News
Justice Delayed: Assault Victim Waits for System to Work in Franklin Co.
Vermont's Legislative Election Results Likely to Keep Civil Unions Safe
Burlingon Honors Transgender Victims of Violence
Dean Bids VT GLBTQs Goodbye, For Now
The Rest of Our World
The Rest of Our World
BU Bathroom Arrests
BOSTON – According to Boston University Police Department Sergeant Jack St. Hilaire, several men have been arrested this school year for engaging in explicit homosexual acts in BU buildings, says a report in the BU Daily Free Press.
“Approximately 30 individuals have been arrested for open and gross behavior, which is indecent exposure, or lewd and lascivious behavior,” St. Hilaire said. “Approximately 50 people have been arrested in the past two years.”
The arrests have primarily taken place in the men’s bathrooms of the College of Arts and Sciences after complaints by students and professors. St. Hilaire said. “There have been no complaints from the women’s bathrooms.”
Rosie’s Gay Brother Elected
NEW YORK– Daniel O’Donnell, the gay brother (who knew?) of out former talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell, easily won a four-way race for a New York State assembly seat representing Manhattan’s upper west side. The 41-year-old O’Donnell, a tenants’ rights lawyer, became the assembly’s first openly gay member and the state’s third openly gay legislator. O’Donnell said the win fulfills a 33-year goal. He said he decided at age 8, when the murder of Robert F. Kennedy resulted in the cancellation of his morning cartoons and made his mother cry, that he wanted to be a politician. “This is something I’ve wanted to do my entire life,” O’Donnell said.
Changing Gender Legally
WASHINGTON, DC – On the heels of winning a birth certificate amendment for a female-to-male transgendered person in Virginia, Lambda Legal released a first-of-its-kind chart identifying laws and policies in every state for amending sex designations on birth certificates. According to the chart, 47 states have laws or administrative processes to let transgendered people change the sex designation on their birth certificates. Three states have no laws or processes and have refused to amend birth certificates to reflect a change in sex.
“When states refuse to change birth certificates to reflect transgendered people's correct sex, they are almost always violating their own state laws or policies,” said Michael Adams, Director of Education and Public Affairs at Lambda Legal. “Because birth certificates are so critical in everyday life – for being able to get passports or drivers’ licenses and for completing employment documents – we've compiled this information to help transgendered people know their rights and fight for them.”
“We shouldn’t have to fight for months to get states to follow their own laws, but that’s often the reality,” Adams said. The chart and additional background on the Virginia case are online: www.LambdaLegal.org.
Not Left Out of Domestic Violence
WASHINGTON, DC – According to a press release from the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC – yup, McGruff the Crime Dog), the experiences profiled in its new publication, 50 Strategies to Prevent Violent Domestic Crimes, offer evidence that domestic violence recognizes no boundaries in terms of race, culture, age, sexual orientation, class, gender, or citizenship status. The 150-page document highlights innovative programs that work to prevent intimate partner and teen dating violence, child maltreatment, and elder abuse.
The booklet showcases prevention work for a variety of under-served groups including victims of same-sex partner violence who are often left out of the traditional network of support, among others. Some of the prevention groups sponsor events and activities that result in community mobilization and recommendations for LGBT domestic violence-related policy and procedural changes. Others train the appropriate agency partners on how to identify, serve, and properly refer LGBT clients.
The publication is designed for both local practitioners and law enforcement, profiling strategies implemented by both (call 1-800-NCPC-911 for info.).
Martina & Subaru Honor Breast Cancer Foundation
NEW YORK – Martina Navratilova, co-founder of the Rainbow Card, a Visa credit card that supports causes of importance to the gay and lesbian community, honored the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation with the 2002 Subaru Rainbow Leadership Award. Navratilova, joined by representatives of Subaru of America, Inc., presented the Leadership Award and accompanying $10,000 contribution to Rebecca Garcia, Ph.D., the Komen Foundation’s vice president of health sciences, in recognition of the rganization’s outreach to lesbians.
“We were moved by the generosity demonstrated by the Komen Foundation,” Navratilova said. “It has contributed millions of dollars throughout the country to health care providers such as the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York, illustrating the Foundation’s dedication to serving lesbian health needs.” Navratilova added, “Lesbians may be at greater risk for certain cancers and heart disease due to delay of such preventative health measures as routine screenings, and that is unacceptable!”
Now in its sixth year, the Subaru Rainbow Leadership Award was created by Martina and co-founders of the Rainbow Card program, Nancy Becker and Pam Derderian, to support individuals and organizations having a positive impact on members of the gay and lesbian community. Advocate.com will host an online ballot that allows the public to nominate and vote for the 2003 Rainbow Leadership Award recipient.
Donations to lesbian and gay causes by the Rainbow Card program will exceed $1.3 million by 2003. For more information on the Rainbow Card, visit www.rainbowcard.com.
Murder Suspect Found Dead in Jail
REDDING, CA – Benjamin Williams, 34, a white supremacist inmate who was serving time for torching three synagogues and awaiting trial for allegedly killing a gay couple was found dead in his cell in California’s Shasta County Jail. His body was found near the cell’s toilet, reported Redding Police Sergeant Dan Kupsky.
According to the report in The Advocate, Williams was housed in a section of the jail reserved for high-risk inmates after a failed escape attempt in June with another inmate. Williams was convicted earlier this month of attempted murder for bashing a corrections officer over the head with a handmade hatchet in the escape attempt. In September, Williams and his younger brother, James Williams, both white supremacists, pled guilty to federal charges of setting fire to three Sacramento synagogues and an abortion clinic in 1999. Williams was also awaiting trial for the 1999 murder of a gay Happy Valley couple found shot to death in their Shasta County home. Both he and his brother had pleaded innocent to murder charges in that case, which could carry the death penalty.
