Bar raid demands independent probe
Don’t expect law enforcement agencies involved in Rainbow Lounge incident to police themselves
It’s not exactly clear how the Fort Worth Police Department and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission will wiggle out of the public relations stranglehold the LGBT community now has on the two agencies, but I know from years of watching these dramas unfold that they will unless there is an independent investigation.
The local police officers and the state agents who descended on the Rainbow Lounge on Sunday morning, June 28, about 1 a.m. — arresting some patrons for public intoxication and apparently seriously injuring one — will all watch each other’s backs.
The official police reports that the law enforcement officials filed following the raid — which ironically occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion and the birth of the gay rights movement in New York City in 1969 — already hold the arresting officers and agents harmless.
The officers and agents claim in the reports that they encountered belligerent drunks in the one-week-old nightclub who threatened them in a sexually suggestive manner. That’s possibly the most preposterous part of the official version of the incident.
See Bar raid demands independent probe
Dallas Voice
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/bar-raid-dema…
Se3nate Power struggle impedes New York gay marriage vote
New York’s annual Gay Pride parade was a colorful celebration of 40 years of progress toward civil rights for gays, but once the dust settled, gay couples who wish to marry in New York state remain thwarted.
A bill to legalize gay marriage in the state that saw the dawn of the gay rights movement is mired in political stalemate in the state capital Albany, where Democrats and Republicans are battling over control of the state Senate.
“I had hoped today’s march would have been a bit of a wedding march. It’s not,” Christine Quinn, the gay speaker of the New York City Council, said at Sunday’s Gay Pride parade. Held annually, this year’s event marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village, which triggered the modern U.S. gay rights movement.
“We are disappointed. … But I know there have been other times our community has been disappointed and you need to keep fighting,” Quinn said at the start of the parade, which organizers said drew more than a million people.
Gay couples can marry in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa and will be allowed marry in Vermont starting in September and in New Hampshire from January. Other states offer same-sex unions that grant many of the same rights as marriage.
See Power struggle impedes New York gay marriage vote
Reuters
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/se3nate-power…
A Long Road Traveled
The last time I got as close to the White House as I did this week was many years ago—six years after the Stonewall riots, when I was a 13-year-old National Spelling Bee participant from St. Margaret’s School in Lowell, Mass. We spelling bee kids didn’t make it into the White House that day—we stood outside as first lady Betty Ford spoke to us from a balcony. By then I already knew I was gay. Raised in a staunch Catholic home and taught (and tormented) by nuns, I was certain that an open homosexual (that was the only term I knew back then) could never be allowed inside the White House. I knew nothing of the nascent gay-rights movement—it hadn’t reached Lowell in 1975. All I knew was that that whatever words there were to describe what I was, it would have to be suppressed forever. I assumed that I would have to either become a priest or figure out some other way to hide.
Thankfully, time marched on, and I eventually became a politicized college student rather than a candidate for the priesthood—and ultimately I kicked open my closet door and came out. But I can’t help thinking about that personal history as I replay the reel of yesterday’s visit to the White House in my head. As the executive director of SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBT senior citizens, I was invited, along with some 200 other LGBT leaders, to join the Obamas in commemorating gay pride—which falls this year on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
I was accompanied by three SAGE members: a lesbian couple who are 86 and 91, who reminisced about voting for FDR and described Barack Obama as “the most inspiring politician since Adlai Stevenson,” and a Stonewall veteran and founder of the Gay Liberation Front, an activist group formed in the aftermath, who proudly chose his SAGE T shirt over the ties worn by every other man in the room.
Apart from celebrating, we had gone to the White House to make a point: that older people have to be included in the Obama agenda for LGBT progress. And we did what we came to do, with one of our members (the Stonewall vet) even receiving a personal meeting with the president and Mrs. Obama. But as I stood with my partner, in the front row, some five feet from the presidential podium, I realized how intensely personal this experience was for me. I thought about how each member of the SAGE contingent has had our own life’s journey—and each of us was moved deeply and differently by that moment.
