SBIIIIIS Ill ellllfl

WASHINGTON —— The fate
of gays in the Boy Scouts goes
before the nation’s highest
court this month.

The Supreme Court has
scheduled for argument a case
involving scouting in New
Jersey for April 26, the last day
the court will hear cases this
term.

The case is one of the few
gay-rights disputes the justices
have tackled in recent years. It
centers on a New Jersey court’s
ruling that said the organization
unlawfully ousted a young man
after learning he is gay.

The state court ruled that the
Boy Scouts’ denial of member-
ship to gays boys and leaders
violated a law banning dis-
crimination in public accom-
modations.

Publisher dies

OAKLAND, Calif. —— A
pioneer in gay publishing has
died. Roland G. Schembari,
co—founder of the San
Francisco Bay Times, died of
cancer at the age of 56.

The Bay Times, which
debuted in 1978, was one of the
first publications in the nation
aimed at and produced by gays.

Schembari also worked for
Berkeley public radio station
KPFA—FM, and was. part ,of the
group that produced the
nation’s first gay radio show,
“Fruit Punch.”

BIIIISII bomber

LONDON A man
accused of setting bombs
aimed at minorities and gays
has pleaded guilty to three
counts of manslaughter.

David Copeland, 23, admit-
ted planting the bomb that
killed three people at the
Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in
central London, last April 30.
Prosecutors did not immediate-
ly accept the manslaughter
pleas, and a further hearing was
set. .

Copeland also admitted
responsibility for explosions on
April 17 in Brixton, a south
London area with a large black
population; and April 24 in
Brick Lane, an east London
neighborhood with a large
Bangladeshi population. J

MIIBIIEWS-(I'll!

LOS ANGELES — A group
of weekly newspapers near Los
Angeles are causing controver-
sy with a policy not to publish
anything that is positive about
gays or abortion.

More than a dozen editorial
employees of two of the
papers, which have a combined

. free circulation of ~l26,000,

have quit sincethe policy was
enforced.

The papers, which circulate
in San Luis Obispo, Paso
Robles and Atascadero, have

received about 400 cancella-
tion requests.

The controversy stems from
a community calendar listing
for Parents, Friends and Family
of Lesbians and Gays,
Bisexuals and Transgendered
Persons.

It ran in the Atascadero
Gazette from Nov. 25 until Feb.
17, when editor Ron Bast was
told the owner had ordered the
listing pulled. Bast said he was
told there were to be no stories
that showed gays or abortion in
a favorable light.

Mary and David Weyrich
published a statement about
their philosophy.

“The issue has everything to
do with integrity and nothing to
do with journalistic
ethics...Call us old-fashioned,

but it hasn’t been too many‘

years since our professed
beliefs were the accepted norm
in America. Society has
changed to the detriment, we
believe, of us all as a people.”

GBVS and II'IS|I

NEW YORK —— Apparently
gays and the Irish really can
mix.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
marched in two Irish parades to
mark St. Patrick’s Day this
yeah

The first was an alternative
to the famous event through the
center of Manhattan.

The main St. Patrick’s Day
parade on the grounds that the
event is run by a Catholic fra-
ternal group, the Ancient Order
of Hibernians excludes the

Irish Lesbian and Gay
Organization.
Clinton marched in that

parade. But first she entered the
alternative.

A group of hecklers fol-
lowed her, but she ignored
them and the occasional boos
from others in the crowd of
several thousand people scat-
tered along the parade route.

With a green scarf tucked
into her jacket, the first lady
smiled, waved, and posed for
pictures as she marched seven
blocks along the parade route
in Queens.

I I
‘Pmllf of SIIIJIIIII

WASHINGTON — Gov.
George W. Bush has changed
his mind about meeting with- a
gay political group.

So leaders of Log Cabin
Republicans say they’re -look-
ing forward to setting up a
meeting.

He had said last November
he probably would not meet
with the group. E

“Governor Bush has extend-
ed a hand to the Log Cabin
Republicans. We will take him
up on it,” said Kevin lvers,
spokesman for the group.

Bush said he would. meet
with members of the group but

. Proposition

not leaders who had run ads
critical of him over the week-
end in California, New York
and Massachusetts.

‘fl said I would consider
meeting with members,” Bush
said. “I’ve got members of the
Log Cabin Republican Club'on
my campaign team. They’re
supporting me and I’m proud
to have their support.”

Ivers questioned that dis-
tinction, saying there’s no dif-
ference between members and
leaders.

I’I‘0Il. 22 IIEISSBS

SAN FRANCISCO
California said yes on 22.

Voters adopted Proposition
22 on their March ballots,
which prohibits California
from granting marital rights to
same-sex couples legally mar-
ried in any other state.

The proposal passed 61 per-
cent to 39 percent.

Californians “like what has
been going on for thousands of
years,” said GOP state Sen.
Pete Knight, who qualified the
initiative for the ballot after the
Legislature rejected it.
“California is not ready for
marriage between a man and a
man.”

Knight’s gay son, David,-

campaigned against the mea-
sure.

No-on-22 Campaign manag-
er Mike Marshall noted that
22 supporters
stressed the simplicity of their
14-word text: “Only marriage
between a man and a woman is
valid and recognized in
California.”

