Local media swallows ‘bathroom bill’ rhetoric
On July 14, the day of a legislative hearing on the transgender rights bill currently on Beacon Hill, WCVB’s NewsCenter 5 ran a story about the bill on its evening newscast. Anchor Liz Brunner introduced the story by saying, “It’s being called the bathroom bill, [and it] is essentially meant to end discrimination based on transgender status.” Behind Brunner was an image of the traditional male and female stick figures found on restroom doors, positioned next to the State House dome and above the tagline, “Bathroom Bill.” Yet the only people calling the trans rights bill, House Bill 1728, a “bathroom bill” are its opponents, and the label is a misnomer by any objective criteria.
H.B. 1728 adds trans-inclusive language to the state’s non-discrimination laws in the areas of employment, public accommodations, credit, housing, and education, as well as to the state’s hate-crimes laws, going far beyond simply allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity or expression. Opponents of the legislation, led by the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), claim that the bill will allow male sexual predators to masquerade as women and sneak into women’s restrooms and locker rooms. WCVB’s coverage of the transgender rights bill, as well as the coverage by some other local media outlets, suggests that the work of the bill’s opponents to label the legislation a bathroom bill in public discourse has been at least somewhat successful. See Local media swallows ‘bathroom bill’ rhetoric Bay Windows
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Local org makes the case for the Gay Games to come to Boston s
Grassroots organization Boston 2014 will be hosting a kick-off rally celebrating the city’s bid to host the 2014 Gay Games. The rally will take place on August 6 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at The Estate nightclub, and it will give Bostonians a chance to meet with representatives from the Federation of Gay Games and make the case for Beantown as the Games’ 2014 host city.
Marc Davino, chair of Boston 2014’s sports committee, remains upbeat and positive about Boston’s chances of successfully completing the bid, touting “the backing of civic leaders,” including Gov. Deval Patrick, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, Mayor Thomas Menino, and at-large City Councilor John Connolly. Menino will be meeting with Gay Games representatives during their upcoming site visit. Boston 2014 hopes the city’s strong commitment to Gay Games’ core values - participation, inclusion, and personal best - won’t hurt their chances either, organizers say.
“Our bid to bring the Gay Games 2014 to Boston shows that our wonderful city is not only a great venue for large sporting events, but that its diversity and culture make it an exceptional choice,” Mayor Menino said in a statement to Bay Windows. “Boston has always been at the forefront of gay rights and it would be the perfect city for the Gay Games, I am truly excited by this possibility.”
See Local org makes the case for the Gay Games to come to Boston
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A Texas gay raid and Stonewall
The Fort Worth police have “some explaining to do,” said Jacquielynn Floyd in The Dallas Morning News. On June 28, officers raided a gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge, sending a patron to intensive care with a head injury. “In what I can only hope is a spectacularly infelicitous coincidence,” it took place on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Raid, the gay-rights movement’s catalyst. The cops’ story—drunk gay men groped them—doesn’t add up.
Well, police chief Jeff Halstead is backing his men and their classic “Gay Panic Defense,” said Dan Savage in The Stranger, which goes: He made a pass at me, so I was justified in beating/killing him. That would still be illegal, but it’s also bunk. “I’ve been in a million gay bars” like the Rainbow Lounge, and “gay men don’t grope police officers when they enter gay bars.”
It is, “obviously, very sad” that one of the Rainbow Lounge patrons is in critical condition, said Rod Dreher in BeliefNet, but come on, the report that “cops who entered a gay bar were set upon by drunk, horny patrons who played grab-ass with them” is “hilarious,” and not at all far-fetched. Gay people, especially drunk gay people, can be “as stupid as the rest of us.”
Except that the hospitalized man was reportedly drinking bottled water, said Jeff Epperly in New England’s Bay Windows. But 40 years after Stonewall, this kind of gay harassment goes on all over the U.S., not just in Texas. The raid at Forth Worth’s Rainbow Lounge “was the work of a police department that wasn’t smart enough to hide its bigotry.” See A Texas gay raid and Stonewall The Week Magazine
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Gay marriage stalls as RI lawmakers wrap up
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island seems almost certain to remain the only New England state that does not recognize gay marriage after measures legalizing same-sex unions stalled just before the part-time General Assembly ended the bulk of its annual work.
None of the bills legalizing same-sex marriage in Rhode Island advanced to a floor vote this session, continuing a trend begun in 1997.
The lack of State House action on gay unions means that Rhode Island is unlikely to allow same-sex marriage anytime soon, despite decisions this year by lawmakers in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont to join Connecticut and Massachusetts in legalizing marriage equality.
“I was hoping the momentum that was going around New England and the support we had in the House would get enough representatives to ask for it,” said Rep. Frank Ferri (D-Warwick), who is gay and sponsored same-sex marriage legislation. He and his partner wed in Canada.
Equally disappointed were marriage equality opponents, who wanted voters to be able to decide whether the state constitution should be changed to ban gay marriage.
