Gay, married and outlawed

The questions and answers volleyed back and forth last week during the California Supreme Court’s televised proceedings on Prop 8, the state’s recently enacted ban against gay marriage.

And in a dark classroom at Chapman University, watching it all with a focused intensity, was law student Tiffany Chang.

In Chang’s view, the discussion was riveting. Did Prop. 8 simply “take away the label of marriage,” as one justice put it? Chang has heard all of the arguments, including those that say that same sex couples enjoy domestic partnership rights in California, so why insist on the designation of “marriage.”

You could say there was twice as much at stake for Chang, who tracks the legal debate for reasons both scholarly and personal.

Two years ago, in front of friends and family in Long Beach, Chang and her partner Lindsey Etheridge exchanged marriage vows in an unofficial, non-legally binding ceremony. Then, exactly a year later, on July 14, 2008, during the short window when same-sex marriages were legal here in California, Chang and Etheridge filed for “official marriage paperwork.” Then they married in a legal ceremony.

Chang says the event was life changing.

“We were in the clerk’s office and there were people there we don’t know, but they represented the government, validating our relationship,” says Chang, 28. “After it was all done, that sense of security, it was tenfold at least.

“I never could have known what that felt like, to truly be equal in our society,” she adds. “I don’t think you know what that feels like until you’ve got it.”

Chang was part of a “friend of the court” brief filed with the state’s Supreme Court in support of those who have legally challenged Prop. 8. And, in her declaration, she elaborated that on the day “I walked out with my head held higher than I thought was even possible.”

The brief was drafted by attorneys Katherine Baird Darmer and Ronald Steiner, who are also law professors at Chapman, and includes declarations from other people connected to Chapman, as well as from members of the Orange County Equality Coalition, a community group that says it educates and advocates for marriage equality in California.

For Chang, Prop. 8 isn’t just a matter of nomenclature; it’s a matter of denying a minority group the rights afforded to all others. Since the law passed in November, Chang has been speaking out in public. She says she’s come to realize that until a person is treated like a second-class citizen it’s difficult for them to understand what it’s like to be on the other side.

See

Gay, married and outlawed

OCRegister

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/gay-married-a…

Another seismic shift emanates from California — this time on gay …

The ground trembled again last week, another aftershock of one of the wrenching seismic shifts that always seem to start in California and skitter across the nation’s political and cultural plates. This time it was same-sex marriage, as the state Supreme Court took up the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that outlawed such unions.

The court hearing was the latest chapter in a saga that has enmeshed California, off and on, for nine years. In 2000, voters banned same-sex marriage. Last year, acting after San Francisco became the first city in the state to marry gay couples, the Supreme Court cleared the way for such unions. Opponents returned fire with Proposition 8, which put the ban into the Constitution. Statements of some justices during Thursday’s court hearing indicated that the proposition probably will stand — at least for now.

There was an odd familiarity to it all. As with the modern conservative movement, the antitax rebellion of the 1970s and a host of other less important, if useful, things — the hula hoop comes to mind — California was first in the mix.

Despite our conceit that the sun shines brighter on California’s golden denizens, residents here are really not so different from people everywhere else. Ponder surveys of voters taken last November in California and nationally, and the surprising conclusion is how similar we are. We are less white and more Latino, slightly richer and more educated, and we go to church a bit less. But we resemble the rest of the nation on many other measures — our age range, the number of kids living in our homes, and even our views on whether government, rather than businesses and individuals, should solve problems in a pinch.

The state does differ from the other 49, though, in its quest for change.

“California is the magnet for people from all the states who come here to dream, hope, or fit in,” said Bob Mulholland, who since landing here via Philadelphia and Vietnam 39 years ago has been a Democratic party advisor and unofficial electoral historian.

