Bradkowski. Last week, Bradkowski testified before a Senate subcommittee hearing on banning same-sex civil marriage rights, wondering what had become of the inclusion that characterized the nation immediately after the attacks.
"Two years ago we were all united against the common threat of terrorism," he testified. "Now, less than two years later, I am sitting here and being told that my relationship was a threat to our country."
"The terrorists who attacked this country killed people not because they were gay or straight--but because they were Americans," said Bradkowski in his testimony. "It is heart wrenching that our own government does not protect its citizens equally, gay and straight, simply because they are Americans."
Bradkowski is on the verge of submitting a petition for compensation to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, according to his attorney, Jennifer Pizer, senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal, the New York-based organization that represents many of the surviving same-sex partners of Sept. 11 victims.
Bradkowski's sentiments mirror the response of many who found in the brief sense of unity after the attacks the sort of acceptance and compassion that now eludes them.
"It's shocking that two years ago that the country was so united, really giving credence to the idea that 'United We Stand,'" said Mark Shields, spokesperson for Human Rights Campaign in a telephone interview from his Washington, D.C. office. "Now it is two years later and we do see some people really lashing out against the gay community."
Immediately after Sept. 11, New York State took several steps to make sure that the estimated 20 surviving same-sex domestic partners of Sept. 11 victims could access benefits. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki, both Republicans, supported extending benefits to same-sex partners, and state legislators from both parties overwhelmingly supported those initiatives.
Without the legal provisions of marriage, surviving partners faced losing homes and businesses that they had shared. Bradkowski testified that just getting a death certificate for Collman was extremely difficult. He was forced to produce proof that their relationship existed. Since few states recognize domestic partners as the next of kin, few partners could claim benefits under the variety of state and federal compensation programs or petition for assistance through special funds set up for the families of those who perished on Sept. 11.
Last March, Peggy Neff was the first same-sex surviving partner to receive money from the federal victim's compensation fund. Neff lost her partner of 18 years, Sheila Hein, in the attack on the Pentagon. Neff was awarded $557,390. It was the first time a same-sex domestic partner had been awarded federal money in such a case, Neff's lawyer, Jennifer Middleton of Lambda Legal, told The Advocate.
In addition to Hein, several other women killed on that day left behind same-sex partners, including Carol Flyzik, Pamela J. Boyce, Catherine Smith, Patricia McAneney, Waleska Martinez and Renee Barrett. There is no precise count of the number of gays or lesbians killed in the attacks, but approximately 20 surviving same-sex partners sought Lambda Legal's help in filing for benefits. It is not known how many surviving same-sex partners have received benefits so far.
Discounted by Terminology
For women who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks as firefighters and police officers, the acknowledgment of their lost brethren has dredged up feelings both of grief and ongoing exclusion. New York's female firefighters--only 0.2 percent of the nearly 11,000 member force--and police officers listened as the media and politicians hailed the bravery of "firemen" and "policemen," feeling as though their own efforts responding to the attacks and their own losses had been discounted.
"It left women out of the national conversation about the role that women played on that day," said Susan Hagen, firefighter and co-author of "Women at Ground Zero." "If this is a day of mourning, and we're recognizing our heroes, then let's recognize all of them," she said in a telephone interview.
The unprecedented levels of national sympathy and support for the Fire Department of New York make it even more difficult to criticize the growing gender gap within the department without appearing to piggyback special interests on a national tragedy.
Currently, only 21 women serve out of the 10,751 firefighters in the New York Fire Department. Of those, several are eligible for retirement. Only one woman has graduated from the Fire Academy since Sept. 11. On Monday, a new class of 300 enters the academy. Of those, four are women.
In honor of the death of officer Moira Smith, the only female New York City police officer killed on Sept. 11, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the police officer's union, considered changing its name the gender-neutral term "Police Benevolent Association." That name has not been changed.
Two other women, Yamel Merino, an emergency medical technician, and Captain Kathy Mazza of the Port Authority Police Academy, were killed responding to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Definitions of Heroism
"We have to learn to include women in these definitions of hero," said Maureen McFadden, spokesperson for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. The New York-based fund produced a short video highlighting the roles of women working at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 and in the immediate aftermath.
