Gay pride invitation goes sour Albany Times Union
ALBANY — A local woman whose vandalized Volkswagen launched her on a career as a gay activist welcomed nationwide as a speaker, often in conjunction with a documentary film she made about her experiences, will not be in the Capital Region for this weekend’s gay pride festival because of a dispute with event organizers.
The activist, Erin Davies, blames the Capital Pride Committee, a group of community volunteers and staffers of the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, for scuttling an Albany showing of her award-winning documentary, “Fagbug.”
Accepted at dozens of film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, the movie will be shown tonight, the date originally planned. But the screening has been moved from a 250-seat theater at the State Museum to the Photography Center of the Capital District in Troy, where it will be shown in a room that seats approximately 20.
“They tried to bribe and threaten me, but I wouldn’t let them and just found another place,” said Davies, 31. She alleges that anonymous members of the committee thought her $10 suggested ticket price for the museum screening was too high and vowed to remove the showing from Capital Pride listings unless she lowered it. Davies makes her living with paid speaking engagements and film screenings; the admission price was meant to offset some of the difference between what she normally receives for appearances and the $500 fee she had agreed to for the museum event, she said.
Organizers and other people involved in discussions with Davies dispute her account of what happened and characterize Davies as having a martyr complex that led her to exaggerate routine, if frustrating, negotiations into antagonism and personal attacks.
“We absolutely support (the screening). It’s always been one of our events,” said Nora Yates, executive director of the community council. The screening was included in printed calendars and is mentioned, with its new Troy location, on the community council’s Web site. Founded in 1970, the CDGLCC, believed to be the oldest such continuously operating group in the country, is the prime force behind the 11-day, 34-event Capital Pride 2009 observance that culminates with Sunday’s pride parade and festival in Washington Park.
See Gay pride invitation goes sour
Albany Times Union
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Rudy Giuliani Skips Gay Friends’ Wedding
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was a last-minute no-show at the wedding of his former roommates — a gay couple — yesterday.
It was a disappointment for Queens car dealer Howard Koeppel and his longtime lover, Mark Hsaio, who tied the knot in a double-ring ceremony before 10 guests in Westport, Conn.
The couple famously let the ex-mayor crash at their luxury $2.37 million three-bedroom Manhattan apartment while he was going through a nasty divorce with Donna Hanover in 2001. Later, Giuliani married the “other woman,” Judith Nathan.
“Rudy and Judith were both invited with a beautiful written invitation by mail,” said Koeppel. “His secretary called Thursday and said he was not able to come to the wedding and wished us all the best.”
See Rudy Giuliani Skips Gay Friends’ Wedding
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Gay Marriage Issue Steering Clear of the Supreme Court
And now there are four. In the space of a week, the number of states allowing same-sex marriage has doubled, with Iowa and then Vermont joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. In California, gay and lesbian couples were exchanging vows for five months before voters put a stop to the practice in November. Californians are still talking it over, though, and loudly. New York and New Jersey may be next to debate the question.
In other contexts, this sort of turmoil might amount to an invitation for the United States Supreme Court to step in. But there are all sorts of reasons the court is likely to keep its distance, and a central one is the endlessly debated 1973 decision that identified a constitutional right to abortion.
“The concern about creating another Roe v. Wade looms large,” said Nathaniel Persily, who teaches law and political science at Columbia. “At least five members of this court, if not more, would probably be reluctant to weigh in on this controversy, especially given the progress that is being made in state legislatures, state courts and public opinion.”
Court decisions on issues like school desegregation, abortion and same-sex marriage can raise questions about the judicial branch usurping the democratic process. But there are strategic issues as well. The Supreme Court not only decides cases but also decides which cases to decide. In jurisprudence as in life, timing is everything.
Even some strong supporters of abortion rights believe, for instance, that Roe went too far too fast and may have been counterproductive. One of them is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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Primates’ Meeting opens in ‘fog of confusion’
The viability of the Primates’ Meeting as one of the communion’s four “instruments of unity” is also under question. Archbishop Peter Akinola has urged primates to be consistent and not abandon the undertakings and pledges made at past gatherings. Others have voiced frustration with the Communion’s current ecclesial structures, suggesting that Alexandria and the May meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Jamaica may be the last pan-Anglican global gatherings.