See Another seismic shift emanates from California — this time on gay …

Los Angeles Times

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-seism…

Award-winning journalist Kevin Naff to direct both Genre Magazine and Washington Blade’s editorial vision

NEW YORK — Genre Magazine, a division of Window Media LLC, the nation’s largest gay publishing group, today announced the appointment of veteran LGBT journalist Kevin Naff as Editor-in-Chief of Genre Magazine. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operations and strategic planning for the magazine, while continuing his post as Editor of Washington Blade — the nation’s oldest, largest and most respected gay newspaper — celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009. The announcement was made today by William Kapfer, Genre Publisher and Window Media Co-President.
Naff joins Genre after more than six years with the Washington Blade, including nearly three as editor, where he has overseen a senior team of editors and reporters responsible for covering some of the country’s most historic political events and its leaders. Naff is an award-winning journalist, columnist and blogger known for his provocative approach to analyzing the news. In addition to recurring guest commentator spots on Sirius/XM satellite radio and National Public Radio (NPR), he has been tapped for national appearances on such shows as Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ and CBS’ Logo network.
William Kapfer, Genre Vice President & Publisher and Window Media Co-President, says: “Kevin brings a real passion for LGBT journalism, and an appreciation for the vital role Window Media’s collection of print and digital assets bring to the community. Our readers demand flexibility not just in the content they receive, but also in how that content is delivered. This appointment underscores Genre’s mission to continue to produce the top quality magazine in our category–while continuing to provide readers with easily accessible, fresh, original content across our suite of integrated media channels.”
“I’m excited to join the team at Genre and help build on the magazine’s colorful history,” Naff said. “I look forward to advancing Genre’s mission, while also celebrating this year, the Blade’s 40th year as the nation’s leading LGBT news source.”
Prior to joining the Blade, Naff worked for Reuters as a financial journalist in New York, then spent four years at the Baltimore Sun, launching its web site in 1996. He served as vice president of business development for an online startup and as a private consultant before returning to journalism at the Blade. Naff sits on several boards, including the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association D.C. chapter, Live Baltimore and the Pennsylvania State University gay alumni organization. He lives in Baltimore with his partner of 11 years.* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/award-winning…

Equality California Launches Statewide TV Ad Campaign on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Movement

Ad to inspire Californians as EQCA continues efforts to achieve full equality

SAN FRANCISCO – Equality California (EQCA) today launched a television ad campaign that will air statewide on the history of the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) movement. The ad educates Californians about the discrimination faced by LGBT people throughout history to provide hope for the future.

“This ad shines a light on some of the many ugly chapters in history that LGBT people have endured, to inspire people to remain committed and unified as we change hearts and minds to achieve full equality,” said Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California.

“This ad not only serves as an educational tool but also helps generate and advance conversations so that ultimately we foster an environment where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”

This week the California Supreme Court will hear the legal challenge against Proposition 8, the ballot initiative which stripped same-sex couples of the right to marry. The National Center for Lesbian Rights lead counsel, with co-counsel Lambda Legal and the ACLU, filed this challenge on November 5, representing Equality California, whose members include many same-sex couples who married after the Court ruled that the state can no longer exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on May 15, 2008.

Hundreds of religious organizations, civil rights groups, and labor unions, along with numerous California municipal governments, bar associations, and leading legal scholars collectively urged the California Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8.

To view the ad, please visit: www.eqca.org/hope.
Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights-organization. In the past decade, EQCA has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil-rights protections in the nation. EQCA has passed over 50 pieces of legislation and continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, public education and community empowerment. http://www.eqca.org/ * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/equality-cali…

Artist Known for Gay Subjects ‘Outed’ As Prop. 8 Supporter

An artist known for her gay-themed work has inspired controversy for having made a $1,000 contribution to proponents of California’s Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that put the rights of gay and lesbian families up to popular vote and saw those rights taken away last November by a slim majority at the ballot box.

LoHud.com reported in a Feb. 5 article that Chappaqua, NY artist Maureen Mullarkey, whose paintings have drawn on Pride events and cross-dressing performers as subject material, had made the contribution to the anti-gay side of the ballot initiative, shocking and angering many in the GLBT community.

Said David Juhren of GLBT group LOFT, “There’s something very duplicitous in making money through depiction of the LGBT community through her art [which then is donated to an anti-gay cause],” the article reported.