The fund also began a "Women Rebuild New York/Women Rebuild America" initiative to ensure that female professionals are represented in the reconstruction of lower Manhattan.
"The spotlight is as much on the rebuilding of this of this site as it was on the destruction," said McFadden in a telephone interview. "This should be a model of inclusion. It should be a model workplace," she said, saying that young women need to see role models in the high-paying, non-traditional jobs for women such as law enforcement, firefighting and construction.
"How long do they have to be on the job before people stop saying women can't do these jobs?" McFadden asked.
Asjylyn Loder is a freelance writer in New York.
For more information:
Women at Ground Zero:
www.womenatgroundzero.com/index.html
Women's eNews--"Partners of Sept. 11 Victims Denied Compensation":
www.womensenews.org/artic...n/aid/789/
Empire State Pride Agenda:
www.espany.org/
by xita » Fri Sep 12, 2003 8:28 pm
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."
-Me & Bobby
McGee
by Warduke » Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:05 pm
by tyche » Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:09 pm
Quote:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3122632.stm
Gay 'family' denied entry to US
A Canadian gay couple has been refused entry into the United States after filling out joint customs forms as a family.
The two men - Joe Varnell and Kevin Bourassa who are legally married under Ontario law - refused to fill out separate forms and cancelled their trip, to a human rights conference in Georgia.
The US Embassy in Ottawa defended the action by US immigration officials at Toronto airport, saying that the 1996 US Defence of Marriage Act defined marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife".
"This is the law of the country, so as a sovereign country, the US can definitely do what it wants," embassy spokeswoman Danielle Lorrain said.
Celebrated couple
"We're disappointed," Kevin Bourassa told Reuters news agency.
"It is not up to the US to define for Canada what constitutes a family and that is what they have attempted to do today."
"We certainly could not enter the US in good conscience as singles, hiding behind forms," Mr Bourassa added.
He said that the couple's lawyer had already been in touch with Canada's Foreign Ministry to raise a complaint to the US ambassador.
"We're looking for the recognition of equal marriage abroad. We will not deny our marital status in order to get into a country," Mr Bourassa said.
The couple were married in a religious ceremony in Toronto in 2001.
But their relationship was legally recognised only last June, after a ruling by a court in Ontario.
Since then, they have become one of Canada's most celebrated gay couples, regularly appearing on television shows.
The Canadian Government is currently considering to extend same-sex unions throughout the country.
by T Maclay » Mon Sep 22, 2003 4:29 pm
by sheila wt » Tue Sep 23, 2003 9:46 am
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"She had tasted Willow on her tongue, and she had worn Willow on her skin. There wasn't a shower in the world that could have washed that away." (Terra Firma, by Tulipp)
by Ben Varkentine » Tue Sep 23, 2003 3:05 pm
Quote:
The politically conservative Montana Family Coalition said on Tuesday it is launching a media campaign against the increase of gay content on television, with the hit show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" being the group's main target.
Julie Millam, director of the coalition, said the group will direct its protest to companies that advertise on the highly rated show, which she called "outrageous."
"To me, that's not a reality show about gay people," Millam told the Billings Gazette. "A really good reality show for gay people would be five gay men dying of AIDS (news - web sites)."
Karl Olson, director of the state's gay rights group, PRIDE, dismissed the coalition's campaign.
"The Montana Family Coalition and other groups are, in some ways, losing the culture war," he told the Gazette. "There is a proliferation of TV shows that have some kind of gay content; celebrities often support gay and lesbian issues; gay teens are making the most astounding progress in schools."
A spokesman for Scout Productions, which produces "Queer Eye," declined the comment, the newspaper reported.
"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," in which five gay stylists transform drab straight men, is Bravo's top-rated show, scoring a record 3.35 million viewers on Sept. 2. The show has also been licensed to several countries, and a book featuring tips from the show's Fab Five is expected by spring of next year.
Millam admitted the campaign is not against "Queer Eye" in particular – which she said she only saw clips of -- but "the whole direction in which TV is going."
"We don't want to see (gay content) on every single TV show," she said. "I'm hearing from people left and right, that every time they turn on the TV it's something to do with gay people. It's not reality."
