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Times editor dies

NEW YORK – A leading editor of the New York Times frequently responsible for design of the front page has died from AIDS complications.

J. Russell King was deputy news editor at the Times when he died from pneumonia. He was 45.

Russell taught high school for a year before becoming a journalist. He worked briefly at the Wichita Eagle and the Miami Herald before joining the Times as a copy editor in 1982.

King spent the past decade on the news desk, refining the content and style of major stories and their accompanying headlines. Often King laid out Page 1 in consultation with the paper’s top editors.

King was a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and served as mentor for many new Times staff members.

Canada Gets Closer

Canadian legislation that would provide same-gender couples many of the benefits of marriage has made it through the House of Commons.

Parliament's lower chamber passed Bill C-23, An Act to Modernize the Statues of Canada in Relation to Benefits and Obligations, on April 11 by a 172-74 vote. Seventeen members of the ruling Liberal party took the unusual step of voting against their caucus.

The legislation grants same-gender couples access to benefits in such areas as tax and immigration. It also defines marriage as exclusively heterosexual.

The bill now moves to the Senate for final approval.

European protection

ATHENS, Greece – The European Parliament is calling on members of the European Union to grant same-sex couples equal rights to heterosexual couples.

The Parliament’s non-binding resolution urged the 15 EU nations to extend rights enjoyed by traditional couples to one-parent families, unmarried couples and same-sex couples.

That resolution prompted criticism from the leader of Greece’s Orthodox Church.

During a religious service, Archbishop Christodoulos said granting gay partners marriage status would be “legalizing a sin” but urged compassion for all human “weaknesses.”

Greece’s official state Orthodox Church has recently reaffirmed its conservative views on sex while appealing to young people to follow the church’s teachings. Last year, the church publicly reiterated its opposition to premarital sex.

Nazi documents displayed

BERLIN – The German people increasingly are coming to grips with the Nazi persecution not only of Jews, but of gay men.

A two-part exhibition about gays persecuted under the Nazis has opened at museums in Berlin and in a former concentration camp where many of the victims were killed.

The exhibits of documents, photos, drawings, and other objects collected during 10 years of research is the largest on the subject ever mounted in Germany, project organizers said. It documents the fate of 700 individuals who suffered under the Nazis’ draconian anti-gay laws and tells 60 personal stories.

“We want to return to the gay victims of the Nazis their names and to show their lives, as far as possible, so as to at least symbolically liberate them from the dehumanizing barbarity of the Nazis,” said Andreas Sternweiler, project director at the Gay Museum in Berlin, where part of the exhibit is being shown.

The other half opened at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where many gay men – labeled with a pink triangle – ended up because of the camp’s proximity to the capital.

Some 600 homosexuals were killed there between 1939 and mid-1943 alone, according to the researchers.

Stopping terror

ATLANTA – A conference focused on combatting hate crimes was capped by a call by Martin Luther King III to protect those victimized because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation.

King spoke to about 750 youth at the crypt for his father, the late civil rights leader.

“Every time that someone’s life is lost through hate crimes and violence, we have got to stand up,” King said, speaking at the fountain at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

Hundreds came from across the country and Canada to march the half-mile from downtown Atlanta to the King memorial. Many spent the day at “Stop the Terror,” an all-day summit dedicated to preventing hate crimes, which was sponsored by the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal.

The march also served as a memorial service for 15 young people in particular who organizers said had been victims of hate crimes.

Among those memorialized were Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student who died in October, 1998, after being beaten into a coma and tied to a fence, and Amadou Diallo, the 22-year-old African immigrant shot to death by four New York City police officers in February, 1999.

Reform Jews OK unions

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Reform Jewish leaders have authorized rabbis to officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies.

The decision makes the Central Conference of American Rabbis the most influential U.S. religious group to sanction same-sex unions.

The resolution applies to the 1,800 members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who serve at least 1.5 million Reform Jews. Reform Judaism is the largest and most liberal of Judaism’s three major branches in North America.

Rabbi Charles Kroloff, CCAR’s president, said the resolution shows the conference’s belief that “gay and lesbian Jews, and the committed relationships they form with their partners, deserve the recognition and respect due to people created in the image of God.”

“It is not sinful to be a gay and lesbian,” said Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of CCAR. “It is sinful to have these prejudices and act out on them.”

Mayoral backbone

LONDON – The leading candidate for mayor of London says he’d support setting up a register for gay couples, a move widely seen as paving the way for gay weddings.

“I want gay people to have the right to register their relationships to stop discrimination,” Ken Livingstone, 54, told The Times of London.

Unveiling a campaign poster later, Livingstone argued that his register would encourage stable relationships.

Gay marriages are banned in Britain, and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party government has publicly opposed any change in the law.

