Gillibrand wins Senate hearing on military policy on gays
New York‘s Sen. href=”/topics/Kirsten_Gillibrand”>Kirsten Gillibrand said Monday she had won the commitment of the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold its first hearing this fall on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.
The announcement is unusual because Gillibrand does not sit on the panel and did not push the issue in the last Congress, when she served on the House Armed Services Committee.
But the agreement by Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) capped a campaign Gillibrand has been waging in the last few weeks to scrap or suspend the controversial policy that has led the Pentagon to discharge thousands of gays and lesbians since 1994.
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Newsday
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Metro is playing catch-up, say supporters of gay protections
The argument that protecting Metro government’s gay employees would force the private sector to follow suit is all backward, supporters of a new anti-discrimination measure say.
Around the country, 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies’ anti-discrimination policies include sexual orientation or gender identity. In Nashville, some of the city’s largest private employers — http://www.vanderbilt.edu/“>Vanderbilt University and http://www.hcahealthcare.com/“>Hospital Corporation of America — put similar policies into place.
Against that landscape, the new measure’s supporters say, it should have a better chance of passage than a similar one proposed in 2003. But opponents say following the private-sector pack isn’t the way to go.
“Just because someone else does something doesn’t mean it’s right, and we learned that when we all took off from kindergarten,” said David Fowler, a former state senator and president of the http://www.factn.org/“>Family Action Council of Tennessee. “So unless we are going to act like lemmings and just blindly do what everybody else is doing, we need to stop and think before we make this a law.”
The city already has protections based on race, sex, religious affiliation and national origin in place, Fowler said, and protection based on sexuality is incongruous. He also said such a law could expose the city to lawsuits by people who feel it was broken.
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The Tennessean
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Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push
LOS ANGELES — Discouraged by stubborn poll numbers and pessimistic political consultants, major financial backers of same-sex marriage are cautioning gay rights groups to delay a campaign to overturn California’s ban on such unions until at least 2012.
Earlier this year, many supporters of same-sex marriage seemed eager to mount a 2010 campaign to overturn Proposition 8, which was passed by California voters in November and defined marriage as “between a man and a woman.”
But the timing of another campaign has since been questioned by several of the movement’s big donors, including David Bohnett, a millionaire philanthropist and technology entrepreneur who gave more than $1 million to the unsuccessful campaign to defeat Proposition 8.
“In conversations with a number of my fellow major No on 8 donors,” Mr. Bohnett said in an e-mail message, “I find that they share my sentiment: namely, that we will step up to the plate — with resources and talent — when the time is right.”
“The only thing worse than losing in 2008,” he added, “would be to lose again in 2010.”
The issue of when to go back to the polls was also the central topic at a contentious “leadership summit” held Saturday at a church in San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles, where about 200 gay rights advocates gathered to discuss their next step. It was the second large meeting of gay leaders since late May when the California Supreme Court ruled against a legal challenge to Proposition 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote.
Shortly after the court’s decision, officials at Equality California, one of the largest gay rights groups in California, issued an online plea for donations for a possible 2010 campaign, citing a need to capitalize on anger over the decision and on the seeming momentum from the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in several other states.
But that thinking has apparently evolved.
Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, said he spent June and early July asking the opinions of nearly two dozen California political consultants and pollsters and had been surprised by the almost unanimous opinion that a 2010 race was a bad idea.
“I expected having watched the protests and the real pain that the L.G.B.T. community had experienced that there would be some real measurable remorse in the electorate,” Mr. Solomon said, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “But if you look at the poll numbers since November, they really haven’t moved at all.”
A major factor in any California balloting, of course, is money; campaigns here are remarkably expensive, with a number of costly media markets. The Proposition 8 campaign, for example, cost more than $80 million, with opponents spending some $43 million.
Sarah Callahan, ch
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New York Times
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Diocese of Niagara to offer same-sex blessings
As of Sept. 1, the diocese of Niagara will allow its priests to bless same-gender couples who have been civilly married.
Niagara becomes the second diocese in the Anglican Church of Canada, after the Vancouver-based New Westminster, to offer a sacrament for same-sex blessings. (The diocese of New Westminster, which allowed same-sex blessings in 2002, currently limits the rite to eight parishes.) The issue of same-sex blessings continues to deeply divide Anglicans in Canada as well as worldwide.
