Faces Full Frontal

It Gets Better

2012-01-26T13:00:00.000-06:00

What Are You Doing New Years Eve? by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-L...

2012-01-19T23:39:00.000-06:00

OFFICIAL - Somewhere Over the Rainbow 2011 - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole

2012-01-01T01:05:00.000-06:00

OFFICIAL Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole - "What A Wonderful World" Video

2012-01-01T01:01:00.000-06:00

Lea Michele - Auld Lang Syne - New Year's Eve

2012-01-01T00:56:00.000-06:00

Sydney - New Year's Eve fireworks for 2012

2012-01-01T00:53:00.000-06:00

Long running gay St. Louis nightclub closes

2011-06-08T23:15:00.001-06:00

From Stltoday.com: Long-running gay nightclub the Complex, 3511 Chouteau Ave., is closing, confirms owner Howard Meyer.

The nightclub's last day of operation will be June 22, with a special night planned. Also, special events will take place leading up to the closing.

Rumors of the Complex closing have circulated for years, and Meyer has always rebuffed them, but this time it's for real.

"I can't be here because of my health, back surgeries, and when the owner's not here, when the cat's not here, the mice will play. And I'm losing my ass," he says.

He blames the bartenders for giving away 25 percent of his liquor inventory for better tips, something he couldn't manage in his absence.

He decided a month ago to shut down the Complex after 20 years, and says he finally feels relieved.

"I've been miserable," he says.

In later years at the Complex, Meyer has tried becoming more diverse, including the 2009 opening of the Chill lounge downstairs in the same building.

News report: Dancers arrested at Jefferson Memorial

2011-05-29T12:04:00.001-06:00

Keystone Cops: Citizens Arrested for Dancing at Jefferson Memorial

2011-05-29T11:51:00.001-06:00

NYC Beige Party Ends After 15 Year Celebrity Filled Run

2011-05-05T11:32:00.001-06:00

From NYT: DOLLY PARTON and Gloria Gaynor singing an impromptu duet. Britney Spears supposedly skipping out on her check. Jocelyne Wildenstein showing off her nip and tuck.

They were all part of the mix at Beige, the fashion-y, mostly-but-not-all-gay party held Tuesdays at the B Bar on the Bowery. Started in 1994 by Erich Conrad, it may well be downtown’s longest-running party, bringing together celebrities, club kids, handsome young strivers and both the up-and-comers and has-beens. The festivities always last late into the night, out in the garden during warmer months.

But next Tuesday, Beige is coming to an end, at least in its current spot. Mr. Conrad blames the new luxury apartment across the street, whose residents have already flooded the local community board with noise complaints. Below, reminiscences from 16 years of groovy Tuesdays.

PARKER POSEY, actress.

I first went to Beige a year or two after the movie “Party Girl” came out in 1995. I’d already met Erich out dancing at the club Don Hill’s. I remember him talking about the concept of Beige: that it was the color of ’70s Halston, off-kilter strange glamour. But also things that were in-between. Like a stew. It’s not a soup and it’s not a meal. Granola is very beige, whereas cereal is not.

Eartha Kitt was there one night. I leaned in next to her so a photographer could take a picture, and as she reached to grab my face, her long fingernail went up my nose and gave me a nosebleed. I had to ask for a dinner napkin and walked around for an hour afterward telling people I’d been scratched by Catwoman. Eartha never realized she did it.

ANDY COHEN, producer, Bravo TV.

I had my 30th birthday party at Beige 13 years ago. Lady Bunny D.J.’d and Ricki Lake came.

One night about three years ago, I brought NeNe Leakes from “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and Vicki Gunvalson from “Real Housewives of Orange County.” They were astounded by how attractive all the guys were. NeNe and Erich really bonded, sitting there whispering, going super-deep. I brought Natasha Richardson there once when she was doing “Cabaret” on Broadway, and she was like: “Who are these people? Where do they come from?”

DEREK NEEN, doorman from 1994 to 2010.

Jocelyne Wildenstein came almost every week for five or six years. She was gracious and lovely, very shy and sweet. “May I come in?” she’d kind of purr. Then she’d sit in Banquette 42, 43 or 44 with Erich, the coveted spots that faced the garden. Alexander McQueen would come. He was always very low-key and sweet, unlike our good friend Boy George, who was there quite often.

On many nights the line for Beige would snake all the way around the corner to Marion’s restaurant. I’d fast-track the right people up the little steps, always keeping in mind who was a regular through the long, cold winter. We had a code word: Wreck Beach. That’s a famous nude beach in Vancouver where I live now. Erich would tell anyone fabulous to just say to me at the door, “Wreck Beach.” That’s how I knew they were a friend of Erich’s.

BOY GEORGE, performer

When you’re in New York, it’s the first port of call to locate people because you know everyone cool will be there.

Five years ago, I discovered this Brooklyn electro band, Avenue D. I was looking everywhere to find the lead singer, Debbie D. And lo and behold, she was a waitress at Beige.

Another time, I was cornered by Jocelyne Wildenstein trying to kiss me. She’ll deny it, but she was quite forward. I told her, “No tongue!”

It’s that kind of club: it’s so cool it hurts. It was a temple of gorgeous freakdom.

CHRISTIAN GIACOMETTI, maître d’hôtel.

Charo came one night. She asked the D.J., Jon Jon Battles, to play a CD of her music and then she cootchy-cooed around the room performing, lip-syncing. I followed her with a flashlight for a spotlight.

JON JON BATTLES, waiter turned D.J.

One night Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake came in when they were dating, with a table of people. Jocelyne Wildenstein and Joan Collins were also there, at separate tables.

Britney’s table orders a round of drinks, then gets up to leave without paying. I asked Erich, “Is Britney comped?” He said, “No, she has to pay.” So I run down the street and knock on the window of her S.U.V. and say, “You didn’t pay.” She was very aloof, said nothing. “How much is it?” one of her friends asked. I hadn’t brought the check, so I made up a figure, $300. It was in all the papers that the poor waiter got stiffed, but what annoyed me is they didn’t even use my name!

Justin was nice, though. He touched my hand.

MICHAEL MUSTO, night-life columnist, The Village Voice.

Celebrity drop-ins were pretty frequent, and I was always amazed to spot people like Kirstie Alley and Lucy Lawless there, and less shocked when I’d find Calvin Klein, Rupert Everett or a Pet Shop Boy.

But since Beige brimmed with attitude, so many of the cute guys there ended up going home alone. The craziest the crowd got at Beige was putting a little extra mousse in their faux hawks, or popping the collars on their Marc Jacobs shirts.

I likened it to Liz Taylor because you thought it would always be there.

SOPHIA LAMAR, transsexual Beige hostess.

I was at Beige from the beginning. It just worked organically, the right mix of fashion people, straight, gay, rockers, metrosexuals, editors. Patti LaBelle used to come and sit with P. Diddy’s mother. They loved the scene. Beige was a party but also a restaurant, so people who denied that they went to nightclubs could say, “Oh, I’m just having dinner.”

ERICH CONRAD, founder of Beige.

Calling it Beige was my idea. Beige was everyone’s least favorite color during the early ’90s, so it was tongue in cheek. I wanted to have a fun clubhouse, a canteen with a mix of all kinds of people, after the heaviness of AIDS in the ’80s.

Then it became hyper-chic and the supermodels started coming: Linda Evangelista, Amber Valletta, Naomi Campbell. People didn’t want press in the ’90s when they went out, unlike today, so we were a safe place for them because we had a no-cameras policy.

One night I was sitting in a banquette between Dolly Parton and Gloria Gaynor. They started reminiscing about a duet they were supposed to do once long ago and then started to sing it. ...

I feel quite sad, but I hope somehow I can retranslate it somewhere else.

Interviews have been edited and condensed.

New York’s Most Fabulous Gay Party Closes Next Week

2011-05-05T11:25:00.001-06:00

From Gawker.com: "If you were a young, attractive, in-the-know Manhattan homosexual in the past 15 years, you've probably—no, definitely—been to Beige, the popular, swanky Tuesday night Gay-list party. Hate to break it to you, boys, but it's closing.

You will no longer be able to hob nob with celebrities, air kiss fashion people, or pose in your polo shirts pretending like you're too pretty to talk to anyone. The party, which started in 1994, is finally coming to an end after this coming Tuesday.

Promoter Erich Conrad, who has been throwing the party for longer than most of its attendees have been out of the closet, blames the closure on a condo building next door whose tenants have been complaining that the whispers, cackles, and cat calls from the open-air garden at B Bar are far too loud. "

Historic San Francisco gay bar shuts its doors

2011-05-02T14:16:00.002-06:00

From San Francisco Examiner: Historic San Francisco gay bar shuts its doors — at least for now.
Saturday marked the last night of the landmark Eagle Tavern, a SoMa leather bar and institution for the neighborhood’s gay community. San Francisco artist Jim Leff, left, takes one last picture of the place. (Dan Schreiber/The Examiner)Mike Talley said his family back home in Tulsa, Okla., disowned him, and it wasn’t just because he was gay. He was also into leather. “Leather was over the line,” he recalled. “Thirty days later, I was living in San Francisco, and I had found home.”

And like many gay men who sought refuge in The City in the ’80s, he wound up at the Eagle Tavern, a quintessential leather bar that shut its doors — at least for now — on Saturday night, after 30 years as an institution.

Out on the back porch Saturday afternoon, the final-day crowd was in a nostalgic mood. Final pictures and videos were being captured and chalked messages on the walls said things like, “I broke my jaw here in 1993,” and “I left my heart at the Eagle.”

“If we hadn’t seen our friends in a while, they would always end up here on Sundays,” said patron Scott Van Hyde. “You didn’t have to be anything, or wear anything special. Just show up. Just easy.”

Sundays were when the bar held its famous beer bust fundraisers benefiting all kinds of charities, including those for AIDS research.

The disease was the bane of the gay community in the ’80s, which was the heyday of SoMa leather bars that have since — and now perhaps officially — faded into history.

There was a time when many American cities had “Eagle” bars, a sort of label for gay-friendly. A few remain, including one in Dallas, where owner Mark Frazier contemplated buying the San Francisco outpost from its two owners, John Gardiner and Joe Banks.

But negotiations with the building’s landlord faltered after rent was increased by 20 percent, and Frazier backed out. Bar manager Ron Hennis also expressed interest in ownership but declined requests for an interview and said in a Facebook message that he won’t discuss ongoing negotiations.

San Francisco Supervisors Jane Kim, Scott Wiener, and David Campos sent a letter to San Francisco police in mid-April that highlights the cultural importance of the Eagle and calls for the department to “closely scrutinize” any liquor license transfer that changes the business.

Wiener, who along with Campos is openly gay, said he has been to the Eagle many times as a patron.

“It would be a big loss to The City,” Wiener said. “It looked like it was completely dead, but at least the landlord might be negotiating again.”

Patron Richard Olivia said the bar, at its core, represents all that is “San Fransexual.”

“You don’t feel like you’re in the Castro with the clones, or in the Tenderloin with the trannies,” Olivia said. “You can come here, and it’s everyone.”

Disco Recording Artist Loleatta Holloway Dies

2011-03-23T22:48:00.001-06:00

From NYT: Loleatta Holloway, a gospel-charged disco singer whose 1980 hit “Love Sensation” had a long afterlife when fragments of it were used in later hits, died Monday in a suburban Chicago hospital. She was 64 and lived in Chicago.

She died after slipping into a coma after a brief illness, her manager, Ron Richardson, said in a statement.

Ms. Holloway was born in 1946 and grew up singing in gospel groups, including her mother’s Holloway Community Singers choir. From 1967 to 1971 she sang in one of gospel’s most respected groups, the Caravans, led by Albertina Walker. She then turned to secular music, bringing the raspy fervor and airborne whoops of her gospel performances to songs about desire.

Her rhythm-and-blues career began with the single “Rainbow ’71,” produced by her future husband, the guitarist Floyd Smith. Mr. Smith went on to produce her first two albums, “Loleatta” in 1973 and “Cry to Me” in 1975. He died in 1982; Ms. Holloway is survived by four children and nine grandchildren.

Her 1975 remake of the Solomon Burke hit “Cry to Me” reached No. 10 on the R&B chart. But Ms. Holloway’s label, Aware, closed down, and disco was on the rise in 1976 when she signed with the Philadelphia-based Gold Mind label, a subsidiary of Salsoul Records. She recorded with the producer and singer Bunny Sigler, and “Only You,” a duet with him, reached No. 11 on the R&B chart. In 1977 two of her dance tracks, “"Dreamin’ ” and “Hit and Run,” both reached No. 3 on the dance chart, where she would have most of her hits.

In the late 1970s Ms. Holloway began working with the singer Dan Hartman. She can be heard on his 1979 dance-club hit “Relight My Fire,” and he wrote and produced “Love Sensation” for her. Those sessions, Ms. Holloway recalled in a 2009 interview with discomusic.com, required 29 vocal takes over two days of recording. On the second day, she said, she lost her voice, but she put some Vicks VapoRub in her coffee to keep singing. “That’s how I was able to hold that note for so long,” she recalled.

“Love Sensation” reached No. 1 on the dance chart. Four years later her “Crash Goes Love” reached No. 5.

But “Love Sensation” proved durable. Samples of her vocal were used by the Italian dance-music group Black Box for “Ride on Time,” a No. 1 hit in Britain, at first without crediting Ms. Holloway; the video clip showed another woman lip-synching Ms. Holloway’s sampled vocals. She successfully sued Black Box, in a case settled out of court. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, led by Mark Wahlberg, also drew on “Love Sensation” — this time giving Ms. Holloway prominent credit — for “Good Vibrations,” which became a No. 1 pop hit in the United States in 1991.

The song was also sampled on dance tracks by Cappella and Cevin Fisher, and Ms. Holloway remade it herself in 2006, as she continued to perform on the dance-club circuit.

“I never thought of myself as a good singer,” Ms. Holloway said in 2009. “When I was 5 years old I started singing in church and I hated my voice because I sounded like a grown woman, not a child. I was ashamed of it.”

70 year old Pennsylvania gay man stoned to death by Bible quoting "friend"

2011-03-19T00:39:00.002-06:00

From sfgate.com: A 70-year-old man was stoned to death with a rock stuffed in a sock by a younger friend who alleged the victim made unwanted sexual advances, authorities said.

According to the criminal complaint, John Thomas, 28, of Upper Darby, a Philadelphia suburb, told police he killed Murray Seidman of nearby Lansdowne because the Bible refers to stoning homosexuals.

"I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock," Thomas told police, according to the criminal complaint. Thomas was arrested and charged with murder Friday.

According to the complaint, "John Thomas stated that he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned in certain situations. The answer John Thomas received from his prayers was to put an end to the victim's life. John Thomas stated that he struck the victim approximately 10 times in the head. After the final blow, John Thomas made sure the victim was dead."

"He is a deeply religious man. Or so he says," said Lansdowne Police Chief Dan Kortan.

Delaware County Medical Examiner Fredric Hellman ruled that Seidman had been dead for five to 10 days before Thomas started banging on doors in the hallway of Seidman's apartment building on Jan. 12.

Police said Thomas, who is the executor and sole beneficiary of Seidman's will, returned to the apartment and pretended that he had just discovered Seidman's body.

Thomas had no comment as he was led out of the Delaware County Courthouse on Friday. Seidman was a longtime worker in the laundry department at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, where he was "very popular," Kortan said.

"As far as we are concerned, he was a model citizen," Kortan said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/18/state/n094345D97.DTL

Check out music from INAYA DAY

2011-03-11T12:10:00.001-06:00

As Web Flourishes, Gay Groups Watch Enrollments Dwindle

2011-03-11T11:59:00.001-06:00

From NYT: By SCOTT JAMES
The lobby of San Francisco’s stylish Parc 55 Hotel was packed with bears. Not beasts from the forest, but large, hirsute gay men in jeans and hoodies.

The men gathered for the International Bear Rendezvous last month, lounging on red Barcelona chairs and hugging near the elevators. Over the last 17 years, the event has attracted thousands of grizzly men and their admirers from around the world.

But this year’s festivities marked a bittersweet finale — the bear event is now extinct.

“I’m sad,” said Darwin Bebo, an event organizer for the past nine years, noting a lack of volunteers and a decline in registrations — to 550 this year from nearly 1,000 in 2006. “They’re already talking online, so they don’t need a club.”

Mr. Bebo blamed the Internet. As online social networks have surged in popularity with gay men and lesbians, many social groups have been in decline.

The tug of war between the virtual and physical worlds is happening in every strata of society, but in the gay community the shift has been especially poignant and with significant implications. Social groups helped start the gay civil rights movement, and in recent decades they have raised millions of dollars for causes like same-sex marriage and the battle against H.I.V./AIDS.

This has left some wondering, as social groups wane, who or what will pick up the rainbow flag.

The Men’s Associated Exchange, a club of professional gay men, disbanded in 2009 after 21 years and a membership that had once reached about 1,000. A final statement on the group’s Web site read, “As the Internet grew and provided other avenues for socializing, it was time to give in to the new social networking that had become so popular.”

Last month another social group, the Academy of Friends, scaled back its annual Oscar Night fund-raiser, which had once attracted an upscale crowd of 2,500. This year’s event was moved to a smaller venue with 1,500 attendees.

“It has been very challenging for us,” said Jon Finck, an Academy of Friends board member. In the last 31 years the group has raised more than $8.5 million for H.I.V./AIDS charities, but the downsizing of Oscar Night meant less money for those groups. “It has made those payments not as robust as we would like,” Mr. Finck said.

The recession played a role (tickets for the Oscar event start at $250), but Alan Keith, the group’s chairman, said that in recent years the group has also struggled to attract new participants, especially younger ones: The board of directors has dropped to 19 members from 29, with only 2 under 30 years old.

Mr. Keith said many gay and lesbian groups were currently reassessing, asking, “What are the needs of our community?”

The roots of many gay and lesbian social groups date to when homosexuality was a crime and gatherings were illegal.

“Social groups and networks founded the G.L.B.T. community as early as the 1950s,” said Paul Boneberg, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society. “It represented an ability to find each other.”

“Their newsletters were the first gay publications,” Mr. Boneberg added, citing groups like the Daughters of Bilitis, founded in San Francisco in 1955.

New technologies have usurped that role, sometimes serving remarkably narrow niches. The bear community, for example, has Scruff, an iPhone application that instantly locates others nearby, using GPS. There is also the new Web-based start-up Bearbook, which works like Facebook except that a membership fee allows bears to see each other, uh, bare.

“You see a lot of proving grounds disappear with the advent of the Internet,” said Don Romesburg, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Sonoma State University. In addition to social groups, Dr. Romesburg said, gay bars and neighborhoods across the nation have also diminished.

But Dr. Romesburg warned against judging the trend as generational, noting that as a gay man, “people my age — I’m 40 — are opting out of these too.” Additionally, he said, more welcoming attitudes toward gay men and lesbians had reduced the need for cliques.

But struggles involving same-sex marriage, discrimination and AIDS continue. The bears raised more than $600,000 over the years for those causes, and it is unclear what will replace their effort.

Mr. Boneberg said he thought such efforts would continue, just “in a different way.”

“I don’t see the transition as a weakening of the community,” he said.After all, people might be meeting these days in the cloud, but they do eventually come back down to earth.

Scott James is an Emmy-winning television journalist and novelist who lives in San Francisco.
sjames@baycitizen.org

To all homophobes

2011-02-16T18:36:00.000-06:00

Chick-fila is Anti-Gay

2011-01-31T15:21:00.000-06:00

From NYT: ATLANTA — The Chick-fil-A sandwich — a hand-breaded chicken breast and a couple of pickles squished into a steamy, white buttered bun — is a staple of some Southern diets and a must-have for people who collect regional food experiences the way some people collect baseball cards.

S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, built a fast-food empire on the popularity of a simple chicken sandwich.
Enlarge This Image

Customers at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Decatur, Ga., are greeted by a photograph of the company’s founder, S. Truett Cathy.
New Yorkers have sprinted through the airport here to grab one between flights. College students returning home stop for one even before they say hello to their parents.

But never on Sunday, when the chain is closed.

Nicknamed “Jesus chicken” by jaded secular fans and embraced by Evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos. But recently its ethos has run smack into the gay rights movement. A Pennsylvania outlet’s sponsorship of a February marriage seminar by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality lit up gay blogs around the country. Students at some universities have also begun trying to get the chain removed from campuses.

“If you’re eating Chick-fil-A, you’re eating anti-gay,” one headline read. The issue spread into Christian media circles, too.

The outcry moved the company’s president, Dan T. Cathy, to post a video on the company’s Facebook fan page to “communicate from the heart that we serve and value all people and treat everyone with honor, dignity and respect,” said a company spokesman, Don Perry.

Providing sandwiches and brownies for a local seminar is not an endorsement or a political stance, Mr. Cathy says in the video. But he adds that marriage has long been a focus of the chain, which S. Truett Cathy, his deeply religious father, began in 1967.

The donation has some fans cheering and others forcing themselves to balance their food desires against their personal beliefs.

“Does loving Chick-fil-A make you a bad gay?” said Rachel Anderson of Berkeley, Calif. “Oh, golly, human beings have an amazing capacity to justify a lot of things.” Ms. Anderson has been with her partner for 15 years. They married in California during the brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in 2008. They have 7-year-old twins. A visit to her spouse’s family in North Carolina always includes a trip to the chicken chain.

But as she learns more about the company, Ms. Anderson is wavering about where to eat when they travel to Charlotte in April.

“I’m going to have to sit with this a little bit,” she said.

On the other hand, Rhonda Cline, a dental hygienist in Atlanta and a devout Christian, has only gotten more outspoken in her support. She was one of nearly a thousand people who logged onto the Chick-fil-A Facebook page to comment on the issue.

“I applaud a company that in this climate today will step out on a limb the way the Constitution allows them to,” Ms. Cline said in an interview. “This is the United States, so we should be able to practice our business the way we like.”

But religious values are not the main reason Ms. Cline goes to Chick-fil-A.

“I’m in a crunch at lunchtime, and these people are fast and they are smiling and they act like they are really happy you’re there,” she said.

Chick-fil-A runs 1,530 restaurants in 39 states, but it still feels like a hometown restaurant to fans in Georgia, which has 189 outlets. Sales figures for 2010 will most likely be over $3.5 billion, a spokesman said.

S. Truett Cathy, the founder, is an 89-year-old, Harley-riding Southern Baptist who opened a small diner near the Atlanta airport 1946. He closed the business on Sundays because he was a churchgoer who wanted a day to rest and be with his family.

Because the company remains privately held — his two sons run it — it can easily keep its faith-based principles intact. The company’s corporate purpose is, in part, “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.”

With its near-national reach and its transparent conservative Christian underpinnings, Chick-fil-A is a trailblazer of sorts, said Lake Lambert, the author of “Spirituality, Inc.” and dean of the college of liberal arts at Mercer University, where he teaches Christianity.

“They’re going in a direction we haven’t seen in faith-based businesses before, and that is to a much broader marketing of themselves and their products,” he said. “This is possibly the next phase of evangelical Christianity’s muscle flexing.”

The company’s Christian culture and its strict hiring practices, which require potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement, have attracted controversy before, including a 2002 lawsuit brought by a Muslim restaurant owner in Houston who said he was fired because he did not pray to Jesus with other employees at a training session. The suit was settled.

The sandwiches that will feed people who attend a February seminar, called “The Art of Marriage: Getting to the Heart of God’s Design,” in Harrisburg, Pa., are but a tiny donation.

Over the years, the company’s operators, its WinShape Foundation and the Cathy family have given millions of dollars to a variety of causes and programs, including scholarships that require a pledge to follow Christian values, a string of Christian-based foster homes and groups working to defeat same-sex marriage initiatives.

Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute and a fan of the Chick-fil-A southwest salad with spicy dressing, says the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. He simply asked a local, independent operator to provide lunch.

“I like to support businesses that stand up for good in society, and I love their food, so it’s a win-win situation,” he said.

For organizations like Georgia Equality, the state’s largest advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, the free sandwiches offer an opportunity for organizing.

On a petition posted on the Web site change.org, it asks the company to stop supporting groups perceived as anti-gay, including Focus on the Family, an international nonprofit organization that teamed up with Chick-fil-A a few years ago to give away CDs of its Bible-based “Adventures in Odyssey” radio show with every kid’s meal.

As of early Saturday, it had 25,000 signatures.

Among some customers who are not religious, the outcry seems like overkill.

“I’m not a fan of Jesus at all, but I still go to Chick-fil-A maybe once a week,” said Tony Parker, 25, of San Antonio. “Your reason for not going to a fast-food place is bad customer service and poor food quality, not religion.”

But Douglas Quint, a concert bassoonist who operates The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in New York during the summer, said he believed that people should make informed decisions about their food.

“It literally leaves a bad taste because I know the people who are putting this food in my mouth actively loathe me,” he said. “I’m all for freedom of religion, it’s just that I know where I want my money to go and I don’t want my money to go.”

Sarah Beth Thomas, 23, sees both sides of the issue. Ms. Thomas grew up as a Southern Baptist in a small town in north Georgia. Her daily high school lunch was a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit and sweet tea. On Mondays, she would bring in her church bulletin and exchange it for a free sandwich.

Since college, her views have softened but not her dedication to the chain. Now, she says, she is hooked on the chicken, not the religion.

Still, she said she had empathy for people who struggle to choose between their beliefs and a sandwich.

“It’s a hard call, a personal call,” she said. “You have to decide which soul you want to feed.”

