Saturday, June 09, 2007

GLBT DIGEST June 9, 2007

**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.


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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/world/americas/09castro.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

June 9, 2007
The Saturday Profile
A Castro Strives to Open Cuban Society's Opinions on Sex
By MARC LACEY
HAVANA

TWENTY or so transsexuals sat in a circle recently discussing their woes:harassment, boyfriend troubles, the challenge of removing hair from theirlegs. Empathizing with them was Mariela Castro Espín, Cuba's premiersexologist.

"I know, I know," she said, putting her hand on one of her own legs to showshe could relate.

Then the conversation took an interesting turn. The transsexuals, who arereceiving training as AIDS counselors at the National Center for SexualEducation, which Ms. Castro directs, brought up sexual liaisons some of themhad had with soldiers. Maybe counseling in the barracks was needed, thetranssexuals said.

Ms. Castro smiled, raised her eyebrows but did not dismiss the suggestionout of hand. Homosexuality is illegal in Cuba's military. In fact, someCubans have avoided military service altogether by claiming to be gay.

Making the proposal even more delicate, everyone in the circle knows, is thefact that Ms. Castro, 44, is the daughter of Raúl Castro, the commander ofCuba's armed forces and, with the recent health problems of his brother,Fidel, the temporary leader of the government.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/sports/othersports/09griffith.html?pagewanted=print

June 9, 2007
Ex-Champion Is Prepared to Join March
By AIMEE BERG

Emile Griffith will ride in the parade of champions at the InternationalBoxing Hall of Fame induction tomorrow in Canastota, N.Y., as he has donealmost every year since he was enshrined in 1990.

But on June 24, Griffith is committed to doing something he has never done:participate in the Gay Pride march down Fifth Avenue. As a guest of theStonewall Veterans' Association, his car will appear toward the front of theprocession.

Although Griffith is the vice president of the association, he has neversaid unequivocally that he was gay. But he has come close. On thoseoccasions, however, the question was asked directly, putting him in anuncomfortable situation.

But Sunday at his home in Hempstead on Long Island, the 69-year-old Griffithwas in an expansive mood during a two-hour interview. His concentrationlapsed occasionally and his memory often failed - the effect of 112professional fights over 20 years and a brutal mugging in 1992 - but heeasily remembered the distinction between the boxing and gay subcultures,and how he managed to navigate between them while he was in his prime.

"My fights came first," he said. "But when I had my free time, sometimes I'dmake up my mind to go to gay clubs."



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/us/09beliefs.html?pagewanted=print

June 9, 2007
Beliefs
A Tentative First Step in Addressing Faith and Politics
By PETER STEINFELS

Almost a century ago, G. K. Chesterton made a comment that could mostappropriately be applied to Monday night's forum at which leading Democraticpresidential candidates discussed faith and politics: anything worth doing"is worth doing badly."

The purpose of the forum, organized by the liberal evangelical journalSojourners and broadcast on CNN, was to hear what Democratic contendersmight say about religion and whether they might convincingly enlarge thelist of religious and moral (or "values") questions to include topics likepoverty, war and the environment rather than only those emphasized by thereligious right.

Not a bad idea. Clearly, the nation and first of all the Democrats could usea better, broader, more sophisticated conversation about religion andpolitics.

Yet it is hard to imagine anyone serious about either of these subjectswatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and formerSenator John Edwards on Monday without cringing at some of the questions orchafing at some of the speechifying and the general absence of intelligentfollow-up.

Same for the subsequent interviews by Paula Zahn of CNN of the next tier ofDemocratic candidates - Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Gov. BillRichardson of New Mexico, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut andRepresentative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio - all of them Roman Catholics andtherefore subject to obligatory questions about abortion, gay rights and howthey stood these days with the pope.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/washington/09military.html?pagewanted=print

June 9, 2007
Chairman of Joint Chiefs Will Not Be Reappointed
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, June 8 - The Bush administration said Friday that it would notreappoint Gen. Peter Pace to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefsof Staff, making him the highest-ranking officer to be a political casualtyof the fight over Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the decision was reached in order toavoid bitter hearings in a Democratic-controlled Senate that is alreadyconfronting the White House over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men andwomen in uniform, and General Pace himself would not be well-served by adivisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Mr. Gates said.

The defense secretary stood alone at a Pentagon podium in making theannouncement, and he spoke in somber tones in describing how he fully hadintended to recommend General Pace be offered a second two-year term aschairman, only to change his mind over the last few weeks after consultingwith senior senators of both parties.

Mr. Gates said he would recommend that President Bush appoint Adm. MichaelG. Mullen, the chief of naval operations, to serve as the next chairman. Thedefense secretary praised Admiral Mullen as a man of "vision, strategicinsight, experience and integrity."



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/washington/09surgeon.html?pagewanted=print

June 9, 2007
Surgeon General Nominee Is Assailed for Church Role
By NEELA BANERJEE

WASHINGTON, June 8 - President Bush's nomination of Dr. James W. HolsingerJr., a Kentucky cardiologist, to be surgeon general is drawing criticismfrom gay rights groups, physicians and lawmakers who say they are troubledby opinions critical of homosexuality that Dr. Holsinger has voiced innearly 20 years as a high-ranking layman in the United Methodist Church.

Dr. Holsinger's friends within the United Methodist Church and the medicalcommunity, however, are defending him as a professional who does notdiscriminate against people in his congregation or in his care.

The critics said they were worried that Dr. Holsinger might not serve gaymen and lesbians fairly as surgeon general, the nation's chief healtheducator, largely because of a report he wrote in 1991 for a UnitedMethodist committee that essentially described male homosexuality asunnatural.

They also point to his service on the board of a Methodist group that in1998 criticized the "radical homosexual/lesbian lobby" for trying to forcethe church "to grant approval to the practice of homosexuality."

Critics have also cited Dr. Holsinger's leadership of the Judicial Councilof the United Methodist Church, the denomination's highest court, which inlate 2005 decided to reinstate a pastor who had been suspended for refusingto allow a gay man to join his congregation, a decision the church's bishopslater rejected.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802463.html

IN BRIEF
Saturday, June 9, 2007; Page B09
CONSERVATIVE AFFILIATION
Pa. Presbyterian Church Breaks Away

In a move emblematic of mainline Protestant divisions over sexuality,
members of the largest church in the Pittsburgh Presbytery voted to leavethe Presbyterian Church (USA) and join a smaller, more conservativedenomination.

At a congregational meeting, 951 members of Memorial Park PresbyterianChurch in McCandless Township, Pa., voted to be affiliated with theEvangelical Presbyterian Church. Fifty-two percent, or 761 members, of the1,450-member congregation needed to approve the plan.

Memorial Park church officials said last month they were concerned about thenational denomination's move away from traditional doctrines concerning theHoly Trinity and the authority of the Bible and about the denomination'sincreasingly liberal views on gay ordination.

-- Associated Press



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802657_pf.html

Capital Pride Takes to the Streets
Saturday, June 9, 2007; C12

The 32nd annual Capital Pride festival has been filling the city's venuesall week with dances, the Mr. and Ms. competitions, concerts anddiscussions.

But today marks the start of some of the most notable events, the PrideParade included. The annual parade steps off at 23rd and P streets NW, headsaround Dupont Circle, before returning to P and wrapping up at ThomasCircle. Free. 6:30 p.m.

Stationery shop and gallery Pulp will host a show of photographs by artistFrank Muzzy timed for Pride Week. Muzzy generally takes architectural photosof Washington and Paris and has documented the gay history of this city, butthis time around he turns his lens to suggestive subject matter. He calls it"flesh photography." Free. Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sunday 11-5through Sept. 9. 1803 14th St. NW. 202-462-7857.

The dance party Collision at Love will be where it's at tonight. TheLGBT-friendly bash will feature DJs Steve Henderson, John Mank, Ting, Kosand others. $20; free till 10 p.m. 1350 Okie St. NE. (21 and older only).202-636-9030.

The last major event of Pride Week is tomorrow's street festival. The festfeatures vendors and groups including the newly renamed Ganymede Arts(formerly Actors' Theatre of Washington) and the Peace Corps. Free. 11a.m.-6 p.m. Pennsylvania Avenue between Third and Seventh streets NW.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802470_pf.html

What Al Wishes Abe Said
By Andrew Ferguson
Sunday, June 10, 2007; B05

You can't really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book, "TheAssault on Reason." It's a sprawling, untidy blast of indignation, andannotating it with footnotes would be like trying to slip rubber bandsaround a puddle of quicksilver. Still, I'd love to know where he found thescary quote from Abraham Lincoln that he uses on page 88.

In a chapter entitled "The Politics of Wealth," Gore argues that the ancientthreat to democracy posed by rich people run amok has finally been realizedunder the man who beat him in the 2000 presidential race. Even Lincoln, Goresays, saw the age of Bush coming in 1864: "I see in the near future a crisisapproaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of mycountry. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an eraof corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the countrywill endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of thepeople until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic isdestroyed."

The quote is a favorite of liberal bloggers, which is probably how Gore cameacross it. And as a description of how many on the left see the countryseven years into their Bush nightmare, it's pretty much perfect.

Too perfect, in fact. If you're familiar with Lincoln's distinctive way ofexpressing himself, you'll hear the false notes the passage strikes. For onething, Lincoln just wasn't the "trembling" kind -- or if he was, he kept histrembling to himself. Words such as "enthroned" and "aggregated" are a bittoo fancy for his plain, unclotted prose, and the phrase "money power"suggests a conspiratorial turn of mind that would have been foreign to him.Indeed, these words don't show up anywhere else in "The Collected Works ofAbraham Lincoln" (which, thanks to Gore's Internet, are now searchable athttp://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/).

Moreover, the point of the passage is very un-Lincolnian. A corporate lawyerwhose long and cunning labor on behalf of the railroads earned him acomfortable income, Lincoln was a vigorous champion of market capitalism,even when it drifted (as it tends to do) toward large concentrations ofwealth. Many of his administration's signal initiatives -- thetranscontinental railroad, for example -- amounted to what liberals todaywould condemn as "corporate welfare." Lots of speculators got rich underLincoln, as Gore notes. As Gore does not note, Lincoln seemed not to haveminded.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060800733_pf.html

Gay Programming Steps Out On Satellite and Digital
By Marc Fisher
Sunday, June 10, 2007; N07

Acaller rings up the "Derek and Romaine" show for some frank advice. The mansays he'd had a random sexual encounter with a stranger and they got totalking and it turned out that the partners were cousins.

The question: "Can I marry him?"

"Honestly, I think you can," says Derek Hartley, co-host of the frisky,freewheeling talk show that airs on Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ, the firstamong several new radio outlets dedicated to programming for a gay audience.

Hartley -- a former movie reviewer from Fredericksburg who came to radiofrom a gay Web site -- and Romaine Patterson -- an activist who startedworking with gay political groups after her close friend Matthew Shepard waskilled in an anti-gay attack in 1998Ö -- offer a distinctly different brandof radio. Their nightly show features segments such as "ShockingConfessions," when callers tell stories absolutely none of which can berelated in a family newspaper, or "What's Your Gay Problem?," when the hostsdispense relationships advice that would result in an instant loss oflicense on old-fashioned broadcast radio.

But OutQ is not just about pushing the boundaries of what can be said on theradio. The channel, which launched in 2003 as radio's first all-gayprogramming stream, includes hourly reports of news for and about gays,Broadway show tunes, dance club music, a talk show with MichelangeloSignorile and a celebrity-oriented morning show.



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/548/v-print/story/133922.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
Nationally recognized gay library is relocating
BY ROBBYN MITCHELL

One of the nation's largest libraries of gay and lesbian literature --forced to find a new home after its building in Fort Lauderdale was boughtby a condominium developer -- is packing up its 18,000 books and othercollections for the third time in its history.

Pending approval by the County Commission, the Stonewall Library andArchives, now housed in the Gay and Lesbian Community Center on NorthAndrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, will move its massive collection to a4,200-square-foot space in the Fort Lauderdale Branch of the Broward CountyLibrary at 1300 E. Sunrise Blvd. by the end of the year.

The Stonewall, which boasts the largest collection of written words aboutgays and lesbians in the Southeastern United States, had its beginnings 34years ago in Hollywood, where a teenager began collecting books to help himunderstand his homosexuality. Mark Silber later formed a group named GayCommunity Services of Broward County and offered to lend his books to othermembers of the gay community.

Eventually, the collection was named Stonewall, after the 1969 Stonewall Innriots spawned by oppressive police tactics in New York City's GreenwichVillage that marked the beginning of modern gay rights movement.

Today, the library is an important resource, not only for the local gay andlesbian community but for writers, scholars and researchers across thenation. Each year, the library gets nearly 9,000 visitors.



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/889/v-print/story/133168.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
Pentagon shifts course, Gen. Pace out
By LOLITA BALDOR

Bitter divisions over the Iraq war, particularly on Capitol Hill, led theBush administration to change course and replace Gen. Peter Pace as chairmanof the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a grim Defense Secretary Robert Gates saidFriday.

Gates said that despite earlier plans to recommend Pace for a secondtwo-year term as chairman, he instead was recommending Adm. Mike Mullen,currently chief of naval operations, to take over when Pace's term expiresSept. 30. President Bush accepted the recommendation.