“The Niagara Rite is intended for the voluntary use of priests who wish to offer a sacrament of blessing regardless of the gender of the civilly married persons…” the diocese of Niagara said on its Web site, www.niagara.anglican.ca
The rite may also be used for the blessing or renewal of vows for couples “celebrating a significant moment in their married life together,” said an introduction to the Niagara Rite.
The approval of the rite came five years after the diocesan synod of Niagara passed a motion allowing civilly-married gay couples, “where at least one party is baptized,” to receive a church blessing. The diocesan bishop at that time, Ralph Spence, had refused to implement the motion. In January 2008, a similar motion was approved by Niagara’s diocesan synod, and this time, Bishop Spence gave his approval, but said he reserved the right to determine when the same-sex blessings would move forward.
Last fall, Bishop Spence’s successor, Michael Bird, informed a meeting of the Canadian house of bishops that he intended to develop the rite, saying, “I believe we are among those who have been called by God to speak with a prophetic voice on this subject.”
Under a list of protocols outlined by Bishop Bird, a cleric who wishes to offer the Niagara Rite must contact the bishop’s office “so that a conversation can take place between the bishop and the cleric involved.” The cleric is expected to provide details about the couple the cleric intends to bless “and should be prepared to have a conversation about the response of the parish to the blessings,” the list added. “A date for such a blessing should not be confirmed with the couple until after this conversation with the bishop has taken place.”
A parish is not required to get the approval of its vestry before it can offer such blessings.
Two other dioceses – Montreal and Ottawa – have also informed the house of bishops about their intention to move ahead with same-sex blessings. At that meeting, the house of bishops issued a statement saying that a “large majority” of its members could affirm “a continued commitment to the greatest extent possible” to a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions. But it acknowledged that the moratorium, which had been sought by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the primates of the Anglican Communion, would be difficult for some dioceses “that in confidence have made decisions on these matters.”
The issue of whether dioceses can offer same-sex blessings is likely to be revisited at the 2010 meeting of General Synod, the governing body of the Anglican Church of Canada. In 2007, General Synod had agreed that blessing rites for gay couples are “not in conflict” with core church doctrine, but refused to affirm the authority of dioceses to offer them. General Synod delegates had also voted to study revising the marriage canon (church law) to allow priests to marry all legally qualified persons. Marriage for gay people has been legal in Canada since 2005.
Last spring, Council of General Synod (CoGS), the church’s governing body in between General Synod meetings, decided not to ask General Synod 2010 to amend the marriage canon to allow for the marriage of same-sex couples. The decision was made after the faith, worship and ministry committee, which was asked by CoGS to prepare “a theological rationale to allow for the marriage of all legally qualified persons,” said that it found the request problematic. Janet Marshall, committee chair, told CoGS that some members felt uncomfortable about being asked to create a rationale for only one side of the argument.
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After the break-up, what about the lake house?
IT was a perfect party — vodka lemonade on a dock overlooking a lake, dozens of close friends, a cool misty night in the country a couple of hours north of New York.
Inside, the house spoke of a passionate interest in style, and of a committed relationship. Silhouettes of the couple who owned the house hung on a wall in the master bedroom; the couple’s nickname — Benford — was spelled out in large letters leaning against a wall in the kitchen.
But the couple, Benjamin Dixon, 31, and Bradford Shellhammer, 33, who had planned the evening as a commitment ceremony, had broken up three months earlier. Still, with airplane tickets purchased by some of the guests, a catering deposit paid and a house they haven’t been able to sell, they figured it made sense to go ahead and have a party anyway.
Their tale of lost love has a familiar arc — love sparks, then blooms; lives intertwine; moments are lost and misunderstandings creep in; eventually the two begin to live as strangers — and an epilogue that has become increasingly familiar as well, as unwanted houses become prisons rather than cocoons.
Rather than being a glossy testament to their taste and their partnership, their house in Stanfordville, in Dutchess County, is now a dead weight that entangles them and makes it impossible to move on. Having bought it and an apartment in Manhattan at the height of the real estate boom (and having made an agreement with a third partner in their lake house property not to sell it until December 2009), they are left with joint custody of two large mortgages. They are also left with two carefully decorated homes filled with one-of-a-kind accessories found on eBay and quirky furnishings by high-end designers like the Dutch collective Droog that are reminders of what came before and, Mr. Dixon said, “big reminders of what was supposed to be.”
