WASHINGTON (AP) January 29, 1998 ---- A federal judge ordered the Navy today to reinstate a senior sailor who faced dismissal for alleged homosexuality based on information the Navy obtained from an online computer service.
Lawyers for the Navy reserved the right to appeal but accepted the court's ruling, a concession that appeared to end the effort to oust Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh.
In today's decision, U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin made permanent a preliminary injunction he issued this week against the Navy, which sharply criticized the Navy's actions.
The ruling marks a first in the four-year history of the Pentagon's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy on gays in the military.
``This is the first time a district court judge has ruled that any service has violated its own rules under 'don't-ask, don't-tell,''' said attorney C. Dixon Osburn of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group assisting McVeigh.
In a new issue broached today, Christopher Wolf, McVeigh's attorney, accused the Navy of giving McVeigh demeaning assignments in the days since the case first came to court.
``Upon his return to duty in Hawaii, he was given two assignments, one of which was to supervise two individuals carting trash out of a room,'' Wolf said. Because McVeigh is no longer serving at sea, ``his salary has been reduced by $745 per month since this investigation began last September.''
McVeigh was the senior enlisted man aboard the USS Chicago, a nuclear-powered attack submarine based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He is a highly decorated enlistee with 17 years in the Navy, three short of qualification for retirement at full pension.
His Navy colleagues also have been openly hostile to McVeigh, Wolf said, and Wolf asked Sporkin for a court order to force the Navy to ensure McVeigh's protection or allow him to take early retirement. An option would be to reassign McVeigh to another submarine squadron, Wolf said.
``He is legitimately concerned about his safety,'' Wolf said. ``We are very concerned that a situation like that in (the film) 'A Few Good Men' does not develop.'' In the film, Marines at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were found to have inadvertantly killed a colleague while administering punishment for his personal activities.
Sporkin questioned the degree to which he can intervene in Navy personnel matters. ``I think you're putting me in the position of running the Navy, and I can't do that,'' the judge said.
Justice Department attorney David Glass, representing the Navy, did not say whether the service would appeal and declined to comment after the hearing.
Glass also told Sporkin that today's ruling will not preclude the service from acting against McVeigh, who is no relation to the Oklahoma City bomber, should new evidence arise. ``What if we were to get some completely separate evidence tomorrow?'' Glass asked.
In the ruling, which Sporkin made permanent today, the judge found that ``the Navy has gone too far'' in investigating McVeigh.
The petty officer landed in trouble last fall when the Navy found a ``profile page'' posted on America Online in which ``Tim'' from Honolulu described himself as gay and expressed sexual interest in young men. A Navy investigator called AOL anonymously and obtained the author's full name, a disclosure AOL later said it regretted and acknowledged had violated its confidentiality policies.
Sporkin said both the Navy and AOL violated the law in delving into what should have been confidential information held by the online service. The judge also said the Navy went beyond bounds of the military's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy on homosexuals in the military.
Because McVeigh's profile page was anonymous, Sporkin said, the Navy had no right to make inquiries in trying to prove that McVeigh had declared he is homosexual.
NEW YORK, January 28, 1998 --- Representatives from several Arkansas organizations will join Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Little Rock, Arkansas, this Wednesday to announce a lawsuit on behalf of seven courageous Arkansas lesbians and gay men against that state's sodomy ban.
Several of the plaintiffs also will attend the news conference.
"The government should not be in the business of policing the private behavior of consenting adults," said Lambda Staff Attorney Suzanne B. Goldberg. "This law creates a second-class status for lesbians and gay men, criminalizing intimate, sexual behavior that is perfectly legal for non-gay people. The Arkansas sodomy statute is used to cause terrible harm to gay people, depriving gay parents of custody of their children and putting people at risk of losing their professional licenses, their jobs, and their homes, simply for engaging in sexual intimacy with a loved one," she said.
The state statute makes certain sexual behaviors, including oral sex, between two adults of the same sex a misdemeanor, punishable by a penalty of up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $1000.
Lambda will file the suit, seeking that the statute be declared unconstitutional, in the Chancery Court of Pulaski County, in Little Rock. The plaintiffs argue that the statute violates their rights to equal treatment and privacy.
Arkansas is one of six states that single out and criminalize the consensual sexual relations of only lesbian and gay couples. Lambda recently helped overturn similar same-sex bans in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Montana, and continues to fight to enforce the equal protection and privacy rights of lesbians and gay men nationwide. The United States Supreme Court's 1996 decision in Romer v. Evans provides a new and powerful federal tool for attacking these discriminatory criminal laws.
WHO:
Suzanne B. Goldberg, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
David Ivers, Mitchell, Blackstock & Barnes
Several plaintiffs and representatives of Arkansas organizations that support
the lawsuit
WHAT:
Announcement of legal challenge to state ban on sodomy for lesbians and gays
WHEN:
Wednesday, January 28, 11 am CST
WHERE:
Rotunda, State Capitol Building, Little Rock, Arkansas
CONTACT:
Peg Byron, 212-809-8585, ext. 230 or 888-987-1984 (pager)
Picado v. Bryant
WASHINGTON, DC - District Judge Stanley Sporkin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh a preliminary injunction in his effort to remain in the Navy. The discharge will be delayed pending the resolution of the case, and will allow McVeigh's attorneys the chance to further highlight the military's alleged violation of online privacy laws and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy.
McVeigh, who was scheduled to be discharged at midnight tomorrow because he allegedly used the word "gay" to describe his marital status on an America Online user profile, filed a lawsuit last week against the government. His suit claims that the Navy unlawfully obtained information about him from America Online without a warrant or court order as required by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and breached the limits on investigations under the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy.
"The Navy violated the very essence of "Don't Ask, Don't Pursue" by launching a search and destroy mission," Judge Sporkin stated in his ruling. "Suggestions of sexual orientation in a private, anonymous email account did not give the Navy a sufficient reason to investigate to determine whether to commence discharge proceedings. In its actions, the Navy violated its own regulations."
With respect to the merits of McVeigh's claim that the military solicited a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act by AOL, Judge Sporkin wrote, "the Court finds that there is likely success on the merits with regards to this issue."
"I'm gratified that I will be allowed to continue to serve my country in the Navy pending further review of this situation," McVeigh said. "I want to thank my fellow shipmates on the USS Chicago and others for their support."
The case, which has caught the attention of the online industry, watchdog, and civil rights groups, is the latest in a long line of controversies surrounding the military's policy on gays.
"In granting this preliminary injunction, the Court is sending a strong and clear message that there are serious questions surrounding the military's actions with respect to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue' policy," stated C. Dixon Osburn of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "The military simply cannot be allowed to operate outside the bounds of federal law."
McVeigh's case was strengthened last week when America Online, after admitting that it released McVeigh's identity to a Naval paralegal, blasted the military for flouting Federal law by ignoring proper legal procedures to obtain such information.
Additionally, the author of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy, professor Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, after reviewing the facts of the case, criticized the military in a declaration he released yesterday. "It is my opinion that the Navy violated the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the McVeigh case by launching an investigation without there being credible evidence that Senior Chief McVeigh had engaged in homosexual acts or had openly stated that he was a homosexual."
McVeigh said that he has not decided whether he will take legal action against America Online.
SUN-SENTINEL, Fort Lauderdale,FL, January 25, 1998 --- With hopes of rebuilding the strong ties that existed between the late Sheriff Ron Cochran and Broward County's gay and lesbian community, newly appointed Sheriff Ken Jenne met with Democratic leaders Saturday afternoon to discuss gay rights and other issues.
Jenne met with members of the Dolphin Democratic Club -- its 400 members are politically active gays and lesbians -- to help work out any misunderstandings that might exist between the club and the new sheriff.
The meeting, at Jenne's home, was orchestrated by Amadeo "Trinchi" Trinchitella, an influential member in local Democratic circles.
"It was a very positive meeting," said Bill Salicco, incoming president of the Dolphin Democratic Club.
"He's opened the doors to us. He's going to have an open line of communication with us, and that's a very good step."
Salicco said Jenne has agreed to uphold the policy that Cochran enacted in 1993, which prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of sexual preference for jobs in the Sheriff's Office.
In October, the club became the first group in the county to openly oppose Jenne's appointment as sheriff.
Outgoing club president Shane Gunderson wrote a letter to Gov. Lawton Chiles, stating that Jenne "has shown nothing but disregard for [our) civil rights," and that replacing Cochran with Jenne would be "wrong."
Jenne, Salicco, Gunderson, Trinchitella and Democratic Party leader Mitch Caeser were at the afternoon meeting, Salicco said.
"Basically, what he was trying to tell us was that he was going to do the right thing," Salicco said. "I think he is reaching out and I think it is a sincere offer."
Jenne, when reached at his home Saturday night, characterized the meeting as "positive."
He declined additional comment, deferring other questions to Trinchitella.
Trinchitella could not be reached for comment Saturday night.
Salicco said the club agreed to the meeting proposed by Trinchitella because "[he) is one of the most respected people" in the Democratic Party.
Political observers have speculated that Jenne will need support of groups such as the Dolphin Democratic Club for his sheriff's campaign in the fall elections.
DES MOINES, Waterloo, IA, January 23, 1998 -- Senate Democrats introduced a gay rights bill in the Iowa Legislature Thursday.
The bill would prevent discrimination in employment, housing, education or credit practices based on a person's "sexual orientation," defined in the law as "actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality."
"We're just putting sexual orientation under civil rights code so they're not discriminated against in housing, credit, that type of thing," said Sen. Robert Dvorsky of Coralville, who sponsored the bill.
Existing civil rights law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion, ancestry or disability.
"This does not sanction gay marriages," Dvorsky said of the proposed law. Other states, like Colorado, have passed laws specifically denying gays any "special status" in civil rights codes.
"I don't think this is granting people special status," Dvorsky said. "You can't discriminate against black people in housing right now or credit, can you? Why should you be able to discriminate against gay people or lesbian people?"
Sen. Pat Harper, D-Waterloo, who co-sponsored the bill, said the level of understanding of gay discrimination has increased. Harper sits on the State Government Committee, where the bill is headed.
Committee chair Sen. Sheldon Rittmer, R-DeWitt, said he had not read the bill but is hesitant about putting gays in a "special category."
"Someone who is gay can be my best friend; they're free to be whoever they want," Rittmer said. "However, if you keep putting people in separate categories, and every time you do that, you kind of have that question: Are there lawsuits just based on that?"
Some communities, such as Iowa City near Dvorsky's home district, have for years had city ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Expresses 'Surprise' at Caymans' Anti-Gay Statement
WASHINGTON Jan. 16, 1998 ---- The government of the Cayman Islands will review its policies regarding the berthing of cruise ships after the Human Rights Campaign and members of Congress filed complaints with the British Embassy over the Caymans' denial of docking space to a cruise ship because it would be carrying gay tourists.
"We are encouraged by the statement we have received from the British Embassy and hope that the government of the Cayman Islands will immediately discard its anti-gay tourism policy," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director. "Clearly, the British government recognizes that the actions of the Caymans and the tone of their original refusal were offensive to lesbian and gay people everywhere. As we have said repeatedly, denying berthing rights to a ship because it is carrying gay passengers is morally wrong, as well as economically foolish."
In a letter to the Human Rights Campaign released today, the chancery of the British Embassy stated: "[T]he British Government is surprised that a Minister of the Cayman Government should have responded to the cruise operator in the terms to which you refer. The British Government's concerns about this decision were expressed by the Governor to the Caymans Executive Council on 7 January." The letter went on to say that the Cayman Islands government has agreed "to review its policy on cruise ship berthing facilities."