"I think that the events of the last several months have simply created anenvironment in which I think there would be a confirmation process thatwould not be in the best interests of the country," Gates said. "I wish itwere not necessary to make a decision like this. But I think it's arealistic appraisal of where we are."

Bush praised Pace, saying he has "relied on his unvarnished militaryjudgment, and I value his candor, his integrity, and his friendship."

"Pete's job has been to help ensure that America's military forces areprepared to meet the threats of this new century," Bush said in a statementissued in Rome, where he is visiting. "This is a difficult task in a time ofpeace. Pete Pace has done it in a time of war - and he has done itsuperbly."



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/277/v-print/story/132761.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
Gay rights debate rages on 30 years after Miami-Dade challenge
BY STEVE ROTHAUS

Thirty years ago, most people didn't think about gay rights, much lessdiscuss the issue in public.

A 1977 battle in Miami-Dade County between two local mothers changed allthat, launching both the modern public debate about homosexuality and theemergence of politically powerful Christian conservatives.

While voters cast a decisive ''no'' vote for gay rights 30 years ago thisweek, the discussion triggered by the divisive debate -- which ended thefriendship between singing star Anita Bryant and then-Miami-DadeCommissioner Ruth Shack -- has not ceased.

''It was the beginning of two movements, the Christian Coalition and gayrights,'' Shack now says.

''Prior to this, there was very little meaningful discussion outside the gaycommunity about gay rights,'' said Fred Fejes, a Florida Atlantic Universitycommunications professor who is writing an academic book, Moral Panic: TheOrigin of the American Debate on Gay Rights.



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/277/v-print/story/132766.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
Anita's ex paid dearly in the fight
BY STEVE ROTHAUS

Since the 1977 gay-rights referendum, life has not been good for Bob Green.Anita Bryant divorced the one-time rock 'n' roll disc jockey three yearslater and she left South Florida for good.

Green lives alone in a Miami Beach home a few blocks from where the famouscouple lived with their four children on North Bay Road.

''I jog past the house and I say I wish I was back there in the good olddays,'' said Green, 76. ``I used to jog on North Bay Road and cry all theway. I don't have any friends. I have my family and people in theneighborhood. I'm kind of like a hermit. I'm not antisocial. It's just theway I've become.

When Green and Bryant married in 1960, they had a bright future. He was apopular South Florida radio and television personality; she was a formerMiss Oklahoma and runner-up to 1959 Miss America, Mary Ann Mobley.

Bryant, with a powerful singing voice, already had a hit record, Till ThereWas You from Broadway's The Music Man.



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/277/v-print/story/132765.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
She kept her life to herself
BY STEVE ROTHAUS

On April 17, 1977, The Miami Herald profiled a lesbian schoolteacher whosaid that only two people at work knew her secret. ''I live in terror thatsomeone will learn I'm gay,'' said the teacher, identified as ``Eleanor.''Thirty years later, she's unafraid.

''I didn't use my name. I already had plenty of flack,'' reveals EddaCimino, who retired in 1995. ``Teachers were trashing gays and lesbians inthe teacher's lounge. They were telling dirty jokes about gays and lesbians.. . . We got death threats on the phone.''

Then, she had enough. ``It was harder to be in the closet than out, Ifinally decided.''

Cimino said she got tired of going to school and hearing the dirty jokes:

``One day, I walked into the lounge and said, `I know you don't mean to hurtmy feelings, but I want you to know I am gay and please don't use thoseremarks when I'm in here.''



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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/277/v-print/story/132764.html

Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
Growing up gay in the storm
BY STEVE ROTHAUS

Damian Pardo vividly remembers spring 1977.

''I was 13 and I knew I was gay,'' said Pardo, now a senior financialadvisor at Merrill Lynch and longtime Miami-Dade activist. ``I had neverdiscussed it with anyone, but I certainly was aware of it.

Until then, no one had talked about homosexuality in Pardo's Coral Gableshome.

''Before Anita Bryant? Never!'' he said. ``I thought I was the only one.''

During the campaign, Pardo recalls, there was a ``consistent battering inthe press about homosexuals and gays.''

''It was all about stereotypes,'' he says. 'I remember it vividly, the `SaveOur Children' theme. It was implicit that homosexuals were pedophiles andcriminals. They were creating this image, the same way it was done duringthe Nazi era. They created monsters.''



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45870.asp

June 09, 2007
Lesbian activist's archives destroyed in fire

A fire burned through a Washington, D.C., lesbian activist's home,potentially destroying significant portions of her archives of local gayhistory, The Washington Blade reported Wednesday.

Cheryl Spector was at work when she discovered that an electrical fire hadbegun in her apartment, severely damaging her place and putting her years ofarchives in danger.

"I don't know what I've lost," Spector said to the Blade. She explained shewould need the community's help to assess the damage. "We have to go pictureby picture, photo album by photo album."

Spector has been an activist for lesbian rights and AIDS awareness foralmost 20 years. She became involved in advocacy shortly after her brother's1986 suicide following his AIDS diagnosis.

In an article published a month ago by the Blade, her apartment wasdescribed as "crammed with videos, photos, and memorabilia of gay eventsthat she has attended, planned, and founded over the years."

"You could fill half a museum just with what's in my apartment," Spectorsaid at the time. (The Advocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45827.asp

June 07, 2007
The Hallmark hullabaloo

While shopping for a Father's Day card, an Advocate reader found aparticularly offensive card made by Hallmark. So we contacted the greetingcard company to find out what gives.

By Michelle Garcia

When an Advocate reader was shopping for a Father's Day card, he came acrossone greeting he thought highly offensive.

The cover of the card featured a photo of an idyllic, upscale picnic spread:plaid blanket, wicker basket, a bottle of wine and two glasses, a round ofbread, a fruit plate. Above the photo, the card read, "Dad, how about aFather's Day picnic?" The punch line inside: "Too queer? Yeah, I thought sotoo."

The reader said that he saw the card in two separate supermarkets andcomplained both times to store managers. But his greatest disappointment wasin the card company.

"Hallmark has long marketed its products with the slogan 'When you careenough to send the very best,' " he said via e-mail. "For my money, 'thevery best' does not include the use of slurs against a part of the company'scustomer base."

The Advocate brought this card to the attention of Hallmark's media liaison,Deidre Parkes, who said that the company would pull the cards from shelvesimmediately.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060807g8.htm

G8 OKs $60 Billion African AIDS Package
by The Associated Press
Posted: June 8, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Kuehlungsborn, Germany) Members of the Group of Eight have agreed on aprogram worth more than US$60 billion to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS inAfrica, Germany's development minister said Friday.

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul made the announcement on state ZDF televisionbefore G-8 leaders sat down with African and international officials todiscuss African issues.

Wieczorek-Zeul said the money was earmarked for fighting malaria andtuberculosis, as well as HIV/AIDS and about half of it would come from theUnited States, with Germany contributing US$5.4 billion between now and2015.

``The situation (in Africa) is simply so dramatic,'' she said in Berlin.

Proponents of debt relief in Africa and other social activists havecriticized the world's leading industrial nations for failing to live up topromises made two years ago at the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060807india.htm

India Downsizes Number With HIV/AIDS
by The Associated Press
Posted: June 8, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(New Delhi) The number of Indians infected with HIV is far smaller thanpreviously believed, according to new data that appears to vindicate criticswho said earlier U.N. assessments of the country's epidemic were vastlyoverestimated.

Experts say the still-unreleased survey is likely to show that India'snumber of HIV cases, which last year was said to be the highest in the worldat 5.7 million, is actually well below that mark.

"The actual number we've come up with in aggregate is likely to be lower,and perhaps substantially lower," said Ashok Alexander, director of theAvahan, the Indian program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whichhelped fund the study.

Alexander declined to estimate what the new number would be, saying the datais still being analyzed and precise numbers would not be released for a fewmore weeks.

The new estimate comes from combining data collected from prenatal clinics;a survey of high-risk groups, such as sex workers; and from the government'sNational Family Health Survey - a method Alexander said was more reliablethan the previous estimates, which relied largely on extrapolating from theprenatal clinic data.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060807nsmurd.htm

Man Accused Of Canadian Gay Killings Appears In Court For NY Murder
by The Canadian Press
Posted: June 8, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Mooers, New York) A 26-year-old Canadian has pleaded not guilty in thedeath of a man who was found at a remote hunting camp in northern New York.

Glen Douglas Race of Dartmouth, N.S., was charged with second-degree murderin the death of Darcy Manor. He was also charged with fourth-degree criminalpossession of stolen property _ a .44-calibre rifle that was stolen from thescene in Mooers where Manor was found dead.

Believed to be the murder weapon, the rifle was found in Race's possessionwhen he was arrested in Texas near the Mexican border.

About 60 people, many of them Manor's relatives, were in court as thediminutive Canadian was led in wearing a white shirt, jeans, sneakerswithout laces, and a white hooded mask that had fine netting over the eyesso he could see.

Andrew Wylie, the prosecuting district attorney, said Race was forced towear the mask after spitting on an officer as he was being booked by NewYork State police shortly after his arrival from Texas, where he wasarrested May 15 near the Mexican border.



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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, (June 8, 2007)
Contact:?Brian Winfield, Communications Director, (727) 488-7799

Largo Apologizes for Arrest and Mistreatment of Nadine Smith

(Largo) The Largo City Commission has issued a formal public apology toEquality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith for her unprovoked andunnecessarily violent arrest at the February 27th commission hearing where amajority of commissioners voted to fire City Manager because she istransgender.

Acting City Manager, Mac Craig, read the formal apology during the June 5thcommission hearing, referring to the incident as ?regrettable,? and saying,?We wish it would not have happened.? Earlier in the week, Craig contactedNadine to inform her that the apology would be forthcoming.

?The city's apology is a welcome first step toward ensuring that thisdoesn't happen again,? said Brian Winfield, communications director forEquality Florida.

Nadine was arrested for handing a ?Don?t Discriminate? flyer to someone whoasked for it.? The arrest, captured by a photographer and witnessed bydozens sparked a national outcry from civil rights leaders and organizationsacross the state and nation.?

The ACLU defended Nadine against the felony criminal charge, which the StateAttorney later refused to pursue.



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

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/13468447/detail.html?treets=bos&tml=bos_natlbreak&ts=T&tmi=bos_natlbreak_1_12090106082007

Pace Out As Joint Chiefs Chairman
Adm. Mullen Likely New Chairman

POSTED: 12:51 pm EDT June 8, 2007
UPDATED: 3:50 pm EDT June 8, 2007
Gen. Peter Pace, the 16th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is beingreplaced.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the announcement on Friday.

Gates said he had intended to nominate Pace to a second term, but "theevents of the last several months" -- the developments with the war inIraq -- would have made for a difficult confirmation hearing.

He said that after consulting with senators in both parties, he hadconcluded that "the focus of his confirmation process would have been on thepast and not on the future."

"It would not have been in the best interests of the country," Gates said.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen is the likely nominee to replace Pace, Gates said.

Mullen is a 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy. He has commanded threeships: the USS Noxabee, the USS Goldsborough and the USS Yorktown. He alsocommanded the USS George Washington Battle Group and served as the commanderof U.S. 2nd Fleet/NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic.



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

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=12957

Former gay outreach adviser sues DNC
Hitchcock accuses Dean, others of discrimination, retaliation
by JOSHUA LYNSEN | Jun 6, 10:37 AM

A former gay outreach adviser for the Democratic National Committee has suedthe organization, alleging discrimination.

In a lawsuit against the DNC, its chair, Howard Dean and two partyofficials, Donald Hitchcock says he was the target of discrimination,retaliation and defamation during and after his tenure as director of theGay & Lesbian Leadership Council.

The lawsuit was filed April 17 in D.C. Superior Court. Responses were filedMay 31.

Hitchcock, who joined the DNC in June 2005, was fired May 2, 2006. Thetermination came days after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, alongtime party activist, sent an open letter to gay Democrats saying Deanfailed to adequately defend gay rights.

Yandura's letter, sent in April 2006, criticized Dean and the party for notgetting involved in state ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage. Italso suggested that gays should temporarily withhold donations to Democrats.



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

http://www.idahostatesman.com/387/story/86871.html

Twin Falls excludes gays' float from parade
Decision draws praise from Idaho Values Alliance director; group saysmembers feel unwelcomed
Staff and wire reports - Idaho Statesman
Edition Date: 06/03/07

A Boise-based family values group on Saturday praised a Twin Falls group'sdecision not to allow a gay and lesbian group to take part in a parade.Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, said theWestern Days Committee was right to deny a float by the Southern Idaho Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.

"The parade organizers are to be commended for recognizing that promotingthe normalization of homosexual behavior is never right for any communitythat believes in the family as the cornerstone of a healthy society,"Fischer said.

It was the first float to be denied entry into the Western Days parade,which took place Saturday.

The Idaho Equality Exploratory Committee, a statewide network for the gayand lesbian community, said the committee's decision was based on ignoranceand intolerance.

"This is clearly sending a message to GLBT people that they are not welcomein the community," said Andrea Shipley, interim co-coordinator for IEEC.

The group's float consisted of a large Styrofoam centerpiece in the shape ofIdaho, as well as other cutouts in the shape of cowboy boots, chaps andhats. Most of the float was painted with rainbow colors.