Lady Bunny - Ballad of Sarah Palin

2011-01-21T18:17:00.000-06:00

The Best Thing About Me is You

2011-01-11T15:53:00.000-06:00

This is so cool...New Year's Eve in London

2011-01-01T17:12:00.001-06:00

Target Continues to Fund Anti-Gay Politicians

2010-12-24T13:57:00.002-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: This past summer, Target became embroiled in a fierce political controversy when it was revealed that the retail giant was using corporate funds to support anti-gay gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Target gave $150,000 to a Republican political group that ran ads in support of Emmer’s candidacy.

Because Target had earned a reputation of being a progressive leader among its corporate competitors — for instance, the company extends domestic-partner benefits to gay and lesbian employees — the revelation of the company’s political giving came as a surprise and spurred calls for a boycott. In a few short days, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized in a letter to his employees:

While I firmly believe that a business climate conducive to growth is critical to our future, I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry. [...]

Going forward, we will soon begin a strategic review and analysis of our decision-making process for financial contributions in the public policy arena. And later this fall, Target will take a leadership role in bringing together a group of companies and partner organizations for a dialogue focused on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including GLBT issues.

But as new FEC records indicate that, despite Steinhafel’s apology, Target maintained its corporate contributions to right-wing, anti-gay candidates. After Steinhafel’s written apology, Target’s Political Action Committee “recorded $41,200 in federal election activity. Of that total, $31,200 went to anti-gay rights politicians or PACs supporting those candidates.”

One of the biggest recipients of Target’s cash was Republican lawmaker John Kline, who has voted against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, against treated anti-gay violence as a hate crime, and in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Human Rights Campaign has given him a zero rating in terms of support for GLBT issues.”

Target also supported Erik Paulsen, “a consistent opponent of gay marriage. He voted against repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and against workplace anti-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation.”

Target also gave support to a range of other anti-gay candidates, including Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Dave Camp (R-MI), Dave Reichert (D-WA), David Dreier (R-CA), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Sen.-elect Rob Portman (R-OH). The Awl’s Abe Sauer reports, “We asked Target to explain these donations. They chose not to provide any answers.”

While Target’s PAC also gave small amounts to pro-gay politicians, including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), it’s clear that even after the political controversy erupted Target’s behavior did not change

Kiss!

2010-12-22T15:19:00.000-06:00

With Obama’s Signature, ‘Don’t Ask’ Is Repealed

2010-12-22T15:10:00.001-06:00

From NYT: By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON — The military’s longstanding ban on service by gays and lesbians came to a historic and symbolic end on Wednesday, as President Obama signed legislation repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the contentious 17-year old Clinton-era law that sought to allow gays to serve under the terms of an uneasy compromise that required them to keep their sexuality a secret.

“No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie or look over their shoulder,” Mr. Obama said during a signing ceremony in a packed auditorium at the Interior Department here. Quoting the chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, Mr. Obama went on, “Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well.”

The repeal does not immediately put a stop to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Mr. Obama must still certify that changing the law to allow homosexual and bisexual men and women to serve openly in all branches of the military will not harm readiness, as must Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen, before the military can implement the new law. But the secretary and the admiral have backed Mr. Obama, who said ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a topic of his first meeting with the men. He praised Mr. Gates for his courage; Admiral Mullen, who was on stage with the president during the signing ceremony here, received a standing ovation.

While there is still significant resistance within the military to the change in policy, especially within the Marine Corps, at least one proponent — Representative Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts — insisted on Wednesday that this latest effort to integrate the armed services will go more smoothly than did racial or gender integration.

“Reality will very soon make it clear that there is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Frank said. He called the signing the biggest civil rights moment in the nation since the signing of voting rights legislation in the 1960s. “If you can fight for your country, you can do anything,” he said.

In the years since President Bill Clinton first enacted “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, some 17,000 service members have been discharged under the policy. While many gay people in the military are now breathing a sigh of relief, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents soldiers facing charges under the policy, is warning its members that they are “still at risk” because the repeal will not take full effect until 60 days after Mr. Obama, the defense secretary and admiral certify readiness.

“The bottom line is DADT is still in effect and it is not safe to come out,” the organization said.

For Mr. Obama, the ceremony — held at the Interior Department because the White House is tied up with holiday tours — marked yet another in a string of last-minute, bipartisan legislative triumphs, a surprising turnaround in the wake of the self-described “shellacking” his party took at the polls last month. He had already signed a bipartisan tax deal into law, and the Senate appears headed on Wednesday to approve a new nuclear arms pact with Russia, which will give him a significant foreign policy victory as he wraps up the first half of his term. He looked relaxed and upbeat as he soaked up the energy from an enthusiastic crowd.For the gay rights movement, which has been frustrated with the pace of progress under Mr. Obama, Wednesday marked a celebratory turning point. “Thank you, Mr. President,” someone shouted, as Mr. Obama took the stage, prompting a round of other shouts: “Chicago’s in the house, Mr. President! You rock, Mr. President!” Mr. Obama pronounced himself overwhelmed.

The audience for the ceremony included a who’s who of gay activists, among them Frank Kameny, who was fired from a civilian job as an Army astronomer in 1957 — an act that prompted him to found a gay rights advocacy organization in Washington D.C. and to file a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1965 he picketed the White House, in the first ever demonstration there by gays.

Now white-haired at 85, Mr. Kameny also served as an enlisted Army soldier; he signed up in May 1943, he said, three days before he turned 18, and saw “front line combat” in Germany during World War II. He said he was asked if he had “homosexual tendencies” and denied it. “They asked, and I didn’t tell,” he said, “and I resented for 67 years that I had to lie.”

Senate Repeals DADT!

2010-12-20T16:26:00.001-06:00

From NYT: By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Saturday struck down the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, bringing to a close a 17-year struggle over a policy that forced thousands of Americans from the ranks and caused others to keep secret their sexual orientation.

By a vote of 65 to 31, with eight Republicans joining Democrats, the Senate approved and sent to President Obama a repeal of the Clinton-era law, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a policy critics said amounted to government-sanctioned discrimination that treated gay and lesbian troops as second-class citizens.

Mr. Obama hailed the action, which fulfills his pledge to reverse the ban. “As commander in chief, I am also absolutely convinced that making this change will only underscore the professionalism of our troops as the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known,” Mr. Obama said in a statement after the Senate, on a 63-33 vote, beat back Republican efforts to block a final vote on the repeal bill.

The vote marked a historic moment that some equated with the end of racial segregation in the military.

It followed a comprehensive review by the Pentagon that found a low risk to military effectiveness despite greater concerns among some combat units and the Marine Corps. The review also found that Pentagon officials supported Congressional repeal as a better alternative than an court-ordered end.

Supporters of the repeal said it was long past time to end what they saw as an ill-advised practice that cost valuable personnel and forced troops to lie to serve their country.

“We righted a wrong,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut who led the effort to end the ban. “Today we’ve done justice.”

Before voting on the repeal, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants who came to the United States at a young age, completed two years of college or military service and met other requirements including passing a criminal background check.

The 55-41 vote in favor of the citizenship bill was five votes short of the number needed to clear the way for final passage of what is known as the Dream Act. The outcome effectively kills it for this year, and its fate beyond that is uncertain since Republicans who will assume control of the House in January oppose the measure and are unlikely to bring it to a vote.

The Senate then moved on to the military legislation, engaging in an emotional back and forth over the merits of the measure as advocates for repeal watched from galleries crowded with people interested in the fate of both the military and immigration measures. “I don’t care who you love,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said as the debate opened. “If you love this country enough to risk your life for it, you shouldn’t have to hide who you are.”

Mr. Wyden showed up for the Senate vote despite saying earlier that he would be unable to do so because he would be undergoing final tests before his scheduled surgery for prostate cancer on Monday.

The vote came in the final days of the 111th Congress as Democrats sought to force through a final few priorities before they turn over control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans in January and see their clout in the Senate diminished.

It represented a significant victory for the White House, Congressional advocates of lifting the ban and activists who have pushed for years to end the Pentagon policy created in 1993 under the Clinton administration as a compromise effort to end the practice of banning gay men and lesbians entirely from military service. Saying it represented an emotional moment for members of the gay community nationwide, activists who supported repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” exchanged hugs outside the Senate chamber after the vote.

“Today’s vote means gay and lesbian service members posted all around the world can stand taller knowing that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ will soon be coming to an end,” said Aubrey Sarvis, an Army veteran and executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

The executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group that challenged the policy in federal court, thanked Republicans senators for participating in a historic vote. The director, R. Clarke Cooper, who is a member of the Army Reserve, said repeal will "finally end a policy which has burdened our armed services for far too long, depriving our nation of the talent, training and hard won battle experience of thousands of patriotic Americans. "

A federal judge had ruled the policy unconstitutionial in response to the Log Cabin suit, but that decision had been stayed pending appeal.

Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center in California, a research institute at the University of California in Santa Barbara that studies issues surrounding gays and lesbians in the military, said that the vote “ushers in a new era in which the largest employer in the United States treats gays and lesbians like human beings.”

In a statement on the group’s website, Mr. Belkin said: “It has long been clear that there is no evidence that lifting the ban will undermine the military, and no reason to fear the transition to inclusive policy. Research shows that moving quickly is one of the keys to a successful transition. If the President and military leadership quickly certify the end of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ they will ensure an orderly transition with minimal disruption."

Organizations that opposed repeal of the ban assailed the Republican senators who defied their party majority.

The Center for Military Readiness, a group that specializes in social issues in the military and has opposed repeal, said the new legislation “will impose heavy, unnecessary burdens on the backs of military men and women.” It said the Senate majority voted with “needless haste” by not waiting for hearings into a recent Department of Defense study of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Elaine Donnelly, president of the group, said that the Pentagon’s survey indicated that 32 percent of Marines and 21.4 percent of Army combat troops would leave the military sooner than planned if “don’t ask, don’t tell” were repealed.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said senators like Scott Brown, a Republican from Massachusetts, “broke trust with the people” by voting on repeal before the federal budget was resolved and “have put the troops at risk during wartime.”

During the debate, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and his party’s presidential candidate in 2008, led the opposition to the repeal and said the vote was a sad day in history. “I hope that when we pass this legislation that we will understand that we are doing great damage,” Mr. McCain said. “And we could possibly and probably, as the commandant of the Marine Corps said, and as I have been told by literally thousands of members of the military, harm the battle effectiveness vital to the survival of our young men and women in the military.”

He and other opponents of lifting the ban said the change could harm the unit cohesion that is essential to effective military operations, particularly in combat, and deter some Americans from enlisting or pursuing a career in the military. They noted that despite support for repealing the ban from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, other military commanders have warned that changing the practice would prove disruptive.

“This isn’t broke,” Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said about the policy. “It is working very well.”

Other Republicans said that while the policy might need to be changed at some point, Congress should not do so when American troops are fighting overseas.

“In the middle of a military conflict, is not the time to do it,” said Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia.

Only a week ago, the effort to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy seemed to be dead and in danger of fading for at least two years with Republicans about to take control of the House. The provision eliminating the ban was initially included in a broader Pentagon policy bill, and Republican backers of repeal had refused to join in cutting off a filibuster against the underlying bill because of objections over the ability to debate the measure.

In a last-ditch effort, Mr. Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a key Republican opponent of the ban, encouraged Democratic Congressional leaders to instead pursue a vote on simply repealing it. The House passed the measure earlier in the week.

The repeal will not take effect for at least 60 days while some other procedural steps are taken. In addition, the bill requires the defense secretary to determine that policies are in place to carry out the repeal “consistent with military standards for readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention.”

Because of the uncertainty, Mr. Sarvis appealed to Mr. Gates to suspend any investigations into military personnel or discharge proceedings under the policy to be overturned in the coming months.

Mr. Lieberman said the ban undermined the integrity of the military by forcing troops to lie. He said 14,000 members of the armed forces had been forced to leave the ranks under the policy.

“What a waste,” he said.

The fight erupted in the early days of President Bill Clinton’s administration and has been a roiling political issue ever since. Mr. Obama endorsed repeal in his own campaign and advocates saw the current Congress as their best opportunity for ending the ban. Dozens of advocates of ending the ban — including one wounded in combat before being forced from the military — watched from the Senate gallery as the debate took place.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed Republican complaints that Democrats were trying to race through the repeal to satisfy their political supporters.

“I’m not here for partisan reasons,” Mr. Levin said. “I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now.”

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader and a crucial proponent of the repeal, noted that some Republicans had indicated they might try to block Senate approval of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia because of their pique over the Senate action on the ban.

“How’s that’s for statesmanship?” Mr. Reid said.

Joseph Berger contributed reporting from New York.

Straight No Chaser - Silent Night

2010-12-20T16:23:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas Darling

2010-12-20T16:20:00.001-06:00

All I Want for Christmas is You

2010-12-20T16:18:00.001-06:00

Illinois Accepts New Kind of Union

2010-12-09T01:34:00.001-06:00

From STLToday.com: When I was a kid, many families had a regular night to eat out. Ours was Thursday. We rotated among Carroll's, the Revere Room, the Clay-Mor, the National Trail Inn, Northgate and other lost gems of Collinsville's culinary past.

It also was restaurant night for a couple — friends of my parents — who dined on the same circuit. Our conversations were always warm. Childless themselves, the two lavished attention on my sister and me. They acted like any middle-aged married couple of the 1960s, except they weren't married. They couldn't be. They were two single women, living their lives together.

The precise nature of their relationship was beyond my youthful curiosity. Once I was mature enough to grasp the obvious, the questions in my mind did not range to inheritance rights, health insurance coverage or whether one might make medical decisions for the other.

Now, decades later, the Illinois Legislature has decided to confer rights and protections that those nice women at the next table probably would have found hard to imagine.

Not everybody's happy about it, and I find that hard to imagine.

Illinois is about to become the nation's 11th state, plus the District of Columbia, to provide some kind of legal recognition to same-sex couples.

The House passed SB1716 on a 61-52 roll call Nov. 30, and the Senate 32-24 the next day. A little Republican support (six votes) put it over the top in the House. Gov. Pat Quinn has promised to sign the bill into law, effective June 1, 2011.

Essentially, it provides husband-wifelike legal status to couples — homosexual or heterosexual — without religious connotation or the M-word. Hence, we say "civil union," not "marriage."

It feels like a small step. You see, we've already had state-sanctioned civil unions for a long time.

I wanted to become a partner in one almost 20 years ago. When I fell in love with my wife, she had an adorable 5-year-old son. But since he already had a perfectly viable father, Chris was not available for me to formally adopt.

What is adoption if not a civil union? People with no common blood enter a formal agreement that binds them as if they were kin. It guarantees rights of access and decision making. It provides a legal basis for each to share assets with — and take care of — the other.

Oh, the naysayers will quickly suggest that there is a huge difference: There is no sexual component to adoption. But homosexual civil unions aren't about sex either. They do not authorize any bedroom behavior that hasn't already been legal in every state since at least 2003, with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.

Those who want Illinois statutes to reflect their judgment of homosexuality as an abomination didn't lose the battle in 2010. They lost it in 1961, when the Legislature made Illinois the first state to remove laws regulating sexual conduct between consenting adults. (Missouri rescinded its last restrictions in 2006, after the Lawrence case had rendered them meaningless.)

For the sake of political correctness, SB1716 is titled the "Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act." The "religious freedom" part up front just means that if you don't like it, don't bless it. Officially: "Nothing in this Act shall interfere with or regulate the religious practice of any religious body. Any religious body, Indian Nation or Tribe or Native Group is free to choose whether or not to solemnize or officiate a civil union."

Otherwise, the unions work a lot like the, well, that M-word. Unionists (unitees?) have to be at least 18, not closely related and neither married nor civilly united somewhere else. They get a license from the county clerk. They can dissolve the union under the same terms as a divorce.

For the record, these people still will not be related in federal eyes for such things as joint income tax returns or Social Security benefits. That's because of the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed to protect the unions of we straight people.

In that regard, I have discussed the new Illinois law with my wife. We are happy to report that we think our marriage can survive it.

Bareback Studio Treasure Island Fined Over Sex Scenes

2010-12-05T14:27:00.000-06:00

From Xbiz.com: Friday, December 3, 2010
By Lyla Katz
SAN FRANCISCO — Gay bareback studio Treasure Island Media is appealing three citations issued by Cal/OSHA, stemming from an investigation into the company that found it violated workplace safety regulations by allowing performers to have unprotected sex.
Krisann Chasarik, of the California Department of Industrial Relations, told XBIZ the investigation into the company began last November in response to a complaint the agency received about possible safety violations at Treasure Island Media.

Chasarik said the five-month investigation was completed last March and a total of three citations were issued, totaling $21,470 in penalties.

Two serious citations were issued for $9,000 each. One citation said the employer has not developed procedures for:

•Methods of compliance, including engineering controls and work practices;
•Hepatitis B Vaccination, post-exposure evaluation and follow up;
•Communication of hazards to employees; and
•Recordkeeping.
“On Nov. 5, 2009, Treasure Island Media had failed to write or otherwise establish, implement and maintain an effective exposure control plan,” the 23-page investigation report said.

“Employees were exposed to semen and other potentially infectious materials, due to work activities during filming and set cleaning.”

The second serious citation said, “Treasure Island Media does not observe universal precautions during the production of their films. They have not instituted engineering and work practices controls to eliminate or minimize contact with blood and semen, including, but not limited to, the use of barrier protection such as condoms.”

Treasure Island Media's general manager Matt Mason told XBIZ that the company has cooperated with the Cal/OSHA investigation and administrative process.

"We have appealed the citations and participated in the informal conference process and expect to take the matter to a hearing in 2011 with an administrative law judge," Mason said.

Treasure Island Media has recently signed HIV-positive performer James Roscoe and has been promoting scenes with other HIV-positive performers.

Cal/OSHA senior safety engineer Deborah Gold said the agency issued citations to the company because of performers having unprotected sex and other technical issues, not because of scenes involving HIV-positive performers.

"Anybody may be infected, therefore you have to treat everybody's blood and other potential infectious materials [such as semen] as though it can be infectious,” Gold said.

Civil Unions Advance in Illinois

2010-12-02T13:12:00.001-06:00

From NYT: CHICAGO — Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday approved legislation allowing civil unions in this state, and the governor has indicated he will sign it, making Illinois one of only a handful of states to grant to same-sex couples a broad array of legal rights and responsibilities similar to those of marriage.

Advocates of the legislation, who had pressed the matter for years, pointed to the outcome as a sign that acceptance of gay men and lesbians is growing and not only on the coasts.

“Sober, clear-minded, cautious Midwesterners are taking this action,” said Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois, a gay-rights group.

Opponents complained about the timing of the vote (during a fall session before newly elected legislators arrive) and said they feared civil union legislation might ultimately harm the institution of marriage. “This will be the entry to a slippery slope,” Ron Stephens, a Republican state representative, said. “The next thing we’ll see will be consideration of gay marriage.”

Five states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, while New Jersey grants civil unions similar to the measure expected to take effect here in July. Four other states grant domestic partnerships with broad legal rights — bonds that some experts said carry many of the rights provided under Illinois’s new legislation if not the precise ceremonial recognition suggested by civil union.

The Illinois provision will provide couples many legal protections now granted to married couples, including emergency medical decision-making powers and inheritance rights. The legislation allows heterosexual couples to seek civil unions, too.

The result in Illinois comes at a shifting moment in the national battle over gay rights. With huge Republican gains in state capitols following the election last month, opponents of same-sex marriage predict a powerful push-back against recent efforts to legalize such unions. Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said she had renewed hope for constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman in places like Minnesota, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

In Illinois, where Democrats dominate both state legislative chambers (and will next year, even after new lawmakers are seated) the votes were split: 32 to 24 in the State Senate on Wednesday, and 61 to 52 in the House a day earlier.

Supporters of gay rights widely praised Illinois’s decision, but many said the eventual goal remained legalizing same-sex marriage, not a separate civil union system.

Illinois Senate approves civil unions, measure heads to Gov Quinn

2010-12-01T14:05:00.002-06:00

From Chicago Tribune: SPRINGFIELD --- Civil unions for same-sex couples would be allowed in Illinois under historic legislation the state Senate swiftly sent today to Gov. Pat Quinn, who is expected to sign the measure.

The bill would give gay couples the chance to enjoy several of the same rights as married couples, ranging from legal rights on probate matters to visiting a partner in a hospital that won’t allow anyone but relatives into a patient’s room.

The Senate voted 32-24 after the House, viewed as the toughest hurdle, passed the measure on Tuesday. (The Senate roll call can be found here. The House roll call can be found here.)

Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, was one of many referencing Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as she urged colleagues to join her in “bending the moral arc of justice.”
“This is a legacy vote,” Steans said. “It makes a statement about the justice for which we stand.”

Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria, said he sees the issue “through the eyes of a father who has a gay child,” a daughter who “doesn’t have the same rights” as his other children.

But Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, questioned, “Why civil unions now?” when the state reels from high unemployment, home foreclosures, a huge state debt and social services in disarray.

“We are the incompetence laughing stock of government mismanagement and misplaced priorities, and our one-party (Democratic) leadership spends our time on homosexual civil unions,” Lauzen said.

Republican Sen. Dan Rutherford, who was elected state treasurer last month, said he'll vote for civil unions.

"It's the right thing to do," said Rutherford, who will be sworn in come January as a statewide elected official.

Sen. John Jones, R-Mount Vernon, said he has a “lot of good gay friends” that he respects and supports, but civil union “is the wrong path to take,” particularly now when state leaders should be focused on fixing state finances and putting people to work.

“Rome is burning, folks, and we’re sitting back watching it burning,” Jones said.

Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, voted present.

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to sign it after his campaign pledge to support the measure.

Under the proposal, same-sex couples would enjoy several rights married couples currently have, such as making end-of-life decisions, handling probate matters, sharing nursing home rooms or even visiting partners in hospitals that deny visits by anyone but family.

Business groups did not weigh in on the measure. State officials say they expect some increase in health insurance costs.

The House signed off on civil unions after a debate that sometimes got emotional.

"We have a chance here, as leaders have had in previous generations, to correct injustice and to move us down the path toward liberty," said sponsoring Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, one of two openly gay lawmakers, his voice breaking with emotion. "It's a matter of fairness, it's a matter of respect, it's a matter of equality."

Opponents charged that civil unions are a "slippery slope" that will erode traditional family values.

"Are you ready for gay marriage?" asked Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, who raised his voice putting that question to colleagues.

The civil unions success is the latest in a quickly evolving attitude about gay rights in Illinois. Only five years ago, lawmakers passed protections against discrimination in jobs and housing for gays and lesbians. It took decades to pass that measure. Illinois has moved toward more liberal stances on social issues since Democrats took control of state government at the start of 2003.

A Tribune poll conducted in late September showed 57 percent approved of legalizing civil unions while 32 percent disapproved.

Approval came despite vigorous opposition from the Catholic Conference of Illinois, which is headed by Cardinal Francis George, who personally made calls to legislators asking lawmakers to oppose the bill. But proponents waged a strong lobbying effort of their own.

The House approved the civil unions measure last night with one vote to spare in a move that surprised many political observers. Democrats made up the bulk of the 61 "yes" votes, with a handful of Republicans signing on as well.

Posted at 12:23:49 PM in Legislature

Illinois House Passes Historic Gay Civil Unions Bill

2010-12-01T01:40:00.002-06:00

From Chicago Tribune: SPRINGFIELD — — Illinois took a major step Tuesday night toward allowing civil unions for same-sex couples, a sign that gay rights keeps gaining momentum inside a Capitol where it languished for decades.

As onlookers broke out into cheers, the House for the first time ever approved civil unions, with one vote to spare. Supporters expect the Senate to follow suit Wednesday, and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn campaigned this fall on a pledge to sign it into law."We have a chance here, as leaders have had in previous generations, to correct injustice and to move us down the path toward liberty," said sponsoring Rep. Greg Harris, D- Chicago, one of two openly gay lawmakers, his voice breaking with emotion. "It's a matter of fairness, it's a matter of respect, it's a matter of equality."

Opponents charged that civil unions are a "slippery slope" that will erode traditional family values.

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"Are you ready for gay marriage?" asked Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, who raised his voice putting that question to colleagues.

Under the proposal, same-sex couples would enjoy several rights married couples currently have, such as making end-of-life decisions, handling probate matters, sharing nursing home rooms or even visiting partners in hospitals that deny visits by anyone but family.

Business groups did not weigh in on the measure. State officials say they expect some increase in health insurance costs.

"Most of the major businesses in our country now extend domestic partnership benefits to their employees," said Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois. "The state of Illinois already extends domestic partnership benefits to employees. This really is cost-neutral."

If approved, Illinois next summer would join New Jersey in having a civil union law on the books. Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Iowa have same-sex marriage laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The civil unions success is the latest in a quickly evolving attitude about gay rights in Illinois. Only five years ago, lawmakers passed protections against discrimination in jobs and housing for gays and lesbians. It took decades to pass that measure. Illinois has moved toward more liberal stances on social issues since Democrats took control of state government at the start of 2003.

A Tribune poll conducted in late September showed 57 percent approved of legalizing civil unions while 32 percent disapproved.

Approval came despite vigorous opposition from the Catholic Conference of Illinois, which is headed by Cardinal Francis George, who personally made calls to legislators asking lawmakers to oppose the bill. But proponents waged a strong lobbying effort of their own.

Quinn, who is Catholic, took the extra step of standing on the House floor to watch the breakthrough vote. He called passage a "great step forward."

