GLBT DIGEST - January 17, 2007

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http://tinyurl.com/2aabuh

Czech Gay Masseur Wins Court Verdict
By UPI
Jan 16, 2007


A Czech court has ordered a fitness club to pay $3,253 to a masseur wholost his job after admitting he was gay, Prague Radio said.

The ruling set a precedent by recognizing discrimination on sexualpreference grounds, the radio said Tuesday.

Lech Sydor, 43, said the fitness club promised him a job but the managerrescinded the offer when he realized Sydor is gay.

The manager reportedly told Sydor he could not risk having a gay masseurmaking passes at male clients.

During a court hearing the fitness club manager claimed he found abetter qualified masseur for the job, the report said.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/01/011607taiwan.htm


Taiwan Gays Protest Stalled Civil Rights Bill
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 16, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Taipei) Taiwan's struggling LGBT community is increasing becoming morevocal in its demands for civil rights.

A bill that would include gays and lesbians in groups protected againstdiscrimination under the labor law is languishing in Parliament.

The legislation has passed the committee stage but opposition fromconservative religious groups resulted in it failing to muster enoughsupport to pass the House. The bill currently is in limbo as its sponsor,Huang Shu-ying, struggles to build support.

Members of the LGBT community recently demonstrated in front of Parliamentcalling for passage of the bill.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/01/011607moscow.htm


Moscow Gay Pride Case Heads To European Court
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 16, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET

(Moscow) Russian LGBT civil rights activists are preparing to take theMoscow city government before the European Court of Human Rights over thecity's refusal to allow a gay pride march last year.

Organizers of Moscow Pride lost their final appeal Tuesday when the MoscowCity Court has today refused an appeal for a "special procedure review" of alower court ruling that upheld the city's decision to deny a parade permitfor the May 27, 2006 parade.

"We tried to offer to Russian judicial system yet another chance to reviewthe illegal decision banning the pride march," said Nikolai Alekseev: ofGayRussia.ru one of the Pride organizers.

The case will be appealed to the Russian Supreme Court and if that is notsuccessful next step, said Alekseev, would be the European court.



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The Express Gay News

http://www.expressgaynews.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=10896


Parental permission vote could threaten GSAs in Va.
House panel passes measure
ELIZABETH PERRY | Jan 16, 8:28 AM

A Virginia House subcommittee on education voted Monday to support a billrequiring parental permission for extracurricular school activities.Delegates voted 8-5 in favor of HB1727, the first anti-gay bill to be filedwith the assembly this year.


The bill is being sponsored by Republican Matthew Lohr, delegate fromRockingham County and the City of Harrisonburg, and is based on a similarpolicy already in place in Lohr's school district in Harrisonburg.


If it passes, it could threaten the existence of some 60 Gay-StraightAlliances in public schools by requiring students to have parentalpermission slips to join the clubs.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/01/011607wa.htm


23% Of Washington School Districts Ban Teaching About Homosexuality
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 16, 2007 - 9:00 pm ET



(Seattle, Washington) Nearly a quarter of the school districts in the stateof Washington bar teachers from talking about homosexuality and nearly athird do not allow teachers to discus condoms.

The statistics are part of a study released Tuesday by the Healthy YouthAlliance, a coalition working to reduce sexually transmitted diseases andpregnancy among teens in the state.

Two hundred of Washington's 296 school districts responded to a survey putout by the coalition.

Even though all 200 districts said they taught HIV/AIDS prevention fromgrades five to twelve, 29 percent of the districts said their courses focuson "abstinence only" and forbid teachers to discuss condoms.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S15369.html?cat=1


KSTP.com - 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS

Third firefighter suing chief
Updated: 04/06/2006 08:34:13 AM



MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A third female firefighter is suing the MinneapolisFire Department.

Capt. Kristina Lemon filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Hennepin CountyDistrict Court, alleging that she faced retaliation after rejecting FireChief Bonnie Bleskachek's sexual advances.

Lemon accuses the department, the city and the chief of employmentdiscrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation. She is seeking more than50-thousand dollars in damages.