PRIDE's Olson noted that a similar effort by Baptists to boycott Disney had little effect.
"My guess is when people turn on a entertainment program or go to the theme park, they're not thinking of politics," Olson told the Gazette. "I don't think Julie's anti-gay crusade does anything to our political movement and efforts."
Ben
"We are all one. And if we do not know, we will learn it the hard way."
-- Bayard Rustin, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington
by Warduke » Mon Sep 29, 2003 5:27 pm
Quote:
Episcopal Leader Defends Gay Bishop
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
NEW YORK - With two key meetings ahead that could determine whether the Episcopal Church splits over homosexuality, the denomination's leader defended his support Monday for an openly gay bishop in an interview with The Associated Press.
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said he voted at last month's General Convention to confirm Bishop-elect V. Gene Robinson because Episcopalians in New Hampshire had overwhelmingly chosen him in their local election and had the right to make that choice. Griswold also argued that Scripture does not condemn same-sex relationships, a position conservatives vehemently reject.
Robinson has lived with his male partner for more than 13 years and worked in the Diocese of New Hampshire for about 15 years.
"I wasn't settling the question of sexuality. I was affirming the choice of a diocese," Griswold said, seated in his midtown Manhattan office.
Later, he said that in biblical times there was no understanding that homosexuality was a natural orientation and not a choice.
"Discreet acts of homosexuality" were condemned in the Bible because they were acts of lust instead of the "love, forgiveness, grace" of committed same-sex relationships, he said.
"Homosexuality, as we understand it as an orientation, is not mentioned in the Bible," he said. "I think the confirmation of the bishop of New Hampshire is acknowledging what is already a reality in the life of the church and the larger society of which we are a part."
Griswold made the comments at a critical time for his leadership of the 2.3-million member Episcopal Church.
Next week, the conservative American Anglican Council will gather more than 1,400 lay Episcopalians, bishops and clergy in Dallas to decide whether to break from the denomination over Robinson.
The following week, on Oct. 15-16, Griswold will join fellow leaders of the world Anglican Communion at an emergency meeting in London to prevent their association from fracturing over the gay bishop and other issues related to homosexuality.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion, which represents churches that trace their roots to the Church of England.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion's spiritual leader, summoned the other 37 church primates to London after several overseas bishops threatened to sever ties with the Americans. Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola called electing Robinson "a satanic attack on God's church."
U.S. conservatives have asked Williams to consider authorizing a separate Anglican province in North America. Griswold would not say whether he thought the idea would be approved, but said he believed it would require a vote by the American church's General Convention, not a decision by Williams, to authorize it.
"It would involve our own decision-making processes, our own constitution, so most likely it would require action by the General Convention," he said.
Asked his reaction to demands from some critics that he be sanctioned personally, Griswold shrugged and said "whatever will be, will be." But he also said he would explain to the other Anglican leaders that, unlike many of them, he does not have the authority to intervene in a diocese.
Griswold said he has met with about 20 American bishops in New York and in visits to other dioceses since the national convention last month and was "deeply concerned" for those "troubled" by Robinson's confirmation.
A handful of U.S. dioceses have held special conventions that rejected Robinson's ratification and asked world Anglican leaders to intervene.
Some bishops and parishes have temporarily withheld payments from the national church and a few clergy have quit their parishes or the denomination altogether.
But Griswold also said he saw hopeful signs in his talks with other Episcopalians that the church could remain unified.
"Yes, we are dealing with something that is difficult and problematic and the end is not in sight and the consequences are not fully revealed," he said. "However, on balance there are many faithful Episcopalians, priests and bishops going about the ministry of reconciliation with gusto."
by tyche » Fri Oct 03, 2003 2:01 pm
Quote:
sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...A20787.DTL
One year since transgender teen's death
Gwen Araujo's family still struggling to cope
A year after Gwen Araujo was beaten to death when partygoers discovered she was biologically male, the slaying of the transgender teenager has devastated her family and prompted much soul-searching in her hometown of Newark.
