Hawaiian weddings
Illllallfill

HONOLULU — The drive for
gay marriage has ended for now in
the state once considered the most
likely to allow it.

Hawaii’s Supreme Court has said
that a constitutional amendment pro-
hibiting same-gender marriages is
legal.

The court said the effort by
homosexual couples was rendered
moot by a 1998 amendment to the
state constitution overwhelmingly
approved by voters. The amend-
ment gave lawmakers the authority
to limit state-recognized marriages
to opposite-sex couples.

The high court considered an
appeal of a lower court ruling that
the state could not justify its 1994
ban on same-sex marriages. The
judge in the case had ordered the
state to grant marriage licenses to
gay couples, but delayed the order
pending the appeal.

Lawmakers later drafted the
amendment giving them the author-
ity to pass the ban. Voters approved
the proposal by a 2-to-1 margin last
year.

MUS accelerating .

LONDON — The AIDS virus is
spreading ever more rapidly, say the
UN Program on HIV/AIDS and the
World Health Organization.

WHO said it expected the num-
ber of infections worldwide to con-
tinue to grow, fueled by an increase
in the use of injected drugs.

According to the report, 33.6 mil-
lion people, including 1.2 million
children, are carrying HIV, the virus
that causes AIDS.

That compares to 33.4 million
people who were HIV positive last
year. However, the agencies said this
years increase is even larger than it
appears because the 1998 figures in
a few heavily populated Latin
American and Asian countries were
"overestimated."

"With an epidemic of this scale,
every new infection adds to the rip-
ple effect, impacting families, coin-
munities, l10LBelT0lClS and increas-
ingly, businesses and economies,"
Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of
UNAIDS, said at a London news
conference.

British activist tlies

VICTORIA, BC —A writer cred-
ited with ending some of Britain's
anti-gay laws has died.

Peter Wildeblood died Nov. 14 at
his home in British Columbia He
was 76. No cause of death was

announced, but he had been para-
lyzed by a 1994 stroke.

Along with Lord Montagu of
Beaulieu and Michael Pitt-Rivers,
Wildeblood was convicted in 1954
of charges relating to indecency
between males and sent to prison for
18 months.

His 1955 book, "Against the
Law," is credited with intensifying
protests over Britain's laws prohibit-
ing homosexual sex and ushering in
their demise.

The book prompted a debate in
the House of Lords and the publica-
tion of a 1957 govemment commit-
tee report calling for the decriminal-
izatiori of gay sex for people over 21 .
The law was changed 10 years later.

GSA litllls tar camnus
meetings

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Gay high
school students are turning to feder-
al courts again so their school groups
can meet on campus.

Two students in Santa Ana sued
their school district, saying it violat-
ed their iight to free speech by refus-
ing to let their Gay-Straight Alliance
meet on campus.

The suit also claims the Orange
Unified School District violated the
federal Equal Access Act, which
requires schools to treat non-cur'ricu-
lar student groups the same regard-
less of race, gender or sexual orien-
tation.

"These kids don't want anything
out of the ordinary. They just want
their club to be treated like the other
clubs," said Carole Shields, presi-
dent of People for the American
Way, a legal defense fiind supporting
the teens.

Anthony Colin, 15, and Heather
Zetin, 16, proposed the club in
September as a place for students at
El Modena High School in Orange
to discuss issues around sexual ori-
entation.

The school district, backed by the
school board, initially refused to
allow the club to meet on campus.

Ilallllfll‘ I‘G£IiSIW

DENVER ~ Gay couples are
among those who will have the right
to register their relationships with the
city. I
The Denver City Council voted

10-0 to set up the registry in the city
clerk's ofiioe for couples, regardless
of sexual orientation.

Those who register with the city,
for a fee, will not acquire specific
legal rights or obligations, said assis-
tant city attomey John Eckhardt,
who drafted the bill.

But supporters of the measure
call it not only symbolic, but practi-
cal, providing a method of verifica-
tion for employers who offer bene-
fits to employees’ unmarried part-
ners.

"What's important about this is a
recognition of our htunanity," said
Councilwoman Happy Haynes.
"This is about building a communi-
ty and supporting families, whatever
they look like."

Denver extended health benefits
to the partners of gay city employees
in 1996.

SALT LAKE CITY — There's a
lawsuit over Utah's policy prohibit-
ing unmarried couples to adopt chil-
dren who are in state custody.

The American Civil Liberties
Union says the ban, which took
effect in September, is "grounded in
irrational fear and prejudice toward
same-sex couples," and violates the
state constitution. The civil rights
group sued on behalf of two gay
couples.

Advocacy group Utah Children
sued the division and its board last
month, saying the rule goes against
the bat interest of children and con-
tradicts the state's own push to
expand the pool of adoptive parents.

