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Phelps 6, Equality Virginia
400 V

Fredericksburg, VA — Accoiding to a
report on 365Gay.com, it was no con-
test: six members of Fred Phelps’
Westboro Baptist Church protested a
production of The Laramie Project,
whi_le more than 400 students at Mary
Washington College demonstrated
their support for equality and their
rejection of hate and bigotry.

Among the signs held by
the Phelps contingent were “Death
Penalty for Fags” and “God Hates
America.” One protester stood on an
American flag spread on the side-
walk. ‘

Meanwhile, hundreds of
students held candles lighting the way
from the main campus gates to the
theater. ‘

Students from three other

‘ Virginia schools traveled to

F redericksburg for the counter-
protest. A group from Longwood
College wore white angel’s wings.

A member of Parents,
Families and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays‘ collected donations for Equality
Virginia outside the theater. Some
people pledged a dime to the organi-
zation for every minute the Westboro
Baptist Church group protested.

Housing Denied in FL
Boca Raton, FL — Two men in Boca

Raton seeking an apai;tmén_t}€renEt_‘al,-; - " 
were denied the poss'ilf>iIity"of rénting' 1

because they are gay, reports Lambda
Legal Defense & Education Fund. It’s
a common form of discrimination in
Florida and around the country,
Lambda Legal says, and the group
has filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach
County Court onbehalf of the two.
An hour after Fred

Stembach was shown several apart-
ments and liked one, the manager
called him back to explain whether
the “partner” he had indicated‘ on an
information card meant a wife or
fiancee. When Stembach said “nei-

ther,” he was denied an apartment

because the company rents only to
couples who are married. Although
Stembach and his partner,‘ Stephen
Miller, have been together 16 years,
there is no state where they can
obtain a marriage license. _

A Palm Beach County law
prohibits discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation and marital sta-
tus]. Nationwide, 145 cities or coun-
ties have such laws.

“Even though it’s illegal in
_many places, this is an indignity
many lesbian and gay people face but
don’t report,” said Greg Nevins,
Lambda Legal’s staff attorney.
According to a nationwide survey
Commissioned by the Kaiser Family
Foundation in 2001, 34 percent of
lesbian, gay or bisexual people have
been turned away from renting or
buying a home because of their sexu-

al orientation or know someone who" -

Was denied housing based on their '
Sexual orientation.

Judicial Nominees Opposed
Washington, DC — On March 6. the
Senate Judiciary Committee approved
the nomination of Timothy
Tymkovich to the 10th U.S. Circuit
Court ofAppeals. by a 10-6 vote.
with three senators voting “present.“
T116 Human Rights Campaign reports
that Tymkovich’s record “raises con-
cerns about his views on gay, lesbian.

"iiicome. "' .

bisexual and transgender people and
the civil rights laws that protect
them.” Specifically, a law review arti-
cle that he co-authored demonstrates
that he believes and perpetuates some
of the worst anti-gay rhetoric. The
nomination is awaiting action by the
full Senate. '
HRC also has expressed
opposition to two other nominees —
Jeffrey Sutton and Jay Bybee. The
committee approved Sutton, who was
nominated to the 6th U.S. Circuit
Court ofAppeals,"on Feb. 13, and
Bybee, who was nominated to the 9th

Circuit Court, on Feb. 27. Both nomi-

nees await action by the full Senate.

Taxing Equality

Washington DC — As of March 2003,
185 of the Fortune 500 and 166 state
and local governments provide health
insurance benefits to the domestic
partners of their employees, reports
the Human Rights’Campaign’s
Political Equality Update. But under
federal law, the employers who offer
this benefit and the employees who
take advantage of it are taxed
inequitably.

Currently, employers’ con-
tributions toward health insurance for
an employee’s spouse are not taxed.
However, the same contribution for
the domestic partner’s coverage is
included in the employee’s taxable
I' When domestic partner”
benefits are included in employees’
incomes, employers pay higher pay-
roll taxes. _

In February, Rep. Jim
McDermott, D-Wash., introduced the
Tax Equity for Health Plan

' Beneficiaries Act (H.R. 935) to fix

this problem. This legislation, which
as of March 1 had 15 co-sponsors,
would amend the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 to include domestic
partners on the same basis as married
spouses.

Dutch Get Medical Marijuana
Washington, DC — The Marijuana
Policy Project reported that under a
groundbreaking new law effective in
March, physicians in the Netherlands
will be able to prescribe medical mar-
ijuana and pharmacies will dispense it

. to patients as they do other prescrip-

tion medications, the first country to
do so.