Gay rights advocates have
their own 14-word formula:
“Califomia’s gay and lesbian
families deserve the same legal
protections as all married cou-
ples” and will push to enact it
through legislation, executive
order, or another ballot mea-
sure, Marshall said.

im: billboards

NEW YORK — Anti-gay
billboards on Staten Island
were removed after five days
after being condemned as hate-
ful and divisive.

The two billboards on Staten

Island quoted a Biblical pas-

sage: “Thou shall not lie with
mankind as with womankind:
It is abomination.” One bill-
board was replaced by a
Smokey the Bear ad and the
second was covered over in
white.

Billboard company PNE
Media of Union, N.J., said in a
statement it removed the ads
because they were “inadver-
tently posted.” The company
requires that its billboards con-

.tain the name of the advertiser;

the anti-gay ads did not.

The ads were placed by a
group called Keyword
Ministries, PNE Media said.

April 2000 Out in the Mountains 3

  /
he rest of our world... N1

Iiav GIN GIIIIIIGII

WILTON MANORS, Fla.
— Another American city has
voted gay.

An openly gay city council
member was elected mayor,
making Wilton Manors one of
only two cities in the nation
with a gay majority.

John Fiore was elected 57
percent to 43 percent over for-
mer Mayor Sandra Steen. The
city is north of Fort Lauderdale

Fiore, 46, has been on the
council since 1988 ‘and was the
vice mayor. The other gay
council members are Gary
Resnick and Craig Sheritt, who
was elected in January and will
took office last month.
fllllllle BIIIIIBSSIIIIIS

PORTLAND, Maine — A
Catholic priest has been sent to
church training for allegedly
launching a sexually explicit
Web site for gay priests.

The out-of-state program
was to help him decide if he
wants to remain in the priest-
hood, officials said.

Rev. John Harris from Our
Lady of the Rosary in Sabattus
is accused of being the master-
mind behind a Web site shut
down two months ago on
orders from Bishop Joseph
Gerry of the Portland Diocese.

Harris, 45, allegedly started
the Web site last summer. He
and two other Maine priests
also were accused of participat-
ing in an e-mail discussion
group that included sexually
explicit language.

German BIIIIIIIQV

BERLIN — Germany final-
ly is beginning to acknowledge
the Nazis’persecution of gays
in World War II.

The governing Social
Democratic and Greens parties
introduced a bill to acknowl-
edge Nazi persecution of gays
and review whether to annul
convictions’ under a Nazi-era
anti-gay law that remained on
the books in West Germany
until 1969.

“It’s long overdue,” said
Volker Beck, the Greens party
legal affairs spokesman. “It’s
really very shameful that
there’s only now a majority (in
parliament) for such an apolo-
gy and a rehabilitation.”

German gay rights activists
tentatively- welcomed the ini-
tiative, which came as lawmak-
ers worked on details of a $5
billion fund to compensate vic-
tims of Nazi forced- and slave-
labor programs.

“It’s an important and cor-
rect first step in the right direc-
tion,” said Eberhard Zastrau,
spokesman for the Lesbian and
Gay Association of Germany.

 

N0 M3 ailontions
JACKSON, Miss.
There’s been a setback for gays

and lesbians in Mississippi.

Lawmakers have moved to
make Mississippi the second
state in the nation with a law
banning homosexual couples
from adopting children.

The ban easily cleared the
House 107-8 Wednesday. The
bill now moves to the Senate.

Only Florida has a law for-
bidding gay adoptions.

Bill opponents and support-
ers said they were unaware of
adoptions in Mississippi
involving gay couples. They
said they were responding to
thousands of phone calls made
in the past week by supporters.

“It makes a statement for the
strong traditional family,” said
Republican Rep. Bobby
Howell, who had proposed the
prohibition this year for the
first time at the urging of fami-

ly groups.

Iimniliaassinent
IIII!

WASHINGTON The
Pentagon brass apparently have
just figured out that bigotry is
commonplace in their ranks.

The Pentagon inspector gen-
eral says. a study found anti-gay
speech and harassment can be
found throughout the U.S. mil-
itary, especially among young
enlisted troops.

Eighty-five percent of those
surveyed said they believed
anti-gay comments are tolerat-
ed on their base or aboard their
ship, and 37 percent said they
had personally witnessed or
been the target of harassment
such as hostile gestures, graffi-
ti or physical assault based on
perceived homosexuality.

The survey also found a
widespread belief among
troops that the Clinton admin-
istration’s “don’t ask, don’t
tell” policy on gays in the mili-
tary, which Vice President Al
Gore says he would eliminate
if he were elected president is
not working.

President Clinton himself
has said the policy, forged in
1993, is now “out of whack.”

Defense Secretary William
Cohen, responding to the sur-
vey results, announced he was
creating a committee of mili-
tary and civilian officials to
draft a plan for measures to
improve the policy’s imple-
mentation. Cohen put the onus
on military chiefs to fix the
problem.

“The report shows military
leaders must do more to make
it clear harassment based on
sexual orientation violates mil-
itary values,” Cohen said in a
memorandum to military chiefs
and service secretaries.V