The Human Rights Campaign learned last week that the Cayman Islands had sent a letter to Norwegian Cruise Line Inc. denying a berth to a ship chartered by Atlantis Events Inc., a gay tour operator based in West Hollywood, Calif. In the letter, Thomas C. Jefferson, the Cayman Islands' minister of tourism, commerce and transport, said: "Careful research and prior experience has led us to conclude that we cannot count on this group to uphold the standards of appropriate behavior expected of visitors to the Cayman Islands, so we regrettably cannot offer our hospitality."
The M/S Leeward, operated by Norwegian Cruise Line, was slated to arrive in Grand Cayman on Sunday, Feb. 1. The letter was sent to the port captain for Norwegian in Miami.
WASHINGTON BLADE, January 16, 1998 ---- The leader of an anti-Gay group in Oregon is following through on a 1994 vow he made to try and bar laws prohibiting discrimination against Gays there -- no matter how long it takes or how many times he fails.
"I expect we'll be doing this the rest of the decade," said Lon Mabon, founder and director of Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA).
When Mabon made this comment four years ago, he was contemplating his next step in the event that Measure 13, the "Child Protection and Minority Status Act," should fail or be struck down by the courts. The measure, which marked the OCA's third attempt to prohibit civil rights laws protecting Gays in the Beaver State, eventually failed by a voter margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.
An OCA attempt in 1996 to gather enough signatures to have a similar initiative placed on the ballot also fell short.
Mabon is calling his latest anti-Gay effort "The Family Act," a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to limit the legal definition of family to "one man and one woman in a marriage covenant and their children."
Gay civil rights advocates in Oregon say the proposed initiative, which voters statewide most likely will consider this November, goes beyond the marriage issue.
"We call it the anti-Gay smorgasbord," said Barry Pack, executive director of Right to Pride, a pro-Gay political action committee and lobby organization.
Pack said that while the anti-Gay initiative is "vaguely written" compared to previous ones that contained speciÞc language about Gays, it is still a threat to that community.
"Don't get [distracted] and look at this as just an anti-Gay marriage initiative," said longtime Lesbian activist Jean Harris, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, a pro-Gay group that has fought against the OCA in the past. "It's the same old thing, and much more far-reaching than we anticipated."
The Family Act does not specifically mention Gays. It calls for the establishment of a public policy stating "... the concept of the male/female relationship of sexual affection is that which is natural to mankind and that male/female gender is determined at the moment of conception."
It also would prevent state and local governments from taking any action which overruled voters on initiatives such as this.
"The Family Act is an attack on the rights of Gay men and Lesbians to be recognized in society as a family," said Charlie Hinkle, a Gay civil rights attorney. The most serious threat the initiative poses for Gays, he added, is that it would prevent them from becoming adoptive parents.
Although Oregon does not have a statewide law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, Harris at Basic Rights Oregon said the initiative would help dismantle many of the Gay civil rights protections she and others have won over the years.
"It affects Gays and employment and would prohibit domestic partner benefits," she said.
Under the proposed act, state and local governments are forbidden from doing anything to promote relationships, other than those between males and females.
"Arguably," Hinkle said, "benefits extended to individuals other than those in a male-female relationship would be prohibited."
The initiative also would make access to anonymous donor insemination difÞcult for Lesbians and single females who wanted to have children, Hinkle said. This is because it stipulates that an unmarried man and woman who have a child are both responsible for that child unless the responsibility is terminated by a court.
In addition, the initiative would pose barriers for individuals who wanted to undergo sex-change procedures because language in it states: "the People ... establish as public policy, that the concept of the male/female relationship of sexual affection is that which is natural to mankind and that male/female gender is determined at the moment of conception."
On Tuesday, Mabon described the proposed initiative as "a comprehensive piece of legislation." He brushed aside critics who say he continues to come up with such initiatives to generate a salary for himself. Instead, he said, OCA members are Þghting for standards in which they believe.
"Our motivation isn't that we hate people or think ill of them," he said. "It is simply to put into law something that says the government can't promote something we think is wrong."
In addition to Measure 13, and the 1996 signature-gathering failure, Mabon has led two other unsuccessful anti-Gay initiative efforts in Oregon.
In 1992, 56.7 percent of voters there rejected Measure 9, which sought to repeal any ordinance or policy that prohibited discrimination against Gays and to declare homosexuality "abnormal" and "perverse."
In 1988, the OCA put a referendum on the ballot that sought to repeal then-Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's executive order prohibiting discrimination against Gays in state government, and also barring any future executive orders.
The initiative, Measure 8, repealed the governor's executive order by a voter margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. But in 1992, an Oregon appeals court struck down that part of the initiative that barred all future executive orders. (Goldschmidt, however, did not issue a new executive order to replace the one repealed that prohibited discrimination against Gays in state government.)
This week, Mabon downplayed the OCA's past ballot defeats, describing them instead as near victories. The more strongly worded ballot initiatives (Measure 9 and Measure 13) had a large amount of opposition from various individuals and groups. But, he said, his camp garnered close to half of the votes cast for each initiative.
"The Family Act establishes the positive, rather than focusing on the negative," Mabon said, adding that this might sway more voters to support it. "It approaches this issue from a far more positive and, therefore, far more acceptable framework."
By July 3, Oregon Citizens Alliance must collect and submit to the Secretary of State's offce 97,681 valid signatures to have the initiative placed on the November ballot.
The Alliance has collected more than 30,000 signatures so far, Mabon said.
"We have more signatures in hand than ever before, so we feel confdent."
Another development that could prove signifcant is that the Christian Coalition of Oregon has created a political action committee that Mabon said is helping the Oregon Citizens Alliance collect signatures.
"That's a bad sign," Harris said, "because the Oregon Citizens Alliance doesn't have much money or a good public image in the state anymore."
The Christian Coalition's involvement, however, could give the OCA the Þnancial boost needed to win passage of the anti-Gay measure, Harris said.
To counter support for The Family Act, Harris has discussed the initiative's implications at 40 community meetings throughout Oregon.
"We are taking them seriously and assuming they're going to have enough signatures to get this on the ballot," she said.
In addition, Harris plans to travel to New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles in 1998, she said, to enlist Þnancial assistance for the campaign from major donors, foundations, and national Gay organizations.
"If the Christian Coalition comes in, they have the potential to bring millions of dollars in here," she said. "I want to try to meet with potential donors to say this thing is coming, it's far-reaching, and we may need your help."
A lower court judge dismissed their case last month ruling that there is no fundamental right to marry under Vermont's state Constitution. They filed the suit after several town clerks declined to process their applications for marriage licenses.
Vermont Superior Court Judge Linda Levitt, in her opinion dismissing the lawsuit, said in part that the state's discrimination could be justified by its interest in "furthering the link between procreation and child-rearing."
One of the couples, Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles, whose 2 1/2-year-old son died before Levitt's ruling, said in a statement, "We share the state's concern for promoting stable homes for children. In fact, part of the reason we sought to marry was to give our son the protection and security which came from having married parents."
Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is expected to argue against granting the licenses when the case is brought before the five Supreme Court justices later this spring.
ROME (Reuters) Jan. 13, 1998 ---- A Sicilian man, protesting over discrimination against homosexuals, set himself ablaze in St. Peter's Square Tuesday and tried to rush toward the basilica's entrance.
The Vatican denied the man's protest was aimed at the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to homosexual acts. But a police official said he had written in a letter that his self-immolation was directed against society and the Church.
Gay and lesbian pressure groups, who reacted with horror to the incident, said there was no doubt the man had chosen St. Peter's Square to make a point. Its basilica is a center of pilgrimage and the scene of papal ceremonies and Vatican ecumenical councils.
"Alfredo Ormando set himself alight under the colonnade of St. Peter's Square to protest against traditional family values which discriminate against homosexuals, and against Catholic homophobia," gay rights group Arcigay said in a statement.
Ormando, 39, doused himself with gasoline and set himself alight as he stood near the Bernini colonnades around St. Peter's Square at around 7:30 a.m. (local time), police said.
With his body ablaze, he began to run toward the main portals of the 16th century basilica but succumbed to the burning and fell unconscious before reaching the entrance.
"I saw these enormous flames, it was like a gigantic walking torch," one witness told Italian news agency ANSA.
Police said he had suffered 90 percent burns to his body. Doctors at a Rome hospital described his condition as serious.
In papers found in Ormando's jacket, which he discarded before setting himself on fire, the Sicilian wrote that his family and society did not understand the problems he faced as a homosexual, police said.
A Vatican spokesman said this did not mean that Ormando was protesting against the Church's ban on gay relations.
"The letter found on this person in no way affirms that his gesture was prompted by his presumed homosexuality or as a protest against the Church," Vatican deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini told reporters. He made no further comment.
The Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuality in itself, but opposes sexual acts between gays.
"We are stunned by this tragedy...caused in large measure, as can be seen by the place chosen for the attempted suicide, by the cultural oppression of the Catholic Church," gay pressure group spokesman Mario Mieli said in a statement.
"It appears that the city of Rome under this pontificate has plunged back into the dark ages of the rack," he added.
The protest was staged a week after a 66-year-old volunteer usher for Pope John Paul II was found murdered in his Rome apartment in the latest of a series of gay-related killings in the Italian capital.
Nineteen gay men have been murdered in their homes since 1990. No arrests have so far been made.
"The murder of the papal usher (Enrico) Sini Luzi is symptomatic of a situation in this country where homosexuals are finding it harder to live...and where gays are murdered," Arcigay president Franco Grillini said.
Arcigay urged the government to guarantee the civil rights of homosexuals and called on the Vatican to condemn without reservation physical and psychological attacks against gays.
"The Roman Catholic Church is in large part responsible for feeding the prejudices against gays and lesbians," Arcigay said.
The organization is to stage a demonstration in central Rome Thursday at 3 p.m. at the same time that Pope John Paul is scheduled to visit the Campidoglio city hall a few streets away.
Hawaii, Thursday, January 15, 1998 --- In a last minute surprise, the Navy agreed to delay Senior Chief Timothy McVeigh's discharge today after McVeigh sued the Secretary of Defense Cohen and the Secretary of the Navy Dalton this afternoon, in an attempt to stop his imminent discharge from the Navy, set for midnight tonight. McVeigh's discharge is based on evidence that privacy experts say the Navy illegally obtained from America Online (AOL), the nation's largest Internet provider. Online advocates vow that the fight against the Navy and AOL has only just begun.
Lawyers for McVeigh made a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the Defense Department and the Navy early this afternoon in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The TRO would prohibit the Navy from discharging McVeigh pending a full investigation of the Navy's and AOL's feared violations of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and the Navy's repeated and consistent violations of the President's anti-gay "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. As government lawyers immediately offered to hold off on the McVeigh discharge until next Wednesday, the court did not rule on the McVeigh TRO.
"This is an important test case that will determine whether the government can violate our privacy on the Internet with impunity," said David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
"What did the Navy know and when did they know it? And why won't the Administration investigate this obvious violation of federal law by a government agency?" asked John Aravosis, an Internet consultant assisting McVeigh's online Public Relations strategy. "This case screams cover-up."
McVeigh motion is based on the contention that the Navy solicited and obtained personal information from America Online without a warrant, court order, or McVeigh's consent -- one of which is required under federal law and AOL's own Terms of Service.