The Dutch government will
require medical marijuana growers to
meet specific product quality stan-
dards and security rules. Once this
system is in place, pharmacies will
dispense medical marijuanaonly
from government-licensed providers.
Until then, they will be permitted to
obtain the medicine from producers
oftheir own choosing.

The Canadian government
established a medical marijuana pro-
gram in July 2001, but only a limited
number of patients have made it
through the complex permission
process. In addition, Canada has yet
to provide these patients with a legal

j means of obtaining their medicine.

Robert Kampia. executive
director ofthe Marijuana Policy
Project in Washington, DC_, declared,
“While the Netherlands is guarantee-
ing patients safe access to quality-
controlled medical marijuana, we’re
still fighting just to keep people with
cancer and AIDS out ofjail. The rest
of the world increasingly regards the

U.S. policy of criminalizing medical
marijuana patients and providers as
cruel and pointless.”

us Census Blamed 8. Praised
Amherst, MA — The U.S. Census
2000 count of same-sex couples
missed at least a hundred thousand
more, according to a study released
by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian
Strategic Studies (IGLSS).
Two surveys of gay, les-

bian, bisexual, and transgender peo-
ple show an undercount of 16 to 19

‘percent of same-sex couples, as docu-

mented in the think tank’s report, Left
Out of the Count: Missing Same-sex
Couples in Census 2000.

The difference comes in
whether couples used the “unmarried
partners” option or listed themselves
as “housemates/roommates” because
of confidentialityqconcerns and a lack
of fit of census options for their own
family configurations.

“The people we surveyed
were politically aware and were more
likely to know about and use the .
‘unmarried partner’ option,” accord-
ing to Marc Rogers, Ph.D., one of the
authors of the report. “They’re a best-
case scenario, meaning the actual
undercount is likely to be far higher.”

At the same time, the -
Human Rights Campaign was
applauding the US Census bureau for
releasing its report on same-sex,part-
ners while’acknowleZ:Iging''th‘afthei ‘ '
numbers are “artificially low.” '

“This is a landmark as it is -
the first time any government institu-

-tion has worked to gather and publish

information on this country’s gay

families,” said HRC Communications,

Director and Senior Strategist David
M. Smith.

Census data revealed that
there are 594,391 reported same-sex .
households in the country — 301,026
are male partners, and 293,365 are
female partners. Gay and lesbian fam-
ilies live in 99.3 percent of all coun-
ties in the United States.

The new report showed that
a third of female partner households
and a fifth of male partner households
are raising children. Currently, eight
states and the District of Columbia
guarantee same-sex couples access to
second-parent adoption.

Finally, the new report also
gives insight into the number of inter-
racial same-sex couples in the United
States, with 11.5 percent of male
same-sex households having multi-
racial partners, and 10 percent of
female same-sex households having
multi-racial partners. Comparatively,
5.7 percent of married couples are
multi-racial and 12.2 percent of
opposite-sex partners are multi-racial.

Gay ‘Brittanica’

. Los Angeles — Scholars, academic

researchers and experts in the arts and
literature have created an encyclope-
dia of facts and information about
gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,
and queer (glbtq) culture. The new
glbtq encyclopedia went_online last
month at www.glbtq.com.

Written for anyone with an
interest in glbtq cuitureand people,
glbtq.com is a free encyclopedia con-
taining more than one million words
in 900-plus entries. The electronic
compilation includes more than 200
historical photographs and illustra-
tions.

“Much of the information
that is available in the encyclopedia
was almost impossible to find 25
years ago," said General Editor
Claude J. Summers, Ph.D.

“The ethnic, racial, geo-
graphic. and cultural diversity of the
entries is impressive,” said Judith
Scherer Herz, a professor at
Concordia University in Montreal.

Tee A. Corinne, the famed
lesbian photographer, is on the edito-
rial board of the encyclopedia, a_long
with a long list of academics.

‘Savage Nation’ Loses
Sponsors

New York — All six national sponsors
of MSNBC’s “Savage Nation” debut
have publicly withdrawn from the
program, sending a clear message to
NBC News that they refuse to support
Michael Savage’s attacks on women,
people of color, immigrants and the
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
community, announced the Gay &
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD) announced that.