Araujo, 17, was kicked, beaten in the head with a shovel and strangled by a rope at a home in the southern Alameda County city the night of Oct. 3, 2002. For two weeks, as rumors swirled through town, nobody called police to report the slaying of the youth, who was born Edward Araujo but had been living and identifying as a woman.
Araujo's body was later found in a shallow grave in the Sierra foothills. Three men are to go on trial March 15 on charges of murder and a hate-crime enhancement, while a fourth pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and is expected to testify against his friends.
"It's been a year, but still the pain is very intense," Araujo's mother, Sylvia Guerrero, 39, said Thursday. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about the horrific murder of Gwen. Her body may have been taken away, but they haven't taken away her spirit."
Araujo's slaying drew national attention and galvanized the small bedroom community into action, with calls to prevent hate violence against people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.
"It's certainly been a huge wake-up call, not only one year later, a time to mourn our loss for Gwen, but it's an opportune moment to raise awareness and visibility of issues affecting gay Latinos and the transgender community," said Eddie Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination.
The past year has been difficult for Araujo's family and friends, especially Guerrero, who has attended nearly every court hearing and put on a strong face despite hearing grisly details of Araujo's last moments.
Since Araujo died, Guerrero said she has broken up with her boyfriend of more than four years, seen her best friend move back to Mexico and lost her job as a legal assistant at a San Jose law firm because she couldn't concentrate.
Her 13-year-old son, Brandon, who used to earn straight A's in school, "failed almost every class" after Araujo was killed and has moved to Virginia to live with his father, said David Guerrero, 32, Araujo's uncle.
Sylvia Guerrero copes by making silk flower baskets adorned with butterflies, one of Araujo's favorite creatures. She released 17 monarch butterflies at Araujo's memorial service last year. Araujo was cremated, and her ashes are in an urn Guerrero keeps in her home.
"Everyone should hug their children, because tomorrow is not promised to any of us," she said. She quoted a favorite line of Araujo's: "Live as though this is your last day."
On Thursday, Guerrero accepted an award in Araujo's honor from the Horizons Foundation, a lesbian, gay and transgender group in San Francisco, which also announced the establishment of a fund that will award grants to Bay Area school programs that promote understanding of transgender people.
"It's been ups and downs. There are good times and bad times," David Guerrero said. "We're just trying to stay focused and make sure we attend the trial. Hopefully, we'll have closure then."
Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles attorney representing the family, agreed, saying, "It's been a very tough year. It's difficult to think of a tragedy worse than the murder of one's own child."
Dave Smith, Newark's mayor of 25 years, said he was shocked and saddened by Araujo's slaying, which thrust the city of 43,500 into the national spotlight. The killing came as Newark Memorial High School prepared for its performance of "The Laramie Project," a play about gay college student Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and left to die in Laramie, Wyo.
"It was actually scheduled prior to this. All of a sudden, in the middle of it, we became Laramie," Smith said. "That's a jolt to any community."
Smith said the city is working with a grassroots group called "Not in Newark" to take steps that include training city employees to respond to anti- gay harassment.
Prosecutors say Araujo had engaged in sexual acts with at least two of the defendants going back several weeks before the slaying.
Authorities said Michael Magidson, Jason Cazares and Jose Merel, all 23, killed Araujo after learning of her gender at Merel's house. They loaded her body into Magidson's truck before dumping it near a campground in El Dorado County, police said.
Jaron Nabors, 20, later led police to the site. In exchange for his guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter and a promise to testify at the trial, Nabors is expected to receive an 11-year sentence.
"He's expressed great sorrow over the tragedy and, in retrospect, maybe he could have done something to avoid the death," Nabors' attorney, Robert Beles of Oakland, said Thursday.
Jack Noonan, Merel's attorney, said of his client, "He is very remorseful about the whole thing. It's unfortunate. What else can you say?"
Araujo's family will remember her privately Saturday.
