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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LOS ANGELES: All Saints, Pasadena, clergy opt out of civil marriages until gay couples can legally wed
Clergy at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, are opting out of performing civil marriages until gay couples can legally wed–and are encouraging other clergy to do likewise, according to the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector.
“At the heart of Jesus’s moral vision and All Saints’ historic mission is respecting the dignity of every human being,” Bacon said in a June 3 press release announcing the decision, which is effective immediately.
“The California Supreme Court in its recent opinion has ruled that those of same-gender affections are second-class citizens,” Bacon added. “Denying fundamental rights to a certain classification of humanity is blatant discrimination with which our governing board, the other clergy of All Saints, and I will not participate. We invite other clergy and congregations to join us in this stand for marriage equality.”
Bacon referred to the May 26 state Supreme Court ruling that upheld the controversial Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment providing that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California.” Their decision sparked nationwide rallies by both advocates and opponents of the measure.
The Rev. Susan Russell, an associate at the Pasadena congregation known for its social activism and progressive politics, said on June 4 that clergy are meeting with couples whose nuptials were already planned “to explain the new policy and hold pastoral conversations about the impact on them.
“We only do member weddings, so folks married here at All Saints typically share our values of inclusion and would be on board, we think, with making arrangements to have the civil part of their marriage take place external to All Saints clergy,” said Russell, who is president of Integrity USA, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Episcopalians.
But she added that: “We will continue to serve and marry them civilly if that’s what the couple prefers for whatever reason because that was the contract going in.”
All Saints vestry, at its June 2 meeting, had unanimously passed a resolution declaring that “the sacramental right of marriage is available to all couples, but that the clergy of All Saints Church will not sign civil marriage certificates so long as the right to marry is denied to same-sex couples.”
The vestry’s decision acknowledged “our active participation in the discriminatory system of civil marriage is inconsistent with Jesus’s call to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” The resolution states “civil marriage in the State of California is, as a result of Proposition 8 and the Court’s decision, a constitutionally-mandated instrument of discrimination, which furthers injustice and denies same-sex couples the fundamental dignities to which each human being is entitled,” Bacon said. Russell said there was little discussion in the vestry meeting. “It was just a no-brainer that of course we want to take steps that keep us from being complicit in state-sponsored discrimination.
“I keep thinking I couldn’t be prouder to work at All Saints church than I already am and then our leadership keeps taking steps that make me even prouder,” Russell said. “It was it is such a part of the DNA of All Saints Church to stand with those in need of solidarity. This stand is so deeply rooted in our baptismal covenant, it gives us such a strong theological place to stand. It feels like very firm foundation, indeed.”
The Rev. Neil Thomas of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Los Angeles, a petitioner in the Proposition 8 case, said the 40-year-old 500-member congregation likewise is observing a moratorium on signing civil weddings.
“We will not sign the paperwork” for civil marriages, said Thomas, whose ministry is primarily, but not exclusively, to the LGBT community. He is also the president of California Faith for Equality, a progressive interfaith movement of about 6,000 clergy, which submitted an amicus brief advocating that the California Supreme Court overturn Proposition 8.
– The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.
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Statewide Action: On Heels of Prop 8 Ruling, “Meet in the Middle for Equality” Rallies ,Civil Rights Advocates in Fresno for LGBT Equality on a Federal Level
WHEN:
Saturday, May 30, 2009, 1st Statewide Action After the Proposition 8 Decision
7:50 a.m. – Equality March Kickoff; 8:00 a.m. - March from Selma to Fresno
1:00 p.m. – Rally at steps of Fresno City Hall
WHERE:
March from the intersection of W. Front St. and Whitson St. in Selma, CA, then along the Golden State Highway to the Meet in the Middle rally location at Fresno City Hall, 2600 Fresno Street, Fresno, CA 93721
WHO:
Equality March speakers at Selma Kick-off include:
Anne-Marie Williams of Jordan/Rustin Coalition
Nii-Quartelai Quartey of Courage Campaign
Yardenna Aaron of Here to Stay Coalition
Andrea Shorter of Equality California (EQCA)
Roland Palencia of HONOR PAC (English/Spanish-language)
Rally Speakers at Fresno City Hall Location include:
Robin Tyler, the original plaintiff in Tyler vs. the County of Los Angeles
Angelica Salas, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles
Molly McKay, Marriage Equality USA
Christine Chavez, Latino and African-American Leadership Alliance and Granddaughter of Cesar Chavez
Kate Kendell, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Rabbi Denise Eger, Congregation Kol Ami & California Faith for Equality
Father Geoff Farrow, Former Catholic Priest for Fresno’s Saint Paul Newman Center
Lt. Dan Choi, West Point graduate, recently discharged under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Reverend Eric Lee, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Reverend Dr. Amos Brown, Third Baptist Church, San Francisco
Rick Jacobs, Chair and Founder of the Courage Campaign
Cleve Jones, founder of Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Harvey Milk intern
Dustin Lance Black, Academy Award Winning Screenwriter for Milk
“With this ruling, Californians are experiencing a great loss – a loss of justice, loss of compassion, and a loss of humanity. But rather than become disabled by our grief, we must shift our shame to strength and revitalize for the sake of the entire American LGBT community. We must use this ruling as a catalyst for an even greater goal and a greater good,” said Robin McGehee, lead organizer for Meet in the Middle.