=

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

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=20983

Navy assigns openly-gay sailor to reserves
Friday Jun 8, 2007

The United States Navy has again assigned an openly gay sailor to duty inthe Individual Ready Reserves (IRR), according to paperwork obtained yServicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).

Former Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Knight, a Hebrew linguist recentlydeployed to Kuwait, has been placed on IRR duty until April 2009, despitepublicly 'coming out' in national media outlets and being told he wouldreceive a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" dismissal. Knight's dismissal form, alsocalled a DD-214, again lists his reason for dismissal as 'Completion ofService,' and places him in the IRR. The classification allows him to againbe called to active duty, as he was in 2006 after completing a four-yearenlistment in the Navy. Knight has now served openly during two tours withthe Navy, with the support of his command and colleagues.

"It's a very pleasant, and unexpected, surprise to learn that the Navy sovalues Jason's service that they have again assigned him to the IndividualReady Reserves, despite his very public advocacy as an openly gay man,"Steve Ralls, director of communications for Servicemembers Legal DefenseNetwork (SLDN), told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes in a statement.

"There are clearly many people inside the armed forces who couldn't careless about sexual orientation. In fact, our national security would be farbetter served if more commands elected to so visibly support their gaytroops. The Navy has welcomed Jason Knight not once, not twice, but now athird time, and he has always answered the call to duty. His story provesthere is no room to question the patriotism, dedication and commitment oflesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans."



=

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

http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/june/0608073.htm

June 8, 2007
Anti-gay campaign is a power grab, says Nigerian activist
by Eric Resnick

Cleveland--An anti-gay campaign in Nigeria is part of the national church'sefforts to grab power and oil wealth in the west African nation, says a gayactivist who is touring the U.S.

Davis Mac-Iyalla, the founder of Changing Attitude Nigeria, visited fourOhio cities in May with a plea for action from the LGBT community inAmerica.

He says his refusal to deny his sexual orientation has put him at odds withthis campaign.

Because he refuses to back down, he says the Nigerian church, led byArchbishop Peter Akinola, has threatened his life.

Akinola leads the effort in the world Anglican Communion to make the U.S.Episcopal Church back away from its pro-gay positions or be thrown out ofthe worldwide church.

Akinola fomented the worldwide controversy around the election of the RightRev. V. Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. Robinson isopenly gay and non-celibate.

"Once gays and lesbians get a voice," said Mac-Iyalla, "it will be harderfor the church to control the population [of Nigeria]," which he says is thereal danger his public declarations pose.

It is that control, according to Mac-Iyalla, which allows the NigerianAnglican Church, the government, and the oil companies doing business thereto do "back door deals" from which they all benefit at the expense of thepeople.



=

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

http://www.truthwinsout.org/uncategorized/david-gergen-holsinger-nomination-raises-question-of-ideology-over-competence/#more-187

HOLSINGER UPDATE: SEN. OBAMA ISSUES A STATEMENT
June 7th, 2007

Senator Obama (D-IL) released the following statement Thursday morning.

"America's top doctor should be a doctor for all Americans, and so I haveserious reservations about nominating someone who would inject his ownanti-gay ideology into critical decisions about the health and well-being ofour nation."

"As with other nominees, I will listen to the testimony of Dr. JamesHolsinger, but this Administration must know that the United States SurgeonGeneral's office is no place for bigotry or ideology that would trump soundscience and good judgment," Obama's statement continued.



=

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

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070607gay-lawyers-story,0,5667399.story?coll=chi-bizfront-hed

Gay lawyers come out as clients demand more diversity
By Cynthia Cotts
Bloomberg News
Published June 7, 2007, 11:01 AM CDT

When Coco Soodek, a corporate lawyer in the Chicago office of Bryan CaveLLP, was promoted to partner in 2005, the firm invited all the new partnersto dinner at its St. Louis headquarters.

Soodek, 36, was encouraged to bring her companion, Roxanne Saylor, 37. Thecouple was seated by the wife of the firm's chairman, and the partners'spouses were asked to stand.

"If I had one toe left in the closet, they made me take it out," Soodeksays. "There was no going back."

Soodek's experience may be approaching the norm for gays and lesbians atprominent U.S. law firms, which compete to hire lawyers of diverse ethnicbackgrounds, gender and sexual orientation.

"Today, elite law firms are behaving as good elites should," says KeithWetmore, 50, a gay lawyer who is chairman of the San Francisco-based firmMorrison & Foerster LLP. "They've become culturally sensitive."

The number of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered lawyersincreased by more than 50 percent from 2002 to 2006, according to theNational Association for Law Placement.



=

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

http://www.alternet.org/rights/52648/

The Expensive Failure of Abstinence Education
By Amy DePaul, AlterNet
Posted on May 31, 2007, Printed on June 8, 2007

Last month's resignation of Wade Horn, former assistant secretary at theU.S. Department of Health and Human Services and point man for conservativesocial policy, came just as support was crumbling and mistrust mounting fora costly and, many would argue, unsuccessful initiative -- abstinenceeducation.

"At this point we've spent more than a billion dollars on this program thatwas never proven in the first place," said Heather Boonstra, public policyanalyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organizationspecializing in reproductive health issues.

Horn left government in early April for a private-sector position atDeloitte Consulting LLP after heading the Administration for ChildrenandFamilies (ACF), a division of HHS. There, Horn shepherded a host ofcontentious initiatives, for example: marriage promotion for poor women asan anti-poverty strategy, reduced access to higher education for welfarerecipients, standardized testing of low-income preschoolers, programs tostrengthen fatherhood by pushing matrimony and relationship skills, andchastity for 19- to 29-year-olds.

Many of these policies had come under fire over the years from members ofCongress, feminists and advocates of low-income families -- increasingly soin Horn's final months at HHS.



=

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, (June 8, 2007)
Contact:?Brian Winfield, Communications Director, (727) 488-7799

Largo Apologizes for Arrest and Mistreatment of Nadine Smith

(Largo) The Largo City Commission has issued a formal public apology toEquality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith for her unprovoked andunnecessarily violent arrest at the February 27th commission hearing where amajority of commissioners voted to fire City Manager because she istransgender.

Acting City Manager, Mac Craig, read the formal apology during the June 5thcommission hearing, referring to the incident as ?regrettable,? and saying,?We wish it would not have happened.? Earlier in the week, Craig contactedNadine to inform her that the apology would be forthcoming.

?The city's apology is a welcome first step toward ensuring that thisdoesn't happen again,? said Brian Winfield, communications director forEquality Florida.

Nadine was arrested for handing a ?Don?t Discriminate? flyer to someone whoasked for it.? The arrest, captured by a photographer and witnessed bydozens sparked a national outcry from civil rights leaders and organizationsacross the state and nation.?

The ACLU defended Nadine against the felony criminal charge, which the StateAttorney later refused to pursue.



=

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

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/13468447/detail.html?treets=bos&tml=bos_natlbreak&ts=T&tmi=bos_natlbreak_1_12090106082007

Pace Out As Joint Chiefs Chairman
Adm. Mullen Likely New Chairman

POSTED: 12:51 pm EDT June 8, 2007
UPDATED: 3:50 pm EDT June 8, 2007
Gen. Peter Pace, the 16th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is beingreplaced.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the announcement on Friday.

Gates said he had intended to nominate Pace to a second term, but "theevents of the last several months" -- the developments with the war inIraq -- would have made for a difficult confirmation hearing.

He said that after consulting with senators in both parties, he hadconcluded that "the focus of his confirmation process would have been on thepast and not on the future."

"It would not have been in the best interests of the country," Gates said.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen is the likely nominee to replace Pace, Gates said.

Mullen is a 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy. He has commanded threeships: the USS Noxabee, the USS Goldsborough and the USS Yorktown. He alsocommanded the USS George Washington Battle Group and served as the commanderof U.S. 2nd Fleet/NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic.



=

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

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=12957

Former gay outreach adviser sues DNC
Hitchcock accuses Dean, others of discrimination, retaliation
by JOSHUA LYNSEN | Jun 6, 10:37 AM

A former gay outreach adviser for the Democratic National Committee has suedthe organization, alleging discrimination.

In a lawsuit against the DNC, its chair, Howard Dean and two partyofficials, Donald Hitchcock says he was the target of discrimination,retaliation and defamation during and after his tenure as director of theGay & Lesbian Leadership Council.

The lawsuit was filed April 17 in D.C. Superior Court. Responses were filedMay 31.

Hitchcock, who joined the DNC in June 2005, was fired May 2, 2006. Thetermination came days after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, alongtime party activist, sent an open letter to gay Democrats saying Deanfailed to adequately defend gay rights.

Yandura's letter, sent in April 2006, criticized Dean and the party for notgetting involved in state ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage. Italso suggested that gays should temporarily withhold donations to Democrats.



=

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

http://www.idahostatesman.com/387/story/86871.html

Twin Falls excludes gays' float from parade
Decision draws praise from Idaho Values Alliance director; group saysmembers feel unwelcomed
Staff and wire reports - Idaho Statesman
Edition Date: 06/03/07

A Boise-based family values group on Saturday praised a Twin Falls group'sdecision not to allow a gay and lesbian group to take part in a parade.Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, said theWestern Days Committee was right to deny a float by the Southern Idaho Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.

"The parade organizers are to be commended for recognizing that promotingthe normalization of homosexual behavior is never right for any communitythat believes in the family as the cornerstone of a healthy society,"
Fischer said.

It was the first float to be denied entry into the Western Days parade,which took place Saturday.

The Idaho Equality Exploratory Committee, a statewide network for the gayand lesbian community, said the committee's decision was based on ignoranceand intolerance.

"This is clearly sending a message to GLBT people that they are not welcomein the community," said Andrea Shipley, interim co-coordinator for IEEC.

The group's float consisted of a large Styrofoam centerpiece in the shape ofIdaho, as well as other cutouts in the shape of cowboy boots, chaps andhats. Most of the float was painted with rainbow colors.



=

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

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=20983

Navy assigns openly-gay sailor to reserves
Friday Jun 8, 2007

The United States Navy has again assigned an openly gay sailor to duty inthe Individual Ready Reserves (IRR), according to paperwork obtained byServicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).

Former Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Knight, a Hebrew linguist recentlydeployed to Kuwait, has been placed on IRR duty until April 2009, despitepublicly 'coming out' in national media outlets and being told he wouldreceive a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" dismissal. Knight's dismissal form, alsocalled a DD-214, again lists his reason for dismissal as 'Completion ofService,' and places him in the IRR. The classification allows him to againbe called to active duty, as he was in 2006 after completing a four-yearenlistment in the Navy. Knight has now served openly during two tours withthe Navy, with the support of his command and colleagues.

"It's a very pleasant, and unexpected, surprise to learn that the Navy sovalues Jason's service that they have again assigned him to the IndividualReady Reserves, despite his very public advocacy as an openly gay man,"Steve Ralls, director of communications for Servicemembers Legal DefenseNetwork (SLDN), told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes in a statement.

"There are clearly many people inside the armed forces who couldn't care
less about sexual orientation. In fact, our national security would be farbetter served if more commands elected to so visibly support their gaytroops. The Navy has welcomed Jason Knight not once, not twice, but now athird time, and he has always answered the call to duty. His story provesthere is no room to question the patriotism, dedication and commitment oflesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans."



=

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

http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/june/0608073.htm

June 8, 2007
Anti-gay campaign is a power grab, says Nigerian activist
by Eric Resnick

Cleveland--An anti-gay campaign in Nigeria is part of the national church'sefforts to grab power and oil wealth in the west African nation, says a gayactivist who is touring the U.S.

Davis Mac-Iyalla, the founder of Changing Attitude Nigeria, visited fourOhio cities in May with a plea for action from the LGBT community inAmerica.

He says his refusal to deny his sexual orientation has put him at odds withthis campaign.

Because he refuses to back down, he says the Nigerian church, led byArchbishop Peter Akinola, has threatened his life.

Akinola leads the effort in the world Anglican Communion to make the U.S.Episcopal Church back away from its pro-gay positions or be thrown out ofthe worldwide church.

Akinola fomented the worldwide controversy around the election of the RightRev. V. Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. Robinson isopenly gay and non-celibate.

"Once gays and lesbians get a voice," said Mac-Iyalla, "it will be harderfor the church to control the population [of Nigeria]," which he says is thereal danger his public declarations pose.

It is that control, according to Mac-Iyalla, which allows the NigerianAnglican Church, the government, and the oil companies doing business thereto do "back door deals" from which they all benefit at the expense of thepeople.



=

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

http://www.truthwinsout.org/uncategorized/david-gergen-holsinger-nomination-raises-question-of-ideology-over-competence/#more-187

HOLSINGER UPDATE: SEN. OBAMA ISSUES A STATEMENT
June 7th, 2007

Senator Obama (D-IL) released the following statement Thursday morning.

"America's top doctor should be a doctor for all Americans, and so I haveserious reservations about nominating someone who would inject his ownanti-gay ideology into critical decisions about the health and well-being ofour nation."

"As with other nominees, I will listen to the testimony of Dr. JamesHolsinger, but this Administration must know that the United States SurgeonGeneral's office is no place for bigotry or ideology that would trump soundscience and good judgment," Obama's statement continued.



