Posted by NewsEditor at 9:51 AM (PT)
In: celebrities, religion, politics
Tuesday
September
23,
2008
:: Responding to news reports about then-Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin asking a librarian how she would feel about banning books, a San Francisco man has donated two children's books dealing with gay families to the Wasilla library. Mike Petrelis sent copies of Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate to the library "just to make sure they’re on the shelves." Whether the books will make it onto the shelves of the Wasilla Public Library is unclear. Library Director KJ Martin-Albright said she has received the books but, like any donation, they have to go through a process that determines what to do with them.
:: Three radio stations and an independent weekly magazine in Bosnia have asked police to investigate letters sent to the media outlets that include "very serious threats are an attack on personal safety of the employees." They were threatened for offering "unbiased and ethical" reports about the four-day Sarajevo Queer Festival which is to open on Wednesday. Police were preparing special security measures for the festival which they've labeled a "high risk" event.
:: Less than a week after Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight a California initiative to ban gay marriage in the state, Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw have followed equal rights suit, announcing they will match the six-figure donation to the "No on 8" campaign. They said that "discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any other." Prior to the big entertainment-industry donatioins, No-On-8 campaign had raised $12.4 million, putting them behind pro-discrimination forces who had raised $17.8 million. An ad No-On-8 started airing this week will cost the campaign $3.5 million to $5 million.
:: A vicar in Gwynedd, Wales said he "took note" of a reprimand issued to him by the Archbishop of Wales for blessing a gay civil partnership between two women. "There wasn't any fuss. It was a day of great delight and healing," Rev. Jim Cotter, said of the ceremony he conducted in July. The archbishop said marriage for the church is strictly a man/woman thing, but that the church does "affirm the value of committed friendships between people of the same sex" -- whatever that means.