Added Juhren, who serves as LOFT’s director of communications, “She’s relatively well-known, and that’s why it’s kind of a slap in the face.” See Artist Known for Gay Subjects ’Outed’ As Prop. 8 Supporter
EDGE Boston, MA Illustration: Porp. 8 supporter Maureen Mullarkey’s art draws on gay Pride and drag artists

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/artist-known-…

Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay

by Rabbi Ben Kamin, Spiritual Life Examiner

It was years ago that I heard a particularly poignant segment of the Hebrew Scripture chanted in the synagogue—the story, in the Book of Samuel—of the powerful boyhood friendship between Jonathan and David. Jonathan was the emotional son of King Saul; David, the future king, was his companion and fast friend. Their bond, described without restraint in the Bible, was robust: Jonathan declares to David: “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.”

It’s hard to let pass the unfolding passionate relationship between these two young scriptural heroes. The romantic tension they shared was reinforced by the fierce and jealous hostility felt by King Saul against David; the paranoid monarch once even threw a spear at the lad. Jonathan so adored David that he eschewed his role as prince and gave his heart freely to his friend. His father’s disapproval did not repress his loyalty and devotion to his amour.

Granted, there are edicts in the earlier Book of Leviticus forbidding homosexual love; this is what makes the Jonathan-David affair so remarkable. Here is an intense saga of love, rivalry, and Oedipal complexes all being driven by the force of homosexual tenderness. There are deep implications of Jonathan feeling “empty” when David’s chair was vacant.

The Bible does not exactly mince words about the whole thing. In First Samuel, Chapter 20, it describes an outdoor rendezvous between the two boys: “David arose out of the place…and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times; and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.”

Until David “exceeded?” This is interpreted by some biblical critics as an explanation of David’s expressive weeping—that is, he ran out of tears. However, the literal translation of the Hebrew is, unequivocally, “until David enlarged.” One can have no illusions what the Bible is describing in this particular instance. See Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay
Examiner.com -

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/sorry-right-w…

America’s top civil rights groups and legal scholars agree: Invalidate Prop 8

(San Francisco, CA, January 21, 2009) In the last round of an expedited briefing schedule, final briefs were filed today by both petitioners and respondents in the lawsuits challenging Proposition 8. The briefs filed today by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU responded to the more than 60 amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” briefs filed in the case last week.

Those amicus briefs highlight the extraordinary breadth of support for Petitioners’ argument that Proposition 8 is invalid. The supporters represent the full gamut of California’s and the nation’s civil rights organizations and legal scholars, as well as California legislators, local governments, bar associations, business interests, labor unions, and religious groups.

In amicus briefs filed last Thursday, the nation’s leading legal scholars argued that Proposition 8 is invalid because it seeks to eliminate a fundamental right only for a targeted minority, which cannot be done through the initiative process. Professors from the most prominent universities and law schools in California and the country authored briefs urging the Court to invalidate Proposition 8, including scholars from Harvard University, Stanford University, Yale University, University of California (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Hastings, Davis, Irvine), University of Southern California, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, University of San Francisco, Loyola Law School, Santa Clara Law School, Chapman University, and Pepperdine University.

A brief authored by Hastings Law Professor Donna Ryu and joined by 20 constitutional law experts, argued: “Proposition 8 represents the first time that the California initiative process has been wielded to abolish a fundamental freedom for an unpopular minority group and to alter the Constitution so as to mandate governmental discrimination against that group. In this way, Proposition 8 attempts to breach some of the most elemental textual and structural promises of our state Constitution. It revokes a fundamental right that, in the words of the Constitution, is “inalienable.” It dismantles constitutional equality for a single group of Californians – a group that, because of its history of oppression and stigma, is entitled to the highest level of constitutional protection against discrimination.”

Another brief authored by Professor Karl Manheim, one of the foremost authorities on California’s initiative process, stated: “Proposition 8 . . . improperly attempts to revise the Constitution by taking the unprecedented step of singling out a suspect class and depriving that class – and only that class – of a fundamental right.”

