Come Out Now
09.19.07 Filed in: Tissues /
Blog
unlike the hysterical episode of South Park called “Trapped in the Closet”...Life is not fun in the closet.
IT’S 2007 AND HOW MANY MUST DIE AND CRY FOR U 2 LIE?
GET PISSED, THEN COME OUT.....
seriously, if u are over 18 and living on your own, coming out is essential 2 our survival.
Here’s what happened just this week.
...imagine how the world would change if all the closet cases came out!!!
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Court upholds Md. gay marriage banLegislature could still take actionBALTIMORE (AP) | Sep 18, 11:09 AM
Maryland's highest court on Tuesday upheld a state law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, ending a lawsuit filed by same-sex couples who claimed they were being denied fundamental rights.
Maryland's 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights, the Court of Appeals ruled. It also said the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.
The decision left open the possibility that the Legislature could still take action on the issue.
"Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.
The Blade will be updating this story as it develops throughout the day. From the Blade archives, here is some background coverage on the Maryland marriage ban:
Profiles of Md. plaintiffs
Activists preparing for Md. marriage ruling
Md. gay couples sue to marry
Marriage fight erupts in Maryland
Md. gays anxious for marriage ruling
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Romney launches anti-gay marriage adWill set him apart from other Republican candidatesDES MOINES (AP) | Sep 18, 1:24 PM
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is launching a radio ad touting the strength of his opposition to gay marriage.
Romney, who has come under criticism from conservatives for his past support of some gay rights issues, says he is the only major GOP candidate backing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
"Not all Republican candidates agree, but defending marriage is the right thing to do," Romney says in the 60-second spot to begin airing Wednesday.
The ad is meant to set him apart from Fred Thompson, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in the minds of conservative voters.
Giuliani, meanwhile, takes a different approach with his new Iowa radio spot — portraying himself as the Republican most likely to win over the more moderate electorate in the general election. Many conservatives are leery of Giuliani because of his views on issues including gay rights and abortion.
The ad Giuliani began airing Tuesday points to criticism of the candidate from the liberal group MoveOn.org and argues that Democrats fear Giuliani most as a potential GOP nominee.
"Why is MoveOn.org attacking Rudy Giuliani?" the ad asks. "Because he's their worst nightmare."
In contrast, Romney's new ad is targeted directly at evangelical Christians who are crucial to Republican politics in Iowa, where precinct caucuses traditionally launch the nominating season.
The ad, coming as Iowa is embroiled in a court fight over its gay marriage ban, points to Romney's role in battling a Massachusetts court ruling that paved the way for same-sex marriages there.
"As Republicans we must oppose discrimination and defend traditional marriage: one man, one woman," Romney says in the spot.
Romney's conservative critics argue that his position on gay rights was more nuanced as Massachusetts governor and during his 1994 bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
In focusing on the "major candidates," Romney is separating himself from rivals such as Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback, who favor the constitutional amendment against gay marriage but have come in behind Giuliani, Romney and Thompson in most polls.
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Schwarzenegger says he will keep vetoing gay marriage billVoters must overturn anti-gay marriage initiative from 2000, he saysSACRAMENTO (AP) | Sep 18, 10:44 AM
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that he won't reconsider his decision to veto a bill legalizing gay marriage and will keep vetoing the measure as long as lawmakers send it to him.
The Republican governor said he won't change his position unless voters overturn an anti-gay marriage initiative that Californians adopted in 2000.
"It would be wrong for the people to vote for something and for me to then overturn it," Schwarzenegger said. "So they can send this bill down as many times as they want, I won't do it."
The bill would redefine marriage as a civil contract between two people, but would still let religious groups refuse to sanction the unions.
Schwarzenegger vetoed a gay marriage bill in 2005, citing the 61 percent of voters who favored Proposition 22 in March 2000.
He announced in February that he would veto the bill again if it reached his desk this year. Despite the announcement, lawmakers approved it before adjourning last week.
