ROME, Jan. 30 (UPI)

Italian gay rights groups said they are angry at broadcaster RAI after a game show host said he was asked whether he was gay during an audition. The incident touched off protests from members of parliament and activists, as politicians debate a measure that would legalize civil unions of gay couples in this Catholic country, Variety said. The issue of discrimination against homosexuals at RAI is a pressing one that needs to be resolved at all levels, from equal opportunity in the workplace to equal time in the news, said leftist lawmaker Franco Grillini, who leads the Arcigay gay rights group. It is the second dust-up RAI experienced over gays. Parliament recently argued over the pending Un Medico in famiglia (A Doctor in the Family), which features two doctors living as a couple, the first time a gay couple has been depicted on RAI. Members of Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative bloc asked that the new version of the popular series be pulled before its scheduled airing in March. Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, said RAI was trying to persuade people that a normal family is composed of two people of the same sex.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

LONDON, Jan. 30 (UPI) |

Adoption agencies run by the Roman Catholic Church in Britain must be willing to consider gay couples as prospective parents starting in 2009, a report said. Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Monday that his government had decided against an opt-out provision for those who object to the non-discrimination policy on religious grounds, The Telegraph reported. Blair said that through 2008 agencies that refuse gay prospective parents must refer them to other agencies. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, a Catholic, and Blair, an Anglican with close ties to the Catholic Church, had been trying to win an opt-out. But the Labor Party was united against them. Even David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, suggested that an opt-out would be wrong. He suggested some compromise like letting Catholic agencies work with agencies who do not object to gay adoption. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, said last year that the church’s adoption agencies would have to close if they are forced to place children with gay couples.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International  

NEW YORK (AP) | 01/30/2007 03:12 PM

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
Two national advocacy groups Tuesday accused the federal government of neglecting what they described as an epidemic of homelessness affecting tens of thousands of gay and lesbian youth, many of whom leave home because of conflicts with their parents.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Coalition for the Homeless said gay, lesbian and transgender youth make up at least 20 percent _ possibly as much as 40 percent _ of the total number of homeless and runaway youth, a fluid population which experts have estimated at 575,000 to 1.6 million each year.

”The national response to this epidemic has been nothing short of disgraceful,” Matt Foreman, executive director of the task force, told reporters during a teleconference.

He urged Congress to increase appropriations for the federal Runaway, Homeless and Missing Children Protection Act, which must be reauthorized next year, and said some federal funds should _ for the first time _ be targeted specifically at boosting programs to aid gay and lesbian youth.

Citing incidents of anti-gay harassment at homeless shelters, the task force and homeless coalition recommended that some shelter space be set aside solely for gay youth. They also said any organization seeking public funding to serve homeless youth should be required to prove its staff would treat gay and lesbian young people competently and fairly.

In a report completed in December, ”An Epidemic of Homelessness,” the two groups cited estimates that roughly one-fourth of gay and lesbian teens are kicked out of their homes after their parents learn of their sexual orientation. The report said many gay youths experienced physical violence during the process of coming out.

Once homeless, the report says, these young people are more vulnerable than their peers to problems of mental health, substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. The report’s lead author, task force policy analyst Nicholas Ray, said about one-third of homeless gay youth engage in ‘’survival sex” _ exchanging sex for money, food, clothes or drugs.

Assessing existing programs for homeless youth, the report said public funding was inadequate, and asserted that more than 6,000 youths in 2004 were turned away from programs that lacked resources to help them.

The report also expressed concern that President Bush’s push for federal funding of faith-based organizations might lead to situations where a church-run shelter program would discriminate against a gay youth seeking services.

Dilo Cintron, 25, a gay man who spent five years homeless in New York City, said staff at one shelter he used were so unsympathetic that they once walked by without intervening while he was being assaulted in a laundry room.

According to Ray, gay youths at a homeless shelter in Michigan were required to wear orange jump suits to distinguish them from other youths.

The report also cited several programs that were providing effective services to gay youth, including Green Chimneys in New York City, Waltham House in Waltham, Mass., the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, Ozone House in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Urban Peak in Denver.

___

On the Net:

Gay and Lesbian Task Force: http://www.thetaskforce.org/

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

HONOLULU (AP) | 01/31/2007 05:30 AM

Trying to avoid a heated battle over gay marriage, Hawaii lawmakers are considering a renewed push to grant same-sex couples similar benefits through civil unions.

Democratic legislators, who hold overwhelming majorities in both the state House and Senate, are supporting a proposed civil union bill as one of the party’s top priorities for this year’s legislative session. If it passes, Hawaii would become only the fifth state to recognize either civil unions or gay marriage.

”Committed couples, regardless of their sexual preference or orientation, should have the same rights. That’s the bottom line _ we should treat people equally,” said Gary Hooser, the state senate majority leader. ”There’s broad support among Democratic party members.”

