Gay-porn actor gets 3-8 for burglaries; his twin has Aug. court date
Gay-porn star Taleon Goffney won’t be making any new Internet videos with his twin brother anytime soon.
Instead, he’ll be serving three to eight years in state prison for two February 2008 rooftop burglaries of businesses near 9th Street and Washington Avenue, in South Philadelphia.
“Thank you for your lenience in accepting my plea,” Goffney, who was previously charged with similar burglaries and has been incarcerated since his February 2008 arrest, told Judge Lisa M. Rau in court yesterday. “These crimes won’t be happening again.”
Goffney yesterday pleaded guilty to two counts each of burglary and criminal conspiracy under a plea deal between his attorney, Michael F. Gushue, and Assistant District Attorney Caroline Keating.
See Gay-porn actor gets 3-8 for burglaries; his twin has Aug. court date
Philadelphia Inquirer
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The New York Blade Suspends Publication
The New York Blade, one of the two major gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has laid off its editor in chief and suspended publication, the chief executive of its publishing company said on Wednesday.
“Everyone was let go, but the people on The Blade know that they may come back if The Blade is coming back,” said the executive, Matthew Bank, of HX Media, which was formed in 2005 by the merger of The Blade and HX Magazine.
The moves came on Tuesday after HX was sold to undisclosed buyers. The Blade, a biweekly paper with a free circulation of 22,000, was left with an uncertain future.
“It doesn’t have an issue scheduled until a week from Friday.” Mr. Bank said. “There are a lot of things that can happen between now and then.”
The decision to suspend publication comes at a particularly active period for journalism concerned with gay issues: the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the gay pride parade on Sunday, the proposed same-sex marriage bill in the State Senate and discontent over the Obama administration’s performance on gay-rights issues.
“It is an incredibly exciting time for gay journalism,” said Kat Long, who had been editor in chief of The Blade since February. “It’s important that gay papers are around to document it.”
Paul Schindler, editor in chief of Gay City News, the rival New York City gay newspaper, said The Blade had “made good contributions over the years.”
See New York Gay Newspaper Suspends Publication
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National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds Census Bureau’s plan to count married same-sex couples
Task Force staffers have been meeting with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department to press for this policy reversal
WASHINGTON, June 20 -The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds reports that the U.S. Census Bureau will count married same-sex couples in the 2010 census, reversing an earlier decision made under the Bush administration. Previously, same-sex couples only had the option of checking off ‘unmarried partner,’ which will remain an option. The Task Force has played a leading role in getting the Census Bureau to change course. Task Force staffers have been pressing for a reversal of the discriminatory policy in meetings that started in late 2008 with the Obama transition team, continuing later with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department.
tatement by Rea Carey, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
“This is a huge win for our community. Our community and allies stood up and refused to allow same-sex marriages, our
families and our children to be rendered invisible in the picture of our country provided through the census.
“After months and months of pressure through the grassroots campaign we waged and our in-person meetings with administration officials, the U.S. Census Bureau has reversed policy and will be accurately counting the thousands of same-sex couples who have worked so hard to have their love and commitment recognized.
“This gives us hope that we will also be able to get the federal government to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the data and reporting on other critical issues, including those having to do with our health, economic issues, safety and life circumstances. As a married person myself, I look forward to filling out the census form, knowing that my family will be counted accurately.
“We would like to thank Gary Gates of the Williams Institute for his years of work and for partnering with us to educate the administration on this critical issue of visibility for our community.”
The Task Force’s work leading to this victory
The Task Force has been working for months to secure a reversal of the discriminatory policy.
* Task Force staff met with Obama transition team members to educate them about this critical issue, and to provide concrete ways for them to make this change.
* Task Force staffers, including Executive Director Rea Carey and Policy Institute Director Jaime Grant, have been pressing for a policy change in meetings that started in late 2008 with the Obama transition team, continuing later with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department.