Over 100 organizations from around the state have endorsed Meet in the Middle for Equality. The Courage Campaign and White Knot for Equality are providing buses to bring activists and progressive allies from San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco to the middle of California. Additional active participants include the California Nurses Association, Dolores Huerta Foundation, Equality Action NOW, Equality California (EQCA), Equal Roots, Freedom Action Inclusive Rights (F.A.I.R.), Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network, HONOR PAC, Jordan/Rustin Coalition, Marriage Equality USA, Martin Luther King Legacy Association, NAACP Youth and College Division, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, and the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco.
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Miscommunication plays role in Norwegian’s death
Health staff trying to understand a bleeding Norwegian patient, who said he was a haemophiliac, thought he said he was homosexual and sent him home without necessary treatment
A Norwegian student who was smashed in the head with a glass at a Copenhagen bar on Sunday night, died after medical staff at Rigshospitalet sent him home following language barrier miscommunication.
Henning Schou Kofed from Copenhagen Police said they had received information that when the 25-year-old presented himself at the hospital on Monday with his injury explaining he was a haemophiliac, hospital staff mistook him for saying he was a homosexual and sent him home.The Danish word for haemophilia is ‘hæmofili’ while the word ‘homofil’ means homophile or homosexual.
Ekstra Bladet newspaper reports that the young man was found dead less than 24 hours later at his accommodation in Sydhavn of a brain haemorrhage. See Miscommunication plays role in Norwegian’s death
The Copenhagen Post* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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When a staffer switches genders
Tony Ferraiolo will never forget his first day back at work after surgery. The 46-year-old supervisor’s knees trembled as he entered the windowless headquarters of Madison Co., a switch and sensor manufacturer in Branford, Conn.
Under the curious gaze of his colleagues, Ferraiolo crossed the plant floor and settled into his office. A few minutes later, Madison owner and president Steve Schickler walked in and sat down. “So you’re a ‘he’ now, right?” Schickler asked. Ferraiolo nodded. “Good enough,” Schickler said briskly. “I’ll let the managers know.”
For Schickler, 50, there was no question about what would happen next. Ferraiolo would continue to supervise more than half of the plant’s 50 employees. Life would go on as before, with one small difference: Ferraiolo would no longer use the ladies’ room.
Schickler describes his decision to support the transgender employee formerly known as Ann Ferraiolo through the transition as a no-brainer.
“If you start limiting your choices in staff based on this kind of thing, you’re cutting yourself off from a lot of good people,” he says. “We could have lost a valuable manufacturing supervisor - it was as simple as that.” See When a staffer switches genders @ CNN
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The few, the proud, the gay Republicans?
Now that Iowa has come out of the closet, it’s a no-brainer that gay Republicans would launch a new political organization.
That’s right, it’s called GOProud, and it promises a traditional conservative agenda (except for being, uh, homosexual, I presume). Some of those agenda issues are to repeal inheritance taxes, fight against global extremists, and defend gun rights.
Sounds like, say, Ronald Reagan would feel quite at home in this group if he was, well, gay, and, well, alive.
See The few, the proud, the gay Republicans?
Gary Post Tribune * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Sacha Baron Cohen: The men in his life
His latest alter ego, a gay Austrian fashionista, is already hailed as a work of genius. But can Sacha Baron Cohen ever just be himself?
Photo: Sacha Baron Cohen as the fashion journalist Brüno
They didn’t know, the Alabama National Guard. Never realised that allowing a German documentary-maker into their high-security training camp 65 miles east of Birmingham would go so wrong. They certainly couldn’t have guessed, when they agreed to let him take part in training, that this curiously effeminate man would adorn his US military uniform with a white D&G belt, or strip in front of a locker room-full of crew-cut squaddies to reveal a camouflage thong.