He said if approved, the civil unions law would grant same-sex couples the same rights and benefits as married couples. Hawaii already gives some rights _ in areas of insurance, property, pension and hospital visitation _ to same-sex partners through its reciprocal benefits law.

Republican Gov. Linda Lingle won’t take a position on the bill until it is approved by the Legislature, said Linda Smith, her senior policy adviser.

”We’ll give every bill a fair look if and when it comes to her desk,” Smith said.

Hawaii nearly legalized gay marriages more than a decade ago, before stiff public opposition came from family advocacy groups and religious groups.

A decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court would have allowed same-sex marriages, but a 1998 constitutional amendment and a law defined marriage as between two people of opposite sexes.

This year, the civil union bill hasn’t yet generated a similar public outcry.

The Catholic church in Hawaii opposes the idea, said spokeswoman Kelly Rosati. A spokeswoman for the Mormon church in Utah said she was not aware of any institutional involvement in Hawaii’s civil union debate.

Vermont and Connecticut already have civil union laws and New Jersey’s will take effect next month. Massachusetts is the only state to allow same-sex marriages.

___

On the Net:

Hawaii Legislature: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES (AP) | 01/30/2007 10:41 PM

An immigration judge who previously denied a gay man’s asylum bid on the grounds that he could conceal his sexual orientation if he returned to his native Mexico reversed the decision Tuesday.

In allowing Jorge Sota Vega to remain in the United States, Judge John D. Taylor said that gays should not be required to dress or act a certain way to avoid persecution and that Vega’s lawyers proved he would be at risk if he were deported to Mexico.

Vega’s case attracted attention from national gay rights groups when Taylor denied his application and said that Vega could live safely in Mexico because he did not look gay and could hide the fact that he was.

”It seemed to us this is a real double standard,” said Jon W. Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal. ”Courts don’t deny asylum to someone based on their political beliefs by saying, ‘If you just didn’t tell other people what you believed, you would be fine.”’

Vega, 38, lived in Tuxpan and Guadalajara before he fled to the United States. He said in his 2004 asylum bid that he was beaten by police and told by authorities in Mexico he would be killed.

Now a New York resident, Vega appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The San Francisco-based court sent the case back to immigration court last year.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headlines
Gay Man From Mexico Wins U.S. Asylum
Hawaii Lawmakers Mull Civil Unions Bill
More Help Urged for Homeless Gay Youth
Catholic Agencies Lose On Gay Adoption
RAI Gay Question Raises Advocates’ Ire

CANBERRA, Australia, Jan. 29 (UPI)
The Australian government is considering a $7.7 million sexual health campaign to combat a rise in HIV infections. Health Minister Tony Abbott says the campaign would target the general community but be specifically designed to include gay men. Latest figures on the number of new HIV infections in Australia show a 41 percent increase in the years between 2000 and 2005. Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the country has been regarded as a world leader at arresting the spread of HIV/AIDS and the last thing we want to do is put that at risk. Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations spokesman Donald Baxter says the gay community should be targeted through mainstream media. I think one of the missing parts of our response (to HIV/AIDS) is social marketing … as the lives of gay men and lesbians have become more mainstream in the last 10 or 15 years, we need to be putting HIV messages to the gay community on mainstream media.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) | 01/29/2007 02:22 PM

His father made a career out of representing mobsters, including the most powerful Mafia boss in New England. His older brother, also a lawyer, was just indicted in a federal sting.

Yet David Cicilline has built a reputation as the reform-minded, clean-government mayor of Providence, a longtime municipal sinkhole of bribery and cronyism. And he is leaving the door open to a run for governor of Rhode Island.

The mayor, a Democrat overwhelmingly elected to a second four-year term in November, pushed through the city’s first ethics code last summer. In a clean break from his predecessors, he has refused to take political donations from city employees. And he brought in an outsider as police chief after a cheating scandal in the department.

Inheriting a city in financial disarray, Cicilline also closed a deficit, forced municipal unions to contribute to their health care and cut hundreds of jobs.

”People now have confidence that this is a good city to do business in, that it has an honest city government,” the 46-year-old Cicilline said in an interview at City Hall.

His reputation for clean hands sets him apart from his own family and some of his predecessors in Providence, a once-decaying industrial city that is now a revitalized community of high-rise buildings, art galleries and waterfront parks.

Providence’s last elected mayor, Vincent ”Buddy” Cianci, is still in prison for corruption.

Cicilline’s father, John F. ”Jack” Cicilline, is an up-from-the-streets lawyer who represented Raymond L.S. Patriarca, who until his death in 1984 controlled organized crime in New England from his headquarters in a vending machine store on Federal Hill, the city’s Italian neighborhood. In recent years, the elder Cicilline has also defended Luigi Manocchio, who the FBI says runs the remnants of Patriarca’s organization.