=

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

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070607gay-lawyers-story,0,5667399.story?coll=chi-bizfront-hed

Gay lawyers come out as clients demand more diversity
By Cynthia Cotts
Bloomberg News
Published June 7, 2007, 11:01 AM CDT

When Coco Soodek, a corporate lawyer in the Chicago office of Bryan CaveLLP, was promoted to partner in 2005, the firm invited all the new partnersto dinner at its St. Louis headquarters.

Soodek, 36, was encouraged to bring her companion, Roxanne Saylor, 37. Thecouple was seated by the wife of the firm's chairman, and the partners'spouses were asked to stand.

"If I had one toe left in the closet, they made me take it out," Soodeksays. "There was no going back."

Soodek's experience may be approaching the norm for gays and lesbians atprominent U.S. law firms, which compete to hire lawyers of diverse ethnicbackgrounds, gender and sexual orientation.

"Today, elite law firms are behaving as good elites should," says KeithWetmore, 50, a gay lawyer who is chairman of the San Francisco-based firmMorrison & Foerster LLP. "They've become culturally sensitive."

The number of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered lawyersincreased by more than 50 percent from 2002 to 2006, according to theNational Association for Law Placement.



=

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

http://www.alternet.org/rights/52648/

The Expensive Failure of Abstinence Education
By Amy DePaul, AlterNet
Posted on May 31, 2007, Printed on June 8, 2007

Last month's resignation of Wade Horn, former assistant secretary at theU.S. Department of Health and Human Services and point man for conservativesocial policy, came just as support was crumbling and mistrust mounting fora costly and, many would argue, unsuccessful initiative -- abstinenceeducation.

"At this point we've spent more than a billion dollars on this program thatwas never proven in the first place," said Heather Boonstra, public policyanalyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organizationspecializing in reproductive health issues.

Horn left government in early April for a private-sector position atDeloitte Consulting LLP after heading the Administration for ChildrenandFamilies (ACF), a division of HHS. There, Horn shepherded a host ofcontentious initiatives, for example: marriage promotion for poor women asan anti-poverty strategy, reduced access to higher education for welfarerecipients, standardized testing of low-income preschoolers, programs tostrengthen fatherhood by pushing matrimony and relationship skills, andchastity for 19- to 29-year-olds.

Many of these policies had come under fire over the years from members ofCongress, feminists and advocates of low-income families -- increasingly soin Horn's final months at HHS.


=

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

INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Action Alert: United States: IGLHRC Supports the 3rd Annual Trans Day ofAction for Social & Economic Justice



The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) joins theTransJustice Initiative of the Audre Lorde Project (The Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Centerfor Community Organizing) to observe June 22, 2007 as the 3rd Annual TransDay of Action for Social & Economic Justice in New York City. On this day,Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) People of Color and their allies willtake to the streets of New York City to demand justice and work togethertowards dismantling the transphobia, racism, classism, sexism, ageism,homophobia and xenophobia that permeates throughout our movements for socialjustice. IGLHRC asks its members and supporters to hold similar events indifferent cities and countries to highlight the ongoing struggle of thetransgender community for equality and justice.

To mark the occasion, the TransJustice of the Audre Lorde Project has issuedthe points of unity, which hold together the purpose of this importantmarch. This eight-point statement calls for:



=

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 7, 2007

Brad Luna | Phone: 202/216.1514 | Cell: 202/812.8140

Christopher Johnson | Phone: 202/216.1580 | Cell: 202/716.1628

Human Rights Campaign Launches National Tour to Repeal "Don't Ask, Don'tTell"

June 12th Iowa Kick-Off Brings Issue to '08 Caucus State; Features FirstU.S. Troop Injured in Iraq War, Other Veterans

WASHINGTON - With an eye towards the Iowa caucuses in January that willofficially mark the start of the 2008 presidential elections, the HumanRights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights organization, willbegin its national "A Legacy of Service" tour against the military's "Don'tAsk, Don't Ban" policy in Des Moines, Iowa on June 12.

"A Legacy of Service" national tour features the voices of a diverse groupof veterans who have served under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"policy. The tour will feature former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the firstUS troop wounded in Iraq, along with many other American heroes standingunited and speaking out for the repeal of this discriminatory policy thatcontinues to harm our nation's security.

"This national tour will show the faces of those who have served andsacrificed under this discriminatory policy," said Human Rights CampaignPresident Joe Solmonese. "The American people have already overwhelminglydecided that our military should be about service and not about holding onto policies that dishonor our troops."


=


[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]

#####

Friday, June 08, 2007

GLBT DIGEST June 8, 2007

**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.


=

The New York Post

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/business/media/08abc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
'Grey's' Star Said to Be Off the Show
By BILL CARTER

Isaiah Washington, a star of the hit ABC television series "Grey's Anatomy,"who became embroiled in a furor after he twice used an anti-gay slur againsta co-star, will not return in the fall, an executive informed of the
decision said last night.

The executive, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorizedto speak for the production, said that the decision was tied to Mr.Washington's comments regarding his fellow cast member, T.R. Knight.

Mr. Washington, who played a surgeon named Preston Burke, got into analtercation last fall with another star of the series, Patrick Dempsey, inwhich he reportedly used an epithet to describe Mr. Knight.

After the details of the argument appeared, Mr. Knight publicly acknowledgedthat he was gay.

Then, in January, at the Golden Globe awards, Mr. Washington, during a newsconference backstage, was asked about the altercation with Mr. Dempsey andsaid he had never used the derogatory term to describe Mr. Knight. But hisuse of the word on camera expanded the controversy because other castmembers, including Katherine Heigl, denounced Mr. Washington.



=

The New York Post

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08benjamin.html?pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Don't Ask, Don't Translate
By STEPHEN BENJAMIN
Atlanta

IMAGINE for a moment an American soldier deep in the Iraqi desert. His unitis about to head out when he receives a cable detailing an insurgent ambushright in his convoy's path. With this information, he and his soldiers arenow prepared for the danger that lies ahead.

Reports like these are regularly sent from military translators' desks,providing critical, often life-saving intelligence to troops fighting inIraq and Afghanistan. But the military has a desperate shortage of linguiststrained to translate such invaluable information and convey it to the warzone.

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time -the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabictranslators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might haveprevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy inBaghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabicspeakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended theDefense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class andthen spent two years giving our troops the critical translation servicesthey desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the "don'task, don't tell" policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member isfound to be gay.



=

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/realestate/greathomes/08away.html?pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
Away
Trading One Beach Retreat for Another
By BETH GREENFIELD

PROVINCETOWN was good to Mark Doty and his partner, Paul Lisicky, who sharedan 18th-century Cape-style house there for the first 10 years of their12-year relationship. Mr. Doty had gone there first, to seek solace with aformer partner who was dying of AIDS, and wound up staying on for years withMr. Lisicky. It was the ideal place for the pair of writers - rich with bothliterary and gay history, and home to an inspiring mix of dreamy landscapesand thrumming resort-town life.

Still, near the end of their time there, the magic began to wear off, mainlybecause of the influx of moneyed home buyers, which they felt was changingthe scruffy, bohemian village into a spiffed-up Cape Cod version of theHamptons. They decided to sell. "The way I could find what I needed there,in terms of metaphor, had come to an end" is how Mr. Doty put it.

So it may seem surprising, then, that they left Provincetown for yet anothermoneyed gay vacation spot: the Fire Island Pines, off the south shore ofLong Island. This time, though, there would be less room for disappointment."We really romanticized P-town," Mr. Lisicky said.

Although neither man had set foot on Fire Island until 2005, the two startedto zero in on the slim spit of sand as an alternative, in part because ofits proximity to their New York City home. They visited two of itscommunities, Cherry Grove and the Pines, and during the year that followed,Mr. Lisicky said, he began to long for the dune-swept landscape. Theypurchased, for $735,000, the first house their agent showed them: a 1960scontemporary ranch in the Pines, nestled in a grove of holly trees.

"At first we were thinking, 'Oh, this place is going to be too gay,' "recalled Mr. Lisicky, a tall, sunny-faced man with a sharp wit, laughing."But we fell in love with the landscape right away," he added. "We weresmitten."



=

The New York Post

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/us/politics/08gays.html?pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
For 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' Split on Party Lines
By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, June 7 - The presidential candidates are dividing starkly alongparty lines on one of the signature fights of the 1990s: whether the14-year-old policy of "don't ask, don't tell" should be repealed and gay menand lesbians allowed to serve openly in the military.

In back-to-back debates in New Hampshire this week, every Democraticcandidate raised his or her hand in support of repealing that policy, whilenot a single Republican embraced the idea. Democrats argued with strikingunanimity that it was time to end the uneasy compromise that President BillClinton reached in 1993, after his attempt to lift the ban on gay men andlesbians in the military provoked one of the most wrenching fights of hisyoung administration.

Republicans countered that the policy should not be changed, certainly notin time of war.

It is a dispute that underscores the continuing power of social issues -like gay rights and abortion - in each party's nominating contest, even asthe larger debate revolves around a divisive war. And it shows the Democratsreturning to yet another issue that confounded them in the past - likeuniversal health care - with the conviction that the public is more readyfor change this time.

Democratic leaders have been moving away from "don't ask, don't tell" forsome time now; Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York renounced thepolicy in 1999, when she was first running for the Senate. In the 2000presidential primary campaign, the two leading Democrats, Vice President AlGore and Senator Bill Bradley, also called for the policy's repeal.



=

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/us/politics/08thompson.html?pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
Good Form Once, but Now a Dark Horse
By JOHN KIFNER

MANCHESTER, N.H., June 7 - How does a presidential candidate, consigned tothe "lower tier," distinguish himself in a field of 10 Republican hopefulswhose debates are a diorama of white male politicians in dark suits?

That is the problem facing Tommy G. Thompson.

Little more than two years ago, Mr. Thompson was President Bush's secretaryof health and human services, administering one of the largest budgets anddepartments in Washington. That job in turn followed his quite respectable14-year run as governor of Wisconsin, where he earned praise for welfare andhealth care reforms.

Now he is scratching for headlines from a press obsessed with the Big Three:
former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who often gets roaringreceptions; Senator John McCain of Arizona, with his "straight talk"message; and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, with his mountains ofmoney and chiseled looks.

When Mr. Thompson does manage to get headlines these days, they have notalways been good. His remark at a Republican debate in May that employersshould be able to fire gay workers drew a torrent of criticism, and hislater explanation - that his hearing aid had not been working and that hehad urgently needed to use the bathroom - only kept the story alive. Andthen there was his comment to a Jewish group that making money "is part ofthe Jewish tradition."



=

The New York Post

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-politics-religion.html?pagewanted=print

June 8, 2007
In U.S., Faith Is Never Far From Politics
By REUTERS
Filed at 7:13 a.m. ET

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Three former presidents honormega-preacher Billy Graham at the dedication of his library. Days later thethree top Democratic contenders for the White House openly talk about faithin a televised forum.

Church and state may be separate entities in the United States. But faithand politics have become inseparable.

"This is basically a very religious nation, people have very intensefeelings here about religion," said Carroll Doherty, associate director atthe Pew Research Center.

"It is unlikely that a nonreligious person would be elected president," hesaid.

This distinguishes the United States from most of the developed world.



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The Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-acampaign08jun08,0,5950423,print.story

Romney rejects idea of U.S. in Iraq for long term
By Liz Sidoti
The Associated Press
June 8, 2007

WASHINGTON · Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursdayrejected the Bush administration's vision of a decades-long U.S. trooppresence in Iraq akin to South Korea and suggested a need for publicbenchmarks to gauge progress.

"Our objective would not be a Korea-type setting with 25-50,000 troops on anear-permanent basis remaining in bases in Iraq," the former Massachusettsgovernor said.

"I think we would hope to turn Iraq security over to their own military andtheir own security forces, and if presence in the region is important forus, then we have other options that are nearby," Romney said.

In an interview with AP reporters and editors, Romney said the Bushadministration would be wise to publicly disclose some goals for success inIraq to restore public confidence. Benchmarks that would tip offadversaries, however, should remain private.

"This is a time when it would be helpful for the American people and thepeople of Iraq to see that we are actually making progress if that's what'shappening," Romney said.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45799.asp

June 08, 2007
Romney recasts stance on "don't ask, don't tell"

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who once said he supported themilitary's "don't ask, don't tell" policy primarily because he felt it wouldhelp gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, offered a differentaccount of the policy at the Republican debates in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

"When I first heard of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, I thought itsounded awfully silly. I didn't think that would be very effective. And Iturned out to be wrong," Romney said. He added that he agreed with fellowGOP candidate Rudy Guiliani that now, during the Iraq War, "is not the timeto put in place a major change."

However, in 1994, Romney held up "don't ask, don't tell" as a step in theright direction for gays and lesbians. In a letter to the Log Cabin Club ofMassachusetts, Romney stated that President Clinton's policy on gays would"ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly andhonestly in our nation's military."

Comparing himself to his opponent at the time for a U.S. Senate seat, Sen.Edward Kennedy, Romney added, "I am more convinced than ever before that aswe seek to establish full equality for America's gay and lesbian citizens, Iwill provide more effective leadership."

