Gay USA News & Reports 2005 Jan-Dec

5
Gay and not so proud–Being gay in USA is still seen as a mark of shame; for conservative gays, it’s a source of hypocrisy as well

by Bradley Miller
Canadians may be split on the issue of gay marriage. But in other respects, this is a tolerant country. The era when gay men and women felt ashamed about their sexual orientation is fading quickly. The same, sadly, is not true in the United States. As a trio of cases in that country shows, being gay is still seen as a mark of shame. And for those gays who happen to also be conservative, it is a source of hypocrisy as well. Let’s start in Spokane, Wash., where the city’s 54-year-old Republican Mayor was recently caught in a gay online chat room trying to pick up a 17-year-old boy with promises of sports memorabilia and a city hall internship.

Making matters more inconvenient for Mayor James E. West is his legislative record: During his tenure as Republican majority leader in the Washington senate, he attacked every gay-rights measure he could. In the 1980s, he even attempted to bar gays from working in schools. True to form, when the Spokane city council recently tried to extend some basic benefits to domestic partners, he threatened a mayoral veto. Likewise, consider the recent "Gannongate" affair in Washington, D.C. Until last winter, Jeff Gannon was a reporter for the far-right Talonnews.com, notorious for lobbing embarrassingly soft questions at hard-line Republicans, and denouncing Democrats in all the usual ways. He’s also written about homosexual issues, leavening his pieces with sneering references to the "gay agenda" and "practising homosexuals."

But not long ago, Gannon was outed as a gay escort and the owner of the Web site hotmilitarystuds.com. His online profile described him as a "hardcore top"; pictures accompanied. Overnight, his conservative benefactors disappeared and Talonnews, now defunct, took his stories off-line. Until their closeted personal lives became public, these two men posed as loyal right-wing soldiers in America’s culture war. But even when they had nothing to hide, a culturally learned tinge of self-loathing shone through. West, for one, told his chat-mate that he doesn’t like "the massive political agenda" of most gays. Likewise, in this month’s Vanity Fair, Jeff Gannon tries to explain why the gay rights movement has attacked him so energetically: "People like me are a threat to them because there are things that are more important to me than sexual issues … That’s their whole world. It isn’t my whole world."

Fine. The dens of drugs and sex that pepper most urban gay villages are off-putting for many people, gay and straight alike. But it’s a spurious cop-out to pretend that this is all there is to the "gay agenda." Indeed, the most important "sexual issues" for most gays right now are questions of basic family values: marriage, benefits, adoption rights, hate crimes, anti-discrimination laws. In most of the United States, the battles in these areas are still pending. In some areas, what progress has been made is now being reversed in state legislatures, town councils and school boards — thanks in no small part to the political agitation of the likes of these two hypocrites.

Even worse is Arthur J. Finkelstein. He’s one of America’s best political tacticians and the brains behind many of the most outspoken opponents of gay rights.

Finkelstein has worked for a parade of fire-breathing social conservatives, including former senator Jesse Helms. In these circles, Helms’ assertions that gays are "disgusting people" who lead "immoral lives" are commonplace. For the Helms crowd, naturally, same-sex marriage is anathema. But not, apparently, for Finkelstein. A few weeks ago, he married his male partner of 40 years in a civil ceremony in Massachusetts, where the couple lives with their two adopted children. Safe in a blue state, Finkelstein has been able to buy his family some security from the hateful ripples of the politicians he helps elect.

by Ginia Bellafante
On a spring morning not long ago, Lura Stiller sat in her stocking feet in a sunny cottage in Cambridge, Mass., helping Cary Friedman and his partner, Rick Wellisch, calm their daughter, a 3-month-old in a pink T-shirt.