The primates have come at the invitation of Dr Williams to Alexandria , the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Canon Kenneth Kearon said, to review the work of the Lambeth Conference, explore issues of common interest, and prepare for the gathering of the ACC in Jamaica in May.
See Primates’ Meeting opens in ‘fog of confusion’
Religious Intelligence Ltd
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Gay Bishop Says Obama ‘Stands With Us’ on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show
Appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson said President-elect Barack Obama “stands with us,” and signaled he was ready to move past the controversy of his invitation.
Robinson is the controversial New Hampshire Episcopal bishop whose consecration in 2003 has split the Anglican Church.
He has been invited to give an opening prayer at a Sunday inaugural event attended by Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Obama is scheduled to speak at the event which will be broadcast on HBO.
The announcement has resurrected the controversy surrounding the choice of Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer at the January 20 inaugural ceremony, a prologue to Obama’s historic inaugural address. Gay activists say Warren is homophobic. He likened gay marriage to an incestuous relationship and polygamy, and supported passage of a controversial California gay marriage ban.
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DC Hotel, Under Pressure, Cancels ‘Pig Sex’ Party EDGE Boston
Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, an organization (apparently run by one man, Peter LaBarbera) dedicated to fighting the “homosexual agenda,” is claiming something it hasn’t been able to do for some time: a victory over the gay menace. AFTAH has announced that the downtown Washington, D.C., hotel has cancelled a ’pig sex orgy’ scheduled during Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend, this weekend (Jan. 16).
“This is a great victory for truth, decency and public health!” LaBarbera wrote on his website. “Americans For Truth is vindicated (lies coming from the hotel had many people confused). A big ’Thanks’ to each of you who called the Doubletree and its parent company, Hilton Hotels, urging them to not allow this unbelievably depraved and unhealthy homosexual event to occur in public conference rooms at the Doubletree, a luxurious hotel just blocks from the White House.”
The contretemps began with the ultra-rightwing “news” site World Net Daily “breaking” the story that a private group of men–unaffiliated with MAL–was planning a private, invitation-only event at the Doubletree, which located at 1515 Rhode Island Avenue NW. The invite, which LaBarbera claimed was emailed to him by a plant in the gay world, told respondents to “go to the Second Floor, which is where all the Convention Rooms are.”
Gay men may be familiar with private hotel parties taking place during such gatherings (whether they admit it not). These are usually spread through email and other private communication, and take place in private hotel suites. But World Net Daily and LaBarbera took the email to signify that somehow the “orgy” would take place in one of the hotel’s meeting rooms.
LaBarbera said he had contacted the Doubletree’s sales director, who confirmed the lease to a group with the name on the email. The employee also told him that he hadn’t heard of any sex parties. He said such events could not be held in the hotel’s conference rooms, because they are a “public space,” LaBarbera said. See DC Hotel, Under Pressure, Cancels ’Pig Sex’ Party EDGE Boston
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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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Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren
It’s becoming clear that while the gay rights movement’s leaders are thrilled with Obama’s invitation to Gene Robinson to join inauguration festivities, lots of its rank and file are still deeply distressed over Rick Warren giving the invocation on Inauguration Day. As a reporter, it’s often tricky figuring out if a movement’s—any movement, from the Christian right to the antiwar left—spokespeople are truly representing whom they claim to speak for.
Without polls, it’s really impossible to know.
