**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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About Ft. Lauderdale Mayor, James Naugle
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1194/174/
by Norm Kent
Updated: 10 p.m. Tuesday
To Whom It May Concern:
I have now reviewed the video of the Mayor's press conference from 1 p.m.this afternoon.
What my colleague Jim Naugle failed to note to the press when publishing hisremarks was that he read excerpts of a column I wrote in a gay magazine inSeptember of 1998, and his references were to a New Times article duringthat same summer.
I regret that he failed to disclose the dated nature of the article, andtoday attempted to give authenticity and credibility his position today bysharing a feature no longer impacting our community, effectively eliminatednearly a decade ago by community policing and responsible gay citizens.
It may enhance his position with Fox News as a future commentator, but Iwill look forward to debating him on air. It certainly will not endear himto the gay and lesbian population of South Florida.
He says we are unhappy. I think he is wrong. Today I think the gay communityof Fort Lauderdale is happy.
I think the straight mayor of Fort Lauderdale may be very sad.
Norm Kent
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About Ft. Lauderdale Mayor, James Naugle
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1194/174/
It's Still A Game
for the Mayor
And He is Going to Lose
By Norm Kent
Sending out feigned notices from his office this morning that he intended to'apologize' for the anger he has generated with South Florida's gaycommunity, the Mayor of Fort Lauderdale instead used his one p.m. afternoonpress conference to reaffirm his opposition to diversity.
The President of the Florida Dolphin Democrats, Michael Albetta, said itbest at noon when he said "Beware of the Mayor, he is a sly fox."
You see, the Mayor decided to apologize instead "to the parents and childrenof our community," he said, "for not being aware of the problem" about gayscruising for sex openly.
The Mayor, forgetting something called the separation of Church and State,held his press conference on the steps of City Hall with the Reverend O'NealDozier, who opposes the new group formed called Unite Fort Lauderdale. Infact, Dozier expects to bring protestors to the rally today in opposition tothe effort.
The Mayor thinks it is cute that he has upset us all. The Mayor thinks, ashe ends his tenure, to focus not on the good we have created but the wrongshe can find in isolation.
In all my years of spirited public activism, I have never seen a morecallous disregard for the respect of the community and the righteousness ofa cause.
The Mayor actually went on to say that the Broward tourism office shouldrethink its policy of inviting gay tourists to our city, because of AIDSconcerns. He urged people to go out and look for public sexual acts by men,and report them. It is not just that the mayor's press release of an apologywas a transparent fraud, he went on the assault further.
If this was a cause he thought would go away, the Mayor has insured insteadthat it will galvanize further and grow stronger than ever. Underestimatingthe strength and dynamics of our South Florida gay community, the Mayorplayed down our rally, our organization, and our protests. Today he made thesituation worse, perhaps more cruel than any Mayor in any city anytimeanywhere anyplace in this century.
The Mayor's conduct today incorrectly focused on the misconduct of sexualmiscreants who find excitement in bathroom stalls. Gay or straight, theissue of Unite Fort Lauderdale is not about them. And our concern about theMayor is not about that.
Our issues are the economic health and remarkable diversity of our vibrantcommunity, and the aberrational acts of a few cannot be allowed to discolorthe honorable deeds of our silent majority, who revitalized our guesthouses, restored our neighborhoods, enhanced our businesses and brought lifeand love and laughter to our community. We are happy, healthy, and whole.
Today, the mayor regrettably tarnished his image forever. And tomorrow, hewill wind up with the stigma of having damaged his public reputation, hissuccesses rebuked, and his name a stain on our community. Too bad. He couldhave done better. The next mayor will.
But today's remarks, focused not on unifying our goals, but dividing ourinterests, have insured only that today is the beginning of the end forMayor Naugle.
Before this is over, Waymon Hudson and Fight Out Loud and Unite FortLauderdale will be heard across the nation, and the Mayor will become arelic, a vestige of the past.
Norm Kent
Publisher
National Gay News. com
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Forwarded from Al Fitiha
International GLBT Muslims
http://www.al-fatiha.org/
Persecuted Gays Seek Refuge in U.S.
Foreigners' Abuse Increasingly Seen as Grounds for Asylum
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; A06
One night in 2003, on the wintry streets of Kosovo, a group of thugs stalkedand beat Gramoz Prestreshi almost to death. Police in the war-scarred Balkanprovince laughed and called him names. The emergency room workers made himmop up his own blood. It was a sordid but hardly unusual episode in thehostile environment homosexuals encounter in societies of all kinds.
Unlike many such victims, though, Prestreshi kept his wits about him. He hadphotographs taken of his injuries. He complained to the press and clippedevery article. When his family disowned him, he joined a gay rightsorganization and slept in its office. This spring, his determination boreunexpected fruit, and Prestreshi was accepted as a legal refugee in theUnited States. He now lives in the District.
"I am happy because I don't have to live like a prisoner anymore in asociety where no one is allowed to be different," said Prestreshi, a slight,nervous man of 22, who won his asylum case with help from Whitman-WalkerClinic in the District. "But I can never forget what happened. It hurt whenthe police called us 'faggots.' It hurt when my parents screamed and beat meafter they found out. It still hurts."
Harassment and abuse of gay men and lesbians is becoming increasinglyaccepted as grounds for legal asylum in the United States, even at a time ofconservative judicial activism, fear about HIV/AIDS transmission andincreased scrutiny of asylum seekers. The government does not disclose abreakdown of reasons for granting asylum petitions, but legal advocacygroups in several major U.S. cities said they have won dozens of cases.
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An Iranian Gay Man at Risk of Deportation from France
24 July 2007
Hamid is a 21 years-old homosexual man from Iran. He fled country because ofhis sexual orientation and has been staying in France for about one and halfyear now. He was arrested by the police a few days ago in Paris and sincethat day, 18 July 2007, he has been kept in a detention room. UnfortunatelyFrench authorities are going to deport him back to Iran. They are dealingwithIranian Embassy in Paris about this issue.
He MUST not be deported back to Iran, and he needs our support NOW.
IRQO has been in touch with Cimad Organization in Paris so you can send yoursupport letters and letters of reproving of his deportation to thisorganization: they will refer those letters to the government. \
You can also fax your letters to: 0033-15-509-2076
Or email it to: info@irqo.net
The government of France must not deport Hamid back to where he'll betortured. Read Mr. Philippe DOUSTE-BLAZY, Ministary of Forigne Affair'sletter on 26.Apr.2006 about Iranian homosexuals in French and English,Bellow.
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Spanish judge who denied lesbian woman custody of children to be probed
Decision goes against laws brought in by Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero
MADRID (AP) | Jul 24, 12:11 PM
http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=13519
Spain's judicial watchdog said Tuesday it is investigating a judge whodenied a woman custody of her two daughters because she was a lesbian.
"Children have a right to a father and a mother, but not to two mothers ortwo fathers," Fernando Ferrin Calamita, a judge in the southeastern city ofMurcia, wrote in a custody case ruling last month.
Ferrin said the mother, who was not identified, "must choose between herchildren and her new partner," according to leading Spanish daily El Paisand other media.
The judge went on to order the mother to relinquish the children by the endof June and said the father - her former husband - should have custody.
The couple divorced after the husband discovered the woman was a lesbian,the judge said.
"It is a homosexual atmosphere that harms minors and substantially increasesthe risk that they will turn that way too," the judge added.
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The New Statesman: Pink Planet
Brian Whitaker
http://www.newstatesman.com/200707190026
4130 words
23 July 2007
New Statesman
(c) 2007, New Statesman
Brian Whitaker reports on the new global upsurge in pink politics, fromChina and Iraq to South America plus we've interviews with gay people aroundthe globe
London, Toronto, Madrid, Paris . . . This summer, Pride marches bringhundreds of thousands of people on to the streets of the world's majorcities. Politicians and celebrities who once would have shunned them nowreap kudos by declaring their support. If Ken Livingstone failed to show upone year at Pride London, the media would want to know why. But don't expectthe mayors of Moscow or Jerusalem to put in an appearance any time soon:both have sought to ban parades in their own cities and in some parts of theworld only fools would dream of trying to hold one. Yet increasingly, evenin countries where public discussion of homosexuality is still largelytaboo, questions about gay rights are gradually coming to the surface.
According to Scott Long, of Human Rights Watch, gay activism is growing inboth Latin America and Africa. "It's still relative, but ten years ago,outside South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, there were no groupsanywhere in Africa," he said. "Now, most anglophone countries and anincreasing number of West African countries have at least smallorganisations that are trying to do something.
"In Latin America there's a really vibrant movement that has connected withthe left, and particularly in countries like Argentina and Chile there's acompletely different atmosphere now. These issues have become respectable ina lot of places."
But as gay and lesbian activists around the world have become moreorganised, so too have their opponents - often aided by the spread ofreligious conservatism, whether of the Christian or Muslim variety.
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Forwarded by Rex Wockner
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.1133557396
Tehran, 23 July (AKI) - A total 125 people have been arrested in thenortheast Iranian city of Mashhad, one of the holiest Shiite shrines.according to police.
The 67 men and 58 women were arrested for committing 'sex crimes', aspokesman for Mashhad police said without elaborating.
Many thousands of Shiite pilgrims head to Mashhad each year to visit theImam Reza's mausoleum.
Shiite Muslims believe that Imam Reza was the eighth successor to theProphet Mohammad. Reza was allegedly poisoned in 818 while travellingthrough Mashhad.
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Yahoo.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070723/wl_mideast_afp/iranwomenfashion_070723175421
Iran launches new crackdown on unIslamic dress
by Farhad Pouladi Mon Jul 23, 1:54 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Monday launched a new wave of a moral crackdownagainst women who "dress like models" and men whose hairstyles are deemedunIslamic, police said.
Tehran's police force dispatched dozens of police cars and minibuses intothe early evening rush-hour to enforce the dress rules at major squares inthe city centre, an AFP correspondent said.
The new "plan to increase security in society" -- which is limited to Tehranbut will later extend nationwide -- comes after a pre-summer drive by thepolice resulted in thousands of warnings and hundreds of arrests.
"We have vowed to continue the campaign to reinforce the plan to increasesecurity in society with new personnel who have received the necessarytraining," the Tehran police head of information Mehdi Ahmadi told reportersas the first police forces were dispatched.
"This notably includes the use of 100 female police officers," he added.
He said that the campaign would target women who were badly veiled, woreoverly tight overcoats, sported excessively short trousers and were "dressedlike models."
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Ca.Today.Reuters.com
Hungarians test eastern Europe's gay taboo
Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:35 PM EDT
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&story
ID=uri:2007-07-24T233501Z_01_L18725336_RTRIDST_0_LIFESTYLE-EUROPE-GAYS-COL.XML&pageNumber=2&summit=
By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - "I am Gabor Szetey. A faithful Hungarian-European.Citizen, public official, member of the government. And gay."
Of all the arenas in which a senior government politician could come out,Szetey's choice -- two days before a Gay Pride march earlier this month inpost-communist eastern Europe -- was one of the most defiant.
Hungary's Secretary of State for Human Resources risked hostility because hewanted to highlight persistent intolerance, not just of gay people, but alsoof other minorities, in eastern Europe.
After decades under communist rule when homosexuality was banned or simplyout of sight, most east Europeans still find it hard to accept. The lack oftolerance has been coupled with a surge in nationalism in some parts of theregion.
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Chicago Free Press
July 25, 2007
Over There
Paul Varnell
It is important to keep our main focus on the struggle for gay freedom andequality here in the United States where the forces of anti-gay repressionare constantly looking for ways to undermine and reverse our progress.
But it is also worth paying some attention to the abusive treatment of gaysand lesbians elsewhere in the world. In many countries outside WesternEurope, their situation is much more vulnerable than our own, in some casesdire.
Gay progress in the U.S. has been aided by a growing social liberalizationduring the last 40 years; but in many countries those conditions do notprevail andthe struggle of gays is much more difficult. Their advocacy movements aremuch smaller, ill-funded and more recent than our own, their governmentsmuch more repressive, and fundamentalist religion (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim)far more powerful than here.
Religious militia death squads kill gays in Iraq; gays are arrested andsometimes executed on arguably trumped-up charges of rape or pederasty in Iran; vigilante groups kill gays in Brazil; Nigeria is in the grip of contending
Muslim and Christian sects competing to be more anti-gay; gays in Eastern, Europe (Russia, Poland, some Baltic states) are barred from public advocacy and beaten up by skinhead hooligans while police watch complacently. And meanwhile His Holiness inveighs against gays from his Vatican throne while both SunniSaudi Arabia and Shiite Iran export homophobic religion.
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Indianews.com
http://www.indiaenews.com/nepal/20070724/62174.htm
Elton John stands behind Nepal's gay community
By Sudeshna Sarkar. Kathmandu, Nepal, 12:01 PM IST
British singer Sir Elton John has taken up cudgels onbehalf of Nepal's sexual minorities, who were recentlytold by a government official that instead of tryingto educate the gay community about the spread ofHIV/AIDS they should 'find something better to do'.
The Elton John AIDS Foundation, Britain's largestcharity that supports AIDS intervention programmesacross the world, issued a statement from London,saying it was 'extremely proud' to support the BlueDiamond Society (BDS), Nepal's only gay rightsorganisation, and the HIV/AIDS work it was doing inthe country.
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European Union - US given sexual orientation information on
travellers... [2007-07-24 PinkNews]
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/view.php?id=5008
US given sexual orientation information on travellers
24th July 2007 16:04
Yepoka Yeebo
The European Commission quietly approved an agreement this Mondaywhich gives the US Department of Homeland Security unprecedentedaccess to the personal information of anyone on a transatlanticflight, including details of their sexual orientation.
The DHS insists on the right to use the information for diseasecontrol, and there are fears that gay passengers may be singled outas possible HIV risks.
The plans involve upgrading information which is already sent byairlines to the DHS on the 4-million-plus Britons who visit the USevery year, including payment details, home address and thepassengers in-flight meal choice.
The agreement adds 19 possible new categories, including informationon ethnic origin, political and philosophical opinions, credit cardnumbers, trade union membership, sex life and details of thepassengers' health.
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Anything But Straight
www.waynebesen.com
by Wayne Besen
July 24, 2007
Red Meat Conservatism
I was famished on my long drive to New York City and pulled off I-95 in themiddle of Nowhere, South Carolina. A billboard had directed me to arestaurant on desolate Frontage Road, which had the charm of an abandon rockquarry. In the distance, I saw a bright yellow sign that read "Maurice'sBBQ." I bounded into the aromatic smoke pit looking forward to good southernribs, but what I found instead was good ole fashioned red meat conservatism.In this contentious day and age, it seems even pulled pork is politicized.
A small glass encased room at the store's entrance served as a propagandacenter, with books, pamphlets and cartoons extolling the virtues of the oldConfederacy and modern Republican politics. One book depicted a photographof the American flag under the caption, "The Real Slave Flag." Various rebelflags also filled the space, as well as photographs of southern Civil War"heroes."
Ironically, there was a young African American teenager working at the cashregister. Either she was blissfully ignorant of her surroundings, or jobswere scarce in this neck of the woods. I just can't imagine a black personin New York or Miami working in such a place. (The exception is Washington,where you can always find a self-loathing minority of all stripes to shillon The Hill)
Once I placed my order, I listened to the locals yak about the great GeorgeW. Bush, the reasons why we should invade Iran and how certain Republicanpoliticians betrayed them on immigration legislation. I had often wonderedwho the remaining 28-percent of the idiots were that supported the worstpresident in history and I finally found them. A couple of people sportedwell-worn Bush/Cheney campaign T-shirts. Meanwhile, several power trucks inthe parking lot had bumper stickers that cheered the GOP, lauded IntelligentDesign or depicted bloody fetuses.
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Forwarded from Susan Frishkorn
Tri-County - chances1@bellsouth.net
Disfavor for Bush Hits Rare Heights
In Modern Era, Only Nixon Scored Worse, And Only Truman Was Down for So Long
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; A03
President Bush is a competitive guy. But this is one contest he would ratherlose. With 18 months left in office, he is in the running for most unpopularpresident in the history of modern polling.
The latest Washington Post-ABC News survey shows that 65 percent ofAmericans disapprove of Bush's job performance, matching his all-time low.In polls conducted by The Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has apresident exceeded that level of public animosity -- and that was Richard M.Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned.
The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House,sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies andjeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humorjokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters -- at leastthose aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many formeraides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues,Bush and the fate of his presidency.
Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longerbothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating. Seeking the bestinterpretation for the president's predicament, they argue that Bush can dowhat he thinks is right without regard to political cost, pointing todecisions to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and to commute the sentence of I.Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.
But the president's unpopularity has left the White House to play mostlydefense for the remainder of his term. With his immigration overhaulproposal dead, Bush's principal legislative hopes are to save his No ChildLeft Behind education program and to fend off attempts to force him tochange course in Iraq. The emerging strategy is to play off a Congress thatis also deeply unpopular and to look strong by vetoing spending bills.
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Forwarded from GLSEN SOUTH FLORIDA
glsen@glsensouthflorida.org
Pridelines' Full Time
Program Coordinator
Job Description
Pridelines Youth Services is a not for profit agency that offers GLBTQ youthages 13-20 an opportunity to develop a positive self-image while helping toincrease their feelings of self-confidence and worth. Through various socialand educational programs, Pridelines Youth Services makes it possible foryouth to interact with like-minded youth and adult role models in a safeenvironment free of harassment and judgment.
Contact rays.list@comcast.net for the full article - job description
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Alimony question identifies legal DP-marriage gaps
http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/130262/2767002/http://www.latimes.com/la-me-gaywed22jul22,0,315735.story?coll=la-home-center
Alimony provides a same-sex union test
An Orange County man appeals an order to pay spousal support to his ex-wife,who is in a domestic partnership.
By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
July 22, 2007
Ron Garber knew his former wife was living with another woman - and hadtaken her last name - when he agreed to pay her $1,250 a month in alimony.