Ms. Stiller, 34, a homemaker from the Dallas suburbs, likes to say that the number of gay people in her acquaintance before she met Dr. Friedman, a psychiatrist, and Dr. Wellisch, an internist, amounted to zero. "Everything I knew about gay people I knew from TV, which meant that everything I knew about gay people I learned from ‘Will and Grace’ and ‘The L Word,’ " she said. In December, Ms. Stiller gave birth to the baby, named Samantha, for Dr. Friedman and Dr. Wellisch, conceived with a donor egg and the sperm from one of the partners. (They chose not to know which.) In her decision to work with them Ms. Stiller is part of a small but growing movement of surrogate mothers choosing gay couples over traditional families.

As legislatures debate giving gay couples the right to marry – 14 states have amended their constitutions to prevent it – hundreds of couples are finding ways to create families with or without marriage through surrogates like Ms. Stiller, who are willing to help them have children genetically linked to them and to bypass the often difficult legal challenges gay men face in adoption. The exact number of surrogates who have worked with gay couples is unknown, but close to half of the 60 or so agencies and law firms around the country that broker arrangements between surrogate mothers and prospective parents work with gay couples or are seeking to, through advertising.

Within the close-knit world of professional childbearers, many of whom share their joys and disillusionments online and in support groups, gay couples have developed a reputation as especially grateful clients, willing to meet a surrogate’s often intense demands for emotional connection, though the relationships can give rise to other complications within the surrogate’s family and community. Many surrogates who choose to work for gay couples say they feel ill equipped or reluctant to deal with the sense of hopelessness and failure expressed by married women and men who have struggled unsuccessfully for years to bear children. Still others are drawn to men as clients because they fear the possible resentments and jealousies in working so closely with other women.

Surrogates, who are paid about $20,000 above and beyond medical expenses to carry a child, are responsible for approximately 1,000 births a year, according to the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy, a nonprofit group in Gurnee, Ill., that records births brokered through agencies and privately over the Internet.

The many surrogates who choose not to work with gay couples frequently cite a spouse’s disapproval or fears that their own children might be stigmatized by classmates and neighbors. In some instances surrogacy brokers bow to their own reservations. Ann Coleman, an adoption and surrogacy lawyer in Greenville, S.C., said she would not pair women with gay couples. Though she once represented a lesbian couple in a custody suit against their former husbands, Ms. Coleman said she believed gay couples should pursue children through adoption, not surrogacy. "I don’t know that I’d go to the extreme to help them do this," she added.

In the last 13 years, Ms. Stiller has had five children: one with her first husband, two with her current husband and two more as a surrogate. Her first excursion into the world of surrogacy, for a Florida husband and wife, left her feeling unappreciated and depleted, she said. Though the couple visited her in her 18th week of pregnancy and brought gifts for her children, Ms. Stiller sought a deeper relationship with the intended mother, a 40-year-old doctor.

"She would call me as if I were working on a project," Ms. Stiller said. "She wouldn’t say: ‘Hi, how are you feeling? Are you enjoying the weather?’ Nothing. There was never any chitchat." In her 37th week, Ms. Stiller experienced early contractions and called the woman, who drove to Texas right away, but Ms. Stiller remained displeased with her level of engagement.

" She was here for two and half weeks, and she never made an opportunity to share in my family," Ms. Stiller said. "It was very important for me to have my children see that we were helping to create a family, that Mommy wasn’t giving away a brother or a sister." A friend in the surrogate world suggested she find a gay couple through the agency Circle Surrogacy. John Weltman, a Boston lawyer, had a challenging time finding women to carry children for gay men when he founded Circle Surrogacy a decade ago. Today, he said, 80 percent of the surrogate mothers who come to him say they would be willing to work with gay couples, and half prefer to work with gay couples.

In Los Angeles, Growing Generations, a company formed to help gay couples become parents through egg donation and surrogacy, is responsible for over 300 births, increasing from four births in 1998 to 108 within the last 17 months. Dawn Buras, a Pennsylvania mother of four, has been to a fertility clinic in Los Angeles three times to receive embryonic transplants for a male couple in Milton, Mass. On each occasion the men accompanied her to the West Coast. They took adjacent hotel rooms, dined out and visited the set of "Desperate Housewives." The pregnancy attempts failed, but still the men try, refusing to work with anyone else.