Online advocates warn of a much larger battle looming, with potentially serious consequences for the Administration, the Navy, and America Online. "This lawsuit is the opening salvo of a multi-front war on the US Navy-- the Administration had better get ready for more suits, congressional investigations, and online campaigns," said Aravosis. "AOL had also better watch out. If the Navy gets away with a cover up, AOL may be the only one left to blame."
Alfredo Ormando of Palermo, Sicily, his body in flames, was trying to reach the entrance of the basilica when he collapsed. Police officers outside the Vatican put out the fire.
Ormando was hospitalized in serious condition with burns over 90 percent of his body.
The ANSA news agency said police confirmed they found two letters in a coat that the man took off moments before dousing his body with gasoline. Ormando complained in the letters that his family and society did not understand homosexuals' problems, ANSA said.
Enrico Sini Luzi, 67, who used to be a "gentleman of His Holiness," was found with his head bashed in, at his elegant home in the Via Angelico only a short distance from the Vatican, police said.
There was no evidence of a break-in but police said Luzi's apartment had been ransacked, in a suspected attempt to put police on a false trail.
Police said inquiries were concentrating on Rome's homosexual community.
"He was a sociable man, maybe too much so. He knew a lot of people and brought many people home, usually young people," a neighbor said.
A member of the Italian homosexual group Arcigay, condemned what he called "this umpteenth anti-gay crime" and called on the government to launch a national campaign of information on homosexuality.
"This time, the victim is a gentleman of the pope's entourage, which confirms that the people at risk are those who hide and live among people where homosexuality is not acknowledged, like the curia," said Franco Grillini.
The pope's "gentlemen" are usually from aristocratic or upper middle class families with close links to the Church. They offer their services free to the pope and their charge that is often handed down from father to son, consists of introducing visitors during papal ceremonies.
LOS ANGELES (AP) January 7, 1998 --- Allowing gays and atheists into the Boy Scouts would be like asking the NAACP to provide services for the Ku Klux Klan, a lawyer for the Boy Scouts argued in two discrimination lawsuits against the group.
Scout lawyer George Davidson claimed the group was merely upholding its belief in conservative sexual morality and duty to God when it expelled a man because he is gay and twin boys because they do not believe in God.
During arguments before the California Supreme Court on Monday, he held up a Boy Scout book before the seven justices, saying: ``There's God on the front cover, there's God on the back cover.''
Attorneys for the twin boys and the man sought to portray the Boy Scouts as a business rather than a private club.
Jon Davidson, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said Boy Scouts sells camping supplies through its trading posts, engages in public relations, pay a full-time staff and charges fees to its 5 million members across the country.
``Those factors point to it not being a private club,'' he said.
If the justices buy that argument, the Boy Scouts would be subject to California laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating because of sexual orientation, religion and other factors.
A decision is expected within 90 days.
The ruling could also affect a third California case, recently accepted for review by the court but not scheduled for argument, on whether the Boy Scouts must admit girls.
One of the cases Monday involves Timothy Curran, a former Eagle Scout, who was barred from being an assistant scoutmaster after a newspaper story on gay teen-agers revealed he was homosexual. The other involves twin brothers Michael and William Randall, now 16, who were expelled because they refused to acknowledge a duty to God as contained in the Boy Scout oath.
In his annual letter to Disney shareholders, Eisner alluded to the current Disney boycott without mentioning the Southern Baptist Convention by name. The conservative church, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, launched a boycott of the entertainment giant in June.
The letter will accompany mailings of Disney's annual report this week. Its text was released Monday.
The Baptists attacked Disney for offering benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees and releasing violent and sexual films.
"In each of our divisions ... we seek to be in business with the best and most creative talent we can find," Eisner said in the letter. "We then try to give them freedom to do their best work. We try not to censor them and I will always defend the right of the talented artists who work for us to push the limits of their imagination.
"We are all fortunate to be in a country that protects ... free expression. We will not let a mayor, or a congressman, or a senator, or a particular interest group or even a President attempt to control our content," Eisner wrote. "At the same time, we will not hide behind the protection of the First Amendment.
"We are editors, and we accept responsibility for the products we produce. If we sometimes make choices with which others disagree, it is not because we have failed to look hard at our decisions."
He said Disney's being singled out by critics is not completely unfair.
"In a way, our critics are paying us the supreme compliment," Eisner wrote. "What they're basically saying is that they hold Disney to a higher standard. And on this we can agree. We do try to hold ourselves to a higher standard, both 'on stage' where we try to produce entertainment that is a cut above, and 'backstage,' where we try to operate a company that is a responsible corporate citizen."
The boycott has had no discernible impact on Disney's earnings. The company had record revenues of $22.5 billion in 1997, and Disney stock is trading near its all-time high.
The company's annual meeting is scheduled Feb. 24 in Kansas City.
Five vials of injectable testosterone -- often used illegally by athletes to build muscle -- were found at the apartment of David Madson, according to the Sunday edition of the Star Tribune.
Investigators believe Cunanan acquaintance Jeffrey Trail's slaying in April was the first committed by Cunanan, who then went on a spree that left four others dead, including fashion designer Gianni Versace.
Cunanan, 27, who was known as a male prostitute, killed himself in July a week after gunning down Versace.
Miami Beach police recently released their investigative files showing they have no idea why Cunanan went on his alleged murderous rampage.
Minneapolis police said the condition of Trail's body and the amount of blood spattered at the apartment where he died indicated an attack of explosive rage. Trail, an acquaintance of Cunanan's, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer.
The apartment was the home Madson, a former Cunanan lover and the second victim in the spree.
Testosterone is legally used as hormone therapy, but Cunanan had no medical need for it, the newspaper said. Studies show steroid use can lead to overaggressiveness and violent behavior.
Cunanan's close friends said he had long boasted of selling illegal drugs, primarily prescription drugs, including testosterone, the Star Tribune said. He also mentioned ``smuggling a product from Mexico,'' adding that almost all illegal testosterone is smuggled from Mexico.
The Star Tribune said its information came from more than 2,000 pages of documents and 2,300 crime-scene photos, as well as interviews with hundreds of people across the country, including investigators, criminologists, witnesses, friends and family members.
Officials did not test Cunanan's blood for increased levels of the hormone, and none of his friends saw him use steroids, nor did they remember him talking about using steroids.
They were among nearly 1,000 people given titles or other awards in Queen Elizabeth II's New Year Honors list.
John, born Reginald Dwight, received a knighthood for his top-selling "Candle in the Wind 1997" at Princess Diana's funeral.
The proceeds of John's reworked version of the song he and Bernie Taupin wrote in memory of Marilyn Monroe go to a memorial fund to benefit charities favoured by the 36-year-old princess.
80-year-old space age visionary Clarke, who also received a knighthood, said at his home in Sri Lanka he would indulge himself by having Christmas pudding and then a game of table tennis.
Clarke, a British citizen has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956.
He is the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and 80 other volumes.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) December 31 --- Andrew Cunanan murdered Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and did so on his own, but the alleged serial killer's reasons for the slaying went with him to his grave, police say.
"Andrew Cunanan is the subject responsible for the homicide," Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto told a news conference.
"One thing we cannot do is establish ... a positive motive for this crime," he said Tuesday.
Versace was shot dead July 15 on the steps of his mansion in Miami Beach's glitzy South Beach neighborhood.
Cunanan, described by police as a male prostitute, committed suicide on a houseboat about two miles north of the crime scene on July 23, ending a nationwide manhunt.
Cunanan had been on the run even before the Versace slaying and was suspected of killing four other men in a cross-country spree that began three months earlier.
Miami Beach Police ended a 5-1/2 month investigation into the killing and suicide with the release of more than 700 pages of documents Tuesday. They withheld photographs of Versace's autopsy pending resolution of a lawsuit filed by the designer's family.
Barreto said the investigation suggested Cunanan had acted alone and proved that the gun he used to kill Versace and himself was also used to kill two of his prior victims.
He said police had considered a variety of motives for the slaying, which took place in broad daylight on a busy street as Versace strolled home from breakfast at a nearby restaurant.
They looked into two reports that Versace and Cunanan might have met in the past, but could not establish there was any significant relationship between the two men, Barreto said.
"They were very brief encounters and not corroborated by any other evidence," he said.
Investigators considered the possibility Cunanan was trying to snatch Versace's purse or might have wanted to "go out in a blaze of glory" following his killing spree.
The probe "suggested some possibilities, but I really think the possibilities are endless," Barreto said. "...Unfortunately, the real answers to that went down with the ship."
Barreto said he was precluded by law from revealing whether Cunanan was infected with the AIDS virus, which had been widely discussed as a possible motive for the killing spree.
In August, the Miami Herald said Cunanan did not carry HIV, citing three law enforcement sources.
"I couldn't tell you, so I will leave that question unanswered," Barreto said.
He said investigators had not been able to establish any organized crime link to the Versace slaying and were not investigating any other possible crimes committed by Cunanan.
Versace's family filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Tuesday asking for both temporary and permanent injunctions against the release of autopsy photos and other pictures from the massive report on the killing.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Donatella and Santo Versace, the late designer's sister and brother.
Barreto said that he supported the Versace family and could see no purpose in releasing the photographs. "I don't really know that they serve any public information goal," he said.
"Plaintiffs believe ... that their privacy rights, as the immediate family of Mr. Versace, will be violated if any autopsy or post-death photographs, drawings or videotapes taken of Mr. Versace's body be permitted to be inspected or copied in any manner whatsoever," the lawsuit said.
Meanwhile, Cunanan's mother told a San Diego television station Tuesday that she misses her son but comforts herself with the thought that "he is happy and safe" now.
Mary Ann Cunanan told KNSD-TV that her son was well-known in her church, where "everyone told me that I had a wonderful son."
She blamed her son's troubles on his falling in with the wrong crowd, adding that "if he had just gone to San Francisco, (instead of the midwest, where he allegedly began the murder spree) he would be alive today."
WASHINGTON New York Times December 30, 1997 ---- President Clinton has decided to seek a substantial increase in federal spending for treatment of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, primarily to help them pay for potent but costly new drugs, White House officials said Monday.
The request includes a 35 percent increase in spending for "AIDS drug- assistance programs," which help pay for the new medications known as protease inhibitors. Those medications work by blocking the protease (pronounced PRO- tee-ace) enzyme needed by the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, to reproduce.
White House officials said Clinton would request at least $385 million for such programs in the next fiscal year, up from $285 million this year, and $167 million last year.
The request has a big political dimension. Federal health officials said the administration and Vice President Al Gore in particular are eager to address the concerns of advocacy groups that focus on AIDS and gay rights.
Gore raised the expectations of these groups in April, when he said the administration intended to expand Medicaid to cover people who had been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but had not become severely ill. He said the cost of the new drugs could be offset by savings in the amounts spent for other medical care, especially hospital care.
But administration officials later concluded that the proposed expansion of Medicaid would be too expensive. So they looked for other ways to help buy the new drugs, which appear to block development of the disease. The drugs can cost $12,000 to $15,000 a year for one person.
Under current federal rules, if people develop AIDS and become disabled, they can qualify for Medicaid. The new drugs often prevent disability, but people are typically unable to obtain the drugs under Medicaid until they become severely ill. The new drugs are recommended as a way to slow progression of the disease and avoid disability.
In a report chiding the administration earlier this month, the president's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS said, "The current Medicaid eligibility criteria are in direct contradiction to the recommended standard of care for the treatment of HIV disease."
