RICHMOND, Va. (AP) | 12/25/2006 08:13 PM

He’s no celebrity, but when Phillip McKee III tied the knot in September, he did it with all the pomp and circumstance of an A-lister: Custom-designed gold rings, a $2,000 kilt and a caviar-and-crepe reception at a posh hotel.

McKee, 34, sank some $60,000 into his Scottish-themed nuptials, worth it he says for the chance to stand before a minister and be pronounced husband _ and husband.

Even as lawmakers across the nation debate legislation banning same-sex marriage, couples are uniting in weddings both miniature and massive, fueling a growing industry peddling everything from pink triangle invitations to same-sex cake toppers.

Vendors say attention to the marriage issue has encouraged more gay couples to recognize their relationships, though in most state s, the ceremonies are purely sentimental.

”For the longest time, there was so much shame and privacy around it that people didn’t really give themselves permission to have ceremonies like this,” said Kathryn Hamm, an Arlington-based wedding consultant who planned McKee’s marriage to partner Nopadon Woods. ”(Now) the market is growing as the headlines remain out there.”

Unlike the multibillion dollar traditional wedding industry, experts say the gay wedding business is harder to track. Some estimates place its value at up to $1 billion.

In 2005, gays spent $7.2 million with vendors found at the Rainbow Wedding Network Web site, according to data collected by the site, which publishes a national magazine and hosts wedding expos. That’s up from $2.1 million in 2002, according to Cindy Sproul, who co-owns the North Carolina firm.

Marriage-minded gays and lesbians are purchasing basics like flowers and limousines. But vendors say couples also are spend ing on items with a same-sex twist: rainbow bejeweled rings, double-bride thank you cards and ”His and His” towel sets.

”We almost completely parallel what heterosexual couples are doing,” Sproul said. ”The only difference is there may be two grooms, or two brides.”

Sproul estimated gay couples spend about $20,000 on ceremonies in states offering some form of recognition, like Massachusetts and Vermont. But couples elsewhere also are investing: Sproul said couples average $15,000 on ceremonies in states that have banned gay marriage such as Georgia, where an annual wedding expo her company hosts draws about 500, mostly black gays and lesbians.

Vinyelle White and Madeline Jones of Richmond spent $4,000 _ a month’s worth of their combined income _ on their August ceremony, a homespun affair with handmade invitations.

”It may sound really stupid to say, but why not,” said White, who visited gay wedding Web sites before choosing an African-themed wedding. ”We’re showing this is how much we love each other, whether it’s legal or not.”

Emerging in gay communities largely in the last decade, same-sex marriages _ and weddings _ recently have been drawn into the national spotlight by attempts to make the unions illegal.

Massachusetts is the only state to date to allow gay marriage, since the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 the state constitution guaranteed that right. According to the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, 8,764 same-sex couples tied the knot in Massachusetts since the first same-sex weddings began taking place May 17, 2004 through Nov. 9, 2006, the most recent figures available.

In November, Virginia was one of seven states that approved gay-marriage bans, joining 20 that had done so in previous elections. But other states are moving in the opposite direction: New Jersey’s gay couples gained new rights last week when the state legalized same-sex civil unions there.

Sharmayne Wesl er, a planner with New York’s annual GLBT Expo, credited the hubbub and well-publicized gay weddings like that of lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge in 2003, with encouraging gays to formalize their relationships.

”They too want to be traditional,” said Wesler, whose RDP Group has 70 wedding-specific vendors at its expo. ”The trend … is toward really large weddings, none of these simple affairs.

”They want to go to a ceremony with all the bells and whistles.”

McKee and Woods invited 200 guests to their black-tie ceremony, followed by a cocktail hour and reception at the Ritz-Carlton, in Tysons Corner, Va.

Groomsmen received engraved pocket watches; a bagpiper, pianist and DJ serenaded guests, who dined on caviar and lobster.

McKee used gay wedding books, Web sites and a wedding coordinator to find things like gay-friendly photographers. The ceremony cost half their annual income.

In Virginia, the men were no more legally bound after t he lavish wedding than before. Still, they considered it a good investment.

”For us, the essence of a marriage is our love,” McKee said. ”Whether the state honors it is the icing on the cake _ it’s not the cake itself.”