And Ms. Buras remains committed, and plans to return for another attempt in June, despite the limitations their efforts have placed on her intimate life. According to her contract, Ms. Buras cannot have sex with her husband from one month before the transfer to one month after. Though her husband has been very supportive, she explained, "I can’t say that it doesn’t bother him, because it does."

Nearly all agencies require that surrogates already have children of their own and that they and their husbands undergo medical and psychological screening to determine that they can handle the strains surrogacy inevitably levies on families. When Ms. Stiller sent her 13-year-old son to school with a strip of pictures of Samantha and her two fathers in his knapsack, the boy tucked the pictures of the two men away, worrying that he or the situation itself would be made fun of.

Dr. Hilary Hanafin, the chief psychologist at the Center for Surrogate Parenting in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino, the country’s largest surrogacy agency, said many surrogates with teenage children shy away from working with gay couples for such reasons. "The mother does not want to show up for a middle-school track meet and say, ‘I’m pregnant for a gay couple,’ " Dr. Hanafin said.

And sometimes relatives cannot withhold their judgments. "I had one surrogate whose mother-in-law disowned her," said Amy Zaslow, a consultant in Acton, Mass., to surrogates and prospective parents. "She did not walk into the house through the entire pregnancy." At Christmas, Ms. Zaslow said, the woman’s children went to their grandmother’s house, and she was not invited along. Most surrogates today, for heterosexual or gay couples, work as gestational carriers, meaning they bring children to term but not with their own genetic material. (Couples availing themselves of surrogacy typically get eggs from banks where donors are identified by their height, weight, College Board and I.Q. scores.)

The typical surrogate, according to the Center for Surrogate Parenting, is a woman of 21 to 37, who has had two children and 13 years of formal education. In many cases, she is motivated by a desire to be pregnant, as well as by a desire for attention. Working with gay couples, psychologists say, minimizes the need for a certain kind of emotional vigilance that can displace the surrogate’s own needs from center stage. "Surrogate mothers who work with heterosexual couples need to be incredibly sensitive to the loss and trauma that the infertile woman has suffered," Dr. Hanafin said.

Some surrogates also say they find the sense of defiance in providing gay couples with children meaningful. " In all honesty, there’s a bit of a rebellious nature in me," acknowledged Shannon Klein, a mother of three in Cypress, Calif., who home-schools her children. "I know that there are people who wouldn’t approve of being a surrogate for gay parents, and that has made it more intriguing."

Ms. Klein has borne two children for two gay couples, and she is pregnant with twins for a third. " When she initially approached me with this, I said, ‘You want to do what?’ " commented Ms. Klein’s husband, Mark. "But we’ve developed friendships with these people, not fly-by-nights, but lifelong relationships with people we may never have met otherwise."

Ms. Stiller’s visit to Cambridge in March was her second. She made her first, as a surprise to the future fathers, when she was 35 weeks pregnant, to reciprocate for the flowers they sent and the visits they made, including one for her ultrasound test. They cared for her children in Texas while she recuperated from giving birth to Samantha before Christmas. Seeing the baby for the first time, she said, "was like seeing the baby of your best friend."

Dr. Friedman said, "We didn’t go into this saying, ‘We want an intense relationship,’ but I didn’t necessarily expect that we’d develop the bond that we have." They will have little competition for Ms. Stiller’s affections. She will be working with no other couples in the future. When her husband, Keith, returned home last month from Iraq, where he had been stationed for a year, he told her he did not want her to work as a surrogate again.

Albuquerque, New Mexico – The Navajo Nation’s tribal government voted Friday to override its president’s veto of a measure banning same-sex marriage on the nation’s largest Indian reservation. The Dine Marriage Act of 2005 defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. It also prohibits plural marriages as well as marriage between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, brothers and sisters and other close relatives. Dine is the Navajos’ name for themselves.