"For lesbian firefighters in the Fire Department, the city and thedepartment's decisions regarding promotion and advancement in employment isdependent upon the woman's participation in, or perceived openness toparticipation in, inappropriate personal and sexual relationships ratherthan on merit and performance," according to the lawsuit.

Bleskachek, 42, is on paid leave pending an internal investigation.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.gaynz.com/aarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=1627&print=yes


Comment: Pro-Family versus All-Families
11JAN06 - Craig Young


cently, the Christian Right "Family First Lobby" released its list of topfive so-called 'pro-family' policies. However, they fall short of benefitingall New Zealand families.

Predictably, top of the list is the Christian Right's current bete noire,Sue Bradford's Section 59 Repeal Bill. Frankly, I can't see how eliminatingparental corporal punishment of kids is going to seriously impact on familywellbeing.

Granted, there should be more money spent on parenting education and supportprogrammes, and government departments and community welfare groups thatassist children at risk of family violence from violent, abusive anddysfunctional parents. However, this is a necessary reform. For far toolong, unfit violent abusers have been allowed to get away with child batteryunder the nebulous "reasonable force" exemption of the Crimes Act. TheBradford Bill will halt this.




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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org

http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/?ak=2492

Death Strikes in Transgender Community
Murder of Diamond Person highlights the problem of domestic and otherviolence
by Yusef Najafi
Published on 01/11/2007

In the week since news surfaced about the Jan. 3 murder of Grafton LeePerson, a 42-year-old transgender woman known in the community as DiamondLee Person, her death has reverberated through the transgender community.Earlene Budd, drop-in center coordinator at Transgender Health Empowerment(THE), has already received several calls from other transgender women whoare looking for ways out of domestic abuse.

''As a result of Diamond's death, I would have to say there is more violenceagainst transgender people than we can imagine. Already I have had at least10 calls from transgender women [inquiring] about support groups, talkingabout the fact that they have not disclosed it, but are going through things[involving] violence.''



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/world/17aids.html?pagewanted=print


January 17, 2007
U.N. Says Global AIDS Effort for Children Falls Far Short
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN


Some countries are making progress in treating children with AIDS andpreventing others from becoming infected, but the overall global response is"tragically insufficient," Unicef said yesterday.

"Children affected by AIDS are now more visible and are taken more seriouslyin global, regional and national forums where they had received littleconsideration before," the United Nations agency said in a report. Bettertesting to find children with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, andsimpler formulations of the antiretroviral drugs that combat the infectionhave increased the number of children under treatment, Unicef said.Additional factors were lower prices for the drugs and improved skills amonghealth workers.

But the overall statistics for children are grim, Unicef found. It tookstock of changes in 2005 and 2006, when the agency began a program to putwhat it called the "missing face" of children at the center of the worldeffort to halt and reverse the spread of H.I.V. by 2015.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17legal.html?pagewanted=print


January 17, 2007
Gay Lawyer's Suit Accuses Firm of Bias
By JULIE CRESWELL


An associate at one of the country's most prestigious law firms, Sullivan &Cromwell, filed a state lawsuit in Manhattan yesterday accusing the firm ofa systematic campaign of discrimination and retaliation against him becauseof his sexual orientation.

Aaron B. Charney, 28, who is a fourth-year associate, asserts in thelawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, that severalpartners in Sullivan & Cromwell's highly regarded mergers and acquisitionspractice subjected him to "lewd and illegal conduct," beginning in the fallof 2005. He is seeking a jury trial and unspecified compensatory andpunitive damages.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Charney accuses members of the firm of demanding he beterminated for carrying on an "unnatural" gay relationship with anotherSullivan & Cromwell associate; Mr. Charney denies the relationship. The suitalso contends that after he filed a formal internal complaint, members ofthe firm suggested that he move to a foreign office and then fabricatedreviews to accuse him of overbilling clients, among other things.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=48944e54-ce75-427d-b3ab-6857567cc813


McKELLIPS: Civil rights movement should extend to GLBT
Trace McKellips / Senior political science major
Posted: 1/16/07


On Monday, our country celebrated a national holiday dedicated to a vanguardfor equality amid the Civil rights movement. As Martin Luther King Jr. sawit, "Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man hasever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it." Morethan 40 years later, we as a nation are still grasping.