The state Division of Child and
Family Services says the rule is
designed to protect children from
potential abuse at the hands of unre-
lated adults.

The rule, an administrative policy
with the same effect as law, requires
all adults in an adoptive home to be
related by blood, adoption or mar-
riage. It adopted a similar rule
regarding state-sponsored foster care
in August.

Scfllll Il‘00|l IBIIISEII

PETALUMA, Calif. — The Boy
Scouts of America's rejection of a
new troop is being blamed on a fear
that the troop leader would buck the
policy against gays.

In a letter to the United Church of
Christ in Petaluma, officials fiom the
Boy Scouts’ Redwood Empire
Council in Santa Rosa said the
Scouts were,"not prepared to charter
a troop led by Scott Cozza or adult
leadership recruited by him."

The letter did not elaborate on the
reason. A call to the council was not
immediately returned.

Cozza is vice president of
Scouting forAll, a group pushing to
end Scouting's ban on gays. Since he
and his son Steven co-founded the
group two years ago, he has been
stripped of leadership of a troop in

January 2000 Out:in-th.e_Moun-ta-ins}.  if

  

which Steven eamed Scouting's

highest rank, Eagle Scout
South African rights
JOHANNESBURG, South

Afiica — Gay rights have been
extended again in South Afiica.

The Constitutional Court says
gay partners who are applying from
abroad to become SouthAfiican res-
idents must be given the same con-
sideration as married spouses.

The court's decision amended the
1991 Aliens Control Act, which
allows only foreign husbands or
wives of South Afiican citizens to
apply to become penrranent resi-
dents.

The country's Department of '

Home Affairs has used the law to
tum away partners of gay South
Africans who come to the country
and seek permission to stay.

British militant Iran
Iittetl

LONDON — Britain's ban on
gays in the military is being replaced
with a code of conduct.

"Someone's sexuality is a private
matter. People are entitled to a pri-
vate life," Defense Secretary Geoff
Hoon said in an interview with the
Times of London.

"A new code of conduct is, there-
fore, the right way of dealing with
this question, but I want to make
sure that any solution to this problem
does notjeopardize the etfectiveness
of the amred forces," he added.

Under the new code, to be pub-
lished next month, "inappropriate"
sexual behavior between personnel
on duty is a disciplinary offense, but
a person's sexual orientation is not

Britain's_ Labour government
promised to lift the ban after the
European Court of Human Rights
ruled in favor of four gay people dis-
missed from the military. Thejudges
said the ban was a grave interference
in private lives.

llIaS|l.lIIIBI.|II|lll'e9

WASHINGTON -- National
politicians are finally realizing that
the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on
gays in the military, well, don't work

Presidential candidate Bill
Bradley was the first to advocate
scrapping the policy and has stuck to
his position for months.

First Lady Hillary Rodharn
Clinton, campaigning for the U.S.
Senate from New York, has now
taken the same position, at first
putting her at odds with the White
House.

Brit then President Clinton him-

self said the policy was not imple-
mented as intended and was never
supposed to facilitate roofing out
people who are gay or allow for
harassment.

Now Vice President Al Gore is
also calling for the policy to be elim-
inated.

NYE nail irate

NEW YORK—\Vinning the gay
vote is important in winning New
York City, and Democratic presiden-
tial candidates are already courting.

Former New Jersey Senator Bill
Bradley has begun to make some
inroads, winning the endorsement of
two gay New York City Council
members.

Margarita Lopez and Phil Reed,
both first-temi Democrats, said
Bradley's positions on social issues,
as well as gay and lesbian concerns,
made the former senator from New
Jersey superior to Vice PresidentAl
Gore as a candidate.

The council members said
Bradley's call to abolish "don't ask,
don't tell" and his support of federal
domestic partner benefits helped tip
the scale in his favor.

Bradley voted in 1993 for a
Senate amendment that would have
lifted the military's ban on gays. It
lost out to "don’t ask, don’t tell."

Bruvmre-eletrtediisf

SAN FRANCISCO — It was
quite a race for mayor, but the
incumbents millions of dollars were
enough to crush the insurgents anrry
of volunteers.

Mayor Vlfillie Brown won re-
election to a second term with 60
percent of the vote, defeating Tom
Ammiano, the liberal president of
the city Board of Supervisors.

But Ammiano made a real race
out of it He forced Brown, the pow-
erful forrrrer speaker of the
California Assembly, into a runoff
by staging a surprise write-in cam-
paign

He campaigned on a platform of
focusing on the city's housing and
other problems, stands that fiight-
ened many in the business commu-
nity.

Ammiano would have become
the first openly gay mayor of a major
US city. V