What he didn't know was that the two women had registered with the state asdomestic partners under a law that was supposed to mirror marriage law,Garber said.
State marriage laws say that alimony ends when the former spouse remarries,and Garber reasons he should be off the hook, given that domesticpartnership is akin to marriage. But an Orange County judge has decided thatregistered partnership is cohabitation, not marriage, and that Garber mustpay.
"This is not about gay or lesbian," Garber said. "This is about the lawbeing fair."
The case, which Garber intends to appeal, highlights gaps between the legalstatus of domestic partners and of married couples, an issue the CaliforniaSupreme Court is considering as it ponders whether to legalize same-sexmarriage.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Democratic Candidates Discuss Same-Sex Marriage
CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate
Anderson Cooper Moderator
July 23, 20037
Excerpt:
COOPER: Our next question is on a topic that got a lot of response fromYouTube viewers. Let's watch.
QUESTION: Hi. My name is Mary.
QUESTION: And my name is Jen.
QUESTION: And we're from Brooklyn, New York.
If you were elected president of the United States, would you allow us to bemarried to each other?
COOPER: Congressman Kucinich?
KUCINICH: Mary and Jen, the answer to your question is yes. And let me tellyou why.
Because if our Constitution really means what it says, that all are createdequal, if it really means what it says, that there should be equality ofopportunity before the law, then our brothers and sisters who happen to begay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender should have the same rights accordedto them as anyone else, and that includes the ability to have a civilmarriage ceremony.
Yes, I support you. And welcome to a better and a new America under aPresident Kucinich administration.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Dodd, you supported the Defense of Marriage Act. What's yourposition?
DODD: I've made the case, Anderson, that -- my wife and I have two youngdaughters, age 5 and 2.
I'd simply ask the audience to ask themselves the question that Jackie and Ihave asked: How would I want my two daughters treated if they grew up andhad a different sexual orientation than their parents?
Good jobs, equal opportunity, to be able to retire, to visit each other, tobe with each other, as other people do.
So I feel very strongly, if you ask yourself the question, "How would youlike your children treated if they had a different sexual orientation thantheir parents?," the answer is yes. They ought to have that ability in civilunions.
I don't go so far as to call for marriage. I believe marriage is between aman and a woman.
But my state of Connecticut, the state of New Hampshire, have endorsed civilunions. I strongly support that. But I don't go so far as marriage.
COOPER: Governor Richardson?
RICHARDSON: Well, I would say to the two young women, I would level with you-- I would do what is achievable.
What I think is achievable is full civil unions with full marriage rights. Iwould also press for you a hate crimes act in the Congress. I wouldeliminate "don't ask/don't tell" in the military.
(APPLAUSE)
If we're going to have in our military men and women that die for thiscountry, we shouldn't give them a lecture on their sexual orientation
I would push for domestic partnership laws, nondiscrimination in insuranceand housing.
I would also send a very strong message that, in my administration, I willnot tolerate any discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or sexualorientation.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: This next question is for Senator Edwards.
QUESTION: I'm Reverend Reggie Longcrier. I'm the pastor of Exodus Missionand Outreach Church in Hickory, North Carolina.
Senator Edwards said his opposition to gay marriage is influenced by hisSouthern Baptist background. Most Americans agree it was wrong andunconstitutional to use religion to justify slavery, segregation, anddenying women the right to vote.
So why is it still acceptable to use religion to deny gay American theirfull and equal rights?
(APPLAUSE)
EDWARDS: I think Reverend Longcrier asks a very important question, which iswhether fundamentally -- whether it's right for any of our faith beliefs tobe imposed on the American people when we're president of the United States.I do not believe that's right.
I feel enormous personal conflict about this issue. I want to enddiscrimination. I want to do some of the things that I just heard BillRichardson talking about -- standing up for equal rights, substantiverights, civil unions, the thing that Chris Dodd just talked about. But Ithink that's something everybody on this stage will commit themselves to aspresident of the United States.
But I personally have been on a journey on this issue. I feel enormousconflict about it. As I think a lot of people know, Elizabeth spoke -- mywife Elizabeth spoke out a few weeks ago, and she actually supports gaymarriage. I do not. But this is a very, very difficult issue for me. And Irecognize and have enormous respect for people who have a different view ofit.
COOPER: I should also point out that the reverend is actually in theaudience tonight. Where is he? Right over here.
Reverend, do you feel he answered your question?
(APPLAUSE)
QUESTION: This question was just a catalyst that promoted some other thingsthat wrapped around that particular question, especially when it comes tofair housing practices. Also...
COOPER: Do you think he answered the question, though?
QUESTION: Not like I would like to have heard it...
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: What did you not hear?
QUESTION: I didn't quite get -- some people were moving around, and I didn'tquite get all of his answer. I just heard...
COOPER: All right, there's 30 seconds more. Why is it OK to quite religiousbeliefs when talking about why you don't support something? That'sessentially what's his question.
EDWARDS: It's not. I mean, I've been asked a personal question which is, Ithink, what Reverend Longcrier is raising, and that personal question is, doI believe and do I personally support gay marriage?
The honest answer to that is I don't. But I think it is absolutely wrong, aspresident of the United States, for me to have used that faith basis as abasis for denying anybody their rights, and I will not do that when I'mpresident of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Obama, the laws banning interracial marriage in the UnitedStates were ruled unconstitutional in 1967. What is the difference between aban on interracial marriage and a ban on gay marriage?
OBAMA: Well, I think that it is important to pick up on something that wassaid earlier by both Dennis and by Bill, and that is that we've got to makesure that everybody is equal under the law. And the civil unions that Iproposed would be equivalent in terms of making sure that all the rightsthat are conferred by the state are equal for same-sex couples as well asfor heterosexual couples.
Now, with respect to marriage, it's my belief that it's up to the individual denominations to make a decision as to whether they want to recognizemarriage or not. But in terms of, you know, the rights of people to ransferproperty, to have hospital visitation, all those critical civil rights thatare conferred by our government, those should be equal.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Part I: CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debatetranscript
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Part I: CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debate transcript
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) -- The eight candidates vying to be theDemocrat nominee for president in the 2008 elections answered questionssubmitted by CNN and YouTube users in a debate Tuesday night. Here is a fulltranscript of the event:
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN host: Our first question tonight is Zach Kempf inProvo, Utah.
QUESTION: What's up? I'm running out of tape; I have to hurry.
So my question is: We have a bunch of leaders who can't seem to do theirjob. And we pick people based on the issues they that they represent, butthen they get in power and they don't do anything about it anyway.
You're going to spend this whole night talking about your views on issues,but the issues don't matter if when you get in power nothing's going to getdone.
We have a Congress and a president with, like, a 30 percent approval rating,so clearly we don't think they're doing a good job. What's going to make youany more effectual, beyond all the platitudes and the stuff we're used tohearing? I mean, be honest with us. How are you going to be any different?
COOPER: Senator Dodd, you've been in Congress more than 30 years. Can youhonestly say you're any different?
For the rest of the transcript, go to the website listed above.
=
Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript.part2/index.html
Part II: CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debate transcript
This is part two of the transcript for the CNN/YouTube presidential debates.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) -- QUESTION: Hi, my name is Shawn and I'mfrom Ann Arbor, Michigan. There is a scientific consensus for man-causedclimate change, and I've heard each of you talk in previous debates aboutalternative energy sources like solar or wind, but I have not heard any ofyou speak your opinion on nuclear power. I believe that nuclear power issafer, cleaner, and provides a quicker avenue to energy independence thanother alternatives.
QUESTION: I am curious what each of you believe.
COOPER: Senator Edwards?
EDWARDS: Wind, solar, cellulose-based biofuels are the way we need to go. Ido not favor nuclear power. We haven't built a nuclear power plant indecades in this country. There is a reason for that. The reason is it isextremely costly. It takes an enormous amount of time to get one planned,developed and built. And we still don't have a safe way to dispose of thenuclear waste. It is a huge problem for America over the long term.
For the rest of the transcript, go to the website listed above.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/lifestyle-usa-politics-kucinich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Democrat Kucinich: Long Shot Who Keeps on Running
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:47 p.m. ET
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinichhas just 1 percent support in the polls, six candidates ahead of him andnext to no chance of becoming U.S. president. But don't tell him that.
A six-term anti-war congressman from Cleveland, Kucinich was the lastDemocrat standing against Sen. John Kerry in 2004 -- if only because herefused to quit. And he's convinced his second run for the presidentialnomination will be more successful.
"I'm in this campaign to win," Kucinich said after an Ohio campaign stop."People are looking for an alternative."
Voters looking for an alternative to mainstream U.S. politics will certainlyfind that in Kucinich, a 60-year-old vegan who survived homelessness as achild and a Mafia death threat early in his career to become a key figure inthe growing anti-war movement.
During Monday night's CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, Kucinich wore theliberal label proudly.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/opinion/25weds4.html?pagewanted=print
July 25, 2007
Editorial Observer
YouDebate: If Only the Candidates Were as Interesting as the Questioners
By ADAM COHEN
Charleston, S.C.
The most striking questions in the YouTube Democratic presidential debatewere the ones about sick people. Two brothers from Davenport, Iowa,submitted a video of themselves feeding a parent with Alzheimer's andasking, "What are you going to do to fight this disease now?" A 36-year-oldLong Island woman who said she hoped "to be a future breast cancer survivor"removed a wig to reveal a bald head and asked, "What would you as presidentdo to make low-cost or free preventive medicine available for everybody inthis country?"
There was a lot of hype going into Monday night's debate, and the format didnot live up to all of it. The video questioners had trouble wresting thecandidates from their heavily protected fortresses - but then, eightbunker-buster bombs would have had trouble doing that. What the format diddo was make the proceedings more entertaining, and it injected real peopleinto arid public policy debates. In a modest but real way, it worked.
The debate was certainly more lively than the usual candidate face-off. Noteven CNN's selection of the videos, or the fact that the subject was anelection 16 months off, managed to squash all of YouTube's offbeat charm. Ifthe now-familiar line-up of Democratic candidates is going to provide yetanother familiar answer to yet another question about global warming, whynot have it asked by a talking snowman?
A more raw moment came toward the end, when the candidates were confrontedwith the sort of authentic American voice that does not often make it ontomainstream television. A Michigan man asked the candidates about guncontrol, saying he and other Americans wanted to know "if our babies aresafe." His "baby," he then revealed, was a fierce-looking automatic weapon.
Even though the questions were different, the candidates' answers all toooften were not. Dennis Kucinich responded to the snowman with a stump speechthat began, "Well, we have to understand the connection between globalwarring and global warming," ignoring what everyone else saw, which was thathis interlocutor was a pile of frozen water.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/lifestyle-europe-gays.html?pagewanted=print
July 25, 2007
Hungarians Test Eastern Europe's Gay Taboo
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:14 a.m. ET
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - "I am Gabor Szetey. A faithful Hungarian-European.Citizen, public official, member of the government. And gay."
Of all the arenas in which a senior government politician could come out,Szetey's choice -- two days before a Gay Pride march earlier this month inpost-communist eastern Europe -- was one of the most defiant.
Hungary's Secretary of State for Human Resources risked hostility because hewanted to highlight persistent intolerance, not just of gay people, but alsoof other minorities, in eastern Europe.
After decades under communist rule when homosexuality was banned or simplyout of sight, most east Europeans still find it hard to accept. The lack oftolerance has been coupled with a surge in nationalism in some parts of theregion.
"I think my coming out took so long partly because I was 22 in 1990," Szeteytold Reuters. He blamed the communist regime -- which collapsed in 1989 inHungary -- for the fact many still keep their homosexuality secret.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072401968_pf.html
Regarding Alan Shaw's letter on the vandalism to a Hummer in Washington, inwhich he wrote, "I find it very hard to dredge up much sympathy for thevictim":
This attitude encourages people to engage in violence -- such as the bombingof abortion clinics, attacks on gay people and arson at houses being builtfor African Americans -- if they believe their cause to be socially,religiously or politically correct.
The violence against property in this case was more than simple vandalism.It was a form of hate-fueled vigilantism. It should not be tolerated.
CYNTHIA WASHINGTON
Silver Spring
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-flpwater0725pnjul25,0,4410578,print.story?coll=sofla_tab01_layout
Finally! Weekend rains get water flowing into Lake O
By Andy Reid
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 25, 2007
For the first time in eight months, water on Tuesday resumed flowing fromthe Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee - slowly starting to replenishSouth Florida's primary backup water supply.
Above-average rainfall in the Kissimmee River basin, which saw 2 to 4 inchesduring weekend storms, finally added up to enough water draining into theriver that the Army Corps of Engineers this week opened water control gatesat the north end of the 730-square-mile lake.
It was the first time in 250 days that there was enough water in the riverto open the drainage gates, corps spokesman Barry Vorse said Tuesday.
Just about 150 cubic feet of water per second, well below normal, flowedfrom the river to the lake on Tuesday, Vorse said.
"It's not going to be rushing in torrents toward the lake, but it's astart," Vorse said.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407dancer.htm
Model Sues Magazine Over Photo Identifying Him As Gay Porn Star
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(New York City) A New York City judge has refused to dismiss a case by apart-time model and dancer who alleges the city's biggest LGBT club guidedefamed him by identifying him as a porn star in an ad for gay club Splash.
HX magazine had attempted to have Alex Saez's $1.25 million lawsuit tossedout but Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Goodman ruled the suit couldproceed, noting that the magazine "does admit that no investigation wasdone" to determine if he was indeed a porn star.
Saez is a go-go dancer at Splash by night and worked in retail by day. Heclaims in the lawsuit that agreed to pose for the ad but with certainconditions.
"[He] accommodated the request [to pose] provided that any images be usedsolely for one-time limited in-house distribution of flyers," the lawsuitcharges
The photo showed Saez barechested and in open jeans.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407windsor.htm
International Manhunt For Gay Man's Killer
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(Windsor, Ontario) Police on both sides of the Canada-US border are huntingfor a 22-year old Windsor, Ontario man wanted in the killing of a bartenderat an area bar.
Windsor and Detroit are linked by bridges and a tunnel. There also isbridge linking nearby Grand Bend, Ontario with Grand Bend, Michigan.
The badly decomposed body of Carlos Rivera, 26, was found late last week inhis Windsor apartment, three days after he failed to show up at Taps, apopular gay bar in the city that attracts clientele from both sides of theborder.
A first degree murder warrant has been issued for Jesse Norman Imeson. The22-year old is considered armed an dangerous police said.
Investigators say they believe Imeson met Rivera at the bar. The pair wereseen last week in Rivera's car with Imeson at the wheel.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407uk.htm
New Gay Travel Campaign Reflects Changing Community
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(London) Gays and lesbians eyeing travel ads for Great Britain aren't seeingmuscular male models flexing their pecs promoting hot times in the UK thisyear.
Instead, the ads show a gay couple walking hand-in-hand along a beach, alesbian couple with a child looking at Buckingham Palace, Palace guardsdressed in the rainbow colors, and pictures of the London Flower Show.
VisitBritain, the government financed tourism agency, says the changereflects the way the American gay community now sees itself - more familyoriented.
In the past VisitBritain had run successful ad campaigns in the US featuringclubbing with a sexy edge.
But that is no longer working. The agency hired a US-based ad firm to helpit create a new image - going so far as to hold LGBT focus groups in majorcities including San Francisco, New York and Chicago.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072507rudy.htm
Rudy Touts Roberts, Alito As Model Justices
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 25, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Riverside, California) Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giulianisaid Tuesday that judges who are not so-called "strict constructionists"threaten American democracy.
Giuliani, answering a question at a news conference about his support forabortion rights, veered into a broad criticism of the federal judiciary. Herepeated his pledge to appoint strict constructionists to the federal bench.
"What 'strict constructionist' means is that a judge will interpret theConstitution in accordance with what someone else meant when they wrotethose words and not try to legislate," the former New York mayor said. "Ifyou are not a strict constructionist, I believe you imperil the Americandemocracy because you take the role of a legislator."
As he has in the past, Giuliani said he would appoint judges in the mold ofChief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, President Bush'sappointees to the Supreme Court and two justices embraced by conservatives.
Throughout the campaign, Giuliani has struggled to square what he calls hispersonal opposition to terminating pregnancies with his long record ofsupport for a woman's right to choose.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=27955
U.S. anti-prostitution stance is not effective at helping to control theglobal HIV epidemic
Disease/Infection News
Published: Tuesday, 24-Jul-2007
In order to receive U.S. funding for HIV prevention or control projects,recipient organizations must take a pledge that explicitly condemnsprostitution.
But such condemnation is not effective at helping to control the global HIVepidemic, say researchers in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Nicole Franck Masenior and Chris Beyrer (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School ofPublic Health) reviewed the existing scientific evidence on strategies thateffectively reduce rates of HIV among sex workers.
They found a substantial body of peer-reviewed published studies suggestingthat the empowerment, organization, and unionization of sex workers can bean effective HIV prevention strategy and can reduce the other harmsassociated with sex work, including violence, police harassment, unwantedpregnancy, and the number of underage sex workers.
"While sex work may be exploitative," say Franck Masenior and Beyrer, "andis illegal in many jurisdictions, sex worker advocates and HIV preventionprogram leaders generally concur that sex workers themselves need services,protection, peer outreach, and support from health professionals to reducetheir risk of HIV infection." The anti-prostitution pledge, they say, placesfunding restrictions on those HIV programs that have policies calling fordecriminalization or legalization of sex work.
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A Note From Hillsborough County, Florida
Dear Friends and Family of the GLBT Community,
(First, our apologies for last night's email - it went through without any formatting and was unreadable. Here's the correctly formatted message.)
We want to officially let you know that 2008 will be the year that everything changes. Yes - there is a Presidential race brewing that will finally end the long painful curse we've had to deal with during the Bush/Cheney administration, but what we want to let everyone in our community know about is something a little closer to home.
Right now, as we write this letter, there is a movement underway that will not only make history in Florida, but has the ability to cause a seismic rumble that could be felt across the country- and where is this occurring? None other than Hillsborough County!