* In February, the Task Force Policy Institute convened 20 leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organizations to meet with top census outreach officials. In this meeting, the groups collectively refused to engage in community outreach on the census until the anti-marriage policy was reversed.
* The Task Force partnered with the Williams Institute to provide officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department with research essential to making this change.
* The Task Force undertook a major grassroots campaign to both educate the public on this issue and to apply pressure to the administration.
* The Task Force worked with key elected officials to provide them with
information so they could write letters to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and
the incoming director of the Census Bureau to advocate for change.
* The Task Force is part of a coalition of researchers and advocates
crafting a community education campaign to launch following the change of
policy.
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Urgent Petition: Save Roodabeh and Ali, Iranian Homosexual Refugees
Roodabeh is a 30-year-old lesbian woman who left Iran in February 2008 to flee from the persecution that the regime of President Ahmadinejad reserves for homosexuals; persecution that foresees in many cases – according to a ruthless interpretation of Islamic law – prison sentences, torture and even death. Ali is a 29-year-old gay. He too was forced to leave Iran to escape the repression in January 2008. Once in Turkey, Roodabeh and Ali applied for asylum to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Ankara section) on the grounds of their sexual orientation.
EveryOne Group, Human Rights international organization, would point out that the right of asylum, as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 14) and finalized by the Geneva Convention, is one of the fundamental rights of human beings, and is recognised by civil countries to those fleeing from violence and persecution. Turkey signed the Geneva Convention and has saved many human lives by acknowledging their status as refugees and offering them humanitarian protection. However, Turkey’s present policies where the rights of refugees and asylum seekers are concerned, have recently become more restrictive. So much so that Amnesty International has recently brought to international attention the repeated violations of the Geneva Convention in the Republic of Turkey, as well as the episodes of abuse carried out by the police against refugees. Roodabeh and Ali live in fear of being repatriated as the Iranian authorities are aware of their flight and the reason they were forced to seek asylum. If they were to be deported, they would have little chance of being spared this persecution.
They live in a state of anguish (as well as discrimination, seeing they are both foreigners and homosexuals) knowing their lives are in danger. They survive only thanks to the commitment of individuals and human rights organizations, but their condition will deteriorate rapidly if their right to international protection is not urgently recognised.
This is why EveryOne Group, working alongside Iranian Queer Railroad (IRQR) and a network of human rights organizations, is promoting a campaign and appealing to the UN High Commission for Refugees to recognise their legitimate right to international protection and asylum.
EveryOne Group activists must point out that Roodabeh and Ali have been awaiting the decision of the High Commission for many months, without financial support, social assistance or programmes of insertion into the work force.
A petition has been submitted to ask international and Turkish authorities and institutions to grant immediate asylum status to the two Iranian homosexuals. You can sign it at http://www.gopetition.com/online/28514/sign.html
For further information:
EveryOne Group
http://www.everyonegroup.com :: info [at] everyonegroup.com
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Gay New Yorkers Head to Greenwich for Weddings
GREENWICH, Conn. — They wanted a New York wedding. “Our lives are here; our friends are here,” said Janis Castaldi, 56, who lives in Westchester County with Lizz Endrich, the woman she married on May 21.
But New York has not approved same-sex marriage. “It got to the point where it doesn’t look 100 percent good right now. When you have Greenwich, Conn., 20 minutes away, I said, ‘Why are we waiting?’ ”
And so another couple from outside Connecticut made what is becoming a familiar pilgrimage to this border town of wealth and privilege, the first municipality over the state line by Interstate 95 or Metro-North.
From Nov. 12, 2008, the day same-sex marriages became legal in Connecticut, through the end of May, 139 same-sex couples applied for a marriage license and wed in Greenwich. All but three of them were been from out of state, most from New York City, according to Barbara Lowden, the town’s assistant registrar of vital statistics.