The money for AIDS drug-assistance programs is part of a larger sum provided under the Ryan White Care Act for treatment of people who have AIDS or HIV.
Kay, 47, is wanted on a warrant charging interstate flight to avoid prosecution. Besides a tendency to get married, she also has cleared out at least one bank account and taken two cars, one of which was recovered, the FBI reported.
She was last seen in late October by her fourth husband, a Florida man she wed while still married to two men in Georgia and one in Ohio.
"We don't have a clue where she is now,'' FBI spokeswoman Celeste Armstead said. "We would love to catch her, but it's not like we have to worry about her killing people. We can't make a sideshow out of this. We have a law enforcement interest in the case.''
Kay, who was born Eddie James Mundell, was declared absent without leave from the Marines Corps base at Camp LeJeune, N.C. in 1968. Two years later, the FBI said, Mundell underwent sex change surgery and changed her name, then married four times without benefit of divorce.
By Linda Hosek, Star-Bulletin
Honolulu, HI, December 20, 1997 ---- Eight present and former legislators have lost an appeal to intervene in the same-sex marriage case, reinforcing a ruling that the state attorney general has the exclusive right to control state cases.
The state Supreme Court yesterday dismissed the 1996 appeal, which was an attempt by legislators to use all possible arguments--including homophobic, emotional, social and economic--to fight same-sex marriage.
State Rep. Gene Ward, one of the legislators, said he wasn't surprised by the ruling to not allow them to play a legal role in the same-sex case.
But Ward (R, Mariner's Ridge-`Aina Haina) added that the high court should wait until after November 1998 to make its final ruling.
Residents will vote in the November elections on a constitutional amendment to let lawmakers define marriage.
Justices have the state's appeal of the same-sex issue before them. If they affirm a 1996 lower court ruling that found the state failed to show a compelling reason to ban same-sex marriage, it would make Hawai`i the first state in the nation to allow such unions.
"Some expect the court to act based on their interpretation of the law," Ward said. "Others say it's a political court and would likely wait until the people decide in November."
He predicted a ruling before the vote would ignite a firestorm of protest.
Dan Foley, the attorney representing the three couples who sued for the right to marry, said Ward was trying to turn a constitutional issue into a political one to advance his own career.
He said Ward's proposal to let the majority rule or to determine issues through polls leaves the minority without rights.
Foley also said the 1998 amendment was the first on the books intended to take away rights, adding that the right to marry was significant.
In their ruling yesterday, justices affirmed a 1996 ruling by Circuit Judge Kevin Chang, who founmd that the legislators couldn't intervene. He cited a 1976 state Supreme Court decision that gives the attorney general the right to control state cases.
He also said the lawmakers, aided by the legal counsel of Christian leader Pat Ropbertson, provided no evidence to suggest the state was inadequately representing the case.
Justice drew national and international attention with their 1993 ruling on the issue.
They presumed that same-sex couples have a right to marry based on the state Constitution's equal protection clause, which prohibits gender discrimination.
But they also threw the case back to the state, giving officials a chance to ban same-sex marriage by showing a compelling state interest.
Chang, who also presided over the trial, found that the state didn't prove its case.
HONOLULU ADVERTISER, December 18, 1997 --- Navy Secretary John Dalton yesterday said he does not agree with claims that witch hunts are being conducted to weed out gay and lesbian members of the military in violation of the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell' policy.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters at Pearl Harbor, Dalton declined to discuss a Navy investigation of Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh, a Pearl Harbor submarine crew member who says he is being unfairly charged with sodomy because of information he included in an America Online user profile.
But Dalton, who ended a four day stay in Hawaii yesterday, defended the 1993 Clinton administration policy allowing homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they do not disclose their sexuality.
Gay, rights groups have criticized the policy, saying it has resulted in more service members being discharged for homosexuality than before it went into effect.
"I do know that we have not been engaged in witch hunts and have no intention to be engaged in witch hunts," Dalton said. "The policy that the president announced with the support of Congress several years ago is working, and I think working well."
McVeigh, a 17-year Navy veteran, has said investigators concluded he is gay based on an inquiry that was triggered when a civilian employee alerted Navy officials to his America Online profile. The profile, under the user name "Tim," had the word "gay" in the section for marital status.
McVeigh, 35, said his use of the term did not mean, he was claiming to be homosexual. He has declined to reveal his sexual orientation.
Dixon Osburn, co-director, of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington, D.C., said Dalton's remarks about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy were surprising because Defense Secretary Cohen has expressed concern about allegations of witch hunts and asked for a review of the policy.
Cohen "has taken very seriously the allegations that the witch hunts continue, that the discharges continued," Osburn said. Osburn's group provides legal aid to members of the military who are identified as being gay and is assisting McVeigh in his appeal of a Noverber recommendation that he be separated from the service and given an honorable discharge.
McVeigh's case illustrates that whatever the intention of 1993 policy, the military is aggressive in going after gay and lesbian members, Osburn said.
"Under 'don't ask, don't tell,' there is this concept of a zone of privacy," he said. "Service members were supposed to have a little more wiggle room. One would think that private statements that are made on AOL are not the sort of thing that the military should be interested in."
McVeigh could not be reached yesterday for comment. U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai`i, who attended a breakfast with Dalton and 38 enlisted sailors yesterday, said he has received letters about the McVeigh case and has looked into it.
"I think it is being investigated in a straightforward way, and I have complete confidence in Secretary Dalton," Abercrombie said. "He is not a dissembler. He'll tell you exactly what he thinks and how it's going. I think the situation will be resolved."
Abercrombie said of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy: "It's the president's policy, period. And in some respects, unless the Congress wants to start micromanaging the policies of the services--I don't think they are--it's a question of making sure that, whatever the policy is, that it's followed correctly and there's not some kind of subterfuge or a nod and a wink as to how it's enforced."
In an out-of-court settlement of a class action suit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of gay and lesbian families, Superior Court Judge Sybil Moses cleared the way for gay or lesbian couples to adopt children jointly.
Gay people in New Jersey, as well as about half of the nation's states, are allowed to adopt children, but a partner or "spouse" had to petition separately, resulting in extensive delays and legal costs.
"New Jersey is the first state in the country to agree to treat gay and unmarried couples the same as married couples," said Michael Adams, an attorney with the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.
The settlement ruled that the state Division of Youth and Family Services policy of not permitting joint adoption by same-sex couples was inconsistent with its policy of doing what is in the best interests of the child.
The state will not appeal the ruling, which now has the force of law, officials said.
"The settlement guarantees that all couples seeking to adopt will be judged only by their ability to love and support a child," said Lenora Lapidus, the legal director of the state's ACLU chapter.
A gay male couple in October won the right to jointly adopt their two-year-old foster son, who they had raised since birth. Michael Galluccio and Jon Holden were part of the class action suit settled Wednesday.
"This is a victory about goodness and equality," said Holden at an ACLU news conference after the settlement was announced.
"We're good people, just like everybody else," said Holden, who along with Galluccio won the right to adopt their foster son Adam in October, setting the stage for Wednesday's decision.
Kate Kendell, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, estimated that there are about 8 to 13 million children in the United States being raised by gay parents.
Wednesday's decision also applies to unmarried heterosexual couples.
Currently two states, New Hampshire and Florida, bar outright the adoption of children by gay people.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Five months and hundreds of interviews after Gianni Versace was slain, the answer to why the fashion designer was gunned down remains buried with his killer, Andrew Cunanan.
Police here closed their investigation Tuesday into the July 15 slaying, stating they had no idea why Cunanan shot Versace on the steps of the designer's oceanfront mansion.
``The real answer to that went down with the ship, so to speak, when Andrew Cunanan committed suicide,'' Police Chief Richard Barreto said.
Cunanan, 27, shot himself a week after Versace's death on a houseboat he was using as a hide-out. Investigators believe Cunanan killed four others before Versace in a spree that began in March.
Police released a voluminous set of documents Tuesday detailing dozens of real and false leads generated by the intense manhunt for Versace's killer.
The files consisted of more than 900 pages and 1,000 photos, but none from the autopsy. Versace family members sued Tuesday to keep the photos private, and police withheld them until the matter goes before a judge.
Police believe Cunanan started his spree in late March by killing two acquaintances in Minnesota. They suspect he then killed a millionaire developer in Chicago and a park caretaker in New Jersey -- to steal the victims' cars -- before heading to Miami Beach.
The police files included contacts with associates of Versace and Cunanan, interviews with principals of Miami Beach's gay nightclub scene and inventories of items found in Cunanan's hideaways in the area.
A document dated Monday determined that police had no proof of previous links between Cunanan, Versace, and Torsten Reineck, the German owner of the houseboat where Cunanan killed himself.
Barreto said the investigation showed Cunanan acted alone and found no proof that he had any help in escaping police.
Among the questions the investigation was not able to answer include how Cunanan ended up on the houseboat and what he did between Versace's slaying and his own suicide.
Among the dozens of people interviewed by police were Versace's longtime boyfriend, Antonio D'Amico, and other acquaintances who detailed the designer's lifestyle, including his occasional hiring of male escorts.
By Ross Sneyd
MONTPELIER, VT - BURLINGTON FREE PRESS, December 17, 1997 ---- A Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit Friday in which three couples--two lesbian and one gay--sought the right to marry. Their lawyers vowed an appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Judge Linda Levitt agreed with Attorney General William Sorrell that there was no fundamental right to gay marriage, and that gays and lesbians as a class were not being discriminated against because they are unable to marry.
She disagreed with a number of the attorney general's other justifications for denying gays the right to marry, such as marriage between a man and woman serves to "bridge their differences" or that the state has an interest in preserving marriage merely because of history and tradition.
"For the most part, we agree with the...(gay and lesbian couples) that these rationales do not reasonably relate to a valid public purpose under the common benefits clause" of the Vermont Constitution, Levitt wrote.
She agreed with one of Sorrell's rationales--that marriage between a man and a woman furthers the link between procreation and child rearing--and dismissed the lawsuit.
"While all of the (couples') arguments claiming the state's public purpose is invalid are clear and sensible, none is persuasive enough for this court to determine that the Legislature is unjustified in using the marriage statues to further the link between procreation and child rearing," Levitt said.
Three couples--Stan Baker and Peter Jarrigan of Shelburne, Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles of South Burlington, and Lois Farnham and Holly Puterbaugh of Milton--sued last summer when their town clerks refused to grant them marriage licenses.
They said it was discriminatroy and unconstitutional and they plan to make those arguments again before the Supreme Court.
"We had always suspected that this issue would be resolved by the Supreme Court of Vermont," said Mary Bonauto, one of the lawyers representing the couples, a sentiment echoed by Sorrell.
The Daily Mirror newspaper says the star is receiving the accolade in recognition of his fund-raising efforts for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and for AIDS research.
Earlier this week, Elton John handed over a cheque for $50-million to the memorial fund, the first instalment of proceeds from the sale of his number-one hit, Candle in the Wind '97, which he sang at Diana's funeral in Westminster Abbey.
The Elton John Aids Foundation, set up in 1993, has also raised huge sums for research into the disease.
Two years ago Elton received the CBE for his services to music.
Gore, who called for the initiative last spring, said efforts will continue to help people with HIV get the new generation of drugs. The drugs have proved highly effective in keeping patients healthier but cost about $12,000 per person per year.
``This administration understands the urgency of finding innovative ways to ensure that all people with HIV benefit from the promise of new and effective treatments,'' Gore said in a statement. He directed officials to keep looking for new strategies.