Yes - Hillsborough County, the home of Ronda Storms - and in no better place than the scene of the crime - the Hillsborough County Commission! It was the illsborough County Commission, led by the likes of Ronda and all but one (1) of her colleagues, who decided to throw out the constitutional right of free speech and ban the display of books celebrating Gay Pride (little g - little p) in the public libraries. As we all know they were successful in their efforts - but that was then - and this is now! It is now time to strike back and bring some common sense and an honest acceptance of diversity - which will actually be a more accurate representation of the residential makeup of Hillsborough County.
So how do we do it you ask? Easy..Kevin Beckner is a candidate for the Hillsborough County Commission - District 6 (countywide). Kevin is a Professional Certified Financial Planner, a former law enforcement officer, and a good Democrat who is very involved in the community.and Kevin happens to be openly gay. Kevin's campaign is already up and running..and there is a lot of work to do and a lot of milestones to hit..but we are on the way to make history by winning this seat and telling the citizens of Hillsborough County and the whole world that to quote Bob Dylan - "these times are a changing!" Kevin is a great candidate and he can most definitely win! But we can't do it without you!
This race is bigger than Hillsborough County..way bigger! Imagine for a minute how different things will be when an openly gay candidate wins in one of the biggest counties in Florida whose recent history has been one of regression towards diversity and civil liberties. Kevin's win in Hillsborough County will mark the end of wedge issue politics that have hurt not just the GLBT community but frankly everyone! Look around and see what has become of our State and our Country at the hands of those who have used wedge issue campaigns to their advantage--------- Well those days are over!
We are sending this message out across the state to make sure all our friends and family are aware of this race. We are also asking you for your help! Kevin is going to need all the support and help he can get to pull off this monumental task. Please take the time to visit Kevin's website at ww.KevinBeckner.com for more information about his race. Kevin needs volunteer help and would really appreciate any form of contribution you feel comfortable making.
Thank you for continued support of all our causes. 2008 will prove to be a historic year!
With Pride and Peace -
Sally L. Phillips
President Hillsborough County GLBTA Democratic Caucus
813-382-8172 - cell
Mitch Kates
Campaign Manager Kevin Beckner For County Commissioner - District 6
(Countywide)
727-710-2804
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[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]
#####
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
GLBT DIGEST July 24, 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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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbstonewall0724nbjul24,0,7761199.story
Stonewall Library's move reignites debate about explicit art in publicplaces
By Elizabeth Baier
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 24, 2007
It was born from the private collection of a local college student. Now it'sone of the nation's leading libraries of gay and lesbian literature andhistory.
Located inside the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, the Stonewall Libraryand Archives boasts the largest private collection of gay and lesbianwritings, videos and historical documents in the southeastern United States.
That's about 18,000 titles and 7,000 historical archives. Items thatchronicle the history of the gay movement, from the pre-World War II dayswhen most gay men and women stayed in the closet to the New York riots thatspurred the modern gay rights movement. It also features biographies onfamed gay writers such as Tennessee Williams.
The collection existed with fairly little attention until this month, whenFort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle objected to the library and materialsmoving into a city-owned building. He argued the collection was tantamountto pornography and fought library plans to relocate to a 4,200-square-footspace at a Fort Lauderdale branch of the Broward County Library at HolidayPark.
Naugle lost the debate, and city commissioners approved the move to theSunrise Boulevard building.
What's lingered, though, is the issue of whether sexually explicit art,writings and other material have historical research value and should bepreserved with the cooperation of a government.
"In our circulating collection, there is nothing that I would considerpornographic at all," said Jack Rutland, executive director of the StonewallLibrary. "We have fine art books, as any library would have. Are there nakedpeople in those books? Absolutely. Is it pornography? Absolutely not."
Naugle disagrees.
"The library refuses to acknowledge it contains pornography," he said. "It'sthat simple."
The fury Naugle ignited over his opposition to Stonewall, and comments hemade about gays and other issues, led to the formation of a new group, UniteFort Lauderdale. The group plans a rally at City Hall today.
The historical archives encompass about 100 years of gay history andinclude, among other items, every issue of The Advocate, the nation'sleading gay and lesbian magazine, and founding documents of the MattachineSociety and the Daughters of Bilits, considered to be the nation's first gayand lesbian organizations founded in the 1950s.
Stonewall was started in 1973 by Mark Silber, then a Florida InternationalUniversity student, when he began collecting books and magazines tounderstand his homosexuality. As his collection grew, he started lendingbooks to friends and formed the Gay Community Services of Broward County. Iteventually reincorporated as the Stonewall Library and Archives.
The archives also house dozens of gay pulp fiction novels, popular in the1950s, and erotic gay men's magazines such as Honcho, Blue Boys, and all theissues of Playgirl. The archive is locked and is open to the public byappointment only, Rutland said. Most people who use it are researchers orhistorians.
"If I wanted an academic background of HIV/AIDS, these are the magazines I'dlook for it in," Rutland said. "There is pornography [in the archives], butthat's so much a part of how we define ourselves."
The library's circulating collection is open to anyone over 18 and includescommon subject areas such as gay and lesbian fiction, nonfiction, sociology,history and art. It also stocks 60 gay periodicals from across the country,including the Washington Blade and San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter.
"It's very appropriate for a research center to have items that may havevery detailed information that may not be comfortable to everyone," saidKent Oliver, chairman of the Chicago-based American Library Association'sIntellectual Freedom Committee. "What libraries are about is providingaccess to information, not limiting access. In this case, because its dealswith sexuality, it's a touchy area."
Debates over what belongs in publicly funded facilities are not new. InJune, the Miami-Dade County School Board pulled a controversial book aboutCuba from school libraries. And in 1999, the Brooklyn Art Museum almost lostcity funding after displaying a portrait of the Virgin Mary that includedelephant feces.
At the county library system, Director Bob Cannon said he receives regularcomplaints about photos in some magazines, including Vogue. The countylibrary also contains contemporary and erotic fiction, as well as Playboymagazine.
"There's racy stuff [in Stonewall], but it's historical," Cannon said. "It'snot an X-rated library."
Patrons at Stonewall who pay an annual membership fee can borrow books fromthe library. Paying and nonpaying members can use the items on-site andattend monthly film screenings, distinguished author lectures, writers'workshops and even join an opera group. The library currently has 500members and almost 9,000 visitors a year. Similar collections exist in NewYork, Chicago and San Francisco.
With an annual budget of $185,000, Stonewall has seen its collectionmushroom, mostly from donations, although the center does purchase newtitles.
Patrons and volunteers are intent on putting the recent controversy behindthem.
The Stonewall Library is "very important for a community that has such alittle stored history," said Bill Greeves, a patron who also catalogs itemsin the archive. "This place has our history."
Elizabeth Baier can be reached at ebaier@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4637.
ONLINE Take a tour of the Stonewall Library and Archives in a video reportat
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-lbstonewall0724nbjul24,0,7761199.story
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Ft. Lauderdale - See you this evening!
Join local, state and national leaders and at the UNITE Fort Lauderdale
Rally on Tuesday July 24th at 4pm at the Fort Lauderdale City Hall 100 N.Andrews Ave.
The Rally is a community response to the recent bigoted comments by FortLauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle. Naugle has drawn national condemnation andridicule for attempting to justify the purchase of a a $250,000 robotictoilet by stirring anti-gay sentiment.
Impressive lineup of speakers begins at 5pm!
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Insidehighered.com
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/24/bcc
Inside Higher Education
Faith and Fairness
James W. Johnson has cleared the latest legal hurdle in a religiousdiscrimination case involving his former employer, Broward CommunityCollege, in Florida. But the one-time instructor is still unsettled. Hethinks his career has been unfairly damaged.
"I was educated to be a priest, but I found my niche in teaching religion,"Johnson said in a phone interview Monday. "I would love to do that again.What makes me sick is the thought that I could never teach again because Idecided to pursue this lawsuit. It seems to be preventing me from findinganother [faculty] job."
Johnson, 45, spent more than a dozen years teaching religion courses as anadjunct at Broward. He applied for several full-time faculty jobs but waspassed over, he said, because of his religious beliefs. Johnson is an openlygay Roman Catholic who earned a master's degree in divinity and graduatedfrom a pontifical university in Rome. His lawsuit claims that Broward'sreligion department favored evangelical Protestants in hiring, promotion andclass assignments.
"Every time there was an opening, I applied," he said. "I had expressed myinterest in teaching full time, and I was more than qualified."
This spring, a jury found that the college used Johnson's religion as a"substantial motivating factor" in making course assignments. And earlierthis month, a federal district court judge ruled that Johnson could recouphis legal fees.
A spokeswoman for Broward said that the community college district'strustees will meet to discuss their next step, and that college officialswould not comment on the case while further litigation remains an option.
Johnson said his troubles began more than five years ago, when WinstonThompson became chair of the religion department. He said Thompson, whom hedescribed as an evangelical Protestant, actively recruited and promotedfaculty who shared his faith and who were ordained Protestant ministers. Healso assigned them to teach scripture courses.
=
Insidehighered.com
http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/24/orfield
Inside Higher Education
Better Than Expected, Worse Than It Seems
By Gary Orfield, Erica Frankenberg and Liliana M. Garces
There was a national sigh of relief on campuses in June when an altered U.S.Supreme Court left standing the historic 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decisionsupporting affirmation action in admissions. There had been widespread fearamong civil rights advocates that a more conservative Supreme Court wouldseriously undermine or even reverse the 5-4 Grutter decision with itsauthor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, no longer on the Court. The voluntaryschool integration decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v.Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board ofEducation was, indeed, a serious reversal for desegregation in K-12 schoolsbut while divided on the constitutionality of the school plans at issue inthe cases, all nine justices agreed that the decision had no impact on theGrutter precedent. The rights of colleges to use race in admissionsdecisions for student body diversity had survived scrutiny by the mostconservative Supreme Court in more than 70 years. Since the Supreme Courtrarely takes such cases, the Grutter precedent might last for a while. Whilea bullet was dodged, optimism should be restrained. The dike protectingaffirmative action has held but the river that brings diverse groups ofstudents to colleges may be drying up as a result of the latest decision.
Colleges and universities, especially selective institutions, tend to drawtheir successful minority applicants from interracial schools and theiradmissions offices know well that many of the segregated minority highschools fail to prepare their students well enough to succeed in college.Research by the Civil Rights Project has shown that too many segregatedurban high schools are "dropout factories" where the main product isdropouts and successful preparation for college is rare. Conservativeeconomist Eric Hanushek found that the damage was worst for the relativelyhigh achieving black students, the very students likely to comprise thecollege eligible pool. So making segregation worse cuts the number of wellprepared students. In addition to academic preparation, students fromsegregated backgrounds are also often not ready to function socially on alargely white, affluent campus. It also means of course, that the mostsegregated group of students in American schools, whites, also have lesspreparation to deal successfully with diversity. So colleges may have won,but also lost.
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Whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/print/20070717-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who ThreatenStabilization Efforts in Iraq
White House News
Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding InternationalEmergency Economic Powers Act
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the lawsof the United States of America, including the International EmergencyEconomic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), theNational Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 oftitle 3, United States Code,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, dueto the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreignpolicy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peaceand stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economicreconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarianassistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United Statesto take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared inExecutive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in ExecutiveOrder 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29,2004. I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and(4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations,orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order,and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permitgranted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests inproperty of the following persons, that are in the United States, thathereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter comewithin the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked andmay not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation withthe Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an actor acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and politicalreform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
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Forwarded from Al Fitiha
International GLBT Muslims
http://www.al-fatiha.org/
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9304285
Not so glad to be gay
Jun 7th 2007 | JERUSALEM AND RAMALLAH
From The Economist print edition
It is getting harder for gay Palestinians to seek refuge in Israel or abroadONE 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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Forwarded from Sharon Goldenberg
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro23jul23,1,1261305.story?coll=la-headlines-california
Assault heightens tensions in S.F.
The rape of a man in the Castro district spotlights racial divisions in thearea's gay community.
By John M. Glionna
Times Staff Writer
July 23, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Mark Welsh chokes up as he describes his rape last fall andthe word his two assailants kept repeating.
"They kept saying 'faggot' over and over again," whispers the 51-year-oldowner of a video store in the Castro district. "It went on for what seemedlike forever."
Welsh came forward about the attack to publicize sexual assaults against gaymen in the Castro - which he says police have downplayed.
His outrage helped spark a new anti-rape education program as well asvolunteer citizen patrols in one of the nation's best-known gayneighborhoods.
But because both Welsh and another rape victim say their assailants wereblack, news of their attacks has heightened tensions in a community that foryears has been accused of racial exclusion.
In 2005, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission ruled that a Castro barcalled SF Badlands discriminated against black patrons by requiring them topresent multiple forms of identification before entering.
Officials now require the bar's owner, Les Natali, to post a noticeinforming patrons of state anti-discrimination laws.
"It's rare," John Carr, spokesman for the state Department of AlcoholicBeverage Control, said of the requirement. "We wanted to send a strongmessage that we were going to keep an eye on them."
Still, many African Americans say they're made to feel unwelcome in theCastro. "There's an unspoken language, whether you're a black man or woman,that there's no space for you here," said Lisa Williams, a local activistwho is black.
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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flpdesal0724nbjul24,0,2097586,print.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Seawater could help solve S. Florida water woes, but at what price?
By Andy Reid
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 24, 2007
Small plastic bottles with labels proclaiming "a taste of Florida's future"contain drinking water mined from the sea.
Filtered and treated at a desalination plant that supplements supplies inthe Florida Keys, the bottled water is a crystal-clear marketing gimmick toshow that taking the salt out of seawater offers a drought-proof solution tothe state's water woes.
But a few hundred miles from the Keys, Tampa's troubled desalination plant -built to become the largest of its kind in North America but stillstruggling to run at full capacity - stands as a monument to how costly anduncertain the investment can be.
During a drought that has led to the toughest water restrictions in SouthFlorida history, water managers have renewed their call to explore using thesea to help meet water needs.
Fort Lauderdale is among the sites where the South Florida Water ManagementDistrict proposes a pilot program to test tapping into ocean water.
"We are sucking Florida dry right now," said Arlyn Higley, director ofoperations for the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority. "Desalination is the wayof the future."
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July 23, 2007
For Immediate Release
http://www.iglhrc.org/files/iglhrc/graphic/UN-NGO-LOGOS.jpg
(United Nations, Geneva, July 23, 2007). In a vote that recognizes theimportance of including the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender (LGBT) human rights groups at the United Nations, the UNEconomic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted consultative status on Fridayto two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that address human rightsviolations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The two groups, Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Québec (CGLQ) and the SwedishFederation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), will beable to use their new consultative status at the UN to work directly onhuman rights and other issues of importance to the LGBT community byensuring access to UN meetings, delivery of oral and written reports, andorganizing events to facilitate understanding of the abuse anddiscrimination that LGBT people face around the world.
ECOSOC consists of 54 member states of the United Nations, drawn from thefive UN regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the West.States from all five regions voted to overturn a negative decision by theECOSOC's NGO Committee and to accredit the LGBT groups.
"RFSL now has the possibility, together with others, to affect and improvethe situation for the world's LGBT persons," said Soren Juvas, President ofRFSL. Yvan Lapointe, General Director of CGLQ, added, "We are really excitedby the decision and are proud of the leadership role that Québec and Canadahave played in the field of human rights. We look forward to maintainingthis role as we work with other members of the international community toadvance LGBT rights."
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https://img.getactivehub.com/08/custom_images/outandorganizing/logo_VA.gif
Beware of Virgin America!
Dear Kenneth Sherrill,
Virgin America, under the veiled leadership of Richard Branson and formerDelta Airlines Executive Fred Reid, are going after legacy carriers likeUnited and American. Branson has publicly stated that unions are too strong.Legacy carrier employees receive "hard-won" benefits that helped make thempart of our middle class. The Department of Transportation allowedcertification of Virgin America after continuous objections that Branson wasnot meeting foreign-ownership limitations set by US law. For your aviationsisters and brothers, Virgin America represents the potential loss ofstandards labor has been able to establish as part of our once-friendlyskies. Virgin America is linked to a larger company that operates out ofcountries where universal health care is already established. Theintroduction of an uneven playing field is obvious here and Sir Richardknows it.
Your not patronizing this upstart low-fare carrier will mean a lot to us.Your Association of Flight Attendants-CWA sisters and brothers have foughthard against the foreign ownership ("sabotage") of U.S. airlines flying inthe highly coveted U.S. domestic market. The Bush Administration favors theallowance of foreign-ownership within our domestic market. A foreign-ownedairline operating in the U.S. would control the movement of aircraft andcrews. Bush has demonstrated the same ignorance with this issue as he didwith his past attempt to allow a foreign-based (from the Middle East)operation that would provide security for our ports.
Thank you for your support and consideration.
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http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/images/title.gif
Beenie Man denies signing deal with gay group
BY KERIL WRIGHT Observer staff reporter kerilw@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Montego Bay, St James - International Grammy-winning deejay, Beenie Man, inan about-turn Friday denounced violence against homosexuals, but made itclear that he did not support that lifestyle.
The deejay was responding to questions about an alleged deal withinternational gay rights groups, including the UK-based Outrage, in which hewas said to have agreed to renounce violence against gays.
He denied signing any such deal, which Outrage last month announced asthe Reggae Compassionate Act, but at the same time said that violenceagainst gays was wrong.
"We don't need it," he told reporters shortly after closing Red StripeReggae Sumfest's Dancehall Night at approximately 7:15 Friday morning. "Wedon't need to kill dem. We just need fi tell the people dem the right tingbecause I not supporting a gay lifestyle because it's not wholesome to me."
Beenie Man explained that the Reggae Compassionate Act to which Outragereferred, was brokered by European promoters under fire from gay rightsgroups furious that they continued to support certain Reggae acts whoselyrics incited violence against homosexuals.