But I’m getting more and more angry comments and E-mails from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community furious with their nominal leaders. This E-mail from a former Clinton White House aide who requested anonymity captures the lingering anger over Warren:
. . . [T]he problem here goes well beyond Warren’s incendiary language equating gay marriage with incest. He is what he is. The greater problem lies in the President-Elect’s cruel calculation that this insult and offense to gay America is acceptable collateral damage for whatever plus he sees in the suck-up to Warren, giving profile and platform to this mega-merchant of discrimination in the first program agenda item during the first official act of his first day in office. I was one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration. His respect for gay Americans was evident even when setbacks and disappointments slowed the change agenda, and he certainly did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office to score points with opponents. Ordinary gay Americans will need to hold this new Administration to the tenets of its campaign and to the idealism of its Inaugural language — and to a fundamental expectation for respect. The Warren invitation remains a disgrace and a blemish on day one of the new Administration. Shame on Obama.
For a lot of LGBT folks, the heartburn over Warren will linger awhile. But what if Obama delivers on a major LGBT political goal in his first term, something like ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” like the president-elect’s spokesman recently promised? It’s hard to imagine the current gay ambivalence over Obama outlasting such a huge advance for the LGBT cause. The reality of policy would quickly overwhelm symbolic concerns.
See Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren
U.S. News & World Report, DC
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Obama’s Pastor Pick Makes Anti-Gay Gesture - Again …..
Rick Warren, who has been out of the news for, oh, about 10 minutes, since the controversial California pastor was picked to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, is back.
Recapping here: After sticking a fork in the eye of gay rights advocates by actively supporting Proposition 8 — which overturned the legalization of gay marriage in California — Warren compounded their outrage by equating gay marriage with incest in an interview with Beliefnet.
The hubbub lulled down a little over the holidays but today, he’s back, with an open invitation to any group displaced by their denomination. This is code for Episcopal congregations that oppose that church’s acceptance of a gay bishop in 2003. Earlier this week, a California judge ruled that a breakaway congregation, St. James in Newport Beach, cannot keep its property now that they have left the Episcopal Church.
The Southern Baptist Warren shared his letter with Christianity Today which says, in part:
We stand in solidarity with them, and with all orthodox, evangelical Anglicans. I offer the campus of Saddleback Church to any Anglican congregation who need a place to meet, or if you want to plant a new congregation in south Orange County.
See Rev. Rick Warren takes another jab
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Ohio Supreme Court Allows Custody Decision to Stand in Lambda Legal Case Representing Lesbian Mother
‘The Court has expressly shut down arguments that Ohio’s antigay amendment impacts parenting and child custody relationships, rights, and responsibilities’
(Columbus, OH, January 5, 2009) –The Supreme Court of Ohio last week let stand an appeals court ruling affirming the enforceability of a court-approved child custody agreement in a case involving lesbian mothers.
“The Court has expressly shut down arguments that Ohio’s antigay amendment impacts parenting and child custody relationships, rights, and responsibilities,”said Camilla Taylor, Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office in Chicago. “The Court correctly declined an invitation to treat gay and lesbian Ohio parents differently from other families, and to deprive the children of these families of the protections and support other children receive.”
Lambda Legal represents Therese Leach in her fight to uphold a court-approved joint custody agreement signed by both her and her former partner, Denise Fairchild, in 2001. After their son was born in 1996, both women parented him. In order to ensure that Therese had a protected legal relationship with the child, the two women signed a joint custody agreement. Such agreements were approved by the Ohio Supreme Court in the 2001 In re Bonfield case in which Lambda Legal participated.
The Supreme Court decision comes after Fairchild argued, at a trial court, and the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Tenth District, that Ohio’s antigay constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman invalidated the court approved custody agreement she originally sought with Leach. All three courts brushed aside Fairchild’s arguments, ruling that court-approved custody agreements cannot be ignored or unilaterally undone by one of the parents. In July 2008, Fairchild asked the Ohio Supreme Court to hear her case, and Lambda Legal urged the Court to refuse. Today’s order from the high court is the final word on the matter.
The case is In re J.D.F.
Camilla Taylor, Senior Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional office in Chicago is lead counsel on the appeal. She is joined by co-counsel LeeAnn Massucci of Massucci & Kline LLC and Thomas Schmidt of Gahanna, Ohio.
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Erin Baer 212-809-8585 ext 267; Cell: 646-752-3251
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
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