January 2008

Source: Arizona Republic
Public response has been widely supportive of a plan to expand state benefits to domestic partners of state employees, judging from roughly 1,400 e-mails, letters and faxes received by the Arizona Department of Administration.

Department spokesman Alan Ecker called it "an extraordinary amount of comment" that was received by the agency during a 30-day window allowed for public response to the proposal late last year.

In short, it would allow state employees with domestic partners, gay or straight, to claim the same benefits as married couples. The biggest benefit among those perks is coverage under the state health plan.

The benefits expansion was proposed in November by Department of Administration Director William Bell and has the backing of Gov. Janet Napolitano.

In opposition are social conservatives, led by the Center for Arizona Policy.

Public feedback generally fell into two broad categories:
 Supporters who view the benefits expansion as a matter of fairness and a means for the state to better compete for employees with the private sector and the more than a dozen states that already offer domestic-partner benefits.
 Opponents who see the proposal as a threat to traditional marriage between one man and one woman and those who question the budgetary impact at a time when the state is facing a string of years with billion-dollar shortfalls.

UA President Robert Shelton noted in a letter that his institution and Arizona State University are the only PAC-10 schools that don't provide domestic-partner benefits.

"These are our prime competitors for faculty," he wrote, "and the decision by the state to allow domestic-partner benefits will greatly enhance our ability to be competitive against these national peers in recruiting and retaining top faculty and staff."

The Department of Administration estimates that the benefits expansion would bring 315 to 850 new individuals under state coverage at a cost of up to $4.5 million in its first year. Those additional costs, the agency says, could be offset with benefits savings in other areas.

The benefits-expansion proposal will next be presented to the Governor's Regulatory Review Council, a six-member board appointed by Napolitano.

The hearing, which will allow public testimony, will likely come in March or April. If approved, the change would take effect Oct. 1.

Full article: Domestic partner benefits plan gains support

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Source: San Jose Mercury News
San Jose, Calif -- In a move believed to be the first by a college campus in the nation, San Jose State University President Don Kassing has suspended all campus blood drives because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration bars any man who has had sex with another man from donating blood.

"The FDA's lifetime blood donor deferral affecting gay men violates our non-discrimination policy," said Kassing in an e-mail sent to faculty, staff and students.

The suspension, which is effective immediately, applies to blood drives arranged by employees representing the university as well as blood drives organized by student groups.

San Jose State officials spent several months studying the policy, and Kassing had a long conference call with FDA officials.

The FDA's ban on blood donations by gay men has been in effect for years. The FDA says gay men are far more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population, and the agency has a duty to protect the nation's blood supply.

But the policy has been under intense debate, and a new generation of openly gay high school and college students is questioning and protesting what they say is a discriminatory policy.

The fact that gay men are prohibited from donating blood - regardless of their sexual activity, safe-sex practices or HIV status - has rankled the gay community for years. The American Red Cross and other national organizations that regularly run blood drives are also pushing the FDA to revise the policy, which has been in place since AIDS awareness became widespread in the early 1980s.

Both the spread of the disease and the process by which blood is screened have evolved dramatically in the past 25 years. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is increasingly transmitted between heterosexuals. Women now account for more than one-quarter of all new HIV and AIDS diagnoses in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And blood banks are using new screening technology that identifies the virus at an early stage of infection.

Full article: San Jose Mercury News - SJSU suspends blood drives, citing FDA ban on donations by gay men

state_ca, hiv

Source: Indianapolis Star
A proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages in Indiana likely was dealt a fatal blow Friday when a key lawmaker said he would not give the issue a hearing.

Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, who is chairman of the House Rules and Legislative Procedure Committee, said Friday that the most urgent issue facing the state is property taxes, not same-sex marriage, which already is banned by Indiana law.

"I'm not planning on having a hearing," Pelath said. "The short session (of the legislature) was designed to deal with emergencies. We have a very serious problem with the property tax system, and we don't have any gay marriages in Indiana."

The Senate committee plans to debate the amendment Thursday, but Eric Miller, who has pushed for passage of the amendment as founder of the conservative group Advance America, called that "disingenuous."

The legislature, he said, is dealing with plenty of issues besides property tax reform and has the time to debate and vote on this amendment before its March 14 deadline.