"It's a ting from the promoters of Europe. They are getting so much fightfrom the Christian and "g" organisation and everything," said theself-proclaimed 'King of the Dancehall', who apparently could not bringhimself to say the word gay.
At the same time, the deejay said he did not personally sign anyagreement and could not promise that he would be abiding by it. "I domusic," he argued. "Dancehall mi do, I can't promise nuh man dat. And mineva sign it, yuh hear sah."
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http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-teensex0723.artjul23,0,242921.story?track=rss
Courant.com
Survey: Teen Sex Decline Stalled
By ROB STEIN
Washington Post
July 23, 2007
WASHINGTON
The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one ofthe nation's most important social and public health successes, appears tohave stalled.
After decreasing for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers havingintercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then.
The leveling off is worrying observers across the ideological spectrum.
"It is alarming," said Susan Philliber of Philliber Research Associates, aprivate firm that studies teen sexuality. "We've had such a wonderfuldecade's run of getting the rate down. For it to level out causes everyoneto go, `Uh-oh.'"
The reasons for the change could include growing complacency among the youngabout AIDS and the possibility that some irreducible portion of the teenagepopulation can never be dissuaded from having sex.
"At a certain point it becomes really hard to change basic human behaviors,"said John Santelli, who studies teenagers at Columbia University.
Some fear that the leveling off could foreshadow a new upsurge in sexualactivity. Even at the present level, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate remainsfar higher than those in other developed countries - double the rate inEngland, for example.
"My concern is that this plateau is the canary in the coal mine - aharbinger of a reversal of these positive trends," said Michael Resnick, ateen health expert at the University of Minnesota.
The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federalspending on programs encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, severalexperts noted. Congress is debating the effectiveness of those programs,which receive about $175 million a year.
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Iraq war debate delays vote on hate crimes bill
Senate Democratic leader withdraws 'vehicle' for measure
By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Jul 18, 4:45 PM
A vote in the U.S. Senate on a gay- and transgender-inclusive hate crimesbill was put on hold this week after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-Nev.) abruptly withdrew a controversial defense authorization bill towhich the hate crimes measure was to be considered as an amendment.
Reid pulled the defense bill from the Senate floor on Wednesday, minutesafter Democrats were unable to break a Republican-led filibuster thatblocked passage of a Democrat-supported amendment calling for removing U.S.combat troops from Iraq by next spring.
"The Senate obviously devoted all of its attention to the Iraq war," saidBrad Luna, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the national gayadvocacy group coordinating lobbying efforts for the hate crimes bill. "Thishad nothing to do with the hate crimes bill."
But a spokesperson for Reid said it could be a "long time" before the Nevadasenator brings the defense bill back to the floor for a vote, a developmentthat could lead to an indefinite hold on the hate crimes bill and dozens ofother amendments that senators were seeking to attach to the defensemeasure.
"He'll consider bringing it back when Republicans are ready to stopobstructing our amendments," said Rodell Mollineau, Reid's pressspokesperson.
Rest of article:
http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=13452
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http://www.dc37.net/news/PEP/7_2007/torture_gay.html
Public Employee Press
Program puts torture survivors on the road to recovery
Carol Pepper helps gay and lesbian victims
Psychologist Carol Pepper, a 10-year veteran of the Bellevue/NYU Program forSurvivors of Torture, has specialized in working with lesbian, gay, bisexualand transgender victims of torture.
The group is often targeted by paramilitary organizations and the policebecause of the stigma of homosexuality and HIV/AIDS, according to. Pepper,who has treated many of the victims in her private practice.
While a government itself might not officially sanction persecution, itsfailure to intervene gives a green light to the abuse, Pepper said in aninterview with Public Employee Press.
"In many countries, the government doesn't actively prosecute these cases,so paramilitary groups, the police and vigilantes can go after thesepeople," she said.
Victims of torture undergoing therapy are generally treated forpost-traumatic stress disorder, a severe anxiety brought on by a horrificexperience involving physical or psychological pain or the threat of aviolent assault. By linking the abuse to sexual orientation, interrogatorscompound the trauma that afflicts lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendervictims.
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http://www.dc37.net/news/PEP/7_2007/torture_Bellevue.html
Public Employee Press
Local 1189 Psychologists make a difference
At Bellevue Hospital, torture survivors find refuge, treatment andcompassion
The Bush administration has all but openly embraced torture as an instrumentof national policy in its war against terrorism. Meanwhile, in New York,Psychologists in Local 1189 work with a world-renowned team that helpspatients overcome the horror of torture and seek political asylum.
By GREGORY N. HEIRES
Late one night, Nazareth Oliveira and her daughter Cristina were awakened bythe noise of their apartment door being broken down.
Seconds later, they found themselves surrounded by men in military uniformswith machine guns.
Nazareth was one of thousands of citizens who were detained, tortured ormurdered from 1964 to 1985 during the brutal military dictatorship inBrazil. Like so many survivors of those years of political repression, shehas spent the rest of her life struggling to deal with the permanent scarsfrom her experience.
"They closed the courts, Parliament and the Senate, and cut off all humanrights," Nazareth said. "It was all around us. Demonstrations and militarypolice. The news censored. Students being arrested."
Tortured with husband
The military had raided the apartment in search of Nazareth's husband, alawyer, who wasn't there at the time. To protect her, Nazareth's husbandhadn't told her that he worked underground as a political activist, fightingthe repressive military regime.
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http://www.ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=news&article=2013#>
Surgeon general nomination in limbo
by Bob Roehr
The nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be surgeon general of the UnitedStates appears to be in limbo after his July 12 appearance before the SenateCommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. A growing number oforganizations have come to oppose his confirmation, based in large part onhis views on gays that were expressed in a 1991 paper.
Committee staff indicated that they do not anticipate an early vote onHolsinger's nomination.
"The office of surgeon general has become a morass of shameful politicalmanipulation and distortion of science," said committee chairman Senator TedKennedy (D-Massachusetts) in opening the hearing.
He cited testimony from another hearing last week by former Surgeon GeneralDr. Richard Carmona on how the White House sought to suppress or change thecontent of reports, as well as experience with the Bush administrationhiding or warping scientific findings in areas ranging from global warmingto stem cell research to abstinence-only programs to condoms and birthcontrol.
Kennedy announced introduction of the Surgeon General Integrity RestorationAct, which would radically reshape the office and protect it from politicalinfluence, should it be enacted. The bill would establish budgetary andadministrative independence from the Department of Health and Human Servicesand the White House. It would require that the president select a nomineefrom a list of candidates drawn up by the Institute of Medicine.
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National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1178/173/
Toyota On Top, While Infiniti Brings Up The Rear In Latest GayWheels Survey
Monday, 23 July 2007 12:46
Toyota On Top, While Infiniti
Brings Up The Rear In Latest GayWheels Survey
Gaywheels.com, the sole source of information specifically targeted toand about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender car-shoppers, todayannounced its list of the Top 10 Most-Researched Vehicles during the secondquarter of 2007.
Read More...
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Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/478428,CST-NWS-priest22.article
The priest and the stripper
$200,000 STOLEN FROM PARISH | 'He gave me money for spending time withhim'
July 22, 2007
BY ERIC HERMAN Staff Reporter/eherman@suntimes.com
The Rev. Mark Sorvillo loved taking his parish's money and spending iton himself. Trips to Rome, Venice, Paris. And $900 meals at New Yorkrestaurants.
In 1999, Sorvillo found someone else to lavish his parishioners'collection-plate donations on -- a male stripper.
Sorvillo -- who pleaded guilty Friday to stealing nearly $200,000 fromSt. Margaret Mary parish on the North Side -- gave cars, plane tickets andthousands of dollars in cash to James Sosnicki, a married Louisville man whostripped frequently at gay clubs in Chicago, law enforcement sources said.
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The Advocate
http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid47666.asp
July 24, 2007
Some blunt and some sincere, YouTube questions shake up the Democraticdebate
Lesbians asking about gay marriage. Two unrelated parents with sons inIraq asking about the war. And a snowman asking about global warming?
Video questions submitted to the hip Web site YouTube shook up theusual campaign debate Monday night in Charleston, S.C. The questions, mostof them coming from young people, were blunt and earnest, yet sometimesbizarre.
''He needs help,'' Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said after watching a videoof a man holding an automatic weapon and asking how the candidates wouldprotect his ''baby.'' ''I don't know if he's mentally qualified to own thatgun.''
The revelations that the questions elicited ranged from the ridiculousto the grave. John Edwards didn't like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's brightcoral jacket. More seriously, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would be willing tomeet individually with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and NorthKorea during the first year of his presidency, while Clinton would not.
''I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes,'' she said. Hercampaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has adifferent understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.
The innovative questions added an Internet age twist to the oldestforum in politics - a debate.
''The greatest innovation of this debate is that we're seeingcandidates respond to real voters instead of polished TV personalities,''said Michael Silberman of the online consulting firm EchoDitto. ''It's a winfor the candidates who are at their best when addressing voters. It's a winfor democracy, since average Americans outside of the early primary statesnow have the opportunity to ask direct questions of candidates.''
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-spain-lesbian.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Spanish Judge Strips Lesbian Of Daughters' Custody
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:11 p.m. ET
MADRID (Reuters) - A judge in Spain has stripped a mother of custody of hertwo daughters because she is a lesbian, media said on Monday, in a rulingthat has sparked an outcry in the gay community and brought disciplinaryaction against him.
In a ruling last month in the southeast region of Murcia, Judge FernandoFerrin handed the girls over to their father's care, arguing that ahomosexual environment threatened their education and upbringing.
He said a gay environment increased the "risk" that the children would alsogrow up homosexual.
"The mother has to choose between her daughters and the new partner," Ferrinwas quoted as saying in his June 6 ruling which has only now come to light.
The decision provoked outrage among Spain's gay community, which said it rancontrary to the constitution, and prompted Murcia's Supreme Court to opendisciplinary proceedings against Ferrin.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/24brfs-gay.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Washington: First Same-Sex Partnerships
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Scores of gay and lesbian couples lined up to register as domestic partnersas a new state law took effect. The secretary of state's office registeredthe first couple, Jim Malatak, 64, and Rick Sturgill, 53, of Seattle,shortly after opening its doors at 8 a.m. About 85 couples were registeredafter the first hour, with another 50 standing in a line that wrapped aroundthe front of the office in downtown Olympia. Couples that register asdomestic partners receive enhanced rights, including hospital visitation,the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and the ability toinherit in the absence of a will.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/politics/24debate.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Novel Debate Format, but Same Old Candidates
By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY
The Democratic presidential debate last night was unlike any that had comebefore: two hours of questions conveyed on homemade videos from Americanswho were by turns tough talking and highly emotional, mixing pathos andbathos with the simply offbeat.
One man asked about gun rights while brandishing an assault weapon, callingit his baby. Parents mourned their children, lost to war.
And some of the candidates responded in kind, imbuing their language with animmediacy that matched the tenor of the questions. Representative Dennis J.Kucinich of Ohio castigated his fellow Democrats for not ending the war inIraq, and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware opened up about his wifeand daughter, who are dead.
Yet while there was a new format for the debate, which was sponsored by CNNand the video-sharing Web site YouTube, the change went only so far:Candidates frequently lapsed into their talking points, and there was littleactual debate among them.
Much of the debate was taken up with questions on social and domesticissues, including race, education and gay rights. At one point thecandidates were asked if they would agree to be paid only the nationalminimum wage if elected president and at another whether they had arrivedfor the debate, in Charleston, S.C., on private jets.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/politics/24transcript.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Transcript
Fourth Democratic Debate
The eight candidates vying to be the Democratic nominee for president in the2008 elections answered questions submitted by CNN and YouTube users in adebate. Participants: Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-De); Senator HillaryClinton (D-N.Y.); Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.); Former Senator JohnEdwards (D-S.C.); Former Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK); Representative DennisKucinich (D-OH); Senator Barack Obama (D-IL); and Governor Bill Richardson(D-NM). Moderator: Anderson Cooper, CNN host. Location: the Citadel,Charleston, S.C. Monday, July 23, 2007. Here is a full transcript of theevent, from CNN:
MR. COOPER: Our first question tonight is from Zack Kempf in Provo, Utah.
Q: (Laughs.) What's up? I'm running out of tape! I have to hurry! So myquestion is, we have a bunch of leaders who can't seem to do their job. Andwhen we pick people based on the issues that they represent, but then whenthey get in power and they don't do anything about it anyway. If you'regoing to spend this whole night talking about your views on issues, but theissues don't matter if when you get in power, nothing's going to get done.
We have Congress and the president with, like, a 30 percent approval rating,so clearly we don't think they're doing a good job. What's going to make youany more effectual, beyond all the platitudes and the stuff we're used tohearing? I mean, be honest with us: How are you going to be any different?
MR. COOPER: Senator Dodd, you've been in Congress more than 30 years. Canyou honestly say you're any different?
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Democrats-Debate.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
YouTube Questions Take a Different Tack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:16 a.m. ET
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- Lesbians asking about gay marriage. Two unrelatedparents with sons in Iraq asking about the war. And a snowman asking aboutglobal warming?
Video questions submitted to the hip Web site YouTube shook up the usualcampaign debate Monday night. The questions, most of them coming from youngpeople, were blunt and earnest, yet sometimes bizarre.
''He needs help,'' Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said after watching a video of aman holding an automatic weapon and asking how the candidates would protecthis ''baby.'' ''I don't know if he's mentally qualified to own that gun.''
The revelations that the questions elicited ranged from the ridiculous tothe grave. John Edwards didn't like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's brightcoral jacket. More seriously, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would be willing tomeet individually with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and NorthKorea during the first year of his presidency, while Clinton would not.
''I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes,'' she said. Her campaignquickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has adifferent understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1028_3-6198405.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
YouTube video debate actually worked
Declan McCullagh, for News.com
It may have seemed wacky at first, but the idea of allowing Americans topose questions to presidential candidates through brief YouTube videosturned out to be a success.
The video questions posed in Monday's Democratic debate were more personaland more direct than the circumlocutions that political journalists tend toprefer, which I admit may not be a compliment to our profession.
But the problem was that the politicians ducked, weaved and often repliedwithout giving a straight answer. (Ironically, the first user-submittedvideo, which asked the candidates to "actually answer the questions that areposed to you tonight," anticipated this problem but was insufficientlypersuasive.)
An example: Gary Berry, a department chairman at the American MilitaryUniversity and 26-year Army veteran, asked a perfectly straightforwardtwo-part question. He wanted to know on what date after the 2009presidential inauguration all U.S. troops will be gone from Iraq and,second, "How many family members do you have serving in uniform?"
Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and DennisKucinich responded to the question. Only Dodd actually answered it fully,saying he served in the Army Reserves and had immediate family with militarycareers, though not mentioning that his stint ended back in 1975.
The ducking was embarrassingly obvious. It called to mind what Rep. CharlesRangel, D-N.Y., said last year: "This president and this administrationwould never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that waspresented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congressand the administration thought that their kids from their communities wouldbe placed in harm's way."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/24/BL2007072400451.html
Vox Populi
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; 7:44 AM
Guess what? I liked the questions.
YouTube rocks!
I was, I admit, a skeptic. I thought the average folks' questions might beso general that the candidates would tap-dance around them, and CNN would beleft with a snoozefest.
But what made last night's debate different, besides the disembodied natureof the video interrogators, was that they asked questions that journalistswould not ask.
The guy who asked Barack Obama whether he was black enough, promptingAnderson Cooper to plead, "Not my question"--way too un-PC for a journalistto ask, even though it's been written about and chattered about quite a bit.Obama said it was still hard for him to get a cab in Manhattan.
Hillary Clinton got to answer the same guy about her gender, and she proudlyembraced being a woman, while deftly noting that she has no choice. Anotherman asked how Hillary, as a woman, could negotiate with Arab and Muslimleaders (she played the first lady card and ticked off other female heads ofstate).
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail945nbjul24,0,3141583,print.story
Outrage over mayor's comments show times have changed
July 24, 2007
In your Thursday article, "Rally targets mayor," the photo caption states,"Gay activists say some of [Mayor Naugle's] comments embarrass the city." Iremember when the city would have been embarrassed by the behavior of gaysin public restrooms and not by the mayor's revealing comments on thisunacceptable behavior.
Joy Prescott
Coral Springs
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Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail941nbjul24,0,7733700,print.story
Politics took over issue of beach toilets
July 24, 2007
For several years, I have served on the Beach Redevelopment Advisory Boardof Fort Lauderdale and have chaired this board for three years.
This board makes recommendations to the City Commission on matters dealingwith the Community Redevelopment Agency for the Central Beach.
To be clear, our monies are dedicated funds by statute and can only be usedfor capital improvements, not to balance a budget, lower taxes or fundpositions unrelated to the CRA.
For the past eight years, we have grappled with how to provide restrooms forthe beach. We were impressed after investigating the automated toilets. Theyhave been included as a component of the redevelopment plan of the CRAapproved by the City Commission and already included in our five-yearbudget.
As a first step, we recommended to the City Commission (acting as the CRA)to proceed with design work and feasibility for a pilot unit to be placed inthe Sebastian Parking Lot. At a conference meeting, after getting questionsanswered by a rep for toilet manufacturers, the City Commission agreed toproceed with $25,000 for the engineering/design/feasibility work. This was amandate to take the next logical step - not to buy the units.
Unfortunately, at this meeting, the mayor's comments about the automatedtoilets preventing inappropriate sexual activity have led to justifiablepublic outrage. This newspaper's editorial led the public to think that wewere spending monies on "a silly public restroom" instead of for police andfire or other services. To be clear, our CRA monies can only be used forcapital improvement projects.
So the City Commission killed the automated toilet concept.
In my opinion, this was a short-sighted action and a reaction to the gaycommunity's justifiable outcry about the mayor's comments. The much-neededtoilet concept became a political issue.