Since Savage’s March 8
debut on MSNBC, GLAAD alerted
each national advertiser that their ads
appeared on Savage’s show, and
made them aware of Savage’s homo-
phobic, racist and sexist attacks.
Procter & Gamble, Dell Computer
Corporation, Casual Male, Idea
Village, Cole Media Group and The

‘Sharper Image all havevinstructed

MSNBC that their ads are not to
appear on future “Savage Nation” air-
ings. Kraft Foods and General Mills
also have stated that they will not
support Savage’s television show.

“These companies get it,”
said Joan M. Garry, GLAAD’s execu-
tive director. “They get that Michael
Savage’s racism, sexism and homo-
phobia do not refiect the attitudes and
beliefs of fair-minded corporations
and consumers.”

Texas School Allows GSA
Houston — After months of delays and
a lawsuit by the American Civil
Liberties Union, officials at Klein
High School have agreed to allow
students to form a Gay-Straight
Alliance, according to a settlement

_ agreement announced last month.

The ACLU lawsuit was
filed on behalf of Klein student Marla
Dukler. “It’s too bad that we had to
wait until the school year was two-
thirds over before we finally get to
have the club we asked for so long
ago, but I’m really glad the school is

I finally doing the right thing,”,Dukler

said.

“We hope to start working
on changes to make our school safer
irnmediately,” Dukler said. “It needs
it.”

When students at Klein
High School originally submitted
their application‘ to form a GSA last
September, school officials changed
the requirements for student clubs in
an attempt to keep the club from
forming. When the students resubmit-
ted their application, months passed
with no response.

In January, the ACLU filed
a complaint on the students’ behalf in
the U.S. District Court charging vio-
lations of the First Amendment and
the federal Equal Access Act, which
requires schools to allow GSAs if the
school permits other non-curricular
clubs.

Ginni Clemmons Killed
Durham, NC — A notice from non-
profit women’s music distributor
Ladyslipper Music reported the pass-
ing ofmusician Ginni Clemmens,
who was killed in an automobile acci-
dent near her home in Maui on
February 15, a few days before her
67th birthday.

Clemmons was one ofthe
founding mothers of the Women’s
Music Movement. When Ladyslipper
issued its first catalog after its found-
ing in 1976, Clemmons’ album Long
Time Friends was one of its 13 titles.

Born Virginia Clemmens on
February 28, 1936, in Evergreen
Park. Illinois, Ginni first picked up
the guitar when she was working with
emotionally disturbed children. In
addition to teaching voice, banjo and
guitar at the Old Town School of Folk
Music in Chicago, Ginni established
her own recording label, Open Door
Records. She produced seven albums
and is perhaps best known for her
cover of“Wild Women Don’t Get the
Blues.” She was a proselytizer for
participatory song and an advocate of
emotional self-help through musicShe
is survived by a sister, Maxime.
Friday, a brother, Tim Friday, and
nieces and nephews, all of Illinois.

Clemmons circulated and
believed in her Pledge ofAllegiance

I . for the 2 1,stVCentu,ry:. _f‘I.pl_edge alle-

giance to the health of the United
World of the Universe. And to the
Earth on which we stand: One planet,
Born oflove, Indivisible, with Rights
and Responsibilities for all.”

AFL-CIO calls for End to
"ll-ansgender Bias

Washington, DC — The AFL-C10
Executive Council, representing over
13 million employees in the United
States, spoke out last month against
all forms of bigotry and hatred. This
is the first time that the AFL-CIO ,
leadership specifically included trans-
gender people in a call for an end to
bias.

“Employment, housing and
other forms of discrimination, as well
as acts of violence based on sexual
orientation and gender identity and
gender expression, continue unabat-
ed,” the statement reads.

Donna Cartwright, ‘a mem-
ber of the AFL-CIO Pride at Work
National Executive Board said, “This
is a wonderful day for transgender
people, and a proud day for the labor
movement. The AFL-CIO’s action in
recognizing that transgender and gen-
der-different people need protection
against discrimination and hate
crimes is in the best traditions of
labor solidarity and support for
human rights.”

Noting a post-9/11 increase
in attacks on civil liberties, the AFL-
CIO promised to challenge discrimi-
nation in housing, employment, edu-
cation, healthcare access and other
areas.

Vanessa Edwards Foster,
Chairman ofthe National
Transgender Advocacy Coalition
(NTAC), said, “The AFL-CIO has
shown true vision in supporting all
workers, notjust certain segments of
the workforce. We only hope govern-
ment can follow their lead." V