Lambda Legal files suit to prevent Ariz. from stripping domestic partner benefits
From Lambda Legal:
(Tuscon, Ariz.) Lambda Legal has filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson to block a move to strip domestic partner benefits from gay and lesbian state employees. Arizona lawmakers included a provision stripping domestic partner health benefits from state employees as part of a last-minute …
Tags: Ariz, Domestic Partner Benefits, Federal Lawsuit, Gay And Lesbian, Gay Lesbian, Health Benefits, Lambda Legal, Last Minute, Lawmakers, Provision, State Employees, Stripping, TusconSocially Significant: ‘Bruno’ offers mixed messages on gay community
Sasha Baron Cohen’s first large scale movie, “Borat,” was a tremendous financial and critical success.
It both entertained audiences and also functioned as a tongue-in-cheek examination of xenophobia in the United States.
Those looking for that same combination in Baron Cohen’s new film, “Bruno,” are going to have to look a little harder. “Bruno” does challenge American society, but its attempts to lampoon homophobia while generating laughs confuses more than it enlightens.
If you’ve heard anything about the movie during the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard some rather polarized opinions on it.
Most people seem unable to find a middle ground with the film and can’t decide if the movie hurts the national view on the gay community and culture, empowers it or does nothing except make people laugh at the movies excessive use of penises.
Baron Cohen plays Bruno, a German fashionista trying to get work in the U.S. after his fashion commentary show is canceled in his home country. Bruno’s campy actions throughout the film attract the derision of nearly everyone he meets until he figures out the problem — he’s gay. The remainder of the film involves more wacky escapades as Bruno tries to straighten-out and eventually embrace his homosexuality. See Socially Significant: ‘Bruno’ offers mixed messages on gay community
LSU The Reveill
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Homosexual Haitian Migrants Focus of UA Doctoral Student’s Research
Erin Durban spent time in Haiti last year initiating her field research about individuals who immigrate to the United States. While there, she worked to immerse herself in the culture, which included learning about vévé, religious symbols used during rituals, from a Haitian vodou priest, Edouard Glissant.
Erin Durban, center, is making her second trip to Haiti to learn about the decisions homosexual Haitians make in immigrating to the United States, but then opting to return to their home country.
Erin Durban, a doctoral degree candidate in the UA’s gender and women’s studies department, will travel to Haiti to study the decisions homosexual Haitians migrants make when they leave for the U.S. but then return home.
As an undergraduate in Denver, Erin Durban began to study the conditions of Haitian immigrants and ways the United States has been embroiled in the history of the country.
Now a University of Arizona doctoral degree candidate in gender and women’s studies, Durban is studying the immigration of “queer-identified” Haitians who choose to leave for the United States, but then opt to return home.
Perplexing to Durban is the idea that the United States has a reputation for offering “more liberated spaces” to people around the world seeking asylum – whether for political, economic, religious reasons or because of sexual orientation – and yet certain populations of Haitians decide to return to a county that has offers little protection against sex-based discrimination.
Durban, whose research interests are in sexuality, migration and cultural studies as well as social and economic justice, said she is interested in studying way Haitians interpret the relationship between the United States and Haiti within the context of what is defined as “home.”
She recently received a Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute grant for her project, “Desire to Return, Desire to Leave: Investigating Queer Haitian Migration.” The institute, which operates out of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, promotes research in the college.
The project will take her later this month to the country of more than 9 million inhabitants, where she will spend several weeks conducting research in Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to better understand the complexities association with the migration of Haitians who are homosexual.
Her investigation, she said, may also help to shed more light on the ways in which economic, political and social interactions and pressures influence certain people.
One challenge she’ll face is the limited amount of information about homosexuals in Haitians, said Durban, who intends to publish an article about her research and incorporate her findings into her dissertation.