" In the traditional Navajo ways, gay marriage is a big no-no," said Kenneth Maryboy, a delegate from Montezuma Creek, Utah. "It all boils down to the circle of life. We were put on the earth to produce offspring." The Tribal Council vote was 62-14, with 12 delegates abstaining or absent, to override Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr.’s veto last month. " My feeling is that the reason they overrode the president’s veto is that they have a huge animosity toward the president," said Percy Anderson, a gay rights organizer who started a Web site and petition to lobby against the marriage act. Anderson, who previously held an elected office in the tribe’s Manuelito, N.M., chapter, said he believes the council is locked in a power struggle. "They want to show the president that they are the governing body," Anderson said.

Maryboy disagreed, saying his constituents overwhelming oppose gay marriage and generally disapprove of gay relationships. " My supporters told me to stay firmly against it, especially the ministers who join people in marriage," he said. A spokesman for Shirley said he will issue a statement override over the weekend. Delegate Larry Anderson of Fort Defiance, Ariz., author of the Dine Marriage Act, did not return numerous phone calls seeking comment. The Navajo Nation, which has more than 180,000 residents, spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Same-sex marriages are not allowed in any of those states.

June 10, 2005

8
Latinos played key role in California marriage defeat–Bill dies in close vote; co-sponsor abstains

by Eartha Melzer
After a close vote on a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in California, advocates on both sides of the issue are examining the role of Latino lawmakers and religion in dooming the measure. The Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Protection Act, AB 19, was sponsored by Assembly member Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and would have rewritten the marriage section of the California family code using gender neutral language and allowed licenses to be granted to same-sex couples.

The bill also specified that no churches or religious organizations would be required to perform any marriage, and acknowledged that the First Amendment protects religious _expression. The bill made it through committee and to a vote on the Assembly floor, where it failed to earn the 41 votes needed to pass, falling four votes short. There are 48 Democrats in the 80-member Assembly. Nine of them abstained or voted no on the bill. All of the Republicans voted against the bill.

" When the Latinos were pushing hard for immigrants’ rights for children, the radical right came in and pushed actions that eroded affirmative action for all," Burmudez said. "The radical right, who sells bigotry and racism, they are going to attack in an initiative process. · We are going to lose rights we shouldn’t be losing." Monica Taher monitors the Spanish language media in California for its portrayal of gays as a media coordinator for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

29 June 2005

9
California Supreme Court Upholds Domestic Partnership Law

Today, the California Supreme Court let stand the Court of Appeal’s April 4, 2005 decision upholding the validity of AB 205, the comprehensive domestic partnership law enacted by the California Legislature in 2003. The Court held that domestic partnership is not marriage, and that the voters did not intend to prohibit the legislature from extending legal protections to domestic partners when they enacted Proposition 22 in 2000, which prohibits California from recognizing marriages of same-sex couples from other states.

" This is a resounding victory for fairness and equality," said Kate Kendell, National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director. "Domestic partnership is not marriage, and the Court soundly rejected the tortured efforts of extreme right wing groups to distort the language of Proposition 22 to strike down validly enacted legislation protecting lesbian and gay people and their families. The voters in this state overwhelmingly support providing equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples. The notion that AB 205 violates the will of the people in this State is absurd, and the California Supreme Court rightly rejected it."

Since it went into effect on January 1, 2005, A.B. 205 has provided registered domestic partners in California with many basic protections and responsibilities including: community property, mutual responsibility for debt, parenting rights and obligations such as custody and support, and the ability to claim a partner’s body after death. The law does not allow for joint tax filing and certain other protections under state law, and does not provide access to over 1,000 federal protections that married couples enjoy.

" Today’s ruling is another victory for the tens of thousands of same-sex couples in California who now have the assurance their families will have the protections provided by this widely supported law," said Courtney Joslin, staff attorney for NCLR.