___

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico (AP) | 12/22/2006 01:10 PM

When Mexico’s scandalous pop diva Gloria Trevi _ once the country’s highest-paid performer and known as ”Mexico’s Madonna” _ left jail, she handed out fliers to promote herself.

The hard work is paying off: two years later, Trevi has shot to worldwide superstardom.

Her comeback album, ”Como nace el universo,” or ”How the Universe Was born,” went platinum in the United States, selling more than 200,000 copies, and receiving a Latin Billboard Award nomination for best album.

The single ”Todos me miran,” or ”Everyone is Looking at Me,” whose video depicts a gay man coming out, hit No. 1 on Mexico’s billboard chart. These days, Trevi has become an icon for gay men on both sides of the border, dubbed the ”Gay Queen.”

”Conservatives criticize (gays ) but then they wear the clothes they design, listen to the music that they have made so popular and use the makeup that they create,” Trevi told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Trevi rose to stardom in the 1990s when her songs about sexual independence won over thousands of teenage fans, making her one of Latin America’s biggest stars.

Then the bottom fell out: In 2000, Trevi, along with her manager Sergio Andrade, and backup singer Maria Raquenel Portillo, were arrested and accused of luring young girls into their entourage with promises of stardom and then sexually abusing them.

The three were detained in Brazil, where all had fled to avoid prosecution. They were extradited to Mexico, where a second backup singer was already being held.

After almost five years in Brazilian and Mexican prisons, Trevi was acquitted of charges of kidnapping, rape and corruption of minors.

The 38-year-old singer, who has always maintained her innocen ce, left jail with her son Angel Gabriel, now 4, and the memory of losing a baby girl who died shortly after being born there. Last year, she gave birth to her second son, Miguel Armando, and says she may have more children.

Trevi no longer talks about her time in jail, but the experience transformed her from a Mexican teen idol into an international star with fans in their 20s and 30s. And although she has tamed her wild lioness mane and toned down her raunchy image _ doing away with ripped tights _ Trevi hasn’t lost her spunk.

She still lets loose on stage, grabbing her crotch and cracking whips.

”My fans like the rebel in me,” she said in a recent interview.

She’s even managed to strike a fine balance between her rebel girl image and her new life as an activist mother, broadening her appeal.

Trevi also started a foundation, named Ana Dalai after her baby that died, to provide money and support to jailed mothers, saying she has firsthand kno wledge of their difficulties. On Monday, she returned to the Chihuahua prison where she was held and handed out toys and medicine to inmate mothers.

She has become a vocal defender of the gay community. The song ”Everyone Is Looking at Me,” which she said is based on a friend’s experience, was a favorite at sold-out shows during Trevi’s recent tour of major gay clubs from New York to Los Angeles.

Her album ”How the Universe is Born” was a testament to fans of Trevi’s fight against social taboos and not being influenced by others, and she has said ”Everyone Is looking at me” also relates her own feelings of being rejected by certain sectors of society.

She said she hopes her music inspires people to stay true to themselves.

”Artists, and above all ‘La Trevi’ teaches us, especially women, about all the sides of ourselves: the sexy one, the showoff, the passionate one, the mother, the super hero,” she said.

Later, she added: ”My rebellious ness more than anything has a cause. … I never have been an anarchist, I’ve always had goals and always have acted out of love.”

___

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) |

President Bush’s ambitious AIDS-fighting program in poor countries has pushed so hard for fast results that basic record keeping and accountability often went by the wayside, making it hard to judge the true success, according to government audits and officials.

Investigators found the three-year-old, $15-billion program has overcounted and undercounted thousands patients it helped or was unable to verify claims of success by local groups that took U.S. money to prevent the spread of disease or care for AIDS victims and their children.

The Bush administration says it has worked to fix the problems that were found in multiple countries and outlined in several audits reviewed by The Associated Press.

”It’s not good enough for the auditors to hear from the mission t hat we did A, B and C but we can’t prove it to you, or there’s no documentation to prove that we did it,” said Joe Farinella, a top watchdog inside the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Farinella is the assistant inspector general who oversaw the investigations into how U.S. AIDS money was spent overseas in 2004 and 2005.