The town has the most same-sex marriages in Connecticut; statewide figures through February, the most recent available, showed Greenwich as the wedding spot for one in every five gay couples, though it has only 2 percent of the population.
Best known for its old- and new-money families stretching from the Long Island Sound to its fabled back country, Greenwich has been vexed in the past by its proximity to the border. In 2001, the crowds of people buying tickets for the Powerball lottery game, not available in New York, grew so big that town officials suspended sales for a day.
These days, by contrast, local businesses would like Greenwich’s new wave of toe-dippers to stick around a little longer than they have been. Most couples have a brief ceremony in a Town Hall meeting room or outside on the grounds, then leave immediately for receptions back in New York or honeymoons elsewhere.
Thomas C. Delaney, the general manager of the Hyatt Regency Greenwich, said the hotel had advertised on some gay and lesbian Web sites in hopes of attracting more business. The Hyatt averages 70 weddings a year, he said, but this summer only two same-sex weddings are scheduled so far. “We’d like to have a lot more,” he said.
June, the traditional month for wedding bliss, is coinciden
See Gay New Yorkers Head to Greenwich for Weddings
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Lambda Legal Applauds West Virginia Court Order Restoring Custody of Foster Child to Lesbian Mothers
“The West Virginia high court has done the right thing in ruling in the best interests of this child. We applaud them for rejecting the prejudice that would have removed her from the only home she ever knew,” said Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. “Children in West Virginia need parents to love and care for them and that’s what the state should want, too.”
Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the court on February 19, 2009, on behalf of Foster Children Alumni Association, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of the Eastern Panhandle, COLAGE (Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere), and Fairness West Virginia to urge the reversal of a trial court order removing the then year-old girl from the home of Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess. The removal was ordered after the couple indicated that they wished to adopt the child. The trial judge accepted the view of the guardian ad litem that the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) should only pursue an adoption placement for the child in a “traditional family,” consisting of both a mother and a father. The GAL also sought a statewide injunction barring foster children from being placed in gay homes. Friday’s ruling reverses this lower court finding, allows the child to remain with her foster parents, and permits the possibility that this home where the child has thrived eventually will be the adoption placement for the child.
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Kelly McGillis: Coming Out as a Lesbian Not Easy
Kelly McGillis was relaxing in the Florida sunshine and preparing to go on a cruise last February when a simple question caught her off guard: As a single woman, was she looking to date a man or a woman? “It was like a moment of truth,” says the actress, 52, who became a star after appearing with Tom Cruise in Top Gun in 1986. “[A reporter] asked me the question and I thought, Hmm, do I say the truth, or do I just say, It’s none of your business, which is my standard answer?”
Her Truth”I said you know, I’m just going to say the truth,” McGillis told PEOPLE at rehearsals for her new play The Little Foxes, which opens May 29 at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, Calif. McGillis’s “truth” was a long time coming, and the answer was simple: “Definitely a woman.” See Kelly McGillis: Coming Out as a Lesbian Not Easy
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Gay Pride in Moscow: Report from a Chicago Activist
MOSCOW, May 14, 2009 (Gay Liberation Network) – After 14 hours of flights, last night I found myself in Eastern Europe for the first time in my life, warmly greeted by lesbian and gay activists who, despite state repression, are organizing their fourth annual pride event in this city. This year’s event is dubbed ‘Slavic Pride’, denoting the significant participation of activists from around the region.
The previous three years’ events have gone forward despite bans from the authorities and violence from neo-fascists in Russian orthodox and skinhead garb. This year the authorities not only banned the Pride event, but for good measure, approved the anti-gays’ application to hold their own event this past Tuesday.
That same day, our Moscow friends countered with their own unsanctioned action at the Department of Registration of Acts of Civil Status – an attempt by two lesbian activists to get a marriage license.
Leading Slavic Pride activist Nikolai Alekseev said the action was inspired in part by a February civil disobedience action at a marriage license bureau in Chicago. The Moscow action received widespread international press coverage, including from the New York Times.