“Surprisingly, there is not a lot of research about queer migration in Haiti,” Durban said, noting that of existing literature and documentaries, most tend to focus on gay men or the vodou, or voodoo, religion, which tends to be more accepting of homosexuals.
The focus, too, tends to be on the turmoil in Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Durban’s interest in these issues was heighted about five years ago with the announcement of the United Nations’ Stabilization Mission in Haiti, a mandate established in response to armed opposition in the country. The United States is among the countries offering military and police personnel in the effort.
“Everywhere I went it seemed I was hearing about Haiti and I found it very strange that here is this place that is really close that no one ever really talks about,” she said. “But when they do, all we ever hear about is corruption, violence and disease.”
Durban said it is important to understand – outside of the typical contexts of violence and poverty – how gender and sexuality are shaping the experience of migrants.
She was encouraged to begin studying what she described as “the coexistence” of two seemingly conflicting beliefs about migration after visiting Haiti last year.
One belief describes the desire by gays and lesbians to leave Haiti for the more “progressive” United States, whereas another describes a strong desire to return to Haiti once in the United States because of a preference to live in their home countries.
Her research, she said, may help explain the role that family obligations, work-related struggles, the pursuit of citizenship, homophobia, the stigma associated with being an immigrant, “the heightened anti-immigrant fervor post-Sept. 11″ and other factors play in migrants choosing to leave the United States.
In her grant proposal, Durban noted that her research could potentially “rethink the idea of the United States as a site of ‘liberation’ for queer people of the world from a new vantage point.” Of particular concern are ways in which racism, xenophobia and homophobia affect and influence the decisions of Haitian migrants.
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LA Times Editorial: A court battle California doesn’t need
The Supreme Court’s ruling last week in the case of a grandiosely unethical West Virginia justice opened a new field of constitutional review — the high court may now consider when an elected state court jurist has been so tainted by politics that due process requires him to recuse himself from a case.
In West Virginia, a coal executive spent more than $3 million to unseat a sitting state Supreme Court justice; it was money well spent, as the justice was defeated by voters and replaced by Brent Benjamin. Benjamin then did what was expected of him and cast a deciding vote in overturning a $50-million jury award against the executive’s coal company.
Indeed, California has wrestled with this problem before — and quite possibly could again.
California’s system for selecting Supreme Court justices is much better than West Virginia’s. Candidates for the court here are nominated by the governor, confirmed by a state commission and then placed on the bench. They must periodically stand for retention, but they are not, as they are in West Virginia, subject to direct challenge by rival candidates. A retention election can cost a justice his or her seat, but it does not let voters kick out one justice and install their own replacement.
California’s rules have helped balance the judiciary’s independence with the public’s fair insistence on accountability, but even this state’s reasonable retention process has been subject to tilt. Most notable was the 1986 retention election that removed Chief Justice Rose Bird and two associate justices, Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin. Much reflection has gone into that race in the decades since, and opinions differ on its merits. Two truths, however, stand the test of deep inquiry: The forces arrayed against Bird were not motivated solely by her opposition to the death penalty — that was cover for a second complaint, which was her defense of consumer rights against corporate power — and Reynoso and Grodin were victims of a special-interest crusade against a vulnerable chief.
Would that we could relegate that episode to California’s history. In fact, the state rumbles with discontent over its high court and chief, and those stirrings contain alarming echoes of the battle of 1986.
At issue are the court’s rulings on same-sex marriage and Proposition 8, and its chief justice, Ronald M. George. In May 2008, the court overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage, striking a victory for civil rights in the grandest tradition of constitutional protection of minorities. A few months later, after voters approved Proposition 8 and amended the state Constitution to ban the same institution that the court had upheld, George and his colleagues upheld the amendment. Both times, George wrote for the majority. He thus angered opponents of gay marriage in 2008 and supporters of it in 2009.
By California’s rules, George faces a retention election in 2010, and some predict that he could face challenges from either side — or even both — in this polarizing debate.