"It's important that we respect the diversity that we have in our state and be a tolerant state of Illinois," Quinn said.

During the debate, Rep. Deborah Mell, D-Chicago, tearfully implored legislators to vote for the bill as her longtime partner, Christin Baker, sat near on the House floor. They plan to get married in Iowa next fall.

"I love my state and am proud to live here. But my state does not treat me equally. It will take my money, take my taxes, I can even make laws for people," said Mell, the daughter of Chicago Ald. Richard Mell and sister-in-law of ex- Gov. Rod Blagojevich. "If God forbid something happens to Christin, and she cannot make a decision, by law the doctor cannot ask me anything. I am not able to speak for her wishes. Under the law the doctor has to go to her family and I'm not considered family."

Though unusually quiet during debate, the House chamber echoed at times with vocal dissent.

Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Troy, said he wants to avoid having to "someday explain to my children and grandchildren that no longer in America are we going to give the honor to a man and a woman in marriage."

"I believe that if this should ever pass, the next bill will be legalizing marriage between members of the same sex. And I just think that's wrong. You might think I'm wrong in thinking that … just call me an old-fashioned traditionalist."

Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, offered a different view, saying she had been too sick to travel to Springfield for earlier legislative action, but she got in her car and drove to Springfield on Tuesday when she learned from supporters she might be the 60th vote needed to pass the measure.

"The fact of the matter is there are gay people, and you're not going to abolish the fact that they are gay by not letting them have these rights," said Mulligan, who added that she wanted to demonstrate that not all Republicans are strict conservatives when it comes to social issues. Still, the overwhelming number of the 61 lawmakers who voted for civil unions were Democrats.

Robert F. Gilligan, the Catholic Conference's executive director, said he is disappointed that civil unions passed, but now is focused on lobbying senators to vote it down Wednesday. Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, is an avid supporter of the bill, and supporters have considered the House a tougher obstacle

Gilligan said he was particularly dismayed that the bill passed during a lame-duck session. The measure got a boost from as many as a dozen lawmakers who will not return because they are retiring or were defeated in the Nov. 2 election.

Camilla Taylor, a lawyer with Lambda Legal in Chicago, a group that helped draft the legislation, said businesses in Illinois that provide spousal benefits will have to treat same-sex couples who have entered into a civil union the same as heterosexual couples.

"The civil unions bill makes especially clear that businesses aren't acting in good faith if they continue to treat same-sex couples differently with regard to spousal benefits," Taylor said.

She said that in other states where civil unions bills have passed, Lambda Legal has won cases in which businesses have refused to provide spousal benefits to partners in a civil union.

Modesto Valle, executive director of the Center on Halsted, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center in Lakeview, said that if civil unions become law, he expects people will take advantage of it in a measured fashion.

"I don't believe that all of a sudden people will be running out the door to be recognized in their union," he said. "People are going to take this very seriously, just like marriage. Once marriage gets passed in this country, it's not like all gay and lesbian people are going to run out and get married. It's something to be taken very seriously."

rlong@tribune.com

Gates Urges Congress to Repeal Gay Ban Now

2010-11-07T12:47:00.000-06:00

Gates Urges Congress to Repeal Gay Ban Now

An Important Message from Ellen on Bullying

2010-10-01T12:57:00.001-06:00

Michigan Assistant AG Banned from college campus - Student Obtains Protection Order

2010-10-01T12:38:00.002-06:00

From Detroit Free Press freep.com: Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has been banned from the University of Michigan campus, and the student leader he’s been attacking via a blog has filed a personal protection order against him.Meanwhile, the U-M administration issued a statement today supporting Chris Armstrong, the president of the Michigan Student Assembly and target of Shirvell’s blog, saying U-M “does not tolerate bigotry of any type.”
Shirvell was issued the trespass warning Sept. 14, said Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the U-M Police.
“He can’t come onto any campus property,” Brown said.Brown, asked why the trespass order was issued, said U-M police had received a complaint "about him being a possible suspect in harassing or stalking behavior."
Shirvell is appealing the order.
Shirvell has gained national scrutiny because of a blog, called Chris Armstrong Watch, in which he attacks Armstrong, the first openly gay president of the MSA. On the blog, he accuses Armstrong of promoting a radical homosexual agenda and calls him a racist. The blog is now private and open only to invited members.
Armstrong fired back in the personal protection order filed two weeks ago. The order, posted on www.annarbor.com today, says since being elected to the student leadership post in the spring, Shirvell has attacked him verbally at campus events, called the office where Armstrong was doing a summer internship in D.C. and complained about him, followed Armstrong’s friends to events hoping to find Armstrong, and protested and took pictures outside Armstrong’s home. One of his friends felt threatened by a conversation with Shirvell after.
On more than one occasion, police were called when Shirvell protested at Armstrong’s home.
In the filing, Armstrong says Shirvell’s actions “have been incredibly distressing,” and “make me feel unsure about my own safety.” He said he came to U-M knowing it was a safe and encouraging place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
“His actions have not only threatened that, but have been an outright attack on my ability to live my life openly and be honest about who I am,” Armstrong wrote.
Many have called on Attorney General Mike Cox to fire Shirvell. In mid-September, he issued a statement in which he said that while all state employees have a right to free speech outside working hours “Mr. Shirvell’s immaturity and lack of judgment outside the office are clear.”
Shirvell helped manage Cox's 2006 re-election campaign.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm entered the debate via her official Twitter account this afternoon. She said, “If I was still Attorney General and Andrew Shirvell worked for me, he would have already been fired.”
In a series of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has set limits on the First Amendment rights of government employees.
“When a citizen enters government service, the citizen by necessity must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court in 2006. “Government employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services.”
In that case, the high court ruled, 5-4, that a Los Angeles deputy district attorney was legally disciplined for statements he had made as part of his “official duties.”
Public servants generally get more leeway for comments they make as private citizens, which is what Shirvell has insisted he has been doing in his attacks on Armstrong.
But even that protection is not absolute, the Supreme Court has said. Government workers have greater rights when they comment on “a matter of public concern,” or when their comments do not affect their employers’ operations.
Brown, the U-M police spokeswoman, wouldn’t comment on how or where Shirvell was issued the trespass warning. While banning someone from campus isn’t an uncommon occurrence, the situation surrounding Shirvell, who is a U-M alum, is unique.
“This is indeed an unusual situation,” Brown said.
U-M police have been meeting with members of the MSA, addressing any concerns they have about their own personal safety. Police also have attended recent meetings of the MSA, which has full-assembly meetings weekly.
“We have been to some events that have been held just to be sure everything’s OK,” Brown said.

Michigan AG Mike Cox Refuses To Discipline Deputy For Anti-Gay Hate Speech

2010-09-30T12:50:00.000-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: For nearly six months, Michigan’s assistant attorney general Andrew Shivrell has been engaging in a bizarre internet campaign against Chris Armstrong, an openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan. Shrivrell has attacked Armstrong’s “radical homosexual agenda” and has published posts on his blog “Chris Armstrong Watch” with photoshopped pictures of Armstrong with rainbow flags and swastikas. This week on CNN, Shivrell maintained the legitimacy of his campaign against Armstrong, saying, “I don’t have any hate in my body at all.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper last night asked Shivrell’s boss, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, if Shivrell should be reprimanded in any way for his actions. “We have this thing called the First Amendment, which allows people to express what they think,” Cox said defending Shivrell.

Cooper noted that Cox has even “made Internet safety one of the main initiatives” of his department and has “done public service announcements” on cyber-bullying. Cox conceded that Shivell is bullying Armstrong but added that his actions are protected by the First Amendment. When Cooper said that CNN legal analyst Jeffry Toobin had suggested that Cox’s reluctance to discipline Shivell was because he’s a political ally, Cox attacked Toobin:

COX: Well, you know, Mr. Toobin reminds me of the old joke, “I’m not a lawyer, but I play one on TV,” because he clearly didn’t read any of the Supreme Court case that I cited for you.

COOPER: He’s a former federal prosecutor, but you’re saying politics has nothing to do with this?

COX: But that — you know, that doesn’t mean anything, Anderson. He’s not in the ring every day practicing law. He’s spending time on CNN. And it’s a pretty good gig. I wish I had it.

“I’m sorry he’s not a fan,” Toobin said later on the program, adding that “the direction the [Supreme] Court is moving is towards less and less free speech protection for stuff that is a heck of a lot less offensive than the stuff” coming from Shivrell. Noting that Shivrell had actually picketed outside Armstrong’s house, legal scholar Jonathan Turley said, “That comes very, very close to stalking. There could be civil liability here. And I think that that moves this away from free speech into conduct. And that does — that is a legitimate basis for discipline.

Student’s suicide after being filmed having gay sex a ‘hate crime’: group

2010-09-29T23:12:00.001-06:00

From RawStory.com:A New Jersey college student jumped to his death off a bridge a day after authorities say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.
Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge last week, said his family's attorney, Paul Mainardi. Police recovered a man's body Wednesday afternoon in the Hudson River just north of the bridge, and authorities were trying to determine if it was Clementi's.
Two Rutgers freshmen have been charged with illegally taping the 18-year-old Clementi having sex and broadcasting the images via an Internet chat program.
Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said in a statement Wednesday that his group considers Clementi's death a hate crime.
"We are heartbroken over the tragic loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind," Goldstein said. "And we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others' lives as a sport."
One of the defendants, Dharun Ravi, was Clementi's roommate, Mainardi told The Star-Ledger of Newark. The other defendant is Molly Wei. They could face up to five years in prison if they're convicted.
A lawyer for Ravi, of Plainsboro, did not immediately return a message. It was not clear whether Wei, of Princeton, had retained a lawyer.
A Twitter account belonging to a Dharun was recently deleted, but in a cached version retained through Google he sent a message on Sept. 19: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
Two days later, he wrote on Twitter: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."
Clementi's driver's license and Rutgers ID were found in a wallet left on the bridge on Sept. 22 after two witnesses saw someone jump from it, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Clementi's body hadn't been positively identified.
Mainardi issued a statement Wednesday confirming Clementi's suicide.
"Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician," Mainardi said. "The family is heartbroken beyond words."
Ed Schmiedecke, the recently retired music director at Ridgewood High School, where Clementi graduated earlier this year, said Clementi was a violinist whose life revolved around music.
"He was a terrific musician, and a very promising, hardworking young man."
NYPD harbor officers recovered the body of a white man, clad only in pants, wearing a watch and without identification after a New York City Parks Department employee spotted a body floating in the river, police said. The body was taken to the city medical examiner's office; authorities hoped to use the watch as identification.

Read more: http://www.myspace.com/facesonfourthstreet/blog?bID=539544258#ixzz10zEjGTSB

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Stalks Gay College Student: Is this guy insane?

2010-09-29T14:29:00.003-06:00

From RawStory.com: ""I have done NOTHING immoral OR illegal. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Armstrong and his fellow radical homosexual activists and "allies." As Isaiah rightly prophesied: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness . . ." (5:20).

So says a blog post by Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell, who's on a rampage against college student Chris Armstrong, an openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

On Anderson Cooper 360 last night, Shirvell defended his longwinded jeremiads against Armstrong, which go above and beyond simply calling him a radical activist. Among other things, the network notes that he's published "blog posts that accuse Armstrong of going back on a campaign promise he made to minority students; engaging in 'flagrant sexual promiscuity' with another male member of the student government; sexually seducing and influencing "a previously conservative [male] student" so much so that the student, according to Shirvell, 'morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda'; hosting a gay orgy in his dorm room in October 2009; and trying to recruit incoming first-year students "to join the homosexual 'lifestyle.'"

He also "acknowledged protesting outside of Armstrong's house and calling him 'Satan's representative on the student assembly.'"

Shirvell has made the statements on his blog, "Chris Armstrong Watch," using the moniker "Concerned Michigan Alumnus." His anti-Armstrong crusade has gone on for six months.
In his inaugural blog post in April, he wrote, "This is a site for concerned University of Michigan alumni, students, and others who oppose the recent election of Chris Armstrong -- a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST, RACIST, ELITIST, & LIAR -- as the new head of student government."

Shirvell also maintains Armstrong is engaged in rabid "homosexual recruitment."

In one of many very long posts on his blog titled "BOMBSHELL: Ann Arbor Police Raid Chris Armstrong's Out-of-Control 'Gay Rush' Welcome Week Party," Shirvell writes that "the aim of this 'party' was to liquor-up underage freshmen and promote homosexual activity in an effort to recruit them to the homosexual lifestyle."

He continues later, "But even more disgusting than Armstrong's recklessness in hosting this weekend's out-of-control homosexual recruitment "party" at his residence is the fact that Armstrong had the IMPUDENCE to send an e-mail, along with University of Michigan administrators, to the student body lecturing his constituents when it comes to hosting parties on U of M football Saturdays!"

The post also contained a cache of "exclusive" photographs of the police "raid."

Armstrong says he's pursuing legal action against Shirvell but wouldn't tell CNN specifically what action that was.

In a statement, Michigan's State Attorney General Mike Cox said, "Mr. Shirvell's personal opinions are his and his alone and do not reflect the views of the Michigan Department of Attorney General. But his immaturity and lack of judgment outside the office are clear."

Shirvell made no apologies for his blog postings during his CNN interview, "which [also] include a picture of Armstrong with "Resign" written over his face. The same picture also had a swastika superimposed over a gay pride flag, with an arrow pointing toward Armstrong.

Video of Shirvell's appearance Tuesday night on AC 360 follows.

Only 33% Agree that Gay Couples Are Family

2010-09-27T22:30:00.002-06:00

From Time.com:
What makes a family? Do pets count? Same sex couples? Unmarried heterosexual couples? Anybody who lives together? According to a new book out Sept. 15, more Americans think pets count as family members (51%) than same-sex couples (33%). And 38% believe that neither pets nor same sex-couples should be counted as family.The book Counted Out: Same Sex Relations and America's Definitions of Family (Russell Sage Foundation) draws on two surveys done in 2003 and 2006. Brian Powell, the book's lead author, also released results from a 2010 survey in conjunction with the book's publication. The surveys are cross-sectional: about 800 people from all walks of life were interviewed about what they considered a family, using different people each time.

The results suggest that while acceptance of same-sex couples is growing, more people are still opposed to gay marriage (52%) than are in favor of it (48%). Despite this, when asked if legally married same-sex couples count as family, 59% of people say yes. Since he started doing the surveys, Powell, who's a professor of Sociology at Indiana University, has seen an 11% drop in the number of Americans who take a narrow or "traditional" view of family (married couples with children only), a statistic he calls "remarkable for both the size and the rate of change."

The pet figure, which seems the most remarkable of all, did not change much between 2006 and 2010. There are still about 30% of people who believe pets count as family but gay couples do not. This may be influenced by the way the question was phrased, however. It asked "whether pets should be counted as family members," which might have made people think of their own situation rather than offering an objective assessment of a family unit. (Then again, there was that university that offered employees pet health insurance before it offered domestic partners insurance.)

The presence of children also makes a huge difference to the way people see families. More than half of those surveyed felt that a same sex couple with children were a family, while only about a quarter felt that same sex couples without children were. And just a third felt that an unmarried heterosexual couple who lived together but had no kids should be considered a family. Almost 10% of people, who may have been watching too many Friends reruns, think housemates are family.

"What counts as family has real meaning," says Powell. "It affects people who are hospitalized, estate rights and adoption law. Where people are in their views on family correlates with what happens in policy."

The survey tracked other interesting changes too. People's beliefs about the source of obesity have moved in the opposite direction from their belief about the source of homosexuality. Fewer people than in 2003 now believe that a person's sexuality is caused primarily by their parenting rather than their genetic makeup. But more people than in 2003 believe that a person's weight problems are caused by their parenting rather than their genes. Will we need an overweight-rights movement?

And while most of the demographic makeup of the groups who hold each view is predictable, men are still more likely to believe that sexual orientation is most influenced by a child's upbringing than women are. Powell's explanation? "Women are more aware of the limitations of parenting."

Wisdom from grown-up gays and lesbians to bullied kids

2010-09-27T22:25:00.003-06:00

From Time.com:
"Bullycide" is a colloquialism referring to suicide that results from intense bullying — think Megan Meier and Phoebe Price and Jaheem Herera, 11, a Georgia boy who hanged himself in 2009 after being tormented by classmates for being "gay and a snitch."
The link between bullying and suicide in teens has been on the forefront of media coverage for several years now, and it is children like Jaheem — who are gay or are perceived to be gay — that are most at risk. According to a study from Penn State University, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and "queer" youth (a catch-all term for gender and sexually non-normative people) are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. Of all American teens who die by their own hand, 30% are LGBTQ.

Almost 85% of LGBTQ teenagers are harassed in high school because of their sexual orientation, with 61% of gay youth reporting that they felt unsafe in school and 30% staying home to avoid bullying, according to a 2009 survey by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

The American Association of Suicidology (AAS) suggests that the overall figures on teen suicide rates are likely underestimated, since many premeditated deaths involving car crashes or drugs end up being ruled as accidental. Self-identifying as gay — which is not a scientific fact or medical diagnosis — further complicates data collection. At age 11, for instance, many kids have no idea what their sexual orientation is yet.

In September, in separate incidents, two 15-year-old boys, Indiana native Billy Lucas and Minnesota resident Justin Aaberg, hanged themselves following LGBTQ-specific abuse at the hands of classmates. Justin was openly gay, but Billy's sexuality was unknown — possibly even to him. The two did not know each other.

In the wake of the boys' deaths, many gay rights activists have questioned why sexual orientation–targeted bullying isn't getting more national attention. The gay-rights blog Queerty notes that Aaberg's school district specifically discourages distinguishing LGBTQ bullying (note: the previous link contains harsh language) from other kinds of bullying.

Dan Savage, a gay-rights activist and sex columnist for the Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger, decided to fill the void left by indolent school districts. In his Sept. 23 column, he wrote:

I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay — or from ever coming out — by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

Savage launched the "It Gets Better" project on YouTube, where he invited gay adults to tell kids about how much better their lives got after they graduated from high school. Savage and his husband, Terry, uploaded a lengthy video about their own experiences with bullying, family acceptance and then, finally, of starting their own family together.

The project struck a chord — it began on Sept. 15, but the channel already has more than 300,000 viewers and 131 submissions as of this writing. While its fundamental goal is to prevent the sort of isolation that foments suicidal thoughts in troubled teens, the site has also become a bit of a historical project.

Several teenagers have posted tributes to friends who killed themselves following periods of harassment. One young woman, Ava, said of a friend who died: "One of the really frustrating things to me after his death was that it wasn't in the media. No one was outraged that this boy had basically been harassed until he couldn't take it anymore. ... It felt like no one really cared."

Testimony from adult contributors — whose ages range from Gen Y'ers to Baby Boomers — reveal stories of school bullying and community and familial rejection that still resonate with gay teens today. The videos are an oral history of ostracism and discrimination, and evidence of the fact that in many parts of the country, change is slow in coming.

While "It Gets Better" will hopefully provide comfort to gay teens living in hostile communities, it should do the exact opposite for the rest of us.

McCain's DADT Mix

2010-09-25T14:36:00.000-06:00

DOJ to Judge: Keep Enforcing DADT

2010-09-23T22:25:00.000-06:00

From Advocate.com: The Department of Justice asked a federal judge Thursday to continue enforcing the military's ban on gay and lesbian service members, despite a ruling earlier this month that struck down "don't ask, don't tell" as unconstitutional.

In a 14-page filing, Justice Department attorneys argued that an immediate, permanent injunction against enforcing the law —one supported by Log Cabin Republicans, which successfully challenged DADT in court and has argued for a halt to all discharges of gay service members — would be "untenable." (A PDF of the government’s brief is here.)

"Because any injunction in this case must be limited to [Log Cabin Republicans] and the claims it asserts on behalf of its members – and cannot extend to non-parties – plaintiff’s requested world-wide injunction of [DADT] fails as a threshold matter," assistant U.S. attorney Paul Freeborne wrote.

DADT repeal advocates and attorneys representing Log Cabin Republicans immediately slammed the Justice Department's filing. Dan Woods, lead attorney for the national gay Republican group, called the arguments "ridiculous" and said his team would file a response as soon as Friday.

"It’s our view that the objections fail to recognize the implications of the government's defeat at this trial," Woods told The Advocate. "This case was never limited to only Log Cabin members. And the request for a stay ignores the harm that would be suffered by current and potential service members during a period of the stay."

In a late Thursday statement, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the filing "in no way diminishes the President’s firm commitment to achieve a legislative repeal of DADT — indeed, it clearly shows why Congress must act to end this misguided policy."

But Servicemembers United executive director Alex Nicholson said the Obama administration "had a choice to take several different routes [with the injunction], from the moderate and reasonable to the extremely ridiculous. It appears that they decided to go with the latter end of the spectrum."

Nicholson said the DOJ's filing further erodes faith in the administration for many gays and lesbians seeking substantive change. "Lately a lot of us were holding out hope that there would be a semi-reasonable response to this judicial victory. It appears that [Obama] might be disappointing us yet again," he said.

The Justice Department's arguments against an injunction come two days after legislative repeal of DADT was blocked in the Senate due to a Republican filibuster of the defense authorization bill, of which a repeal on the ban against openly gay service members is a component.

In Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America, U.S. district judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled earlier this month that the DADT statute, passed by Congress in 1993, violates free speech and due process rights of gay service members. She also ruled that LCR is entitled to a permanent injunction against DADT and gave Justice Department attorneys until Thursday to object to Log Cabin's proposed judgment in the case.

The Justice Department has argued that Phillips does not have the authority to issue a sweeping injunction against the ban on openly gay service members (Phillips rejected that argument in a February court hearing).

"[DOJ] has ignored all the law about deference to the military. [Judge Phillips] said before that deference does not mean abdication when constitutional rights were involved," Woods said.

The Justice Department has not yet filed an appeal in the case.

Among the government’s arguments in Thursday's filing, Freeborne wrote that an injunction would preclude the government from litigating other legal challenges to DADT, as well as prevent it from considering the terms of a stay banning discharges of gay soldiers. An immediate halt of discharges, they argued, would jeopardize successful implementation of repeal by interfering with the “ability of the Department of Defense to develop necessary policies, regulations, and training and guidance to accommodate a change in the DADT law and policy.”

“Contrary to [LCR's] repeated suggestions that the Court can simply order the immediate cessation of DADT without any disruption of the military’s operations,” Freeborne wrote, “the Secretary of Defense has stated that, to be successful in implementing a change to the DADT law and policy, the Department of Defense must ‘understand all issues and potential impacts associated with repeal of the law and how to manage implementation in a way that minimizes disruption to a force engaged in combat operations and other demanding military activities around the globe.’”

Woods criticized that argument as a been-there, done-that tactic. "It's the same argument they made before the trial. 'Let us have time to study it. Congress is considering repealing it.' Judge Phillips has rejected it before."

The Saint - Oral History

2010-09-21T23:29:00.000-06:00

Powerful Video - It Gets Better...

2010-09-21T23:14:00.000-06:00

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Has to Go

2010-09-21T11:07:00.001-06:00

From NYTimes.com:
By JONATHAN HOPKINS
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Since the 1993 law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” (D.A.D.T.) was enacted by Congress, more than 14,000 gay service members have been discharged, at a cost to taxpayers of $363 million over the last decade. I am one of them. I was discharged just one month ago.

Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Hopkins I am a 31-year-old West Point graduate who spent nine years in the military, served as a platoon leader in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy and commanded both a Stryker Infantry Company and a brigade headquarters company in Alaska.

Many people do not even realize the D.A.D.T. policy is still being enforced, especially in light of recent legal rulings, or they think the policy merely asks us not to talk about it. But it goes much further, denying even our ability to exist legally within the military, regardless of the quality of our performance.

As a result, it makes any gay service member a target of anyone who chooses to make an accusation, or a casualty of any unlucky combination of facts that might expose him or her. All someone has to do is to be considered minimally reliable to report a service member as being gay. An investigation results.

I have always told people when discussing the military that “it makes everyone better, teaching us all important values like teamwork and selflessness.”

But if you are gay, I am no longer sure that is entirely accurate. People in the military are not trained to be liars. Our mission is not subterfuge, but that is what this policy forces those of us who are gay to become party to, and the cognitive dissonance is immense. We are trained to manage the fear that may descend during a firefight, but we do not expect to live under the daily fear that our peers may sense something different about us and report us as being gay.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Be
While I spent every hour at work trying, like all my peers, to be the perfect Army officer, taking care of and leading our soldiers, I also spent every day being paranoid, worrying about who suspected I was gay, and what they might do about it.

The paranoia is sickening, and it just eats you from within. Some quietly slip out of the service while others, indoctrinated to serve a cause that is just, stick it out.

The Department of Defense spends millions of dollars and dedicates immense amounts of time to ensure the psychological welfare of our service members remains sound. Except if you are gay. Some gay members of the Armed Services suffer from depression because they try to deal with being all they can be at work, but are unable to live a life that could make them happy.

Unfortunately, from 1993 until the spring of 2010, you could be reported as gay by your chaplain, your doctor and even your psychiatrist. Nowhere in the organization could you be safe if you were gay, even when the assistance provided could be vital.

A colleague of mine relayed a story of a soldier whose boyfriend was killed by a roadside blast while both were deployed. The only person the grieving soldier could safely talk to was an Australian officer he didn’t even know. His most trusted teammates — members of his unit — were not allowed to be there for him when he needed them most.

