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Today’s Headlines
Colombia Close to Passing Same-Sex Laws
Episcopal Church Rejects Demands on Gays

NEW YORK, June 16 (UPI)

Leaders of the Episcopal Church in the United States have rejected demands they adopt a stronger stand against homosexuality. The church Executive Council ended a four-day meeting Friday, issuing a statement refusing to pledge to refrain from ordaining gay bishops or blessing same-sex relationships, The Guardian reported. The council also said it would not allow conservative Episcopalians to have a separate organization, the British newspaper said. The decision brings a split in the Anglican Communion closer. The communion, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is a loose grouping of Anglican churches around the world. Williams, now on sabbatical in the United States, plans to meet with U.S. bishops in September in New Orleans in an effort to heal the breach. A meeting of African bishops in February set the end of September as a deadline for U.S. compliance. My fear is people are starting to behave less like a world communion and it is becoming more like ecclesiastical chaos, said Canon Gregory Cameron, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

BOGOTA, Colombia, June 16 (UPI)

Colombia has drawn a step closer toward passing a law that would grant homosexual couples some of the same rights as heterosexual unions. The South American country’s lower house has already passed the bill, which also needs the approval of the Senate to become law, El Tiempo newspaper reported Saturday. President Alvaro Uribe is reportedly in favor of the law, which would grant same-sex couples the same inheritance and health insurance rights as married couples.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

 

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Today’s Headlines
MA Lawmakers Defeat Gay Marriage Ban
Michael Barrymore Arrested in Britain

LONDON, June 14 (UPI)

British comedian and television personality Michael Barrymore has been arrested in London on suspicion of murder and sexual assault. Barrymore was reportedly being questioned by police in Essex about the murder of Stuart Lubbock, who was found dead next to Barrymore’s swimming pool in 2001, The Times of London reported Thursday. Two other men, Barrymore’s former lover, Jonathan Kenney, and a garbageman, Justin Merritt, were also arrested. The arrests came because of a review of Lubbock’s death that was done in 2006. We had a review done last year as a matter of routine, looking at all unexplained cases and that has resulted in the action today, said a spokeswoman for the Essex police. The officers would have to have grounds to arrest someone. The review will have gone over all the statements and every piece of forensic evidence and would have identified any new forensic opportunity, if there are any.” Lubbock was found dead at Barrymore’s home in Roydon, a village east of London, on March 31, 2001. Essex police did not directly identify the three men arrested but said they were being held on suspicion of murder and serious sexual assault, said The Telegraph of London.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

BOSTON, June 14 (UPI)

Massachusetts legislators Thursday narrowly decided against letting voters determine whether to ban same-sex marriage. Lawmakers voted 151-45 not to allow a proposed constitutional amendment go before voters. The amendment would have reversed a 2003 state Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal. The measure needed 50 votes to win a place on the 2008 ballot. Lee Swislow of Gay and Lesbian Advocated and Defenders told WBZ-AM, Boston, the vote was a triumph. But Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute said opponents of gay marriage are determined to allow voters to have their say, even though mounting a new effort will take years, WBZ reported. Since May 2004, more than 8,500 same-sex couples have married in the state.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

 

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Today’s Headlines
First Gay Adoption in Australia Sparks Debate
Police Approve Gay Pride March in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (AP)

Police gave approval Wednesday for a Gay Pride march in downtown Jerusalem later this month, according to a police statement, despite vocal and potentially violent opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco informed Open House, the Jerusalem gay center, that he approved a march June 21 past the historic King
David hotel to a large park nearby, where the gays will be allowed to hold a gathering, the statement said.

It also said that 7,000 police will be mobilized to protect the marchers, because efforts to reach a compromise over the gay gathering failed. Ultra-Orthodox Jews will be permitted to stage their own demonstration in a different part of the city, and police will keep the two groups separated, the police statement said.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, quoting biblical verses calling homosexual activity an
abomination, object to holding a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem, because the city is holy to the three main monotheistic religions.
Franco noted that if the security situation changes, Wednesday’s decision could be changed.

Last year police approved only a gathering of gays in a city soccer stadium. A year earlier an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three gays during their march in the center of the city.

On Wednesday, ultra-Orthodox Jews rioted in their largest neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem, throwing rocks at police.

PERTH, Australia (AP)

Western Australia’s attorney general welcomed the country’s first adoption by a gay couple Thursday, but church groups and opposition lawmakers warned that children’s rights may have been sidelined in the push for equality.

Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory are alone among Australia’s eight states and territories in allowing same-sex partnerships the same adoption rights as heterosexual couples. Nationwide, however, individuals — gay or straight — have had the right to adopt children for years.

State Attorney General Jim McGinty hailed Australia’s first gay adoption, approved Wednesday, as “groundbreaking.” McGinty changed state law in 2002 to remove discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“I don’t think a person’s sexual orientation in any way at all influences or determines their capacity to love a child, to support that child and to bring it into a caring environment,” McGinty told reporters Thursday.

Ghassan Kassisieh, spokesman for the Sydney-based Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, which is campaigning for equality under adoption laws, welcomed the news, saying it was Australia’s first adoption by a same-sex couple.

Opposition lawmakers and a church group accused the government of pandering to minority groups and not considering the children’s rights.

“This shouldn’t have been about the rights of gay couples. It should be about the rights of a child to have the influence of a mother and father,” opposition lawmaker Matt Birney said.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace said the law was “making children commodities” by dismissing their rights to suitable family lives.

McGinty said the baby boy’s mother had approved the state’s choice of adoptive parents, although she did not know the men.

The government has not released the identities of any of the parents or the child.