Now, we will have no public toilets in the central beach area anytime in theforeseeable future - disappointing to the people who give generously oftheir time as board members and take their pro bono accountabilityseriously, and most important, disappointing to the thousands of people whocome to our beach expecting first-class facilities.
Ina Lee
Chairperson, Beach Redevelopment Advisory Board for the City of Fort
Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-fladebate0724nbjul24,0,6628745,print.story?coll=sofla_features_util
YouTube users grill Democrats via video
Wire reports
July 24, 2007
CHARLESTON, S.C.
Democratic candidates for president reported to The Citadel military academyon Monday night to take some of the most direct, unvarnished and at timesrude questions of the race thus far - thanks to a new debate format that putthe questioning in the hands of average American voters who sent videos viathe Internet.
Is Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., authentically black? Is Sen. Hillary Clinton,D-N.Y., sufficiently feminine by American standards or so feminine that Arableaders could never take her seriously?
Is former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., emulating historic racists by using hisBaptist upbringing as an explanation for his position on gay marriage? Wouldhe support reparations for slavery or just be "dipping and dodging" thequestion?
In the style of practiced debaters, the Democrats received the questionsgraciously - thanking the questioners for even the most cutting ofinquiries - and then generally tried to reframe them to fit their talkingpoints.
But something else happened at the so-called YouTube debate, the first everin which questions were posed not by journalists but by people on the streetwho sent in their questions in the form of home videos.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino/corvino.htm
Tops and Bottoms
by John Corvino
(Yes, this column is about exactly what you think, so readers squeamishabout such topics should find another page.)
Years ago I lived next door to a young born-again Christian rock singer (Iknow-it sounds like the premise for a sitcom). While Jason stronglydisapproved of my being gay, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantlyasked me questions.
One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His facebrightened. "That's awesome!" he shouted.
"Why, pray tell, is it awesome?" I asked.
"Because maybe you'll try it, and then realize you don't like it, and thenyou won't be gay."
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072307debate.htm
Democrats Challenged By Online Questions
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 23, 2007 - 8:30 pm ET
(Charleston, South Carolina) Democratic presidential hopefuls struggledMonday night to answer questions posed by young, Internet-savvy voters whochallenged traditional political labels and the candidates' own place in abroken political system.
"Wassup?" came the first question, from a voter named Zach, after another,named Chris, opened the CNN-YouTube debate with a challenge to the entireeight-candidate field: "Can you as politicians ... actually answer questionsrather than beat around the bush?"
The answer was a qualified yes. The candidates faced a slew of bluntquestions and, in some cases, responded in kind.
To Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: Are you black enough? "You know, when I'mcatching a cab in Manhattan ... I'm giving my credentials," he replied.
To Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York: Are you feminine enough? "Icouldn't run as anything other than a woman,"
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407gop.htm
GOP Governors: To Early For Endorsements
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Traverse City, Michigan) Republican governors say it's too soon to worryabout the absence of a clear favorite for the GOP presidential nomination.The muddled picture could even be a blessing, some said in interviews duringthe meeting of the National Governors Association.
The candidates' scramble to break from the pack and speculation aboutpossible new entries such as former Sen. Fred Thompson are keeping the racein the headlines.
"I don't subscribe to the notion that we have to have an identifiedfront-runner candidate early on," said Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, chairmanof the Republican Governors Association. "The longer you stay inclusive inthe process, the more idea generation you get, the more testing, siftingthat takes place among the candidates, I think that's healthy fordemocracy."
Political junkies aside, most voters haven't begun to focus on the racedespite the accelerated primary schedule, said Gov. Tim Pawlenty ofMinnesota.
"A lot of us are sitting back and waiting to see if there will be newplayers in there," Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said. "That's probably why thatbox that says 'none of the above' is so popular right now."
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407hiv.htm
Lack Of HIV Services For Gays Highlighted At International AIDS Conference
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Sydney, Australia) Discrimination and a lack of access to health serviceshave sparked an alarming rise in the rate of new HIV infections among menwho have sex with men in developing countries, a leading American AIDSresearch group said Tuesday.
Studies have found that infection rates are growing among men who have sexwith men in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and less than five percent ofthose men have access to HIV-related health care, according to a statisticsreleased by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR.
"It is estimated that one in 20 men who have sex with men have access toappropriate HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services," KevinFrost, amFAR's chief executive officer, told reporters. "This is a massivefailure of the HIV/AIDS response globally and I think one that needs to beaddressed."
Statistics show the rate of infection with HIV - the virus that causesAIDS - among men who have sex with men growing exponentially in parts of thedeveloping world.
In Kenya, around 40 percent are estimated to be HIV positive, compared to a6 percent prevalence in the overall population, according to amFAR. InSenegal nearly 22 percent are thought to be infected, compared to 0.9percent of the general population.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/lifestylechannel/health/071307health.htm
Face It: Procedure Brings HIV+ Man From Corpse-like to Comely
by Julian Aynsley, Special to 365Gay.com
Everything is a mixed blessing. Thirty-five years ago, bisexuality wasn'tcool, except for David Bowie. Nowadays, most guys see me as just anotherdude, but with an extended range of networking and interfacing capabilities!
Even then however, my flexibility made me popular. Unfortunately, it alsocontributed to my becoming another HIV statistic, and therein the storylies -- because drugs are a "mixed blessing" too.
How can one describe meds that restore health, even while making the patientlook sicker than he was to begin with? After seven years of these evillifesavers, my face was becoming hollowed out, bit by bit, like a stoneunder a waterfall.
I hadn't quite reached the point where I looked like the host on "Tales FromThe Crypt," but I was definitely headed in that direction.
It was also beginning to affect business relationships. Presentingproposals, I wondered if I was boring people when I noticed them looking attheir wrist watches. Then I realized that they were just speculating aboutmy "expiration date."
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[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]
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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbstonewall0724nbjul24,0,7761199.story
Stonewall Library's move reignites debate about explicit art in publicplaces
By Elizabeth Baier
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 24, 2007
It was born from the private collection of a local college student. Now it'sone of the nation's leading libraries of gay and lesbian literature andhistory.
Located inside the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, the Stonewall Libraryand Archives boasts the largest private collection of gay and lesbianwritings, videos and historical documents in the southeastern United States.
That's about 18,000 titles and 7,000 historical archives. Items thatchronicle the history of the gay movement, from the pre-World War II dayswhen most gay men and women stayed in the closet to the New York riots thatspurred the modern gay rights movement. It also features biographies onfamed gay writers such as Tennessee Williams.
The collection existed with fairly little attention until this month, whenFort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle objected to the library and materialsmoving into a city-owned building. He argued the collection was tantamountto pornography and fought library plans to relocate to a 4,200-square-footspace at a Fort Lauderdale branch of the Broward County Library at HolidayPark.
Naugle lost the debate, and city commissioners approved the move to theSunrise Boulevard building.
What's lingered, though, is the issue of whether sexually explicit art,writings and other material have historical research value and should bepreserved with the cooperation of a government.
"In our circulating collection, there is nothing that I would considerpornographic at all," said Jack Rutland, executive director of the StonewallLibrary. "We have fine art books, as any library would have. Are there nakedpeople in those books? Absolutely. Is it pornography? Absolutely not."
Naugle disagrees.
"The library refuses to acknowledge it contains pornography," he said. "It'sthat simple."
The fury Naugle ignited over his opposition to Stonewall, and comments hemade about gays and other issues, led to the formation of a new group, UniteFort Lauderdale. The group plans a rally at City Hall today.
The historical archives encompass about 100 years of gay history andinclude, among other items, every issue of The Advocate, the nation'sleading gay and lesbian magazine, and founding documents of the MattachineSociety and the Daughters of Bilits, considered to be the nation's first gayand lesbian organizations founded in the 1950s.
Stonewall was started in 1973 by Mark Silber, then a Florida InternationalUniversity student, when he began collecting books and magazines tounderstand his homosexuality. As his collection grew, he started lendingbooks to friends and formed the Gay Community Services of Broward County. Iteventually reincorporated as the Stonewall Library and Archives.
The archives also house dozens of gay pulp fiction novels, popular in the1950s, and erotic gay men's magazines such as Honcho, Blue Boys, and all theissues of Playgirl. The archive is locked and is open to the public byappointment only, Rutland said. Most people who use it are researchers orhistorians.
"If I wanted an academic background of HIV/AIDS, these are the magazines I'dlook for it in," Rutland said. "There is pornography [in the archives], butthat's so much a part of how we define ourselves."
The library's circulating collection is open to anyone over 18 and includescommon subject areas such as gay and lesbian fiction, nonfiction, sociology,history and art. It also stocks 60 gay periodicals from across the country,including the Washington Blade and San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter.
"It's very appropriate for a research center to have items that may havevery detailed information that may not be comfortable to everyone," saidKent Oliver, chairman of the Chicago-based American Library Association'sIntellectual Freedom Committee. "What libraries are about is providingaccess to information, not limiting access. In this case, because its dealswith sexuality, it's a touchy area."
Debates over what belongs in publicly funded facilities are not new. InJune, the Miami-Dade County School Board pulled a controversial book aboutCuba from school libraries. And in 1999, the Brooklyn Art Museum almost lostcity funding after displaying a portrait of the Virgin Mary that includedelephant feces.
At the county library system, Director Bob Cannon said he receives regularcomplaints about photos in some magazines, including Vogue. The countylibrary also contains contemporary and erotic fiction, as well as Playboymagazine.
"There's racy stuff [in Stonewall], but it's historical," Cannon said. "It'snot an X-rated library."
Patrons at Stonewall who pay an annual membership fee can borrow books fromthe library. Paying and nonpaying members can use the items on-site andattend monthly film screenings, distinguished author lectures, writers'workshops and even join an opera group. The library currently has 500members and almost 9,000 visitors a year. Similar collections exist in NewYork, Chicago and San Francisco.
With an annual budget of $185,000, Stonewall has seen its collectionmushroom, mostly from donations, although the center does purchase newtitles.
Patrons and volunteers are intent on putting the recent controversy behindthem.
The Stonewall Library is "very important for a community that has such alittle stored history," said Bill Greeves, a patron who also catalogs itemsin the archive. "This place has our history."
Elizabeth Baier can be reached at ebaier@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4637.
ONLINE Take a tour of the Stonewall Library and Archives in a video reportat
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-lbstonewall0724nbjul24,0,7761199.story
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Ft. Lauderdale - See you this evening!
Join local, state and national leaders and at the UNITE Fort Lauderdale
Rally on Tuesday July 24th at 4pm at the Fort Lauderdale City Hall 100 N.Andrews Ave.
The Rally is a community response to the recent bigoted comments by FortLauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle. Naugle has drawn national condemnation andridicule for attempting to justify the purchase of a a $250,000 robotictoilet by stirring anti-gay sentiment.
Impressive lineup of speakers begins at 5pm!
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Insidehighered.com
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/24/bcc
Inside Higher Education
Faith and Fairness
James W. Johnson has cleared the latest legal hurdle in a religiousdiscrimination case involving his former employer, Broward CommunityCollege, in Florida. But the one-time instructor is still unsettled. Hethinks his career has been unfairly damaged.
"I was educated to be a priest, but I found my niche in teaching religion,"Johnson said in a phone interview Monday. "I would love to do that again.What makes me sick is the thought that I could never teach again because Idecided to pursue this lawsuit. It seems to be preventing me from findinganother [faculty] job."
Johnson, 45, spent more than a dozen years teaching religion courses as anadjunct at Broward. He applied for several full-time faculty jobs but waspassed over, he said, because of his religious beliefs. Johnson is an openlygay Roman Catholic who earned a master's degree in divinity and graduatedfrom a pontifical university in Rome. His lawsuit claims that Broward'sreligion department favored evangelical Protestants in hiring, promotion andclass assignments.
"Every time there was an opening, I applied," he said. "I had expressed myinterest in teaching full time, and I was more than qualified."
This spring, a jury found that the college used Johnson's religion as a"substantial motivating factor" in making course assignments. And earlierthis month, a federal district court judge ruled that Johnson could recouphis legal fees.
A spokeswoman for Broward said that the community college district'strustees will meet to discuss their next step, and that college officialswould not comment on the case while further litigation remains an option.
Johnson said his troubles began more than five years ago, when WinstonThompson became chair of the religion department. He said Thompson, whom hedescribed as an evangelical Protestant, actively recruited and promotedfaculty who shared his faith and who were ordained Protestant ministers. Healso assigned them to teach scripture courses.
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Insidehighered.com
http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/24/orfield
Inside Higher Education
Better Than Expected, Worse Than It Seems
By Gary Orfield, Erica Frankenberg and Liliana M. Garces
There was a national sigh of relief on campuses in June when an altered U.S.Supreme Court left standing the historic 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decisionsupporting affirmation action in admissions. There had been widespread fearamong civil rights advocates that a more conservative Supreme Court wouldseriously undermine or even reverse the 5-4 Grutter decision with itsauthor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, no longer on the Court. The voluntaryschool integration decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v.Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board ofEducation was, indeed, a serious reversal for desegregation in K-12 schoolsbut while divided on the constitutionality of the school plans at issue inthe cases, all nine justices agreed that the decision had no impact on theGrutter precedent. The rights of colleges to use race in admissionsdecisions for student body diversity had survived scrutiny by the mostconservative Supreme Court in more than 70 years. Since the Supreme Courtrarely takes such cases, the Grutter precedent might last for a while. Whilea bullet was dodged, optimism should be restrained. The dike protectingaffirmative action has held but the river that brings diverse groups ofstudents to colleges may be drying up as a result of the latest decision.
Colleges and universities, especially selective institutions, tend to drawtheir successful minority applicants from interracial schools and theiradmissions offices know well that many of the segregated minority highschools fail to prepare their students well enough to succeed in college.Research by the Civil Rights Project has shown that too many segregatedurban high schools are "dropout factories" where the main product isdropouts and successful preparation for college is rare. Conservativeeconomist Eric Hanushek found that the damage was worst for the relativelyhigh achieving black students, the very students likely to comprise thecollege eligible pool. So making segregation worse cuts the number of wellprepared students. In addition to academic preparation, students fromsegregated backgrounds are also often not ready to function socially on alargely white, affluent campus. It also means of course, that the mostsegregated group of students in American schools, whites, also have lesspreparation to deal successfully with diversity. So colleges may have won,but also lost.
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Whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/print/20070717-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who ThreatenStabilization Efforts in Iraq
White House News
Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding InternationalEmergency Economic Powers Act
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the lawsof the United States of America, including the International EmergencyEconomic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), theNational Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 oftitle 3, United States Code,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, dueto the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreignpolicy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peaceand stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economicreconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarianassistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United Statesto take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared inExecutive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in ExecutiveOrder 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29,2004. I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and(4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations,orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order,and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permitgranted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests inproperty of the following persons, that are in the United States, thathereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter comewithin the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked andmay not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation withthe Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an actor acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and politicalreform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
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Forwarded from Al Fitiha
International GLBT Muslims
http://www.al-fatiha.org/
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9304285
Not so glad to be gay
Jun 7th 2007 | JERUSALEM AND RAMALLAH
From The Economist print edition
It is getting harder for gay Palestinians to seek refuge in Israel or abroadONE 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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Forwarded from Sharon Goldenberg
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro23jul23,1,1261305.story?coll=la-headlines-california
Assault heightens tensions in S.F.
The rape of a man in the Castro district spotlights racial divisions in thearea's gay community.
By John M. Glionna
Times Staff Writer
July 23, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Mark Welsh chokes up as he describes his rape last fall andthe word his two assailants kept repeating.
"They kept saying 'faggot' over and over again," whispers the 51-year-oldowner of a video store in the Castro district. "It went on for what seemedlike forever."
Welsh came forward about the attack to publicize sexual assaults against gaymen in the Castro - which he says police have downplayed.
His outrage helped spark a new anti-rape education program as well asvolunteer citizen patrols in one of the nation's best-known gayneighborhoods.
But because both Welsh and another rape victim say their assailants wereblack, news of their attacks has heightened tensions in a community that foryears has been accused of racial exclusion.
In 2005, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission ruled that a Castro barcalled SF Badlands discriminated against black patrons by requiring them topresent multiple forms of identification before entering.
Officials now require the bar's owner, Les Natali, to post a noticeinforming patrons of state anti-discrimination laws.
"It's rare," John Carr, spokesman for the state Department of AlcoholicBeverage Control, said of the requirement. "We wanted to send a strongmessage that we were going to keep an eye on them."
Still, many African Americans say they're made to feel unwelcome in theCastro. "There's an unspoken language, whether you're a black man or woman,that there's no space for you here," said Lisa Williams, a local activistwho is black.
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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flpdesal0724nbjul24,0,2097586,print.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Seawater could help solve S. Florida water woes, but at what price?
By Andy Reid
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 24, 2007
Small plastic bottles with labels proclaiming "a taste of Florida's future"contain drinking water mined from the sea.
Filtered and treated at a desalination plant that supplements supplies inthe Florida Keys, the bottled water is a crystal-clear marketing gimmick toshow that taking the salt out of seawater offers a drought-proof solution tothe state's water woes.
But a few hundred miles from the Keys, Tampa's troubled desalination plant -built to become the largest of its kind in North America but stillstruggling to run at full capacity - stands as a monument to how costly anduncertain the investment can be.
During a drought that has led to the toughest water restrictions in SouthFlorida history, water managers have renewed their call to explore using thesea to help meet water needs.
Fort Lauderdale is among the sites where the South Florida Water ManagementDistrict proposes a pilot program to test tapping into ocean water.
"We are sucking Florida dry right now," said Arlyn Higley, director ofoperations for the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority. "Desalination is the wayof the future."
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
July 23, 2007
For Immediate Release
http://www.iglhrc.org/files/iglhrc/graphic/UN-NGO-LOGOS.jpg
(United Nations, Geneva, July 23, 2007). In a vote that recognizes theimportance of including the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender (LGBT) human rights groups at the United Nations, the UNEconomic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted consultative status on Fridayto two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that address human rightsviolations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The two groups, Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Québec (CGLQ) and the SwedishFederation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), will beable to use their new consultative status at the UN to work directly onhuman rights and other issues of importance to the LGBT community byensuring access to UN meetings, delivery of oral and written reports, andorganizing events to facilitate understanding of the abuse anddiscrimination that LGBT people face around the world.