Vestiges of Jim Crow-inspired racism still persist. However, a more blatant,accepted form of oppression is staring our nation straight in the face. Thisis the failure to allow equal rights to the gay, lesbian, bisexual andtransgender (GLBT) community.

Think we are estranged from this community here in Lincoln or even in small,farming towns? Think again. GBLT partners live in 99.3 percent of countiesin the United States, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) analysisof the 2000 census. Faced with such rampant bigotry concerning one's sexualorientation and fear of being ostracized from family and friends, manypersons recoil their natural tendencies.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/January/16/local/stories/04local.htm


January 16, 2007


Gay student gets hate mail for activism
By Matt King
Sentinel staff writer


SANTA CRUZ - A Harbor High School student who protested rules that outlawgay men from donating blood is receiving hate-filled and harassing mail atthe school.

Ronnie Childers, Harbor's senior class president, said Monday he's receivedabout 50 letters attacking his sexuality since his complaints about nationalblood donor rules, and his photo, were published in a Sentinel story lastmonth. The story later attracted state and national attention.

Some of the letters were hostile enough that Childers forwarded them topolice, "just to be on the safe side"

"There are a couple key phrases, 'I know where you go to school,'" he said."I think adults need to understand that letters like this are inappropriate"

Santa Cruz Police Department officials could not be reached Monday tocomment on the letters.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070115/OPINION03/701150317/1008/OPINION01&template=printart


Deb Price
Speaker Pelosi needs to put protecting gay kids first


The photograph of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was political gold:Surrounded by a sea of lawmakers' shiny-faced girls and boys, a few of themher own grandkids, the first woman to lead "the people's House" waved thegavel, signaling a new era, particularly for America's youngest citizens.

Odds are that at least one of the 19 children will start becoming aware ofbeing gay by age 10.

If Pelosi's picture-perfect snapshot is to mean something beyond being apolitically useful prop, she should direct the new Congress to take itsfirst serious look at what it's like to grow up gay in America.

That picture isn't so pretty. And those of us who're gay adults have thepsychic scars to prove it.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://story.indiagazette.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/701ee96610c884a6/id/224648/cs/1/


Police refuse to arrange gay wedding
India Gazette
Tuesday 16th January, 2007
IANS

Two tribal girls in Chhattisgarh have started living together after thepolice turned down their request to arrange their wedding saying the societyand parents objected to their lesbian relationship.

Meena, 21, and Bundkunwar, 22, from the Gond community of Kotal village inSurajpur district had appealed to local police last week, claiming that theyhad been in a relationship for a year and wanted to get married.

The girls said their parents had been putting pressure on them to marry boysand asked the police to immediately arrange their wedding or allow them toend their lives.

'We told girls last week that police need some time to know the legal aspectof gay marriages and they were sent back to their homes. Now we have toldthem it is not the job of the police department,' Superintendent of PoliceR.S. Nayak told IANS. He said village elders were thinking of ways ofseparating them.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.gaynz.com/news/default.asp?dismode=article&artid=4197


Bishop's tears: 'Rejection is not Christian'

Ref: Weekend Herald (m)


One of New Zealand's most powerful Anglicans has criticised the AnglicanChurch's rejection of same-sex marriages, saying it "is not an expression ofChristian love".

Bishop Richard Randerson said he would perform a civil union or same-sexmarriage ceremony if it was permitted, but he did not think the church wouldchange during his time.

During an interview with the Weekend Herald, Bishop Randerson cried as hespoke of the parents of gay and lesbian children who felt rejected by thechurch because of its stance and how they had thanked him for making themfeel wanted through his opposition.

Bishop Randerson said he knew homosexuals in the church, including a closefriend of 35 years, who had profound Christian conviction and "to say you'vegot it wrong, mate, I just couldn't do that".

He accepted it was not the church's view, but he believed the morality of arelationship was found by the love within it, not the gender of the people.He believed the church would change its stance, but not for years.