See A Long Road Traveled Newsweek
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/long-road-tra…
Gay footballers battle for world domination
One year before the FIFA World Cup kicks off, 26 teams of gay and lesbian footballers are battling for global supremacy in the Gay Soccer World Championships
Co-ordinated by the International Gay & Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA), the tournament, which began on Sunday, is being hosted by the Federal Triangles club in Washington D.C., and supported by the local Major League Soccer (MLS) side D.C. United.
IGLFA spokesman Michael Pranikoff told CNN that the competition has been running annually since 1992.
“We started very small. There were just a few clubs from around the world. But we have gone from strength to strength. Last year the tournament was in London and sanctioned by the Football Association.”
Pranikoff said there are no professional players involved, but the standard of play is strong and the teams in the top divisions are very competitive.
Although the tournament involves club sides — rather than national teams, there is still a strong international feel with players from the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Argentina, Italy, and Norway all taking part.
The London Stonewall Lions are the reigning champions in the men’s division and expected to figure in Sunday’s final at Trinity Washington University, he said.
Despite the competitive nature of the event, Pranikoff said there are also less serious divisions where there is a more important message.
See Gay footballers battle for world domination
CNN International -
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-footballe…
ST. PETERSBURG –– The rows of rainbow…
ST. PETERSBURG –– The rows of rainbow flags, feather boas and glitter-streaked men dressed as Hollywood starlets made for an unusual campaign backdrop.
But there they were, a handful of St. Petersburg mayoral and City Council candidates, passing out campaign literature, posing for pictures and introducing themselves to potential voters amid Saturday’s St. Pete Pride festivities.
In a sign of St. Petersburg’s changing politics, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is harnessing its collective voice, forcing candidates to take notice.
After years of tension between the group and conservative Mayor Rick Baker, it’s seizing the coming leadership change as a chance to make inroads and get its issues addressed.
“It is a matter of get-out-the-vote,” said Rick Boylan, founder of the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats. “If we can mobilize the community and inform them of which candidates support issues and which candidates are pro-equality and get them to participate, we can definitely have an impact on who is elected.”
See St. Petersburg’s gay community seeks to become key voting bloc in …
Tampabay.com
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/st.html…
Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Before there were domestic-partnership registries and commitment ceremonies, before same-sex marriages and civil unions — before the gay-rights movement, even — John McCluskey and Rudy Henry met, fell in love and harbored the notion that they could spend their lives making one another happy.
And for 50 years, the Tacoma men went about doing just that, all the while longing for social acceptance.
Even in gay-friendly San Francisco where they first lived together, they found it necessary to hide their relationship from prospective landlords, and on job applications they would sometimes lie about their marital status to avoid raising suspicion.
Decades later in 2006, at a coffee-shop concert on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Amy Balliett and Jessica Trejo met and they, too, eventually fell in love.
In their 20s, the two had come out as lesbians at a time when young people could find support in groups on high school and college campuses, when they had gay role models in politics and on television, and when their parents probably knew people who were openly gay. By the time the two married in California last October, legal bonds between gays and lesbians were possible in several states.
Balliett and Trejo, Henry and McCluskey are like generational bookends to this modern gay-rights movement, launched 40 years ago this week after a group of activists at a small Manhattan bar called the Stonewall Inn stood up in violent protest to ongoing police harassment.
While older gays and younger ones share much the same agenda of equality, their needs within the movement are also divergent.
Young people, who have at times referred to their own post-gay movement, seek the protections of marriage equality as they form relationships and start families, while gays of their grandparents’ generation are more concerned about issues of aging — like survivor benefits and long-term care.
See Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Seattle Times -
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-rights-me…
Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade
SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of thousands of people turned out for the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade, some in provocative costumes and outfits, but an increasing number of them pushing strollers. “I feel like I’ve seen twice as many children as I saw last year,” said Joseph Bowik, who is a father to two children with his husband, David Bowik. The Pride Family Garden, a small park cordoned off near City Hall to give parents a respite and an area for their children to play, saw more than 600 families last year, a record that appeared set to be broken during this year’s parade, organizer Meredith Fenton said. “Probably the biggest thing we’re hearing about this year from kids is the word ‘backlash,’”‰” said Fenton, who is the program director for Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), which joined the park effort. “With Prop. 8 passing and the Defense of Marriage Act, there’s so much talk about gay rights, but what people keep asking is, ‘How will the kids of gay parents turn out?’ Those people are all asking about us.” San Francisco and Alameda counties are home to the second- and third-most same-sex couples who are parents in California, after Los Angeles, Fenton said. Diana Castillo, 18, moved to Oakland this summer for an internship at Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. Raised by her birth mother and her mother’s partner, she said growing up with two moms made her grateful.
