Neff: Gay news through the looking glass

Perhaps you’ve heard of the new fad at churches, fight nights — heavyweight bouts intended to bring more young people into the house of the Lord.

But have you heard of porn night at a church?

In mid-February, Uganda pastor Martin Ssempa hosted a porn show at a church service in Kampala to rally support for a bill that elevates homosexuality to a capital offense punishable, in some cases, by death.

Several hundred people watched Ssempa’s pornographic slideshow about gay sex. The Guardian newspaper quoted Ssempa as saying that he wanted people to know “about what homosexuals do” because “in Africa, what you do in your bedroom affects our clan, it affects our tribe, it affects our nation.”

Porn at church.

I began waiting for word that at a subsequent Bible study class Ssempa led the men in the group in a circle jerk to prove some point. As I scanned headlines for notice of such a news report, I came across a few other stories — closer to home — of interest:

• The Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander reported that the newspaper received a flood of complaints, including some subscription cancelations, after publishing a page one photograph of two men kissing the day the District of Columbia first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

One reader wrote The Post an e-mail: “That kind of stuff makes normal people want to throw up. People have kids who are being exposed to this crap. I will be glad when your rag goes out of business. Real men marry women.”

• Florida state Rep. Stephen Precourt recently introduced legislation to provide tax incentives to lure filmmakers to the Sunshine State.

Precourt, however, wants to apply a restriction — the incentives would only go for entertainment industry projects with “family friendly” themes that do not contain sex, nudity, smoking, profanity or LGBT characters.

Precourt said he wanted Florida to be known for making “Disney movies for kids and all that stuff.”

• The school board in Itawamba County, Miss., canceled a high school senior prom rather than allow a lesbian couple to attend.

The board’s statement said the April 2 dance was canceled “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

The local mayor said, “I think the community as a whole is probably in support of the school district.”

Wouldn’t you like to give some folks a shove through the looking-glass into a wonderland where everyone gets mushy over the lesbian kiss, gets hot over the gay-sex scene and goes “yuck” and “ick” when a man and woman embrace?

In that wonderland, 99.9 percent of romance stories on TV, in film and on the bookshelves would be about LGBT people and Janis Joplin wouldn’t have pretended the Bobbie McGee she was singing about was a dude.

Down with straight supremacy.

Down with this attitude that everyone, gay and straight, wants to sit through 120-minutes of Hollywood dribble about the boy who romances the girl or the girl who tricks the boy, but only gays find gay-themed movies relevant or entertaining.

Down with this attitude that gay and lesbian youth must sit in the bleachers and cheer on their hetero peers as they dance away their senior prom.

Down with this attitude that a same-sex kiss is acceptable only when it’s played for comedy, and that we all should swoon over the deeply romantic gesture of a man and a woman exchanging tongue.

And down with this ridiculous attitude that gay porn proves a case for sentencing gays to death. I mean really, what would a presumably straight congregation think about watching “Deep Throat” during a church service?

At one point during his pornographic slide presentation, Ssempa pointed out to his church audience, “This one is eating another man’s anus.”

I’m pretty sure that if I looked hard enough, I could find an image of a man and a woman engaged in this act.

In fact, before I go on, I’ll search Google to see.…

I’m back, yes, I can find such images — no shortage of them.

You know what? I didn’t enjoy looking at those images — probably even straight supremacists would say “ick” or “yuck” at the photos. I wouldn’t want to see those images during a church service, but an act worthy of a death sentence?

Porn at church.

We don’t need to tumble through the looking-glass or into wonderland to encounter a mad hatter.

Mexico City begins handing out marriage licenses

(MEXICO CITY) Throngs of Mexico City gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses Thursday, the day Latin America’s first gay-marriage law took effect.

The first gay weddings will take place within a week to 10 days, after the paperwork is processed.

Mexico City’s legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay …

Court won’t halt D.C. same-sex marriages

(WASHINGTON) The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stop the District of Columbia’s gay marriage law, freeing the city to issue its first marriage licenses to same-sex couples the following day.

