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House Approves Civil Rights Bill
Dr. Laura Pulled From Local Station
Senate Judiciary Committee Takes Up Civil Union Bill
Relition, Marriage, and Law Panel Draws Crowd in Brattleboro
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Scouts in Court
WASHINGTON, DC — The fate of gays in the Boy Scouts goes before the nation’s highest court this month.
The Supreme Court has scheduled for argument a case involving scouting in New Jersey for April 26, the last day the court will hear cases this term.
The case is one of the few gay-rights disputes the justices have tackled in recent years. It centers on a New Jersey court’s ruling that said the organization unlawfully ousted a young man after learning he is gay.
The state court ruled that the Boy Scouts’ denial of membership to gays boys and leaders violated a law banning discrimination in public accommodations.
Publisher dies
OAKLAND, CA — A pioneer in gay publishing has died. Roland G. Schembari, co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Times, died of cancer at the age of 56.
The Bay Times, which debuted in 1978, was one of the first publications in the nation aimed at and produced by gays.
Schembari also worked for Berkeley public radio station KPFA-FM, and was part of the group that produced the nation’s first gay radio show, “Fruit Punch.”
British bomber
LONDON — A man accused of setting bombs aimed at minorities and gays has pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter.
David Copeland, 23, admitted planting the bomb that killed three people at the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in central London, last April 30. Prosecutors did not immediately accept the manslaughter pleas, and a further hearing was set.
Copeland also admitted responsibility for explosions on April 17 in Brixton, a south London area with a large black population; and April 24 in Brick Lane, an east London neighborhood with a large Bangladeshi population.
All the news - or not
LOS ANGELES — A group of weekly newspapers near Los Angeles are causing controversy with a policy not to publish anything that is positive about gays or abortion.
More than a dozen editorial employees of two of the papers, which have a combined free circulation of 126,000, have quit since the policy was enforced.
The papers, which circulate in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and Atascadero, have received about 400 cancellation requests.
The controversy stems from a community calendar listing for Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered Persons.
It ran in the Atascadero Gazette from Nov. 25 until Feb. 17, when editor Ron Bast was told the owner had ordered the listing pulled. Bast said he was told there were to be no stories that showed gays or abortion in a favorable light.
Mary and David Weyrich published a statement about their philosophy.
“The issue has everything to do with integrity and nothing to do with journalistic ethics… Call us old-fashioned, but it hasn’t been too many years since our professed beliefs were the accepted norm in America. Society has changed to the detriment, we believe, of us all as a people.”
Gays and Irish
NEW YORK — Apparently gays and the Irish really can mix.
Hillary Rodham Clinton marched in two Irish parades to mark St. Patrick’s Day this year.
The first was an alternative to the famous event through the center of Manhattan.
The main St. Patrick’s Day parade on the grounds that the event is run by a Catholic fraternal group, the Ancient Order of Hibernians excludes the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization.
Clinton marched in that parade. But first she entered the alternative.
A group of hecklers followed her, but she ignored them and the occasional boos from others in the crowd of several thousand people scattered along the parade route.
With a green scarf tucked into her jacket, the first lady smiled, waved, and posed for pictures as she marched seven blocks along the parade route in Queens.
“Proud” of support
WASHINGTON, DC — Gov. George W. Bush has changed his mind about meeting with a gay political group.
So leaders of Log Cabin Republicans say they’re looking forward to setting up a meeting.
He had said last November he probably would not meet with the group.
“Governor Bush has extended a hand to the Log Cabin Republicans. We will take him up on it,” said Kevin Ivers, spokesman for the group.
Bush said he would meet with members of the group but not leaders who had run ads critical of him over the weekend in California, New York and Massachusetts.
“I said I would consider meeting with members,” Bush said. “I’ve got members of the Log Cabin Republican Club on my campaign team. They’re supporting me and I’m proud to have their support.”
Ivers questioned that distinction, saying there’s no difference between members and leaders.
Prop. 22 passes
SAN FRANCISCO — California said yes on 22.
Voters adopted Proposition 22 on their March ballots, which prohibits California from granting marital rights to same-sex couples legally married in any other state.
The proposal passed 61 percent to 39 percent.
Californians “like what has been going on for thousands of years,” said GOP state Sen. Pete Knight, who qualified the initiative for the ballot after the Legislature rejected it. “California is not ready for marriage between a man and a man.”