Livingstone also said that if he wins the May 4 election, he would deny London contracts to companies he considers homophobic or racist.

Co-ed dorms

HAVERFORD, Pa. – Gay students may be helping to integrate, at least in terms of gender, dormitories at Haverford College.

The college will allow men and women to share bedrooms next school year in the college’s apartment-style dormitories.

“There are a number of men and women who are friends and who would like to live together, just as there are gay and lesbian students who have difficulty finding people they’re comfortable living with,” said Robin Doan, the college’s director of student housing.

Mixed-gender groups of three students will be allowed to share two-bedroom units at the Haverford College Apartments, which house a third of the school’s 1,118 students. The new rules will not apply to one-bedroom apartments or to dormitories for freshmen.

Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., already allow men and women to share dormitory rooms.

Killian Kroell, a member of the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said gay students frequently prefer to share housing with someone of the opposite sex, but typical college housing regulations prevent such arrangements.

Norwegian education

OSLO, Norway – Norway’s 11 Lutheran bishops are going to get a few lessons on sex.

The leaders of the country’s Lutheran Church have to understand how modern and liberal Norwegians relate to sex. Homosexuality will be an important topic, since it has led to a bitter split among Norwegian Christians, church officials said.

“We want to have more contact with the real world,” said Odd Bondevik, head of the bishop’s council.

“The debate on homosexuality could easily become a war in the trenches,” he said. “We need to see the homosexuality debate in a broader perspective.”

The church has been split over whether homosexuals can hold religious posts.

The debate flared last year when Norway’s only female bishop, Rosamarie Kohn, allowed lesbian clergywoman Siri Sunde to return to the pulpit even though she married a woman.

Shepard scholarships

DES MOINES, Iowa – A college scholarship program has been established in the name of Matthew Shepard.

The program was announced last month by Gov. Tom Vilsack and Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother.

Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, was fatally beaten in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.

“These scholarships will add meaning to a life cut short,” Vilsack said Thursday.

Since her son’s death, Mrs. Shepard has traveled the country, campaigning against hate crimes involving gays.

“We must change these attitudes and we must take a stand,” she said. She said the scholarships would help win acceptance of gays.

Three scholarships a year will be given to gay high school graduates who want to attend one of Iowa’s three state universities. The scholarships will cover tuition, fees and books at the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University or the University of Iowa.

Funding comes from a charitable foundation established by openly gay Des Moines businessman Rich Eychaner.

Episcopalians mixed

LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. – The Episcopal Church can find common ground on the issue of gay marriage.

So 135 of the nation’s Episcopal bishops agreed to disagree over the issues of ordaining homosexual priests and blessing gay marriages.

The members of the House of Bishops discussed, but did not take any official stand on, the matters during the gathering.

Frank Griswold III, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said the 2.5-million-member U.S. denomination will maintain its tradition of respecting dioceses’ rights to make their own decisions.

Participants at the retreat admitted there was tension between conservative and liberal clergy, but said frank group discussions helped create an atmosphere of respect.

Some dioceses have ordained gay priests and blessed gay marriages, even though the church’s parent group, the worldwide Anglican Communion, called homosexuality “incompatible with Scripture” two years ago.

Galindo positive

BALTIMORE – Rudy Galindo, the 1996 U.S. national figure skating champion, has disclosed that he is HIV positive.

Galindo, who is openly gay, told USA Today he was diagnosed with HIV on March 1 while being treated for pneumonia.

“People always think that it can’t happen to them, but it can,” Galindo, 30, told the newspaper. “I didn’t want to hide this illness. I didn’t want to live a lie. I’ve always wanted to be truthful.”

Galindo is taking three medications to combat the HIV, and has resumed practicing. He has joined the spring Champions on Ice tour, which opens at Baltimore on Thursday night.

Galindo lost his brother and two coaches to AIDS.

Lesbian parental rights

TRENTON, N.J. – The New Jersey Supreme Court has recognized the parental rights of same-sex couples.

The court ruled that a lesbian who helped raise her then-lover’s twins has rights akin to a parent’s, and can have visitation now that they have split up.

The case involved a woman who became pregnant by artificial insemination and gave birth to twins in 1994 that she and her lesbian partner, identified only as V.C., raised together for two years.

After their 1996 separation, a trial court denied V.C. joint custody and visitation. An appellate court gave her visitation rights but not joint custody.

In its unanimous ruling, the high court also turned down V.C.’s request for joint legal custody, which would have given her a say regarding decisions on the children’s upbringing, because she has not been involved in their lives for four years.

But Associate Justice Virginia Long, writing for the full court, said V.C. carries the status of a “psychological parent” to the children and has a right to share parenting duties, despite the objections of the birth mother, identified only as M.J.B.

V.C. should have regular visitation with the children, as is typical for many divorced parents, the court said.