Failure Is the Only Option
There is no way that a gay service member can navigate this policy with honor, integrity, or self-respect intact. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen traditionally know virtually everything about one another. The military is inherently a personal affair. Thus, if you are gay and choose to have a relationship, you must isolate yourself from your otherwise inclusive and close-knit organization, then lie about your “housemate” and cover up where you socialized. There go the Army values of “honor” and “integrity” — values we all believe very deeply in.

If you attempt to comply, somehow, with the policy, you dedicate yourself to the most epic and despicably unnecessary sense of loneliness one can imagine, while working in a profession in which you desperately need the nurturing support of others. I know; I’ve been there. You are forced to lie when soldiers, peers or superiors ask you why you’re not married, or anything else about your personal life.

Many service members end up in a no-man’s-land: they break the rules (i.e. have relationships), but can never maintain something meaningful and long-lasting because of the pervasive environment of fear and deception that they have to maintain. Any route you take, you may be able to maintain your career, but you are destroyed bit by bit on the inside each step of the way. Part of you always feels stigmatized or ashamed for something you cannot change, no matter how badly you might want to.

And no matter what you do, you are somehow failing to live up to the military’s highest stated values, because you are an outlaw as a gay soldier from the day you step into the military. When told to “do the right thing” you are left with no feasible option meet that demand.

I Already Lived in a Post-D.A.D.T. Army
In my case, after the military learned from others that I was gay, I served for 14 more months during investigations and administrative actions to discharge me. Everyone knew, so, essentially, I lived for more than a year in a post-D.A.D.T. work environment.

During that time, I was part of a two-officer team planning our 4,000-soldier brigade’s redeployment from Iraq to Alaska. I did initial planning in relation to the Iraqi elections. I served for one year in the brigade’s planning cell in Alaska after return from deployment. The unit could have sent me somewhere else, but chose not to because they felt I made a critical contribution to the organization and they had always respected my work.

Four months after being found out, and 10 months prior to leaving the Army, I found myself with a boyfriend for the first time in my life, because I was no longer scared to have such a relationship. He and I attended social events and dinners with my peers. I talked about him at work. My life became one of full disclosure.

Amid all of that, the unit continued to function and I continued to be respected for the work I did. Many, from both companies I commanded, approached me to say that they didn’t care if I was gay — they thought I was one of the best commanders they’d ever had. And unbeknownst to me, many had guessed I was probably gay all along. Most didn’t care about my sexuality. I was accepted by most of them, as was my boyfriend, and I had never been happier in the military. Nothing collapsed, no one stopped talking to me, the Earth spun on its axis, and the unit prepared to fight another day.

There are parts of my story in the lives of all of the gay service members who continue to serve in our military — and there are 65,000, according to the Urban Institute. Their commitment is immense. So dedicated are they to service that they eschew the rights that every other soldier enjoys. Their road is more difficult than most people realize, and we reward their exceptionally dedicated and selfless service by undermining their ability to live a happy, honest, and fulfilling life — all of which would actually make them even better soldiers.

I wish that they could tell their own stories, but in a master-stroke of policy-making, they are under a gag order that prevents from discussing D.A.D.T.’s impact upon them, if they wish to keep their job serving their country. So I have tried to tell part of my story.

A Policy Without Credible Rationale
A remarkably consistent string of research reports have shown that there is no link between openly gay service members in the United States or foreign militaries having a negative effect on performance. Nevertheless, the “cohesion” argument remains the primary defense for the policy.

But in the most recent Gallup survey of American attitudes toward gays in the military, every demographic broadly supports gays serving openly. Among 18-year-olds to 29-year-olds — who make up the vast majority of the military force — support for overturning the current policy is at 79 percent.

What this shows, in fact, is that upon entrance into the military, we are indoctrinating an otherwise very accepting group of Americans to be more prejudiced than they were when they entered the military. Meanwhile, some leaders paradoxically argue that we cannot make the change because the force is not ready for it.

Using this logic, racial desegregation of the military would have happened in MY lifetime, not my grandfather’s, simply because an outspoken but small minority would remain opposed to it long after 1948. In that case, we made a change simply because it was right — and enforced the standards in a very rule-abiding military — through the virtue of leadership.

We spent very little time surveying our troops before desegregation, integration of women in the service, women at the military academies, women in fighter jets, women on aircraft carriers or submarines. The most instructive question whenever discrimination was an issue has always been simple: “Can this person do the job?”

The current D.A.D.T. policy deprives us of even being able to make an informed decision. It functions through ignorance, which begets stereotypes without fact. In turn that prejudice, from which good people are forced to suffer.

The words of Harvey Milk actually ring very true: “I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine.”

It is for this reason alone that supporters of discrimination seek to keep the truth hidden, gay service members in fear, and the current D.A.D.T. policy in effect. The only accomplishment of the policy is mandatory ignorance.

Jonathan Hopkins is a former United States Army captain who was honorably discharged in August 2010. Mr. Hopkins graduated fourth in his class at West Point. He was deployed three times to Iraq and Afghanistan, earning three Bronze Stars, including one for valor. He is now a graduate student at Georgetown University’s security studies program.

New Video - Vote Naked in Illinois

2010-09-20T21:58:00.001-06:00

Constitution does not ban sex bias, Scalia says

2010-09-19T12:59:00.002-06:00

From sfgate.com: "The U.S. Constitution does not outlaw sex discrimination or discrimination based on sexual orientation, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a law school audience in San Francisco on Friday.

"If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, you have legislatures," Scalia said during a 90-minute question-and-answer session with a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law. He said the same was true of discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The 74-year-old justice, leader of the court's conservative wing, is also its most outspoken advocate of "originalism," the doctrine that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original meaning of those who drafted it.

The court has ruled since the early 1970s that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws applies to sex discrimination, requiring a strong justification for any law that treated the genders differently. That interpretation, Scalia declared Friday, was not intended by the authors of the amendment that was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War.

"Nobody thought it was directed against sex discrimination," he said. Although gender bias "shouldn't exist," he said, the idea that it is constitutionally forbidden is "a modern invention."

The court has not applied the same exacting standard to discrimination based on sexual orientation, an issue it could reach in several cases now in lower courts, including the dispute over California's ban on same-sex marriage.

But when the justices overturned laws against gay sex in 2003 as a violation of personal autonomy and due process, Scalia dissented vehemently. He compared the anti-sodomy laws to statutes against incest and bestiality and said many Americans view bans on homosexual conduct as protections for themselves and their families against "a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive."

Scalia said Friday he's not a purist and is generally willing to accept long-standing court precedents that contradict his views. One exception, he said, is abortion, in which he continues to advocate overturning the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision and later rulings that have narrowed but not eliminated the constitutional right to terminate one's pregnancy.

He derided the court's 1992 Casey decision, which allowed states to restrict abortion as long as they did not place an "undue burden" on women's access to the procedure.

Having to decide whether a new staffing requirement for abortion facilities, for example, imposes an undue burden "puts me in the position of being a legislator rather than a judge," he said. "That's not law, and I won't do it."

He also described the legal underpinnings of the court's 1965 ruling declaring a constitutional right of privacy - the basis for Roe vs. Wade - as a "total absurdity."

Scalia is the longest-serving justice on the current court. He spoke to an auditorium filled with law students on the 24th anniversary of his unanimous Senate confirmation, after his appointment by President Ronald Reagan.

He said most of his views haven't changed since then, but one exception is the idea of allowing cameras in the court, which he supported when he was appointed. The issue resurfaced in January when a 5-4 majority, including Scalia, vetoed a federal judge's plan to allow closed-circuit televising of the same-sex-marriage trial in San Francisco.

"If I really thought it would educate the American people, I would remain in favor of it," he told the students. But instead of educational gavel-to-gavel coverage, he said, most people would see 30-second snippets on the nightly news that would "distort the public perception of the court."

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

I'm So Straight

2010-09-18T14:30:00.000-06:00

Montana GOP Policy: Make Homosexuality Illegal

2010-09-18T13:32:00.002-06:00

From HuffingtonPost.com: "HELENA, Mont. — At a time when gays have been gaining victories across the country, the Republican Party in Montana still wants to make homosexuality illegal.

The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997.

The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.

"I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party."

Gay rights have been rapidly advancing nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy law in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas decision. Gay marriage is now allowed in five states and Washington, D.C., a federal court recently ruled the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy unconstitutional, and even a conservative tea party group in Montana ousted its president over an anti-gay exchange in Facebook.

But going against the grain is the Montana GOP statement, which falls under the "Crime" section of the GOP platform. It states: "We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal."

Montana GOP executive director Bowen Greenwood said that has been the position of the party since the state Supreme Court struck down state laws criminalizing homosexuality in 1997 in the case of Gryczan v. Montana.

Nobody has ever taken the initiative to change it and so it's remained in the party platform, Greenwood said. The matter has never even come up for discussion, he said.

"There had been at the time, and still is, a substantial portion of Republican legislators that believe it is more important for the Legislature to make the law instead of the Supreme
The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997.

The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.

"I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party."

Gay rights have been rapidly advancing nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy law in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas decision. Gay marriage is now allowed in five states and Washington, D.C., a federal court recently ruled the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy unconstitutional, and even a conservative tea party group in Montana ousted its president over an anti-gay exchange in Facebook.

But going against the grain is the Montana GOP statement, which falls under the "Crime" section of the GOP platform. It states: "We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal."

Montana GOP executive director Bowen Greenwood said that has been the position of the party since the state Supreme Court struck down state laws criminalizing homosexuality in 1997 in the case of Gryczan v. Montana.

Nobody has ever taken the initiative to change it and so it's remained in the party platform, Greenwood said. The matter has never even come up for discussion, he said.

"There had been at the time, and still is, a substantial portion of Republican legislators that believe it is more important for the Legislature to make the law instead of the Supreme Court," Greenwood said.

Story continues below
AdvertisementCritics say the policy is a toothless statement, the effect of which is simply to make gays feel excluded. A University of Montana law professor says Montana's 1997 case and the U.S. Supreme Court's Lawrence decision means there's no real chance for the state GOP to act on its position.

"To me, that statement legally is hollow," said constitutional specialist Jack Tuholske. "The principle under Gryczan and under Lawrence, that's the fundamental law of the land and the Legislature can't override the Constitution. It might express their view, but as far as a legal reality, it's a hollow view and can't come to pass."

Montana Human Rights Network organizer Kim Abbott said the GOP platform statement does not represent the attitudes of most Montanans, and it shows that the party is out of touch with the prevalent view of the people they are supposed to represent.

"It speaks volumes to the lesbian and gay community how they are perceived by the Republican Party," Abbott said. "It would be nice if Republicans that understand that gay people are human beings would stand up and say they don't agree with that. But I don't know how likely that is."

Brueggeman suspects that the vast majority of the party believes, as he does, that the Republican party should remove statement. It's against every conservative principle for limited government and issues like this exemplify how a political party can interfere with the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents.

"I just hope it's something that's so sensitive that people don't want to touch it," he said. "Even if there wasn't a Supreme Court decision, does anyone really believe that it should be illegal?"
Court," Greenwood said.

Lady Gaga Speaks Out on DADT

2010-09-17T16:21:00.002-06:00

Judge Rules That Military Policy Violates Rights of Gays

2010-09-09T22:51:00.001-06:00

From NYTimes.com: "The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday.

Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day. The policy was signed into law in 1993 as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military.

The rule limits the military’s ability to ask about the sexual orientation of service members, and allows homosexuals to serve, as long as they do not disclose their orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.

The plaintiffs challenged the law under the Fifth and First Amendments to the Constitution, and Judge Phillips agreed.

“The don’t ask, don’t tell act infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members in many ways,” she wrote. “In order to justify the encroachment on these rights, defendants faced the burden at trial of showing the don’t ask, don’t tell act was necessary to significantly further the government’s important interests in military readiness and unit cohesion. Defendants failed to meet that burden.”

The rule, she wrote in an 86-page opinion, has a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed services.

The plaintiffs argued that the act violated the rights of service members in two ways.

First, they said, it violates their guarantee of substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment. The second restriction, the plaintiffs said, involves the free-speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. Although those rights are diminished in the military, the judge wrote, the restrictions in the act still fail the constitutional test of being “reasonably necessary” to protect “a substantial government interest.”

The “sweeping reach” of the speech restrictions under the act, she said, “is far broader than is reasonably necessary to protect the substantial government interest at stake here.”

The decision is among a number of recent rulings that suggest a growing judicial skepticism about measures that discriminate against homosexuals, including rulings against California’s ban on same-sex marriage and a Massachusetts decision striking down a federal law forbidding the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage.

It will not change the policy right away; the judge called for the plaintiffs to submit a proposed injunction limiting the law by Sept. 16th. The defendants will submit their objections to the plan a week after that. Any decision would probably be stayed pending appeals.

The suit was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay organization. The group’s executive director, R. Clarke Cooper, pronounced himself “delighted” with the ruling, which he called “not just a win for Log Cabin Republican service members but all American service members.”

Those who would have preserved the rule were critical of the decision.

“It is hard to believe that a District Court-level judge in California knows more about what impacts military readiness than the service chiefs who are all on record saying the law on homosexuality in the military should not be changed,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative group. He called Judge Phillips a “judicial activist.”

As a candidate for president, Senator Barack Obama vowed to end “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Once elected, he remained critical of the policy but said it was the role of Congress to change the law; the Justice Department has continued to defend the law in court.

In February, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked Congress to allow gays to serve openly by repealing the law. The House has voted for repeal, but the Senate has not yet acted.

Richard Socarides, a lawyer who served as an adviser to the Clinton administration on gay issues when the policy was passed into law, said the legal action was long overdue. “The president has said he opposes the policy, yet he has defended it in court. Now that he’s lost, and resoundingly so, he must stop enforcing it.”

The case, which was heard in July, involved testimony from six military officers who had been discharged because of the policy. One, Michael Almy, was an Air Force major who was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq when someone using his computer found at least one message to a man discussing homosexual conduct.

Another plaintiff, John Nicholson, was going through training for intelligence work in the Army and tried to conceal his sexual orientation by writing to a friend in Portuguese. A fellow service member who was also fluent in that language, however, read the letter on his desk and rumors spread throughout his unit.

When Mr. Nicholson asked a platoon sergeant to help quash the rumors, the sergeant instead informed his superiors, who initiated discharge proceedings.

Male Adult Video Star Suffers "Broken Dick" on Set - Rushed to Hospital with bleeding dick

2010-09-07T23:53:00.002-06:00

From AVN.com: "By Buzz Killington
Sep 1st, 2010 01:53 PM
CHATSWORTH, Calif.—Silverback Entertainment CEO and acclaimed male performer Prince Yahshua is resting comfortably at home after a freak on-set accident that occurred Aug. 23, and will keep him from performing for the next 60 days.

While on set for West Coast Productions performing with new female talent Bethany Benz, Yahshua sustained a torn urethra and ripped an aligning wall in his pelvis—what’s commonly referred to as a “broken dick.”

How can one break a dick, you ask?

Well, Yahshua sustained the injury while in the reverse cowgirl position. He was thrusting upwards while Benz was coming down; his penis popped out of her vagina and hit up against her thigh or pubic bone and “snapped.”

“There was an audible snapping sound,” Yahshua told AVN. She jumped up, I jumped up and blood started pouring out of my dick like someone turned on a garden hose. It was a pretty freaky situation.”

Yahshua was rushed to Encino Medical Center, where doctors performed emergency surgery that lasted three and a half hours. He’ll begin physical therapy on Sept. 10.

Initially diagnosed as a career-ending injury because of the torn pelvic wall, Yahshua got word two days ago from the doctors that everything aligned itself back in place and that he’d be able to resume performing after at least the next 60 days.

Yahshua said that the amount of support from the community had been tremendous. He’s been receiving messages from fans and colleagues in the industry alike.

“The outpouring of concern, well-wishes and support is humbling,” Yahshua said. “It’s easy to get lost in the job so it really meant something for people to take a moment and reach out to me. I truly, truly appreciate each and everyone for that.”

Yahshua said that his faith has helped him through this trying time along with his girlfriend by his side, Aryana Starr.

“God wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle,” he said. “And my woman? She’s a saint. I’m taking it one day at a time, and I’ll be back soon.”

Yahshua also said that West Coast Productions has stepped up financially to assist him with his medical expenses.

Those wishing to reach Yahshua can email him at princeyahshua1@yahoo.com, or visit his Twitter page at Twitter.com/PrinceYahshua

Lure hearing ends; Judge to consider testimony regarding downtown St. Louis nightclub's liquor license

2010-09-03T17:24:00.001-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "ST. LOUIS - The owners and attorneys of Lure Nightclub - the last of three downtown clubs once targeted by the city - defended themselves today against city allegations that the club attracts violent behavior and allows drunken, lewd and harassing acts by patrons or staff.

Municipal Judge Margaret Walsh presided over the Excise Commission hearing. Walsh could suspend Lure's liquor license, revoke, or even shut Lure down.

Assistant City Counselor Dan Emerson represented the Excise Commission, and tried to tie a string of downtown incidents to the Washington Avenue club. He called police officers to testify that bar patrons stopped traffic, brawled in the street, exposed themselves and even shot an assault rifle at officers.

Lure attorneys John Bouhasin and former Mayor Freeman Bosley, Jr., on the other hand, forced officers to admit, time and again, that they did not actually see the suspects leaving Lure before the officers witnessed the events.

Emerson even withdrew one of the five charges - that a November 5 shooting was tied to the club. Lure, said Bouhasin and Bosley, was not open that night.

And that withdrawal, Bosley told the judge, underscored the mistreatment Lure has received. The charges, he said, were "unfounded," and based on "innuendo."

"Where do the owners of Lure go to get their good name back?" he asked Walsh. "This has cost our clients an extremely large amount of money."

There were, however, some lighter moments in the nearly five hours of testimony.

At one point, Bouhasin was cross-examining police officer Kathleen Kueck, who said she witnessed patrons leaving Lure and exposing themselves as they walked down Washington Avenue.

"Like they would at Mardi Gras?" asked Bouhasin, eliciting smiles from the audience.

"I'm not sure," said Kueck. "I've never worked Mardi Gras."

"Have you ever enjoyed Mardi Gras?" asked Bouhasin.

"Objection!" said Emerson.

"I'll withdraw the question," said Bouhasin.

By the end, Lure owner Aprille Trupiano and her brother Nick Trupiano, who co-manages the bar, said they felt their attorneys represented their side well.

"They dismissed a charge already, a charge that had nothing to do with us," said Nick. "And that shows the prejudice of the case."

Emerson wouldn't comment on the proceedings.

The hearing ended at about 4 p.m. Judge Walsh asked attorneys to submit their best arguments to her by a week from Monday. She said she'd rule soon after that.

A separate protest petition mounted by residents also hoping to close the club will get a hearing after that, she said.

City of St. Louis Battles Lure Nightclub

2010-09-03T04:58:00.001-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "ST. LOUIS • A downtown nightclub goes on trial today, its liquor license, and existence, at risk.

Residents have complained that the patrons of Lure, in the heart of the city's downtown bar and loft district, fight in their streets, dump beer bottles on their sidewalks and bleed in their buildings.

City Hall, aiming to protect the safety of residents and the image of a growing downtown, is working to shut the bar down.

Club officials, however, have maintained that Lure has had no liquor violations, such as underage drinking. Their club, they repeatedly insist, is being targeted unfairly.

But a review of city liquor commission documents suggests otherwise. The file on Lure and its earlier incarnations — roughly 6 inches thick — shows at least eight liquor commission violations, including one incident where the bar, named Lucky's at that point, served Bud Light to three teens, garnering a city suspension.

And those are far from the first violations leveled at Lure owners or managers.

Over the last eight years, the daughters and sons of Marlene and Matthew "Mikey" Trupiano — a reputed mobster who went to prison in the mid-1990s for gambling — have owned or helped open a portion of at least six nightclubs in the region, including Lure, according to an analysis of state and city files.

Since 2002, five of those bars have been charged with a combined total of more than 50 state or local violations in about 25 separate incidents.

Some of the charges were administrative: The bars were twice cited for not correctly posting their liquor licenses, and, on a few occasions, didn't tell the city that they had hired new employees, as required by law.

But most were not. Fights broke out. Patrons threw bottles. One grabbed a bat from her car. One bar printed and distributed illegal advertisements. And the bars were collectively charged with at least 40 complaints related to underage drinking.

Still, Nick Trupiano, a manager at Lure and brother of Aprille Trupiano, who owns the club, pointed out that the club, under its new name, has not had any liquor violations.

Certainly, he said, his family's bars have had some incidents. "Fights? Yes. Beefs with landlords? What clubs haven't?" he said. "We have this history because we want to keep doing business in the city."

But, he said, Lure has handled recent troubles well and has worked hard to appease downtown neighbors and City Hall. Yet none of that seems to have worked, he said.

"Now they're digging down," Trupiano said of Lure's opponents. "Trying to find everything."

'The Problem Child'

By late July, the city was targeting three downtown nightclubs, not just Lure. Residents had complained about each, and police visits were stacking up.

Three shootings had spurred City Hall action. One came last December, about two blocks from Jim Edmonds' 15 Steakhouse and Club on Locust Street. Another round of shots was fired early one Friday in June, about two blocks from Lure. And then, in July, two teens and a young man were shot about two blocks from the Sugar Lounge, a popular Washington Avenue club.

The city had already sent out nuisance letters to each club, citing them for "disturbances and other unruly behavior."

But after the July shooting, Jeff Rainford, Mayor Francis Slay's chief of staff, met with police officials.

The city had been working for years to clean up downtown St. Louis, attract businesses, and transform desolate streets into family-friendly neighborhoods.

"If we had these troubles 10 years ago, it's probable nobody would have noticed," Rainford said at the time. "However, having said that, it's our job, and we are taking it very seriously, to keep the place safe for everyone."

The city liquor commissioner wrote up citations for each club.

Owners at 15 and Sugar worked with city public safety officials and bought themselves more time to fix the problems. They agreed, according to city staff, to consider such measures as added security and extra lighting. And both avoided the city citation, at least temporarily.

Lure officials, on the other hand, hired an attorney, former Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr., to defend them. They picked up a public relations consultant. And they made signs. "Downtown doesn't like black people," said one. —"'Jim Crow' is alive and well in downtown St. Louis," said another.

The city was targeting Lure, said Nick Trupiano, because of its "Red Hot Thursdays," a hip-hop music night that attracted a primarily black audience.

Besides, he said, he and his siblings have owned and run a lot of clubs. And they've never before been called out as "the problem child."

But the city has targeted a Trupiano club before.

demise of dolce

Liquor commission workers say they get few complaints about the vast majority of the city's 850 bars, restaurants and package liquor stores. "It's the few that cause the biggest problems," said Commissioner Bob Kraiberg.

The first version of Lucky's, at Laclede's Landing, was charged with its first underage drinking violation just months after it opened in late 2001. By the time it closed, in 2005, it had at least 14 underage sales or drinking violations.

The city suspended two other Trupiano clubs following underage drinking charges. And at one, the Bubble Room in Kirkwood, the state revoked the liquor license of Anthony Trupiano, Nick's brother, in 2006.

But it is the closure of Dolce, at 200 North Broadway downtown, that bears the closest resemblance to the issues at Lure.

Neighbors began grumbling about the chic new club early in 2008. Then, after 1 a.m. one April night that year, residents flagged down a police cruiser. A "large crowd was standing in front of the club yelling and screaming for no apparent reason," Officer Aundre Smith said in a police report.

A resident described the scene as 80 to 100 people, 12 policemen, a barking police dog, a police wagon and a helicopter overhead, shining a spotlight below, according to the city file.

Within the next few days, seven residents wrote letters to city Alderman Phyllis Young.

"When is enough enough?" asked resident Stacey Howlett. "I feel as if it is only a matter of time before something happens to me. I want to be a city dweller, but I simply don't feel safe in the city anymore."

Two months later, Anthony Trupiano, Dolce co-owner Rob Olsen — who also manages Lure — and another owner sent a letter to the city saying Dolce was closing.

Nick Trupiano said it's not fair to judge a club by the bad behavior of a few patrons. Nor is it fair, he said, for a community to listen to the complaints of what he says are just a few individuals.

The Trupianos will make their case at 10 a.m. today, at a liquor commission hearing in front of a judge in City Hall. They are anxious for it to be over.

"We did (expletive) $78 two Fridays ago! We're losing $10,000 a week, minimum," he said. "What bank do I go to get my reputation back?"

Meanwhile, authorities worry about what might happen if Lure stays open.

Early on Feb. 19, a Lure brawl spilled into the middle of Washington Avenue, where police found a woman beating another in the face with a "Rawlings Tino Martinez souvenir 'Big Stick' baseball bat" that she had gone to her car to get, according to the police report. Another woman was sitting by the side, "bleeding profusely" from her forehead.

Police Lt. Angela Coonce, in an e-mail sent to officers early that morning entitled "Club Lure Insanity," wrote that every available 4th District car responded, and estimated that four times the club's capacity was "crammed inside."

"There would have been no way we could have controlled the crowd tonight if more fights broke out," she concluded. "We were lucky."

Adult bookstores & Strip Clubs Must Close @ Midnight in Missouri

2010-08-27T12:18:00.002-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "JEFFERSON CITY -- Patrons of adult businesses might get a rude awakening come Saturday, if they haven't been paying attention to the news. They'll find the sexually oriented businesses they patronize closed after midnight.

There will be no more lap-dances. And strippers will not be allowed to be totally nude.

That's the result of a decision this morning by Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem to refuse to delay a new law regulating adult businesses from going into effect. Like most new laws, the so-called "porn bill" becomes a law on Saturday.