As I shadowed Alekseev around the city last night, press coverage if anything seemed to build, with Nikolai’s two cell phones ringing incessantly and meetings with Finish and Slovenian journalists held near midnight just outside of Red Square.
Slavic Pride is slated for this Saturday, amidst the big ‘Eurovision Fest’ being hosted this year by Moscow. For those not familiar with what Eurovision is, think American Idol times ten, with a profusion of media coverage and street banners that puts Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid hype to shame.
While our specific plans for Saturday are necessarily secret at this time, the aim is to cause maximum embarrassment to the government if they attempt to arrest us or allow the neo-fascists to attack.
In response to Moscow activists’ application for a permit this year, police chief Vladmir Pronin told the Russian news agency Interfax that gay pride parades in the capital are “unacceptable - gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed”.
“No one will dare to do it, such ‘braveheart’ will be torn to shreds,” he added. “The West can say we’re bad guys, but our people will see it is right. Our country is patriarchal, that’s [sic] sums it up… I positively agree with the Church, with the Patriarch, politicians, especially with [Mayor] Luzhkov, who are convinced that man and woman should love each other. It is established by God and nature.”
However, Moscow Pride organizers have vowed to move forward with this year’s Pride event despite the police chief’s threats.
“Mr. Pronin already showed his incompetency last year when his services were unable to prevent us unveiling a banner directed against the Mayor, right opposite his office,” said Alekseev.
The main pride event successfully took place nearby at the monument to the famous Russian gay composer, Peter Tchkaivosky, while the authorities and neo-fascists were hoodwinked in to thinking that it would take place outside of homophobic Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s office.
Today at the start of a gay rights conference at an undisclosed location east of the city, I was joined by British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and LGBT activists from around Russia and Belorussia Minsk, Rostof, Sochi, Ufa, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Ekaterinbourg, Volgodonsk, Ryazan and of course Moscow.
As we gathered on a coach to go to the conference, Moscow activist Nikolai Baev explained how a group of young activists from Ryazan, about 200 miles south of the capital, got involved in organizing this year’s Slavic Pride:
“There is a very discriminatory law in the Ryazan region which prohibits so-called propaganda about homosexuality20and among minors. The law passed in 2006 and we had pickets that said that homosexuality is absolutely normal and we are proud of our situation. We picketed in front of schools in Ryazan and we were detained because it was illegal.”
Two people were found guilty and fined 1500 roubles (about $45 US) each. Alekseev came to Ryazan to help in the campaign and in the appeal of their cases to the Constitutional Court of Russia.
Then, Sergey Yenin, 19, explained how he became involved in gay rights organizing in Belorussia :
“I felt myself to be gay from my early childhood, he explained.
“Last year I came to Minsk and there I got acquainted with some gay activists and I thought it would be great if I fought for my gay rights. There are a lot of people who don’t fight for their rights, who don’t participate in such activist movements, and they just consume our achievements.
“For example, we fought for our gay club, our one gay club in Minsk. It was in danger of being closed [by the government], but it still exists, due to us.”
I asked Sergey if he had participated in Minsk Pride events before.
“Yes, of course. The most outstanding Pride parade took place in 2001. But I didn’t participate because I was only 11 then. There were over 300 people participating in this event and 300 watching. This was fabulous This was an historical moment in Belorussia.
“The last one took place in October of 2008. It was named Queer Walk and it took place on the 11th of October 2008, the international day of coming out, and we organized a pride parade. It was a rather private, intimate event, there were fifty participants because we cannot organize such a public event because of our government.
“If we applied for an event, we would be denied.