Schwarznegger has until Oct. 14 to act on the measure.
Geoff Kors, executive director of the gay rights organization Equality California, said Proposition 22 only bars California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside California.
The gay marriage bill, by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would amend a different section of law that covers marriages performed in California.
Kors said he hopes Schwarzenegger sticks by earlier comments that he will abide by the state Supreme Court's ultimate decision on whether California's ban on same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. The high court's ruling could come next year.
"We're extremely disappointed he is taking a position on the bill without meeting with a single lesbian-gay family, as we have asked him to do the last two years," Kors said. "How would he feel if this was a bill affecting who he could marry?"
Schwarzenegger's comments were in response to a question during a Capitol news conference on an endorsement of his health care plan by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
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Bathroom sting violates priest’s rights, lawyers say Boca cleric arrested after allegedly asking officer to have sex at a private location Thursday, September 13, 2007
The charge against a Boca Raton Episcopal priest who was arrested in a sex sting operation in a Waynesville, N.C. park restroom may violate his constitutional rights, according to lawyers for the ACLU and Lambda Legal.
Fr. Michael Penland was charged on June 28 with “soliciting for a crime against nature” in Waynesville Recreation Park after he allegedly asked an undercover officer to go home with him and have sex. On Sept. 5, Episcopal Bishop Leo Frade suspended Fr. Penland from his priestly duties at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.
“The charge is brazenly unconstitutional,” said Robert Rosenwald, an ACLU lawyer with the Florida chapter’s LGBT project, who examined the police report.
Penland was issued a citation after he allegedly followed an undercover detective home in his car after soliciting him for sex in a public bathroom. He was among seven men arrested by the Waynesville Police Department in a summer-long sting operation dubbed Operation Summer Heat. Police did not release information about the arrests until Sept. 5 in order to avoid tipping off people about the sting, according to media reports.
According to the arrest report, Penland followed Det. Tyler Trantham into a public restroom around 11:30 a.m. and asked Trantham to go home with him to have sex.
Penland allegedly got into his car and followed the officer to another location. He was pulled over by a second officer, Crystal Shuler, who issued a citation, took his picture and released him. Penland did not go to jail.
He was charged with “solicitation for a crime against nature,” a misdemeanor, and “banned from town property,” according to the police report.
The report does not depict any sexual behavior taking place in the bathroom, public park or in Penland’s vehicle. It only states that Penland propositioned the undercover detective to engage in anal sex at a private location.
The 2003 Supreme Court ruling Lawrence vs. Texas overturned sodomy laws. According Lawrence, sexual behaviors such as anal sex between men could not be considered illegal.
“What [Penland] did was not a crime,” the ACLU’s Rosenwald said. “It’s not wrong to proposition someone and then go home.”
Like many of the men who are arrested in bathroom stings, Penland does not identify as gay. He has been married for 17 years. He did not return calls from the Express to discuss if he would challenge the charge.
“In a case like this, what is unconstitutional is the investigation targeting gay people and arresting [them] for conduct that is lawful,” Rosenwald said.
News of Penland’s arrest comes as bathroom sex stings gain prominence in local and national headlines. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea resulting from a sting at a Minneapolis airport bathroom. In July, Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (R-Sarasota) was arrested for offering an undercover police officer $20 to have sex in a private location.
Locally, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle has incensed the gay community recently with statements deriding gay sex in city park restrooms.
Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, says cases such as Penland’s are troubling. They are typical, he said, of public agencies implementing “selective enforcement” of laws in order to ensnare gay men.
“Unfortunately these cases are not uncommon,” he said. “A lot of people who get arrested don’t know the law, make a plea and hope that it will go away.”
His main concern, Davidson said, was that the misdemeanor arrests from public sex stings cause irreparable damage to the men’s lives, including job losses, ruined relationships and sometimes even suicide.