Tahlequah, Okla – A Cherokee Nation court has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the tribe from giving its legal blessing to a lesbian couple’s marriage. The Judicial Appeals Tribunal in its ruling yesterday said that tribe member and attorney Todd Hembree had no standing to sue and could not show that he suffered any harm by legal recognition of the same-sex marriage. Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds have not decided whether they will try again to file their tribal marriage certificate. Since the tribe is sovereign, Cherokee Nation marriage certificates are recognized just like Oklahoma marriage licenses. The couple, both of whom are members of the tribe, exchanged vows in Cherokee in May 2004 after the tribe gave them the certificate without protest.

11
Gay & Lesbian Fund gives $1 million matching grant for hurricane relief

September 2, 2005

September 05, 2005

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Gay parade goes on, despite hurricane Katrina

by Jay Root
New Orleans – A handful of die-hard revelers refused Sunday to let Katrina’s devastation kill their party spirit or snuff out a famous gay parade that normally draws thousands to New Orleans’ French Quarter. As military helicopters buzzed overhead, about two dozen holdout remnants of the annual Southern Decadence festival marched through the quarter, stopping at one of the only bars open, just barely – Johnny White’s Sports Bar & Grill. Dressed in drag, wearing plastic leis or sporting makeup, the participants said they were determined to fight back against overwhelming despair with a familiar celebration that always begins in front of a favorite Gay bar, the Golden Lantern.

The revelers found no ice or air conditioning once they got to the bar, where the cigarette supply had badly dwindled, but a drink of hard liquor was just what some of them needed. " Everyone’s drinking. We’re all happy," said Andy O’Brien, 23, a bare chested carpentar’s apprentice who has been getting by on canned goods, borrowed food from shuttered bars and help from friends and neighbors. The claim to fame at Johnny White’s is that bar has never closed. Volunteer bartender Joseph Bellomy, a regular patron who started on the job three days ago, said he had been in contact with the owner.

13
Governor will reject gay marriage legislation

by Bill Ainsworth
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced yesterday that he will veto a historic same-sex marriage bill passed by the Legislature, contending that the measure is unconstitutional. His action will put an end to the intense lobbying campaigns to sway him, but it will not stop the broader political and legal fighting over same-sex marriage. Schwarzenegger had been signaling for months that he would veto the measure, but yesterday his press secretary, Margita Thompson, issued a definitive statement saying he had rejected the bill. "Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto AB 849," she said.

In 2000, California voters approved Proposition 22, which limits marriage to a man and a woman. Thompson said the state cannot have a system where "the Legislature derails that vote." "The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action, which would be unconstitutional, but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state," she said. Thompson also noted the governor’s support for the state’s landmark gay rights laws, saying that he is proud that California provides the "most rigorous protections in the nation for domestic partners."

State Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, one of six openly lesbian and gay legislators, called the announcement a "big disappointment. We were hoping that the governor would support equal rights for gay and lesbian Californians," she said. The measure seeks to define marriage as between two persons rather than between a man and a woman. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said Schwarzenegger acted hastily. The move comes just a day after the Legislature became the first in the nation to pass a same-sex marriage bill. "It would be disrespectful to the millions of Californians who support this bill not to hear the arguments of its supporters," Leno said. "This is not just another bill."

Both sides had already begun lobbying campaigns to persuade the governor, including plans to inundate the governor’s office with petitions, postcards and telephone calls. Opponents of the bill rejoiced yesterday, just as backers had when it was passed the night before. "I’m thrilled that he chose to act sooner rather than later," said Karen Holgate, legislative director for the California Family Alliance. "Luckily, he didn’t hold anybody in suspense." Both supporters and opponents agree the battle is not over. "The issue doesn’t go away," Leno said. "Support will only increase. The more the public hears about same-sex marriage, the more the public supports it."

Over time, public support for same-sex marriage has grown, Leno said. A poll released last month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that likely voters are evenly divided on the issue. In the past, polls showed that a majority of California voters opposed gay marriage.

