Out In The Mountians : News - The Rest of Our World

Counselors to Host Same-Sex Wedding

MONTREAL - To enhance awareness within the counseling profession of the rights and benefits denied to same-sex couples, the Association for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues in Counseling (AGLBIC) will host a same-sex wedding event in Montreal, Canada on April 1, 2006 for counselors attending the joint meeting of the American Counseling Association and the Canadian Counseling Association.
According to Lambda Legal, lesbian and gay couples are spending their lives together with the same love and commitment as heterosexual couples. But they are doing it without the same legal protections and support as other Americans, simply because they cannot legally marry.
Joy Whitman, President of AGLBIC, stated that "our purpose in sponsoring a public wedding for same-sex couples at this conference is to highlight the inequity same-sex couples experience and to raise awareness of this inequity for counseling professionals. One of our goals is to identify conditions that create barriers to the human growth and development of GLBT clients and communities. All counseling professionals are charged with the goal to advocate for clients and to change oppressive systems, systems that serve as barriers towards mental health."

SAGE Director Steps Down

NEW YORK, NY - SAGE, founded in 1978 to serve seniors in the GLBT community, announced in January that Terry Kaelber would be stepping down as Executive Director. In order to facilitate a smooth transition, Kaelber has agreed to remain with the organization until June, which is the end of SAGE's fiscal year. Terry has spent nine years at the helm of SAGE, the nation’s oldest and largest social service and advocacy organization solely dedicated to the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender senior communities.
"My tenure at SAGE has been the most rewarding time of my life – both professionally and personally. I love SAGE and our community’s senior members who have taught me so much since I came to SAGE in 1997." said Kaelber. "Since then, the organization has grown tremendously and has reached a level of health and maturity that provides an ideal opportunity for a change at the helm."
"The timing of this change is especially important to me personally," Kaelber added, "because I have a 6 year old daughter and a large family I want to spend more time with. This was underscored this past fall when my mother died. All families need tending, and at this point in my life I want to tend mine."

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Costs Millions

SANTA BARBARA, CA - A new Blue Ribbon Commission of military experts in February estimated the total cost of implementing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law to be $363.8 million between 1994 and 2003, a 91% increase from a February 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimate. The report, "Financial Analysis of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'" was released through the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM) at UC-Santa Barbara. It recalculates the cost of the law banning openly lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members by examining the oversights of the 2005 GAO report, which estimated the cost of the ban to be $190.5 million.

Anti-Gay Treatment Nets Complaint

KISSIMMEE, FL - Southern Legal Counsel (SLC) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed complaints on behalf of Jamie Beiler this week with the Florida Department of Health and CIGNA Healthcare of Florida against Dr. John R. Hartman and Dawn Pope-Wright, a physician's assistant who works for Dr. Hartman. In March 2005, Beiler consulted Dr. Hartman's office for a routine medical matter. At the close of the visit, Pope-Wright gave Beiler a packet of anti-gay propaganda referring to homosexuality as "sinful" and advising lesbians and gay men to change their sexual orientation. The complaints filed by Beiler allege that Dr. Hartman and Pope-Wright falsely presented their personal beliefs as medical information and provided her with unwanted treatment that has been rejected as ineffective by all major health and mental health organizations. Beiler is asking CIGNA, her healthcare provider, and the Florida Board of Medicine to take action against Pope-Wright and Dr. Hartman for their unethical conduct.

US Denies Gay Rights at UN

WASHINGTON, DC - The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in January denounced the United States' vote against two gay rights organizations' applications to join the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The United States joined the repressive, anti-gay regimes of Iran, Zimbabwe, China, Cameroon and others in voting against even granting a hearing to the application of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians (LBL). Instead, the two groups' applications were summarily dismissed without a hearing.
"It is an absolute outrage that the United States has chosen to align itself with tyrants — all in a sickening effort to smother the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Apparently Iran, which President Bush has deemed part of the 'Axis of Evil,' is a suitable partner when it comes to discriminating against gay people."

Fired Transwoman Receives Settlement

MANCHESTER, NH - On behalf of Sarah Blanchette, a transgender woman, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) has settled on mutually satisfactory terms a lawsuit against St. Anselm College of Manchester, New Hampshire. The college fired Ms. Blanchette, a computer programmer, in April 2004, after learning that she would be transitioning from male to female.
       "It’s our view that the prohibitions on sex discrimination under state and federal law make it illegal to fire an employee simply because he or she is transgender," said Bennett Klein, senior attorney with GLAD. "As transgender people increasingly seek fair treatment in the workplace, employers must educate themselves about their transgender employees and their legal rights. If they do not, they will find themselves met with a swift and strong legal response."
        Ms. Blanchette said in a written statement, "I hope that the lawsuit has brought to public light the issues that can confront transgender people in the workplace. We are not really that different from everyone else, and want the same basic things out of life: happiness, love, security, comfort and peace of mind."

HIV No Danger to Restaurant

WILMINGTON, NC - Lambda Legal facilitated a settlement agreement in a case in which a man with HIV was fired from his job as a cook for a small restaurant because of his HIV status.
       Aron Pelela worked as a cook at Mike and Katy's Causeway Café in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The restaurant fired him after learning that Pelela has HIV In October of 2005. With the help of Lambda Legal, attorney Joyce L. Davis filed a lawsuit on Pelela's behalf against the restaurant under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects people from being discriminated against based on their disabilities. "There is no risk of transmission of HIV through the preparation of food, yet myths about transmission are clearly still running rampant," said Greg Nevins, Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal's Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. "We are happy to see the owners of this restaurant instituting a policy based on the facts and training their employees on the truth about HIV transmission."

Crashing the White House Easter Egg Roll

WASHINGTON, DC - For more than a hundred years children have gathered on the South Lawn of the White House on the Monday after Easter to roll Easter eggs across the yard and meet the Easter Bunny. Seemingly few (if any) Washingtonians have ever tried to exploit the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for political purposes. Until now. A church-based homosexual rights group is planning to crash the event with a "family visibility action" to spotlight their non-traditional families.
On April 17, 2006, when the White House lawn is opened to families for the Annual Easter Egg Roll, imagine if the first 1,000 families onto the lawn were LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] families," enthused a January 4 email alert from Soulforce. Once America sees the White House lawn awash in LGBT families, "there will be no going back," Soulforce promised.
Soulforce is the political organizing tool of self-described "militant gay activist" Mel White, the former Jerry Falwell speech writer who discovered his gayness and became a clergyman in the predominantly homosexual Metropolitan Community Churches.

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