"The law will undoubtedly change the business practice of Plaintiffs," Beetem wrote in his decision, "and they will likely suffer some economic loss. But economic loss alone does not alter the analysis of legal issues surrounding Plaintiffs' constitutional challenges."

A coalition of adult businesses sued the state, seeking to declare the law unconstitutional. The lawyer for the group said the lawsuit would continue, but in the meantime, the businesses will have to comply with the elements of the new law.

Attorney General Chris Koster praised Beetem's ruling in a statement:

“We believe that this new legislation passed by the Missouri General Assembly is constitutional and should become state law,” Koster said. “Prior state and federal rulings have upheld similar provisions contained in this new law, and we will continue to argue on behalf of its constitutionality if necessary.”

Koster hired an outside attorney, Scott Bergthold of Tennessee, to help the state defend the law. Bergthold helped write the law in question. He is being paid $150 an hour for his services, not to surpass $7,500 in total fees.

Does Mehlman deserve our understanding?

2010-08-26T12:23:00.000-06:00

Ex-RNC chairman out of the closet now, but hasn't clearly split with anti-gay agenda the GOP ramped up on his watch Does Mehlman deserve our understanding?

Shame on you Ken Mehlman - Former GOP Chairman & Bush 2004 Campaign Manager Admits He is Gay After Running Anti-Gay Campaign

2010-08-25T21:54:00.004-06:00

From RawStory.com: "Ken Mehlman, the erstwhile chairman of the Republican National Committee and campaign manager for George W. Bush's 2004 reelection effort, has come out of the closet as gay in a column published in The Atlantic.
Mehlman came out in a column by Mark Ambinder on the website of The Atlantic, after the blogger who outed former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and onetime Virginia congressman Ed Schrock revealed that Ambinder was to publish the story. Blogger Michael Rogers was the subject of the documentary "Outrage," a film about outing gays in government who have used their positions of power to advocate against gay issues, which aired earlier this year on HBO.

Mehlman, 44, spearheaded the Bush re-election campaign. The campaign used aggressively anti-gay tactics, including the mailing of a flyer in some states which suggested liberals would allow gay marriage and ban the Bible. Some believe Bush’s support for anti-gay marriage measures carried him to victory, particularly in Ohio, which had a gay marriage measure on the ballot.
According to the Atlantic's Ambinder, "Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8."

High costs led to closing of Ameristar Casino Home nightclub

2010-08-24T11:03:00.000-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "There was no place like Home when the glitzy, $15 million nightclub in the Ameristar Casino in St. Charles opened during Christmas week 2007.

Months before it opened, fliers circulated around town promising that Home would "reshape the nightlife industry in the Midwest forever."

The club, with its crocodile upholstery, marble-meets-onyx bars and glass-blown chandeliers, brought in national nightclub names. During its opening week music personality DJ AM, reality star Kim Kardashian, actress Jaime Pressly and former Miss USA Tara Connor came to Home. Other celebrities visited over the next three years, including Paris Hilton, Lil Kim, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Pauly D. from "Jersey Shore."

But on Saturday night, Travie McCoy of the music group Gym Class Heroes turned out to be the last celebrity guest at Home.

The nightclub unexpectedly closed early Sunday morning, with a 4 a.m. e-mail from Jim Franke, Ameristar's senior vice president and general manager. Franke said Home was unable to turn a regular profit and was operating just two nights a week, down from its glory days when it was open nightly.

Home had become a destination not only for clubgoers in the St. Charles area, but in St. Louis.

"When Home opened, we saw a drastic decline in business, and rightfully so," said Mark Winfield, who owns Club 15 downtown. "It's a beautiful space."

But Winfield won't mourn the closing of Home. He says he never felt the playing field was even once Home opened.

Home was solidly backed by Vegas-based event company Angel Music Group during its first two years, allowing Home to pay celebrities huge fees.

"They priced us off the market," Winfield said.

Home spent big money to book talent, but there was a reason for it, says Mike Knopfel, public relations manager for Ameristar.

"We want to bring people to Ameristar," he said. "At the end of the day, what we are is a casino, and we use whatever we can to try to bring guests to our facility."

But the high cost of those big acts would be a problem over time, because the club wasn't drawing people like it used to. Someone like Paris Hilton can command $100,000 to $500,000 just to show up.

A drop in attendance, typical for a new nightclub after a couple of years, and the challenge of recouping its $15 million price tag made keeping the club open impossible.

"We couldn't make the numbers work," Knopfel said.

The club this year tried to cater to African-American patrons with the urban-themed 5 Star Fridays. This switch caused some resentment.

"A lot of clubs will only open their doors to African-American patrons when they are on their way out, and it's not just Home," event promoter Sharee "Mocha Latte" Galvin said. "It's something they all do because they know the African-American market will spend a lot of money, and it's a quick fix. I felt they were on their way out when they started 5 Star Fridays."

Knopfel said, "Ameristar approaches everything from a business standpoint. Is it in our best interest financially? And with that we've done different tweaks. It comes down to what works as a company."

Home will be used by Ameristar for conferences and other private events. St. Charles Fashion Week activities are taking place at Home today as scheduled. The space will not be changed and is not expected to reopen as a nightclub.

Promoter Amin Mohabbat of B&W Productions, who was planning to bring DJ Paul Oakenfold to Home in November, said it's unfortunate the market has lost Home.

"I don't think we'll ever see a venue of that caliber close to St. Louis again," he said. "It was a really nice venue, though it was further out. And now, people are saying, 'Awww, man, I want to go one last time.'"

Fight Over Net Neutrality Comes to Inner City

2010-08-23T13:10:00.001-06:00

From Time.com: "
It's not often that the faces behind the federal government show up in places like South High School in the Corcoran neighborhood of Minneapolis, one of the city's poorest and most racially diverse sections. Especially to talk about the Internet, of all things. But this is where the Federal Communications Commission held its first public hearing about Net neutrality, the idea that all data transmitted over the Internet should be treated equally by service providers. In the weeks since Google and Verizon submitted a proposal that would not preserve Net neutrality for wireless Internet platforms like the iPhone, the issue has grown into a contentious one. In a brief speech before the public comment period, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken called Net neutrality the "First Amendment issue of our time."

Almost all of the 75 people who testified during the three-hour meeting last Thursday were in support of the FCC's push to gain regulatory authority over broadband services. Almost all. At the beginning of the event, Zach Segner, a 25-year-old in an "End the Fed" shirt, shouted, "The Internet's workin' fine right now!" Segner, who says he heard about the event from some members of the Tea Party, unfolded a large sign that reads "Hand off our Internet." He says that he's worried about government takeover of the Web. "I don't think that we should fall into a Chinese-style system," he says.
(Is the Google-Verizon plan bad for Net neutrality?)

The majority, however, were on the FCC's side. "Basically I'm unemployed," said a man named Doug Brown. "The Internet is a very crucial to locate job openings. And we don't need to have roadblocks to that." Jamie Taylor, who is deaf and blind, testified that that assisted technology such as video phones have allowed deaf and blind people increased accesses to the Internet. But she said that if Internet service providers are allowed to limit websites that require high bandwidth speed, the divide will increase for people with disabilities.
(See what Jim Poniewozik thinks about Net neutrality.)

Jim Haberkorn, 49, a medical-device salesman who volunteers for Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, stormed out of the meeting after having to wait through a series of pro-Net-neutrality public comments — each speaker was allotted two minutes. "This is an absolute joke," says Haberkorn, who argues FCC regulation over broadband may serve to quash freedom of speech and stifle innovation. "What's next? Are we going to say we should only have one car?" Adds Haberkorn: "The world's not vanilla. Equal access doesn't necessarily mean fair."
(See a primer on Net neutrality.)

The FCC, nevertheless, was adamant about its motives. "An open Internet is indeed the great equalizer. It enables traditionally underrepresented groups — like minorities and women — to have an equal voice and an equal opportunity," said FCC commissioner Mingon Clyburn, a Democrat. She added one of its studies showed that a greater percentage of African Americans and Latinos accessed the Internet only on their wireless phones. The location of the hearing was appropriate: the average income in this area is about $22,000, and roughly 25% of the population is Latino. Groups like Latinos for Internet Freedom were present to testify about how access to the Internet have helped members of their community find jobs and connect with family members outside the country.

Michael Copps, the other FCC commissioner on hand, blasted Google and Verizon's recent proposal. "The Internet was born on openness, flourished on openness and depends on openness for its continued success," he told the crowd. "We must not ever allow the openness of the Internet to become just another pawn in the hands of powerful corporate interests. The few players that control access to the wonders of the Internet tell us not to worry. But I am worried. How can we have any confidence that their business plans and network engineering are not going to stifle our online freedom? You know, history is pretty clear that when some special interest has control over both the content and distribution of a product or service — and a financial incentive to exercise that control — someone is going to try it."

Ameristar Casino Nightclub, Home Closes Due to Business Decline

2010-08-23T12:58:00.001-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "Home nightclub at Ameristar Casino closed unexpectedly, and for good, after a performance Saturday night from Travie McCoy of "Billionaire" fame.

A statement was issued Sunday morning announcing the closing of the glitzy, Vegas-style club that hosted Paris Hilton, Nelly, DJ AM, Kim Kardashian, Brody Jenner, Jaime Pressly, Lil Kim, Wilmer Valderrama, Amber Rose, Tiesto and many more during special events.

Ameristar senior vice president and general manager Jim Franke said the venue wasn't able to continually turn a profit, despite meeting Ameristar's standards of quality and excellence.

"We want to thank our guests and appreciated their patronage and loyalty in making Home one of the top nightclubs not only in the St. Louis area but throughout the Midwest region," he said.

Mike Knopfel, public relations manager for Ameristar, said "we were down to those two nights (Friday and Saturday) and we had a full staff and programming. It wasn't exactly inexpensive. Originally when we opened, it was seven days a week and it was very popular."

Knopfel said they'd been mulling the club's closing for a while. "It doesn't happen overnight. We'd been researching it."

It's not known what will happen to the massive space, but there are no plans to change it. Franke said "Ameristar will continue to use the facility as an exciting high-energy venue for the property's group sales business," meaning Ameristar will continue to use it privately only.

Ameristar is looking to place Home employees, most of whom were part-time, into other positions within the company.

Arty J, lead VIP host-emcee at Home, said "I've met so many people and gained great relationships. It was an amazing run and I ran the marathon...I really did love the place."

Home opened Christmas week 2007.

Target CEO is Clueless: Refuses HRC Request for Donation After Making Making Anti-Gay Donation

2010-08-17T10:52:00.002-06:00

From Politico.com: Target Corp., for now, has rejected demand from the Human Rights Campaign that the retailer donate to pro-gay rights candidates in order to balance its contribution to a group backing Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, an ardent opponent of gay marriage.

In a statement released Monday, HRC President Joe Solmonese said “all fair-minded Americans will now rightly question Target’s commitment to equality.”

The company maintained it fully supports the gay and lesbian community, but decided to keep its options open to avoid the appearance that it made a political donation as the result of outside pressure, “given the current political and emotionally charged environment” surrounding the election.

“We believe that it is impossible to avoid turning any further actions into a political issue and will use the benefit of time to make thoughtful, careful decisions on how best to move forward,” according to a statement the company issued Monday.

HRC and MoveOn.org, a liberal political action group, have spearheaded petition drives and a boycott of Target since it became public that the retail chain gave $150,000 to a business group backing Emmer, a conservative who also has angered the progressive community for his positions on abortion and birth control.

The donation, which came from Target’s business account rather than an internal political action committee, was made possible by a controversial Supreme Court decision issued earlier this year that overturned a long-standing ban on corporate political activity.

Target officials have said they gave to the newly formed business group, MN Forward, to show support for Emmer’s record on economic issues and because he appeared to be the strongest pro-business candidate in the race.

After employees and outside groups complained, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel issued memos to his workers explaining his motivation for the donation and apologizing if it upset them. He also reiterated the company’s commitment to equal rights within the workplace and its sponsorship of gay rights events in Minnesota.

But MoveOn and HRC weren’t satisfied. HRC had hoped to convince the firm to donate $150,000 to pro-gay rights candidates and groups in Minnesota to “make right” its support for Emmer. After weeks of negotiations, HRC officials said Monday that the talks had broken down without a deal.

HRC said it will devote $150,000 of its resources to defeat Emmer. And MoveOn members are still calling for a boycott of the national chain that had nurtured strong ties to the gay community through its store locations, marketing and nondiscriminatory employee benefits program.

In addition, Solmonese said the gay community is now pressuring Best Buy Co. Inc., which donated $100,000 to MN Forward’s pro-Emmer advertising campaign. Like Target, Best Buy receives one of the highest corporate rankings for workplace equality issues from the HRC.

While nodding to those rankings, Solmonese said that “before they can regain that exalted status among their consumers, they need to make things right in Minnesota.”

Target Ain't People Flash Mob - Boycott Target!

2010-08-16T14:45:00.001-06:00

Is Obama's position on gay marriage sustainable?

2010-08-06T00:23:00.001-06:00

From The Plume Line: "That seems to be one of the core political questions in the wake of the overturning of Proposition 8. How can the president continue opposing gay marriage while supporting the decision to strike down Prop 8, on the grounds that it's "discriminatory," as the White House said in a statement last night?

Making it more dicey, the White House statement also said that the president continues to push for "full equality" for gay and lesbian couples. How can that not include support for gay marriage?

This morning, senior White House adviser David Axelrod struggled to defend this position on MSNBC. Here's what he said:

"The president opposed Proposition 8 at the time. He felt that it was divisive. He felt that it was mean-spirited, and he opposed it at the time. So we reiterated that position yesterday. The president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples, and benefits and other issues, and that has been effectuated in federal agencies under his control. He's supports civil unions, and that's been his position throughout. So nothing has changed."

But as John Aravosis says, everything has changed.

Here's another problem: In the interview with MSNBC this morning, Axelrod clarified that Obama believes that gay marriage is an issue for states to decide, and it's true that Obama opposes the Defense of Marriage Act, which codified a federal ban on gay marriage.

But as Michael Shear notes, his administration has yet to actively seek a repeal of DOMA, and is acquiescing to Congressional leaders who insist that the current political reality dictates that repeal is impossible. And his administration continues to defend DOMA in court against appeals.

Also: Obama has in the past claimed there's no inconsistency between opposing Prop 8 and opposing gay marriage by arguing he thinks gay marriage is wrong but we shouldn't be prohibiting it legally.

"When you're playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about," he said in a 2008 MTV interview. "Usually constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them."

But DOMA does just this, and while Obama opposes it, actively moving to repeal is what would turn this argument from mere eloquence to reality.

The problem for the White House is that the Prop 8 decision will force this issue onto full boil nationally, just as the Arizona law did with illegal immigration. And heading into his 2012 reelection campaign, the gay and lesbian community -- an important Dem constiuency -- will be demanding full support for gay marriage, and a repeal of DOMA.

They'll be demanding complete consistency, and won't want to be lectured about what is and isn't possible amid some arbitrarily defined "political reality."

By Greg Sargent | August 5, 2010; 12:38 PM ET

Marriage is a Constitutional Right

2010-08-06T00:17:00.002-06:00

From NYTimes.com: "Until Wednesday, the thousands of same-sex couples who have married did so because a state judge or Legislature allowed them to. The nation’s most fundamental guarantees of freedom, set out in the Constitution, were not part of the equation. That has changed with the historic decision by a federal judge in California, Vaughn Walker, that said his state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment’s rights to equal protection and due process of law.

The decision, though an instant landmark in American legal history, is more than that. It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.
As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.

The case was brought by two gay couples who said California’s Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote, discriminated against them by prohibiting same-sex marriage and relegating them to domestic partnerships. The judge easily dismissed the idea that discrimination is permissible if a majority of voters approve it; the referendum’s outcome was “irrelevant,” he said, quoting a 1943 case, because “fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote.”

He then dismantled, brick by crumbling brick, the weak case made by supporters of Proposition 8 and laid out the facts presented in testimony. The two witnesses called by the supporters (the state having bowed out of the case) had no credibility, he said, and presented no evidence that same-sex marriage harmed society or the institution of marriage.

Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in their ability to form successful marital unions and raise children, he said. Though procreation is not a necessary goal of marriage, children of same-sex couples will benefit from the stability provided by marriage, as will the state and society. Domestic partnerships confer a second-class status. The discrimination inherent in that second-class status is harmful to gay men and lesbians. These findings of fact will be highly significant as the case winds its way through years of appeals.

One of Judge Walker’s strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage,” he wrote. “That time has passed.”

To justify the proposition’s inherent discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, he wrote, there would have to be a compelling state interest in banning same-sex marriage. But no rational basis for discrimination was presented at the two-and-a-half-week trial in January, he said. The real reason for Proposition 8, he wrote, is a moral view “that there is something wrong with same-sex couples,” and that is not a permissible reason for legislation.

“Moral disapproval alone,” he wrote, in words that could someday help change history, “is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women.”

The ideological odd couple who led the case — Ted Olson and David Boies, who fought against each other in the Supreme Court battle over the 2000 election — were criticized by some supporters of same-sex marriage for moving too quickly to the federal courts. Certainly, there is no guarantee that the current Supreme Court would uphold Judge Walker’s ruling. But there are times when legal opinions help lead public opinions.

Just as they did for racial equality in previous decades, the moment has arrived for the federal courts to bestow full equality to millions of gay men and lesbians. "

Grandmother supports boycott of Target

2010-07-31T00:18:00.000-06:00

Sonoma County CA Pays for Shameful Treatment of Gay Couple

2010-07-27T12:42:00.001-06:00

From Change.org:
A few years ago the County of Sonoma in California showed its despicable and ignorant hand when it physically separated and isolated Clay Greene from his injured partner Harold Scull, seized the men's possessions, sold those items at auction, forced them into separate nursing facilities and denied them their due legal rights and protection. As this story went viral in April 2010, the general response both here at change.org and around the country was palpable and appropriate outrage. A lawsuit against the County of Sonoma, along with Agua Caliente Villa, the nursing home where Greene was forced to live, commenced immediately, alleging about 50 counts of various, heinous crimes.

And now, months later, Sonoma County has tucked its tail between its legs and skulked away from what was surely going to be a terrible trial, and settled out of court. In retribution for all their sins, the County will pay $600,000 to Harold and Clay's estate (with almost half of that going to attorney's fees ... why do I not practice law again?). Agua Caliente will pay an additional $53,000.

So that's all well and good, I guess. Money can't ever erase the three tortuous months the two men spent apart, stripped of their home, their dignity, and their partnership before Harold died alone in a nursing home. It can't replace the possessions, gathered over a 20 year relationship, that the county wrongfully seized and then sold at auction. It can't undo the emotional hurt. At this point, all Sonoma County has to give is money, so it'll have to do.

But Sonoma County has learned the error of its ways — either to simply cover its ass in the future or to be a kinder, gentler county, who knows? — and is also implementing new procedures for its workers to avoid this kind of intolerant behavior in the future. This is, perhaps, the best news. They can't really fix the enormous injury they inflicted upon Clay Greene, but they can damn sure never inflict it on anyone else.

Wouldn't it have been nice if Sonoma County had an inclusive policy already in place? Sure. It would have been nice if Jackson Memorial had a gay friendly visitation code long before Lisa Pond was admitted. It would have been great if the Itawamba School District had a strict no bullying policy way before Candace McMillan was even a student. It would have been even better if the Defense of Marriage Act was a thing of the past. But we don't live in that world. Yet.

To Clay Greene I say this: I am so sorry you had to go through what you and Harold had to go through. I can't imagine the level of pain and sorrow you both felt. Perhaps, because of you, and those like you who were boldly empowered to speak out at a time when the system beat you down, I won't ever know it.

More on Target's Support of Anti-Gay Candidate

2010-07-27T12:21:00.002-06:00

From Metroweekly.com:
''Marriage
I believe marriage is the union between one man and one woman. As a legislator, I have consistently supported the constitutional marriage amendment that protects traditional marriage.''

From the election website of Tom Emmer, a Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. It is reported by AP that Target Corp., the parent company of Target stores based in Minneapolis, has donated $150,000 in cash and brand consulting to "a Republican-friendly political fund.'' Adding that the recipients of the donation are running ads for Tom Emmer. AP calls Emmer "a fiery conservative who opposes gay marriage...,'' then contrasts that donation with a donation from the company to the annual Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival. (Tom Emmer) (AP)

''[Target Corporation] has given $150,000 to a political action committee (PAC), Minnesota Forward, which supports Tom Emmer, Minnesota Republican candidate for governor. Emmer's campaign has previously given money to a ministry that believes Muslim countries that execute gay men and lesbians are more moral than American Christians. The news is even more upsetting, however, when one considers that Target received a perfect score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's most recent Corporate Equality Index (CEI).''

From a post at Change.org by Dana Rudolph opposing the donation of funds to a PAC that runs ads for conservative Minnesota politician Tom Emmer. (Change.org)

"Why they would want to get involved and say 'we're for one person' or 'we're for one party' is really beyond me.... There are a lot of people who take politics very seriously and they take their views on issues very seriously, and they do not want to see their money going directly to fund somebody who is directly antagonistic to their belief system."

Minnesota State Representative Ryan Winkler asking publicly, on Minnesota Public Radio, why Target Corp. would donate $150,000 to support a socially conservative gubenatorial candidate Tom Emmer when his "views on abortion, gay marriage and the minimum wage could upset Target shoppers.'' (Minnesota.PublicRadio.org)

''To continue to grow and create jobs and opportunity in our home state, we believe it is imperative to be engaged in public policy and the political process. That is why we are members of organizations like the Minnesota Business Partnership, the Chamber of Commerce and many others. And that is why we decided to contribute to MN Forward.

''MN Forward's objective is to elect candidates from both parties who will make job creation and economic growth a top priority. We operate best when working collaboratively with legislators on both sides of the aisle. In fact, if you look at our Federal PAC contributions year to date, you will see that they are very balanced between Republicans and Democrats. For more information please visit www.target.com/company, and view the Civic Activity page.''

Portion of an e-mail said to be a response from the Executive Offices of Target, as posted by BearBunMN on the website MN Progressive Project. The usually gay-friendly company has donated to a political fund which is reported to be backing one particularly gay-unfriendly candidate for Governor of Minnesota, Tom Emmer. (MNProgressiveProject)

Boycott Target! Target Donates to Anti-Gay Candidate

2010-07-27T12:15:00.000-06:00

Why is the Military Polling Troops About Gays?

2010-07-12T14:20:00.001-06:00

From Time.com:
When Harry Truman wanted to integrate blacks into the U.S. military in 1948, he simply ordered it done. When the Navy wanted women on ships beginning in 1978, it commanded its admirals to do so. When the Clinton Pentagon decided women should become fighter pilots, it issued orders telling the military to make it happen. For generations, the military mind-set has been, If we want you to have an opinion, we'll issue you one. So why is the Pentagon asking troops how they'll feel if forced to serve alongside openly gay comrades?

"This is a very dangerous precedent," says Lawrence Korb, who ran the Pentagon's personnel office during the Reagan Administration. "It gives the troops the feeling that they have a veto over what the top people want." Not everyone agrees. "What matters is the morale of the force in the field," says Ralph Peters, a retired Army officer and military scholar. "The survey is an honest attempt to suss out what the effects on morale might be."
(See a brief history of gays in the military.)

But even a top officer acknowledges some unease. "We've never done this," Admiral Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, said in February after Pentagon leaders endorsed ending "Don't ask, don't tell" and said they would survey the troops about it. "We've never assessed the force because it is not our practice to go within our military and poll our force to determine if they like the laws of the land or not," he told an activist from the University of California's Palm Center, which monitors the issue. "I mean, that gets you into [a] very difficult regime."
(See the case of a murdered sailor.)

Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, says the poll is simply a political tool designed to ease a decision that would be better made quickly. Instead, it's part of a prolonged process that polarizes those involved and hurts both national security and gays. "If we were asking questions about any other identity group — Would your wife mind living on post next to a Chinese family?, Would you take orders from a Baptist officer?, Would you mind serving alongside an African American? — these kinds of questions make those groups second-class citizens," he says.

But the polling and a Pentagon study now under way — after President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and the House all have declared the ban should end (the Senate is expected to do so soon) — does serve a purpose. "We've had to do these political somersaults," Belkin says, "involving a basically fake study process, in order to give the Pentagon a sense that they have some buy-in." Gates said Thursday that it's "very important for us to understand from our men and women in uniform the challenges that they see" accompanying such a change, and added that the survey is "being done in a very professional way."
(Read TIME's 1991 article "Marching Out of the Closet.")

But the confidential survey, sent out via e-mail last week to 400,000 active and reserve troops, is already controversial. Gay-advocacy groups obtained copies of the poll Friday and it quickly flew around the Internet. The survey "stokes the fires of homophobia by its very design, and will only make the Pentagon's responsibility to subdue homophobia as part of this inevitable policy change even harder," said Alexander Nicholson of Servicemembers United, a former Army interrogator who was discharged under the existing "Don't ask, don't tell" legislation. He complained that the survey uses "bias-inducing" words "such as the clinical term homosexual," and focused too much on the negative implications of repeal. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called such criticism "nonsense."
(Comment on this story.)

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, perhaps the leading gay-rights group dealing with "Don't ask, don't tell," took a tough line against the survey. "No survey of the troops should be done," director Aubrey Sarvis said Friday. "Surveying the troops is unprecedented — it did not happen in 1948 when President Truman ended segregation and it did not happen in 1976 when the service academies opened to women. Even when the military placed women on ships at sea, the Pentagon did not turn to a survey on how to bring about that cultural change."