“There is an action that takes place [each year] called Chernobyl Way, and all of the opposition parties take place there, and our LGBT group participated last year and this year. Last year we raised the rainbow flag and there were a lot of bad comments about it, there were a lot of thre ats [of violence]. There were such political parties as Right Alliance, and they threaten us all of the time. This year we didn’t20raise our rainbow flag because the organizer of the Belorussian National Front, the main opposition party, they coordinated a call to us, do not raise your rainbow flag, not because we have anything against you, because our fight for clean air, free of radiation will turn into a fight for gay rights.”
I asked Sergey why he personally joined the 15 others for the ten hour train ride from Belorussia to join this Saturday’s Slavic Pride: “I [only] made the conclusion [to come] on May 12 because I was really very frightened about myself and my friends. I know that there is some information that Pride is going to be canceled, and more than this, that Pride participants are going to be beaten.
“Because this is my fight really.If I don’t go to the pride parade, who will go there? My reasons to come was to support my friends – and of course to support gay rights.”
SEE ALSO
Tatchell To Attend Moscow Gay Pride. Despite threats to bash and arrest the marchers, British gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will attend this Saturday’s Moscow Gay Pride parade – this year renamed Slavic Gay Pride to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality struggles in all Slavic countries, Russian and non-Russian. (UK Gay News, May 11, 2009)
Gay Marriage Campaign Starts in Russia. Two women will apply for a marriage license in Moscow on May 12, it emerged this afternoon. The announcement was made today during a press conference for Slavic Pride which is planned for later this month in Moscow. (UK Gay News, May 5, 2009)
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Where? Adair County supervisors demand Iowa gay marriage ban! Where?
The Adair County Board of Supervisors has passed a resolution demanding that the Iowa Legislature take action to either end same-sex marriage in Iowa, or let the public vote on the matter.
Chairman Clifford Sheriff read the resolution before the board’s vote this morning.
“Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Adair County Board of Supervisors demand that the Iowa (Legislature) resolve this issue by either passing legislation that will lead to a public vote to amend the Iowa Constitution or by passing legislation to confirm Iowa Code Section 595.2 to the Iowa Supreme Court (decision) in Varnum and Brien,” Chairman Sheriff read aloud.
The section of law Sheriff referenced is the 1998 “Defense of Marriage Act” which most legal scholars argue has been voided by the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision. The five-member Adair County Board of Supervisors passed their resolution, without debate.
“I’ll move we approve the resolution for review of the Defense of Marriage Act,” one of the supervisors said.
Another quickly added his “second” to move the process forward.
“We have a first and a second to approve the resolution,” Chairman Sheriff announced. “All in favor signify by saying, ‘Aye,’” Sheriff advised and all five replied in the affirmative.
The supervisors then continued with their board meeting.
A few Iowa city councils and county boards of supervisors have pondered similar resolutions against gay marriage. In February — two months before the Iowa Supreme Court ruling legalized gay marriage — the Sioux City City Council passed a resolution urging state legislators to set the date for a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment which would ban gay marriage.
See
Adair County supervisors demand statewide vote on gay marriage
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Phillipsburg resident Dale Rissmiller draws three-year sentence in for gay bashing
A Phillipsburg man convicted in a 2006 gay-bashing case drew a three-year state prison today in state Superior Court.
Dale Rissmiller, 27, apologized to the judge before sentencing.
“I’m sorry for what happened to the victim,” he said.
Rissmiller — who has a history of assault convictions — pleaded guilty in February to bias intimidation and aggravated assault. “I clotheslined him,” Rissmiller told Superior Court Judge John Pursel during the plea hearing.
The term refers to striking someone on the throat with a forearm.
Rissmiller admitted he attacked Bryan Wesselius because the victim is gay. The clotheslining incident occurred after Rissmiller launched a 1:46 a.m. barrage of anti-gay comments at Wesselius and the victim’s two gay companions in the bar, authorities said.
Drunk and angered after a bartender bounced him, Rissmiller attacked Wesselius at the door, followed him outside and punched him, authorities reported.
Phillipsburg resident Dale Rissmiller draws three-year sentence in …
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