The elder Cicilline was acquitted in 1985 _ after three trials _ of coaxing a witness to lie. He is known in the courtroom as a fighter, even with his own clients.

”I’m the lawyer, you’re the gangster,” he snapped at one reputed Patriarca lieutenant, trying to silence him during a court appearance this month.

Last year, news broke that the mayor’s brother, John M. Cicilline, had racked up $5,880 in parking tickets and fines, making him one of the city’s biggest scofflaws. The older brother eventually paid $2,300 in August to settle the matter.

Then, earlier this month, the older brother and a now-disbarred lawyer were indicted on federal corruption charges. Prosecutors said the two men requested more than $100,000 from a couple facing drug charges. According to the indictment, the two lawyers said they would use the money to set up a drug deal so their clients could expose it to authorities in the hopes of winning a lighter prison sentence.

Both men pleaded not guilty.

John M. Cicilline’s lawyer and the mayor’s father did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

The mayor has never offered any apologies for his father’s career.

”He said, ‘Look, my father raised a family and put food on the table, and I believe like everyone else in America that everyone has a right to legal representation,”’ said Robert Walsh Jr., a longtime friend and now director of Rhode Island’s biggest teachers union.

The mayor has likewise promised to support his indicted brother and his three nieces.

Cicilline is the first openly gay mayor of this city of 177,000. While his father and brother are Roman Catholic, he adopted the Judaism of his mother.

His talent for politics was clear early on. He was appointed to a town advisory council at 13. By high school, he was elected governor of a mock legislature for Rhode Island students.

”He’s not shy,” Walsh said. ”He just hustled around.”

A graduate of Brown University and Georgetown University’s law school, Cicilline established his own law firm inside a building shared by his brother and father. Criminal defense work paid the bills, but Cicilline branched into civil rights and police brutality cases _ an interest partly inspired by his father.

”My father was a real democrat with a small ‘d’, a real liberal who instilled in me the importance of recognizing our obligation to people who are less fortunate,” Cicilline said.

He soon went into politics, getting elected to the state House in 1994 and serving eight years.

His last name can be a political liability.

When Cicilline announced he was running for mayor in 2002, Cianci, then under indictment, promptly told reporters: ”If he won’t take any contributions from city workers, then I won’t take any money from the drug dealers he represents every day.”

The mayor said he does not believe his brother’s indictment will hurt his career or affect his decision on whether to run for governor in 2010.

”The voters have always been incredibly fair-minded,” he said. ”I think people judge you on who you are and what you stand for.”

Some residents do not hold his family name against him. At a recent community meeting, Jose Ruiz recounted a complaint his church group made to the mayor’s office about an abandoned parking lot that attracted drug dealers and prostitutes.

”That same night he sent like 10 (police) cars. They even put up a fence,” Ruiz said, ”So does that say anything to you that he’s doing something for the community?”

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (UPI)

Twist Revolutions is the initial album of new music and emerging artists from the U.S. music industry’s first lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender label. Twist Revolutions will serve as a launching pad for some of the most vital and important new voices in the gay community, Music With A Twist/Columbia Records said in a news release Monday. The collection, with tracks by The Gossip, Sara Bettens, Adam Joseph and Levi Kreis, among others, is scheduled for an April 17 release. Music With A Twist, which launched in 2006, is a joint venture between Sony Music Label Group and Columbia Records. It is the first major record label dedicated to identifying and developing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists along with creating innovative music compilations with a gay twist, the company said.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

MOSCOW (AP) | 01/29/2007 04:00 PM

Moscow’s mayor vowed Monday never to allow a gay rights parade, calling such events ‘’satanic,” but activists said they would defy a city ban.

Yury Luzhkov and city authorities barred activists from staging a parade last year, citing the threat of violence. Activists ignored the ban, and were attacked by right-wing protesters and detained by police.

Speaking at a Kremlin event attended by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Luzhkov again lambasted gay and lesbian groups.

”Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as satanic,” he said to applause in comments broadcast on a city-controlled TV channel. ”We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future.”

He also charged that Western countries were facing a crisis of religious faith and were corrupting children.

”Some European nations bless single-sex marriages and introduce sexual guides in schools. Such things are a deadly moral poison for children,” RIA-Novosti quoted Luzhkov as saying.

Meanwhile, Russian gay activists said they were challenging the city’s ban of their parade in an appeal to the European Court for Human Rights, and pledged to hold a similar march in late May.

”Trying to silence us, the Russian authorities denied us one of the fundamental human rights. The European justice will have the last say in this case,” activist and parade organizer Nikolai Alexeyev said in a statement posted on the Web site www.gayrussia.ru.

The issue of holding a gay parade last year split Moscow’s gay community, many of whom say Russian society is still too conservative and a parade would only provoke more violence from radical groups.