Davidson said Penland could sue the Waynesville Police Department for false arrest or for violating his constitutional rights. Chances are, however, that Penland and others who are caught in similar stings frequently choose not to challenge the charges because of the stigma associated with such an arrest.
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Activists decry ‘slap-on-the-wrist’ sentence for basher in W. Palm Teen gets 18 weeks probation for bloody attack on transgendered woman
By JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ Thursday, September 13, 2007
An 18-week probation sentence against a teenager who bashed a 39-year-old pre-operative transgendered woman in West Palm Beach was denounced this week by Florida’s leading GLBT human rights organization and a slew of concerned bloggers.
Equality Florida called Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Blanc’s probation sentence a “slap on the wrist” for a violent, bloody assault against a victim who did not resist. The teen will serve no jail time and will emerge from the crime with a spotless record.
“At a time when hate violence against gay and transgendered people is an ignored epidemic in our state, Judge Blanc’s ruling sends a disgraceful and dangerous signal that the lives of trangendered citizens are held in less regard,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida in a public statement.
The teen, whose name was withheld because he was 17 at the time of the crime, was arrested in Aug. 2006 for beating the transgendered woman during a late-night drinking jaunt and sexual encounter. A police officer who interrogated the teen the morning after the arrest testified in court that the teen beat the woman until his hands were sore.
The teen told police he picked up the woman at a bar while he and his friends were out looking for girls. He said the woman performed oral sex while his friend drove to Palm Beach. When the teen realized the woman had a male sexual organ, he began beating her, police said. He knocked out her teeth and repeatedly smashed her head against a lifeguard stand.
The woman said that she did not perform any sex on the teen.
Blanc threw out the state’s hate-crimes charges but charged the teen with aggravated battery. At the sentencing hearing Aug. 31, the tearful teen told the court that he was contrite having served a year of house arrest.
Blanc, who had previously said there were two victims in the case — the woman and the teen — ordered the teen to finish high school, get counseling and perform community service.
Bloggers on the website Pam’s House Blend posted messages calling Blanc’s ruling “abominable” and “disgusting.”
“There are indeed two victims,” one blogger wrote. “One is the woman herself and the other is the transsexual community at large.”
Equality Florida quotes the Florida Hate Crimes Report in its press release responding to the sentence. It states that physical assaults against GLBT people have increased in six out of the last seven years. During 2005, 62 percent of hate crimes against GLBT people were in the most violent categories.
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and last but not least
Black community’s opinions vary on Naugle Local NAACP president’s pro-gay rights stand draws praise and criticism
By JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ Thursday, September 13, 2007
Standing before a group of activists, preachers and news crews, Marsha Ellison, president of the Fort Lauderdale branch of the NAACP, took a risk when she spoke out for gay rights at a press conference Sept. 5 on the steps of City Hall.
She was one of many featured speakers to protest Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle’s anti-gay statements, which have driven a rift throughout the community in recent weeks and brought gay rights once again to the headlines.
Ellison’s mission was clear: She would speak out against what she considered hate speech and discrimination, regardless of the fact that the offending words were aimed at the gay community, a community she is not charged with representing.
“Mayor Naugle’s message is about one thing — hate,” she said. “Homophobia is hate, and hate has no place in the beloved community.”
Ellison’s words were received with much praise among gay activists. They countered the actions of some local African-American ministers, such as the Rev. O’Neal Dozier, who have spoken out in favor of Naugle. Dozier appeared with Naugle and other right-wing religious leaders at an Aug. 21 press conference.
As Ellison expected, her remarks drew criticism from some parts of Fort Lauderdale’s black community, a community that has traditionally distanced itself from gay issues.
In an interview with the Express on Sept. 11, Ellison said she was aware of the risk she was taking before stepping into the fray, but she said she felt a great responsibility as the leader of the local NAACP to make a difference.
“It’s the position of our organization that gay rights are civil rights,” Ellison said. “When one group is singled out, that is discrimination, and I have no choice but to stand up against it.”
