DP benefits

WASI-IINGTON——More
large companies across the
country are offering domestic
partnership health insurance
coverage to their gay and les-
bian workers.

The study, by the
Washington-based Human
Rights Campaign, found that
3572 companies, colleges and
states and local governments
offered or have announced they
would offer health insurance
covering their employees’
domestic partners.

This was up 25 percent from
a year ago, when 2856 large
employers extended such bene-
fits. -

The findings were included
in the group’s annual “State of
the Workplace for Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and
Transgendered Americans.”

“Domestic partner benefits
are increasingly becoming a
standard business practice in
corporate America,” said Kim
I. Mills, education director of
the Human Rights Campaign.
“Employers have discovered
that these benefits help attract
and keep the best workers, a
critical consideration in the
current tight job market.”

Child visitation

PROVIDENCE, 4 R.l.—
Another state has clarified the
rights of same—sex partners to
child visitation after a breakup.

The Rhode Island Supreme
Court has ruled that a woman
can petition Family Court for
the right to visit the son she and
her former partner raised
together.

The 3-2 decision gives de
facto—“in fact”—parents,
including gay couples, the
same rights to petition for visi-
tation as biological and adop-
tive parents.

In the case, Concetta
DiCenzo, 43, was trying to pre-
vent her former partner,
Maureen Rubano, 53, from
petitioning Family Court for
the right to visit the son
DiCenzo gave birth to in 1991
after undergoing artificial
insemination. She and Rubano
sent out birth announcements
identifying them both as the
child’s parents, and the last
name of Rubano-DiCenzo was
listed on the birth certificate.

“The fact that DiCenzo not
only gave birth to this child but
also nurtured him from infancy
does not mean that she can
arbitrarily terminate Rubano’s

de facto parental relationship
with the boy, a relationship that
DiCenzo agreed to and fos-
tered for many years,” Justice
Robert Flanders wrote in the
majority opinion.

Manhattan Scouts

NEW YORK—A school
board overseeing 42
Manhattan schools has kicked
the Boy Scouts out.

The board of Community
School District Two, which
passed the resolution, became
the first district in the city to
enact such a ban.

“It’s an important message
to send that discrimination will
not be tolerated in our
schools,” said board member
Brian Ellner, who wrote the
resolution.

The ban keeps the schools in
the district, primarily elemen-
tary and middle schools, from
sponsoring troops, which none
currently do. The troops may
still meet on campus, as can
most any independent group.

AIDS prevention

WASHINGTON—A new
medical report says more must
be done to prevent AIDS infec-
tion.

A slowing of the epidemic
has led to complacency, says a
new report that calls on the
government to launch stronger
prevention efforts and improve
tracking of the virus that caus-
es the disease.

“Improved treatments may
have contributed to a false
sense of security and a danger-
ous complacency, but the need
for prevention has not dimin-
ished one bit,” warned Dr.
Harvey Feinberg, provost of
Harvard University and co-
chairman of the committee that
prepared the report.

While the spread of AIDS
among gay men has declined
over the last 15 years, there has
been an increase among
women, minorities, and adoles-
cents, according to the report
released Wednesday by the
Institute of Medicine, an arm
of the National Academy of
Sciences.

There have also been recent
reports of an increase in risky
behavior by men who have sex
with men.

 

Lesbian cop

NEW YORK—A federal
judge has taken the New York
City Police Department to task
for the investigation it conduct-
ed into complaints by an offi-
cer who is a lesbian.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said

the probe was lax.

He delivered his rebuke of
the department as he told ajury
hearing the case that the trial
would end prematurely
because Elizabeth Bryant had
reacheda settlement with the
city.

He said it was “outrageous”
if testimony was true that the
city did little to investigate
Bryant’s claims that officers
refused to ride with her and
posted pictures around the
precinct of a male bodybuilder
with her face pasted over his.

Bryant said the harassment
began after she revealed she
was a lesbian and held a public
ceremony with her partner in
Central Park in 1997.

The judge voiced concern
over the testimony of Sgt.
Sandra Williams, a retired
investigator with the police
department’s Office of Equal
Employment Opportunity, who
told the jury that little was done
during the investigation
beyond interviewing Bryant
and employees she had
accused of harassment.