Luzhkov’s remarks drew criticism from London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who said he strongly opposed a ban. ”It is the right of gays and lesbians to demonstrate peacefully and this should be upheld by Moscow,” Livingstone said.

He said last year’s decision not to allow a parade ”led to scenes of fascists parading in Moscow and assaulting gay and lesbian people.”

The Russian Orthodox Church expressed support for the ban. The head of its external relations department, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, described Luzhkov as ”a responsible politician who heeds the opinion of his people,” the Interfax news agency reported.

”I believe that in the 21st century people will realize the malignancy of perversions opposing the family in its natural form as bestowed by God,” Interfax quoted Chaplin as saying.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headlines
Moscow Mayor Speaks Against Gay Parades
LGBT Record Label Launches Compilation
Providence Mayor Has Family Troubles
Aussie Govt Considers Anti-HIV Campaign

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) | 01/28/2007 12:49 AM

Dozens of people who lived near Auschwitz and risked their lives to help inmates at the Nazi death camp were honored Saturday on the 62nd anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

At a ceremony outside the site, Holocaust survivors and local residents listened to a letter from President Lech Kaczynski in which he said that the world has underestimated the determination of people outside the camp to save prisoners.

”World public opinion has often held that the residents of the area were completely indifferent to the fate of the prisoners,” Kaczynski said in the letter, which denounced ‘’such unjust statements.”

A presidential aide, undersecretary of state Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, pinned medals on about 40 people from the town of Oswiecim, where Auschwitz is located, and surrounding villages.

Nazi Germany set up Auschwitz after occupying Poland, at first mostly imprisoning political prisoners. However, it was later expanded into a complex where as many as 1.5 million people were murdered, most of them Jews, but also Gypsies, Roman Catholics who opposed the Nazi regime, homosexuals and others.

The camp was liberated Jan. 27, 1945 by the advancing Soviet army.

Also Saturday, politicians and survivors gathered at the former Buchenwald concentration camp in eastern Germany to remember the victims, marking what the U.N. has established as an annual day of Holocaust remembrance.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement that the day ”underlines both our duty to remember the horrors of the past and the responsibility of each of us to shape the future so they are never repeated.”

”We must reflect … that intolerance, hatred, even genocide did not end 60 years ago,” he said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) | 01/29/2007 05:22 AM

The former male prostitute whose accusations against New Life Church founder Ted Haggard led to Haggard’s dismissal as pastor has paid a visit to the megachurch.

Mike Jones, who has a forthcoming book, told The Denver Post that several people shook his hand during the visit Sunday and told him, ”God bless you.”

”I had read a lot about the church, but there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself,” Jones told the paper. ”It wasn’t to rub anyone’s face in it by any means. I was wanting to get some perspective, to see where they are coming from, what the magnet is.”

Haggard resigned last year as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after Jones alleged Haggard paid him over a three-year period for sex and sometimes took methamphetamine during the encounters.

Haggard then was fired as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church. He publicly admitted in November to unspecified ‘’sexual immorality.”

In an apology to the church, Haggard had urged members to forgive and thank Jones for exposing deceit. Church members invited Jones to the church several times.

Jones visited on Sunday with members of a New York-based theater troupe, The Civilians, who are researching a project on evangelicals. Church leaders knew about the visit beforehand.

Associate pastor Rob Brendle saw Jones in the foyer.

”I told Mike, ‘I don’t want to impose my religious beliefs on you, but I believe God used you to correct us, and I appreciate that,”’ Brendle said. ”The church’s response to him was overwhelmingly warm. One of the wonderful and enduring truths of Christianity is to love people the world sets up to be your enemies.”

Haggard and his wife, Gayle, completed a counseling program in Arizona and are back in Colorado Springs, Brendle said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

FRESNO, Calif., Jan. 28 (UPI)

A California Episcopal diocese may be the first in the United States to part from the American Episcopal Church in favor of the foreign Anglican community. Bishop John-David Schofield of the San Joaquin Diocese strongly favors the unprecedented move for the church to affiliate with the more conservative foreign members of the global Anglican Communion, the Los Angeles Times reported. One of the main factors in the decision, the Times reported, is the ordination of gays and lesbians, which Schofield attributes to the U.S. community’s failure to interpret Scripture as the revealed word of God. Schofield’s goal is to place the diocese under more conservative jurisdictions in either South America or Africa, the newspaper said. This is the first time an entire diocese has sought to align itself with an overseas communion, and many groups oppose the move. Gay rights advocates have called Schofeild homophobic, citing Scripture passages that call for acceptance and tolerance.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International 

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s Headllines
Episcopal Diocese Wants Divorce
Haggard’s Accuser Visits Megachurch
Survivors Recall Liberation of Auschwitz