He said many recipients failed to keep records that would provide ”reasonable assurance that what they say was done was in fact carried out.” The inspector general will recommend that the administration clarify its directives and improve reporting methods.

The administration acknowledges the lapses and says it has imposed tighter reporting systems that have improved the accuracy of information. Officials blame the shoddy record keeping on an eagerness to get money into the field to help AIDS victims.

”You could’ve waited for three years to get all these systems in place and an awful lot of people would have died,” said Ambassador Mark Dybul, the administration’s global AIDS coordinator.

”Our approach was get the services out, start moving the programs. In many of the cases where they say we can’t find documentation, that doesn’t mean people aren’t getting services; that just means the reporting systems are not in place,” he said. Dybul said he has ”extraordinary” confidence in the overall numbers.

For at least one country, Guyana, incorrect numbers made it into this year’s annual report to Congress. It cited services to 5,200 AIDS orphans, but auditors documented fewer than 300, many of them not even affected by AIDS.

The opposite occurred in South Africa. Some provincial governments refused to disclose information on AIDS tests and counseling, causing ‘’severe underreporting” in the number of victims who were helped with U.S. money, an audit dated Aug. 11 concluded. Officials said that problem was now resolved.

After reporting that millions of people were reac hed by mass-media promoting sexual abstinence and use of condoms, the administration now has dropped that measurement completely, on grounds it is impossible to know how many people hear radio messages.

The numbers are important because Congress and others closely track administration strategies for a program that is pumping unprecedented sums into AIDS-stricken nations in Africa. The administration demands that programs make progress toward specific targets each year and report tallies in dozens of categories.

Bush’s goals are ambitious: to treat 2 million infected people by 2008, prevent 7 million new infections and provide support and care for 10 million HIV/AIDS patients and orphans.

”The accuracy of the numbers is essential and is something Congress should look at,” said the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said she will seek oversight hearings into the questions raised by the audits.

Dybul said early problems were expected, but standardized improvements are creating a growing ”culture of accountability” in the field.

”We are putting into place reporting mechanisms that have never existed,” he said. ”Our numbers are the tightest in the world. Yes, we have problems around the margins. We’ve put enormous effort into them and are improving them all the time.”

Current counts of people helped from each country are ”within scientifically acceptable ranges of numbers,” said Win Brown, a data quality consultant to Dybul’s office.

The USAID’s inspector general focused on care and prevention in 2004 and 2005, but did not highlight drug treatment, which Dybul said is easy to count and had good accountability.

Tracking care for orphans has been especially troublesome. Local groups were found tallying individual handouts such as meals or clothing and not measuring true care. That led the administration to im pose a new rule in July that a child can only be counted if provided with three of six key services. The administration also is working to avoid double counting when a child gets help from more than one program.

Auditors also found confusion about reporting timetables and errors by U.S. officials, some of whom said the heavy workload interfered with their ability to monitor and document grant recipients’ work.

Development experts say local groups often were ill-equipped to meet record keeping demands. The administration has pushed to enlist new religious and community organizations and often they work as subcontractors under more established nonprofits that are used to getting and accounting for government money.

”This whole push for new partners is a double edged sword. You have to build their capacity to manage U.S. government money and particularly meet the reporting guidelines,” said Patty Mechael, former program director for the charity CARE.

O ne of the largest recipients of grant money, Family Health International, experienced 83 percent inaccurate or unverified tallies from its subcontractors in impoverished Guyana and could document only 345 of 9,000 HIV/AIDS infected people reported as receiving tuberculosis treatment in Nigeria, auditors said.

The organization has since strengthened training for its local partners, ”making sure the people clearly understand what they’re measuring,” senior vice president Sheila Mitchell said.

Susan Krenn is Africa director for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs, which also partners with local groups in Africa.

”It is all about being able to show at the end of the day the results and accountability for that money. How that translates to the field is challenging for some local organizations,” Krenn said.

Some groups that did not measure up have been dropped and others that complained about reporting d emands have warmed to the new systems that also help them track their own needs, Dybul said.

He said the updated numbers the administration reported on World AIDS Day Dec. 1 are accurate: 822,000 people receiving life-saving drugs, and 4.5 million receiving care.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) | 12/22/2006 03:11 PM

The nation’s first openly lesbian big-city fire chief was demoted without severance pay Friday amid allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment.