Troops have until Aug. 15 to complete the survey, which asks some 100 questions about how troops would feel serving alongside openly gay comrades or commanders. ("If 'Don't ask, don't tell' is repealed and you are working with a service member in your immediate unit who has said he or she is gay or lesbian, how, if at all, would it affect your immediate unit's effectiveness at completing its mission?" asks a typical question. The six multiple-choice answers range from "Very positively" to "Very negatively" and also include "No effect.") A second confidential survey, assessing how 150,000 family members feel about the prospective repeal, is slated for next month.

Congress passed "Don't ask, don't tell" in 1993 to thwart President Clinton's bid to lift a ban on gays serving openly. Until then, the White House had unilaterally barred open gays from serving in uniform. Under the 1993 law, recruits were no longer asked if they were gay ("don't ask"). They could serve so long as they kept their mouths shut about their private lives ("don't tell"). It was a crude compromise, which still allowed the military to kick out nearly 14,000 troops, including more than 400 last year while the nation was waging two wars.

But the public mood has shifted since 1993, when only 44% of the public supported openly gay men and women in uniform. It's now supported by 75%, according to a Washington Post poll. But never mind newspaper polls. Korb, the former Pentagon personnel chief now at the Center for American Progress think tank, is more concerned over what might happen if military surveys like this catch on. "Are they going to poll the troops on whether they want happy hours or discount cigarettes?" he asks. "Where does it stop — should we get out of Afghanistan?"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2003075,00.html?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29#ixzz0tV8OA5RU

Obama Can't Shake Gay Rights Fight

2010-07-11T13:56:00.000-06:00

From Politico.com:
By: Josh Gerstein
July 10, 2010 07:03 AM EDT

When President Barack Obama agreed to back legislation in May that could eventually repeal the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy, the resolution seemed to offer twin benefits for the White House:

Quell the anger of gay activists who accused Obama of foot-dragging on the issue, and allow the question of gays in the military to cool for a while, perhaps until after the November election.

That didn’t last long.

The issue leapt back into the news this week after the Pentagon sent a survey to 400,000 troops to assess their attitudes on whether openly gay soldiers should be allowed to serve — with questions being criticized by gay rights advocates as inaccurate, inflammatory and biased.

Next week, a lawsuit brought by the Log Cabin Republicans is going to trial in California — and Obama’s Justice Department is in the uncomfortable position of trying to prevent the "don't ask, don't tell" policy from being overturned as discharged veterans testify about its dramatic impact on their careers.

Some gay rights activists who were cheered by Obama’s decision in May now say they’re frustrated by what feels like a two steps forward, one step back approach to the issue — especially in light of Obama’s delay in seeking to repeal of the policy in the first place.

“This has got to be a nightmare for the White House political office, especially as Organizing for America ramps up efforts to rebuild a coalition for the midterms which includes gays,” said Richard Socarides, a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay rights issues. “I want the Democrats to keep both houses of Congress more than most. It’s very important that we do that if gay rights are important to you. So I can’t understand why the president’s senior advisers permit the Justice Department to defend this case. … It’s incomprehensible.”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the White House declined to comment for this story. However, officials have said that Justice is obligated to defend any law Congress passes as long as there is a plausible legal basis to do so, even if the current administration disagrees with the statute.

Some lawyers in the gay rights movement scoff at that. They note that from time to time, Justice has refused to stand behind laws under challenge as unconstitutional. For instance, in 2005, the Justice Department declined to defend a law barring the D.C. Metro transit system from accepting ads that promote legalizing marijuana.

For the attorneys from the Justice Department’s Civil Division assigned to handle the Log Cabin case, it’s essentially a Catch-22. If they get tough or confrontational with the ex-service-members or experts called to testify, the government lawyers risk being accused of insensitivity.

If they hold back, Republicans and social conservatives could accuse the administration of taking a dive in a case it never really wanted to win.

“This is a pincer” for the government’s lawyers, said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. However, he didn’t have much sympathy. “It comes with the territory,” he said.

Even ahead of the Log Cabin case, conservative Republicans have been attacking Obama on gay rights as well, insisting that the Justice Department isn’t really trying very hard to defend the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy.

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) suggested that the Justice Department wasn’t going all-out to fight lawsuits against the gays-in-the-military policy, and over a law denying federal recognition to same-sex marriages, the Defense of Marriage Act.

Kagan denied the charge. “I have acted in the solicitor general's office consistently with the responsibility, which I agree with you very much that I have, to vigorously defend all statutes, including the statute that embodies the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy,” Kagan said.

A federal judge’s rulings Thursday holding part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional triggered a round of complaints from conservatives that the Obama administration was making a politically correct and less-than-forceful defense of that law.

“The Justice Department’s half-hearted defense in this case — exemplified by DOJ’s own attorney asserting that President Obama opposes DOMA — is unacceptable. The president’s personal views have nothing to do with the defense of a law passed by Congress,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

Gillers said, though, that government attorneys were not obliged to rip apart the opposition the way a private litigator might. “Because you’re a government lawyer, you’re not given the same deference to be a junkyard dog for that client,” he said. “A government lawyer has a broader mandate.”

Written briefs in gay-rights-related cases have already landed the Justice Department in hot water with the Obama White House after gay activists complained the filings compared same-sex marriage to forms of incest and marriages involving minors. Sources say some filings in such cases are now coordinated with White House lawyers.

But the give-and-take of live courtroom testimony is even more treacherous and can’t be vetted so easily from Washington. The lead lawyer for the Log Cabin group, Dan Woods of White & Case in Los Angeles, said he expects the trial to stretch for two weeks and involve testimony by seven expert witnesses and as many as six former service members. Justice Department lawyers have said they plan to call no witnesses at the bench trial to be held before Judge Virginia Phillips, without a jury, Woods said.

With the new Pentagon survey under fire for its questions about open-bay showers and even its use of the term “homosexual,” it is almost certain that Justice Department lawyers handling the Log Cabin case will be accused of asking insensitive or homophobic questions as they cross-examine witnesses.

On the other side of the political spectrum, social conservatives say they’ll be watching closely to see whether DOJ is going easy. “We hope the administration’s politically motivated position against 'don’t ask, don’t tell' will not be a factor in defending the regulations,” said Daniel Blomberg of the Alliance Defense Fund.

The political minefield the trial presents may be one reason the Justice Department has tried mightily to head it off.

Last month, government lawyers asked Phillips to put the case on hold indefinitely because of the steps Congress took in May toward a repeal of the "don’t ask" statute passed in 1993. On May 27, the House voted, 234-194, in favor of a measure that would repeal "don’t ask" next year if top military leaders certify the repeal can be carried out without impacting force readiness and unit cohesion. On the same day, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted, 16-12, for the same language.

However, the judge noted that the bills involved have not cleared Congress and that the repeal depends on several actions by the military and Obama that may or may not happen. “Given the many contingencies involved — including the threshold contingency of congressional approval — and the lack of clear timelines, any ultimate repeal that may result from this legislation is at this point remote, if not wholly speculative,” Phillips wrote Tuesday as she ordered the trial to go forward.

Government lawyers also have asked Phillips to deny a trial as unnecessary, to exclude all of the expert witnesses and most of the other witnesses. Phillips, a Clinton appointee, denied all the motions.

Woods pointed to one specific episode that he said highlighted the contradictions in the government’s case. He said the plaintiffs asked the government to admit that Obama said last year that "don’t ask" weakens national security and that the statement is true. The government admitted Obama made the comment but declined to say whether it was true. After a judge required the government to answer, it denied Obama’s assertion.

“They keep saying they have no choice but to defend the law because it is the law and that’s their job at the Justice Department, but the hypocrisy of this emerges all the time,” Woods said. “They are in a very awkward position.”

There are a few breaks for the administration in the trial set to start this week. The location in Riverside, Calif., far from Washington’s political press, should diminish coverage. And the ban on cameras in federal trial courts means TV coverage will have to rely on courtroom sketches.

But the gay Republicans who filed the case back in 2004 are doing their best to keep the legal and public pressure on the Obama administration. The Log Cabin group said Friday that Woods plans a daily press availability after the trial session, that principals in the case will be readily available to the media, and that the group plans a daily bulletin on trial developments.

Montana GOP seeks to ‘keep homosexual acts illegal

2010-06-28T23:43:00.002-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: "Andy Towle is reporting that like the Texas GOP, the Montana Republican Party has adopted a platform that would criminalize “homosexual acts”:

Homosexual Acts

We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.

Ironically, the platform uses some form of the word “constitutional” at least 10 times and even argues that constitutionality should be decided by the states. But the Montana Supreme Court struck down the State’s sodomy law in 1997 and ruled that it violated the constitutional right to privacy. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court found in Lawrence v. Texas that Texas’ “Homosexual Conduct” law — a measure outlawing oral and anal sex — unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the Texas statute “making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct violates the Due Process Clause.” “The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to choose to enter upon relationships in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons,” the Court ruled in a 6-3 ruling."

Pride (In The Name Of Love): Why the Gay Pride Parade Still Matters

2010-06-27T00:07:00.001-06:00

From Chicagoist.com: "For some gay men and lesbians, the thought of going to the Gay Pride Parade is slightly cringe-inducing (the crowds! the noise! the heat!), vaguely uncool, and spiritually unsatisfying, and so they stay put on their housecoats and catch the highlights online or on the evening news. Gay Pride Parade fatigue is likely more common with older generations who have seen it all, or think they have, but in reality there are gay men and women of all ages that avoid the parade—which to them feels more like an excuse to party, than a political statement.

Cyon Flare (Robert Mitchell) has a unique insight into the minds and hearts of gay men, a skill she’s honed as the popular weekend host for Hydrate, one of the more prominent dance clubs in Boystown. Flare—a Billboard-charting recording artist—gives Chicagoist her take on Gay Pride Parade fatigue, half-naked boys on parade floats, and why gay men need to step away from the computer and start connecting in-person, at the parade. (Readers take note: the “fierce” is strong with this one, Obi-Wan.)

Chicagoist: You’ve heard people criticize the Gay Pride Parade, claiming the presence of outrageous, over-the-top drag queens and scantily clad go-go boys actually puts people off. How do you respond to that?

Cyon Flare: Gays—like a lot of people in this world—are outrageous and over-the-top for what they believe in—so that doesn’t concern me. What hurts us is when we march without a cause, and march without the knowledge of why pride parades exists in the first place. Stonewall was “yesterday” but the struggle goes on. I think we need to spend more time educating people and reminding them why we march—and still be outrageous! We must show our brothers and sisters, along with our [heterosexual] supporters, how to be naked and unashamed. We need our parades for the sake of presence! It’s a powerful tool if used wisely.

C: Is the Gay Pride Parade simply an excuse to party?
CF: It is a time to party openly and publicly, and to celebrate freedom and the right to exist in a world that constantly tells us that we can’t, or shouldn’t, exist or thrive. Gay and straight people do parties and festivals all the time. Why can’t we? Look at the events celebrating the Blackhawks or the Cubs. It is time to party! But, party with a cause, a purpose.

C: What does gay pride mean to you? What are some of your earliest memories of gay pride celebrations and how they impacted you as a person and a performer?

CF: For starters, “Pride” is not just a word, it’s a lifestyle, so come out and live it! For me, [Gay ] Pride started when my lesbian mom would say, after I ran home with bloody noses and black eyes from school or in the ‘hood, “Robby, don’t be afraid to fight back, they can’t take anything from you. Fight back by showing them they can’t stop you. When those that beat you up see you refuse to live in fear—that is strength.”

So, Pride, for me, is about never giving up, even when the odds are against you, and not being afraid to stand up for yourself. It’s funny—being beat up in the ‘hood is nothing compared to what other gay people do to each other. We use hateful words with each other. Some people use the word “bitch” just to say hello, and then use it to insult you. I mean, seriously, the world is watching gay people and how we treat each other! While working in the community, I see fighting and so much abuse, and it’s gays against gays— not straight. Yes, gay bashing and homophobia are still a problem with but we, I feel, are constantly bashing each other, which is far worse.

C: What is your response to those that can’t seem to shake that feeling of parade fatigue?

CF: I think that we’ll always have many age groups that suffer from pride parade fatigue, at some point in their lives. The key is to enjoy what you can [about Gay Pride celebrations], what you feel comfortable with, and to remain visible to the community. We need you 40-somethings; too many are tired, and I understand that, but the power of your presence makes a difference. Rise up, children rise!

C: As online social networking sites like Facebook and Grindr continue to evolve, why do you think participating in gay pride is more important now than ever before?

CF: People are so afraid to get hurt and they are looking for easy ways out or to avoid drama. Ironically, the drama changes form to suit the means. We are so afraid of face-to-face encounters. I know so many people that feel safer playing online games, rather than going out and being man or woman enough to interact with each other in-person.

I feel we need to have another coming out celebration: coming out of the house, getting off the computer, coming out of cyberspace, to enjoy the old fashion way of meeting and connecting. We must learn to celebrate when someone rejects us, because we are not meant to be lovers with everyone we meet or connect with. So, enjoy the moment for what it is, and learn to re-embrace that human side and face one another. Remember, pride is not just a word, it’s a lifestyle—so come out!"

The Smithsonian Museum Puts Gays In The Vault

2010-06-25T13:58:00.001-06:00

From HuffingtonPost.com: "A dozen picket signs on old wooden sticks carry the DNA of the gay civil equality movement in America. Forty-five years ago, this month, in 1965, these pickets were held high by men and women considered among the first generation of LGBT activists in front of Lyndon Johnson's White House.

With the men wearing jackets and ties and tailored skirts for the ladies, all arrived neatly dressed to disarm the looks of fellow citizens, while their hand-lettered signs proclaimed unimaginable things like "First Class Citizenship for Homosexuals". Despite their professional appearances, this handful of men and women on this history-making picket line, knew perfectly well that their conduct literally put themselves and their jobs on the line, in broad daylight.

Today, however, those brave pickets are stored in the dark of a Smithsonian vault, where they have been held for they past four years, ever since they first were presented to The National Museum of American History.

In 2006, the original protest pickets were donated to the Smithsonian by The Kameny Papers Project, funded in part by former Congressman Michael Huffington and other generous friends and allies. Frank Kameny is often considered the still living father of the gay civil equality movement in Washington, D.C. and led many such picket lines in his day. Fired by the federal government in 1957 because he was gay, Kameny responded in righteous fury that such an action could be taken against him, a World War II veteran who had seen combat in Germany, a Harvard-educated astronomer determined to work for America's nascent space program.

Like many Americans, he sought nothing more than to be an equal part of JFK's "New Frontier" and Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society", yet was locked out, then forced change and acceptance by his nation's government over the following decades by sheer application of his wits and his will. The man has lived even to see a Washington, D.C. street named for him this month, "Frank Kameny Way".

So how is it that the nation's treasured museum, our Smithsonian Institution, can keep these very special artifacts in the vault? To be fair, it takes time for a museum the size and quality of this great institution to curate and interpret artifacts of contemporary history.

However, beyond the pickets, even if a casual visitor or respected historian pays a call today, he or she will quickly discover there is not a single gay or lesbian story told in the entire National Museum of American History.
In our nation's capital - for over two centuries, our city often has witnessed and staged the struggles for many Americans fighting to achieve their full measure of equality and visibility. Within the Smithsonian, in fact, you will see their stories chronicled, their sacrifices narrated, their faces displayed. Major exhibits on "American Ideals", "Public Opinion", "Communities", "The Price of Liberty", "Culture" and "Science in the Public Eye" make absolutely no reference whatever to LGBT Americans. It is a time warp in itself, to see this absence given how the country and public opinion have changed since World War II, and how many nationally respected historians, story-tellers and journalists have documented LGBT contributions and challenges, including even our generation's terrible HIV/AIDS epidemic. You will search in vain to find today on exhibit even a piece of the AIDS quilt, or a single mention of gay and lesbian involvement in politics, civics, culture or war. Within the Smithsonian - the nation's lens on American history - we remain invisible.

In contrast, in 2006, the Kameny Papers Project donated nearly 50,000 items to The Library of Congress. These documents have been catalogued in their entirety and are now fully available to anyone with a Library card. The Library also knows that they have a responsibility not merely to keep these documents under lock and key on their shelves. This month, as part of their LGBT Pride activities, the Library of Congress launched an innovative, new web portal focusing largely on the Kameny archive, along with the papers of gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and other prominent writers and doers, with a very generous Introduction by our national Librarian James Billington. The Library of Congress sets the standard for telling the story of all Americans who envision, celebrate, build and defend American liberty.

The National Museum of American History plays an especially important role among all Smithsonian museums. It tells the story of freedom, and how that freedom has steadily expanded to include all Americans from the abolition of slavery, to granting women the right to vote, to the African-American civil rights movement of the Sixties, to defending the rights of the disabled. It is past time to bring LGBT Americans out of the vault and into the fold of that liberty story, where we belong, at the Smithsonian and to be shared with all Americans

Charles Francis is the founder of the Kameny Papers Project. Bob Witeck is CEO of Witeck Combs Communications."

Ke$ha - Take if Off (Boys of BOSTON video parody)

2010-06-22T00:52:00.000-06:00

Take Back Pride

2010-06-17T17:19:00.001-06:00

From GoodAsYou.org: "The LGBT community's annual pride celebrations were born out of activism. It was seen as a time to bust out of closets and bound into the streets, an act of liberation in an all-too-constraining world. One part celebration, one part call to action.

But while the sense of liberation has remained and the joy of celebration has grown exponentially, the activism has a tendency to take a back seat in modern parades. I get that. Everyone wants to celebrate, especially in the summer. It's understandable that marginalized people would want a day to just shut down, throw on some glitter, and fight not to obtain equal rights but rather to get to the front of the bar to obtain that frozen rainbow cocktail. Make mine a double.

This year, we are at an interesting point in time. We have what might be the most favorable political landscape we will see for quite some time. We are in an election year, where we need to fight like LGBT Partiers to maintain some of those allied seats in all areas of government. And we have a list of promises for which we need to hold those who are already in office accountable. We have to rise up before the opportunity passes us by. Or better yet: We have to rise up so as to sustain whatever opportunity we currently have.

That's why I, Jeremy, have signed on to this new effort to bring a renewed sense of activism to this year's pride celebrations. Check it out and see what you think:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 13, 2010

"TAKE BACK PRIDE" CAMPAIGN HOPES TO EDUCATE LGBT COMMUNITY AND ALLIES

TAKEBACKPRIDE.ORG

(NEW YORK, NY) April 13, 2010 - In response to the current political environment and in the interest of unifying the work of LGBT Organizations around the country, Take Back Pride is a new campaign aimed towards educating our community and the citizens of the United States on the many inequalities we currently face.

Over the past forty years, since the very first Pride March, we feel that some of the aspects of protest have disappeared from many Pride celebrations. While it remains alive and well in some places, we believe that through education and inclusion of ALL members of our community, we can work to actually use our incredibly diverse and beautiful marches to advance our civil rights.

The website, which will continue to be updated as we move ahead, will serve as a resource to those willing to participate in the campaign. While we are based in New York and are in communication with Heritage of Pride NYC in the hopes of working together on this project, we hope to include citizens in every part of the US in Taking Back Pride.

Please consider the attached letter and endorsements as an open letter to our community and allies.

***

April 13, 2010

Dear Members of the LGBTQ Community, Our Allies and Community Partners,

While last year we celebrated the 40th Anniversary of our liberation at Stonewall on the last Sunday of June in 1969, we are celebrating another anniversary in 2010. And we need to do it right.

On the last Sunday in June 1970, Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance, in
commemoration of the Stonewall riots, staged the first “Gay Liberation Day March.”
Organizers in Los Angeles and San Francisco also held marches that day.

We have much to celebrate. As a community we have struggled and fought for our very
lives. Together, we have accomplished what at one time was a fantasy at best. Our sexual
liberation has been celebrated every year now for 40 years with what was once a march
and is now a parade, in the streets of New York and dozens of other cities across the
country and the world.

This year, in light of the major battles we have ahead of us, we are asking for all of you to
join us in taking back pride. While we have so much to be proud of in what we have
accomplished as a community, this fight is far from over. We want our community to not
only remember those who have fought and died before us, but to forge ahead in the
struggle -- so that our children may one day live truly free and equal lives in this country.

The organizers of Pride Marches around the country work tirelessly over the course of the
year to bring us the most inclusive marches and celebrations in the world. We want to help
those organizers by working with them to implement plans for education and protest within
our marches.

We know that our community is made up of every race, creed, religious affiliation and
political background imaginable. We come from everywhere, from Africa to New Zealand.
We represent Conservatives and Socialists. We are made up of Catholics and Buddhists
alike. The time has come to embrace our ideals and differences and remember that what
we have in common as a community - is our strength.

For Pride 2010, we ask that organizers and participants of marches around this great
country take this opportunity to be heard. Yell. Scream. Chant. Wear your chaps and
thongs, but carry a sign while you do it. Put on your most sequined ball gown, but shout
for your rights as you flaunt your fabulousness. The sheer number of people who turn out
in the streets this June will send a clear message around the world that we are not content
with what we have. We are somebody. We deserve full equality.

If you’re marching with a group, ask your group what they are angry about. It could be
Marriage Inequality, or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It could be that in 31 states, you can still be
fired for being gay (see the “What Are You Angry About” section on this page.)

We owe it to our community and to those young gay people who are still afraid to say who
they are to TAKE BACK PRIDE. Make your signs. Create your chants. It’s time for us all
to remember this is a march, not a parade. This is OUR celebration of who we are and it
has the potential to once again be something we are ALL truly proud of.

On Tuesday, May 11th in New York City, we will be having a community town hall
discussion about what we can do to Take Back Pride. We encourage all groups
participating in Pride to take part. And for those of you outside New York, the meeting will
be posted on YouTube. You may also visit www.TakeBackPride.org to see how YOU can
help Take Back Pride.

Jamie McGonnigal
www.TalkAboutEquality.org

Lt. Dan Choi
US National Guard
NYC Pride Grand Marshall

Robin McGehee
GetEqual

Alan Bounville
Member-Queer Rising, New York

Brandon Brock
Western Queens for Marriage Equality

Tituss Burgess
Broadway Actor - The Little Mermaid

Andrew Conte

Marti Gould Cummings
Co-Founder, Broadway Speaks OUT!

Natasha Dillon
Member - Queer Rising, New York

Matt Doyle
Broadway Actor - Bye Bye Birdie

Peter Dunn
DrinkingforaChange.org

Eric Ethington
PRIDE In Your Community
http://prideinutah.com

Justin Elzie
Activist & Writer

Todd (Tiff) Fernandez, Esq

David John Fleck
Get Equal; Activist

Marcelo Gomes
Principal Dancer - American Ballet Theatre

Blake Hayes
BlakeHayes.com

Jeremy Hooper
www.GoodAsYou.org

Jordan Fife Hunt
www.TalkAboutEquality.org

Hugh Hysell
Hugh Hysell Communications

Corey Johnson
Towleroad.com

Tom Johnson
Partner in Therapy & Barrage

Jenny Kanelos
Broadway Impact

Adam Kern

Jim Klever-Weis
Executive Producer - Ugly Betty

Jennifer Michaud
Graphic Designer - Take Back Pride logo

Rebecca Louise Miller
Actor - “Prayers for Bobby”

David Mixner
DavidMixner.com

Rich Murray
Member-Queer Rising, New York

Scott Nevins
TV Personality truTV’s “The Smoking Gun
Presents”

Dan Nicoletta
Photographer

Ann Northrop
Co-host, GAY USA

Rory O’Malley
Broadway Impact

Ken O’Neill
Author of “The Marrying Kind”

Randy Redd
We are the Song:After the Storm

Chris Ryan
Chris Ryan Productions

Christopher Sieber
Broadway Actor - Shrek, The Kid

Melissa Sklarz

Guy Smith & Robert Montenegro
Activists: MENY, The Power, Married
10/17/08 Tujunga, CA.

Tom Viola
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

If you would like to add your name or your organization to this list, please email us at takebackpride@gmail.com.

Investigations and Discharges Under DADT Will Continue

2010-06-09T14:43:00.001-06:00

Pentagon: Investigations and Discharges Under
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Will Continue

SLDN issued warnings to service members before and after the recent House floor and Senate committee votes
on repeal amendment

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a national, legal services and policy organization dedicated to ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), responded today after a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to the Denver Post that investigations and discharges of gay and lesbian service members will continue. Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, said: "The law is still in effect, and if someone were to out themselves, we would have to begin the discharge process." SLDN issued warnings to gay and lesbian service members before and after the recent House floor and Senate committee votes on an amendment that would allow for the repeal of the law. Gay and lesbian service members with questions are urged to contact the SLDN hotline: 202-328-3244 x100 or email legal@sldn.org. Any service member with questions about DADT can schedule an appointment for free, confidential legal advice with an SLDN attorney.

"The Pentagon is being very clear that they will continue the discharges and gay and lesbian active-duty service members, including those in the reserves and the national guard, remain at risk," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "Even with the recent votes in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee, the discharges are continuing. Qualified men and women of our armed forces will continue to be fired from their jobs and it is putting our national security at risk. And even despite the new 'more humane' Pentagon Instructions, we are aware of an 'O-7' - a one-star general - signing off on a discharge very recently. Congress and the Pentagon need to stay on track to get repeal finalized, hopefully no later than first quarter 2011."