This is not the first time Romney has reconsidered his views on a hot-buttonsocial issue. In his 2002 run for governor of Massachusetts, Romney promisedhe would not change the state's abortion laws, despite his personalobjection to them. However, during an interview with Larry King in March2007, he said his views on abortion had evolved when the idea of humancloning came into the picture. He now holds a pro-life position. (TheAdvocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45793.asp

June 08, 2007
First openly bisexual man elected to New York State assembly

Micah Kellner became the first openly bisexual man elected to the New YorkState assembly on Monday, with 64% of the vote. Kellner, who will representManhattan's upper east side, where Democrats outnumber Republicansapproximately 3 to 1, beat a Republican who supported gun control andabortion rights. Both candidates endorsed same-sex marriage.

Kellner, 28, was endorsed by Sen. Hillary Clinton and the Gay and LesbianVictory Fund. "Micah will be a strong voice and a committed lawmaker for thepeople of New York in the state assembly," said Victory Fund president andCEO Chuck Wolfe. "His victory means that five openly gay, lesbian, orbisexual lawmakers will now serve in the assembly and the senate, and thatis excellent news for everyone who works toward full equality for all NewYorkers."

The four openly gay members Kellner will join in the New York Statelegislature are Sen. Tom Duane and assemblymembers Deborah Glick and DanielO'Donnell, all of Manhattan; and Assemblymember Matthew Titone of StatenIsland. (The Advocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid45804.asp

June 08, 2007

Pittsburgh church leaves Presbyterians for conservative branch

In a move emblematic of mainline Protestant divisions over sexuality,members of the largest church in the Pittsburgh Presbytery voted to leavethe Presbyterian Church (USA) and join a smaller, more conservativedenomination.

At a congregational meeting, 951 members of Memorial Park Presbyterian
Church in McCandless Township voted to be affiliated with the vangelicalPresbyterian Church. Fifty-two percent, or 761 members, of the 1,450-member
congregation needed to approve the plan.

''We are saddened that Memorial Park members and leaders have elected toseparate from the Presbyterian Church,'' James Mead, pastor to PittsburghPresbytery, said in a statement. ''However, we believe that wrestling withsuch painful issues is part of God's redemptive plan for the world.''

Memorial Park church officials said last month they were concerned about thenational denomination's move away from traditional doctrines concerning theHoly Trinity and the authority of the Bible, and its increasingly liberalviews on gay ordination.

Memorial Park church officials have said their issue isn't with thepresbytery, a regional body of churches, but the national church.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45807.asp

June 08, 2007
N.H. woman challenges Romney on same-sex marriage

A New Hampshire woman, frustrated with Republican presidential hopeful MittRomney's opposition to same-sex marriage, made a point of telling him abouther personal experience.

"I am a gay woman and I have children. Your comment that you just made, itsort of invalidates my family," said Cynthia Fish, a mother of a 6-year-oldand 8-year-old. "I wish you could explain to me more why, if we are sendingour troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout thiscountry, why not for me? Why not for my family?"

Romney paused, asked Fish about her children, and then praised her.

"Wonderful," Romney said. "I'm delighted that you have a family and you'rehappy with your family. That's the American way.... People can live theirlives as they choose and children can be a great source of joy, as you know.And I welcome that."

But then Romney repeated his view of marriage.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45794.asp

June 08, 2007
Openly gay sailor could again be recalled to active duty

The U.S. Navy assigned an openly gay sailor to duty in the Individual ReadyReserves, where he can still be recalled to active duty, according topaperwork obtained by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Former pettyofficer second class Jason Knight, a Hebrew linguist, had already beenrecalled once after coming out to his superiors, being discharged and placedin the IRR.

The U.S. Navy assigned an openly gay sailor to duty for the second time inthe Individual Ready Reserves, where he can still be recalled to activeduty, according to paperwork obtained by Servicemembers Legal DefenseNetwork. Former petty officer second class Jason Knight, a Hebrew linguist,has already been recalled once from IRR after coming out to his superiorsand being discharged.

Knight made headlines in May when he revealed in the military newspaperStars and Stripes that he accepted a call-back to active duty and wasserving openly in Kuwait in spite of "don't ask, don't tell," the militarypolicy that prohibits gays and lesbians from acknowledging their sexualorientation. Following the media attention given to Knight's case, the Navymoved to dismiss him from service again.

"I was expecting to be dismissed under 'don't ask, don't tell' but am ready,willing, and able to continue my service to the Navy if I am needed," Knightsaid. "I have been nothing but proud of my service in the Navy, and I'mready to serve in the Individual Ready Reserves and to return to active dutyif called."

During both of his previous tours in the Navy, Knight said he served openlywith the support of his command and colleagues. Knight had also been out tohis first in command. That command dismissed Knight for 'completion ofservice,' despite knowing about his sexual orientation, and also assignedhim to the IRR. That assignment led to his second tour in the Navy.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45809.asp

June 08, 2007
Officials absolve Kolbe in page probe

Justice Department investigators looking into former Arizona representativeJim Kolbe's relationships with House pages found no wrongdoing and haveclosed their inquiry, Kolbe says.

In a statement Wednesday, Kolbe and his Washington lawyers said theyreceived notice Tuesday that investigators had completed a preliminaryinquiry opened by federal prosecutors last fall, and saw no reason to pursueit further.

The U.S. attorney for Arizona, Daniel Knauss, had no immediate comment, saidhis spokesman, Wyn Hornbuckle.

Prosecutors began looking into Kolbe's relationships with House pages afterhearing reports that he took a Fourth of July camping trip to the GrandCanyon with two former pages and others in 1996.

The inquiry was launched amid a separate investigation into sexuallyexplicit messages sent to high school-age congressional pages by Republicanformer Florida representative Mark Foley, who resigned over the issue lastfall.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45801.asp

June 08, 2007
Family Pride to open new office in Boston

Family Pride, a national non-profit organization committed to securingfamily equality for LGBT parents and guardians, announced that it will beexpanding its base of operations and opening an office in Boston, MA, onJuly 2, the organization said in a statement.

"As the only organization that is dedicated to advocating for familyequality on a national level, we decided to make a strong statement byexpanding our base of operations to include a Boston office," said executivedirector Jennifer Chrisler. "It's in our best interest to provide thefriendliest possible environment for all of our staff and their loved ones.Massachusetts is one of the states currently setting the standard we wouldlike to see all states across the nation meet in terms of rights andprotections for LGBT-headed families."

The organization will continue its work on a national level and willcontinue to hold an office in Washington, DC. (The Advocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45821.asp

June 08, 2007
Former sailor tells Congress about her "don't ask" experience

Former U.S. Navy petty officer Lee Quillian's 20-year career in the militarywas stifled by the fact that she couldn't be out to colleagues, she toldmore than 100 Congress members at a briefing Tuesday. The policy, she said,forces gay service members to be quiet.

"I didn't want to lie about my life, but I didn't broadcast," Quillian toldThe Advocate Wednesday in a phone interview. "I had to be quiet about thepeople I was spending my time with back home."

Invited by Massachusetts representative Marty Meehan and Senator HillaryClinton of New York, Quillian, with three other service members, discussedwith members of both houses of Congress the implications of being a gayservice member under the military's ban on openly gay service personnel.

While in the Navy, Quillian earned two commendation medals and fourachievement medals and performed missile interception operations at thebeginning of the Iraq war.

Her longtime partner, whom she met in the Navy, was discharged under "don'task, don't tell." Quillian has spent a lot of time educating her colleagues,and now members of Congress, about the policy and its enforcement.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060707supcourt.htm

Supreme Court Asked To Review 'Homophobic Fliers' Ruling
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: June 7, 2007 - 2:00 pm ET

(Oakland, California) Lawyers for two city of Oakland workers have asked theUS Supreme Court to review a ruling that found the city had not violatedtheir civil rights when it removed homophobic fliers from the workplace.

After an e-mail was distributed in 2003 to employees at the Community andEconomic Development Agency containing information on a National Coming OutDay rally a group of Christian workers put up fliers on bulletin boardsannouncing the formation of the Good News Employee Association .

The fliers said the association "is a forum for people of faith to expresstheir views on contemporary issues of the day with respect for the naturalfamily, marriage and family values."

A lesbian CEDA worker complained to supervisors that the flier made her feeltargeted for discrimination in the workplace and after reviewing the fliersmanagement removed the fliers and told the organizers of the group, ReginaRederford and Robin Christy they could repost them if the language werechanged.

Rederford and Christy instead filed suit alleging that then-city managerRobert Bobb and Joyce Hicks, who at the time was deputy director of theCommunity and Economic Development Agency, with violating their FirstAmendment rights.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060707euroaids.htm

EU Drug Regulator Recalls AIDS Drug Over Contamination Fears
by The Associated Press

Posted: June 7, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Zurich, Switzerland) Europe's drug regulating body is recalling an HIVtreatment made by Roche Holding AG because of contamination.

``Contamination has been identified at the manufacturing stage...the stepstaken to recall Viracept go down to the level of the individual patient,''said Michael Harvey, a spokesman for the European Medicines Agency.

Patients taking Viracept _ an antiretroviral agent for use in HIV therapy _should return the treatment to their physician and request a replacementtherapy, Harvey said.

The recall does not affect the use of Viracept in the U.S., where PfizerInc. (PFE) sells the drug, or Canada and Japan, Roche said.

The Swiss pharmaceutical company conducted a chemical analysis on the drugafter six patients reported that their batches of Viracept emitted strangeodors.



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365gay.com

http://365gay.com/opinion/besen/besen.htm

Holzinger Does Harm

by Wayne Besen

With an approval rating hovering at Nixonian levels and Rush Limbaugh firingspitballs from the right over immigration, it didn't take a brain surgeon toguess that George W. Bush would try to appease conservatives by nominating aNeanderthal for Surgeon General.

Out from the cave ambled James W. Holsinger, the most homophonic doctorsince Isaiah Washington - the Grey's Anatomy's star - had to go to rehab fordropping F-bombs. But Washington was a make believe doctor, while Holzingeris very real and has the potential to inflict great harm on the GLBTcommunity.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Holsinger started Hope SpringsCommunity Church in Kentucky. Rev. David Calhoun, the pastor of the bigaluminum trailer church said that Hope Springs has an "ex-gay" ministry.

"We see that as an issue not of orientation but a lifestyle," Calhoun said."We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle."

Holsinger also served on the Judicial Council for the United MethodistChurch where he opposed a decision to allow a lesbian to be an associatepastor. He was even so extreme that he endorsed a pastor who tried toprohibit an openly gay man from joining a church.



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

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070607/NEWS06/706070359/1008

Same-sex benefits changing
Universities look for ways to stay within the new law

June 7, 2007

BY DAWSON BELL

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Michigan public employers who have traditionally provided health care andother benefits to the same-sex partners of their workers are graduallychanging or dropping coverage after two court rulings that such benefitsviolate the state's marriage amendment.

But response has differed across the state depending on circumstances,including whether the employees are covered by a union contract and thetiming of contract expirations.

This week, the Free Press surveyed high-profile government institutions thathad offered the benefits after the City of Kalamazoo announced it would endhealth care coverage for the partners of gay and lesbian employees on June30.

The survey found:

. Michigan State University will launch a pilot program July 1 to providebenefits to domestic partners regardless of sexual orientation in anapparent effort to continue coverage for same-sex partners of someemployees.

. Wayne State University is developing a similar policy that it hopes toenact within the next year.



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Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org

http://www.kentucky.com/454/story/89732.html <<...>>

Posted on Wed, Jun. 06, 2007

Gay group attacks Holsinger paper

1991 CHURCH REPORT ARGUED MALE SEX UNHEALTHY, UNNATURAL

By Sarah Vos

SVOS@HERALD-LEADER.COM

In 1991, Dr. James W. Holsinger -- a University of Kentucky professor who isPresident Bush's nominee for U.S. surgeon general -- wrote a paper arguingthat gay sex is biologically unnatural and unhealthy.

Like male and female pipe fittings, certain male and female body parts aredesigned for each other, Holsinger wrote in a paper prepared for a UnitedMethodist Church committee studying homosexuality. "When the complementarityof the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur," Holsinger wrotein the paper, titled Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality.

The paper was released Monday by the Human Rights Campaign, a national groupthat advocates for gay and lesbian rights. UK spokeswoman Mary MargaretColliver confirmed that Holsinger had written the paper. Holsinger declinedto comment for this story, as he has not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The paper adds to the growing controversy over Holsinger's views on gays.Last week, several groups expressed concern because of decisions dealingwith gays and lesbians that Holsinger helped make as a member of the UnitedMethodist Judicial Council, which rules on disputes involving churchdoctrine and policy.

In addition, a Lexington church that Holsinger helped found, Hope SpringsCommunity Church, has a ministry dedicated to helping gay people who want tobecome heterosexual.



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Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org

http://www.ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=news&article=1896#>

AIDS Action, HRC oppose Holsinger
by Bob Roehr

AIDS Action and the Human Rights Campaign have become the first two nationalorganizations to oppose the nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. to besurgeon general of the United States. Other organizations have expressedconcern and are sifting through the public record in order to shape theirown position on the nomination.

It was also noted this week by Truth Wins Out, a group that debunks thereligious right, that Holsinger helped found a church in Lexington, Kentuckythat operates an "ex-gay" ministry.

Holsinger was nominated by President Bush last month. His nominationrequires Senate confirmation.