“I think that if you put it to the voters on a statewide basis, gay marriage would fail,” said Rep. Jon Brien, D-Woonsocket.
See Gay marriage stalls as RI lawmakers wrap up
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Backlash to lenient sentence in gay bashing case
A group of local activists have planned a rally June 18 outside the Edward Brooke Courthouse to protest the sentence of Fabio Brandao, a 29-year-old Framingham man who pleaded guilty to taking part in a brutal gay bashing in the South End on Aug. 24. Boston District Court Judge Thomas C. Horgan imposed a two-year suspended sentence and mandatory completion of an anger management program on Brandao, but the Anti-Violence Project and the grassroots LGBT group Join The Impact Massachusetts plan to demonstrate to send the message that they believe the sentence was too lenient. Brandao pleaded guilty to nine charges, including four civil rights violations; he and three friends ambushed a group of four people in their mid-20s on Columbus Avenue who were returning home from the Roxy nightclub, and the assailants kicked and punched two of the men in the head, leaving them with cuts, bruises and mild concussions. Brandao and his assailants allegedly called the victims “faggots” during the assault.”It’s just inconceivable that Brandao could have left two men brain-injured in the street on Columbus Avenue and then walk out of court with an anger management assignment. It shocks the conscience, and it points to a deep-seated problem the Anti-Violence Project has struggled with since 1986, and that’s that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people don’t get equal protection under the law,” said Don Gorton, chair of the Anti-Violence Project. See Backlash to lenient sentence in gay bashing case
Bay Windows
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Pioneering gay student athlete says schools must protect all students
Ten years after drawing national attention for coming out while serving as co-captain of his high school football team, Middleton native Corey Johnson told attendees at the annual conference of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network of Boston (GLSEN Boston), that his own visit to the conference a decade ago was instrumental in his decision to come out publicly. Speaking to a crowd of youth, teachers and administrators gathered at Jamaica Plain’s English High School on May 1 Johnson recalled traveling to that year’s conference on the Tufts University campus on a bus with his school’s gay/straight alliance (GSA), but the Masconomet Regional High School student sat as far away from the GSA kids as possible for fear that people would think he was gay. Yet arriving at the conference completely changed his perspective. See Pioneering gay student athlete says schools must protect all students
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oin the Impact protests ex-gay training
The latest foray by Exodus International, the country’s leading ex-gay ministry, into Boston was a relatively low-key affair, but the grassroots LGBT group Join the Impact Massachusetts and other activists turned out to protest and send a loud message of opposition to their teachings.
Exodus held an April 28 pastor training at Park Street Church to promote the organization’s message that gay and lesbian people can change their orientation and become heterosexual. Join the Impact held a protest across the street near Park Street Station, but following the speaking portion of the demonstration some of the attendees urged the organizers to move the protest closer to the church, within view of the Exodus training attendees. The protestors marched across the street into the Granary Burying Ground, an historic cemetery next to the church that houses the remains of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and the victims of the Boston Massacre, among other important figures in American history, and continued their protest there for about 15 minutes until a police officer asked them to disperse.
Exodus declined a request by Bay Windows for permission to cover the pastor training, saying the event was closed to the press. Exodus has held prior events in Boston, including a daylong conference in 2005 that also sparked a protest by LGBT activists (See “My day with the ex-gays,” Nov. 3, 2005).
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Former Bay Windows publisher dies at 53
Former Bay Windows publisher dies at 53
Tags: Bay Windows, Windows PublisherAAG Coakley slaps civil rights injunction on homophobic neighbor from hell
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office obtained a civil rights injunction Jan. 6 against a Norwood woman for repeated anti-gay harassment of a gay neighbor who lives in the same apartment complex.
“Bias-motivated conduct, such as the harassment and intimidation we allege in this case, are devastating to victims not only because of the immediate physical and emotional harm they cause, but because feelings of fear, anxiety and profound loss of personal security often last far longer than the incident,” said Coakley in a statement. “Beyond their impact on individual victims, hate crimes and other forms of bias-motivated activity are very detrimental to communities, and this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”
In a press release announcing the injunction Coakley’s office details a persistent pattern of harassment by May. In November 2007 May allegedly began spreading rumors that her gay neighbor was a pedophile and sexual predator. Six months later May complained to her landlord after the victim hung a gay pride flag outside his window, and the landlord forced him to remove the flag. May also allegedly shouted anti-gay epithets at the victim on multiple locations within the presence of fellow tenants, and she physically confronted him in the yard of his home. Last August May allegedly made a baseless complaint to Norwood police claiming that the victim had exposed himself to her.
Coakley’s office alleged that as a result of the harassment the victim has feared for his safety and has been forced to alter his routine to avoid having contact with May.
See AG Coakley slaps homophobic neighbor from hell with civil rights … Bay Windows
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2008: This year in queer
Bay Windows wraps up
the year by recalling memorable moments in LGBT history.