On January 15, 2009, 43 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Court to invalidate Prop 8 were filed, arguing that Proposition 8 drastically alters the equal protection guarantee in California’s Constitution, and that the rights of a minority cannot be eliminated by a simple majority vote.

Other briefs supporting the legal challenge to Prop 8 were filed on behalf of 652 current and former California legislators; dozens of bar associations, legal aid organizations; and numerous California municipal governments.

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court held that laws that treat people differently based on their sexual orientation violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as other Californians. Proposition 8 eliminated this fundamental right only for same-sex couples. No other initiative has ever successfully changed the California Constitution to take away a right only from a targeted minority group. Proposition 8 passed by a bare 52 percent on November 4.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU filed this challenge on November 5, representing Equality California, whose members include many same-sex couples who married between June 16 and November 4, 2008, and six same-sex couples who want to marry in California. The California Supreme Court has also agreed to hear two other challenges filed on the same day: one filed by the City and County of San Francisco (joined by Santa Clara County and the City of Los Angeles, and subsequently by Los Angeles County and other local governments); and another filed by a private attorney. These three cases are jointly under review by the California Supreme Court.

Serving as co-counsel on the case with NCLR, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU are the Law Office of David C. Codell, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

On November 19, 2008, the California Supreme Court granted review in the legal challenges to Proposition 8, and established an expedited briefing schedule, under which briefing was completed on January 21, 2009. The California Supreme Court has stated that it may schedule oral argument as early as March 2009.

The case is Strauss et al. v. Horton et al. (

S168047).

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/americas-top-…

North Texas LGBT community split over post-Proposition 8 tactics

Gay groups in north Texas are mixed in their response to plans to protest the Cinemark theater chain over donations made by company CEO Alan Stock in support of California’s marriage ban, Proposition 8. Morris Garcia, president of the Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance, which reportedly has two members who are corporate employees of Cinemark, said the group preferred to set up a dialogue with the movie chain. A gay filmmaker in Dallas organized a protest against Cinemark, but the city’s chapter of the Stonewall Democrats is not backing the event, in deference to local concerns. Dallas Voice

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/north-texas-l…

How Gay Are Philly Athletes?

A few months ago, tired of waiting for professional sports’ thousands of homosexuals to come tumbling out of the closet, I issued a challenge. I stated that from now on, in order to relieve the pressure on closeted gay players, we the media would automatically assume that all pro–players are gay — unless they clearly and unequivocally come out as heterosexual.

Well guess what? In the intervening eight months not one single member of Philadelphia’s major league sporting franchises has come out as a breeder. Wow. Just wow. They say silence can speak volumes but this silence will thunder down the sporting ages.

By their refusal to define themselves as heterosexual, the Eagles, the Phillies and the Sixers have all effectively stood up and roared: “Hell yeah, we’re gay, what of it?”

It warms the cockles of your heart. But it also begs the much bigger question: Is there really any such thing as an American male heterosexual?

We have a saying in England that the difference between a heterosexual and a homosexual is about two pints. And it’s certainly true that on both sides of the Atlantic I have met tens of thousands of men who self–define as heterosexual, but probably not a single one who hasn’t had some sort of sex with another man. Or wanted to.

The biggest homophobe I ever met—a chap who told me he was sick to the point of nausea after he heard me state that all males are essentially pansexual—shortly afterwards went on holiday to Bangkok. There he became enamoured of a beautiful woman. He took her back to his beach hut where he discovered (oh but of course) that the lady was a dude. So he flipped his lover over and had anal sex. And (this is the important bit) no way, apparently, did this make him gay.

Then there’s my fave magazine cover ever. No Bull is a very heterosexual steroids’n'all hard–core bodybuilding magazine that, shortly after 9–11, ran a cover showing the magazine’s bull–headed and incredibly well muscled mascot, Bully, anally raping Osama Bin Laden. But (just in case you assumed this cover was in any way gay) the text across the bottom read: “Not for sale to anybody under the age of 18 years, or anybody who thinks that if they give it they have to take it BACK.”
See How Gay Are Philly Athletes?
PW-Philadelphia Weekly, PA