Gay bar shooting

ROANOKE, Va.—More
charges have been filed against
a man who walked into a gay
bar and opened fire, killing
one. .
Ronald Edward Gay, 54,
who police said opened fire
because hewas upset that his
last name made him the victim
of jokes, is accused of killing
Danny Lee Overstreet and
wounding six other bar
patrons.

Gay initially was charged
with murder.

The_ new charges against
him include six counts of
aggravated malicious wound-
ing, six counts of subsequent
use of a firearm, and- one count
of shooting within an occupied
building.

If convicted, Gay could face
life in prison on the murder
charge and a minimum of 20
years in prison on each count
of aggravated malicious
wounding.

He remains in jail without
bail. One of the shooting vic-
tims still is hospitalized in sta-
ble condition.

 

November 2000 | Out in the Mountains I3
= news =

Alabama Episcopals
MOBILE, Ala.—The first
Episcopal congregation in the
state of Alabama hasleft the
denomination over gay rights.

Members of Christ Church
voted overwhelmingly Sunday
to affiliate with the Anglican
Mission in America, whose
bishops are under the authority
of archbishops of the Province
of Rwanda and the Province of
South East Asia.

Gay issues have created a
rift between liberal and conser-
vative Episcopalians and in
other denominations.
Delegates to the Episcopal
General Convention in July
declared the church should
support unmarried couples——
homosexual and heterosexu-
al—in monogamous relation-
ships honoring religious val-
ues. ‘

A spokeswoman for AMIA,
based in Pawleys Island, S.C.,
said they have 17 congrega-
tions in at least I3 states,
including six in the South.

VPs on marriage

WASHINGTON—Both
parties’ vice presidential candi-
dates have shown some grow-
ing recognition of the needs of
same—sex couples when it
comes to marriage.

Democrat Joseph
Lieberman and Republican
Dick Cheney. both were asked
about gay marriage during
their debate. .

Both said they believed
greater recognition was needed
for same-sex relationships,
including the granting of bene-
fits. But both also stopped well
short of endorsing marriage.

“But I must say, I’m think-
ing about this because I have
friends who are in gay and les-
bian partnerships who have
said to me, ‘Isn’t it unfair that
we don’t have similar legal
rights to inheritance, to visita-
tion when one of the partners is
ill, to health care benefits?’”
Lieberman said. “And that’s
why I’m thinking about it. And
my mind is open to taking
some action that will address
those elements of unfairness
while respecting the traditional

religious and civil institu-
tion of marriage.”

 

On the broader question,
Cheney said: “People should
be able to enter into any kind of
relationship they want to enter
into. It’s really no one else’s
business in terms of trying to
regulate or prohibit behavior in
that regard.”

When it came to marriage,
he said: “That’s a tougher prob-
lem. That’s not a slam-dunk. I
think the fact of the matter, of
course, is that matter is regulat-
ed by the states. I think differ-
ent states are likely to come to
different conclusions and that’s
appropriate.”

Almost an apology

LOS ANGELES—Dr. Laura
says she’s sorry—sort of.

Laura Schlessinger used the
Jewish Yom Kippur holiday—
the Day of Atonement—to
apologize to gays and lesbians
for “poorly chosen” words she
said have been perceived as
hate speech.

“On the Day of Atonement,
Jews are commanded to seek
forgiveness from people we
have hurt,” the radio and TV
talk show host, who is Jewish,
said in a newspaper ad. “I
deeply regret the hurt this situ-
ation has caused the gay and
lesbian community.”

The ad, in the form of a let-
ter signed by Schlessinger, was
included in a special “Gay
Hollywood” edition of the
trade paper Daily Variety.

Schlessinger has been criti-
cized by gay rights activists for
referring to homosexuality as a
“biological error” and
“deviant.” In March, she said
she was sorry her radio com-
ments have hurt people, but
retracted that apology three
days later.

Gay center

PHILADELPHIA—The
University of Pennsylvania is
being rewarded for bringing
two men together. ‘

The couple, who met 17
years ago at the school, have
donated $2 million for a new

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