ECOSOC consists of 54 member states of the United Nations, drawn from thefive UN regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the West.States from all five regions voted to overturn a negative decision by theECOSOC's NGO Committee and to accredit the LGBT groups.
"RFSL now has the possibility, together with others, to affect and improvethe situation for the world's LGBT persons," said Soren Juvas, President ofRFSL. Yvan Lapointe, General Director of CGLQ, added, "We are really excitedby the decision and are proud of the leadership role that Québec and Canadahave played in the field of human rights. We look forward to maintainingthis role as we work with other members of the international community toadvance LGBT rights."
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
https://img.getactivehub.com/08/custom_images/outandorganizing/logo_VA.gif
Beware of Virgin America!
Dear Kenneth Sherrill,
Virgin America, under the veiled leadership of Richard Branson and formerDelta Airlines Executive Fred Reid, are going after legacy carriers likeUnited and American. Branson has publicly stated that unions are too strong.Legacy carrier employees receive "hard-won" benefits that helped make thempart of our middle class. The Department of Transportation allowedcertification of Virgin America after continuous objections that Branson wasnot meeting foreign-ownership limitations set by US law. For your aviationsisters and brothers, Virgin America represents the potential loss ofstandards labor has been able to establish as part of our once-friendlyskies. Virgin America is linked to a larger company that operates out ofcountries where universal health care is already established. Theintroduction of an uneven playing field is obvious here and Sir Richardknows it.
Your not patronizing this upstart low-fare carrier will mean a lot to us.Your Association of Flight Attendants-CWA sisters and brothers have foughthard against the foreign ownership ("sabotage") of U.S. airlines flying inthe highly coveted U.S. domestic market. The Bush Administration favors theallowance of foreign-ownership within our domestic market. A foreign-ownedairline operating in the U.S. would control the movement of aircraft andcrews. Bush has demonstrated the same ignorance with this issue as he didwith his past attempt to allow a foreign-based (from the Middle East)operation that would provide security for our ports.
Thank you for your support and consideration.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/images/title.gif
Beenie Man denies signing deal with gay group
BY KERIL WRIGHT Observer staff reporter kerilw@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Montego Bay, St James - International Grammy-winning deejay, Beenie Man, inan about-turn Friday denounced violence against homosexuals, but made itclear that he did not support that lifestyle.
The deejay was responding to questions about an alleged deal withinternational gay rights groups, including the UK-based Outrage, in which hewas said to have agreed to renounce violence against gays.
He denied signing any such deal, which Outrage last month announced asthe Reggae Compassionate Act, but at the same time said that violenceagainst gays was wrong.
"We don't need it," he told reporters shortly after closing Red StripeReggae Sumfest's Dancehall Night at approximately 7:15 Friday morning. "Wedon't need to kill dem. We just need fi tell the people dem the right tingbecause I not supporting a gay lifestyle because it's not wholesome to me."
Beenie Man explained that the Reggae Compassionate Act to which Outragereferred, was brokered by European promoters under fire from gay rightsgroups furious that they continued to support certain Reggae acts whoselyrics incited violence against homosexuals.
"It's a ting from the promoters of Europe. They are getting so much fightfrom the Christian and "g" organisation and everything," said theself-proclaimed 'King of the Dancehall', who apparently could not bringhimself to say the word gay.
At the same time, the deejay said he did not personally sign anyagreement and could not promise that he would be abiding by it. "I domusic," he argued. "Dancehall mi do, I can't promise nuh man dat. And mineva sign it, yuh hear sah."
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-teensex0723.artjul23,0,242921.story?track=rss
Courant.com
Survey: Teen Sex Decline Stalled
By ROB STEIN
Washington Post
July 23, 2007
WASHINGTON
The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one ofthe nation's most important social and public health successes, appears tohave stalled.
After decreasing for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers havingintercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then.
The leveling off is worrying observers across the ideological spectrum.
"It is alarming," said Susan Philliber of Philliber Research Associates, aprivate firm that studies teen sexuality. "We've had such a wonderfuldecade's run of getting the rate down. For it to level out causes everyoneto go, `Uh-oh.'"
The reasons for the change could include growing complacency among the youngabout AIDS and the possibility that some irreducible portion of the teenagepopulation can never be dissuaded from having sex.
"At a certain point it becomes really hard to change basic human behaviors,"said John Santelli, who studies teenagers at Columbia University.
Some fear that the leveling off could foreshadow a new upsurge in sexualactivity. Even at the present level, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate remainsfar higher than those in other developed countries - double the rate inEngland, for example.
"My concern is that this plateau is the canary in the coal mine - aharbinger of a reversal of these positive trends," said Michael Resnick, ateen health expert at the University of Minnesota.
The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federalspending on programs encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, severalexperts noted. Congress is debating the effectiveness of those programs,which receive about $175 million a year.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Iraq war debate delays vote on hate crimes bill
Senate Democratic leader withdraws 'vehicle' for measure
By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Jul 18, 4:45 PM
A vote in the U.S. Senate on a gay- and transgender-inclusive hate crimesbill was put on hold this week after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-Nev.) abruptly withdrew a controversial defense authorization bill towhich the hate crimes measure was to be considered as an amendment.
Reid pulled the defense bill from the Senate floor on Wednesday, minutesafter Democrats were unable to break a Republican-led filibuster thatblocked passage of a Democrat-supported amendment calling for removing U.S.combat troops from Iraq by next spring.
"The Senate obviously devoted all of its attention to the Iraq war," saidBrad Luna, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the national gayadvocacy group coordinating lobbying efforts for the hate crimes bill. "Thishad nothing to do with the hate crimes bill."
But a spokesperson for Reid said it could be a "long time" before the Nevadasenator brings the defense bill back to the floor for a vote, a developmentthat could lead to an indefinite hold on the hate crimes bill and dozens ofother amendments that senators were seeking to attach to the defensemeasure.
"He'll consider bringing it back when Republicans are ready to stopobstructing our amendments," said Rodell Mollineau, Reid's pressspokesperson.
Rest of article:
http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=13452
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.dc37.net/news/PEP/7_2007/torture_gay.html
Public Employee Press
Program puts torture survivors on the road to recovery
Carol Pepper helps gay and lesbian victims
Psychologist Carol Pepper, a 10-year veteran of the Bellevue/NYU Program forSurvivors of Torture, has specialized in working with lesbian, gay, bisexualand transgender victims of torture.
The group is often targeted by paramilitary organizations and the policebecause of the stigma of homosexuality and HIV/AIDS, according to. Pepper,who has treated many of the victims in her private practice.
While a government itself might not officially sanction persecution, itsfailure to intervene gives a green light to the abuse, Pepper said in aninterview with Public Employee Press.
"In many countries, the government doesn't actively prosecute these cases,so paramilitary groups, the police and vigilantes can go after thesepeople," she said.
Victims of torture undergoing therapy are generally treated forpost-traumatic stress disorder, a severe anxiety brought on by a horrificexperience involving physical or psychological pain or the threat of aviolent assault. By linking the abuse to sexual orientation, interrogatorscompound the trauma that afflicts lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendervictims.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.dc37.net/news/PEP/7_2007/torture_Bellevue.html
Public Employee Press
Local 1189 Psychologists make a difference
At Bellevue Hospital, torture survivors find refuge, treatment andcompassion
The Bush administration has all but openly embraced torture as an instrumentof national policy in its war against terrorism. Meanwhile, in New York,Psychologists in Local 1189 work with a world-renowned team that helpspatients overcome the horror of torture and seek political asylum.
By GREGORY N. HEIRES
Late one night, Nazareth Oliveira and her daughter Cristina were awakened bythe noise of their apartment door being broken down.
Seconds later, they found themselves surrounded by men in military uniformswith machine guns.
Nazareth was one of thousands of citizens who were detained, tortured ormurdered from 1964 to 1985 during the brutal military dictatorship inBrazil. Like so many survivors of those years of political repression, shehas spent the rest of her life struggling to deal with the permanent scarsfrom her experience.
"They closed the courts, Parliament and the Senate, and cut off all humanrights," Nazareth said. "It was all around us. Demonstrations and militarypolice. The news censored. Students being arrested."
Tortured with husband
The military had raided the apartment in search of Nazareth's husband, alawyer, who wasn't there at the time. To protect her, Nazareth's husbandhadn't told her that he worked underground as a political activist, fightingthe repressive military regime.
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=news&article=2013#>
Surgeon general nomination in limbo
by Bob Roehr
The nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be surgeon general of the UnitedStates appears to be in limbo after his July 12 appearance before the SenateCommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. A growing number oforganizations have come to oppose his confirmation, based in large part onhis views on gays that were expressed in a 1991 paper.
Committee staff indicated that they do not anticipate an early vote onHolsinger's nomination.
"The office of surgeon general has become a morass of shameful politicalmanipulation and distortion of science," said committee chairman Senator TedKennedy (D-Massachusetts) in opening the hearing.
He cited testimony from another hearing last week by former Surgeon GeneralDr. Richard Carmona on how the White House sought to suppress or change thecontent of reports, as well as experience with the Bush administrationhiding or warping scientific findings in areas ranging from global warmingto stem cell research to abstinence-only programs to condoms and birthcontrol.
Kennedy announced introduction of the Surgeon General Integrity RestorationAct, which would radically reshape the office and protect it from politicalinfluence, should it be enacted. The bill would establish budgetary andadministrative independence from the Department of Health and Human Servicesand the White House. It would require that the president select a nomineefrom a list of candidates drawn up by the Institute of Medicine.
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National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1178/173/
Toyota On Top, While Infiniti Brings Up The Rear In Latest GayWheels Survey
Monday, 23 July 2007 12:46
Toyota On Top, While Infiniti
Brings Up The Rear In Latest GayWheels Survey
Gaywheels.com, the sole source of information specifically targeted toand about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender car-shoppers, todayannounced its list of the Top 10 Most-Researched Vehicles during the secondquarter of 2007.
Read More...
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Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/478428,CST-NWS-priest22.article
The priest and the stripper
$200,000 STOLEN FROM PARISH | 'He gave me money for spending time withhim'
July 22, 2007
BY ERIC HERMAN Staff Reporter/eherman@suntimes.com
The Rev. Mark Sorvillo loved taking his parish's money and spending iton himself. Trips to Rome, Venice, Paris. And $900 meals at New Yorkrestaurants.
In 1999, Sorvillo found someone else to lavish his parishioners'collection-plate donations on -- a male stripper.
Sorvillo -- who pleaded guilty Friday to stealing nearly $200,000 fromSt. Margaret Mary parish on the North Side -- gave cars, plane tickets andthousands of dollars in cash to James Sosnicki, a married Louisville man whostripped frequently at gay clubs in Chicago, law enforcement sources said.
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The Advocate
http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid47666.asp
July 24, 2007
Some blunt and some sincere, YouTube questions shake up the Democraticdebate
Lesbians asking about gay marriage. Two unrelated parents with sons inIraq asking about the war. And a snowman asking about global warming?
Video questions submitted to the hip Web site YouTube shook up theusual campaign debate Monday night in Charleston, S.C. The questions, mostof them coming from young people, were blunt and earnest, yet sometimesbizarre.
''He needs help,'' Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said after watching a videoof a man holding an automatic weapon and asking how the candidates wouldprotect his ''baby.'' ''I don't know if he's mentally qualified to own thatgun.''
The revelations that the questions elicited ranged from the ridiculousto the grave. John Edwards didn't like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's brightcoral jacket. More seriously, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would be willing tomeet individually with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and NorthKorea during the first year of his presidency, while Clinton would not.
''I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes,'' she said. Hercampaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has adifferent understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.
The innovative questions added an Internet age twist to the oldestforum in politics - a debate.
''The greatest innovation of this debate is that we're seeingcandidates respond to real voters instead of polished TV personalities,''said Michael Silberman of the online consulting firm EchoDitto. ''It's a winfor the candidates who are at their best when addressing voters. It's a winfor democracy, since average Americans outside of the early primary statesnow have the opportunity to ask direct questions of candidates.''
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-spain-lesbian.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Spanish Judge Strips Lesbian Of Daughters' Custody
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:11 p.m. ET
MADRID (Reuters) - A judge in Spain has stripped a mother of custody of hertwo daughters because she is a lesbian, media said on Monday, in a rulingthat has sparked an outcry in the gay community and brought disciplinaryaction against him.
In a ruling last month in the southeast region of Murcia, Judge FernandoFerrin handed the girls over to their father's care, arguing that ahomosexual environment threatened their education and upbringing.
He said a gay environment increased the "risk" that the children would alsogrow up homosexual.
"The mother has to choose between her daughters and the new partner," Ferrinwas quoted as saying in his June 6 ruling which has only now come to light.
The decision provoked outrage among Spain's gay community, which said it rancontrary to the constitution, and prompted Murcia's Supreme Court to opendisciplinary proceedings against Ferrin.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/24brfs-gay.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Washington: First Same-Sex Partnerships
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Scores of gay and lesbian couples lined up to register as domestic partnersas a new state law took effect. The secretary of state's office registeredthe first couple, Jim Malatak, 64, and Rick Sturgill, 53, of Seattle,shortly after opening its doors at 8 a.m. About 85 couples were registeredafter the first hour, with another 50 standing in a line that wrapped aroundthe front of the office in downtown Olympia. Couples that register asdomestic partners receive enhanced rights, including hospital visitation,the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and the ability toinherit in the absence of a will.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/politics/24debate.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Novel Debate Format, but Same Old Candidates
By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY
The Democratic presidential debate last night was unlike any that had comebefore: two hours of questions conveyed on homemade videos from Americanswho were by turns tough talking and highly emotional, mixing pathos andbathos with the simply offbeat.
One man asked about gun rights while brandishing an assault weapon, callingit his baby. Parents mourned their children, lost to war.
And some of the candidates responded in kind, imbuing their language with animmediacy that matched the tenor of the questions. Representative Dennis J.Kucinich of Ohio castigated his fellow Democrats for not ending the war inIraq, and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware opened up about his wifeand daughter, who are dead.
Yet while there was a new format for the debate, which was sponsored by CNNand the video-sharing Web site YouTube, the change went only so far:Candidates frequently lapsed into their talking points, and there was littleactual debate among them.
Much of the debate was taken up with questions on social and domesticissues, including race, education and gay rights. At one point thecandidates were asked if they would agree to be paid only the nationalminimum wage if elected president and at another whether they had arrivedfor the debate, in Charleston, S.C., on private jets.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/politics/24transcript.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
Transcript
Fourth Democratic Debate
The eight candidates vying to be the Democratic nominee for president in the2008 elections answered questions submitted by CNN and YouTube users in adebate. Participants: Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-De); Senator HillaryClinton (D-N.Y.); Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.); Former Senator JohnEdwards (D-S.C.); Former Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK); Representative DennisKucinich (D-OH); Senator Barack Obama (D-IL); and Governor Bill Richardson(D-NM). Moderator: Anderson Cooper, CNN host. Location: the Citadel,Charleston, S.C. Monday, July 23, 2007. Here is a full transcript of theevent, from CNN:
MR. COOPER: Our first question tonight is from Zack Kempf in Provo, Utah.
Q: (Laughs.) What's up? I'm running out of tape! I have to hurry! So myquestion is, we have a bunch of leaders who can't seem to do their job. Andwhen we pick people based on the issues that they represent, but then whenthey get in power and they don't do anything about it anyway. If you'regoing to spend this whole night talking about your views on issues, but theissues don't matter if when you get in power, nothing's going to get done.
We have Congress and the president with, like, a 30 percent approval rating,so clearly we don't think they're doing a good job. What's going to make youany more effectual, beyond all the platitudes and the stuff we're used tohearing? I mean, be honest with us: How are you going to be any different?
MR. COOPER: Senator Dodd, you've been in Congress more than 30 years. Canyou honestly say you're any different?
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Democrats-Debate.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
YouTube Questions Take a Different Tack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:16 a.m. ET
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- Lesbians asking about gay marriage. Two unrelatedparents with sons in Iraq asking about the war. And a snowman asking aboutglobal warming?
Video questions submitted to the hip Web site YouTube shook up the usualcampaign debate Monday night. The questions, most of them coming from youngpeople, were blunt and earnest, yet sometimes bizarre.
''He needs help,'' Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said after watching a video of aman holding an automatic weapon and asking how the candidates would protecthis ''baby.'' ''I don't know if he's mentally qualified to own that gun.''
The revelations that the questions elicited ranged from the ridiculous tothe grave. John Edwards didn't like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's brightcoral jacket. More seriously, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would be willing tomeet individually with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and NorthKorea during the first year of his presidency, while Clinton would not.
''I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes,'' she said. Her campaignquickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has adifferent understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1028_3-6198405.html?pagewanted=print
July 24, 2007
YouTube video debate actually worked
Declan McCullagh, for News.com
It may have seemed wacky at first, but the idea of allowing Americans topose questions to presidential candidates through brief YouTube videosturned out to be a success.
The video questions posed in Monday's Democratic debate were more personaland more direct than the circumlocutions that political journalists tend toprefer, which I admit may not be a compliment to our profession.
But the problem was that the politicians ducked, weaved and often repliedwithout giving a straight answer. (Ironically, the first user-submittedvideo, which asked the candidates to "actually answer the questions that areposed to you tonight," anticipated this problem but was insufficientlypersuasive.)
An example: Gary Berry, a department chairman at the American MilitaryUniversity and 26-year Army veteran, asked a perfectly straightforwardtwo-part question. He wanted to know on what date after the 2009presidential inauguration all U.S. troops will be gone from Iraq and,second, "How many family members do you have serving in uniform?"
Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and DennisKucinich responded to the question. Only Dodd actually answered it fully,saying he served in the Army Reserves and had immediate family with militarycareers, though not mentioning that his stint ended back in 1975.
The ducking was embarrassingly obvious. It called to mind what Rep. CharlesRangel, D-N.Y., said last year: "This president and this administrationwould never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that waspresented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congressand the administration thought that their kids from their communities wouldbe placed in harm's way."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/24/BL2007072400451.html
Vox Populi
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; 7:44 AM
Guess what? I liked the questions.
YouTube rocks!
I was, I admit, a skeptic. I thought the average folks' questions might beso general that the candidates would tap-dance around them, and CNN would beleft with a snoozefest.
But what made last night's debate different, besides the disembodied natureof the video interrogators, was that they asked questions that journalistswould not ask.
The guy who asked Barack Obama whether he was black enough, promptingAnderson Cooper to plead, "Not my question"--way too un-PC for a journalistto ask, even though it's been written about and chattered about quite a bit.Obama said it was still hard for him to get a cab in Manhattan.
Hillary Clinton got to answer the same guy about her gender, and she proudlyembraced being a woman, while deftly noting that she has no choice. Anotherman asked how Hillary, as a woman, could negotiate with Arab and Muslimleaders (she played the first lady card and ticked off other female heads ofstate).
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail945nbjul24,0,3141583,print.story
Outrage over mayor's comments show times have changed
July 24, 2007
In your Thursday article, "Rally targets mayor," the photo caption states,"Gay activists say some of [Mayor Naugle's] comments embarrass the city." Iremember when the city would have been embarrassed by the behavior of gaysin public restrooms and not by the mayor's revealing comments on thisunacceptable behavior.
Joy Prescott
Coral Springs
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Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail941nbjul24,0,7733700,print.story
Politics took over issue of beach toilets
July 24, 2007
For several years, I have served on the Beach Redevelopment Advisory Boardof Fort Lauderdale and have chaired this board for three years.
This board makes recommendations to the City Commission on matters dealingwith the Community Redevelopment Agency for the Central Beach.
To be clear, our monies are dedicated funds by statute and can only be usedfor capital improvements, not to balance a budget, lower taxes or fundpositions unrelated to the CRA.
For the past eight years, we have grappled with how to provide restrooms forthe beach. We were impressed after investigating the automated toilets. Theyhave been included as a component of the redevelopment plan of the CRAapproved by the City Commission and already included in our five-yearbudget.
As a first step, we recommended to the City Commission (acting as the CRA)to proceed with design work and feasibility for a pilot unit to be placed inthe Sebastian Parking Lot. At a conference meeting, after getting questionsanswered by a rep for toilet manufacturers, the City Commission agreed toproceed with $25,000 for the engineering/design/feasibility work. This was amandate to take the next logical step - not to buy the units.
Unfortunately, at this meeting, the mayor's comments about the automatedtoilets preventing inappropriate sexual activity have led to justifiablepublic outrage. This newspaper's editorial led the public to think that wewere spending monies on "a silly public restroom" instead of for police andfire or other services. To be clear, our CRA monies can only be used forcapital improvement projects.
So the City Commission killed the automated toilet concept.
In my opinion, this was a short-sighted action and a reaction to the gaycommunity's justifiable outcry about the mayor's comments. The much-neededtoilet concept became a political issue.
Now, we will have no public toilets in the central beach area anytime in theforeseeable future - disappointing to the people who give generously oftheir time as board members and take their pro bono accountabilityseriously, and most important, disappointing to the thousands of people whocome to our beach expecting first-class facilities.
Ina Lee
Chairperson, Beach Redevelopment Advisory Board for the City of Fort
Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-fladebate0724nbjul24,0,6628745,print.story?coll=sofla_features_util
YouTube users grill Democrats via video
Wire reports
July 24, 2007
CHARLESTON, S.C.
Democratic candidates for president reported to The Citadel military academyon Monday night to take some of the most direct, unvarnished and at timesrude questions of the race thus far - thanks to a new debate format that putthe questioning in the hands of average American voters who sent videos viathe Internet.
Is Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., authentically black? Is Sen. Hillary Clinton,D-N.Y., sufficiently feminine by American standards or so feminine that Arableaders could never take her seriously?
Is former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., emulating historic racists by using hisBaptist upbringing as an explanation for his position on gay marriage? Wouldhe support reparations for slavery or just be "dipping and dodging" thequestion?
In the style of practiced debaters, the Democrats received the questionsgraciously - thanking the questioners for even the most cutting ofinquiries - and then generally tried to reframe them to fit their talkingpoints.
But something else happened at the so-called YouTube debate, the first everin which questions were posed not by journalists but by people on the streetwho sent in their questions in the form of home videos.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino/corvino.htm
Tops and Bottoms
by John Corvino
(Yes, this column is about exactly what you think, so readers squeamishabout such topics should find another page.)
Years ago I lived next door to a young born-again Christian rock singer (Iknow-it sounds like the premise for a sitcom). While Jason stronglydisapproved of my being gay, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantlyasked me questions.
One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His facebrightened. "That's awesome!" he shouted.
"Why, pray tell, is it awesome?" I asked.
"Because maybe you'll try it, and then realize you don't like it, and thenyou won't be gay."
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072307debate.htm
Democrats Challenged By Online Questions
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 23, 2007 - 8:30 pm ET
(Charleston, South Carolina) Democratic presidential hopefuls struggledMonday night to answer questions posed by young, Internet-savvy voters whochallenged traditional political labels and the candidates' own place in abroken political system.
"Wassup?" came the first question, from a voter named Zach, after another,named Chris, opened the CNN-YouTube debate with a challenge to the entireeight-candidate field: "Can you as politicians ... actually answer questionsrather than beat around the bush?"
The answer was a qualified yes. The candidates faced a slew of bluntquestions and, in some cases, responded in kind.
To Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: Are you black enough? "You know, when I'mcatching a cab in Manhattan ... I'm giving my credentials," he replied.
To Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York: Are you feminine enough? "Icouldn't run as anything other than a woman,"
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407gop.htm
GOP Governors: To Early For Endorsements
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Traverse City, Michigan) Republican governors say it's too soon to worryabout the absence of a clear favorite for the GOP presidential nomination.The muddled picture could even be a blessing, some said in interviews duringthe meeting of the National Governors Association.
The candidates' scramble to break from the pack and speculation aboutpossible new entries such as former Sen. Fred Thompson are keeping the racein the headlines.
"I don't subscribe to the notion that we have to have an identifiedfront-runner candidate early on," said Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, chairmanof the Republican Governors Association. "The longer you stay inclusive inthe process, the more idea generation you get, the more testing, siftingthat takes place among the candidates, I think that's healthy fordemocracy."
Political junkies aside, most voters haven't begun to focus on the racedespite the accelerated primary schedule, said Gov. Tim Pawlenty ofMinnesota.
"A lot of us are sitting back and waiting to see if there will be newplayers in there," Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said. "That's probably why thatbox that says 'none of the above' is so popular right now."
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072407hiv.htm
Lack Of HIV Services For Gays Highlighted At International AIDS Conference
by The Associated Press
Posted: July 24, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Sydney, Australia) Discrimination and a lack of access to health serviceshave sparked an alarming rise in the rate of new HIV infections among menwho have sex with men in developing countries, a leading American AIDSresearch group said Tuesday.
Studies have found that infection rates are growing among men who have sexwith men in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and less than five percent ofthose men have access to HIV-related health care, according to a statisticsreleased by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR.
"It is estimated that one in 20 men who have sex with men have access toappropriate HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services," KevinFrost, amFAR's chief executive officer, told reporters. "This is a massivefailure of the HIV/AIDS response globally and I think one that needs to beaddressed."
Statistics show the rate of infection with HIV - the virus that causesAIDS - among men who have sex with men growing exponentially in parts of thedeveloping world.
In Kenya, around 40 percent are estimated to be HIV positive, compared to a6 percent prevalence in the overall population, according to amFAR. InSenegal nearly 22 percent are thought to be infected, compared to 0.9percent of the general population.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/lifestylechannel/health/071307health.htm
Face It: Procedure Brings HIV+ Man From Corpse-like to Comely
by Julian Aynsley, Special to 365Gay.com
Everything is a mixed blessing. Thirty-five years ago, bisexuality wasn'tcool, except for David Bowie. Nowadays, most guys see me as just anotherdude, but with an extended range of networking and interfacing capabilities!
Even then however, my flexibility made me popular. Unfortunately, it alsocontributed to my becoming another HIV statistic, and therein the storylies -- because drugs are a "mixed blessing" too.
How can one describe meds that restore health, even while making the patientlook sicker than he was to begin with? After seven years of these evillifesavers, my face was becoming hollowed out, bit by bit, like a stoneunder a waterfall.
I hadn't quite reached the point where I looked like the host on "Tales FromThe Crypt," but I was definitely headed in that direction.
It was also beginning to affect business relationships. Presentingproposals, I wondered if I was boring people when I noticed them looking attheir wrist watches. Then I realized that they were just speculating aboutmy "expiration date."
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[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]
#####
Monday, July 23, 2007
GLBT DIGEST July 23, 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.
=
TONIGHT - 7PM
The Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/548/v-print/story/179008.html
Posted on Mon, Jul. 23, 2007
Voter videos to drive in-your-face debate
BY GLENN GARVIN
When Democratic presidential candidates square off for a debate in front ofCNN's cameras today, don't strain your neck looking for Wolf Blitzer,Christiane Amanpour or any of the network's reporters. They won't be askingthe questions.
Those will come from animated computer programmers, off-camera gay soldiersand guys in Viking helmets.
The debate in Charleston, S.C., airing live at 7 p.m., will be the firstamong presidential candidates in which the questions are posed by actualvoters submitting videos through the Internet -- and journalists andpoliticians agree it won't be the last.
''It's here to stay,'' University of Virginia political scientist LarrySabato said. ''You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.'' Adds JonKlein, head of CNN's U.S. operations: ``What candidate could walk away froma chance to hear from actual Americans? What candidate wants to look afraidto do it?''
CNN and video-sharing website YouTube.com began asking voters to postquestions on the site earlier this month. As the deadline approached Sundaynight, more than 2,700 had been submitted. About 200 of them will go into apool CNN reporters and editors will use to grill the candidates today.
CNN and YouTube will also collaborate on a Republican debate with the sameformat on Sept. 17 in St. Petersburg. The website will begin collectingquestions for that date at 9 tonight.
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072307washdom.htm
Washington State Domestic Partner Law Takes Effect
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 23, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Olympia, Washington) Washington state's domestic partner law went intoeffect Monday, allowing same and opposite-sex couples to register theirrelationships and receive some of the state-sanctioned benefits of marriage.
People, mainly gay and lesbian couples, began lining up overnight at theSecretary of State's office. Other couples opted to register by mail.
Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the legislation in April, nearly a year after thestate Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage.
The law gives couples who register hospital visitation rights, the abilityto authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when thereis no will.
To registered couples must pay a $50 fee and be able to prove they share ahome, not be married or in a domestic relationship with someone else, and beat least 18.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23kristof.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Birth Without the Bother?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Earlier this year in Gujarat, India, I came across a most unusual kind ofoutsourcing: womb-rental.
Americans looking for a surrogate mother to bear a child can save a fortuneand avoid regulations by paying an Indian woman $4,000 or $5,000 to carrytheir fetus. An embryo that has been created in vitro by the Americanparents is implanted in the Indian woman's uterus and she goes through thepregnancy and delivers the baby - and then hands it over to the Americans.
Ultimately, that kind of surrogacy could be mixed with genetic screening ofembryos - to weed out babies of the "wrong" gender or with the "wrong"characteristics - to save busy couples the bother of pregnancy or thenuisance of chance.
Yes, all this gives me the willies, too. So some of the most monumentaldecisions we will face in the coming years will involve where we draw theline making some genetic tinkering legal and some illegal.
One of the crucial evolving technologies is P.G.D., or preimplantationgenetic diagnosis. This allows a couple to test embryos that have beencreated in vitro when they are roughly three days old.
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Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbcane0723nbjul23,0,3927976,print.story
Think it's another quiet hurricane season? Just wait a few weeks
By Maya Bell
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 23, 2007
MIAMI -- Amid the storm that has swept through the National Hurricane Centerthis month over the future of its deposed director, there has been one thingmissing: an honest-to-goodness hurricane.
But Floridians shouldn't expect that to last.
With only two minor tropical storms so far, the 2007 hurricane season hasbeen quiet since it officially began June 1. But the slow start is typical,even for the above-average season that is still expected.
"Just because things are quiet on July 20 doesn't mean the active seasonwon't come true," Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist, said Friday."There have been plenty of active seasons where we didn't have any activitybefore August.
"Just look at 2004."
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Victory for gay rights campaign as reggae star agrees to ditch homophobiclyrics
· Buju Banton signs pledge after years of pressure
· Song advocated shooting and burning homosexuals
Alexandra Topping
Monday July 23, 2007
The Guardian
One of the most notoriously homophobic figures in reggae and dancehallmusic has agreed to stop singing violently anti-gay lyrics. Buju Banton -whose 1990s hit Boom Bye Bye advocates the shooting of gay men - has signedthe "reggae compassionate act" set up by the gay rights campaign group StopMurder Music, after a three-year campaign to bring him into line, the groupwill announce today.
Banton is the latest in a series of high-profile artists, includingBeenie Man and Sizzla, to sign the declaration after worldwide protests fromgay rights groups resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of concerts andsponsorship deals, costing the artists in excess of £2.5m.
In signing up, Banton has agreed to not make homophobic statements inpublic, release new homophobic songs or authorise the re-release of previoushomophobic songs. The act states: "There's no space in the music communityfor hatred and prejudice, including no place for racism, violence, sexism orhomophobia."
It adds that reggae artists have always fought against injustices,inequalities, poverty and violence.
Peter Tatchell, of the gay rights group Outrage! which has coordinatedthe campaign, said the move was a big breakthrough in a battle that hasraged between gay rights activists and a number of dancehall artists for 15years. "Our No 1 priority is to stop murder music," he said.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/washington/23health.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185196148-Xp3g+po5VZ7LBPip+QxR4Q&pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Democrats Press House to Expand Health Care Bill
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, July 22 - After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate toexpand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats havedrafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicareand promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care.
President Bush has threatened to veto what he sees as a huge expansion ofthe children's health care program, which he describes as a step "down thepath to government-run health care for every American." The House measurecalls for changes that the administration will probably find even moredistasteful, including cuts in Medicare payments to private health plans.
Like the bill approved last week 17 to 4 in the Senate Finance Committee,the House bill would increase tobacco taxes to help finance expansion of theChildren's Health Insurance Program.
House Democrats hope to portray the issue as a fight pitting the interestsof children and older Americans against tobacco and insurance companies. TheWhite House says the Democratic proposals would distort the original intentof the children's program, cause a big increase in federal spending andadversely affect older Americans who are happy with the extra benefits theyreceive from private health plans.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon1.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial
What Would a Diplomat Do?
When Condoleezza Rice took over as secretary of state, the (wishful)thinking was that the Bush administration would finally get into thebusiness of diplomacy. Ms. Rice can be as bullying and ad hominem as herboss, but she's also an achiever and trying her hand at persuasion wasprobably the only hope for salvaging the administration's failed foreignpolicies and her reputation.
Two and a half years later we're pleased to note a preliminary success forthe new era: North Korea's decision to shut down its plutonium-producingnuclear reactor in exchange for economic and eventual diplomatic payoffs.Ms. Rice managed to hold back the spoilers in the vice president's officelong enough for her negotiator, Christopher Hill, to do the deal theold-fashioned way: countless hours of negotiations and a willingness tocompromise with a leader President Bush once famously said he "loathed."
Unfortunately, in most every other area ad hominem and loathing stilldominate. And there is still a perplexing refusal to do the tedious butabsolutely essential diplomatic prep work.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon2.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial
How the Energy Dice Were Loaded
The names of some of the corporate big shots and industry lobbyists whohelped shape the deliberations and conclusions of the super-secret Cheneyenergy task force in 2001 are now beginning to surface, thanks to a formerWhite House aide who provided a list to The Washington Post.
It's interesting to discover that Kenneth Lay, Enron's chairman, was favoredwith two audiences. But the rest is sadly familiar. The task force, whichdeveloped a national energy policy, had all the time in the world for thebig energy producers - some 40 meetings with the oil, gas and coal companiesand their trade associations - but barely a moment for environmentalists.
It'shardly surprising that its report favored producers of fossil fuels at theexpense of conservation and alternative fuels.
What this list really does is remind us how and why this administration hassquandered six years that should have been devoted to finding innovativeanswers to the big questions of oil dependency and global warming.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon4.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial Observer
Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War
By ADAM COHEN
The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war.Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, butPresident Bush insists Congress doesn't have the power to do it. "I don'tthink Congress ought to be running the war," he said at a recent pressconference. "I think they ought to be funding the troops." He addedmagnanimously: "I'm certainly interested in their opinion."
The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying toexpand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of animperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nationto war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, thefounders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress's side.
=
USA TODAY
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/does-the-religi.html?csp=34
Does the religious majority rule?
With church-state issues, the answer is often 'yes.' In six communitieswhere public religiosity was contested in court, an unfortunate themeemerged: 'Insiders' who crossed the majority view quickly became 'outsiders.'
By Peter Irons
Every town and city has "insiders" and "outsiders." Insiders tend to havedeep family roots in the community, belong to its dominant religious groupand political party, and play active roles in civic affairs. Particularly insmall towns, insiders get upset when outsiders challenge the symbols thatreflect the majority's beliefs and values.
On the surface, Jimmie Greene and Louanne Walker both qualify as insiders inrural McCreary County, Ky., a stronghold of hard-shell Baptists androck-ribbed Republicans. They are, in fact, cousins whose ancestors settledin the Cumberland Mountains back in Daniel Boone's days. Jimmie and Louannegrew up together, attended the same elementary school and worshipped in thesame Baptist church. Jimmie served four terms as the county's "judgeexecutive," and Louanne has worked for 20 years in the welfare office.