Turner said he is exploring options to try to get the bill a vote by the full House. But House rules state that a bill may not be called back from committee. The only route to a vote by the full House, apparently, is approval by a committee.

To become part of Indiana's Constitution, the proposed amendment must pass two separately elected legislatures and then be approved by voters statewide.

The proposed amendment, which declares that marriage in Indiana is defined only as the union between one man and one woman, overwhelmingly passed the Indiana Senate and House in 2005.

A new legislature was elected in November 2006, and it voted on the amendment in 2007. While the Senate approved it 39-10, the House Rules committee deadlocked 5-5, and the amendment was dead for the year.

If it does not pass this year, the process must begin anew, and the earliest it could be on the ballot for voters to have the final say is 2012.

The amendment died last year after encountering resistance from representatives of Indiana businesses who were concerned it would jeopardize their ability to recruit employees and offer domestic partner benefits. Since then, the Senate had been reluctant to take the lead.

Full article: Proposed gay-marriage ban won't get hearing | IndyStar.com

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Source: New York Times and Newsweek
SAN FRANCISCO -- In a matter of days, it jumped from a routine press release to a medical controversy.

The headlines this week about a new "gay" infection were dramatic. FLESH-EATING BUG SPREADS AMONG GAYS, said one Australian newspaper, referring to a study about an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection affecting homosexual men in San Francisco and other American cities. EPIDEMIC FEARED--GAYS MAY SPREAD DEADLY STAPH INFECTION TO GENERAL POPULATION, shouted a press release from the Concerned Women for America, a conservative public-policy group. 

But is there a new HIV-like public health epidemic on the horizon? Not likely, says Dr. Henry (Chip) Chambers, coauthor of the study, which was published this week in the online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. "This is definitely not the new AIDS," says Chambers, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). "HIV is a life-threatening disease that is incurable and necessitates lifelong treatment," adds Bill Stackhouse, director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York.  

That's not to say that drug-resistant staph infections aren't a serious health problem. As these so-called superbugs become more resistant to common first-line drugs, doctors have been forced to turn to alternative antibiotics, explains Chambers.

But for gay men in the Castro neighborhood here, which was an early epicenter for the AIDS epidemic and a current hot spot for MRSA, the report also seemed to cast an unfair, and all too familiar, stigma on their sexuality.

"The way they keep targeting gays as if gays alone are responsible for it, its like H.I.V./AIDS all over again," said Colin Thurlow, 60, who is gay and lives in San Francisco. "And we're sick and tired of it."

The report also inadvertently offered ammunition for many antigay groups, including the conservative Concerned Women for America, which issued a release on Wednesday citing the "sexual deviancy" of gay men as leading to AIDS, syphilis and gonorrhea.

Another group, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, also cited the report as a way of proving that "homosexual behavior is unhealthy."

National gay rights groups were quick to label such talk as "hysteria," even as researchers as the university scrambled to clarify their findings. On Friday, it issued an apology, saying their release had "contained some information that could be interpreted as misleading."

"We deplore negative targeting of specific populations in association with MRSA infections or other public health concerns," it concluded. Dr. Chambers said he was surprised by how the report had been spun.

One of the major sore points for some critics was a quote attributed to the report's lead author, Bien Diep, a researcher who said he was concerned about "a potential spread of this strain into the general population."

Mr. Diep, 29, said on Friday he regretted not being more thorough in communicating his research to reporters. He said that the term "general population" was part of medical jargon used in the report, which did not translate well.

"It's really meant to be used to mean all inclusive, including the men-who-have-sex-with-men population," he said.

Worries about the negative press resonated even as some gay men here expressed concern about the disease itself.

Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which helped finance the study, affirmed on Wednesday that the disease was not sexually transmitted or limited to a certain type of person. It is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, the agency said in a statement, and is widespread in hospitals and among hospital workers.

Full article: After Linking New Strain of Staph to Gay Men, University Scrambles to Clarify - New York Times
A New `Gay Disease'? | Newsweek

state_ca, scientific study

Source: Press-Enterprise
A discrimination lawsuit over a Wildomar Christian school's expulsion of two students suspected of being lesbians has been thrown out by a Riverside Superior Court judge.