Last April, Gore promised AIDS activists that the government would seriously consider extending Medicaid to people with HIV.
But with no action to date, President Clinton's AIDS advisers issued a report over the weekend sharply critical of the administration's second-term AIDS activity.
Officials had hoped the plan would pay for itself by keeping people healthy and saving money on future hospital care. But several proposals were tested and all were too expensive.
People with AIDS already qualify for Medicaid coverage because they are disabled, even if they are not poor enough to participate under the program's normal guidelines. No such provisions exist for people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
A former member of the Victory Fund Board of Directors and a graduate of the Victory Foundation candidate training institute, Parker came in second to Fitch (20.25% to 28.9%) in the highly competitive seven-way election on November 4, propelling both into the December 6 run-off. Although Fitch had made a campaign promise not to make Parker's sexual orientation an issue, after a Houston Chronicle poll showed the race was close to call, he took the low road, sending out flyers overemphasizing Parker's connections to Houston's glbt community and running radio ads in which he stated, "I'm married with two sons and five grandchildren; my opponent is a gay activist."
Oil and gas analyst Parker is a longtime community leader with a broad base of support. She is a past president of one of Houston's oldest and most active civic associations, and currently heads one of the city's most innovative community redevelopment corporations. Her extensive work on citywide issues, including neighborhood revitalization, senior services, and governmental ethics, earned her the endorsement of hundreds of state and local leaders. Parker is a member of Houston's Police Advisory Committee and a mayoral appointee on the Police Citizen's Review Committee, which has the responsibility to review citizens' use-of-force complaints.
"Electing exemplary gay people like Annise Parker to public office helps eradicate the false and negative stereotypes that keep us from achieving true equality," says Victory Fund Political Director Kathleen DeBold. "Fairminded voters know that good government doesn't come in a certain color, or gender, or sexual orientation. Good government comes from good leadership which is exactly what Annise brings to her city."
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, December 3, 1997 -- A state agency said Tuesday it would sue the city of Oakland because its domestic partners benefits cover only same-sex couples, raising an issue with implications for the University of California.
State Labor Commissioner Jose Millan will file suit in Alameda County Superior Court to enforce his order requiring Oakland to pay for health insurance for all city employees with registered domestic partners, regardless of sex, spokesman Rick Rice said.
Millan ruled in October that the city's same-sex policy, which took effect in January, discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation in violation of California law. His decision was upheld Nov. 14 by John Duncan, acting director of the Department of Industrial Relations.
The city rejected the order, which can be enforced only if the state wins its lawsuit. Oakland says its policy, which may be unique among local governments in California, does not discriminate based on sexual orientation but provides benefits only to intimate partners who cannot legally marry. "People with opposite-sex partners are not in the same position. They always have the option to marry," Deputy City Attorney Wendy Rouder said Tuesday.
"The city's practice . . . remedies discrimination rather than creates it," the city said in papers filed with Millan.
But the labor commissioner said the city provided "no legitimate explanation for offering certain employment benefits to some domestic partners and not others."
"The fact that (Oakland) enacted the policy in order to address historic discrimination against gay and lesbian workers, while laudable, has no bearing on the question of whether the policy . . . does in itself discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation," Millan wrote.
Thomas F. Coleman, lawyer for an Oakland city engineer who challenged the policy, said all other California cities and counties that offer domestic partner benefits -- including San Francisco, Los Angeles city and county, Sacramento and San Diego -- cover opposite-sex as well as same-sex couples.
Same-sex-only policies have been passed in Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans and Denver, Coleman said. But he said the only other public agency in California with such a policy is the University of California, which approved benefits last month in a 13-12 vote of the Board of Regents.
Gov. Pete Wilson, who fought the UC benefits with his own vote and those of three last-minute regents appointees, argued against them on two grounds: that they were discriminatory, as shown by Millan's opinion in the Oakland case, and that they devalued marriage.
But Rick Malaspina, a spokesman for the University of California, said university regents were well aware of the Oakland case before they approved their own policy last month. The university's general counsel evaluated the case, then recommended revisions that the regents adopted as part of the final policy.
"That was carefully considered in crafting the language," Malaspina said. For example, the university's domestic partners benefits will also apply to couples who are legally prevented from marriage in California because of family relationships, he said.
Duncan and Millan, who ordered Oakland to extend domestic partner benefits to opposite-sex couples, are Wilson appointees. But Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh said Tuesday the governor still opposes all domestic partner benefits because of "the special status set aside in the law for married couples."
Mercury News Staff Writer Dennis Akizuki contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) December 6, 1997 ---- President Clinton's AIDS advisers are set to issue a harsh report card Sunday accusing the administration of letting down its guard in the fight against AIDS.
``Progress in the federal response to AIDS has stalled in recent months, contributing to a sense of diminished priority for AIDS issues during the president's second term,'' said a draft of a progress report to be approved Sunday by the Presidential Council on HIV/AIDS.
The report cites the administration's failure to expand Medicaid to get AIDS-fighting drugs to people infected with the HIV virus and accuses Clinton of lacking ``the courage and political will'' to fund programs for drug addicts to exchange dirty syringes for clean ones.
It's the second progress report to be issued by Clinton's hand-picked AIDS advisers. The first, in July 1996, also criticized the administration's failure to fund needle exchange programs, but it emphasized that Clinton had done more than any of his predecessors to fight AIDS.
This report is harsher, said Dr. Scott Hitt, a Los Angeles physician who chairs the 30-member council.
``We believe progress on the battle against AIDS is losing momentum,'' he said Saturday in an interview while attending a meeting of the panel.
The report praises the Clinton administration for increased funding for AIDS, approval of new drugs and more efficient spending of AIDS research money. It also lauds Clinton's call for an AIDS vaccine.
``As history will undoubtedly record, President Clinton is the first American chief executive to take serious action to address the AIDS crisis,'' it says. ``However, most of these important strides occurred during the president's first term.''
Clinton's AIDS policy chief, Sandra Thurman, responded that the issues surrounding AIDS have become more complex as attention has turned from the basics of prevention and early funding to controversial and expensive policy proposals.
``I understand people's frustrations,'' she said Saturday in an interview. ``We're grappling with some really hard stuff. Taking care of people in the short run and taking care of people in the long run are two different things.''
On Medicaid expansion, the administration has concluded that it is too expensive to let people with HIV into the health program for the poor to access AIDS-fighting drugs. The drugs cost about $12,000 per person per year.
Officials had hoped the plan would pay for itself by keeping people healthy longer and saving on future hospital care but even modest proposals cost hundreds of millions of dollars over a few years, officials said.
Thurman, who attended the council's session Saturday, emphasized that the administration is still searching for ways to get AIDS drugs to people with HIV. But the AIDS council, in its draft report, says not enough has been done since April, when Vice President Al Gore announced the initiative.
``Many months have passed, no pilot project has been put in place, and the administration continues to send mixed and conflicting signals regarding its pursuit of this objective,'' it says.
Regarding prevention, the council report says the administration ``has failed to lay out a coherent strategic plan of action,'' particularly its failure to fund needle exchange programs, criticized by some as promoting drug use.
The administration, the report says, has ``failed to exhibit the courage and political will needed to pursue public health strategies that are politically difficult but that have been shown to save lives.''
Still, council members backed off a threat to resign in protest over the needle exchange policy. Hitt said members were pleased that the administration fought to keep the authority to approve the programs, which some in Congress wanted to take away. Now, he said, they'll see if the administration takes advantage of it.
Negotiations were in the works for a May 2 concert by The Village People, the colorful six-man 1970s band riding the wave of a disco comeback. Their most popular songs were ``Macho Man,'' ``Y.M.C.A.'' and ``In the Navy.''
Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc., owners of a restaurant and entertainment complex near the beach, vetoed the concert, saying Thursday it doesn't want to be linked with a gay rights festival promoting the event.
Nightclub owners had put down a deposit to reserve the date. Festival organizers have threatened to organize a boycott of Burroughs & Chapin.
Gay rights organizations denounced the developer's actions.
``They're not just homophobic, they're aggressively homophobic,'' said Cathy Renna of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Washington.
WASHINGTON (AP) 5th December, 1997 --- The Clinton administration has rejected as too expensive a proposal to extend Medicaid coverage to people with HIV to provide them with AIDS-fighting drugs before they become ill.
Officials had hoped the plan would pay for itself by keeping people healthy and saving money on future hospital care. But several proposals were tested and all were too expensive, Victor Zonana, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Thursday.
Vice President Al Gore had promised AIDS activists last April that the government would give the plan serious consideration.
``If it works out, as I hope and expect it will, it can ease suffering, renew hope and help ensure that good people are not priced out of lifesaving medicine,'' Gore said at the time.
A new generation of AIDS drugs has proved incredibly successful for many people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but the medicine costs US$12,000 a year for each person treated.
People with AIDS now qualify for Medicaid coverage even if they are not poor enough to participate under the program's normal guidelines. But no such exception exists for people with HIV.
Zonana said Thursday that officials considered plans that would have provided Medicaid to people with HIV living at that poverty line and at 200, 250 and 300 percent above it.
``We kept running it with different assumptions but we weren't able to make it come out'' revenue neutral, he said.
However, Zonana said the administration will continue its efforts to help people with HIV access the life-saving drugs. He noted that Medicaid is already the biggest payer for HIV drugs, helping 160,000 people with HIV and AIDS.
``We're still looking for innovative ways,'' he said. ``Other doors are definitely opening.''
He that funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program was boosted 71 percent to about US$280 million this year.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) December 3 --- The U.S. Supreme Court debated Wednesday whether unlawful sexual harassment at work covers employees of the same sex, discussing instances of grabbing genitals and patting workers on the behind.
The justices during arguments appeared troubled by a U.S. appeals court ruling that a 1964 federal civil rights law barring discrimination based on sex never may be applied to same-sex harassment cases.
But the justices questioned whether the law requires that workers of one sex be treated differently than employees of another sex, and grappled with what constitutes illegal sexual harassment, as opposed to offensive hazing.
The case has become one of the most closely watched of the high court's 1997-98 term and has important implications for workplace discrimination, legal experts say.
Harassment involving the opposite sex has long been covered by the law. The number of lawsuits alleging same-sex harassment in the workplace has been increasing nationwide.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cited an employer who "had the unfortunate habit of patting every employee -- both male and female -- on the fanny every day." She asked how that case would involve discrimination.
In a similar example, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked about "an uncouth supervisor who makes offensive jokes to both sexes."
Nicholas Canaday, a lawyer representing a male employee who alleges he was sexually harassed by his supervisors, said the law applies if the sexual conduct had been pervasive, creating a hostile work environment.
Justice Antonin Scalia asked Canaday if he would have a case if the worker, Joseph Oncale, had been subjected to "obnoxious hazing" but it "had nothing to do" with alleged sexual conduct, including the "grabbing" of Oncale's genitals.
Canaday admitted such conduct would not be illegal under the law.
If there had been sexual hazing, Chief Justice William Rehnquist questioned whether Oncale would have to prove there had been different treatment of men versus women.
But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it would be difficult to show because Oncale worked in an all-male environment on a Louisiana oil rig.
"There was no other sex involved in this case," she said. "How do we know how these gross people would have treated women or how the employer would have reacted?"
Canaday said there would be evidence of how the employer treated women in other circumstances, such as in other offices.