Knight’s gay son, David, campaigned against the measure.
No-on-22 Campaign manager Mike Marshall noted that Proposition 22 supporters stressed the simplicity of their 14-word text: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.”
Gay rights advocates have their own 14-word formula: “California’s gay and lesbian families deserve the same legal protections as all married couples” and will push to enact it through legislation, executive order, or another ballot measure, Marshall said.
NYC billboards
NEW YORK — Anti-gay billboards on Staten Island were removed after five days after being condemned as hateful and divisive.
The two billboards on Staten Island quoted a Biblical passage: “Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: It is abomination.” One billboard was replaced by a Smokey the Bear ad and the second was covered over in white.
Billboard company PNE Media of Union, N.J., said in a statement it removed the ads because they were “inadvertently posted.” The company requires that its billboards contain the name of the advertiser; the anti-gay ads did not.
The ads were placed by a group called Keyword Ministries, PNE Media said.
Gay city council
WILTON MANORS, FL— Another American city has voted gay.
An openly gay city council member was elected mayor, making Wilton Manors one of only two cities in the nation with a gay majority.
John Fiore was elected 57 percent to 43 percent over former Mayor Sandra Steen. The city is north of Fort Lauderdale
Fiore, 46, has been on the council since 1988 and was the vice mayor. The other gay council members are Gary Resnick and Craig Sheritt, who was elected in January and will took office last month.
Online confessions
PORTLAND, ME — A Catholic priest has been sent to church training for allegedly launching a sexually explicit Web site for gay priests.
The out-of-state program was to help him decide if he wants to remain in the priesthood, officials said.
Rev. John Harris from Our Lady of the Rosary in Sabattus is accused of being the mastermind behind a Web site shut down two months ago on orders from Bishop Joseph Gerry of the Portland Diocese.
Harris, 45, allegedly started the Web site last summer. He and two other Maine priests also were accused of participating in an e-mail discussion group that included sexually explicit language.
German apology
BERLIN — Germany finally is beginning to acknowledge the Nazis’persecution of gays in World War II.
The governing Social Democratic and Greens parties introduced a bill to acknowledge Nazi persecution of gays and review whether to annul convictions under a Nazi-era anti-gay law that remained on the books in West Germany until 1969.
“It’s long overdue,” said Volker Beck, the Greens party legal affairs spokesman. “It’s really very shameful that there’s only now a majority (in parliament) for such an apology and a rehabilitation.”
German gay rights activists tentatively welcomed the initiative, which came as lawmakers worked on details of a $5 billion fund to compensate victims of Nazi forced- and slave-labor programs.
“It’s an important and correct first step in the right direction,” said Eberhard Zastrau, spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Association of Germany.
No MS adoptions
JACKSON, MS — There’s been a setback for gays and lesbians in Mississippi.
Lawmakers have moved to make Mississippi the second state in the nation with a law banning homosexual couples from adopting children.
The ban easily cleared the House 107-8 Wednesday. The bill now moves to the Senate.
Only Florida has a law forbidding gay adoptions.
Bill opponents and supporters said they were unaware of adoptions in Mississippi involving gay couples. They said they were responding to thousands of phone calls made in the past week by supporters.
“It makes a statement for the strong traditional family,” said Republican Rep. Bobby Howell, who had proposed the prohibition this year for the first time at the urging of family groups.
Military harassment: Duh!
WASHINGTON, DC — The Pentagon brass apparently have just figured out that bigotry is commonplace in their ranks.
The Pentagon inspector general says a study found anti-gay speech and harassment can be found throughout the U.S. military, especially among young enlisted troops.
Eighty-five percent of those surveyed said they believed anti-gay comments are tolerated on their base or aboard their ship, and 37 percent said they had personally witnessed or been the target of harassment such as hostile gestures, graffiti or physical assault based on perceived homosexuality.
The survey also found a widespread belief among troops that the Clinton administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, which Vice President Al Gore says he would eliminate if he were elected president is not working.
President Clinton himself has said the policy, forged in 1993, is now “out of whack.”
Defense Secretary William Cohen, responding to the survey results, announced he was creating a committee of military and civilian officials to draft a plan for measures to improve the policy’s implementation. Cohen put the onus on military chiefs to fix the problem.
“The report shows military leaders must do more to make it clear harassment based on sexual orientation violates military values,” Cohen said in a memorandum to military chiefs and service secretaries.