In a ruling Jan. 11, Judge Gloria Trask found there was no legal basis for the claim that the school falls under the California civil-rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in business settings.

Legal experts have said the case might set a state precedent on whether religious schools can exclude gay students.

The teenagers and their parents sued California Lutheran High School after school officials expelled the girls, both 11th-graders, in 2005 on the suspicion they were involved a lesbian relationship.

Neither the girls nor their parents were identified in court documents.

The school's religious code of conduct states that students can be removed from school for immoral or scandalous behavior that contradicts Christian values.

John McKay, the attorney for the school, applauded the judge's decision.

The school is a private religious institution, McKay said, adding that it accepts no money from the state or federal government.

Still, McKay said, the case is likely to continue. The plaintiffs are expected to appeal.

Kirk D. Hanson, one of the former students' attorneys, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Steve Rosenbaum, who became principal of California Lutheran after the girls were expelled, said Friday that the school was pleased with the judgment.

Full article: Discrimination suit against Christian school dismissed | Riverside | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

state_ca, discrimination

Source: Independent
(Cape Argus) Even by South African standards, the Sizzlers massacre on January 20, 2003 was shocking.

Nine men were slaughtered in one night.

They were bound, their throats slit and then shot in the head before being left in pools of blood in the white Sea Point house with matching picket fence.

Only one man, with a bullet wound to the head, and three small dogs, survived the massacre.

Sizzlers killers Adam Woest and Trevor Theys are both serving life sentences for the murders.

Following the grisly attack the spotlight turned on to the "rent boy" industry and calls were made to clean up Sea Point, which was branded as a seedy and dangerous underworld home of drugs and gangs.

But five years later, the gay escort business is booming and Sizzlers is now just a dim memory.

He said technology had probably changed the nature of the business over the past five years.

Today people tended to hook up on the internet before meeting their client, and most rent boys no longer lived in private homes like the Sizzlers boys did at 7 Graham Street. A number of them came from smaller, conservative country homes, and had families who had no idea what they were doing. It made identifying them that much harder.

Some came from broken families. Some saw the work as a stepping stone towards something better.

Some had girlfriends and weren't even gay.

Glenn de Swardt, manager of health services, counselling and research at the Triangle Project, a gay and lesbian organisation, said business was back to normal with plenty of boys getting into the industry to make money for drugs.

De Swardt, who testified as an expert witness for the prosecution during the high-profile Sizzlers trial on how the attack affected the community, said that violent hate crimes continued today, but were not always discussed.

The most recent victim of such attacks was gay Muizenberg architect Peter Sim, 68, who was stabbed to death at his Killarney Road home on December 28 or 29.
He had earlier reported being harassed because of his sexuality.

He was stabbed about 17 times and his body was described as having been "butchered".

De Swardt said others who were targeted included black lesbians who were at high risk of rape by men who believed they could "cure" the women by having sex with them.

De Swardt said "gay bashing" was still rife, with homosexuals being regarded as soft targets.

"Even at school, children have to put up with teasing and taunting about their perceived sexual orientation," said De Swardt.

He said people appeared to focused on race attacks.

"But maybe it is time to look at other forms of hate crimes," he added.

There was a definite increase in attacks on black lesbians and effeminate men.

"People are being stalked and harassed and often end up the victims of brutal murders."

He said Sim had been the target of homophobic and verbal abuse by patrons of a pub next door to his Muizenberg house prior to his murder.

Full article: IOL: 5 years later, gay escort industry busy

area_africa

Source: CBC News, Canadian Press, and National Post
A former Anglican bishop who has led a campaign against ordaining gays and lesbians says he feels terrible that his colleagues in eastern Newfoundland are being asked to declare their allegiance to the church.

Donald Harvey, the former bishop for eastern Newfoundland, is affiliated with a conservative breakaway group, the Anglican Network in Canada.

His successor, Cyrus Pitman, sent a letter to clergy members in December instructing them, in effect, to declare their allegiances to the Anglican Church or to the group affiliated with Harvey. In the latter case, Pitman said clergy should then "do the honourable thing, and resign."

"Because of the mess I seem to have stirred up, it is unfortunate that trouble with me should extend to them in that particular way," Harvey told CBC News on Thursday.