Ron Paul didn’t twig, either, that a TV interview that was supposed to be about Austrian economics might end in a candle-lit hotel bedroom, where a blond male journalist would proffer cheap champagne before attempting to seduce him. Never, in his wildest dreams, could the 73-year-old hero of the Republican right have envisioned that a predatory homosexual would have the gall to suddenly drop his trousers. That’s why Paul ran away shouting: “This is ENDED!”
Then there was the crowd lured to a fairground in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the promise of one-dollar beer and “blue-collar brawling”. They expected to spend the evening watching good, old-fashioned fisticuffs. Instead, the cage-fighting took an unexpected turn when a contestant called “Straight Dave” and his opponent stopped wrestling and started, in the words of a police report, “stripping down to their underwear, kissing and rubbing” each other.
How could that crowd have guessed? How could they possibly have realised, in a town where men are men and “gay” is a form of insult, that a pair of tough-guys would start canoodling, and force them to watch? Little wonder they promptly started a riot. Whoever you happen to be, what other emotion, except extreme anger, is the natural reaction to being “punked” by Sacha Baron Cohen?
It’s been a while, now, since this ludicrously talented British comedian burst onto the scene. A decade since his character Ali G first demonstrated that you can make highly intelligent people say incredibly revealing things by asking them the stupidest questions imaginable. Three years since his Kazakhstani alter ego, Borat, toured Middle America exposing staggering levels of misogyny, anti-Semitism, and public ignorance.
But now he’s back. This summer, Baron Cohen will complete his trio of “mockumentary” films with a movie following the flamboyant exploits of Brüno, an outrageously camp fashion reporter from Klagenfurt, whose “MeinSpace” page proudly declares: “If I vas a Starbucks drink, ich vould be a tall, skinny Austrian mit a great personality und a really big brains.”
The film boasts the extended title Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt. That pretty much sums up what the film is about. Firstly, Brüno’s preposterous vanity will expose the excesses of a fashion industry (and celebrity culture) obsessed with body image and consumerism. Secondly, his overbearing homosexuality will be used as a tool to generate, expose, and thus satirise public homophobia.
See Sacha Baron Cohen: The men in his life
Independent -* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Religious group attempts to halt leather ‘play party’
A religious group that believes homosexuality is “evil” is trying to keep a leather S&M party from happening this weekend at Doubletree Hotel near Washington in Arlington, Va.
Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, a group “dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda,” sent an action alert to its members today urging them to call the Doubletree and its owner Hilton to halt the event. Americans for Truth President Peter LaBarbera said a gay man forwarded his group an invitation to the event, supposedly hosted by a group called Fort Troff which dubbed it, according to Truth, a “pig sex” event called “MAL Maneuvers — for the purpose of pulling together hard-core pig players who want to fuck our brains out.”
LaBarbera told the Blade he’s trying to stop the event because in addition to his moral opposition to any gay activity, such an event in a hotel conference room is “illegal and a public health concern.” See Religious group attempts to halt leather ‘play party’ Southern Voice
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1 Dead in Bushwick Bias Attack
Two Ecuadorian brothers, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay, were walking home early on the morning of Dec. 7, a little tipsy and arm-in-arm. That, allegedly, was enough to incite a group of men to physically assault them while shouting anti-gay and anti-Hispanic epithets.
Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, was declared brain-dead by doctors at Elmhurst Hospital Center two days later, and now the Brooklyn community where the attack took place is seeking arrests and answers.
The incident occurred about 3:30 a.m., when the two brothers were on their way home from a bar near the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick. According to the New York Times, witnesses saw a maroon sport utility vehicle pull up to the Sucuzhanays on the sidewalk. Three men jumped out, yelling anti-gay and racist slurs. One man broke a beer bottle over Jose Sucuzhanay’s head from behind and knocked him down. See 1 Dead in Bushwick Bias Attack
The New York Blade, NY
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NYPD hunts for suspects in anti-gay, anti-Hispanic crime
Jose Sucuzhanay was attacked as he walked arm-in-arm with his 38-year-old brother early Sunday in Brooklyn. He had been listed in critical condition after undergoing brain surgery at Elmhurst Hospital.
Family members held a news conference at midday Tuesday outside the Queens hospital to say he was clinging to life and the family had to make an important decision about what to do.
A law enforcement official, however, said that Sucuzhanay had been declared brain dead and was taken off life support Tuesday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The three assailants were still being sought.
The attack came less than three weeks after seven Long Island teenagers were charged in the fatal stabbing of another immigrant from Ecuador. Prosecutors said the defendants had been hanging out with friends when someone suggested they go find a Hispanic person to attack.
See NYPD hunts for suspects in anti-gay, anti-Hispanic crime
New York Daily News, NY -
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