"'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' continues to be the law, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members remain vulnerable to being discharged on the basis of their sexual orientation," said Aaron Tax, legal director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "It is not safe to come out or serve openly until the process of repeal is complete. During this time, continue to check with SLDN regarding changes in the law, changes to the regulations, and what impact, if any, these developments mean for your ability to serve openly."

Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" study draws fire from advocates, gay soldiers

2010-06-09T14:34:00.001-06:00

From DenverPost.com: "WASHINGTON — A group representing more than 250 gay and lesbian active-duty soldiers has issued a letter criticizing the months-long process the Pentagon is undertaking to examine the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military.

The letter, sent Monday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, criticizes the lack of input from gay and lesbian soldiers. It claims that lack of input "will result in failure to show that the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy has allowed the worst of atrocities to occur in our military and go unreported."

The problem for gay and lesbian service members is that as long as "don't ask, don't tell" is in effect, they can not openly discuss their experiences.

"The law is still in effect, and if someone were to out themselves, we would have to begin the discharge process," said Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

But, she emphasized, the group gathering information about "don't ask, don't tell" understands that it is "very important to get feedback from gay and lesbian members currently serving, and we are developing tools to gather that information."

The letter highlights that gays and lesbians already serve openly in many units with tolerant commanders and claims such units should be studied to understand how and why they work, something impossible under the study's restrictions.

"Our heterosexual counterparts see their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters at arms being unjustifiably called 'a social experiment' and 'potential rapists' while no leadership defends us," said the letter from Citizens for Repeal, which grew out of a group of gay cadets at the Air Force Academy and now encompasses gay and lesbian service personnel from all five military branches.

"The very groups that make these claims have direct access to the Pentagon working group, but gay and lesbian soldiers who risk their lives every day, do not," the letter said.

Citizens for Repeal is withholding the names of the gay military members who support the letter because they would be subject to discharge if their identities were known, said Ty Walrod, Citizens for Repeal's civilian spokesman.

Pentagon officials conceded that they are limited in the ways that they can collect information for the study, due Dec. 1, which commanders told Congress in February would be key to repealing a policy still popular with many in the military.

However, officials said they are also setting up work- arounds that might include a hotline or anonymous interviews done by a third-party contractor.

Military members and their families can also anonymously post information on a website set up by the 65-member comprehensive review working group, tasked by Gates to do the study. But the limit of those comments is 1,000 characters — or less than 250 words.

Much of the information for the study is being gathered by working group teams, which are holding forums that include several hundred people at a time on and around military bases. The forums are meant to gather views on how repeal could affect unit readiness and cohesion as well as recruiting.

According to a compromise worked out last month in the Senate, the president must certify that military readiness won't be adversely affected before repeal can take effect.

Members of Citizens for Repeal say the organization grew out of the need for mutual support among gays and lesbians serving under "don't ask, don't tell," including harassment, blackmail or the inability to report crimes because it might also involve outing themselves and thus ending their careers.

Many of those stories can't be told under the current process, they say, despite the millions of dollars the Pentagon is spending on the study.

"They're missing a lot," a gay Air Force officer and member of the group said of the Pentagon investigators.

"They need to learn how gay soldiers and straight soldiers are getting along right now and how we can make that work across the whole military. That's how they can learn about the relationships and how we can get past the barriers and the stigma."

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Tuesday that he'd read the letter and had contacted the Pentagon over the issue.

"I will be on close watch to ensure that gay and lesbian service members currently serving in the military who participate and answer questions as part of Secretary Gates' review are able to speak openly and honestly about their experiences without fear of retaliation," Udall said."

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton Opposes 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal

2010-06-08T18:42:00.001-06:00

From HuffingtonPost.com: "WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday said he thinks the military should keep its ban on openly gay service members in part because he doesn't want to open a national discussion about homosexuality.

Rep. Ike Skelton, a conservative Missouri Democrat, said he thinks the debate in Congress over the proposed repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law might force families to explain homosexuality to their children.

"What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?" Skelton asked reporters during a media breakfast.

Gay rights groups argue that the United States is much more comfortable talking about homosexuality than in the past.

The House voted 234-194 last month to overturn the 17-year-old law. Skelton was among the 26 Democrats who joined 168 Republicans in opposing the bill.

Skelton told reporters that no one in his district has raised the issue with him, but he says he still doesn't think the discussion is family-friendly enough.

"My biggest concern are the families," he said.

Right-wing ‘media watchdog’ is outraged that ‘Glee’ doesn’t have friendly homophobic characters

2010-06-04T12:28:00.001-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: "L. Brent Bozell III, right-wing scion and president of the conservative “media watchdog” group the Media Research Center, wrote a column today in TownHall to express his absolute outrage at the television show “Glee” for promoting a “homosexual lifestyle.” Bozell, whose “think-tank” is funded by foundation money from David and Julie Koch of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, among other corporate sources, denounced the show for portraying opponents of homosexuality as “vicious school bullies.” Bozell lamented the fact that that Glee’s homophobes were “two brutish football players” who “threatened to pummel the openly gay and riotously effeminate character Kurt for dressing up like a girl”:

“Bill O’Reilly recently hosted a “culture warriors” segment at Fox News where both “warriors” agreed that homosexuality is morally acceptable. That same no-debate mentality has been a regular drumbeat on the Fox television series “Glee,” a musical drama/comedy about a high school glee club in Lima, Ohio. [...] The only characters on the show disapproving of homosexuality are vicious school bullies. In the May 25 episode, two brutish football players threatened to pummel the openly gay and riotously effeminate character Kurt for dressing up like a girl. Everyone else in this series approves, endorses or participates in the homosexual lifestyle.“

While it may seem astounding that Bozell found the urge to whine that “this show has presented gay as the ‘new normal,’” and that “Glee” lacks enough friendly gay-bashers, his complaints are par for the course for his organization, which is considered a mainstream conservative establishment. Yesterday, Bozell’s bloggers tried to drum up an absurd conspiracy theory, accusing Time magazine of printing a picture of the World Cup logo that looks “strikingly like that of the Obama logo

Jennifer Holliday & Crystal Waters Headline St. Louis Pridefest

2010-06-03T12:24:00.003-06:00

From Stltoday.com: "Singer Jennifer Holliday, one of the original “Dreamgirls” on Broadway, headlines PrideFest’s main stage entertainment June 26 at Tower Grove Park.

PrideFest is June 26-27.

Also on the main stage June 26, hosted by Dieta Pepsi and Trish Busch, are the Grave Dolls, CHARIS, Gateway Men’s Chorus, Anti-Gravity, Josh Zuckerman, Pride St. Louis Royalty Court, and Jen Foster.

On the main stage June 27, hosted by Michelle McCausland, is Crystal Waters, Summer Osborne and Band, Josh Duffy, and Eric & the Adams.

PrideFest will include the official Pride Parade, Morgan Ford Pet Parade, a dance pavilion, and a commitment ceremony.

Ultra, the after party, is June 26 on the Atomic Cowboy patio with Peppermint, Lola Van Ella, and more.

Get more information at www.pridestl.com, or at alivemag.com for the Ultra party."

Homophobic Obama Appointee Ousted

2010-05-18T14:11:00.001-06:00

From Metroweekly.com:
"by Chris Geidner
Published on May 17, 2010, 10:04pm | 20 Comments, 28 Tweets

Jonathan I. Katz, a professor of astrophysics at Washington University in St. Louis, ''will no longer be involved in the [Energy] Department's efforts'' at addressing the oil spill continuing to spread in the Gulf of Mexico, a Department spokeswoman relayed on Monday night, May 17.

The news came after what the spokesperson, Stephanie Mueller, termed ''controversial writings'' – which included a ''defense of homophobia'' – spread out over the web on Monday, writings of which she said the Department was unaware when it sought his assistance.

On May 12, Energy Secretary Steven Chu ''assembled a group of top scientific experts from inside and outside of government to join in today's discussions in Houston about possible solutions,'' according to a Department news release. Katz was one of five outside scientists noted in the release. Bloomberg News reported about the group of scientists on May 14, reporting Chu ''signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc's leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving.''

Once news of the team spread, some of Katz's writings were discovered at his university website, including one titled, ''In Defense of Homophobia.'' In the essay, dated May 13, 1999, he wrote about the ''rationalist'' and the religious person's views of homosexuality.

''The religious believer may see the hand of God, but both he and the rationalist must see a fact of Nature. The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts. Engaging in such behavior is like riding a motorcycle on an icy road without a helmet,'' Katz wrote. ''It may be possible to get away with it for a while, and a few misguided souls may get a thrill out of doing so, but sooner or later (probably sooner) the consequences will be catastrophic. Lethal diseases spread rapidly among people who do such things.''

More than 10 years later, Energy Department spokesperson Stephanie Mueller was announcing on Monday night – less than a week after being described as ''our best scientific minds'' by Chu – that ''[s]ome of Professor Katz's controversial writings have become a distraction from the critical work of addressing the oil spill.''

Writing that Chu ''has spoken with dozens of scientists and engineers as part of his work to help find solutions to stop the oil spill,'' she referenced the writings and stated, ''Professor Katz will no longer be involved in the Department's efforts.''

In response to an inquiry from Metro Weekly about whether Chu or the Energy Department was aware of Katz's additional writings before he was selected to help with the oil spill, Mueller responded, ''No, the Secretary was not aware and disagrees with them. The Department wasn't aware either.''

Another essay pointed to by Katz's critics – ''Cold Thoughts on Global Warming'' – has been cited to as proof that he is a ''climate change denialist.'' Despite that, Katz actually states, ''The conclusion that anthropogenic emissions [those derived from human activities] of these gases will likely warm the climate has been generally accepted for a century. It is a consensus, but it is not emerging or new. It has been there all along. Only a panicky fear of the consequences is new.''

Obama Appoints Homophobe to Help Stop Gulf Oil Leak

2010-05-17T15:39:00.002-06:00

From Americablog.com: " Please sign our public letter to the President urging that this homophobe be fired immediately.__________________________________

UPDATE: He's a climate change denialist as well:

Who is stoking the alarm about global warming? There is Al Gore, an over-the-hill politician who wants to remain in the public eye. His house uses 20 times as much electricity as the average American house and he flies private jets. Obviously, he does not believe what he preaches; it must be an act. Conservation is for the little people. I'll think about reducing my emissions after he reduces his by 95%. Then there is Jim Hansen, would-be dictator who wants to throw in jail anyone who disagrees with him or burns coal. He may wish himself another Mussolini (or worse), but people just laugh at him. And finally John Holdren, who in his younger days was prophesying disaster from the ice age then just beginning (so he said). Fictitious crises are a demogogue's route to power.
Fortunately, global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen.
Nice guy for the Obama administration to be calling one of our best scientific minds - a climate change denying kook. I'm sure the oil companies are thrilled that the President is elevating this man in the public eye.

________________

New Obama appointee Jonathan I. Katz on the "innocent victims" of AIDS:
"These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves."
Jonathan I. Katz. was recently appointed by the Obama administration, along with four other scientists, to an elite panel of "our best scientific minds" to help BP cut off the oil spill.

Jonathan I. Katz is also a "proud homophobe," by his own admission. He's even written an article, published on his personal Web site at the Washington University physics department, titled "In Defense of Homophobia." And what a defense it is.

Here are a few snippets from one of our best scientific minds about how the homos killed lots of innocent people with their AIDS:
The religious believer may see the hand of God, but both he and the rationalist must see a fact of Nature. The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts. Engaging in such behavior is like riding a motorcycle on an icy road without a helmet. It may be possible to get away with it for a while, and a few misguided souls may get a thrill out of doing so, but sooner or later (probably sooner) the consequences will be catastrophic. Lethal diseases spread rapidly among people who do such things.

Unfortunately, the victims are not only those whose reckless behavior brought death on themselves. There are many completely innocent victims, too: hemophiliacs (a substantial fraction died as a result of contaminated clotting factor), recipients of contaminated transfusions, and their spouses and children, for AIDS can be transmitted heterosexually (in America, only infrequently) and congenitally. The icy road was lined with unsuspecting innocents, who never chose to ride a motorcycle. Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves.
What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another's property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill.

I am a homophobe, and proud. (emphasis added)
President Obama promised us change. He promised to be our fierce advocate. Appointing avowed bigots to elite panels, and lauding them as the best minds of our nation, is offensive the millions of LGBT Americans who voted en masse for this President. It is difficult to believe that the Obama administration couldn't find anyone else to help deal with this crisis. We all want the government to do everything it can to stop the oil spill, but elevating an avowed homophobe, and giving him the imprimatur, and the stamp of legitimacy, of the Obama administration, is simply wrong.

Please sign on to our public letter urging the President to fire Jonathan I. Katz.

No more Rick Warrens

Pawlenty: Gays Shouldn’t Have The Power To Decide What To Do With The Body Of A Deceased Partner

2010-05-17T15:19:00.002-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: "If you’re straight and your husband or wife dies, you have the power to decide what to do with your loved one’s body and how to carry out their wishes. However, if you are a gay man or woman in Minnesota — a state that doesn’t recognize marriage equality — you won’t have that option, thanks to Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R). Explaining his veto of the bill, Pawlenty simply said there “is no actual need” to give same-sex couples equal end-of-life rights. From his official statement on Saturday:

The bill addresses the categories of individuals who under the law shall be given priority for purposes of determining the disposition of the remains of a deceased person. Currently a person can, by executing a will, designate who shall be empowered to control final disposition of his or her remains. The bill therefore addresses a nonexistent problem.

Marriage — defined as between a man and a woman — should remain elevated in our society a special level, as it traditionally has been. I oppose efforts to treat domestic relationships as the equivalent of traditional marriage. Accordingly, I am opposed to this bill.

Ann Kaner-Roth, executive director of LGBT advocacy group Project 515, responded that Pawlenty’s “comment that the proposed legislation is unnecessary shows he is out of step with the experiences of real Minnesotans. … The language in this bill reflects closely language already used by Minnesota’s leading businesses.” Additionally, a person in a heterosexual marriage is not required to have a living will in order for his or her spouse to carry out end-of-life wishes, so it’s unclear why one should be necessary for same-sex partners. The bill would also have given “surviving partners the right to sue those responsible should their partner be killed.”

As a new Center for American Progress report on the needs of LGBT elders finds, Minnesota is considered a “legal stranger” state, where “same-sex partners (or members of families of choice) in these states effectively have no chance to be designated as surrogate medical decision makers for their incapacitated partners/loved ones.” LGBT elders therefore generally need an advanced health care directive (AHD), which includes a living will and a health care power of attorney:

In practice, to protect themselves, LGBT elders must remember to carry their AHDs with them at all times — if an individual is rushed to the hospital without these documents, a loved one can still legally be denied access (see sidebar on page 40). Finally, problems may arise when an elder travels out of state, as one state may not always recognize the health care directive of another state.

Additionally, obtaining an AHD can be difficult, since many elders are unaware or do not have the means to secure one, and “medical providers and long-term care facilities often ignore or challenge the AHDs of LGBT people.” (HT: Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog)

Update In Rhode Island last year, Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) vetoed a similar bill."

DOD Gates: Don't Repeal DADT This Year

2010-05-01T00:48:00.002-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: "As part of the Obama administration’s plan to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the Pentagon has convened a “Working Group” that is meeting with servicemembers, chaplains, and others individuals about how to repeal the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military. The process is going to take until at least Dec. 1, 2010, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has said that the President is committed to letting the group complete its work before moving forward. Some members of Congress have raised the possibility of passing DADT repeal legislation this year — before the review process is complete — and delaying implementation until next year.

However, today Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) a letter (in response to an inquiry from Skelton) telling him that he doesn’t want Congress to take any action at all on DADT this year. From the letter obtained by ThinkProgress:

I believe in the strongest possible terms that the Department must, prior to any legislative action, be allowed the opportunity to conduct a thorough, objective, and systematic assessment of the impact of such a policy change; develop an attentive comprehensive implementation plan, and provide the President and the Congress with the results of this effort in order to ensure that this step is taken in the most informed and effective matter. [...]

Therefore, I strongly oppose any legislation that seeks to change this policy prior to the completion of this vital assessment process.

Gates’ moratorium on any DADT action this year is troubling. Thirteen Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to replace DADT with a new nondiscrimination policy that “prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation.” The Senate bill mirrors Rep. Patrick Murphy’s (D-PA) repeal bill in the House but goes several steps further, laying out a timeline for repeal and setting benchmarks for the Pentagon’s ongoing review of the policy.

Gates’ stance makes it significantly harder for Congress to help fulfill Obama’s pledge to repeal DADT and has some supporters of repeal questioning the Pentagon’s dedication to moving forward. Democrats in Congress will have a tougher time attracting moderate and Republican co-sponsors in light of this letter, and if Congress waits until next year — after the Pentagon review is completed — to move forward on legislation, the make-up of the legislature will be different and could again delay repeal.

Update Statement from Servicemembers United Executive Director Alexander Nicholson, who is a former U.S. Army interrogator discharged under DADT:
If the White House and the Department of Defense had been more engaged with us and had communicated with us better about the alternatives available, Secretary Gates would surely not feel that legislative action this year would disrespect the opinions of the troops or negatively impact them and their families. This is partly a failure of the Administration to substantively engage the gay military community in a timely manner, and it remains unacceptable. The Commander-in-Chief should strongly and immediately speak out about the need to move swiftly and decisively on this issue for the sake of military readiness. It is, after all, as the President said, "the right thing to do."
Update DADT repeal advocate Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is pushing back on Gates' recommendation, saying, “There is no reason why Congress shouldn’t pass legislation this year that would time the repeal to follow the conclusion of the study."
Update Response from the White House: "The President’s commitment to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is unequivocal. This is not a question of if, but how. That’s why we’ve said that the implementation of any congressional repeal will be delayed until the DOD study of how best to implement that repeal is completed. The President is committed to getting this done both soon and right."

Iconic Chicago Dance Club Closes

2010-04-25T17:57:00.001-06:00

From ChicagoPride.com: "Chicago, IL — Crobar Chicago, 1543 N Kingsbury St, will officially be closing it's doors after "The Last Dance" celebration on April 17.

Crobar Chicago is the original in a chain which started the success of nationally acclaimed Crobar in New York City, Miami and Buenos Aires. The nightclub originally opened in 1992 in the industrial corridor of Chicago and reopened again in 2003 after a nearly one year renovation and reconstruction. Crobar locations in New York and Miami have also recently closed.

The popular nightclub was made famous by celebrity clientele such as Dennis Rodman and Bill Corgan. Rodman will help close the club when he hosts a party on Saturday.

"The music was dirty, deep, louder than hell, full of bass and progressive while the massive LGBT crowds filled every sweaty corner and partied along side the likes of Dennis Rodman, Jeremy Piven and Carmen Electra," recalled promoter Matthew Harvat who launched Circuit MOM at the nightclub in 1997. "Often, it was so packed and hot, the ceiling would drip rusty condensation, but no one complained, instead wore the rust stains as a badge of honor."

From the beginning, Crobar Chicago catered to the gay community with well-attended special events such as SuperStar Sundays on Market Days and Pride, Fireball, IML, Labor Day and Halloween; however, the nightclub was probably best known for G.L.E.E. Club which became a Sunday night institution and the longest running gay-themed weekly party in Chicago.

After it's remodel 2003, Crobar Chicago hosted the gay-themed Anthem Sundays which was produced by G.L.E.E. creator Paolo Pincente and Harvat.

Crobar Chicago's gay-themed events featured world-renowned DJs, including Timo Maas, Tony Moran, Joe Gauthreaux, Ralphi Rosario, Lydia Prim, Tracy Young, Manny Lehman, Frankie Knuckles and Victor Calderone.

"Many amazingly talented people shared their passion for club culture and music with the world audience that came to revel in the Crobar mayhem. Never one to follow, Crobar will always stand alone as an iconic treasure to the clubland creatures it crafted," Harvat told ChicagoPride.com.

"New York had Twilo, Tunnel, Paradise Garage and even a Crobar hybrid, but the original Crobar in Chicago, the one that gave me my start will forever remain the deep and dirty phantasmagorical vessel of music, muscle and memories which will never, ever be replaced in my heart".

The 6000 square foot space is reportedly to become a new club, The Vibe, which has yet to announce an opening date. "

Sometimes you just need to see some naked guys

2010-04-22T00:24:00.000-06:00

Gay Prom

2010-04-22T00:20:00.000-06:00

Great new gay anthem - Betty White Lines

2010-04-22T00:11:00.001-06:00

Suit Charges Elderly Gay Partners Were Forced Apart

2010-04-20T12:29:00.002-06:00

From NyTimes.com: By GERRY SHIH
"Clay M. Greene’s story, as recounted in his recent lawsuit against Sonoma County, is a tale of loss, doubled and redoubled. For gay men and lesbians, the series of events outlined in the complaint hits very close to home.

Mr. Greene, a 78-year-old gay man from Sebastopol, has filed a lawsuit against Sonoma County after saying he sustained a spate of indignities at the hands of officials during a bizarre estate battle that took place when his partner, who was 88, fell and became hospitalized in 2008.
News of Mr. Greene’s complaint came as President Obama was making headlines for his order extending hospital visitation rights and decision-making authority to same-sex partners.
The detailed complaint was filed on March 22, but news of it began ricocheting around the Internet, beginning on gay and lesbian sites Sunday and reaching venues like Daily Kos by Monday.
Mr. Greene’s troubles began when Harold Scull, his partner for more than 20 years, fell down the steps of their home in April 2008. At the time, the complaint said, Mr. Scull was showing signs of mental impairment.
County officials successfully petitioned the court to gain some powers of conservatorship. Then they “sold, kept, converted to their own use, and otherwise disposed of” almost $500,000 worth of belongings from the home shared by the two men — including furniture, art objects, memorabilia from the years Mr. Scull spent working in Hollywood, as well as a truck and two cats, the lawsuit alleges.

Mr. Greene said that he and Mr. Scull had previously specified each other as executors in case either became incapacitated, but the county ignored the legal documents and the history of their relationship, and at one point referred to Mr. Greene as Mr. Scull’s “roommate.”
Citing the state of Mr. Greene’s mental health, county officials then moved him against his will into a nursing home and sold the rest of his belongings, the suit charged. He was not allowed to visit Mr. Scull, who died several months later, in August 2008.
The nursing home, Agua Caliente Villa of Sonoma, is named as a defendant in the case. So is the auction company that sold the couple’s belongings.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights has joined the lawsuit, calling the situation an example of why “same-sex couples need full equality.”
Gay and lesbian elderly individuals, in particular, are vulnerable because “they are often estranged from their family and don’t have a legally recognized relative,” said Shannon P. Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Even here, where they had filled out legal documents, because their relationship is so thoroughly invisible and disrespected, it didn’t protect them.”
Mr. Minter said Mr. Greene’s situation was far less likely to happen to the surviving spouse of a heterosexual marriage.
Messages left at the office of Sonoma County’s legal counsel seeking comment were not returned. A message seeking comment left at the office of Anne Dennis, Mr. Greene’s lawyer, was not returned. Mr. Minter said Mr. Greene was unavailable for comment because he was in a “fragile” psychological state.

Embedded in the legalese of the complaint were stark anecdotal nuggets. At one point, as county officials moved through the couple’s home, the complaint alleged, they commented on the “quality” and “desirability” of the furnishings. They also mocked Mr. Greene, he said, calling him a “crazy old man,” said he had “dementia” and was a lost cause, laughed at him, and told him to “shut up and go to your room.”

On another instance, Mr. Greene claimed that employees acting as the county’s Deputy Public Guardians rolled their eyes and said in his presence, “you know how those gay boys are” and later expressed “displeasure at dealing with expressions of grief by a gay man who had lost his longtime partner.”
The case will go to trial on July 16, Mr. Minter said."

Girls accused of killing gay man in attack like Clockwork Orange

2010-04-20T12:21:00.001-06:00

From TimesOnline.co.uk:
Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent

Ruby Thomas and Rachel Burke, both 18, stamped on Ian Baynham’s chest and kicked him in the head after their friend Joel Alexander, 19, had punched him to the ground, knocking him unconscious, the Old Bailey was told.

As Mr Baynham lay bleeding the teenagers continued to assault him, it was said, causing him to suffer a fit from brain damage after his skull had been fractured.

When Mr Baynham’s friend stepped in to try to save him, Ms Burke attacked him too, punching him in the face, the jury was told.

The three alleged killers fled from the scene and Mr Baynham was taken to hospital in East London, but he never regained consciousness and died 18 days after the attack in September last year.

Brian Altman, QC, for the prosecution, told jurors that Mr Baynham and Philip Brown were walking through Trafalgar Square, in Central London, “minding their own business”.

He said: “The scene is Trafalgar Square at the very heart of London, one of this city’s most famous open spaces, home to the National Gallery, Nelson’s Column, the famous plinths and late that evening, a scene of despicable violence.

“One onlooker likened the level of violence to a scene from the film A Clockwork Orange. What happened was an all too familiar and depressing tale of drunken, loutish behaviour. But what they did went far beyond mere antisocial conduct.

“Remarkably, two of these defendants are teenage girls. Fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol, all three jointly participated in a violent attack on a defenceless man in public.”

Mr Altman continued: “Mr Baynham was openly homosexual and what led to his death began with Thomas hurling homophobic abuse at him and his friend Mr Brown. She called them ‘f***ing faggots’. Mr Baynham grabbed and slapped her.

“Alexander intervened and lunged at him, punching him in the face. He fell to the ground. It is certain that the force of the punch was such as to render him unconscious. His head hit the pavement and there was nothing to break his fall. The impact was so heavy that he suffered severe brain damage from which ultimately he was to die.