In the interview, Harvey said Pitman's letter puts other clergy in a difficult spot.

"The tone of it is devastating," he said, "because it is indicating that the clergy need to . have their licences renewed, which they will do by renewing their vows."

Pitman is not doing interviews about his letter, but issued a statement late Thursday saying that in the "spirit of renewal" all clergy resident in the diocese would receive a licence to continue working in the diocese.

Bishop Pitman's letter makes specific mention of Bishop Harvey's decision to leave the Canadian Church.

"His decision to renounce his licence rather than to seek a transfer to another province has implications for this Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, for the Anglican Church of Canada, and possibly for the wider Anglican Communion."

The head of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, issued a letter earlier this week emphasizing the church has not yet changed its doctrine on marriage, but added there is federal legislation that allows for same-sex marriages.

Canada's National Post calls the latest letter from Pitman, "a pre-emptive attack on any priests who may be thinking of joining a breakaway faction that opposes same-sex blessings."

But a senior official in the Newfoundland and Labrador church indicated that support for Harvey's views is small.

"It needs to be noted that there is not a single priest that has left our church. Not a single congregation, not a single parish," said Geoff Peddle, executive archdeacon of the Anglican Church in eastern Newfoundland.

"There has been not a single departure from our community," Peddle said Friday.

Peddle said Harvey's decision to break with the church has had no immediate effect on other clergy.

Harvey agreed on Thursday that no priest in the diocese has asked to join his breakaway group, but continued to lash out at his successor.

"It looks like he's trapped and lashing out in all directions," Bishop Harvey said. "He's certainly trying to exert supreme control."

According to National Post, Bishop Harvey said the new church, which for now is being called the Anglican Network of Canada, will soon do a cross-country tour of parishes -- but they have not been invited by any Newfoundland parish.

Full article: Breakaway ex-bishop knocks Anglican loyalty letter
Anglican bishop asks priests allied with conservative predecessor ... | The Canadian Press
Bishop to issue new licences to diocese clergy | National Post

anglican, country_canada

Source: Orlando Sentinel
A national gay-rights group came to Orlando on Tuesday to launch a statewide effort against a proposed ban on same-sex marriage.

The Human Rights Campaign held the first of a series of training sessions for gay-rights volunteers at a Thornton Park eatery, despite word from the state that a proposed constitutional amendment backed by Orlando's Florida4Marriage was more than 20,000 signatures short of making the November ballot.

"The last thing we should do in this moment is change our campaign in any way," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Washington-based group, which bills itself as the nation's largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil-rights organization.

About 50 people attended the session which trained gay-rights volunteers to talk to voters at polling places during the Jan. 29 primaries.

Florida Red and Blue, a group formed to campaign against the amendment, also organized the event.

Florida4Marriage initially announced it had enough signatures to get on the ballot, but Division of Election authorities said Monday that 27,000 signatures from Miami-DadeCounty had been reported to the state twice.

The measure has 589,020 confirmed signatures statewide.

The state requires petition groups to collect 611,000 signatures from registered voters, including totals amounting to 8 percent of the votes cast in 2004 in 13 of the state's 25 congressional districts.

John Stemberger, state president of Florida4Marriage, said his group has stepped up its efforts, and the battle isn't over.

"We're concentrating on getting the job done," Stemberger said.

His group has until Feb. 1 to collect the remaining signatures.

Full article: Group organizes in Orlando against proposed ban on same-sex marriage -- OrlandoSentinel.com

state_fl

Source: Radio Iowa and Associated Press via Press-Citizen
DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Iowa Supreme Court today ruled that a gay woman's adoption of her partner's children was legal and that a district court erred by saying it didn't have jurisdiction to rule over custody issues in the case.

The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the right of a Polk County woman to seek custody of the children from the relationship she had with another woman. The two women, Jamie Lee Schott and Heather Joye Schott, began their relationship in the summer of 2000. At that time Jamie and her son Caleb moved in with Heather and in November of 2001, Heather adopted Caleb.

Jamie was later artificially inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor and had a baby in April of 2004 that Heather also adopted. The two women ended their relationship in January of 2007 and Heather filed a petition seeking a ruling on the custody and support of the children. Jamie acknowledged that Heather was a parent of the children, but filed a counterclaim alleging they were married and seeking alimony and a division of their assetts.