Justice Department lawyer Edwin Kneedler also argued that the law covers same-sex harassment.
In response to O'Connor's example about the fanny-patting boss, Kneedler called him a "hypothetical equal opportunity harasser."
Harry Reasoner, a Houston attorney, argued in favor of the company, Sundowner Offshore Services Inc., and took the position that same-sex harassment never would be covered by the law.
Ginsburg asked him about a "male boss who takes good care of women, but treats men miserably."
Reasoner answered that such a boss may be "foolish," but said the law does not reach same-sex harassment.
He said Congress in adopting the anti-discrimination law "sought to level the playing field" for men and women in the workplace, and "was not trying to reach conduct between men."
But Rehnquist said, "I don't see how we could possibly sustain the ruling (of the appeals court that the law) never could be" applied to same-sex harassment.
The Supreme Court took the case under advisement, with a ruling due by June.
The justices rejected an appeal by the Rev. Eugene Lumpkin, the pastor of a Baptist church who was removed from the city's Human Rights Commission in 1993 after he advocated violence against homosexuals.
While serving as commissioner, Lumpkin during news media interviews condemned homosexuality as a sin and quoted passages in the Bible prescribing death for practicing homosexuals.
"It's sad that people have AIDS and what have you, but it says right here in the scripture that the homosexual lifestyle is an abomination against God," Lumpkin was quoted as saying in a June 26, 1993 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
After his firing, Lumpkin sued, alleging that his rights had been violated and seeking to be reinstated and to get compensatory damages.
In his Supreme Court appeal, Lumpkin argued that government employees may not be fired solely for public statements about their personal religious beliefs because, he said, "The right to religious belief and profession is absolute."
The high court denied his appeal without any comment or dissent.
The justices left intact a U.S. appeals court ruling that Lumpkin has a right to state his views, but that the First Amendment does not "assure him job security when he preached homophobia while serving as a city official."
The appeals court said the First Amendment does not require the city to tolerate members of the human rights commission who make statements contrary to the panel's goal of eliminating prejudice and discrimination.
"Lumpkin's First Amendment rights may be trumped by important interests of the city he agreed to serve," the appeals court concluded in upholding a federal judge's ruling for the city.
San Francisco urged the Supreme Court to deny Lumpkin's appeal, saying there was no need to review "legal conclusions that are so obviously correct."
Wired Magazine, 26.Nov.97 --- One of the oldest coalitions of AIDS community groups in the country is turning to new media to get a message to national policymakers that "AIDS is not over."
On Monday, 1 December, AIDS Action will mark World AIDS Day by launching what it's calling "the first electronic march on Washington" - a Web site, complete with a "Virtual Mall," that will enable netsurfers to learn more about AIDS policy, community activism, and the current outlook on the epidemic, as well as to send email to President Clinton and members of Congress. The site will remain online for a year.
Clinton himself will inaugurate the launch with a taped message viewable on the site, emphasizing the virtues of AIDS education for young people and encouraging open dialog on the subject. "Let me send a special message to young Americans," the president says. "Only you have the power to keep yourself safe.... This disease does not discriminate.... Share the facts with your friends. We must fight fear with facts. We must fight AIDS, not people with AIDS."
Though declining death rates for people with AIDS are cause for hope, says Daniel Zingale, the executive director of AIDS Action, "This is a pivotal time for AIDS policy. We can either recognize that our investments are paying off and redouble our efforts to fight this disease, or we can be lulled into simple complacency."
Most disturbing, Zingale observes, are statistics indicating an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among young people. Even the new generation of protease-inhibiting pharmaceutical "cocktails," which are credited with helping thousands of HIV-infected people to live longer, Zingale says, "don't work for everyone, and are not a cure for anyone."
Zingale says that some of the most pressing issues facing Congress - such as controversies over the legality of needle-exchange programs and Medicaid reform - will be addressed by policy papers on the site. The Virtual Mall, designed by artist Ruben Bolling, will allow "marchers" to carry "e-signs" to lawmakers like majority leaders Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich in the form of email messages. Boilerplate messages will be provided for those who do not wish to compose their own.
Though Zingale declares that previous marches on the nation's capital have "changed history," he acknowledges that an "e-march" on the Web may not have as profound an impact on participants as, say, the Million Man March, or the mass gatherings against the Vietnam War in the '60s.
"We don't think of the site as a replacement for those marches, but as a complement to them," Zingale says. "This will allow many people who couldn't otherwise participate to lend their voice and support. It will also be an interesting test of how seriously members of Congress take online messages."
Guidelines Reiterate `Zero Tolerance' for Any Unlawful Discrimination
WASHINGTON Wednesday, Nov. 26, 1997 --- In one of her last acts as secretary of the Air Force, Sheila Widnall issued an anti-discrimination policy stating for the first time in writing that the Air Force would not discriminate against civilian employees based on sexual orientation, the Human Rights Campaign announced today.
On Oct. 29, Widnall issued a memorandum reiterating the Air Force's equal opportunity policies, which she called "straightforward" -- "zero tolerance for any kind of unlawful discrimination against military members or civilian employees based on color, national origin, race, religion or sex, and in the case of civilian employees, also age, sexual orientation or disabling conditions." Widnall retired from the Air Force at the end of October.
"As every worker knows, it is far more powerful when an employer is willing to place such policies in writing for all to see," said David M. Smith, HRC's senior strategist. "This is especially true of policies against sexual orientation discrimination because there is no federal law protecting people against this kind of unfairness.
"That Sheila Widnall issued this written policy as one of her final acts as secretary underscores her recognition of the importance of creating such a document."
The Navy has also established in writing that it will not discriminate against civilian employees based on sexual orientation.
In 1993, President Clinton interpreted an executive order issued by then-President Carter as protecting all federal workers from job discrimination based on sexual orientation. He instructed all Cabinet-level agencies to amend their non-discrimination policies to explicitly add sexual orientation.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian and gay political organization, with members throughout the country, effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support, and educates the public to ensure that lesbian and gay Americans can be open, honest, and safe at home, at work, and in the community.
WASHINGTON BLADE, November 28, 1997 --- President Clinton on November 7 nominated openly Gay attorney Elaine D. Kaplan as head of the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that, among other things, investigates discriminatory actions against federal employees.
Kaplan, 41, a resident of the District of Columbia, currently serves as deputy general counsel at the National Treasury Employees Union, a post she has held since 1988. She is a member of the local group Gay and Lesbian Attorneys of Washington, D.C. (GAYLAW).
If confirmed by the Senate, Kaplan will hold the title of special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel. The purpose of the office is to protect federal employees who face retaliation after they disclose violations of "any law, rule, regulation, gross mismanagement, abuse of authority, or a substantial danger to the public health," according to a statement released by the White House. The office also investigates prohibited personnel practices and enforces the federal Hatch Act as it pertains to federal and D.C. government employees, the White House statement said.
In her role as investigator of prohibited personnel practices, Kaplan would have jurisdiction, among other things, over complaints filed by federal workers alleging anti-Gay discrimination related to personnel matters. A federal civil service law lists anti-Gay discrimination against federal workers as a form of a prohibited personnel practice.
Kaplan would also be in charge of enforcing the often-criticized Hatch Act. The act bars all non-politically appointed federal and D.C. government employees from participating in partisan political activities, even during their off-duty hours. Some Gay activists have joined other civic and political advocates in calling for the repeal of the Hatch Act, saying it unfairly restricts their right as citizens to participate in the political process.
Kaplan, a graduate of Georgetown University Law School, currently supervises attorneys and conducts litigation on behalf of 150,000 NTEU employees across the country in the areas of civil liberties, administrative law, racial and sexual discrimination, and labor law, according to the White House.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is expected to begin consideration of Kaplan's nomination early next year.
Chicago, IL November 20, 1997 ---- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is continuing its challenge to the last in the spate of anti-gay initiatives that included Colorado's infamous Amendment 2. The organization filed a petition Thursday with co-counsel for a hearing by the full federal appeals court whose three-judge panel last month upheld Cincinnati's Issue 3.
"Cincinnati has to play by the same constitutional rules as Colorado, Issue 3 is cut from the same despicable cloth as Colorado's Amendment 2," said Patricia M. Logue, managing attorney for Lambda's Midwest Regional Office in Chicago. "The panel decision cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court's decision striking down Amendment 2, and we believe the full court will see that."
Just as Amendment 2 sought to do throughout Colorado, Issue 3 2ould bar Cincinnati legislators from every passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against lesbians and gay men. Last year, the United States Supreme Court struck down Amendment 2, ruling in Romver v. Evans that it violated the United States Constitution's equal protection requirements by singling out lesbians, gay men and bisexuals for discriminatory treatment.
However, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled October 23 that, since Issue 3 was a citywide measure, the Supreme Court's ruling on a state measure did not apply, even though the text of each amendment is virtually identical.
"Cities, just like states, must follow the Constitution," said Suzanne B. Goldberg, a New York-based Lambda staff attorney who worked with Logue on the appeal. "The panel decision upholding Issue 3 conflicts squarely with the Supreme Court's decision in Romer," she said. "Just like Amendment 2, Issue 3 deprives only gay citizens of the right to seek protection from harm."
Lambda Legal Director Beatrice Dohrn added, "Issue 3 is a carbon copy of Amendment 2, and thus every bit as unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit panel splits insignificant hairs in an effort to avoid the Supreme Court in Romer. Issue 3, like Amendment 2 is unconstitutional." Lambda and the ACLU were co-counsel in the challenge to the Colorado amendment.
Calling the panel's decision "out of step with legal and social realities throughout the country," Dohrn said, "Every single anti-gay voter initiative of recents years has been rejected by courts or voters across the country --- from Maine to Florida to Oregon and Idaho."
Issue 3, an amendment to Cincinnati's charter, was struck down by the federal district court shortly after being passed by city voters in November 1993. The Sixth Circuit, in a 1995 ruling, reversed the lower court opinion -- but the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider the case, Equality Foundation of Greater Cincinnati vs. City of Cincinnati, in light of the high court's ruling in the Colorado case.
WASHINGTON (AP) November 19, 1997 ---- Five Marines stationed here are under investigation on allegations they tear-gassed a predominately gay bar near the U.S. Capitol, a Marine Corps spokesman said Friday.
Officials at the Marine Barracks near the Capitol asked the Marine Corps to convene an Article 32 hearing, a military equivalent to a civilian grand jury, into the incident, said Capt. Richard Lurhes.
A tear gas canister was thrown into the bar on Pennsylvania Avenue about a half mile from the barracks last July 12, Lurhes said. Several dozen patrons were evacuated after smoke from the canister filled the bar, but no one was seriously injured.
Lurhes said officials aren't releasing the names of the Marines suspected of involvement in the incident. But he said the decision to seek an Article 22 hearing followed four months of ``very aggressive'' investigation.
About 1,200 Marines are assigned to the barracks, including members of the Marine Corps Band. The five Marines suspected of involvement in the attack are still on the job but their off-duty movements have been restricted, Lurhes said.
The case also has been referred to attorneys and legal support administrators at the Marine Corps base at nearby Quantico, Va., for a determination if hate crime charges are warranted, Lurhes said.
In a phone interview, the owner of the bar, Steven Smith, said the attack scared off his customers for about two weeks.
``Washington is a small town and people talk, and they don't go out to places that have been (touched) by things like gas bombings,'' Smith said.