“However, that did not suffice. There’s evidence that the females then began putting the boot into Mr Baynham as he lay unconscious on his back. He was deeply in distress from the blow. Shocked onlookers saw repeated stamping on his chest and forceful kicks to the head. He began making snoring noises, evidence of unconsciousness, and fitting on the pavement, signs of primary brain damage.”

Mr Alexander, from Thornton Heath, Surrey, Ms Burke, from East Sussex, and Ms Thomas, from Litchfield, Staffordshire, all deny manslaughter and violent disorder. Ms Burke also denies causing Mr Brown actual bodily harm.

The trial continues.

Elderly Gay Couple Forcibly Separated, Abused, Robbed By County Officials in California

2010-04-18T13:02:00.002-06:00

From TheStranger.com:
Posted by Dan Savage on Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 11:09 AM
This is shocking and outrageous:
Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.
One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.
Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property.

Clay is now suing the county, the auction company, and the nursing home. This story should get as much attention as Constance McMillen's story. More attention. There should be protests outside the hospital and county administration buildings. And I think another phone call from the president is called for.

.

Court orders father of slain soldier to pay anti-gay protesters legal fees

2010-03-30T12:52:00.002-06:00

From RawStory.com and AP: The father of a Marine killed in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters was ordered to pay the protesters' appeal costs, his lawyers said Monday.
On Friday, Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered Snyder to pay $16,510 to Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case as to whether the protesters are entitled to free speech at the funeral. Phelps conducted protests at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's funeral in 2006.

The two-page decision supplied by attorneys for Albert Snyder of York, Pa., offered no details on how the court came to its decision.

Attorneys also said Snyder is struggling to come up with fees associated with filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision adds "insult to injury," said Sean Summers, one of Snyder's lawyers.

The high court agreed to consider whether the protesters' message is protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and religious rights of the mourners.

Phelps and his congregation regularly demonstrate at military funerals, carrying inflammatory signs to draw attention to their anti-gay message.

The religious group protest at the funerals of soldiers, regardless of the sexuality of the deceased military personnel, and use the events to bring publicity to their campaign.

The preacher and six relatives arrived at Snyder's funeral carrying signs that read "America is doomed," "Matt in hell" and "Semper Fi fags," in reference to the Marine motto "Semper Fi."

After the funeral was over, Phelps continued to deride and criticize Snyder on his website, prompting the dead Marine's family to sue the preacher before a Maryland court.

Snyder's father Albert claimed Phelps had intruded on a private event and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the bereaved family and won an initial award of five million dollars.

But the award was overturned on appeal, where a court ruled that Westburo protesters were simply exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DavidMixner.com: The Right: Constantly On The Wrong Side Of History

2010-03-29T14:00:00.001-06:00

DavidMixner.com: The Right: Constantly On The Wrong Side Of History

Posted using ShareThis

Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage

2010-03-17T13:19:00.000-06:00

(Reuters) - In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

U.S. | Health | Healthcare Reform

Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.

So he hired an attorney -- not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney's letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.

In 2004, a jury in Florence County, South Carolina, ordered Assurant Health, part of Assurant Inc, to pay Mitchell $15 million for wrongly revoking his heath insurance policy.

In September 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the lower court's verdict, although the court reduced the amount to be paid him to $10 million.

By winning the verdict against Fortis, Mitchell not only obtained a measure of justice for himself; he also helped expose wrongdoing on the part of Fortis that could have repercussions for the entire health insurance industry.

Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell's case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.

The revelations come at a time when President Barack Obama, in his frantic push to rescue the administration's health care plan, has stepped up his criticism of insurers. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote later this week on an overhaul of the health system, which Obama has said is essential to do away with controversial and unpopular industry practices.

Insurance companies have long engaged in the practice of "rescission," whereby they investigate policyholders shortly after they've been diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses. But government regulators and investigators who have overseen the actions of Assurant and other health insurance companies say it is unprecedented for a company to single out people with HIV.

In his previously undisclosed court ruling, the judge in the Mitchell case also criticized what he said were the company's efforts to cover its tracks.

Assurant Health said that as a matter of policy it did not comment on individual customer claims.

"We disagree with certain of the court's characterizations of Assurant Health's policies and procedures in the Mitchell case," it said in a statement provided by spokesman Peter Duckler, adding: "The case continues to progress through the appellate process."

"REPREHENSIBLE" CONDUCT

Much of the trial record of the Mitchell case is bound by a confidentiality order and not available to the public. But two orders written by the presiding judge, Michael G. Nettles, a state circuit judge for the 12th Judicial District of South Carolina, of Florence County, describe the case in detail. Judge Nettles wrote the orders in response to motions by Assurant that the jury's verdict be set aside or reduced.

In the motions, Nettles not only strongly denied Fortis' claims but condemned the corporation's conduct.

"There was evidence that Fortis' general counsel insisted years ago that members of the rescission committee not record the identity of the persons present and involved in the process of making a decision to rescind a Fortis health insurance policy," Nettles wrote.

Elsewhere in his order, Nettles noted that there were no "minutes of actions, votes, or any business conducted during the rescission committee's meeting."

The South Carolina Supreme Court, in upholding the jury's verdict in the case in a unanimous 5-0 opinion, said that it agreed with the lower court's finding that Fortis destroyed records to hide the corporation's misconduct. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal wrote: "The lack of written rescission policies, the lack of information available regarding appealing rights or procedures, the separate policies for rescission documents" as well as the "omission" of other records regarding the decision to revoke Mitchell's insurance, constituted "evidence that Fortis tried to conceal the actions it took in rescinding his policy."

In affirming the trial verdict and Nettles' order, Toal was as harsh in her criticism of the company as Judge Nettles had been. "We find ample support in the record that Fortis' conduct was reprehensible," she wrote. "Fortis demonstrated an indifference to Mitchell's life and a reckless disregard to his health and safety."

Fortis canceled Mitchell's health insurance based on a single erroneous note from a nurse in his medical records that indicated that he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy. When the company's investigators discovered the note, they ceased further review of Mitchell's records for evidence to the contrary, including the records containing the doctor's diagnosis.

Nettles also suggested that Fortis should have realized the date in the note was incorrect: "Not only did Fortis choose to rely on one false and unreliable snippet of information containing an erroneous date to the exclusion of other information which would have revealed that date to be erroneous, Fortis refused to conduct any further investigation even after it was on notice the evidence which aroused its suspicion to be false," the judge noted.

Fortis "gambled" with Mitchell's life, Nettles wrote.

Their motive, according to the judge, was obvious: "The court finds that Fortis wrongfully elevated its concerns for maximizing profits over the rights and interest of its customer." In upholding Nettles' verdict, the South Carolina Supreme Court similarly ruled that "Fortis was motivated to avoid the losses it would undoubtedly incur in supporting Mitchell's costly medical condition."

While declining to comment on specific cases, Assurant said in the statement: "All insurance companies have processes to review claims to ensure their accuracy, completeness and compliance with policy provisions and we evaluate all claims on an individual basis."

CEO DEFENDED RESCISSION

On June 16, 2009, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, held a hearing on the practice of rescission by health insurance companies, and among the industry executives who testified was Don Hamm, the CEO and President of Assurant Health.

Hamm insisted before the committee that rescission was a necessary tool for Assurant and other health insurance companies to hold the cost of premiums down for other policyholders. Hamm asserted that rescission was "one of many protections supporting the affordability and viability of individual health insurance in the United States under our present system."

He also suggested that those who had their policies rescinded by Assurant had attempted to intentionally mislead his company: "Unfortunately, there are times when we discover that an applicant did not provide complete or accurate medical information when we underwrote the risk," Hamm said.

But state regulators, federal and congressional investigators, and consumer advocates say that in only a tiny percentage of cases of people who have had their health insurance canceled was there a legitimate reason.

A 2007 investigation by a California state regulatory agency, the California Department of Managed Health Care, bore this out. The DMHC randomly selected 90 instances in which Anthem Blue Cross of California, one of WellPoint's largest subsidiaries, canceled the insurance of policy holders after diagnoses with costly or life-threatening illnesses to determine how many were legally justified.

The result: The agency concluded that Anthem Blue Cross lacked legal grounds for canceling policies in every single instance.

"In all 90 files, there was no evidence (that Blue Cross), before rescinding coverage, investigated or established that the applicant's omission/misrepresentation was willful," the DMHC report said.

WRONG DATE

The Fortis underwriter who recommended Mitchell's policy be rescinded had her own doubts that it was correct to do so, according to records the company did produce at trial.

In a reference to the nurse's note with the wrong date, the underwriter wrote to her superiors: "Technically, we do not have the results of the HIV test. This is the only entry in the medical records regarding HIV status. Is this sufficient?"

Relying on the note was dubious, Judge Nettles wrote, because it was included in records from 2002, when Mitchell was in fact diagnosed with HIV, and not in 2001, when he purchased his policy. "The chronological sequence of those records raises an inference that the date on the handwritten note may be erroneous," he wrote.

Moreover, Nettles said, if Mitchell's HIV diagnosis had been a year earlier, as the erroneous note said, Mitchell's medical records would have shown other references to that diagnosis and treatment and he would have sought reimbursement for expenses related to them.

Sallie Phelan, an attorney who represented Mitchell, says her client was bewildered as to why his insurance was canceled -- at first not even contemplating the possibility that there was anything improper going on: "We began representing Jerome when he was still just a boy, really," she said. "He was just this sweet kid with all these drives and ambitions."

Then Mitchell felt betrayed, Phelan says. "He had done everything he was supposed to. He went out and got insurance on his own, at 17. He was a trusting person, perhaps too trustful. And as they kept slamming doors in his face, he thought at first there was some misunderstanding. He couldn't understand what was going on, because he is such an honest person himself. And when they accused him of lying, that was the most harmful to him. He didn't understand why they were accusing them. He didn't understand why people weren't listening to him."

Like other major health insurance companies, Fortis has a "rescission committee" that reviews recommendations to cancel a policyholder's insurance. But in the case of Fortis, Nettles wrote, the committee rarely did more than "rubber stamp" already flawed recommendations.

"There were no rules, no minutes, no notes, and, in accordance with instructions from general counsel not even a record of who was present," the judge wrote about the committee.

During the meeting in which Mitchell's insurance was rescinded, "there were more than 40 other customers, whose cases appeared before the rescission committee for review in no more than one and one half to two hours, representing an average of three minutes or less per customer," he wrote.

According to Nettles, Fortis concealed information through its document retention practice. The company's "stated policy for the last nine years has been to microfilm and destroy all documents," the judge said. "There was also evidence that documents and/or records regarding (Mitchell's) policy were deleted; and that telephone logs and recordings contained key omissions." Fortis also "shredded" documents, he said.

Regarding another piece of key evidence, the judge concluded that "a jury could easily infer that Fortis destroyed and/or concealed" crucial evidence.

Overall, Nettles asserted, a "pattern of secrecy and concealment by Fortis in this case ... supports a high award of punitive damages."

After his insurance was canceled, a case worker with a social agency who works with HIV patients named Mary Wiggins worked tirelessly for Mitchell to find him medical care and to have Fortis reinstate his insurance. Despite deluging Fortis with records and information that should have led to a reversal of the decision, the insurance company simply ignored her. Wiggins found a local clinic that agreed to provide care for Mitchell, in the process very likely saving his life.

Eventually, Mitchell retained legal counsel to have his health insurance reinstated, but Fortis ignored them as well. It was only after the insurance company was sued -- some 22 months after his HIV diagnosis -- that Mitchell's insurance was reinstated.

COST CONTAINMENT

In his order, Nettles said Mitchell's treatment was typical of how Fortis treated patients recently diagnosed with HIV and other life-threatening diseases.

"In addition to these acts toward (Mitchell) there was evidence that Fortis has for some time been making recommendations for rescission, and acting on those recommendations, without good-faith investigation conducted fairly and objectively ... Fortis pre-programed its computer to recognize the billing codes for expensive health conditions, which triggers an automatic fraud investigation by its "Cost Containment" division whenever such a code is recognized."

A federal investigator who has reviewed Assurant's remaining records says that they showed that once a person with HIV was targeted with a fraud investigation, the company made a greater effort than usual to cancel the person's insurance. Policies and medical records were scrutinized to a greater extent than others being scrutinized, he said.

The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the motive for focusing on people with HIV was simply the high cost of treating the illness: "We are talking a lifetime of therapy, a lifetime of care ... a lot of bills. Nowadays someone with HIV can live a normal life for decades. This was about money."

No evidence has emerged that any other major American company purged policyholders simply because they had HIV. But an investigation last summer by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as earlier ones by state regulators in California, New York and Connecticut, found that thousands of vulnerable and seriously ill policyholders have had their coverage canceled by many of the nation's largest insurance companies without any legal basis. The congressional committee found that three insurance companies alone saved at least $300 million over five years from rescission. One of those three companies was Assurant.

The committee estimated that Assurant alone profited by more than $150 million between 2003 and 2007 from rescission.

During his appearance on June 16 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Hamm, the CEO and President of Assurant, urged Congress to pass the new health care legislation, in part, to prevent such practices.

"We can achieve the goal we share -- providing health care coverage for all Americans," Hamm said. "If a system can be created where coverage is available to everyone and all Americans are required to participate, the process we are addressing today, rescission, becomes unnecessary."

(Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf, editing by Jim Impoco and Claudia Parsons)

Time to boycott Virginia: attorney general to colleges: End gay protections

2010-03-07T01:19:00.003-06:00

From WashingtonPost.com:
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2010; A01
RICHMOND -- Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements.

In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others -- a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week.

The letter demonstrates an increasing split in the region's policies on issues related to sexual orientation. It comes in the same week that the District began issuing marriage licenses for gay couples and a week after Maryland's attorney general announced that his state will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Cuccinelli's move has dismayed students and faculty members. It suggests that Cuccinelli intends to take a harder line with the state's university system, where liberal academics have long coexisted uneasily with state leaders in Richmond.

"It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including 'sexual orientation,' 'gender identity,' 'gender expression,' or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly," he wrote in the letter.

Colleges that have included such language in policies that govern university hiring and admissions -- which include all of Virginia's largest schools -- have done so "without proper authority" and should "take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia," Cuccinelli wrote.

Official representatives of several universities, including the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary and George Mason University, reacted cautiously to the letter, declining to comment and indicating that their governing boards would examine the issue.

But some individual college board members and others said Cuccinelli's action would be highly controversial on campuses, where many argue that such policies are necessary to attract top students and faculty.

"What he's saying is reprehensible," said Vincent F. Callahan Jr., a former Republican member of the House of Delegates who serves on George Mason's board of visitors. "I don't know what he's doing, opening up this can of worms."

It is not entirely clear what recourse Cuccinelli would have if the universities do not follow his advice. Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, general counsel to the gay rights group Equality Virginia and a former deputy attorney general, urged boards to seek a second opinion. "They call it advice for a reason," she said.

Former attorney general Jerry Kilgore (R) agreed it would be difficult for Cuccinelli to enforce his opinion without pursuing court action. But he said college visitors swear an oath to abide by state statute.

"Board members are required to follow the law," Kilgore said. "And he's telling them what the law is."

Cuccinelli's predecessor, Robert F. McDonnell (R), who became governor in January, also held that only the General Assembly could name new classes for legal protections. But he never specifically targeted university policies that seemingly contradicted his position. And in a 2006 letter to Longwood University, his office declined to conclusively tell the Farmville school that it could not include sexual orientation in its policy.

Still, a McDonnell spokesman said Friday that the governor thinks Cuccinelli's stand is consistent with past practice. He said, however, that McDonnell would not discriminate at universities or elsewhere.

"The legal analysis contained in the letter concerning the General Assembly's sole responsibility for setting state employment policy is consistent with all prior opinions from the Office of the Attorney General over the last 25 years on the subject," McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said in a statement. "The Governor expects that no Virginia college or university, or any other state agency, will engage in discrimination of any kind."

In the letter, Cuccinelli wrote that he was issuing the opinion to dispel any confusion about his office's position. He said local governments have received similar advice from past attorneys general. Allowing universities to write policies without permission from the General Assembly would invite litigation, he wrote.

According to the letter, the General Assembly has rejected bills to add the words "sexual orientation" to nondiscrimination statutes 25 times since 1997.

Cuccinelli declined to comment on the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

The former Fairfax County senator has signaled that he will be an activist attorney general. This month, he sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency, challenging its ruling that greenhouse gases pose a public health risk by contributing to global warming.

He also advised McDonnell to halt a process begun by former governor Timothy M. Kaine (D) in December that could have resulted in Virginia allowing health benefits for the partners of gay state employees, including at colleges and universities.

"I don't think it's going to surprise anyone that Attorney General Cuccinelli is not going to be a quiet attorney general," said Christopher Freund, a spokesman for the Family Foundation, which has long contended that legal protections based on sexual orientation are unnecessary.

Freund applauded Cuccinelli for the consistency of his advice.

"I find it hard to believe that this would be the final straw in whether or not someone's going to come to Virginia's universities," he said. "They are some of the best universities in the country. I think they can stand on their own without this policy."

But others criticized the move, including students and Democratic lawmakers. "It's going to be a mess -- there's no doubt about that," said Carl Pucci, 21, president of Old Dominion University's student body. "I think you're going to see the whole gamut, from angry letters to protests."

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement that Cuccinelli's advice would "damage the Commonwealth's reputation for academic excellence and diversity."

Missouri Should Be So Proud....State Sen. Nodler Says DADT Repeal Will "Offend the Terrorists"

2010-03-03T23:57:00.003-06:00

From ThinkProgress.org: "Missouri State Sen. Gary Nodler (R), who is running for Congress, recently argued that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) “would offend the terrorists” and be a “cultuaral [sic] affront to the Muslims in who’s [sic] country we are operating.” When blogger Eli Yokley asked Nodler to clarify his comments, noting that many U.S. allies do not discriminate, Nodler suggested that the UK has a higher causality rate than other allies because it allows gay men and women to serve openly:

NODLER: The fact is, in Iraq, and for a period of time in Afghanistan, that happens to be the force that had the highest casualty rate. I can’t say with any certainty that I have any proof that that’s because there’s less comfort from the Iraqis and Afghanis in dealing with those forces, but it might be. And so, I believe the highest casualty rate in any of the allied forces has in fact been Great Britain.
As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky noted, Nodler is advocating a policy that allows foreign nations and cultures to “guide U.S. military policy.” Nodler has also expressed concern with women serving, saying that the policy might not be “advancing the goals of the U.S. military.” Moreover, every NATO member except the U.S. and Turkey allow gay men and women to serve openly. A recent report from the Palm Center found that “preliminary findings that open gays do not disrupt military effectiveness hold over time, including in Britain, whose policy of non-discrimination marked its ten-year anniversary last month.”

Former Florida Headliner Drag Queen Fired from Nursing Job Forty Years Later

2010-03-02T17:33:00.002-06:00

From SouthFloridaGayNews.com: "You may know or remember Ray Fetcho as ‘Tiny Tina.’ He is a proud gay 61 year old man who has been a licensed practical nurse for the past forty years; four decades of service to people who are ill.

Unfortunately, in 1976, while hosting a ‘Wet Jockey Shorts Night’ at the Copa, he was busted for promoting a lewd act. Today, that incident has come back to haunt him. The state has told him he can no longer be a nurse because of the conviction.

For the past 15 years, Fetcho has been an acclaimed and honored employee at Victoria Villa, an assisted living facility in Davie, recognized for his “compassionate service to the elderly.”

On March 31, 1976, Fetcho, performing as ‘Tiny Tina’ at the Copa in Dania Beach, was charged and convicted of promoting ‘lewd and lascivious’ behavior by throwing small buckets of water on boys’ briefs while hosting the irreverent ‘Wet Jockey Shorts’ contest.

Last month, that dated conviction from his past became a nightmare. Last week, Ray Fetcho was summarily fired from the job he has loved and cherished. A state licensing agency, the Agency for Health Care Administration, doing a routine screening inspection of nursing home employees, told him he would be ineligible to remain on the job at his facility “because of the lewd act conviction” from thirty plus years ago.

During the 1970’s and 80’s, the Copa was the most renowned and preeminent gay bar in South Florida. It was an international destination for tourists and a ‘coming out’ venue for anyone local, gay, and seeking an all night dance club.

30 years ago, John Castelli, and his partner, the late Bill Bastiansen, were the owners of the Copa, which hosted renowned drag queens like Tiny Tina, Nikki Adams, and the late Dana Manchester.

Today, Castelli is a respected broker of Castelli and Associates in Wilton Manors. After being told of Fetcho’s plight Saturday morning, Castelli commented: “Oh my God! What century are we living in? It was such an innocent situation. The boys always wore briefs. No one was exposed. That was during the Anita Bryant era, a lifetime ago.” Castelli even remembered the incident, noting he and his partner had to bond Fetcho out of jail.

Unfortunately, those acts then have impacted Fetcho’s life today. Unless he petitions and receives an exemption for his past misconduct, the Department of Health can stop him from working anywhere in the state as an LPN, a job which has paid him close to $40,000 a year.

Lucie Eichler, his now former employer from the Villa thought the decision was equally incredible, “Fetcho has been a valuable addition to our company. He is so well-liked that he still maintains relationships with the families of residents who have since passed.”

Eichler attests to Fetcho’s, “reliability and strong ethical character,” and says that she is “sorry to see him leave.”

Ann Garfinkel, the daughter of a Victoria Villa resident, was in disbelief when informed of Fetcho’s firing. “His termination is a great loss to the residents of Victoria Villa and the nursing profession in general.” She continues, “I believe the State of Florida is making a big mistake.”

Added Linda Greenfield, “Ray took care of my mother while she was suffering from dementia at the Villa. He is the most caring and considerate nurse you can imagine; he brings patience and love and humor to his work.”

Ironically, Fetcho has a new job waiting for him in a new Coconut Creek assisted living facility. Kelley Madigan, the administrator at Dayscape, a senior activity center told SFGN, “I was Fetcho’s supervisor at the Villas for six years. He is dedicated and pleasant, dependable and compassionate. I am prepared to employ him the moment he clears this hurdle.”

Fetcho has retained long time Fort Lauderdale constitutional rights attorney, Norm Kent, who is the publisher of SFGN. Stated Kent, who is taking the case on a pro bono basis, “I promise you that this injustice will be cured and that Ray Fetcho will get an exemption- and be restored to his tenure as an LPN.” He addresses the issue in today’s SFGN editorial.

Kent has to petition the Department of Health and make a case to its administrators. He explained the legal process that Fetcho must initiate: “Employees seeking an exemption have the burden of setting forth sufficient evidence of rehabilitation, including the circumstances surrounding the criminal incident for which an exemption is sought, and the time period that has elapsed since the incident, and the history of the employee since the incident,” Kent said.

For his part, Fetcho is upset and concerned about his future. “I love being a nurse and I love my job and I can’t believe this is coming back to haunt me 30 years later. It was stupid then. It is ridiculous now.”

Added Fetcho, “I should be working up to my retirement in five years, not looking back at something from the past. I never mixed my two careers together. One was show business, one was real. I had the best of both possible worlds but if I have to fight today to help some other nurse tomorrow, they are going to have to fight ‘The Queen’ in her court.”

Chicago's last girl bar closed in January 2010

2010-03-02T17:22:00.002-06:00

From Pageoneq.com: "Star Gaze, what many called the last full-time lesbian bar in Chicago, closed earlier in January after 14 years. The loss leaves a hole in Chicago’s lesbian community.“I opened the bar knowing there was a need for it,” Mamie Lake, the owner, told the Chicago Tribune. “It went big time. We had people moving into the neighborhood because of the bar. It was like a gay Although Lake said the economy was a factor in her decision to close, she also noticed a change in the way lesbians socialize. Once the staple of lesbian meeting places, the bar scene is no longer the only option for meeting other women.

“There are lesbian book groups and other kinds of social spaces now where people can find each other,” Jennifer Brier told the paper. She is an associate professor of history and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But not everyone is convinced. “For a young queer woman coming out or just arriving here, someone looking for community where they feel comfortable, I don’t know where that place is going to be anymore or where that one bar is,” Lesbian Community Care Project manager Christina Santiago told the Tribune.

Daniel James Rick Accused to Raping Man and Infecting Slew of Others with HIV

2010-02-28T12:52:00.002-06:00

from Queerty.com:
"It's a week of disgusting men who infect other people with HIV, isn't it? First that Tony Perkins fella and those hundred women, and now Minneapolis' Daniel James Rick stands accused of having sex with at least two other men — one during a date rape — without telling them he's HIV-positive.
Investigators say Rick used Facebook and other sites, as well as local bars, to meet guys to have sex with without ever telling them of his status. Which is illegal, yo.

In an encounter earlier this month that has Rick facing rape charges, a man says Rick raped him while he was intoxicated.

Now a second man has come forward, saying he and his boyfriend (yes) met Rick online. Robert O'Riley says just weeks after their sexual encounter, he came down with flu-like symptoms, and after testing positive for HIV his doctor told him he likely contracted it in the past few weeks. But it took a television report, with Rick's photo on screen, for O'Riley to learn his alleged infector's true identity. (Meanwhile, there are separate charges involving Rick and a 15-year-old boy whom snuck out of his house to have sex with Rick.)

And police say they suspect there are more unknowing victims out there. Rick, meanwhile, faces criminal charges of knowingly transmitting HIV/AIDS to someone without informing them. And being a complete and utter asshole."