Empire State Pride Agenda to hire new leader

Empire State Pride Agenda, New York’s leading gay rights group, will select Brian Ellner to be its next leader, according to the New York Times’ City Blog. [1]

Ellner is the senior counselor for community affairs for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Says The Times:

“The selection is part of a broader move within the organization to restructure after a bill to legalize same-sex marriage failed decisively in the State Senate late last year.

“Mr. Ellner would assume leadership of the organization at a time when it is trying to regroup after suffering the most significant setback of its 20-year history. A Harvard and Dartmouth graduate who ran unsuccessfully for Manhattan borough president [2] in 2005, Mr. Ellner would help coordinate the next effort to pass legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in Albany.”

[1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/gay-rights-group-to-choose-a-new-leader/
[2] http://www.brianellner.com/

Exclusive video: Olson and Boies Q&A on Prop 8

Last Wednesday, the New York Times hosted an intimate question and answer session with the lawyers currently working to overturn Proposition 8 in California, Ted Olson and David Boies. (Our earlier recap of the discussion).

Even if you’ve read stories about the evening, Boies and Olson speak with such passion and …

Prop 8 forum: Olson & Boies speak

Last night, the New York Times’ gay and lesbian affinity employee group hosted a Q&A session with Prop 8 superlawyers David Boies and Ted Olson.

I saw Joe Sudbay from Joe.My.God and Paul Schindler from Gay City News there – also Andy Towle and Corey Jonson from Towleroad (go there for …

Withers: Ford decides not to run

After weeks of speculation, Harold Ford decided not to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. In a New York Times editorial that reeks with self satisfaction, Ford admits what we all knew when he announced his “thinking tour.” A bitter primary between him and the incumbent would have made the eventual winner …

Withers: New York Times’ article focuses on “transgender court”

The fundies have another reason to say New York City is “not real America.” An article in yesterday’s New York Times focused on a Manhattan court that has turned into the place where transgender New Yorkers go to have their names officially changed.

“Changing a name might seem like a minor …

Withers: A “gay” twist to the Tiger Woods story

Looks like there is a “gay” twist to the Tiger Woods story. Not that kind you silly! Yesterday multiple news sources were reporting that writer/author Benoit Denizet-Lewis broke the story that the golfer was getting treatment for sexual addiction. Denizet-Lewis, who writes for the New York Times Magazine and contributes …

Update: NY court upholds gay marriage recognition

New York State’s highest court unanimously fought off a challenge to the NYS policy signed by Gov. David Paterson that recognizes gay marriages performed in other states.

However, the judges ruled narrowly, and asked that the legislature resolved the question of marriage equality.

From the New York Times:
…the decision gave gay advocates …

Too Gay in Amsterdam?

It’s no secret that Amsterdam is gay-friendly, but in case that slipped under anyone’s radar, Dutch tourism officials have launched a micro Web site this month proclaiming that “Everyone’s Gay in Amsterdam.”

The Web site, which is geared for American travelers, offers a “gay list” that features places like Pric, described as a “relaxed and funky gay-friendly bar” that “serves up unusual cocktails concocted by its highly-trained staff of bartenders.”

But a closer look reveals that not everyone in Amsterdam is, in fact, gay. A photograph of a seemingly happy straight couple biking along a canal? The Van Gogh Museum? A “gay locator” that doesn’t turns the entire city into an orange dot?

Turns out, “gay” doesn’t just reefer to sexual orientation, but “the attitude of the people in this grand European city,” according to the VisualMerc, a New York-based interactive agency that created the micro-site.

See Too Gay in Amsterdam?

New York Times

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‘Two-Track’ Church Suggested by Archbishop of Canterbury

PARIS — The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said profound differences among the world’s 77 million Anglicans over gay clergy and same-sex unions could divide their church into a “two-track model” yielding “two styles of being Anglican.”

The formula could avert a formal breach between liberals and conservatives but bring new strains in the relationship between the global Anglican Communion and American Episcopalians who resolved this month to open the door to ordaining openly gay bishops and to start the process of developing rites for same-sex marriages.

Archbishop Williams insisted that the issue should not be debated “in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican.”

In a lengthy message published Monday on his Web site, the archbishop offered a detailed and nuanced response to events at the Episcopal convention in Anaheim, Calif., this month when gay-rights advocates in the United States chalked up major victories over conservatives on sexual issues. The Episcopal Church is the official branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States.

The developments were seen by liberals and conservatives as likely turning points in the history of the divided Episcopal Church, reflecting the profound rifts over sexual issues within Anglicanism — the world’s third largest network of Christian churches after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The differences have crystallized around the Episcopal Church’s consent in 2003 to the consecration of the church’s first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The Episcopalians had agreed to a moratorium on the election of gay bishops, but it was lifted at the convention in Anaheim.

The archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, which is composed of 38 provinces worldwide. The Episcopal Church claims about 2.3 million members.

In his message, Archbishop Williams repeated his view that “a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority” of the full Anglican Communion, any more than a blessing for a heterosexual couple living outside marriage would have.

That, in turn, means that as long as the broader church “as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.”

The issues have confronted the archbishop with deep divisions not simply between liberals and conservatives in the United States but also across the broader church with its many followers in Africa, Britain and elsewhere. Four conservative dioceses in the United States and many individual Episcopal churches have broken away from the national denomination to forge alliances with conservative Anglican groups such as the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Archbishop Williams said: “There is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.”

The archbishop has promoted the idea of covenant — described by some analysts as a kind of good-behavior guide for churches — to overcome the rift.

“This has been called a ‘two-tier’ model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure,” the archbishop’s message said. “But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure.”

The message continued: “It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion.”

See Anglican Sees ‘Two-Track’ Church @ New York Times

Archbishop warns ordination of gay clergy could lead to two-tier … guardian.co.uk
Anglican Head Warns Of Two-Tier Church After Gay Vote On Top Magazine Archbishop of Canterbury responds to General Convention actions on … Austin American-Statesman

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/two-track-chu…

Should Proposition 8 recall be put to voters in 2010?

Marriage-equality advocates are split about the timing of a ballot question to overturn the California’s Proposition 8 constitutional marriage ban. Some major backers, including David Bohnett, believe it’s better to postpone a possible 2010 vote rather than risk another defeat. But an informal poll of leaders affiliated with the Courage Campaign shows support for putting the repeal question on next year’s ballot. The deadline to file the question with the state attorney general is Sept. 25. The New York Times (7/26) , San Francisco Chronicle/Politics blog (7/25)