=
365Gay.Com
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino/corvino.htm
Tops and Bottoms
by John Corvino
(Yes, this column is about exactly what you think, so readers squeamishabout such topics should find another page.)
Years ago I lived next door to a young born-again Christian rock singer (Iknow-it sounds like the premise for a sitcom). While Jason stronglydisapproved of my being gay, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantlyasked me questions.
One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His facebrightened. "That's awesome!" he shouted.
"Why, pray tell, is it awesome?" I asked.
"Because maybe you'll try it, and then realize you don't like it, and thenyou won't be gay."
For Jason, being gay meant liking anal sex. He found it strange that theequivalence had never occurred to me. For me, being gay means that I likeguys. It means that I like guys-I have crushes on them, I fall in love withthem (one in particular), I want to "get physical" with them. It doesn'tspecify how I should do this.
=
Important Court Victory in Florida!
Sunday, July 22, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Carven Angel issued atemporary injunction barring the State of Florida from carrying out theexecution of Death Row inmate Ian Lightbourne. The Judge stated thatit would be improper for the Governor to consider taking up a DeathWarrant at this time.
After hearing sworn testimony in the first courtroom review of theDecember 13, 2006 botched execution of Angel Diaz and the subsequentproposed changes to Florida's lethal injection protocols, Judge Angelfound that the Dept. of Corrections and the State of Florida areunprepared to carry out an execution of Death Row inmate IanLightbourne. Judge Angel said that the Governor must have confidencethat Florida's execution process is compatible with evolving standardsof decency that mark the progress of a maturing society and the dignityof man. The judge further stated that executions should be carried outin a manner that does not result in the unnecessary and wantoninfliction of pain and lingering death.
=
Detroit News
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070723/OPINION03/707230328
The Detroit News
Deb Price
Gays make a strong pitch for acceptance
"Well, darling, I've got some news for you," longtime AIDS activistCornelius Baker recalls being told.
On the other end of the phone was Brent Minor, president of a gay sportsgroup called Team DC. His exciting news was that a secret committee hadpicked Baker to be the first openly gay person to throw the opening pitch ata game of the Washington Nationals, the Major League Baseball team.
"We had a nice little giggle," Baker recalls.
But reality set in: Minor is athletic -- he once did an Olympic-leveltriathlon, which is a near one-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride and 6.2-milerun, in drag. Baker is not.
In fact, he'd never even touched a baseball. The last time he'd thrown asoftball was in sixth grade -- and that was underhand.
His historic pitch was to be a featured attraction at the Nationals' thirdannual gay-friendly "Night Out." The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington wouldsing the national anthem. Then with 2,000 gay and lesbian fans -- not tomention everyone else in the stadium and TV viewers -- watching, Baker wouldhave to perform.
He had 10 days to train. His boyfriend, Greg, sent him a YouTube video ofthe mayor of Cincinnati accidentally throwing sideways: "Don't let thishappen," Greg warned.
Baker traveled to Atlanta, where his coaches -- Greg and Greg's brother --made him practice for hours in the heat "with mosquitoes and no bug spray."
The National's "Night Out" game for which Baker was training was part of acrackerjack trend in Major League Baseball that started with the ChicagoCubs in 2001 and includes the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, SanDiego Padres and San Francisco Giants. (The Detroit Tigers apparentlyhaven't yet been asked to join in.)
Before he knew it, Baker was on the pitcher's mound to open the July 16contest between the Nationals and the Houston Astros. His mind was sofocused he couldn't hear the cheering fans.
=
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1164/173/
Domestic Partnerships Risky for Military, Foreign Nationals
Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:16
Domestic Partnerships Risky for Military, Foreign Nationals
Tom Richardson and Salvador Valenzuela first marked their commitmentto each other with a city domestic partnership in Seattle. WhenMassachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage, theymarried, and hyphenated their last names.
Now back in Washington state, the Richardson-Valenzuelas plan toregister for a state domestic partnership here, taking advantage of the newlaw giving same-sex couples some of the benefits that married heterosexualcouples enjoy.
Read More...
=
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1136
National Media Cover Oust Naugle Effort
Unite Fort Lauderdale is organizing events to demand Mayor Jim Naugle'sresignation for his derogatory and divisive comments. On July 24, at 4PM,there will be a protest at Fort Lauderdale City Hall. CLICK ABOVE to checkout the list of national media coverage this is getting, plus useful linkspertaining to the event.
=
[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]
#####
=
TONIGHT - 7PM
The Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/548/v-print/story/179008.html
Posted on Mon, Jul. 23, 2007
Voter videos to drive in-your-face debate
BY GLENN GARVIN
When Democratic presidential candidates square off for a debate in front ofCNN's cameras today, don't strain your neck looking for Wolf Blitzer,Christiane Amanpour or any of the network's reporters. They won't be askingthe questions.
Those will come from animated computer programmers, off-camera gay soldiersand guys in Viking helmets.
The debate in Charleston, S.C., airing live at 7 p.m., will be the firstamong presidential candidates in which the questions are posed by actualvoters submitting videos through the Internet -- and journalists andpoliticians agree it won't be the last.
''It's here to stay,'' University of Virginia political scientist LarrySabato said. ''You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.'' Adds JonKlein, head of CNN's U.S. operations: ``What candidate could walk away froma chance to hear from actual Americans? What candidate wants to look afraidto do it?''
CNN and video-sharing website YouTube.com began asking voters to postquestions on the site earlier this month. As the deadline approached Sundaynight, more than 2,700 had been submitted. About 200 of them will go into apool CNN reporters and editors will use to grill the candidates today.
CNN and YouTube will also collaborate on a Republican debate with the sameformat on Sept. 17 in St. Petersburg. The website will begin collectingquestions for that date at 9 tonight.
=
365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/07/072307washdom.htm
Washington State Domestic Partner Law Takes Effect
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 23, 2007 - 9:00 am ET
(Olympia, Washington) Washington state's domestic partner law went intoeffect Monday, allowing same and opposite-sex couples to register theirrelationships and receive some of the state-sanctioned benefits of marriage.
People, mainly gay and lesbian couples, began lining up overnight at theSecretary of State's office. Other couples opted to register by mail.
Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the legislation in April, nearly a year after thestate Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage.
The law gives couples who register hospital visitation rights, the abilityto authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when thereis no will.
To registered couples must pay a $50 fee and be able to prove they share ahome, not be married or in a domestic relationship with someone else, and beat least 18.
=
The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23kristof.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Birth Without the Bother?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Earlier this year in Gujarat, India, I came across a most unusual kind ofoutsourcing: womb-rental.
Americans looking for a surrogate mother to bear a child can save a fortuneand avoid regulations by paying an Indian woman $4,000 or $5,000 to carrytheir fetus. An embryo that has been created in vitro by the Americanparents is implanted in the Indian woman's uterus and she goes through thepregnancy and delivers the baby - and then hands it over to the Americans.
Ultimately, that kind of surrogacy could be mixed with genetic screening ofembryos - to weed out babies of the "wrong" gender or with the "wrong"characteristics - to save busy couples the bother of pregnancy or thenuisance of chance.
Yes, all this gives me the willies, too. So some of the most monumentaldecisions we will face in the coming years will involve where we draw theline making some genetic tinkering legal and some illegal.
One of the crucial evolving technologies is P.G.D., or preimplantationgenetic diagnosis. This allows a couple to test embryos that have beencreated in vitro when they are roughly three days old.
=
Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbcane0723nbjul23,0,3927976,print.story
Think it's another quiet hurricane season? Just wait a few weeks
By Maya Bell
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 23, 2007
MIAMI -- Amid the storm that has swept through the National Hurricane Centerthis month over the future of its deposed director, there has been one thingmissing: an honest-to-goodness hurricane.
But Floridians shouldn't expect that to last.
With only two minor tropical storms so far, the 2007 hurricane season hasbeen quiet since it officially began June 1. But the slow start is typical,even for the above-average season that is still expected.
"Just because things are quiet on July 20 doesn't mean the active seasonwon't come true," Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist, said Friday."There have been plenty of active seasons where we didn't have any activitybefore August.
"Just look at 2004."
=
Victory for gay rights campaign as reggae star agrees to ditch homophobiclyrics
· Buju Banton signs pledge after years of pressure
· Song advocated shooting and burning homosexuals
Alexandra Topping
Monday July 23, 2007
The Guardian
One of the most notoriously homophobic figures in reggae and dancehallmusic has agreed to stop singing violently anti-gay lyrics. Buju Banton -whose 1990s hit Boom Bye Bye advocates the shooting of gay men - has signedthe "reggae compassionate act" set up by the gay rights campaign group StopMurder Music, after a three-year campaign to bring him into line, the groupwill announce today.
Banton is the latest in a series of high-profile artists, includingBeenie Man and Sizzla, to sign the declaration after worldwide protests fromgay rights groups resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of concerts andsponsorship deals, costing the artists in excess of £2.5m.
In signing up, Banton has agreed to not make homophobic statements inpublic, release new homophobic songs or authorise the re-release of previoushomophobic songs. The act states: "There's no space in the music communityfor hatred and prejudice, including no place for racism, violence, sexism orhomophobia."
It adds that reggae artists have always fought against injustices,inequalities, poverty and violence.
Peter Tatchell, of the gay rights group Outrage! which has coordinatedthe campaign, said the move was a big breakthrough in a battle that hasraged between gay rights activists and a number of dancehall artists for 15years. "Our No 1 priority is to stop murder music," he said.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/washington/23health.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185196148-Xp3g+po5VZ7LBPip+QxR4Q&pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Democrats Press House to Expand Health Care Bill
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, July 22 - After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate toexpand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats havedrafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicareand promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care.
President Bush has threatened to veto what he sees as a huge expansion ofthe children's health care program, which he describes as a step "down thepath to government-run health care for every American." The House measurecalls for changes that the administration will probably find even moredistasteful, including cuts in Medicare payments to private health plans.
Like the bill approved last week 17 to 4 in the Senate Finance Committee,the House bill would increase tobacco taxes to help finance expansion of theChildren's Health Insurance Program.
House Democrats hope to portray the issue as a fight pitting the interestsof children and older Americans against tobacco and insurance companies. TheWhite House says the Democratic proposals would distort the original intentof the children's program, cause a big increase in federal spending andadversely affect older Americans who are happy with the extra benefits theyreceive from private health plans.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon1.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial
What Would a Diplomat Do?
When Condoleezza Rice took over as secretary of state, the (wishful)thinking was that the Bush administration would finally get into thebusiness of diplomacy. Ms. Rice can be as bullying and ad hominem as herboss, but she's also an achiever and trying her hand at persuasion wasprobably the only hope for salvaging the administration's failed foreignpolicies and her reputation.
Two and a half years later we're pleased to note a preliminary success forthe new era: North Korea's decision to shut down its plutonium-producingnuclear reactor in exchange for economic and eventual diplomatic payoffs.Ms. Rice managed to hold back the spoilers in the vice president's officelong enough for her negotiator, Christopher Hill, to do the deal theold-fashioned way: countless hours of negotiations and a willingness tocompromise with a leader President Bush once famously said he "loathed."
Unfortunately, in most every other area ad hominem and loathing stilldominate. And there is still a perplexing refusal to do the tedious butabsolutely essential diplomatic prep work.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon2.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial
How the Energy Dice Were Loaded
The names of some of the corporate big shots and industry lobbyists whohelped shape the deliberations and conclusions of the super-secret Cheneyenergy task force in 2001 are now beginning to surface, thanks to a formerWhite House aide who provided a list to The Washington Post.
It's interesting to discover that Kenneth Lay, Enron's chairman, was favoredwith two audiences. But the rest is sadly familiar. The task force, whichdeveloped a national energy policy, had all the time in the world for thebig energy producers - some 40 meetings with the oil, gas and coal companiesand their trade associations - but barely a moment for environmentalists.
It'shardly surprising that its report favored producers of fossil fuels at theexpense of conservation and alternative fuels.
What this list really does is remind us how and why this administration hassquandered six years that should have been devoted to finding innovativeanswers to the big questions of oil dependency and global warming.
=
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon4.html?pagewanted=print
July 23, 2007
Editorial Observer
Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War
By ADAM COHEN
The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war.Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, butPresident Bush insists Congress doesn't have the power to do it. "I don'tthink Congress ought to be running the war," he said at a recent pressconference. "I think they ought to be funding the troops." He addedmagnanimously: "I'm certainly interested in their opinion."
The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying toexpand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of animperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nationto war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, thefounders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress's side.
=
USA TODAY
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/does-the-religi.html?csp=34
Does the religious majority rule?
With church-state issues, the answer is often 'yes.' In six communitieswhere public religiosity was contested in court, an unfortunate themeemerged: 'Insiders' who crossed the majority view quickly became 'outsiders.'
By Peter Irons
Every town and city has "insiders" and "outsiders." Insiders tend to havedeep family roots in the community, belong to its dominant religious groupand political party, and play active roles in civic affairs. Particularly insmall towns, insiders get upset when outsiders challenge the symbols thatreflect the majority's beliefs and values.
On the surface, Jimmie Greene and Louanne Walker both qualify as insiders inrural McCreary County, Ky., a stronghold of hard-shell Baptists androck-ribbed Republicans. They are, in fact, cousins whose ancestors settledin the Cumberland Mountains back in Daniel Boone's days. Jimmie and Louannegrew up together, attended the same elementary school and worshipped in thesame Baptist church. Jimmie served four terms as the county's "judgeexecutive," and Louanne has worked for 20 years in the welfare office.
=
365Gay.Com
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino/corvino.htm
Tops and Bottoms
by John Corvino
(Yes, this column is about exactly what you think, so readers squeamishabout such topics should find another page.)
Years ago I lived next door to a young born-again Christian rock singer (Iknow-it sounds like the premise for a sitcom). While Jason stronglydisapproved of my being gay, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantlyasked me questions.
One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His facebrightened. "That's awesome!" he shouted.
"Why, pray tell, is it awesome?" I asked.
"Because maybe you'll try it, and then realize you don't like it, and thenyou won't be gay."
For Jason, being gay meant liking anal sex. He found it strange that theequivalence had never occurred to me. For me, being gay means that I likeguys. It means that I like guys-I have crushes on them, I fall in love withthem (one in particular), I want to "get physical" with them. It doesn'tspecify how I should do this.
=
Important Court Victory in Florida!
Sunday, July 22, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Carven Angel issued atemporary injunction barring the State of Florida from carrying out theexecution of Death Row inmate Ian Lightbourne. The Judge stated thatit would be improper for the Governor to consider taking up a DeathWarrant at this time.
After hearing sworn testimony in the first courtroom review of theDecember 13, 2006 botched execution of Angel Diaz and the subsequentproposed changes to Florida's lethal injection protocols, Judge Angelfound that the Dept. of Corrections and the State of Florida areunprepared to carry out an execution of Death Row inmate IanLightbourne. Judge Angel said that the Governor must have confidencethat Florida's execution process is compatible with evolving standardsof decency that mark the progress of a maturing society and the dignityof man. The judge further stated that executions should be carried outin a manner that does not result in the unnecessary and wantoninfliction of pain and lingering death.
=
Detroit News
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070723/OPINION03/707230328
The Detroit News
Deb Price
Gays make a strong pitch for acceptance
"Well, darling, I've got some news for you," longtime AIDS activistCornelius Baker recalls being told.
On the other end of the phone was Brent Minor, president of a gay sportsgroup called Team DC. His exciting news was that a secret committee hadpicked Baker to be the first openly gay person to throw the opening pitch ata game of the Washington Nationals, the Major League Baseball team.
"We had a nice little giggle," Baker recalls.
But reality set in: Minor is athletic -- he once did an Olympic-leveltriathlon, which is a near one-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride and 6.2-milerun, in drag. Baker is not.
In fact, he'd never even touched a baseball. The last time he'd thrown asoftball was in sixth grade -- and that was underhand.
His historic pitch was to be a featured attraction at the Nationals' thirdannual gay-friendly "Night Out." The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington wouldsing the national anthem. Then with 2,000 gay and lesbian fans -- not tomention everyone else in the stadium and TV viewers -- watching, Baker wouldhave to perform.
He had 10 days to train. His boyfriend, Greg, sent him a YouTube video ofthe mayor of Cincinnati accidentally throwing sideways: "Don't let thishappen," Greg warned.
Baker traveled to Atlanta, where his coaches -- Greg and Greg's brother --made him practice for hours in the heat "with mosquitoes and no bug spray."
The National's "Night Out" game for which Baker was training was part of acrackerjack trend in Major League Baseball that started with the ChicagoCubs in 2001 and includes the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, SanDiego Padres and San Francisco Giants. (The Detroit Tigers apparentlyhaven't yet been asked to join in.)
Before he knew it, Baker was on the pitcher's mound to open the July 16contest between the Nationals and the Houston Astros. His mind was sofocused he couldn't hear the cheering fans.
=
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1164/173/
Domestic Partnerships Risky for Military, Foreign Nationals
Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:16
Domestic Partnerships Risky for Military, Foreign Nationals
Tom Richardson and Salvador Valenzuela first marked their commitmentto each other with a city domestic partnership in Seattle. WhenMassachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage, theymarried, and hyphenated their last names.
Now back in Washington state, the Richardson-Valenzuelas plan toregister for a state domestic partnership here, taking advantage of the newlaw giving same-sex couples some of the benefits that married heterosexualcouples enjoy.
Read More...
=
National Gay News
http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/1136
National Media Cover Oust Naugle Effort
Unite Fort Lauderdale is organizing events to demand Mayor Jim Naugle'sresignation for his derogatory and divisive comments. On July 24, at 4PM,there will be a protest at Fort Lauderdale City Hall. CLICK ABOVE to checkout the list of national media coverage this is getting, plus useful linkspertaining to the event.
=
[Send your comments about articles to Rays.List@Comcast.net]
#####
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