"We are extremely disappointed with this nomination and we will be writingto Senators [Ted] Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and [Mike] Enzi (R-Wyoming), thechairman and ranking member of the committee, opposing the nomination," saidRonald Johnson, deputy director of AIDS Action, in an exclusive interview onMay 31.

"We feel this is another distressing signal and message that thisadministration, this president, does not either understand or take seriouslythe domestic epidemic. To appoint someone who has a track record of beinganti-gay is just not acceptable," Johnson added. He pointed out that the HIVepidemic in the U.S. continues to disproportionately affect gay men.

Late Tuesday, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force also came out againstHolsinger's nomination



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http://www.ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=news&article=1895#>

Holsinger's anti-gay religious record

by Bob Roehr

Dr. James Holsinger's professional career has been as a medical provider andadministrator, but President Bush's nominee to be surgeon general also hashad a parallel volunteer career among the topmost reaches of the "ConfessingMovement," a neo-evangelical effort within the United Methodist Church toreturn it to theological orthodoxy. Opposition to a growing tolerance andeven acceptance of gays within the church has been one of the group's mainfixations.

Holsinger also helped found a church in Kentucky that operates an "ex-gay"ministry.

Truth Wins Out, a group that counters right-wing propaganda, announcedMonday its strong opposition to Holsinger, after it was revealed that hestarted a church in Lexington, Kentucky that has a ministry to "cure" gaypeople.



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

June 7th 2007 | JERUSALEM AND RAMALLAH
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9304285

It is getting harder for gay Palestinians to seek refuge in Israel or abroad

ONE time, high heels and a wig saved Imad from prison. The 22-year-old fromthe West Bank capital, Ramallah, had been caught in Jerusalem without apermit. On the way to the jail, the police asked him and his friend why theyhad sneaked into town. As his friend shrivelled up with shame, Imad (not hisreal name) proudly told them he had come to perform at the Shushan,Jerusalem's only gay bar. He opened his bag and flourished his outfit with abristle of sequins. The police, realising that they had caught a couple ofdrag queens instead of a couple of terrorists, let them go with a warningnever to return. "And two days later," recounts Imad with a gleam in hiseye, "I was back, even in the same café where they arrested me."

But getting back is becoming harder. Israel is rapidly filling in theremaining gaps in its West Bank wall-cum-fence. Recently it took Imad someseven hours to make the usual one-hour journey from Ramallah to Tel Aviv.Soon his drag career, which has rocketed at gay clubs all over Israel (seepicture), will be cut short.

Gay Palestinians have long been sneaking into Israel to enjoy a freedomunknown in their own, much more conservative, society. And despitepersistent rows such as whether to allow gay-pride marches inJerusalem-legislators this week voted, on a first reading, to let the cityban them to avoid offending ultra-Orthodox Jews-Israel likes to promote itsreputation for tolerance.



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http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/18014/

Pride parade deemed a success

Jun 06, 2007
By Talis Saule Archdeacon

RIGA - Riga pulled off its first ever successful gay pride parade andfestival on June 3 despite attempts by angry hecklers to intervene. Amassive police presence, personally orchestrated by Interior Minister IvarsGodmanis from the balcony of a nearby office building, prevented any majordisruption of the parade, which was the culmination of the four-day RigaFriendship Days 2007. About 400 people took part in the march around thepark, including several European lawmakers and two members of the EuropeanParliament. Nearly a hundred journalists and photographers were also inattendance.

The success was a feather in Riga's cap given that the gatherings of gayrights advocates the previous two years were marred by physicalconfrontations. Last year a crowd of irate protesters even threw excrementon the activists.

"It was fabulous - I'm very pleased. Everything worked out. We had a lot ofvisitors and there were no disturbances," said Linda Freimane, director ofthe sexual minority rights group Mozaika.


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[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]

#####

GLBT DIGEST June 7, 2007

**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.


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Soulforce Issues Statement on the Nomination ofDr. James Holsinger for Surgeon General

Soulforce today expressed deep concern over the nomination of Dr. JamesHolsinger for United States Surgeon General.

"As the leading spokesperson for matters of public health, the SurgeonGeneral should be guided by sound medical science, not anti-gay views rootedin religion-based bigotry," said Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes.

Dr. Holsinger is the current president of the United Methodist JudicialCouncil. As a member of the council, he opposed the 2004 decision to allowRev. Karen Dammann, a lesbian, to continue serving as a minister. He alsoupheld the 2004 defrocking of Rev. Beth Stroud, another lesbian minister,and sided with a Virginia pastor who denied church membership to an openlygay man. Soulforce stood in solidarity at the trials of Rev. Dammann andRev. Stroud, challenging the unjust policy that bars gay men and lesbiansfrom ordination in the United Methodist Church and the false doctrine thathomosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching."

Holsinger co-founded Hope Springs Community Church, in Lexington, Kentucky,which operates an "ex-gay" ministry aimed at changing homosexuals toheterosexuals. Recent events have brought national attention to theexistence of programs intended to modify same-sex desires, which continue tomultiply in spite of the consensus of the major medical and mental healthorganizations that sexual orientation is not a disorder and is, therefore,not in need of a cure. The American Psychological Association identifies"depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior" among the possiblerisks associated with ex-gay therapies.

Later this month, on June 29 - July 1, Soulforce will sponsor aninternational convention in Irvine, California, for those who have attendedex-gay ministries or reparative therapy but ultimately concluded that theprograms did more harm than good. The Ex-Gay Survivor Conference willfeature the testimonies of former "ex-gays," including men and women whofounded and directed ex-gay programs but are now speaking publicly about theinjury the programs can cause. For more information about the conference, goto www.soulforce.org/article/1226.

Soulforce Executive Director, Jeff Lutes, is a licensed psychotherapist inprivate practice and has treated dozens of victims of so-called "ex-gayministries" and "reparative therapy." In a statement released Wednesday,Lutes said "America doesn't need a Surgeon General who supports 'reparativetherapy' and anti-gay dogma masquerading as science. If Holsinger bars gaysand lesbians from his own church, how will he treat them as the nation'schief physician? What America needs now is some 'reparative theology' - aforce of fair-minded people of faith who will take an unwavering standagainst religion gone bad and choose instead to welcome and affirm gay andlesbian people into full citizenship."



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Forwarded from Michael Emanuel Rajner
National Secretary - Campaign to End AIDS
Founding Member - Campaign to End AIDS-FLORIDA
merajner@gmail.com

CALL CONGRESS NOW TO STOP A PLANNED INCREASE FORABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE PROGRAMS

Can you believe it?

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are poised to give the"Community-Based Abstinence Education" program the second-largest increasein its history.

Approval could come as soon as this Thursday June 7 - unless we stop it!

You can call Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee ChairDavid Obey right now toll-free at 888-802-1207 and tell them:

"Abstinence-only programs don't work - they're a waste of money we could beusing for comprehensive sex-ed programs that can help us end AIDS. Don'tapprove the funding increase - NO MORE MONEY FOR ABSTINENCE-ONLY!"

Hundreds of calls from Campaign to End AIDS activists could derail thisdangerous program.

You can email Nancy Pelosi at sf.nancy@mail.house.govand David Obey here:
obey.house.gov/HoR/WI07/Miscellaneous+Information/email+sign+up+form.htm.

And call them both - Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Obey - right now toll-freeat 888-802-1207 and tell them:

Contact rays.list@comcast.net for the remainder of the article.



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Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org

13278763.1181145933836.JavaMail.turbine@s08.rc.trb>

This story was sent to you by: Ken Sherrill

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Gay union called boon to business
--------------------

BY KARLA SCHUSTER
karla.schuster@newsday.com

June 6, 2007

New York State could reap an economic windfall of nearly $200 million if itlegalized same-sex marriage, mostly from spending by out-of-town visitorswho would come to get married or to attend a wedding, a study releasedyesterday has found.

City Comptroller William Thompson's study estimated that legalizing gaymarriage would generate $184 million in net revenue for the state over thefirst three years after such a law took effect.

Of that, $142 million would be generated in New York City.

The figures account for additional costs to private businesses that would berequired to insure newly married gay spouses.

The study assumes that more than 56,000 same-sex couples would travel fromout of state to be married here, generating $137 million in weddingspending.

That spending would include hotels for the couples and their guests, andother wedding expenses, including catering halls or restaurants.

"Legalizing marriage for same-sex couples in New York would have impactsbeyond allowing individuals to make the full legal commitments to theirpartners that opposite-sex couples take for granted," Thompson said in thereport.

Thompson's office said the study began last fall, at the request of a gayrights advocate.

Same-sex couples can legally wed only in Massachusetts. Gov. Eliot Spitzerintroduced a bill in April that would permit same-sex unions, becoming thefirst governor to sponsor gay marriage legislation.



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http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2007/06/05/health/05baka.html&tntemail0=y

New Findings Add Nuance to Discussion of Early Sex
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Girls who have sex at an early age are at slightly greater risk than theirpeers for feeling depressed, a new study has found. But their self-esteemsuffers only if the sex occurs outside a romantic relationship.

For boys, having sex at an early age does not increase depression ordecrease self-esteem.

"I suspected that there might be negative effects of early sex for somegroups," said Ann M. Meier, the study's author and an assistant professor ofsociology at the University of Minnesota. "And that's what I found - butonly under very specific circumstances."

The findings, the authors say, may have relevance for the abstinenceeducation provision of the welfare reform act of 1996. Programs that arefinanced through the legislation must teach, among other elements ofabstinence, that "sexual activity outside of the context of marriage islikely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."

This study, which appears in the May issue of The American Journal ofSociology, found mixed evidence for that assertion.



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lgbt-politics@yahoogroups.com; queerpolitics@lists.qrd.org

Subject: [lgbt-politics] All GOP candidates support DADT

Excerpt from transcript of CNN Republican Presidential Debate
June 5, 2007

SPRADLING: Congressman Paul, a question for you.

Most of our closest allies, including Great Britain and Israel, allow gaysand lesbians to openly serve in the military. Is it time to end don'task/don't tell policy and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in theU.S. military?

PAUL: I think the current policy is a decent policy.

And the problem that we have with dealing with this subject is we see peopleas groups, as they belong to certain groups and that they derive theirrights as belonging to groups.

We don't get our rights because we're gays or women or minorities. We getour rights from our creator as individuals. So every individual should betreated the same way.

So if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, itshould be dealt with.

But if there's heterosexual sexual behavior that is disruptive, it should bedealt with.

Contact rays.list@comcast.net for the remainder of the debate transcriptabout gays in the military.



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Marriage, Loving and the law By Kermit Roosevelt -
The Sacramento Bee | June 5, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/110/v-print/story/205654.html

In June 1958, Virginia residents Richard Loving and Mildred Jetertraveled to Washington, D.C., got married and returned home. Anunexceptional story but for one fact: Richard was white and Mildred black.Their marriage therefore violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act. TheLovings were convicted in Virginia court and sentenced to a year in jail,with the sentence suspended on the condition that they leave Virginia andnot return together for 25 years.

They got back sooner. On June 12, 1967 -- 40 years ago next Tuesday -- theSupreme Court struck down Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. Writingfor a unanimous court, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that the restrictionserved no purpose but that of "invidious racial discrimination" andtherefore violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Loving vs. Virginia is a constitutional icon now, not least because of itswonderful name. But its continued relevance might not be obvious. Nowadayseveryone agrees that bans on interracial marriages are unconstitutional, andeven if they weren't, few people would support them. But Loving illustratessomething important about the evolution of constitutional law.

The place to start is simple. The equal protection clause was ratified in1868, but it took a century for the court to prohibit laws banninginterracial marriage. If the decision is so obviously right, why did it takeso long? One answer might be that the court was waiting for the properpolitical climate. Brown vs. Board of Education, handed down in 1954,aroused tremendous resistance, and the court might reasonably have concludedthat it should wait before pressing further.



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

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?=lwK2JfMVIkJ3JqL&s=7nJIKOOnEcIDJHPmEmH&m=hgIQK1OBJ7ITF>

Act to protect LGBT activist threatened in Kosovo.

A man known as K.Z., the head of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgenderrights organization in Kosovo, has received a death threat linked to hiswork. Though K.Z. has reported this threat to the police, he has notreceived any protection.

The death threat said that K.Z.'s family should prepare his funeral withintwo weeks, and that K.Z. would "end up in hell" as a result of his work forLGBT rights. Amnesty International has documented a number of cases of LGBTpeople who have fled Kosovo after receiving similar threats or beingphysically assaulted.

Call on authorities to ensure the safety of K.Z. and to conducta thorough investigation into the death threat against him.

In solidarity,
The OUTfront Team
Amnesty International USA



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

LESBIAN-AND-GAY-PSYCHOLOGY@JISCMAIL.AC.UK; NYGLPTALK@googlegroups.com;
sexnet@listserv.it.northwestern.edu

Subject: More to Holsinger than Meets the Eye?
From the Lexington Herald Leader article (reprinted in its entirety below)

Holsinger's colleagues at the University of Kentucky were surprised to learnof the views expressed in the 1991 paper. They said his personal objectionsto homosexuality-if he had any-would not affect policy decisions as surgeongeneral.