That would be a shame for the state’s judiciary, an unfortunate attack on judicial independence and an unfair castigation of one of this state’s most principled and admirable public officials. In the gay-marriage cases, George’s votes demonstrated conscience, professionalismand restraint. He voted to uphold same-sex unions out of the strong conviction — which this page shares — that the Constitution does not allow society to deny the protection of marriage to gay couples any more than it once denied it to those united across race. The ruling was right on the law, and will certainly be validated over the long march of history.
Months later, voters tacked in the other direction, narrowly rejecting gay marriage and amending the Constitution to allow California to recognize only the unions of heterosexual couples. That was challenged, naturally, and the lawsuit offered the court the opportunity to extend its earlier ruling, though on shaky constitutional grounds — advocates for same-sex marriage argued that Proposition 8 was such an affront to the rights of Californians that it revised the Constitution rather than merely amending it. Scholars split on the merits of that argument, and although the strong consensus of legal opinion rejectedit, an opportunistic justice might have seized the chance to solidify his legacy.
Instead, George subordinated his politics — as evidenced by his writing — to the weight of constitutional opinion. He voted to uphold the proposition, even though it undid his own work. Permitted latitude within the strictures of the Constitution in the first case, George was able to vote his conscience; bound by the Constitution in the second case, he yielded.
Such is the lot of a principled judicial officer, but those concerned only with results already have signaled their unhappiness with George. The moneyed interests that supported Proposition 8 last fall are considering whether to finance a campaign against George next year. Supporters of gay marriage, who championed his heroism in 2008, were bitterly disappointed when the court upheld the hateful initiative.
This is not West Virginia. Corporate interests are not knocking off justices who disagree with them and seating more accommodating replacements. But intimidation has no place in our judicial life any more than it does in Appalachia. The 1986 campaign against Bird and her colleagues now stands for many as a reminder that well-intentioned systems of accountability may be hijacked by special interests, a lesson learned too often and at great cost in California. It was misguided in its first iteration; it would be regrettable in its second.
See A court battle California doesn’t need
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Closeted politicians stir filmmaker’s ‘Outrage’
Of the many insinuations in “Outrage,” Kirby Dick’s sad, devastating new documentary about closeted gay politicians - OK, alleged closeted gay politicians - the one that’s most disturbing is the case made against a former Southern congressman.
As a young liberal, the politician used his fraternity house “as his gay bar,” a former alleged hookup tells the filmmakers. Yet in pursuit of elected office, the politician got married, went to church, and voted Republican, never quite shaking his same-sex attraction but never doing much legislatively to acknowledge or advance the civil rights of gay people. On numerous occasions, in fact, he voted to suppress those rights.
Such alleged hypocrisy is the crux of “Outrage.” Dick speculates on the homosexuality of several current and former public officials which hasn’t been corroborated by the men themselves.
His charges aren’t new; they’ve certainly surfaced in the alternative press and online. But in accordance with Globe ethics poilcy, I can’t repeat those names here.
While dwelling on political contradiction, the movie unfolds at a unique juncture of psychological and moral character: the perverse place where a politician’s relentless personal drive and a closeted gay man’s shameful desire may meet.
In tying the purported secret gay sex lives of these putatively straight elected officials - the movie focuses almost exclusively on men - to their voting records, a caustic portrait emerges of self-deluded souls. Dick goes into scandals involving the married Idaho senator Larry Craig and the now openly gay former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, who sits down and unburdens himself for the camera (he talks about “living your truth” with an abandon that suggests either lots of therapy or lots of disco). Former Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe talks about how much happier he was after he revealed he was gay (we never hear from his ex-wife, although Mrs. McGreevey does speak).