 

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Today’s Headlines
Gay Newspaper Pulled from Kroger Stores in Nashville
Conservative Bob Barr Opposes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
MA Gay Marriage Faces Test This Week

BOSTON (AP)

Gay couples have been marrying in Massachusetts for more than three years, but the battle over same-sex marriage in the only state that allows it is anything but settled.

Lawmakers meet Thursday in a special joint session to decide the fate of a proposed constitutional amendment that would overturn the landmark 2003 court ruling granting gays the right to marry.

They have three options: send the question to voters next year, kill it, or postpone the vote.

The outcome could not only have an effect on gay couples hoping to wed in Massachusetts, but on the fate of same-sex marriage nationwide and even the presidential ambitions of former Gov. Mitt Romney.

Both sides have pumped thousands of dollars into television, radio, Internet and telephone campaigns. Amendment supporters accuse Gov. Deval Patrick of trading job offers for votes, something Patrick denies. Democratic heavyweights such as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have called local leaders, fearing a nasty gay marriage fight could detract from the presidential race.

Much has changed in Massachusetts since the last vote when lawmakers narrowly backed the amendment.

Last session, two of the state’s three top political leaders, Romney among them, opposed gay marriage. Now all three, including Patrick and new Senate President Therese Murray, who presides over the joint session, support gay marriage.

Patrick, who is personally lobbying lawmakers and on Saturday became the first sitting governor to march in Boston’s gay pride parade, has warned of “great passions and great fear and great intolerance” among supporters of the amendment.

“All the (court) did was affirm an old principle that people come before their government as equals, that if the government is going to give marriage licenses to anyone, then they must give them to everybody, even if your choice of spouse is someone of the same gender,” Patrick said.

In order for the question to reach the ballot, at least 50 of the state’s 200 lawmakers must approve the question in back-to-back legislative sessions.

Fifty-seven lawmakers have either voted for the proposed amendment or have pledged to do so. Changing eight votes would bring supporters of gay marriage below 50 votes and block the question.

Marc Solomon, campaign director of the pro-gay marriage group MassEquality, said activists are working furiously to round up enough votes to kill the question, arguing that the rights of minority groups shouldn’t be put to a popular vote.

“For us to be able to show the rest of the country that at least according to our Legislature that marriage equality is good and fine and worth protecting sends a message around the country that you can do this, too,” he said.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which supports the amendment, said the group of 57 lawmakers is holding firm.

Opponents of gay marriage fear a defeat for the amendment could spawn a new round of legal challenges to force gay marriage in other states, especially if lawmakers agree to rescind a 1913 law that keeps same-sex couples from other states from marrying in Massachusetts.

“If same-sex marriage continues in Massachusetts and with the 1913 law possibly being rescinded, then gay marriage would replicate to other states,” Mineau said.

The fate of gay marriage in Massachusetts could also be a factor in the race for president.

Some conservatives have faulted Romney for not doing enough to block gay marriage while governor. A defeat of the amendment could stir old resentments, but it could also let Romney portray himself at a lone conservative on the culture war’s front lines.

“I think gay marriage and its history in Massachusetts will work for him in the long run, becoming something he can rail against,” said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

The real test Romney faces is convincing voters that his opposition to gay marriage is a deeply held belief, and not a political calculation, Zelizer said.

SANTA BARBARA, CA, June 13, 2007

Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr has published an op-ed in today’s Wall St. Journal calling for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the policy which prohibits gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Barr, who was a member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, opposes same-sex marriage as well as efforts to classify gays and lesbians as members of a constitutionally protected minority class.

On the gays-in-the-military issue, however, Barr’s feels differently. In the Wall St. Journal op-ed, he argued that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military would be consistent with conservative values such as saving money, promoting national security, and preserving individual privacy. He suggested that Republican presidential candidates who opposed the repeal of the policy during last week’s debate “showed a disturbing move away from conservative principles, in favor of what smells strongly of political expediency or timidity.”

According to Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Michael D. Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, “Many Republicans agree with Barr’s argument, but few party leaders have been willing to say so in public.” Gallup has reported that a majority of Republicans support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Barr told Palm Center researchers that his support reflects a growing body of evidence which shows that the ban is detrimental to military effectiveness.

###

The Michael D. Palm Center, formerly the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, is a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Center uses rigorous social science to inform public discussions of controversial social issues, enabling policy outcomes to be informed more by evidence than by emotion. Its data-driven approach is premised on the notion that the public makes wise choices on social issues when high-quality information is available. For more information, visit www.palmcenter.org.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)

A gay and lesbian newspaper has been removed from the racks at Kroger stores around Nashville, Tennessee.

A spokeswoman explains that the Cincinnati-based supermarket chain has a policy against distributing publications with political, religious or other specific agendas. She says the company needs to remain neutral.

The publisher of the monthly publication Out and About says the decision smacks of anti-gay discrimination.

A company that distributes free publications says it was a mistake that the newspaper was ever placed at Kroger stores.

But Out and About’s supporters complain that another gay and lesbian paper is allowed on the stands at Krogers around Atlanta.

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

 

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Today’s Headlines
Dean Urges Dems to Court Evangelicals
Gay Teens Kicked off Portland Bus for Kissing

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)

Two gay teen girls say they were kicked off a Portland TriMet bus for kissing and are considering lodging a complaint against the driver.

The 14-year old girls say a female passenger complained to the driver about the kissing and that the driver told them to “knock it off” and also called them “sickos.”

1 of the girls said she comforted the other with a hug over the exchange. At that point, they say the driver stopped the bus and ordered them off.

A TriMet spokesperson says it is the policy of the organization to never kick an underage or vulnerable person off a bus. TriMet says they are talking to the driver about the incident and an investigation is continuing.

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