At 3 p.m. today, a young oak tree will be planted in her honor at the Children's Memorial Grove at Fairmont Ridge, in the hills above San Leandro. A memorial event will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at Newark Memorial High School student commons, 39375 Cedar Blvd., Newark. Both events are open to the public.
by FireFlyofDust » Fri Oct 03, 2003 6:25 pm
by Gatito Grande » Fri Oct 03, 2003 9:42 pm
Quote:
U.S. groups escalate gay marriage attack
by Patrick Letellier
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
A coalition of conservative political groups intend to make same-sex marriage the hot-button social issue of the 2004 election, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
The Christian Coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Eagle Forum are among more than two-dozen organizations campaigning for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages in the United States. To promote their cause and rally voter registrations, the groups have declared the week beginning Oct. 12 as "Marriage Protection Week."
They will supply literature about same-sex marriage to over 70,000 churches that week, and Christian radio stations are planning a barrage of programming on the issue.
"We want to make sure that homosexual marriage is not legal in this country," Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, told the AP. "This is the very underpinning of civilization. If we remove those foundations, our entire civilization will come crumbling down," she said.
Evan Wolfson is director of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based progressive organization fighting for marriage equality. Wolfson told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that the two-sentence constitutional amendment, called the Federal Marriage Amendment, is designed not only to outlaw gay marriages, but also to prohibit the recognition of any civil rights for same-sex or unmarried heterosexual couples, including civil unions or domestic partnerships.
"Its not a 'marriage amendment,'" Wolfson said. "It is a sweepingly broad attack on families under the guise of being about marriage."
"This is not just anti-gay," he said. "It's anti a vision of the world that allows people to make their own choices about marriage, family, intimacy, love, sex and same-sex equality."
Wolfson views the anti-gay amendment as a dangerous precedent. "The Constitution has never in the history of this country been amended to single out and discriminate against a group of Americans," he said. Constitutional amendments "have always been in the direction of supporting equality and inclusion, not ever to discriminate."
Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay lobbying group, was equally critical of the conservative attack.
"It's time for these groups to stop misleading the American people by maintaining that they are 'protecting' families. What they're really doing is fostering discrimination against the GLBT community," she said in a press release on Thursday. "Gay Americans are tax-paying, hard-working citizens who deserve these basic legal protections," Stachelberg said.
Wolfson believes it is critical for gay people and their allies to talk with nongay people about how discrimination in marriage hurts families, and how second-class citizenship for any American is wrong.
"We need to realize we're in a civil rights struggle, and we're not simply the helpless pawns of the right-wing's latest attack. If we would do these things, we would win this battle," he said.
Out
by Blue Pariah » Fri Oct 03, 2003 10:54 pm
Quote:
Death By Bigotry
Doug Ireland is a New York-based media critic and commentator.
Editor's note: The state of North Carolina executed Eddie Hartman early Friday, October 3rd, after the U.S. Supreme Court and the governor declined to intervene.
Is North Carolina going to execute a man this Friday because he is gay? That's the disturbing question raised by the case of Eddie Hartman, who is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection this Friday, October 3.
Eddie Hartman is a murderer and a gay man. These facts would not be connected had the prosecution not mentioned Hartman’s sexual orientation repeatedly during the penalty phase of his trial for murder. This was a blatant attempt to discourage the jury from considering Hartman’s abusive childhood in sentencing. It worked. Rather than sentencing Hartman to life in prison, the jury chose to ignore mitigating factors and send him to the execution chamber.
At a hearing on an appeal of the death sentence, the district attorney, David Beard, admitted he’d waved the pink flag before the jury in a deliberate appeal to homophobia. He wanted, he said, to minimize Hartman’s history of sexual abuse, which he claimed was “different for homosexuals.” But this appeal was heard by the same district court that had convicted Hartman -- and by confirming the death sentence, the court ignored the taint to justice produced by this bizarre and specious argument.
Hartman’s sexual orientation had nothing at all to do with the crime he committed. Nothing. Hartman was 29 when he was convicted of shooting one of his mother’s ex-boyfriends. Hartman grew up in a home from hell. His mother was a deeply disturbed woman who tried to commit suicide multiple times, slashing her wrists before her child’s eyes. She had six husbands and a series of other boyfriends while Hartman was growing up.
Three of those six husbands beat young Hartman regularly -- once he was beaten in the head with a club, rendering him unconscious and sending him to the hospital. He also was continually subjected to sexual abuse -- repeatedly forced to perform oral sex on an uncle when he was eight years old. Later, he was molested by an older stepbrother. Given this terrifying upbringing, it’s not surprising that Hartman grew up to be a substance abuser and an alcoholic.