Racism, economic disparity and education, are among the NAACP’s main issues. In recent years, NAACP leaders have supported the gay rights movement, a position that has led many in the black community to challenge the NAACP’s position as the leading representative of black affairs.
Locally, Ellison is getting much of the same criticism.
Brad Bennett, executive editor of the Broward Times, a newspaper that covers the local black community, said it was “odd that she would speak out about gay issues.”
“Based on what I’m hearing from readers, I don’t think the Fort Lauderdale NAACP reflects the views of the larger black community,” he said. “Publicly, members of the community fall in line with the pastors.”
Ellison’s appearance at the press conference, he said, would only alienate Ellison and the NAACP. Issues such as education, housing and crime are among the most prevalent issues concerning Fort Lauderdale’s black community, not gay rights, he said.
But Ellison pointed out that the black community here is varied and that there can be no one person or group to represent all points of view.
“We are not monolithic,” she said. “It’s just a matter of right and wrong. Hate is hate.”
To understand what the black community thinks about gay rights, one needs to walk the neighborhoods in Franklin Park and Lincoln Park and engage people in conversations. What the Express found is that the fundamentalist preachers who are the most vocal supporters of Mayor Naugle’s campaign against the GLBT community do not represent what most black people in Fort Lauderdale think.
At Betty’s Soul Food & Barbecue Restaurant on Sistrunk and 22nd Road, regulars exchange opinions on everything from politics to football over barbecue ribs, collard greens and sweet tea. Recently customers expressed a range of opinions about Ellison, Naugle and gay rights.
“Everybody has somebody who is gay in their family or knows gay people,” said Larry Bowman, a used car salesman and regular at Betty’s. “I have to agree with [Ellison]. It’s hate speech. The mayor is asking for hatred to be cast upon him.”
Dorothy Jackson, who works the counter at Betty’s agreed.
Bowman and Jackson said they respect gays and lesbians, but they also pointed out that their neighbors don’t normally discuss gay issues.
“Gay people is not a top issue,” Bowman said. “There are more important issues like the relationship of police officers and citizens. How are you going to relate to officers if you can’t trust them.”
But there is rarely a consensus at Betty’s counter.
Elder Solomon Williams and his sister, who would identify herself only as Mrs. Williams, sat at the counter to order a plate of ribs and steamed cabbage. They had a heavy, dog-eared Bible with them from which they quoted scripture. The Williams reflected much of the black fundamentalist point of view at Betty’s, saying the gay community was asking for special privileges.
Although Elder Williams agreed that a public official singling out one group amounts to discrimination, he said he considers Naugle as speaking “the word of God” against the unrighteous.
“Every man you see who loves another man, they knew God before they got into their condition,” Williams said.
Ellison recognizes that black opinion is largely influenced by the church regarding gay rights, but she notes that Naugle’s backers are not representative.
“You need to take note of the churches that were not present [at the Sept. 5th press conference],” she said.
The communities “super churches,” such as New Mount Olive Baptist and Mount Bethel Baptist, did not attend, she noted. She said she has spoken with the leaders of those churches and they support her position.
African-American gays and lesbians view leaders such as Ellison speaking out as long overdue.
“It’s about time,” said Donnell Morris, managing director of Fort Lauderdale’s Black Gay Pride. “We need the support of righteous speaking people and let people know that hate will not be tolerated.”
Morris said much of traditional views in the black church gain power because many black gays and lesbians opt to remain quiet about their sexuality.
“One side believes you are an abomination,” Morris said. “A lot of us feel abandoned by the church, and it’s easier to hide in the pews or just not go at all.”
The answer, he said, lies in increased visibility.
“As more people are visible and coming out,” Morris said, “ it makes it easier for other people in the community to cross the tracks.”
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hey, glad u made it this far....I love you for caring about the community...
Now i have a question...
what’s the common thread in these stories?
Low Visibility = Low Power
Come Out...u can start HERE