By Suzette Parmley, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, November 21, 1997 ---- City Councilman Angel Ortiz yesterday resurrected his effort to extend taxpayer-funded benefits to the same-sex partners of city employees. This time, the effort has support from a majority of Council members.
Ortiz, who has pushed unsuccessfully for domestic-partner benefits several times since 1991, yesterday enlisted two Democratic colleagues in a tactical maneuver designed to head off opposition.
Rather than introduce a single sweeping bill, as he had in the past, Ortiz divided the elements of domestic partnership into three pieces of legislation. He introduced one, and two others were introduced by Council members James Kenney and Marian Tasco.
The introduction was done inconspicuously during a short Council meeting dominated by small talk and other legislation. Supporters of the domestic-partner bills are pushing for a hearing early next month. No date has been set.
Kenney acted first, introducing a bill to amend city-funded retirement benefits so that a retiree could designate anyone as beneficiary for survivor benefits. Now, only blood relatives and spouses qualify.
Then, Tasco introduced a measure to broaden the law covering exemptions from the city's real estate transfer tax, which is levied on property sales.
Now, exemptions are granted under certain circumstances -- such as property transfers between spouses, among siblings and between grandparents and their grandchildren. Tasco's bill would extend the exemption to same-sex couples.
Finally, Ortiz, giving no hint that the three bills were related, put in a bill to change the city's Fair Practices Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment and public places based on marital status.
Under Ortiz's proposal, the act's protections would apply to "life partners" of city employees. Life partner is defined in the bill as a person of the same sex who shares a residence, income and other resources with someone who is not related by blood and who is in a committed relationship.
"These were all parts of one bill that I introduced six years ago," said Ortiz after the meeting. "These bills can accomplish what the main bill can. They are to create an even playing field so that gays and lesbians are treated like all others."
Each of the three bills has 11 cosponsors among the 17 Council members. Ortiz's initiative drew criticism from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which has opposed similar measures in the past.
"We remain opposed and disappointed that this issue continues to be revisited despite our well-known opposition," said Guy Ciarrocchi, director of public affairs for the Archdiocese. "In 1997, we are still convinced marriage is an important institution."
Yesterday's action represented a challenge to Council President John F. Street, who opposes domestic-partner benefits and who in the past has argued that there was not sufficient support on Council to warrant hearings on the issue. Street made no comment during yesterday's Council meeting.
Councilman David Cohen said the pressure was on Street to hold hearings.
"He has to realize that it's no good for any Council president to stymie the efforts of a Council member," said Cohen. "Here, there is clearly an effort by the majority."
Councilman Michael Nutter said he would submit a petition to Street with the names of nine Council members requesting hearings.
"This gives the gay community the services that they need without creating a marriage bill," said Tasco. "Each piece is what they wanted to achieve in the original Domestic Partnership Bill."
PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, November 21, 1997 --- Philadelphia is making another mark in the history of gay and lesbian activism.
Twenty-five years after a group of activists for gay rights held one of its first marches at the Liberty Bell, the city is hosting its first conference for gay and lesbian government officials.
About 75 members of the International Network of Lesbian and Gay Officials are meeting for their 13th annual conference, which started yesterday and continues until Monday at the Warwick Hotel at 17th and Locust streets in Center City.
The meeting is being hosted by group co-chairman Kevin Vaughan, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.
"So for some, this will be a return to not only the birthplace of liberty, but also a return to a birthplace of where openly gay people were first able to march for their rights," Vaughan said.
With attendees from as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia, and the United Kingdom, the meeting will feature U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Alan Spear, president of the Minnesota Senate.
About 10 Philadelphia city officials are attending.
Saturday meetings will focus on human rights issues such as police cooperation in fighting hate crimes and the issue of race and ethnicity in the gay and lesbian community.
Sunday discussions will focus on family issues, such as acceptance of same-sex relationships by religious institutions and adoption agencies. Attendees will go to New York Monday to lobby the United Nations.
The group, which has 250 members, said there are 130 elected gay officials in the nation. They represent a minor portion of elected and appointed gay officials, but the numbers are growing, according to the group.
When Vaughan joined in 1989, the group had half as many members, he said.
"I think that we're building and I think it's a growing area of political base," Vaughan said. "But it certainly hasn't been enough to win all of the human rights and civil rights issues that challenge the gay and lesbian community."
Vaughan said Philadelphia is considered a "gay-friendly" city because of its ordinance that prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbians. But the anti-hate criminal law in Pennsylvania and many other states does not include sexual orientation in its provisions.
"I think the number of states that are including it are growing," Vaughan said. "Pennsylvania's behind the curve on this."
LANGLEY, Wash. (AP) November 15, 1997 --- Margarethe Cammermeyer, who successfully fought the National Guard's attempts to discharge her for being a lesbian, plans to run for Congress.
Cammermeyer, who recently retired from the Washington Army National Guard as a colonel, said she will file Monday to seek the western Washington seat held by two-term Republican Rep. Jack Metcalf.
``As a mother of four, grandmother of five, nurse and soldier, I feel like I understand the issues facing families as they struggle to make ends meet,'' Cammermeyer, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.
Cammermeyer, 55, once called herself ``one of the most famous lesbians in the country.''
The decorated Vietnam veteran was discharged in 1992 after disclosing her sexual orientation in a 1989 interview for a top-secret security clearance. A federal judge ordered her reinstated and the government did not appeal.
Her battle resulted in a best-selling book and a made-for-TV movie starring Glenn Close.
The Age, newspaper, Melbourne. 15th November, 1997 --- Sydney's gay community was rejoicing yesterday after it won the right to host the 2002 Gay Games, the first city in the southern hemisphere to do so. Australia's gay capital beat the cities of Dallas, Long Beach (Los Angeles), Montreal and Toronto, to take the prize, announced by the federation of Gay Games in Denver, Colorado, yesterday.
The news was greated with joyous partying in the city's famous Mardi Gras strip, Oxford Street.
It was Sydney's third attempt to win the games, first held in San Francisco in 1982.
Speaking from Denver, the cultural director and one of the presenters of the Sydney bid, Ms Gillian Minervini, said the 17-member bid team was ecstatic at the win, achieved in the first riund of voting by an overwhelming margin.
"It's just sunk in and we're really, really happy," she said. "I think it's just another example of the fantastic commitment, sophistication, experience and visibility of Australia's gay and lesbian community. It just proves we can do anything."
The bid for the games, which cost A$180,000, won broad support from Australian business and cultural organisations and the New South Wales State Government, despite criticism from the state National Party leader, Mr Ian Armstrong, that they were "illegitimate".
The games, are expected to bring at least A$150 million into the NSW economy. They will cost between A$9 and A$10 million to stage.
Twelve thousand athletes are expected to take part along with 35,000 participants in the Games' accompanying cultural festival, making the event bigger than the Sydney 2000 Olympic games.
The games will open at the Homebush Olympic venue on Saturday 31st August 2002, and will feature 22 sports including three demonstration events - surf lifesaving, beach volleyball and surfing.
WASHINGTON, DC - Monday, Nov. 10, 1997 --- President Clinton today endorsed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA), a bill to include sexual orientation, gender and disability in a major federal hate crimes law. The president voiced his support for the bipartisan measure at the first-ever White House Conference on Hate Crimes, where he listed the bill first among several initiatives his administration will pursue to get tougher on crimes motivated by hatred.
"The president is sending a message that we as a nation must get tough on all forms of bias crime," said Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch, who was among representatives of the gay community at the conference. "The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is critical because, when Americans are targeted for hate violence based on sexual orientation, gender or disability, the FBI should be able to investigate and prosecute -- just as it is currently able to combat hate crimes based on religion, race and national origin. All hate crimes are pernicious, and they should all be punished accordingly."
Until the HCPA passes, hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender and disability are not against federal law. Therefore, they cannot yet be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department the way other hate crimes are currently combated. The HCPA will soon be introduced in the U.S. Senate by its lead sponsors, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
"The first thing we have to do is make sure our nation's laws fully protect all of it's citizens," said the president. "Our laws already punish some crimes committed against people on the basis of race, or religion or national origin, but we should do more. We should make our current laws tougher to include all hate crimes that cause physical harm. We must prohibit crimes committed because of a victim's sexual orientation, gender or disability. All Americans deserve protection from hate."
According to the FBI, reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation are on the rise, accounting for 12.8 percent of such incidents in 1995 -- up from 8.9 percent in 1991. The FBI has found that hate crimes based on sexual orientation are already the third most commonly reported form of bias crime. Still, sexual orientation remains excluded from the major federal hate crimes laws as well as the hate crimes statutes of 30 states.
When the Hate Crimes Prevention Act passes, it will apply to people victimized because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender or disability -- thereby offering equal protection to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and heterosexuals; transgendered Americans; women as well as men; and Americans with disabilities.
The conference, convened by the president and held at George Washington University, brought together some 350 representatives from law enforcement, civil rights, anti-violence, youth, education and religious groups -- including organizations combating anti-gay hate violence. Among the representatives of the lesbian and gay community participating in the conference were Birch, HRC Senior Policy Advocate Kris Pratt and leaders from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs; National Youth Advocacy Coalition; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization, with members throughout the country. It effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public to ensure that lesbian and gay Americans can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.
WASHINGTON POST, November 8, 1997 --- After President George Bush invited gay rights leaders to the White House to watch him sign a hate crimes bill, he was roundly criticized by conservatives and never did it again. When President Clinton brought gay rights leaders into the Oval Office for the first time, aides minimized the event and kept media cameras out.
There will be no hiding tonight, however, when Clinton takes the stage at a gala black-tie fund-raiser in Washington and becomes the first sitting president to address a gay rights organization.
No matter what he says in his speech, Clinton's mere presence at the Human Rights Campaign's first annual national dinner will make history and to many activists signals the maturation of a movement once relegated to the fringes of American society. Even for a president who has supported its causes, the decision to appear at a gay rights event suggests how dramatically the political climate has changed in the last five years.
"This is a different universe we're living in," said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, which claims 200,000 members. "Although there have been disappointments with President Clinton, he's really changed the [landscape]. He's put gay issues on the radar screen of America."
"It's a big deal," said Kenneth Sherrill, political science department chairman at Hunter College who has studied gay issues. "In a way, what Clinton is doing is saying to the larger political community, 'There's nothing to be embarrassed about here.'"
That is not altogether a good thing, in the opinion of many Americans who view Clinton's acceptance of homosexuality with alarm. And even as he breaks with tradition, the White House evinces palpable discomfort with appearing too radical.
As the dinner approached this week, the president's aides did nothing to call attention to it and suggested he had no interest in making history. Instead, they said, he simply is reaching out much as he does to other groups with his message of reconciliation and "One America." White House spokesman Michael McCurry yesterday compared it to Clinton's recent attendance at an Italian American dinner.
What's more, aides said Clinton has no intention of falling into the same thicket as Vice President Gore, who created a furor recently when he praised comedian Ellen DeGeneres for her coming-out episode on ABC's "Ellen." Clinton will mention his support for legislation protecting gay and lesbian Americans from job discrimination, but he will not offer commentary on the Ellen controversyóeven though she will be seated on stage with him and receive an award for her groundbreaking television show.
Clinton, of course, has no more elections in his future, while Gore does. One more sign of the gay rights lobby's growing clout has been the courting by both the vice president and his chief potential rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who invited a group of gay rights leaders to his office just last week.
The prize is a sizable army of volunteer workers and an increasing pot of campaign money. The Human Rights Campaign estimates that openly gay donors last year gave $3.2 million to Democrats. Two-thirds of self-identified gay voters backed Clinton in 1996, providing 7 percent of his total votes, according to an independent exit poll.