At the sentencing hearing, however, the prosecutor gambled -- correctly, as it turns out -- that the jury’s prejudice toward gays would nullify the impact of Hartman’s history of sexual abuse as a mitigating factor. When Hartman’s mother begged for mercy for her son because of the abuse he suffered, the prosecutor asked her, “Is your son not a homosexual?”
Beard later said to Hartman’s aunt, “Well, you knew that Mr. Hartman is a homosexual. You’ve heard that.” Despite the fact that the judge had ruled that raising the issue of Hartman’s homosexuality was highly improper and irrelevant, the prosecutor continued, asking, “Did you know what sexual persuasion [sic] the defendant was?”
The jury voted to execute Hartman, even though a number of facts supported a plea for leniency: the crime was not planned but committed in a drunken stupor on the spur of the moment; after he became a suspect, Hartman cooperated with police and led them to the well-concealed place where he’d buried the body; and at trial Hartman expressed deep remorse for his crime.
Now it’s up to North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, a Democrat, to decide whether or not to commute Hartman’s death sentence to life imprisonment. This will be a test case of whether elected officials will stand up for justice in the current climate of anti-gay backlash following the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down sodomy laws. (It should be noted that the gay-baiting prosecutorial arguments made during Hartman’s trial occurred at the time of a similar backlash generated by the national debate over gays in the military and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” -- a backlash that led then to the spike of violent physical attacks on gays, lesbians and transgender people all over the country.)
That a man could be executed because he is gay should be repugnant in a civilized democracy. Sadly, there have been many similar cases. For example, in Missouri in 2001, Stanley Lingar was executed after the prosecutor used Lingar’s homosexuality to inflame the jury and secure the death sentence. In Oklahoma in December 2002, Jay Wesley Neill was executed after a prosecutor urged the jury to consider the defendant’s sexual orientation, telling them, “You’re deciding life or death for a person that’s a vowed [sic] homosexual.” An appellate court ruled that it was wrong for the prosecution to use those gay-baiting arguments, but found it a “harmless error.” Not, of course, for Neill, who was put to death by the state.
In the Hartman case, the prosecutorial misconduct should be obvious. The district attorney has admitted under oath deliberately employing a gay-baiting strategy and arguments. As a result, Hartman’s death sentence has been poisoned by bigotry. Had the unscientific and obscurantist concoction that the soul-destroying effects of sexual abuse are somehow “different for homosexuals” not been paraded before the jury, there is every reason to believe that Hartman would have been sent to prison for the rest of his days, rather than to the execution chamber. Which seems more than adequate punishment for an inexcusable crime that was, however, committed on impulse.
To heap more doubts on North Carolina’s ability to determine the death penalty fairly, Hartman’s trial defense was clearly below par. No evidence was presented by defense counsel in the trial, and Hartman’s then-lawyer was later suspended from the bar for failure to pay his taxes--which suggests that that Hartman didn’t have a legal eagle defending him.
In urging clemency for Hartman, Amnesty International has joined all the major national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund.
This verdict, achieved as it was by blatant prosecutorial misconduct, has left a shameful stain of bigotry on the North Carolina legal system. Will Governor Easley have the courage to stand up for the honor of his state and erase this stain? By this Friday, we will know the answer.
Published: Oct 01 2003
I take to shade and I play in the shadows
I watch my back and I play it cool
"Blue Pariah" by BRJ
by superherofan » Mon Oct 06, 2003 4:04 pm
by maudmac » Mon Oct 06, 2003 9:44 pm
Quote:
Phelps To Erect Matthew Shepard Monument
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: October 3, 2003 5:57 p.m. ET
(Casper, Wyoming) Anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps has announced intentions to erect a monument to Matthew Shepard the gay college student brutally murdered five years ago near Laramie.
But, the monument will be no memorial. Phelps says the monument would be 5 to 6 feet tall and made of marble or granite. It would bear a bronze plaque bearing the image of Shepard and have an inscription reading "MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."