GLBT Catholics Face Backlash
WASHINGTON, DC – Leaders in the gay and lesbian Catholic community, most notably DignityUSA, joined other Catholic organizations in the nation’s capital last month to voice concerns about how the U.S. Conference of Bishops is handling the sexual abuse scandal. DignityUSA, the nation's oldest and foremost organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender Catholics and their families, led with its “Stop Blaming Gay Priests” campaign.
The protests by DignityUSA and other catholic organizations are the response to the Bishops Conference’s repeated attempts to not only shift blame for the sex abuse scandal onto gay priests, but also their efforts to control the media’s coverage and investigation of the issue.
Three members of Soulforce, a national interfaith organization, were denied the eucharist at public liturgical services that were part of the conference on Nov. 11 after spending the day in peaceful protest across the street. In response, Kara Speltz, Ken Einhaus and Mike Perez conducted an act of civil disobedience in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency and were arrested. According to a news release by Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, reporters were then told by conference organizers that they could lose their press credentials if they covered the protests.
Boston Passes Trans Rights Ordinance
BOSTON – On October 30, 2002, Mayor Thomas M. Menino expanded anti-discrimination protection for over 589,000 citizens of Boston plus those who visit and work there. Without any fanfare or press announcement, the mayor signed a gender-identity nondiscrimination ordinance overwhelmingly passed by the City Council a week earlier.
The definition of “gender identity and expression” covers such gender variations as transsexuals in all stages of transition, cross-dressers, drag queen and kings, and the intersexed, according to the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition.
Addressing such concerns as employment, public accommodation, lending, housing, credit, insurance, and education, the ordinance adds gender-identity or expression to the list of protections for those who reside, visit, and work within the city. It’s also noted as being one of the most comprehensive nondiscrimination languages in the country, especially on public accommodations.
Other locations passing trans nondiscrimination policies recently include Allentown, PA; Buffalo, NY; Chicago, IL; Erie County, PA; Dallas, TX; Decatur, IL; New Hope, PA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Salem, OR; and Tacoma, WA. With the addition of Boston, there will be a total of 51 jurisdictions in the United States that explicitly include transgender people in their anti-discrimination laws, including 42 cities, seven counties and the two states of Rhode Island and Minnesota.
GLBT Ballot Items Win
WASHINGTON, DC – The Human Rights Campaign celebrated the fact that even in a more conservative political environment, voters rejected discrimination and supported basic equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.
In Ypsilanti, Michigan, voters rejected by 64 percent to 36 percent an amendment to the city charter that would have removed “sexual orientation” from the non-discrimination ordinance and excluded gays from inclusion as a protected class in any future measures passed by the city.
Tacoma, Washington, voters rejected Initiative No. 1, to delete sexual orientation and gender identity from the antidiscrimination law that the City Council passed in April.
Voters in Westbrook, Maine, near Portland, narrowly upheld a gay rights ordinance approved by the City Council in July by 51 percent to 49 percent. Ten Maine cities and towns now have anti-discrimination ordinances.
An anti-discrimination amendment including protections for gays and lesbians was added to the Sarasota, Florida, charter, with 73 percent of voters in favor, and 23 percent opposed.
The lone defeat was in Nevada, where voters passed a ballot measure that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The new law prohibits same-sex couples from marrying or being recognized as married should any other state recognize same-sex marriages.
Protest Challenges “Love Won Out”
SPRINGFIELD, VA – The John Paulk Welcoming Committee (JPWC) thanked the close to one- hundred protesters who picketed Focus on the Family’s anti-gay “Love Won Out” conference last month.
For three hours the demonstrators waved signs and demanded that Focus on the Family stop their campaign of discrimination, dishonesty and hate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their families.
The “Love Won Out” conference campaign seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation through “conversion” therapy and prayer. The anti-gay symposium was led by “ex-gay” spokesman John Paulk, who was caught in a gay bar two years ago, despite widely publicized assertions (Oprah, 60 Minutes and the cover of Newsweek) that he had gone from gay to straight.
Several signs condemned Paulk’s hypocrisy. One sign said “I Saw J. Paulk in a Gay Saloon.” Another said, “Paulk, Unlike Focus, We Love You For Who You Are.”
“How phony and tragic it is to tell people that you will Īlove’ them if they will only change who they are and abandon their basic humanity,” said Wayne Besen, JPWC spokesperson, and author of the upcoming book, Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.
“Tragically, these road shows are about making money and gaining political power for the extreme right wing. No matter how fringe or disreputable, they will probably continue as long as extremist groups are profiting off the backs of gay people,” added Besen.
Slow On The Uptake
WASHINGTON, DC – It took a mere two weeks for mainstream media to begin reporting on the story that the Army had discharged nine of its linguists, seven of whom spoke or were learning Arabic. OITM received a press release on the Army’s move electronically on November 1. Nearly two weeks later, the Burlington Free Press ran a short Associated Press item. Two days after that, Weekend Edition, National Public Radio’s news magazine, aired a segment lamenting the lack of common sense in allowing anti-gay prejudice to interfere with national security. Following the mini-editorial, the brief musical interlude separating it from the next item was Mary Watkins’ “No Hiding Place.”
The issue was also brought up in Congress by Rep. Barney Frank last month. Along with his remarks, he ask to have appended to the record two articles about the firing.