City officials approved the deal that stopped short of firing Bonnie Bleskachek to avoid further costly court action, Mayor R.T. Rybak said. The City Council voted 8-5 to approve the deal.

”She will be completely and permanently stripped of ever holding leadership or management in the city,” the mayor said. ”She has been severely and significantly demoted, and her pay will be cut by $40,000.”

Bleskachek, 43, has denied wrongdoing, but the mayor said she will not contest the demotion.

Bleskachek’s attorney, Jerry Burg, said his client was relieved. ”I’m sure she’s thrilled to have a door closed on all of this,” Burg said.

Hailed as a trailblazer when she was promoted to the top job two years ago, Bleskachek’s tenure was troubled. Four firefighters _ three women and a man _ sued, alleging various acts of discrimination and sexual harassment.

This summer, an investigation by the city’s Department of Civil Rights found it likely that the department gave preferential treatment to lesbians or those who socialized with them.

The city has spent more than $410,000 on the investigation, legal settlements and compensation for Bleskachek since she went on paid leave March 22.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

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Today’s Headlines
Trailblazing Minn. Fire Chief Demoted
Poor Records Plague Bush AIDS Effort
Mexican Pop Diva Rebuilds Career
Despite Laws, Gay Wedding Industry Booms

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GREER, S.C. (AP)  | 12/21/2006 06:47 PM

Sam Brownback said Thursday that conservative values like opposition to abortion and gay marriage will distinguish him from others vying for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

”I think there’s room in the field for someone with full-scale conservative values,” the Kansas senator told about 80 people at a conference room of a branch of the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System. ”I don’t think that end of the field’s crowded.”

Brownback’s visit comes one day after another possible GOP contender for the White House _ former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating _ visited South Carolina.

Brownback, who said he will announce next month whether or not he will run, also spoke about this early voting state’s importance in the nomination process.

”There’s a good probability South Carolina will make the determination of who the Republican nominee is,” he said.

Brownback, who was diagnosed with melanoma in 1995, visited a cancer center in Anderson.

He said he wants to see an end to life-threatening cancer in 10 years.

”This is a great chance for hope. It is actually within our reach,” said Brownback. Cancer is the ”leading cause of fear in America today. It’s not terrorism.”

He wants earlier screenings for high-risk groups and thinks more patients should participate earlier in trial treatments, which help find a successful approach, he said.

___

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) | 12/21/2006 12:01 PM

James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, says ”the two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy.”

Dobson is responding to news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President DickCheney, is pregnant and plans to raise the baby with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe.

In an op-ed posted Dec. 12 on the Time magazine Web site, Dobson said most social scientific research concludes that children do best when raised by a married mother and father.

”In raising these issues, Focus on the Family does not desire to harm or insult women such as Cheney and Poe,” Dobson wrote. ”Rather, our conviction is that birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples. Traditional marriage is God’s design for the family and is rooted in biblical truth.”

Gay rights advocates have condemned Dobson’s views. In an opposing op-ed article Time published, Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the advocacy group Family Pride, said Dobson’s claims about research on gay parenting are ”lies and distortions.” She said gay families have successfully provided nurturing, healthy environments for children.

____

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[ratings]

WASHINGTON (AP) | 12/21/2006 10:56 AM

President Bush told Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on Thursday that he was disappointed with a Libyan court decision to reimpose the death sentences on Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV.

Bush spoke with Parvanov on the phone from the White House about the Libyan decision, expressing his strong support for Bulgaria’s efforts to secure the release of the medics, said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The president also congratulated Parvanov on Bulgaria’s accession as a member of the European Union, which will formally take place on Jan. 1.

Death sentences handed down Tuesday in Libya for five Bulgarian nurses accused of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV triggered outrage Wednesday in Bulgaria. A court in Tripoli on Tuesday convicted the nurses and a Palestinian doctor and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers arrived in Libya.

The six have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the HIV virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for AIDS. Fifty of the children died.

