Prayer Service on the EVE of Decision Day – Monday, May 25 Grace Cathedral (1100 California Street San Francisco), 7:00 – 8:30 pm
PROP 8 DECISION DAY IS ON MAY 26, TUESDAY!
Decision Day is on Tuesday, May 26!!!
From the CA Supreme Court website: “The California Supreme Court has announced that it will issue an opinion in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2009. (Strauss v. Horton, S168047; Tyler v. State of California, S168066; City and County of San Francisco v. Horton, S168078.) Tuesday at 10 a.m., the opinion will be available on the California Courts Web site at this link: http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/.”
You are invited to the following events:
1. Prayer Service on the EVE of Decision Day – Monday, May 25
Grace Cathedral (1100 California Street San Francisco), 7:00 – 8:30 pm
The night before the announcement of the CA Supreme Court’s decision, we invite the Bay Area community to come for an evening of songs and meditation that will center our hearts on peace, healing and understanding.
2. Service/Blessing on Decision Day – Tuesday, May 26
St. Francis Lutheran Church (152 Church St. San Francisco, across from Castro Safeway), 8:30 – 9:15 am
The morning of the decision, we invite the Bay Area community to come for encouraging music and words from community leaders, testimonies from married couples and blessings for those who will be doing civil disobedience. We will march in a procession from the church to Civic Center Plaza. Some people will join the march from the LGBT Center on Market and Octavia.
NOTE: We request clergy to come in their religious garb as appropriate for their tradition. Please come at 8:00am to prepare.
CONTACT: Rev. Roland Stringfellow at rstringfellow@clgs.org
3. Circle of Care – Tuesday, May 26, Civic Center Plaza
If Proposition 8 is upheld, we will surround those who are willing to be arrested in civic disobedience as we sing, and move aside as they are arrested.
Marriage is not just a nice idea for some. To deny it is a form of bashing. On Decision Day, a group of people will participate in civil disobedience if the Supreme Court upholds Prop 8. In partnership with an interfaith group of clergy, we’ll do a peaceful street blockade with the message SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL!
We’re looking for people to participate in this action with us, and for friends who will support us as peacekeepers and legal observers. For more information, please email action@onestruggleonefight.com.
SPONSORED BY:
Bay Area Coalition of Welcoming Congregations
California Faith for Equality
Congregation Sha’ar Zahav
Fellowship of the Rainbow
Progressive Jewish Alliance
Jewish Mosaic – The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity
California Council of Churches
Colage
The Fellowship
Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco
Freedom in Christ Church of San Francisco
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies of Pacific School of Religion
Equality California
Marriage Equality USA
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry California
Glide Memorial United Methodist Church
Grace Cathedral
St. Francis Lutheran Church
One Struggle, One Fight
Nueva Vida Ministries
The Society of Franciscan Workers
API Equality
PANA Institute of Pacific School of Religion
Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTQ
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Court lets private schools expel lesbians
The state Supreme Court left intact Wednesday a lower-court ruling that said a private religious high school wasn’t covered by California civil rights law and could expel students it believed were lesbians.
Over Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar’s dissent, the court denied review of an appeal by parents of two girls who were expelled from a high school in Riverside County. A lawyer for the parents said the ruling, which is binding on trial courts statewide, would allow private schools to discriminate against students on any basis they chose, including sex and religion.
The girls were juniors at California Lutheran High School in the town of Wildomar when the principal, Gregory Bork, called them to his office in September 2005 and questioned them separately about their sexual orientation, after another student reported postings on their MySpace pages.
Bork suspended the girls based on their answers, and the school’s directors expelled them a month later. The girls, who later graduated from another high school, have not been identified and have not discussed their sexual orientation, said their parents’ attorney, Kirk Hanson.
The parents sued under the Unruh Act, a 1959 state law that forbids discrimination by businesses. It was amended in 2005 to include bias based on sexual orientation and someone else’s perception of sexual orientation. State education law also prohibits anti-gay bias, but that applies only to public schools.
In January, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said the school is not a business but instead a social organization entitled to follow its principles.
Although California courts have defined such organizations as a Boys Club and the Rotary Club as businesses covered by the Unruh Act, the appeals court cited a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists. Like the Boy Scouts, the appellate panel said, a private religious school exists mainly to instill its values in young people.
See Court lets private schools expel lesbians
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Gay skiers want to return to Park City
A group of gay skiers plan to resume their trips to Park City in 2010, saying the ill will between gays and Utah stemming from California’s gay-marriage ballot measure will likely have subsided by next year.
Next year’s Utah Gay & Lesbian Ski Week is tentatively scheduled Jan. 6-10. An Internet site indicates the skiers plan to visit each of the three local resorts, hold cocktail and social hours and have a party. A dinner is scheduled at the Wasatch Brew Pub.
The 2010 event is scheduled one year after organizers were forced to cancel this year’s annual visit.
They said few gay skiers signed up for the 2009 trip because they were unhappy with the role The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints played in the passage of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure. After Election Day, gays and their supporters called for a boycott of Utah. This year’s trip would have been the ninth consecutive year visiting Park City.
One of the organizers, John Harriott, a bisexual who lives in West Hollywood, Calif., said there remains a possibility of the 2010 event being canceled. He said, though, there is a three-in-four chance that it will be held. A decision will not be finalized until early December.
Much depends on the political climate by early 2010, he said. Similar boycotts typically do not last longer than a year, he said.
“I have a feeling this will be a lot of water under the bridge,” he said, adding, “I have a feeling Prop. 8 will be a distant memory by next year.”
California courts are expected to consider the validity of the ballot measure in 2009, likely shifting some of the emotions from Utah to the state where Proposition 8 passed.
See Gay skiers want to return to Park City
Park Record, UT
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State supreme courts to rule in gay marriage cases
(San Francisco, California) Supreme courts this year will rule on cases involving same-sex marriage in Iowa and California.
The Iowa case involves the constitutionality of limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, while the one in California centers around Proposition 8, the voter-approved amendment to the state constitution that bars same-sex marriage.
In May, …