Bishop Randerson is an ordained priest of 42 years, now dean of the HolyTrinity Cathedral in Parnell and assistant bishop of Auckland.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://opinion.gaynewsblog.net/2007/01/could-log-cabin-gays-make-difference.html

Could Log Cabin Gays Make A Difference in California?


(San Francisco, California) California gay Republicans have begun a majoreffort to convince Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill legalizingsame-sex marriage if it passes the legislature. The Religious Freedom andCivil Marriage Protection Act was introduced in the Assembly last month byAssemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). The bill is identical to a onepassed last year in both the Assembly and Senate but vetoed by Gov. ArnoldSchwarzenegger. The legislation has the backing of the full LGBT caucus atthe legislature - all Democrats and is again expected to narrowly pass bothhouses. But this is the first time the governor is being pressed by gays inhis own party. Log Cabin Republicans have mounted a full scale lobbyingeffort San Jose's KNTV reported Monday. See Log Cabin PressuringSchwarzenegger On Gay Marriage @ 365Gay.com



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4103/printmode/true


Transgender People Face Violence, Obstacles
by Megan Tady

Cast to the margins of society, gender-nonconformists have always livedunder the threat of harassment and brutality, but a new report and vigilantvoices of resistance aim to expose and challenge prevailing social stigmas.Jan. 15 - From an early age, Margaux Ayn Schaffer - who was born male -identified as a girl. And from an early age, she was threatened for notconforming to her socially assigned gender.

Schaffer recalls that in the eighth grade, she was beaten up by her peers atschool, and that once, later in life, a group chased her from a trainstation.

"When I went to the security, they just said, 'You should learn how tofight,' and they were laughing at me," Schaffer said. Now 48, Schaffer is amale-to-female transsexual.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0701150064jan15,1,442697,print.story


Time to tell

January 15, 2007

For President Bush and others who would like to ramp up the size of the U.S.armed forces, this step is a no-brainer: Get rid of the "don't ask, don'ttell" policy, which has cost the country more than 11,000 military personnelin the last 14 years.

Last year, 742 men and women who had signed up to serve their country werekicked out for being gay. Besides the money it costs to replace and retraingay personnel who are discharged--a 2005 Government Accountability Officereport put that figure at $191 million since the policy began--"don't ask,don't tell" robs the armed forces of untold numbers of qualified candidateswho never enlist.

Such a policy makes zero sense in times of peace and less than zero when thecountry is at war. Several U.S. House members have made clear theirintention to revisit "don't ask, don't tell" this session.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=10896


Parental permission vote could threaten GSAs in Va.
House panel passes measure
ELIZABETH PERRY | Jan 16, 8:28 AM

A Virginia House subcommittee on education voted Monday to support a billrequiring parental permission for extracurricular school activities.Delegates voted 8-5 in favor of HB1727, the first anti-gay bill to be filedwith the assembly this year.


The bill is being sponsored by Republican Matthew Lohr, delegate fromRockingham County and the City of Harrisonburg, and is based on a similarpolicy already in place in Lohr's school district in Harrisonburg.


If it passes, it could threaten the existence of some 60 Gay-StraightAlliances in public schools by requiring students to have parentalpermission slips to join the clubs.



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http://www.independent.co.uk/

Gypsy-haters, holocaust-deniers, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-semites: theEU's new political force
By Stephen Castle in Strasbour
g
Published: 16 January 2007

Europe's far-right, xenophobic and extremist parties crossed a new thresholdyesterday, winning more speaking time, money, and political influence in theEuropean Parliament than ever before.

Claiming the backing of 23 million Europeans, ultra-nationalists securedenough MEPs to make a formal political grouping, underlining the growingchallenge posed by the far right across the continent. For the first timesince the Second World War a series of elections has swept nationalistic,far-right parties into office in municipal, regional, national and Europeanparliament elections. The admission of Romania and Bulgaria in January ofthis year brought in enough far-right MEPs to form a bloc.

Mainstream politicians have been struggling for years to contain the threatfrom hardline nationalists and extremists who have entered coalitions orsupported ruling governments in countries such as Austria, Denmark, Polandand Slovakia.




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