They pointed to a 2002 incident in which Holsinger, then chancellor of theUK Medical Center, defended a session on lesbian health issues at a women'shealth conference over the objection of two state senators. The senatorsthreatened to withhold funding because of the 90-minute session.

Phyllis Nash, who organized the conference, said Holsinger did not have tobe persuaded to defend the session. "He basically said we are obligated asindividuals to meet the needs of everyone, regardless of orientation."

At the time, Holsinger defended the session in a Herald-Leader article."It's important to educate health care professionals on the issues thatsurround lesbians," he said. "It's important professionals have theknowledge base to do care for these patients in a quality manner."

Nash, who worked with Holsinger for nine years, said the views in the 1991paper were "not congruent with anything I saw in his professional life."

Jack Drescher, MD
jadres@psychoanalysis.net
http://www.jackdreschermd.net



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

NEW from DIRELAND, June 6, 2006
ISRAELI PARLIAMENT VOTES TO BAN GAY PRIDE IN JERUSALEM

By an overwhelming 2-1 margin, the Knesset -- Israel's parliament -- votedto ban the JerusalemGay Pride march scheduled for June 21, and all gay pride marches anywhere inthe country.

For all the details, click on:

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2007/06/israel_votes_to.html



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/opinion/7thu3.html?pagewanted=print

June 7, 2007
Editorial
The Inadequacy of Civil Unions

A potentially groundbreaking legal battle over Connecticut's exclusion ofgay people from the state's marriage law has catapulted the debate oversame-sex marriage to a new level.

Appearing last month before the state's highest court, a lawyer representingeight same-sex couples led a spirited attack on Connecticut's refusal togrant gay couples the freedom to marry. He also challenged the notion thatcivil union laws - like those enacted in Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont,and most recently New Hampshire - are a constitutionally adequatealternative.

The plaintiffs' argument was laced with references to Plessy v. Ferguson,the U.S. Supreme Court's notorious 1896 decision which justified racialsegregation under a deplorable standard of "separate but equal." Althoughstartling, the analogy is apt. In establishing civil unions two years ago,Connecticut lawmakers created a separate and inherently inferior institutionthat continues to deny gay couples the equality they seek and deserve.

Connecticut would seem a particularly hospitable place to advance thisequality claim. In addition to requiring equal treatment for individuals incomparable circumstances, and barring sex-discrimination, Connecticut'sConstitution explicitly forbids gender-based "segregation."

State lawyers answer that the basis for the exclusion is not gender butsexual orientation, a category not covered by existing antidiscriminationprovisions. That is true, but forbidding marriages when one partner is thewrong gender still adds up to sex discrimination. The state also assertsthat the civil union law grants all the rights of marriage to same-sexcouples, and any difference amounts to "a difference in name alone." A trialcourt judge bought that argument and dismissed the case last year, sayingthe plaintiffs suffered no legal harm.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/us/politics/07clinton.html?pagewanted=print

June 7, 2007
Goals Are Both Met and Missed in Clinton Fund-Raising
By PATRICK HEALY

As the Clinton presidential campaign raises money this spring, Hillary andBill Clinton have had many ups and a few downs. Gov. Jon Corzine of NewJersey is delivering at least $1 million, and their friend Warren Buffett anadditional $500,000. And Mrs. Clinton's brother Tony kept the peace in thefamily by coming through with $175,000 at a Pennsylvania fund-raiser - rightafter his daughter's baptism.

But a West Coast swing by Mr. Clinton has come up short thus far: It hasraised barely half of the $600,000 in "high goal" commitments the campaignhad hoped for. (Donations can always come in late.) And Mrs. Clinton'scocktail party in Columbus, Ohio, was pretty modest: Her "low goal" for theevent was $100,000, and actual commitments totaled $98,100 recently.

These details are among a trove of fund-raising data in a confidentialdocument about the 90-odd lunches, dinners and receptions that the campaignplanned from April 1 to June 30, as the Clintons escalate a pitched battlewith Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic war chest (not tomention the party's nomination).

On paper, the breadth of the Clinton fund-raising operation is apparent inminute splendor: how the campaign courted lawyers in Chicago and bankers inCalifornia, and how it has relied particularly heavily this spring on moneyfrom gay men and lesbians and Asian-Americans, with two separatefund-raisers involving Fujianese-Americans.

The document, dated May 17, was provided to The New York Times by anuncommitted Democrat who is not affiliated with any presidential campaign.The Clinton campaign said the document was authentic, and declined to sayhow it got out, or even if the campaign had leaked the information as a wayto set fund-raising expectations for the June 30 deadline for campaignfinance reporting.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/washington/07pages.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1181221920-yIV44Z8b4TBKd5a0bzEMyA&pagewanted=print

June 7, 2007
Page Inquiry Ends, Ex-Lawmaker Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, June 6 (AP) - Justice Department investigators looking intoformer Representative Jim Kolbe's relationships with House pages found nowrongdoing and have closed their inquiry, Mr. Kolbe says.

In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Kolbe, a Republican who represented aTucson-area district for 22 years before retiring last year, said hereceived notice Tuesday that investigators had completed an inquiry openedlast fall and saw no reason to pursue it further. The United States attorneyfor Arizona, Daniel Knauss, had no comment, said his spokesman, WynHornbuckle.

Prosecutors began looking into Mr. Kolbe's relationships with House pagesfter hearing reports that he took a camping trip with two former pages andothers in 1996.

The inquiry began amid a separate investigation into messages sent toCongressional pages by former Representative Mark Foley, Republican ofFlorida.

Mr. Kolbe, 64, was the House's only openly gay Republican.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Surgeon-General-Gays.html?pagewanted=print

June 7, 2007
Gay Groups Decry Surgeon General Nominee
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:36 a.m. ET

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- President Bush's nominee for surgeon general,Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire from gayrights groups for voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United MethodistChurch and writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.

Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to gayrights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be''cured.''

''He has a pretty clear bias against gays and lesbians,'' said ChristinaGilgor, director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group.''This ideology flies in the face of current scientific medical studies.That makes me uneasy that he rejects science and promotes ideology.''

Holsinger, 68, has declined all interview requests.

Blair Jones, a White House spokesman, said in a telephone interviewWednesday night that Holsinger had spent his career in public service andtaking care of others.



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The New York Times

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060700469_2.html

Gay think tank wants part in debate

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new think tank specializing in gay issues wants a sayin the U.S. debate over same-sex marriage and other matters, seeking tocounter the influence of religious conservatives by beating them at theirown game. The Rockway Institute is the brainchild of executive directorRobert-Jay Green, a California psychology professor who says the media,courts and politicians often make wrong assumptions about what the latestscientific research shows.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-yn/content/article/2007/06/06/AR2007060602084_pf.html

Nightlife Agenda
By Fritz Hahn, Rhome Anderson and David Malitz
washingtonpost.com Staff Writers

Thursday, June 7, 2007; 12:00 AM

This weekend is the climax of Capital Pride, the annual festival forWashington's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. Thehighlight is Saturday's parade through Dupont Circle, but there are plentyof parties (official and unofficial) that take place around the main events.Tonight, for example, there are bachelor and bachelorette date auctions (atRemington's and RNR Bar & Lounge, respectively), but the highlight has to bea concert by Ari Gold at Cobalt. Not to be confused with the "Entourage"character, this Ari Gold is a Bronx-born R&B singer whose singles have hitthe top 20 in the U.K. and received great reviews in both the Advocate andBillboard. Gold's albums contain a chart-friendly mix of R&B rhythms and popmelodies, but harder remixes of his tracks have also become staples at gayclubs in New York and Miami, so it'll be interesting to see which way hislive performance will lean. Get there early, because Cobalt will fill upfast.

The Long Blondes hail from Sheffield, the same part of the U.K. as theArctic Monkeys, and in some ways the band can be described as afemale-fronted version of their massively hyped neighbors. Like the Monkeys,the Blondes play a distinctly British brand of snappy post-punk that detailswhat it's like to be young and hip and British. Like all British bands, abarrage of singles preceded the group's debut, and while the irresistible"Lust in the Movies" and "Giddy Stratospheres" are indeed the standouttracks on full-length debut "Someone to Drive You Home," the Long Blondesprove they are more than a mere singles band. Nicole Atkins and the Sea andFive Four open tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel, with DJs Trickster andFive-Year-Plan from post-punk DJ night We Fought the Big One playing tuneswhenever there's not a band on stage.

Friday, June 8

Leo G. has been holding down the fort on XM Radio since the company beganbroadcasting in 2001. Although the channels have gone through variousshakeups as XM has adapted to a shifting marketplace, Leo G.'s formularemains a winner: play mainstream hip-hop, but don't limit it to the narrowplaylists found on urban terrestrial radio. Leo G.'s spot on channel Raw 66is where you'll get that new Shop Boyz or whatever is currently capturingthe bling zeitgeist, along with exclusive cuts from a Lupe Fiasco mixtape.Leo's throwing a birthday bash at Love tonight that aims to reach Hot 97Summerjam heights. Papoose, Fat Joe and Dipset bring the New York streetheat, the south will be well represented by Rick Ross, Lil Flip and DavidBanner, and Talib Kweli and Skillz provide the pure lyricist appeal. With alineup that robust, hopefully the train of rappers pulls out of the stationat least before 11 p.m.

Although RPM has successfully crossed their hip-hop over to the rock bandcircuit, this is much more than a jam band fronted by a rapper. The bandsometimes approximates breakbeats live or segues into grooves not unlikeMadeski, Martin & Wood while Raw Poetic's steady flow provides the rhythmiccenter. Heavy touring and Raw Poetic's succesful stint on Rawkus Records aspart of the group Panacea ensure a tight dynamic on Iota's stage tonight.

It's been more than a decade since El-P stripped hip-hop down to anindustrial, almost punk chassis with Company Flow and then built his Def Juxdynasty on a stable of abrasive, angsty and sometimes oddball rap groups.It's been a very successful ride but the Trent Reznor of hip-hop is stilltortured. Fortunately that psychological state makes for some of the bestmenacing and dissonant material he's ever recorded on his most recent longplayer, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead." Even though the backpack army has shrunkand materialist nihilism still reigns in the glam-hop world, El-P proves whythe underground is still relevent at the 9:30 club tonight.



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UPI.com

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/06/06/chile_gay_group_claims_web_site_hacked/6023/print_view/

Published: June 6, 2007 at 10:30 PM
Chile: Gay group claims Web site hacked

SANTIAGO, Chile, June 6 (UPI) -- A Chilean gay rights group claims its Website was hacked by a Chilean skinhead group.

Calling itself the "Skinheads from Pitana," the supremacy group allegedlyremoved from the gay right's Web site a banner featuring actors supportingthe group known as the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom, orMOVILH, the Santiago Times reported Wednesday. In its place, the hackerspasted a large picture of skinheads.

"In addition, they altered the site's monthly survey to include rude, sexualquestions," said MOVLIH activist Juan Hernandez. "In a lot of areas theyalso wrote things about how MOVILH defends 'sexual aberrations' and supportspeople who are 'disgustingly' homosexual."

This wasn't the first time the gay rights group was attacked in cyberspace,having suffered two previous hacking defacements, according to MOVLIH headRolando Jimenez.

"We constantly receive threats via the Internet, phone calls, things thatare now part of our daily lives. There have been flyers with my name on them... I get mails saying things like 'I've got a bullet with your name on it.'Things like that," Jimenez told the Times.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45773.asp

June 07, 2007
Long-awaited Chicago gay center opens

Chicago's long-planned Center on Halsted opened to much fanfare Tuesday,with Mayor Richard Daley showing up for the LGBT center's ribbon-cutting.

Daley secured $5.4 million in loans and subsidies for the construction ofthe $20 million center.

The new structure, located at 3656 N. Halsted, has a gym, day care services,cyber centers, and counseling facilities. The center's executive director,Robbin Burr, told the Chicago Tribune that she expects 20,000 visitors thisyear. (The Advocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45769.asp

June 07, 2007
Gay groups decry surgeon general nominee

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Kentucky cardiologist JamesHolsinger, has come under fire from gay rights groups for, among otherthings, voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Churchand writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.

Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to gayrights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be''cured.''

''He has a pretty clear bias against gays and lesbians,'' said ChristinaGilgor, director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group.''This ideology flies in the face of current scientific medical studies.That makes me uneasy that he rejects science and promotes ideology.''

Holsinger, 68, has declined all interview requests, and the White House hadno immediate comment Wednesday.

Holsinger served as Kentucky's health secretary and chancellor of theUniversity of Kentucky's medical center. He taught at several medicalschools and spent more than three decades in the Army Reserve, retiring in1993 as a major general.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45749.asp

June 07, 2007
Ad growth rate for LGBT press three times that of mainstream press

According to the 2006 edition of the "Gay Press Report," ad spending in theLGBT press has grown to almost three times the rate of consumer magazinesover the last decade. The report found that ad spending in LGBT publicationsreached a record high of $223.3 million in 2006. That represents an increaseof 5.2% over 2005 and an increase of 205% since 1996.

During the same 10-year period, ad revenues for all other consumer magazinesincreased only by 47%, which translates to a compound yearly growth of 4%for consumer magazines, while LGBT publications saw a yearly growth rate of11.8%.