In Massachusetts, whose state high court mandated recognition of same-sex marriage, acceptance has increased, he said. "When people realize that the sky does not fall, civilization does not end, people say this is a nonissue," Leno said. Opponents are pushing two measures for the June ballot that would amend the state constitution to guarantee that marriage in California remains only between a man and a woman. One of the initiatives would also roll back some benefits granted by to same-sex couples registered as domestic partners.

Outside the Capitol yesterday, Dick Otterstad was gathering signatures for one of the initiatives and called the governor’s decision "awesome." But he said he was going to continue collecting signatures because more permanent action is needed. "We’re saying for the long run what we really need to do is put a constitutional amendment for people to vote on and put this thing in stone," he said. "It would end the marriage wars."

But yesterday, he vetoed a bill to amend the Code of Fair Campaign Practices to prohibit any negative campaign appeals based on sexual orientation. Voluntarily, candidates often sign the code. Assemblyman Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, who voted against the same-sex marriage bill, said the veto will help the issue fade from public view. "It will give people a chance to regroup and see if they can find a way to come together," he said. State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor next year, said Schwarzenegger missed a historic opportunity. "Signing this bill would have moved California forward on the right side of history," he said in a statement.

Leno has relentlessly pursued the same-sex marriage issue over the past three years. He contends that his measure does not conflict with Proposition 22, which declares "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." His bill wouldn’t change the initiative, but amend a law passed by the Legislature in 1978 that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Leno argues that Proposition 22 should be narrowly interpreted, meaning that it only bans California from recognizing same-sex marriages from out of state, but not from allowing them within the state. Opponents say Proposition 22 applies to all marriages.

14
U.S.A. Mr. Gay Captures Title Of First Ever Mr. Gay 2006 International Title
Austria and Germany Snag 1 st and 2 nd Runner-Up Positions

The Competition, which took place at the Riviera Resort in Palm Springs, California, Columbus Day Weekend – October 7-9, 2005 included eleven additional contestants from cities such as, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Palm Springs, and national representatives from the Netherlands, Norway, Lappland, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovenia. Austria’s Aaron Michael Jackson was the first runner up and Germany’s Suat Bahceci landed in the second runner up slot. The title for Mr. Congeniality, voted on by his fellow contestants, was awarded to Palm Springs resident Robert (Bobby) Ficco Jr., leading Mayor Ron Oden (also a competition judge)to comment, “How gratifying to see a Palm Springs resident recognized for what the city prides itself on, a friendly nurturing community to all the world’s visitors.”

November 1, 2005

15
Homosexual Activist Professor at New Jersey Catholic College Demoted

In his letter, Mott accused the Church of “scapegoating” homosexuals for what he called the “pedophile scandal” of priests sexually molesting young men and boys. The day after the letter appeared, Molly Smith, the school’s dean, asked Mott to step down from his position as associate dean saying he had confused his stance with the school’s. Mott has complained that the university is quashing debate. He said to the press, “A university ought to be a sanctuary for the expression of ideas, diverse ideas, contrary ideas.”

The University, however, said that the problem was not in Mott expressing his private views on homosexuality and Church teaching, but that he had associated his views with those of the University. “Clearly, it is inappropriate to speak against the Catholic Church or its policies as if representing Seton Hall University,” University spokesman Tom White said. “If a university employee does this as Joe Q. Public, it’s a different matter altogether.”

In his letter to the Star Ledger, Mott wrote, "Once again the Catholic hierarchy attacks gay men as a scapegoat for what is truly unacceptable

The Catholic hierarchy, however, cannot ignore the report of an investigation into the sex abuse scandals that showed over 80% of the victims were young men and boys who had been attacked by priests with strong homosexual tendencies. Though Mott worked at Seton Hall for seven years, he was in open opposition to its teachings. “The Roman Catholic Church is prima facie homophobic,” he told the press. “The Roman Catholic Church considers me to be inherently disordered. I don’t know how much more homophobic one can be.”