While the group this week installed former Republican congressman Steve Gunderson (Wis.) on its board of directors, the polling and contribution numbers demonstrate how beholden Democrats are becoming to the gay agenda, according to conservative opponents.
"This is an issue that has come to define American liberalism as we move into the 21st century. This is their cutting-edge issue," said Arnie Owens, spokesman for the Christian Coalition. "The message may resonate with cosmopolitan elites in New York and Los Angeles, but you get outside the beltways where the rest of America lives, you'll find the views are somewhat different."
To make that point, a coalition of conservative activists plans to demonstrate outside of tonight's $250-per-person dinner at the Grand Hyatt Hotel as Clinton speaks inside, arguing that his presence belies his rhetoric in favor of traditional family values.
Yet even as he draws protesters from the right, the president also will encounter critics from the left. The local chapter of ACT-UP, an AIDS activism group, will march from Lafayette Square to the hotel to complain that Clinton has not lived up to his promises.
"He's talked our talk, but he's walked their walk," said Steve Michael, a founder of the organization, referring to religious conservatives. The guests paying $250 a plate, he added, have sold out. "They want access to the cocktail parties. They want pictures on their wall so they can say, 'Here I am with the president.'"
The competing demonstrations underscore the conflicting nature of Clinton's record on gay rights.
In 1992, while running for president, he made history by appearing as a candidate before an openly gay audience, but then after taking office abandoned his support for allowing homosexuals in the military in favor of the "don't ask, don't tell" compromise. He has endorsed the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act outlawing workplace bias based on sexual orientation, but last year signed legislation in the middle of the night barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage. He has increased funding for AIDS research, but rebuffed recommendations that he promote needle exchanges to cut down on transmission among intravenous drug users.
Birch, the Human Rights Campaign director, acknowledged that there have been "rocky episodes" with Clinton and that his signature on the marriage bill was "very painful." But she insisted these have to be seen within a larger context. "It's important to give the president his due," she said. "He has a record that is heads and shoulders above any of his predecessorsóin fact, all of them combined."
That does not mean that gay rights activists do not want more. Although Clinton has named more than 100 openly gay appointees to his administration, the Human Rights Campaign has been pressing the White House to include more in positions that must be confirmed by the Senate, on the theory that those "tend to be the most coveted jobs."
Clinton complied earlier this year by nominating James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, but his confirmation was held up at the last minute Thursday by Sens. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.).
In another move of interest to the gay community, Clinton also will sponsor a conference on hate crimes Monday, focusing on ways of preventing and punishing such offenses, 12 percent of which are related to the victim's sexual orientation.
The Sydney Sun-Herald newspaper. 2nd November, 1978 --- In a bid for the 2002 Gay games, Sydney has been pitched as the most vibrant homosexual community in the world and visitors promised a prolonged entertainment program bigger than the [Sydney] Gay [and Lesbian] Mardi Gras. Gay Games events include triathlon, water polo, wrestling, touch football, volleyball, aerobics, ballroom dancing, diving, billiards, ten pin bowling, golf, badminton and bodybuilding.
Who stages the the games will be decided in Denver on November 13 and Sydney is believed to be in a neck-and-neck race with Montreal. Other contenders are Toronto, Dallas, Long Beach and Minneapolis. It is the third time Sydney has applied for the games, a factor believed to be playing in the city's favour.
Organisers forecast the Gay Games would attract 12,000 contestants and 30,000 spectators, with up to A$150 million coming into Sydney. The bid has been backed with a A$75,000 State Government grant and a pledge to allow use of the Olympic facilities.
But a request for [State] government funding for the games has been attacked by the [Parliamentary] Opposition as a bid by homosexuals to give their mates from around the world a cheap holiday.
Games bidders have asked for A$1.5 million, and Tourism Minister Brian Langton and Sports Minister Gabrielle Harrison have both pledged tentative support.
But the bid has been slammed as a 'handout" and a "stunt" by Opposition Olympics spokesman Ian Armstrong.
"I predicted that this business was just a stunt to allow Sydney homosexuals to give their overseas colleagues a cheap holiday in the harbour city," Mr. Armstrong said.
"And it appears I was right.
"However, I have been staggered to learn just how much the Gay games organisers want the NSW and Federal governments to cough up in taxpayers' funds to underwrite the event.
"The homosexual lobby is always claiming to have miles of support in the general community, so why can't they do their own fund-raising?
"Elected representatives in this democracy of NSW are supposed to rule for the majority.
"If we start doling out large sums of public money to groups, purely on the basis of race, colour or sexual preference, then we are not doing our job," he said.
Gay Games finance director Peter Fussell said government funding for this event would be no different from funding for other sports extravaganzas such as the motorcycle Grand Prix at Eastern Creek.
"This event is likely to bring A$150 million into NSW and A$1.5 million is a small price to pay," Mr Fussell said.
If the bid is successful, the games opening ceremony will be staged at the baseball arena in the new Sydney Showground at Homebush.
Organisers want a gay or lesbian Aboriginal elder to open the games with an Aboriginal rainbow serpent ceremony.
ELECTION '97
The Morning News Tribune, Tacoma, WA, November 6, 1997 ---Gay, gun and drug measures may be down but they're not out, backers say (Pierce, South King County editions)
It may not be easy to tell Washington legislators they've just got to do something about gun safety, gay rights and medical marijuana - not after the beating the issues took at the polls Tuesday.
But that's what supporters will be doing in January when the next Legislature meets. Their prospects vary from modest to bleak... ... A variation of gay-rights Initiative 677, which was defeated by a 60-40 margin statewide, also will be introduced in the Legislature - as it has been for the past 20 years.
But after a dismal showing Tuesday, even its supporters don't expect it to go anywhere.
"We had nothing to lose," said Laurie Jinkins, president of Hands Off Washington, I-677 supporters. "The Legislature hadn't done anything for 20 years anyway, so we went to the voters."
I-677 would have outlawed employment discrimination against gays and lesbians, a measure that was much narrower in scope than the civil rights protections the gay community has sought in the Legislature.
"The bottom line is, we are never going to quit until there is a law in this state that prohibits discrimination," Jinkins said. "I'm discouraged that we lost the initiative, but not disheartened.
"This isn't the end. This isn't the beginning. We're in the middle."
by Susan Kinzie of the NEWS Staff
PORTLAND-Bangor (ME) Daily News, November, 4, 1997 ---- It's Election Day, but those aren't the only numbers that the Secretary of State's Office has to worry about now.
Line after line, page after page. a 90-page report crammed with tiny type details the problems that volunteers say they found with petitions meant to force an election on the gay-rights law. Supporters and opponents of the law were in Superior Court here early Monday morning to begin the legal challenge over the validity of the signatures.
The secretary of state ruled that 58,182 signatures of the more than 60,000 submitted were valid. A total of 51,131, representing 10 percent of the voters in the last gubernatorial election, are needed for a people's veto election on a law passed by the Legislature. The law, which would prohibit discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the areas of jobs, housing, accomodations and credit, is on hold until the issue is resolved by the courts or the voters. It was passed last spring and would have gone into effect in September.
Maine Won't Discriminate volunteers have listed more than 15,000 signatures that they believe are invalid. The petitions are "riddled with errors," said Patricia Peard, one of the lawyers for petitioners Kathleen Remmel, Marvin Ellison and Franklin Brooks in their action appealing the decision of Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky. "We have 28 legal questions -- there are all different kinds of errors."
All those details, on more than 8,000 pages of petitions, will have to be resolved in the next month. The briefs on the legal arguments must be filed by Monday, and the oral arguments will be made Nov. 18. Justice Roland Cole must, by Dec. 4, rule on whether the complaint by Maine Won't Discriminate, a political action group which supports the law passed last spring, is valid or not.
"It's a very tight schedule and it will be really difficult for the Secretary of State's Office since they have the statewide elections now," said Phyllis Gardiner, the assistant attorney general, who is representing Gwadosky. "But the statue lays out a very tight time frame."
Paul Volle, the executive director of the Christian Coalition of Maine, said, "I think time is to our advantage. Time is of the essence. The quicker we can get through the appeal process and get this on the ballot the better." If the petitions are ruled valid, there will have to be a special election on the issue sometime between December and April.
Peard said she is confident about their points of law, and that there are many errors in the signatures, but that "our campaign is moving ahead," as though there were no court challenge.
Volle has already started going through the list of petitions that are being questioned. "We will get through it as best we can," he said, flipping the thick stack of pages through his fingers, and then laughing, "Doesn't that sound like fun?"
The Christian Civic Laegue of Maine was accepted by Cole as an intervenor, allowing attorneys Mike Phillips and Stephen Whiting to be a part of the process. "Although we are confident the attorney general would represent the secretary of state's interests zealously," they were not so sure that the defense would be so zealous about the interests of the Christian groups, who call their political action committee Vote Yes for Equal Rights, Phillips said. "They're defending the certification [process], not necessarily the validity," of each signature.
The case was originally assignmed to Justice Nancy Mills, but the League objected because her husband, Sen. Peter Mills, voted for the gay-rights law, and they felt she would not be completely objective.
Coles said that after oral arguments they will begin, if necessary, going through the evidence on Nov. 19. Referring to the 17 boxes of petitions, he said, "If we have to individually examine them, we're going to be spending a lot of days and nights in Augusta examining petition numbers ..." [ellipsis in original]
WASHINGTON BLADE, November 7, 1997 --- Openly Gay candidates were victorious in 17 out of 35 local elections around the country Nov. 4. The big winners were in New York City, where Margarita Lopez became the first openly Lesbian Puerto Rican in the country to win in an election, and in Ohio, where Mary Wiseman and Louis Escobar became the first openly Gay elected officials in the state.
"It was the most successful year in our history," said Kathleen DeBold, whose Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund supported 15 of the known Gay candidates who ran in elections throughout the country. Ten of the Victory Fund candidates won, while an additional candidate, Annise Parker, appeared headed for a runoff election in her bid for the Houston City Council.
The fate of one other candidate remained uncertain at Blade deadline, as elections officials in New York's Oneida County were still counting absentee ballots on Nov. 6 to determine whether openly Gay incumbent Randall G. Migliaccio would remain a county legislator.
Among the groundbreaking success stories were Escobar and Wiseman, Ohio's first openly Gay elected officials. Escobar, a former Catholic priest, was elected to the Toledo City Council, while Wiseman, who had strong Victory Fund support, won her bid to serve on the Dayton City Commission.
Other firsts included Lopez, whose election to the New York City Council made her the first openly Lesbian Puerto Rican in the country to win in a public election. In addition, Phil Reed, who ran as an openly Gay man with HIV, also broke new ground by becoming the first openly Gay African American to win a seat on New York's City Council.
DeBold, whose organization supported all but one of the groundbreakers (Escobar did not seek the organization's support), identified three main factors behind each candidate's success: They were qualified, and in some cases seasoned, campaigners; their sexual orientation was a non-issue among voters; and many of the Gay candidates received "mainstream endorsements galore."
"Ten years ago, most Gay people wouldn't even think they could run for office and be open," said DeBold. "Instead, they took their skills and worked behind the scenes on someone else's campaign. Today, they can use those skills [to stump] for themselves."
And while "Gay-baiting" is still the "weapon of choice for extremist candidates," DeBold said voters aren't falling for it.
"The more openly G