Gay city employees fight to block release of their identities

Several City of Seattle workers have sued to prevent the release of names and membership lists of a gay and lesbian employee organization.
At issue, according to a complaint filed in King County Superior Court, is a request by Seattle City Light employee affiliated with a conservative Christian organization who claims the city has opposed his efforts to launch a group for formerly homosexual workers.
The City Light employee — Philip Irvin, 58 — wants the city to release the names of organizers of city employee groups, specifically those of a Seattle Public Utilities “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Friends” group. According to court documents, Irvin has also requested the names and city departments of those who are members of the group, or who have attended the group’s meetings, as well as copies of the group’s sign-in sheets, minutes and agendas.
Speaking to seattlepi.com Thursday, Irvin said the city has previously opposed his efforts to start a group for employees who had identified as homosexuals but have since become heterosexual.
“They are the most vilified sexual minority, and I’m sorry to say that they’re not really welcomed in the religious community either,” Irvin said. “This is something where they are vilified on the right or the left.”
After receiving Irvin’s request in early May, city public-disclosure officers notified employees whose identities would be released. In response, an unspecified number of employees have sued the city asserting that state public-records law demand their identities be withheld. See Gay city employees fight to block release of their identities
Seattle Post Intelligencer

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Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Riverside’s Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network will host its first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Youth in Foster Care Training from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday for foster care workers.

Renowned trainer Robert Woronoff, who will be featured at the free event hosted at the Main Library, brings more than 20 years’ experience working with and for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in foster care, according to a news release. He is a former program director of the Child Welfare League of America and director of LGBTQ services and peer programs at The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston.

“We had housing programs for HIV-positive youth, and a lot of young people I was working with were not HIV positive, but they didn’t have housing,” Woronoff said in the release. “So I called up the largest child welfare organization and made them realize that young people needed housing before getting positive.”

See Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Florida Times-Union

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Gene Robinson: Gay Bishop Giving Obama Inauguration Prayer

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a vocal gay rights leader, will open President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration with a prayer on Sunday’s kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial.

“I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural Week activities, We are One, to be held at the Lincoln Memorial,” Robinson wrote in an email to friends.

The announcement comes after weeks of outcry from the gay community over Obama’s choice of evangelical, anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.

“It’s important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way,” Robinson said in an interview with the Concord Monitor. “Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority or, in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters.”

Robinson is the first openly gay diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion. “God never gets it wrong. The church often takes a long time to get it right. It is a human institution, but one capable of self-correction,” Robinson told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “I believe in my heart that the church got it wrong about homosexuality. There is great excitement in my heart to be living in a time when the church is starting to get it right.”

See Gene Robinson: Gay Bishop Giving Obama Inauguration Prayer