The monument would be erected in downtown Casper, Shepard's home town.
Phelps has sent details of the monument to the city of Casper city council and there may be nothing the city can do to prevent it.
Phelps said he intends to put up the monument in City Park, already the location of a controversial statue of the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments statue was donated to the city by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles in 1965.
After a court battle over a similar monument in the city of Ogden, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that any city that displays a Ten Commandments monument on public property must also allow monuments espousing the views of other religions or political groups on that same property.
Phelps told Casper council in his letter that if it attempts to prevent him from erecting the homophobic monument he's prepared to go to court.
"That is exactly what I said would happen," said Councilwoman Barb Watters. She said she warned the city when it accepted the Ten Commandments statue that the city risked other monuments advocating anti-Semitism and hatred of other minorities.
''I think the hate language will find a very cold reception in this community,'' councilor Paul Bertoglio said. ''I think this community's backbone is going to come up and say 'We are not going to accept it.'''
The city council is looking at several options, one is fighting Phelps in court, another is moving the Ten Commandments out of the park, and yet another proposal would be to sell the land the park is on.
Phelps says he doesn't care what the city decides. If he is unable to put the statue in City Park he said he will find another location in the city.
During Shepard's funeral members of Phelps' Westoboro Baptist Church demonstrated in front of the chapel.
©365Gay.com® 2003
I have often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat. -- David Berry, The Whales of August
by xita » Mon Oct 06, 2003 10:26 pm
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."
-Me & Bobby
McGee
by Warduke » Mon Oct 06, 2003 10:32 pm
by WebWarlock » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:11 am
-----
Web Warlock
The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!
“Well-behaved women rarely make history.” - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
Professor Harvard University.
by FireFlyofDust » Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:42 am
by tyche » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:13 pm
by justin » Wed Oct 08, 2003 2:08 pm
Quote:
California's new landmark domestic partners law, which provides same-sex couples with many of the rights of married people, is one measure that Schwarzenegger has spoken against.
"If he wants to oppose it, let him try," said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.
Quote:
What rights do you support for same-sex couples?
I am for equal rights for all. I do not support gay marriage. Marriage is unique to a man and woman. That said, I do believe that gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based on their relationship.
Anya in a wimple...I'd pay full admission for that. Gods Served And Abandoned - by Antigone Unbound
You know the worst thing about people in a relationship? The fact that they're in a relationship. - Hilda Spellman
by Warduke » Thu Oct 09, 2003 10:31 pm
Quote:
Roman Catholic church urges HIV sufferers to ditch condoms
LONDON (AFP) - The Vatican is urging HIV sufferers around the globe not to use condoms, claiming contrary to health experts' advice that they do not help protect against the deadly virus, a BBC investigation has revealed.
HIV can pass through tiny holes in condoms, Roman Catholic leaders in four continents told a BBC television programme to be screened in Britain on Sunday.
Their claims, extracts of which have been released to media ahead of broadcast, are made in the BBC's award-winning investigative show Panorama, in an edition entitled "Sex and the Holy City".
The Roman Catholic church fiercely opposes artificial contraception, claiming it promotes promiscuity.
"The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon," one of the Vatican's most senior cardinals, Alfonso Lopez, told the programme.
"The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom," he said.
The show heard from a Catholic nun advising her HIV-infected choir master not to use condoms with his wife because "the virus can pass through".
Meanwhile the Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki, said condoms were helping to spread the virus.
"AIDS ... has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms," he said.
According to Panaroma, the claims about condoms are repeated by Catholics as far apart as Asia and Latin America.
"Statements like this are quite dangerous," a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation told BBC News Online.
"We are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people and currently affects around 42 million.
"There is so much evidence to show that condoms don't let sexually transmitted infections like HIV through. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong," she added.
by Lijdrec » Fri Oct 10, 2003 1:13 am
Quote:
Someday, should he find himself standing at the Pearly Gates with his "God Hates Fags" sign, the Rev. Fred Phelps will knock - but will anyone answer?
Phelps is the guy who keeps haunting Wyoming with hate-filled rants about Matthew Shepard, the young gay man killed there in 1998. He believes homosexuals are "deviants" destined to spend eternity in hell.