The district court ruled that Heather's adoptions of the children were contrary to Iowa's adoption statute and invalid.

"We find it was inappropriate for the district court to collaterally attack the adoptions," the high court said in its ruling. "Heather is the children's legal parent and the district court had ... jurisdiction to rule on her petition."

The High Court said that since the adoptions were valid, the district court has jurisdiction to decide the custody and support issues, and sent the case back to the district court.

Full article: press-citizen.com | Local News
Iowa Supreme Court rules in favor of gay adoption | Radio Iowa

state_ia

Source: Aspen Times
ASPEN, Colo. -- Sports Illustrated asked athletes in the four major professional leagues in March 2006 whether they would welcome an openly gay teammate.

The results of the anonymous surveys concluded that a majority of players wouldn't take issue with a homosexual teammate in the locker room. The National Hockey League had the highest positive response, at 79.9 percent. On the other end of the spectrum, the NFL had the smallest majority, at 56.9 percent.

Two years later, there's an obvious follow-up question: If there's seemingly a majority of support for homosexual athletes, why is it that an active male athlete has yet to announce that he's gay?

That question will be at the forefront of a panel discussion at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Wheeler Opera House titled "Gays in Sports: The Invisible Athlete." Former NBA player John Amaechi, who made headlines last year when he announced, in retirement, that he is gay, is one of the scheduled panelists, as is ESPN.com page 2 columnist LZ Granderson.

Granderson -- openly gay himself -- wrote The Aspen Times via e-mail that the reason gays in sports feel compelled to stay in the closet is simple. His explanation, however, touches on a number of complex contributing factors.

"Everyone keeps focusing on the reasons why closeted athletes can't come out, and they rarely hear why they can," wrote Granderson, who pens columns twice a week on a diverse array of topics and athletes.

"They hear they will be abandoned by teammates, ridiculed by fans, and systematically escorted out of a league they spent most of their lives trying to get in. They hear [former NBA All-Star] Tim Hardaway's comments more than the supportive comments of [current All-Stars] Tracy McGrady or [Shaquille] O'Neal. They see `God hates fags' more than `God is love.' They don't believe they have the strength to stand up and be different, and because of the nature of their profession, they are not able to spend a lot of time in an environment that is affirming and can help them build that strength."

Seeing. Hearing. Believing. Granderson says that, when it comes to discussions about homosexuality in America, it's often the case that the majority opinion is often tuned out by a visible, vocal minority.

When it comes to gays in sports, perceptions -- often reinforced by a media horde looking for a sensational story or sound byte -- can distort the truth.

It's an opinion shared by Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com, an internet outpost for gay athletes and sports fanatics.

Zeigler, who will moderate Friday's discussion, said the mainstream media, more than any other group, is responsible for giving credence to the reservations that gay athletes harbor when it comes to coming out to their teammates, coaches and fans.

A number of former and current NBA stars, including Shaquille O'Neal, Scottie Pippen and Dwyane Wade, said they wouldn't have a problem with a gay teammate in the wake of the controversy. Still, Zeigler said, the media at large downplayed those comments.

Zeigler is unapologetic when it comes to his view of sports scribes in general.
"Most of them aren't reporters and journalists," he said. "They're sports fans with a voice. They want to be buddies with the iconic athletes of their lives."

Granderson himself has written about his personal trials as a sports writer in a profession where there are very few openly gay peers.

Both Granderson and Zeigler agree, however, that the media itself isn't solely responsible for sustaining a culture that shuns gay athletes.

"I think it's unfair to constantly single out athletes and the locker room, and not talk about the coaches and GMs who allow such an environment to exist, or the team owners and college presidents who allow such an environment to exist, or the media personalities who play into it," Granderson wrote.

"It's so easy to always dump on the 22-year-old who doesn't say the PC thing in the locker room when a mic's shoved in his face, everyone's looking at him and he's worried about fitting in. It's tougher to call out the 55-year-old who only addresses the comments when it becomes a PR nightmare, if at all, because that guy has true power."

Full article: Aspen Times News for Aspen Colorado - News

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