Opponents of gay marriage in the nation’s capital had asked Chief Justice John Roberts to stop the city from issuing …

DC gay marriage law may take effect March 2

(Washington) Gay couples will likely be able to apply March 2 for marriage licenses in the nation’s capital.

That’s the day the city projects a bill it passed legalizing same-sex marriage will go into effect.

The district’s City Council passed a bill last month. But the bill, which has been signed by …

D.C. Council gives first nod to marriage equality bill

(Washington) The City Council of Washington, D.C. voted 11 to 2 today to support a bill to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples the same as it provides to straight couples.

“Today’s vote is an important victory –not only for the gay and lesbian community but for everyone who supports equal …

Jubilation muted on Calif gay marriage anniversary

(San Francisco) Jonathan Abernethy-Deppe vividly remembers the bustling city clerk’s office and the happiness of fellow couples a year ago Tuesday when California began granting same-sex marriage licenses.

But he and his now-husband, David, say their first anniversary won’t be nearly as jubilant. Last month the state Supreme Court upheld a …

How Hospitals Treat Same-Sex Couples

For same-sex couples, a ring and legal papers may not be enough to navigate the health system.
During a medical emergency, a patient’s husband, wife, parents or other family members often are close by, overseeing treatment, making medical decisions and keeping vigil at the bedside.

But what happens if the hospital won’t allow you to stay with your partner or child?

That’s the challenge many same-sex couples face during health care emergencies when hospital security personnel, administrators and even doctors and nurses exclude them from a patient’s room because they aren’t “real” family members. The issue is addressed in a new report from The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights group, and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. The groups have created a Healthcare Equality Index for hospitals that focuses on five key areas: patient rights, visitation, decision-making, cultural competency training and employment policies and benefits.

This year, 166 facilities across the country agreed to participate in the report, about twice as many as last year. The group says nearly 75 percent of the hospitals have policies to protect their patients from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, sometimes the policies aren’t correctly implemented by hospital workers. Some examples of unfair treatment of gay couples cited by the group include:

A Bakersfield, Calif., couple rushed their child to the emergency room with a 104 degree fever. The women were registered domestic partners, but the hospital only allowed the biological mother to stay with the child. Although hospitals typically allow both parents to stay with a child during treatment, in this case, the second parent was forced to stay in the waiting room.

An Oregon man whose registered domestic partner was unconscious was told to leave the hospital room because it was time for family members to make decisions about his care. He was forced to plead his case before hospital administrators before being allowed to stay with his partner, who was dying.

A woman from Washington collapsed while on vacation in Miami. Although her partner had an advanced health care directive, hospital officials told her she wasn’t a family member under Florida law. The woman spent hours talking with hospital administrators to prove that the document from her home state was, in fact, still valid in Florida. Although she eventually prevailed, her partner’s condition deteriorated and the woman died. Because of the problem, the children the patient had been raising with her partner weren’t able to see her before she died.

While heterosexual couples typically don’t have to provide marriage licenses to hospitals in order to prove they are husband and wife, same sex couples often must document their relationship to hospital officials before being allowed to take part in a partner’s care.

“There is a real disconnect between what might be a good written policy or state law and actual implementation of that policy or law,” said Ellen Kahn, family project director for the HRC. “If you’re presenting as two men in a couple and you say, ‘This is my partner. I’ll make medical decisions,’ you’re asked a lot of questions. Who is this person to you? Do you have legal documentation that verifies that? A parent, sister or nephew could have more rights under the law than a same-sex partner who has been together 20 years.”

Although many hospitals have improved their treatment of same-sex couples, partners are advised to keep legal documents close by in the event of a medical emergency. Friends should also have ready access to documents so they can fax or e-mail them if necessary.

For couples who don’t have documentation or are worried that their relationship might not be recognized during a medical emergency, the solution often is to pretend to be a sibling in order to ensure access to a partner.

“If you’re on the road and have a crisis, the word on the street is just say, ‘This is my sister,’ or ‘This is my brother,’ ” Ms. Kahn said. “Most people won’t raise an eyebrow about it unless you look very different. It’s sad that we have to think about that. Am I going to be better off saying this is my sister or this is my life partner?”