Bulgaria and European officials have blamed the infections on unhygienic practices at the hospital, and accuse Libya of making the accused scapegoats to cover up poor conditions. Libyan investigators told the court that infections were limited to the part of the hospital where the Bulgarian nurses had worked.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after Tuesday’s ruling that the United States was ”very disappointed with the outcome” and urged the medical workers be freed and allowed to go home at the earliest possible date. The European Union said it was shocked by the verdict. Spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said the EU had not yet decided to take steps against Libya while the ruling is appealed.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[ratings]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) | 12/20/2006 10:36 PM

The CaliforniaSupremeCourt unanimously agreed Wednesday to decide whether the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates a constitutional ban on discrimination, though an outcome is not likely until late next year.

The justices are reviewing an October decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal, which ruled that California marriage laws do not discriminate because gay and lesbian couples can get most rights the state confers to married couples.

Massachusetts is the only state that authorizes same-sex marriage. California offers domestic partnerships, similar to civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed gay and lesbian couples to wed at City Hall in 2004, but California’s justices halted the ensuing wedding spree and voided 4,037 marriage licenses by ruling the mayor did not have authority to make marriage law.

About 20 same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco sued the state, and the case has meandered through trial and appellate courts. Had the SupremeCourt not taken the case, the lower court’s decision would have stood.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the city was ”extremely gratified.”

”It’s perhaps the major civil rights issue of our time,” he said.

A call to the office of Attorney General Bill Lockyer was not returned.

A 1977 law and a 2000 voter-approved measure prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying in California.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday that officials will abide by a state SupremeCourt decision to provide benefits to the same-sex partners of state employees as of Jan. 1.

The court on Tuesday had told the state to stop dragging its feet and implement benefits, which will end a seven-year battle by the American Civil Liberties Union and nine couples who sued.

”We believe we have no more judicial options,” Palin said, shortly before the Republican signed a bill calling for voters to decide in April whether the Legislature should consider proposing a constitutional amendment to prohibit the benefits.

The high court ruled in October 2005 that denying the benefits violated the state’s guarantee of equal protection for all Alaskans.

The state constitution prohibits marriage for same-sex couples.

___

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[ratings]

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) | 12/21/2006 02:07 PM

NewJersey’s governor signed legislation Thursday giving gay couples all the rights and responsibilities of marriage allowed under state law _ but not the title.

When the law goes into effect Feb. 19, NewJersey will become the third state offering civil unions to gay couples and the fifth allowing gay couples some version of marriage.

Connecticut and Vermont also offer civil unions for gay couples, while Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry, and California has domestic partnerships that bring full marriage rights under state law.

”We must recognize that many gay and lesbian couples in NewJersey are in committed relationships and deserve the same benefits and rights as every other family in this state,” Gov. Jon S. Corzine said in signing the legislation.

The Legislature passed the civil unions bill on Dec. 14 in response to a state Supreme Court order that gay couples be granted the same rights as married couples. The court in October gave lawmakers six months to act but left it to them to decide whether to call the unions ”marriage” or something else.

Gay couples welcomed the new law, but argue not calling it ”marriage” creates a different, inferior institution. Even some same-sex couples who attended the bill signing remained lukewarm about the law.

”It’s a step forward, but it’s not true equality,” said Veronica Hoff, 52, of Mount Laurel, as she stood with her partner.

The civil unions law grants gay couples adoption, inheritance, hospital visitation and medical decision-making rights and the right not to testify against a partner in state court.

They won’t, however, be entitled to the same benefits as married couples in the eyes of the federal government because of 1996 law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Gay partners won’t be able to collect deceased partners’ Social Security benefits, for example, said family lawyer Felice T. Londa, who represents many same-sex couples.

Social conservative groups and some lawmakers opposed the measure, saying it brings gay relationships too close to marriage, but it easily passed the Legislature.

”It’s same-sex marriage without the title,” said John Tomicki, president of the NewJersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage. ”It uproots the cardinal values of our culture.”

He said opponents would push for a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex unions in NewJersey, no matter what they’re called.

”Let the voters decide that marriage is defined as a union of one man and one woman,” Tomicki said.

Democrats who control the Legislature have said they have no plans to consider such a proposal.

___

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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NJ Governor Signs Gay Civil Unions Law
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Bush Disappointed by Libyan Death Ruling
Brownback Touts Conservative Values
Conservative Leader Opposes Gay Parents

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