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New York Times
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A group has filed a complaint against the first openly transgender U.S. mayor, Mayor Stu Rasmussen, for violating the Silverton, Ore. City council’s dress code.
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Gay marriage and the date debate
Nearly nine months after California voters banned same-sex marriage in the state, gay marriage supporters are ready to ask them to overturn Proposition 8. They’re just not sure when to ask: In November 2010 or November 2012.
Choosing a date involves more than sifting through the polling, community meetings and consultants’ reports that have filled the time since last fall’s election with soul-searching and finger-pointing among supporters, culminating in a meeting of the movement’s leaders Saturday in San Bernardino.
Generating enthusiasm for a grassroots campaign will also be a heart-based decision, one that has split same-sex couples even in Kern County, where 75 percent of voters backed Prop. 8.
Bakersfield resident Jade Haley wants an initiative in 2010. Her partner Alee Gamino thinks that’s too soon. Gamino’s Catholic mother still refers to Haley as “she” and has no contact with them as a couple, who are raising Gamino’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship.
Churches’ influence
On Sundays, Gamino, 34, goes to church twice. She attends a Catholic service solo with her mom in the morning and goes to a Metropolitan Community Church with her partner in the evening. “The churches have thousands and thousands of people ready to go against us,” said Gamino. She looked at 70 people who came to a Unitarian Universalist Church on Thursday to talk about the movement’s next step. “All we have is what’s in this room.”
Still, Gamino was among only a dozen people at the Bakersfield meeting called by Marriage Equality USA who supported waiting until 2012. The sentiment for a vote next year echoed one at a similar gathering in San Francisco, while gatherings in liberal bastions such as Oakland and Berkeley leaned toward 2012.
“The reaction was really mixed,” said Pam Brown, Marriage Equality USA’s political director, who compiled information from the organization’s “Get Engaged” tour of 40 California cities over the past several weeks. “A lot of people who wanted to wait until 2012 wanted to see what the plan was first before they committed.”
A nonbinding straw poll of leaders gathered Saturday in San Bernardino to plan the movement’s next step found that 93 people voted to go in 2010, 49 in 2012 and 20 were undecided. Organizers expect to officially decide when to return to the ballot in a couple of weeks. If they decide on November 2010, the deadline to have ballot language submitted to the attorney general is Sept. 25.
Faults not addressed
This month, several groups of same-sex marriage supporters said not enough has been done to address the faults of last year’s campaign in time to mount a winning drive next year.
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Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive”
Each year in Germany, from the end of June through August, gay and lesbian rights’ activists celebrate the “Stonewall” uprising – named after a gay bar on Christopher Street in New York, where homosexuals fought back against police brutality in 1969.
Participants in the German parades known as “Christopher Street Day” join other activists around the world who take to the streets to demonstrate gay pride and demand greater freedoms.
Some of those freedoms would include expanded civil rights. In Germany, civil unions, for instance, have been permitted among same-sex couples since 2001, but full marriages are not. Homosexual couples therefore do not enjoy the same rights as married heterosexual couples when it comes to taxes, retirement, civil servant benefits, or adoption law.
For more on gay and lesbian rights and the community in Germany, click on the links below, or listen to this week’s “Living in Germany” program to hear a more personal account of a homosexual civil union.
DW-WORLD.DE
Audios and videos on the topic
See Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive” Germany Deutsche Welle
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Swedish lesbians suck sperm banks dry
Sweden’s fertility clinics are racking up a serious backlog of people waiting for artificial insemination, due in part to a “spike” in demand from lesbian couples for vital supplies of man juice.
So bad have things got that expectant customers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg are now forced to wait 18 months for treatment.
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Register
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DC Law Helps Lesbian Couples Become Moms
A new D.C. law is making it a lot easier for a newborn to have two mommies from birth. According to the law, which went into effect on July 18, the District of Columbia will confer “the status of legal parent on both lesbian mothers who plan a child using donor insemination,” Nancy Polikoff reports.