How Hospitals Treat Same-Sex Couples

May 12, 2009

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-hospitals…

Same-sex marriages gradually gain legal ground

When Maine’s highest court ruled two years ago that lesbians Marilyn Kirby and Ann Courtney could adopt the two children they had cared for since 2001, the man who has led the state battle against gay marriage for 25 years got a glimpse of the defeat now looming.

“There’s a sense people have — a sense of inevitability — and a tremendous sense of frustration because of the history of the gay rights fight in Maine,” said Michael Heath, executive director of the Maine Family Policy Council.

He was referring to rights incrementally accorded to gay couples that have led to virtual equality between same-sex and heterosexual unions — a significant trend occurring in Maine and other states where gay marriage remains banned, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

Those rights are expanding as legally married gay couples relocate to states that don’t allow same-sex marriage, forcing courts, legislatures and employers to deal with the resulting issues of custody, divorce, inheritance and end-of-life decisions.

The adoption ruling in Maine had the effect of granting parental rights to same-sex couples. By the time the Legislature adjourns for the summer, experts expect Maine to become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage — 11 years after voters banned it.

In New York, which doesn’t allow same-sex marriages but recognizes those conducted elsewhere, recent court decisions have granted a divorce to two gay men and surviving spouse benefits to another.

In California, federal judges have twice overruled decisions by the federal government to deny healthcare coverage to gay employees’ legal spouses, teeing up a constitutional challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids federal benefits for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts, which began the trend five years ago. (Iowa issued its first marriage licenses April 27, a few weeks after its Supreme Court gave approval; weddings in Vermont will begin in September.) Within a year, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York will probably follow suit, say sexual orientation scholars at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute; New Hampshire’s Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday.

And as more same-sex couples wed in places where it is legal, the administrative fallout in other states is expected to keep expanding.

“The courts are going to have to wrestle with these issues as more and more states make it possible for people to marry,” said Toni Broaddus, executive director of the San Francisco-based Equality Federation. “People don’t stay in the same state for their whole lives anymore, so the courts in states without marriage equality are going to have to address these issues.”

The recent moves in New England and the heartland to legalize gay marriage appeared to reinvigorate campaigns for passage of same-sex marriage bills in Maine, Maryland and Hawaii. Rights advocates predict the tide will eventually sweep even into some of the 30-plus states that have passed laws or constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

“A body of law is emerging because it has no choice. Cases have been filed and they have to be decided one way or another,” said Joseph Milizio, a Long Island lawyer specializing in gay and lesbian representation.

The legal developments allow people to become comfortable with “the fact that gay marriage is going to be recognized in many different aspects, even in states that don’t allow it,” said Milizio, whose firm recently secured the first dissolution of a same-sex marriage in New York.

In the workplace, proponents of extending spousal rights such as healthcare benefits and life insurance to same-sex couples have succeeded by challenging employment practices that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Seven states, including California, now guarantee full equality to same-sex couples — another incremental advance that is lamented by opponents.

See Same-sex marriages gradually gain legal ground

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/same-sex-marr…

More than 450 gay couples seek licenses

More same-sex couples sought marriage licenses in Polk County than any other large Iowa population center in the first week after a court ruling went into effect that legalized gay marriage in the state, county numbers show.

Polk County Recorder Julie Haggerty said 116 gay and lesbian couples had applied for licenses by Friday afternoon. More than two-thirds arrived on Monday, when the Supreme Court’s April 3 decision took effect, and dwindled as the week progressed. The proportion of same-sex couples compared with heterosexual couples also dropped later in the week in Polk County. By Friday, Haggerty said, only eight of the 25 couples who applied for licenses were of the same sex.

The Des Moines Register’s survey of county recorders offices indicates more than 450 same-sex couples sought marriage licenses last week. No state agency keeps track of marriage applications on a real-time basis. The Register contacted all 99 county recorders offices on the first day that same-sex couples could seek licenses and received updated tallies from selected offices on Friday.See More than 450 gay couples seek licenses

DesMoinesRegister.com -