So I borrowed an idea from Mitch Albom - whose new book, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," supposes we are greeted by some folks whose lives we've impacted - and wondered: What awaits Phelps in the afterlife?
Who would greet Phelps on the other side, and will his Bible-backed venomous verses fly?
Picture this:
As Phelps waits at the Gates, he begins to hear the distant strains of a disco tune. Soon the gates swing open, and Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" blares.
The clouds part to reveal Divine, the 320-pound, beehived drag queen from those bizarre John Waters films.
Divine bats her giant fake eyelashes, flips back her pink feather boa and says: "Welcome to heaven, big boy."
In death, unlike in life, Phelps is rendered speechless. He is led into a gaudy dressing room. Red velvet curtains drape mirrors. The stench of Aquanet hangs in the air.
Divine turns to a mirror and begins teasing her cotton candy-shaped wig. "Why did you harass those people in Wyoming?" she asks, using the pink press-on nail on her index finger to scrape lipstick from her teeth. "You were as welcome there as a cold sore on prom night, but you just kept going back."
"Read your Bible," Phelps responds. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination."
"Honey, that hairdo is an abomination. Love is love." Divine then drapes a beefy arm around him and leads him to a door. Just before pushing Phelps through and closing the door behind him, she jams a piece of paper into his clenched fist.
The message on the paper reads: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
He tosses the paper aside, and hears the excited cheers of a crowd drawing near. Suddenly, he's on the steps of the Lincoln Monument, surrounded by unfamiliar faces - all of them black.
"I have a dream," a man yells to the crowd, "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."'
The crowd whoops and hollers.
"Read the book of Genesis," Phelps barks. "'But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.' That ain't equal."
The speaker reaches out to grab Phelps' hand, pulls him close and whispers, "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Then he slips a small piece of paper into Phelps' hand. He opens it and reads: "They all are the work of His hands. Job 34:19."
When he looks up again, the crowd is gone. He is on the steps of a great government building. Sirens whir in the distance. Paramedics tumble out of the building pushing two stretchers. One of the victims, clearly dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, raises his bluish-tinted hand and beckons to Phelps.
"See this?" he says, pointing to the blood oozing from his head. "This is hate. Touch it."
Phelps steps back. He recognizes this man, this scene, remembers rejoicing while watching it unfold on television so many years before. It's Harvey Milk, elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors in the 1970s. The first openly gay man elected to any office of substance, Milk was killed by a former co-worker who hated gays.
"You defied God's law," Phelps shouts. "Remember Isaiah 3:9? 'And they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves."'
Milk smiles as he's carried into an ambulance. Written on his blood-stained shirt are the words: "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6."
Phelps blinks and Milk is gone. The ambulances are gone. The government building is gone.
It's now just Phelps, alone, standing on the windswept plains of Wyoming. In the distance is a fence, and near it a young man, who motions him over.
Phelps soon sees that the man's delicate face is caked with dried blood. His clothing is tattered, the socks muddy on his shoeless feet. He doesn't speak, only smiles.
"What you smiling at?" Phelps finally asks.
Matthew Shepard doesn't speak. He walks forward, holds out his arms and embraces Phelps. The reverend pulls away and Matthew is still grinning. His face is young and bright. The blood is gone.
Softly, he speaks: "'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.' That's from the first book of John. 'If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar."'
Matthew winks, and Phelps winces.
This feels like hell.
For him, perhaps it is.
And he still has one more person to meet.
by maudmac » Fri Oct 10, 2003 2:02 am
I don't know how those people can sleep at night or how they can think they are doing God's work. My social worker friend, who knows very well what havoc HIV has wrought, is having a rant-filled stroke and wishes there were a way to charge the Vatican with attempted murder. Can't say I disagree with her. This is such an outrage and beyond mere irresponsibility.Quote:
"Honey, that hairdo is an abomination. Love is love."
Still miss Divine. 
I have often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat. -- David Berry, The Whales of August
by Lamashtu » Fri Oct 10, 2003 7:53 pm
-Mina
Everything is miraculous. It is miraculous that one does not melt in one's bath. -Pablo Picasso
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