See:
- Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade San Jose Mercury News – –
- Video: Gay pride on the streets
- Remembering Stonewall: 40 Years Later Gay Wired Gay Pride Parade Marks 40 Years After NYC Uprising WDIV
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-parents-a…
Fort Worth police better start clarifying gay bar ‘check’
The Fort Worth Police Department still has some explaining to do about what happened early Sunday at a southside gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge. Or some clarifying or some illuminating or some supplementary detailing – anything to mitigate the apparently self-administered public-relations shot-to-the-foot it suffered after what it keeps calling a routine “bar check.” ‘Cause – Problem No. 1 – bar patrons who were there say it wasn’t a “check,” it was a “raid.” Problem No. 2, this particular “check” ended with a kid in the intensive-care unit with a head injury. Problem No. 3, in what I can only hope is a spectacularly infelicitous coincidence, all this took place on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Raid. The landmark date marks a 1969 clash between New York City police and club patrons, widely viewed as the catalyst for the modern American gay-rights movement.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/fort-worth-po…
Victory for Gay Rights in Sight
Gay rights activists are understandably up in arms over recent missteps and continuing inaction by the Obama administration on issues important to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. A brief, filed by Obama’s Justice Department in a case challenging the legislation which prohibits recognition of same-sex marriage, was out of line in drawing parallels between incest and gay marriage. President Obama’s foot-dragging on reversing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prevents gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the military, is especially confounding as the U.S. continues to engage in two wars.
Still, 40 years after rioting patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York City sparked the gay rights movement; full equality for LGBT people is finally in sight.
Disappointment with President Obama on these issues should be balanced with other actions he has taken recently such as declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month and extending some (albeit not all) benefits to federal employees who are gay. There are smaller victories as well.
See Victory for Gay Rights in Sight
Minneapolis Star Tribune
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/victory-for-g…
Why Some People Are Gay: Notes (and Clues) from the Animal Kingdom
We have known for at least a decade that hundreds of animal species — including birds, reptiles, mollusks and, of course, humans — engage in same-gender sexual acts. But no one is quite sure why. After all, same-sex couplings don’t usually result in offspring. (I say usually because when male marine snails pair with other males, one partner conveniently changes sex, allowing for reproduction.) Evolutionarily speaking, homosexuality should have disappeared long ago.
A yearlong study just completed at the University of California at Riverside offers several fascinating competing theories about why same-gender sexual behavior has endured. And although it’s gay-pride month — and the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that sparked the gay-rights movement — not all the theories will give same-gender-loving humans a reason to celebrate. (See the top 10 animal stories of 2007.)
One particularly charged finding is that in most species besides humans, same-gender pairings rarely lead to lifelong relationships. In other words, when one attractive bonobo male eyes another in a lovely patch of Congo swamp forest, they occasionally kiss and then move on to other oral pleasures, but they don’t bother anyone afterward about trying to legalize their right to an open-banana-bar ceremony. In fact, they are likely to move on to girl bonobos: most animals that engage in same-gender sex acts do so only when an opposite-sex partner is unavailable.
And yet the study’s authors, Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk of UC Riverside’s biology department, report some exceptions, like the laysan albatross. Last year, researchers studying a Hawaiian colony of albatrosses found that nearly a third of all the couples involved two females who courted and then shared parenting responsibilities. (Albatrosses don’t have U-Hauls, so no lesbian jokes, please.) Male chinstrap penguins also form long-term relationships, at least in captivity. And some male bighorn sheep will mount females only after the females adopt male-like behaviors.
What explains all these variances? Here are some hypotheses I collected from Bailey and Zuk’s paper as well as from some of their original sources:
See Why Some People Are Gay: Notes (and Clues) from the Animal Kingdom
TIME
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-some-peop…