"This year's report confirms how, in just one decade, gay and lesbianconsumers have gone from an overlooked niche to an audience that Fortune 500companies are working overtime to reach," said Howard Buford, founder andpresident of advertising agency Prime Access. "The numbers make it clearthat corporate America recognizes and values both the spending power andinfluence of gay consumers."

As of current findings, 183 of Fortune 500 companies have a strong hold inthe LGBT market, with the most popular categories being travel, financialservices, automotive, fashion, and entertainment.

"Over the past 10 years the gay market has become one of the most coveteddemographics in the advertising industry," said Todd Evans, president andCEO of gay media representative firm Rivendell Media. "Gay and lesbianconsumers have more discretionary time than their straight counterparts, andFortune 500 companies and local businesses alike are committing more andmore advertising dollars to reach them. Higher brand loyalty and lessadvertising clutter also make the GLBT market quite attractive."



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45764.asp

June 07, 2007
Point Foundation awards most scholarships ever

A trans woman, a Muslim, and a few proud parents are some of the 38 studentschosen to receive scholarships this year from Point Foundation, the nation'slargest publicly supported group granting scholarships to LGBT students.Each scholar in the "Class of 2007"-the largest in the foundation's six-yearhistory-has been awarded an average of $13,600.

"Since taking the helm at Point earlier this year, I have been pleased withthe high caliber and diversity of candidates who applied for support," saidPoint Foundation executive director Jorge Valencia in a press release.

"After the panel interview with a finalist who appeared particularlynervous," Valencia said, "I approached him and asked, 'It wasn't all thatbad, was it?' The young man replied, 'No, not really. It is just that I havenever been surrounded by so many people who were accepting of me and whosimply wanted me to succeed.' If that does not underscore the importance ofour work with these bright and promising individuals, I don't know whatcould."

Point Foundation provides financial support, leadership training, andmentoring to LGBT students who have been marginalized because of theirsexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Currently a totalof 84 Point Scholars are enrolled in school, and 26 have graduated and beguncareers. (The Advocate)



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45745.asp

June 07, 2007
California assembly passes same-sex marriage

The California state assembly voted Tuesday to allow same-sex couples tomarry, challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said he will veto thebill if it passes the full legislature.

Legislators approved the measure on a party-line vote of 42-34, with themajority saying lawmakers should not wait for the state supreme court to acton the issue.

A debate about California's "one man, one woman" marriage law of 1977 islikely to be decided this year or early next year by the high court.

The bill now goes to the senate, which adopted a similar measure in 2005.Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

California in 2003 recognized domestic partners, creating a registry thataffords same-sex couples many of the rights given to married couples.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45755.asp

June 07, 2007
King gives schools "A" for gender equity

For Billie Jean King, opportunity means everything. On Tuesday she honoredPurdue, Tennessee Tech, Washington State, and State University of New Yorkat Buffalo for making gender equity a priority. The four schools werewinners of the Women's Sports Foundation's inaugural ''Opportunity Awards,''created in honor of the 35th anniversary of Title IX.

''We are still underrepresented, but we're getting there,'' said King,founder of the Women's Sports Foundation. ''We know it's invaluable to be insports.''

Each school earned an ''A'' in a new study titled ''Who's Playing CollegeSports?'' that addresses college sports participation levels from 1995 to2005.

Compiled by John Cheslock, Ph.D., of the University of Arizona inconjunction with the Women's Sports Foundation, the report looked atdivisions I, II, III, and all six major college athletic organizations-NCAA,NAIA, NCCAA, NJCAA, COA, and NWAAC.

The "A" schools had a gap of two points or less in the percentage of femaleathletes to the female student body. An "F" required a gap of 22 points ormore.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45744.asp

June 07, 2007
GOP hopefuls fault bush on Iraq, embrace "don't ask, don't tell"

President Bush drew sporadic, startling criticism Tuesday night inManchester, N.H., from Republican White House hopefuls unhappy with hishandling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style, and his approach toimmigration.

President Bush drew sporadic, startling criticism Tuesday night inManchester, N.H., from Republican White House hopefuls unhappy with hishandling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style, and his approach toimmigration.

''I would certainly not send him to the United Nations'' to represent theUnited States, said Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor andonetime member of Bush's cabinet, midway through a spirited campaign debate.

Arizona senator John McCain criticized the Administration for its handlingof the Iraq war, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said, ''Ithink we were underprepared and under-planned for what came after we knockeddown Saddam Hussein.''

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California said the current administration ''has theslows'' when it comes to building a security fence along the border withMexico.



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The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid45772.asp

June 07, 2007
Senate bill would exempt DP benefits from taxable income

Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Gordon Smith introduced legislation Wednesdaythat would end federal tax inequities that apply to employer-provided healthinsurance for domestic partners.

Two U.S. senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would end federaltax inequities that apply to employer-provided health insurance for domesticpartners. Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican GordonSmith from Oregon are the Senate sponsors of the bill, a version of whichwas introduced into the House in March by Rep. Jim McDermott of WashingtonState.

The Tax Equity for Domestic Partners and Health Plan Beneficiaries Act wouldensure that the value of employer-provided insurance premiums and benefitsreceived by employees for coverage of their domestic partners be excludedfrom taxable income. Current law exempts only coverage extended to spousesand dependents. The law also would ease the tax burden on employers whooffer domestic-partner benefits.

"This legislation takes the next step to ensure that all American workersreceive equal benefits for equal work," Human Rights Campaign president JoeSolmonese said in a statement. "A majority of Fortune 500 companies,collectively employing more than 15 million people, now offer health carebenefits for the domestic partners of their employees. It is past time thatour federal tax code is updated to reflect the reality of what is alreadyhappening in businesses across the country."

Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon praised the bipartisan moveand also cited some Fortune 500 companies' progressive steps to include allemployees' families. "For too long, the federal government has not caught upwith corporate America in providing basic fairness for same-sex couples,"Sammon said. "This bill would bring government in line with the majority ofFortune 500 companies, who understand the importance of equitable treatment.We thank Sen. Gordon Smith for introducing this important bill." (TheAdvocate)



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060607mexico.htm

Gay Mexican Pop Star Buoyed By Fan Support
by The Associated Press
Posted: June 6, 2007 - 3:00 pm ET

(Mexico City) Christian Chavez, a member of the wildly popular Mexican bandRBD, says he's lived the life he always wanted since coming out of thecloset three months ago.

Chavez told the Televisa network Wednesday the public revelation allowed himto "begin a healing process in which I left things behind and began manywonderful things."

The 23-year-old singer made the announcement in March after photos of himkissing and exchanging rings with another man showed up on the Internet.

Chavez said fan support helped him overcome nervousness about an appearancein McAllen, Texas, shortly after his announcement.

"I was afraid to go on stage, but people were really, really nice," he said."I felt free and could sing like I've never sung before."



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060607romney.htm

Lesbian Blasts Romney At Campaign Stop
by The Associated Press
Posted: June 6, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Concord, New Hampshire) A New Hampshire woman, frustrated with Republicanpresidential hopeful Mitt Romney's opposition to gay marriage, made a pointof telling him about her personal experience.

``I am a gay woman and I have children. Your comment that you just made, itsort of invalidates my family,'' said Cynthia Fish, a mother of a 6- and8-year-old. ``... I wish you could explain to me more, why if we are sendingour troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout thiscountry, why not for me? Why not for my family?''

Romney paused, asked Fish about her children and then praised her.

``Wonderful,'' Romney said. ``I'm delighted that you have a family andyou're happy with your family. That's the American way. ... People can livetheir lives as they choose and children can be a great source of joy, as youknow. And I welcome that.''

But then Romney repeated his view of marriage.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060607phelps.htm

Phelps Follower Arrested
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: June 6, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Omaha, Nebraska) The daughter of homophobic preacher Fred Phelps wasarrested Wednesday for suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of aminor.

Shirley Phelps-Roper was arrested in Bellevue, Nebraska, after her10-year-old son stomped on an American flag during a protest at the funeralof a National Guardsman killed in Iraq.

A 1977 Nebraska law prohibits trampling a flag. She also is facing chargesof disturbing the peace.

If convicted Phelps-Roper could be sent to jail for three months and fined$500.

Phelps-Roper says the action is protected by the US Constitution and sheintends to fight the Nebraska law..



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060607scot.htm

Scottish Gay Man Accused Of Murder In Spanish Resort
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: June 6, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(London) Police in the Spanish holiday island of Gran Canaria have arresteda Scottish man for the murder of another gay tourist.

The victim, a German national, was stabbed to death as he left a club at thePlaya Del Ingles resort.

Police said Wednesday that the two men had met at the resort and werebelieved to have been having an affair.

In police custody is an Edinburgh man identified only as EG. It is Spanishcustom not to release a suspect's full name until they are convicted of acrime. He is reportedly 39 years of age.

Investigators say that he had been having a relationship with Karl HeinzThonningen, 44, but became enraged when he discovered that Thonningenalready was in a long term relationship.



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365gay.com

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/06/060607murder.htm

Gay Man Faces Florida Death Sentence
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: June 6, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET

(Fort Lauderdale, Florida) A gay Fort Lauderdale man who officials say oncehad an Internet profile listing a hobby of "hunting cops" could become thefirst person in Florida to be handed the death sentence since 1998 when itwas reactivated by Congress.

Kenneth Wilk, 45, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing ofa Broward Sheriff's deputy during a search for child pornography at his homein 2004.

Wilk also was found guilty of attempted murder in the wounding of a seconddeputy and of child pornography and obstruction of justice charges.

During his trial prosecutors said that when officers broke down the frontdoor, Wilk fired a rifle shot at Deputy Todd Fatta that penetrated hisprotective vest, and he kept firing at Sgt. Angelo Cedeno through a wallwhile the sergeant took cover. Cedeno was wounded in the shoulder and lost afinger.

Wilk's attorney, Bill Matthewman, argued that his client was suffering fromAIDS-related dementia at the time of the killing. Matthewman said hismedical condition raised reasonable doubt.


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Further Information on UA 120/07 (MDE 13/057/2007, 18 May 2007) Possible prisoners of conscience/ Fear of torture or ill-treatment

IRAN Up to 17 men

At least 16 of the 17 men arrested on 10 May at a private party in the central Iranian province of Esfahan are known to have been released.

Twelve were reportedly released in the weeks following their arrest while four of the remaining five were released on 29 May. All of these men were required to post bail and will reportedly face a trial scheduled to take place in June. There are conflicting reports as to whether the fifth man has been released.

They were among 87 people reportedly arrested at the party. Of these, 60 havebeen released unconditionally, while 26, including those referred to above,were released on bail.

The 17 men are believed to have been wearing clothes generally associated with women at the time they were arrested. They are not believed to have had accessto lawyers or their families, and a judge has reportedly said that those detained following the private party will be charged with consumption ofalcohol and â?ohomosexual conductâ? (hamjensgarai). Amnesty International is not aware of any evidence that the men attending the party identify themselves as gay or were engaging in same-sex sexual relations. The arrests took placeat a time when the authorities were mounting a security operation to enforcedress codes in Iran.

During the arrests, those attending the party were said to have been draggedinto the street by police and members of the Basij force (volunteerparamilitary units attached to the Revolutionary Guards Corps), who beat themseverely, causing bruising and, in some cases, broken bones. It remainsunclear if those detained were allowed access to medical treatment.

Amnesty International will continue to monitor the situation closely and take further action if necessary.




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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gabriel-rotello/bushs-choice-for-surgeon_b_50843.html

Bush's Choice for Surgeon General: A World Class Gay Baiter
June 5, 2007 | 05:20 PM (EST)

Dr. Holsinger's big focus is on childhood obesity -- a worthy cause -- and he is so widely regarded in the halls of power that The Economist called him "an entirely innocuous choice" and headlined its article about him "Enter Mr. Nice Guy."

I guess that depends on what you mean by nice.

Does nice mean you found one of those whacky "ex-gay" ministries where gays and lesbians undergo "conversion therapy," a travesty that has been denounced by practically every medical group in the country?

Does nice mean you write a paper called "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality," in which you claim that the facts of biology and anatomy prevent you from believing that gays and lesbians deserve equality?

Does nice mean that as a member of a Methodist church board, you vote to ban an openly gay man from joining the church?

Does nice mean you sit on a church board that accuses the "radical omosexual/lesbian lobby" and those who support rights and dignity for gay people of sparking "a crisis in the United Methodist Church."

Does nice mean you resign from the church's Committee to Study Homosexuality because you believe the committee will follow "liberal lines?"

Does nice mean you call homosexuality "an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle."

In short, does nice mean you use your position of power and authority to do everything you can do to undermine, demean and defame American citizens based on their sexual orientation?

Because this is what the nice Dr. Holsinger has been up to over the past few years.



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http://www.waynebesen.com/2007/06/republican-candidates-disgrace-on-gays.html

Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary
Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Republican Candidates A Disgrace On Gays In The Military

When asked in the Republican debate about Don't Ask/Don't tell, the Republican presidential candidates all supported the current policy. Has there ever been a more gutless, pandering group in the history of politics? They are all kissing Pat Robertson's ass, and the amusing thing is, he and his friends still don't like them.

Sadly, these worms are placing our national security at risk by kicking out good soldiers and linguists that can prevent terrorist attacks. They are placing their election prospects ahead of America.

What a sad, hapless - if not hopeless - party the GOP has become.


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