In the past, the birth mother’s partner would have to go through an adoption process to become a legal parent of the child; now, the second mommy just needs to fill out some paperwork to demonstrate her “written consent” of parenthood. Polikoff notes that the new law is “marital status-neutral and gender-neutral,” so it will change parenthood policy in a couple of other situations as well:
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A group has filed a complaint against the first openly transgender U.S. mayor, Mayor Stu Rasmussen, for violating the Silverton, Ore. City council’s dress code.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/oregon-trans-…
Gay marriage and the date debate
Nearly nine months after California voters banned same-sex marriage in the state, gay marriage supporters are ready to ask them to overturn Proposition 8. They’re just not sure when to ask: In November 2010 or November 2012. Choosing a date involves more than sifting through the polling, community meetings and consultants’ reports that have filled the time since last fall’s election with soul-searching and finger-pointing among supporters, culminating in a meeting of the movement’s leaders Saturday in San Bernardino. Generating enthusiasm for a grassroots campaign will also be a heart-based decision, one that has split same-sex couples even in Kern County, where 75 percent of voters backed Prop. 8. Bakersfield resident Jade Haley wants an initiative in 2010. Her partner Alee Gamino thinks that’s too soon. Gamino’s Catholic mother still refers to Haley as “she” and has no contact with them as a couple, who are raising Gamino’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship. On Sundays, Gamino, 34, goes to church twice. She attends a Catholic service solo with her mom in the morning and goes to a Metropolitan Community Church with her partner in the evening. “The churches have thousands and thousands of people ready to go against us,” said Gamino. She looked at 70 people who came to a Unitarian Universalist Church on Thursday to talk about the movement’s next step. “All we have is what’s in this room.” Still, Gamino was among only a dozen people at the Bakersfield meeting called by Marriage Equality USA who supported waiting until 2012. The sentiment for a vote next year echoed one at a similar gathering in San Francisco, while gatherings in liberal bastions such as Oakland and Berkeley leaned toward 2012. “The reaction was really mixed,” said Pam Brown, Marriage Equality USA’s political director, who compiled information from the organization’s “Get Engaged” tour of 40 California cities over the past several weeks. “A lot of people who wanted to wait until 2012 wanted to see what the plan was first before they committed.” A nonbinding straw poll of leaders gathered Saturday in San Bernardino to plan the movement’s next step found that 93 people voted to go in 2010, 49 in 2012 and 20 were undecided. Organizers expect to officially decide when to return to the ballot in a couple of weeks. If they decide on November 2010, the deadline to have ballot language submitted to the attorney general is Sept. 25. This month, several groups of same-sex marriage supporters said not enough has been done to address the faults of last year’s campaign in time to mount a winning drive next year.Churches’ influence
Faults not addressed
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-marriage-…
Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive”
Each year in Germany, from the end of June through August, gay and lesbian rights’ activists celebrate the “Stonewall” uprising – named after a gay bar on Christopher Street in New York, where homosexuals fought back against police brutality in 1969.
Participants in the German parades known as “Christopher Street Day” join other activists around the world who take to the streets to demonstrate gay pride and demand greater freedoms.
Some of those freedoms would include expanded civil rights. In Germany, civil unions, for instance, have been permitted among same-sex couples since 2001, but full marriages are not. Homosexual couples therefore do not enjoy the same rights as married heterosexual couples when it comes to taxes, retirement, civil servant benefits, or adoption law.
For more on gay and lesbian rights and the community in Germany, click on the links below, or listen to this week’s “Living in Germany” program to hear a more personal account of a homosexual civil union.
DW-WORLD.DE
Audios and videos on the topic
See Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive” Germany Deutsche Welle
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/homosexuals-d…
Swedish lesbians suck sperm banks dry
Sweden’s fertility clinics are racking up a serious backlog of people waiting for artificial insemination, due in part to a “spike” in demand from lesbian couples for vital supplies of man juice.
So bad have things got that expectant customers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg are now forced to wait 18 months for treatment.
See Swedish lesbians suck sperm banks dry
Register
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/swedish-lesbi…
DC Law Helps Lesbian Couples Become Moms
A new D.C. law is making it a lot easier for a newborn to have two mommies from birth. According to the law, which went into effect on July 18, the District of Columbia will confer “the status of legal parent on both lesbian mothers who plan a child using donor insemination,” Nancy Polikoff reports.
In the past, the birth mother’s partner would have to go through an adoption process to become a legal parent of the child; now, the second mommy just needs to fill out some paperwork to demonstrate her “written consent” of parenthood. Polikoff notes that the new law is “marital status-neutral and gender-neutral,” so it will change parenthood policy in a couple of other situations as well:
See DC Law Helps Lesbian Couples Become Moms Washington City Paper
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