“Outrage” is armed with commentary and insights from openly gay members of Congress like Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin, activists like Larry Kramer (of course) and Rodger McFarlane, who died last month, and such Washington insiders as Hilary Rosen. The movie never allows you to forget its aim. It wants to hold these men accountable - if the speculation is true - not for their conservatism but for their double standard. “Outrage” tries to put the officials on a couch and determine why so many are Republicans. Someone likens their alleged behavior to playground politics, where potential outcasts help bullies persecute kids to keep the bullies off their trail. How could I be gay?, the thinking goes, I’ve voted with my party to block the passage of so many gay-friendly bills. See Closeted politicians stir filmmaker’s ‘Outrage’
Boston Globe
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Political Memo Same-Sex Marriage Holds Peril for GOP
WASHINGTON — It was only five years ago that opposition to same-sex marriage was so strong that Republicans explicitly turned to the issue as a way to energize conservative voters. Yet today, as the party contemplates the task of rebuilding itself, some Republicans say the marriage issue may be turning into more of a hindrance than a help.
The fact that a run of states have legalized same-sex marriage in recent months — either by court decision or by legislative action — with little backlash is only one indication of how public attitudes about this subject appear to be changing.
More significant is evidence in polls of a widening divide on the issue by age, suggesting to many Republicans that the potency of the marriage question is on the decline. It simply does not appear to have the resonance with younger voters that it does with older ones.
Consider this: In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, released Monday, 31 percent of respondents over the age of 40 said they supported same-sex marriage. By contrast, 57 percent under age 40 said they supported it, a 26-point difference. Among the older respondents, 35 percent said they opposed any legal recognition of same-sex couples, be it marriage or civil unions. Among the younger crowd, just 19 percent held that view.
Steve Schmidt, who was the senior strategist to Senator John McCain of Arizona during his presidential campaign, said in a speech and an interview that Republicans were in danger of losing these younger voters unless the party came to appreciate how issues like same-sex marriage resonated, or did not resonate, with them.
“Republicans should re-examine the extent to which we are being defined by positions on issues that I don’t believe are among our core values, and that put us at odds with what I expect will become, over time, if not a consensus view, then the view of a substantial majority of voters,” Mr. Schmidt said in a speech. See Political Memo Same-Sex Marriage Holds Peril for GOP
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Details on same-sex marriage in Iowa
Marriage requirements in Iowa remain the same, with the exception that the ban on same-sex marriage has been eliminated:
–Two people, over 18.
–Not already legally married.
–Not closely related.
-Legally competent to enter into a civil contract.
To get a license:
–Visit a county recorder’s office and fill out an application.
–Show proof of identity.
–Pay a $35 fee.
–Have a witness sign the application.
–Both parties must be present or have the form notarized.
–Submit application and wait three days for license to be valid.
For the ceremony:
–It must be in Iowa, with both parties, an officiate and two witnesses present. All must sign the marriage certificate.
–Officiant, a judge or leader of religious faith, files certificate with county recorder within 15 days
–Same-sex marriage licenses submitted on Monday, April 27, the day Iowa legalizes same-sex marriage, will become valid on Thursday, April 30. Judges can grant a waiver.
What if a same-sex couple has had a ceremony elsewhere?:
–If a same-sex couple has been legally married elsewhere, their marriage is valid in Iowa as of Monday. They do not have to get remarried.
–It is unclear if civil unions from another state or registered domestic partnerships will be recognized in Iowa.
For more see Details on same-sex marriage in Iowa
Chicago Tribune - United States
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Senior GOP Consultant Backs Gay Marriage Washington Post
Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, today laid out the case for gay marriage, warning that the GOP will continue to lose young voters and the Northeast as long the party opposes it.
At a meeting in Washington of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights GOP group, Schmidt dismissed conservative arguments that allowing gay marriage would weaken the institution, as well as objections from religious conservatives, warning that they could turn the Republican Party into a “sectarian” party.
“For the party to be seen as an antigay, that is injurious to its candidates in places like California and Washington and New York,” Schmidt said.
He called heterosexual marriage “a tradition,”not a “creed.”
See Senior GOP Consultant Backs Gay Marriage Washington Post
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