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TOP6NEWS - October 4, 2004 1-NEWS: LA m amendment contested 2-NEWS: ACLU files Lofton appeal at Supreme Court 3-NEWS: MD judge refuses to grant legislators intervener status 4-NEWS: NY law gives dp visiting rights 5-OP-ED: J. Turley: Polygamy exposes our own hypocrisy 6-FEATURE: WashPost profiles on gay teens (3/4 of 4) ________________________________________________________ 1-NEWS: LA m amendment contested Suit seeks to nullify marriage measureConstitutional change discriminatory, it says Saturday, October 02, 2004 By Ed Anderson NO Times-Picayune Capital bureau http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1096698686295700.xml?nola BATON ROUGE -- A constitutional amendment defining marriage in Louisiana as a union between one man and one woman discriminates against "same-sex couples and all other unmarried couples," and should be nullified, according to a lawsuit filed Friday. John Rawls, a New Orleans lawyer, asked 19th Judicial District Court Judge William Morvant to "invalidate and disqualify" the constitutional change adopted Sept. 18 and to set aside the election results. The amendment was approved with the support of 78 percent of the voters. Morvant scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit for Tuesday at 10 a.m. The suit was filed on behalf of the Forum for Equality Political Action Committee, based in New Orleans, a gay-rights group that took the lead in earlier lawsuits to keep the measure off the ballot; the Louisiana Log Cabin Republicans, a GOP group that favors gay rights; and Laurence Best and Jeanne LeBlanc, both of New Orleans, who identify themselves as a gay man and a lesbian, who stand to lose rights and benefits if the measure becomes effective. ... ________________________________________________________ 2-NEWS: ACLU files Lofton appeal at Supreme Court ACLU seeks to challenge gay adoption ban WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court on Friday to hear its challenge to Florida's ban on adoptions by gays. In a 40-page filing, the ACLU argued the nation's only such blanket prohibition violates the Constitution's equal protection clause because it singles out one class of people, homosexuals. Children also are disadvantaged because they are deprived of caring parents, it states. The Supreme Court should "make it clear once and for all that states may not pass laws to express their disapproval of gay people and particularly may not do that on the backs of society's least fortunate," according to the brief. ... ________________________________________________________ 3-NEWS: MD judge refuses to grant legislators intervener status Lawmakers lose bids in suit over gay marriageby ANDREW SCHOTZ andrews@herald-mail.com http://www.aspentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041004/NEWS/110040011&rs=2 WASHINGTON COUNTY - A Baltimore judge has refused to let eight state legislators voluntarily become defendants in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Maryland's gay marriage ban. "They're trying to go through the courts. ... We feel that's a legislative issue," said Sen. Alex X. Mooney, R-Frederick/Washington. Mooney and Del. Christopher B. Shank - members of Washington County's delegation to the Maryland General Assembly - were among the eight. "We say the courts have no business determining these issues," Shank, R-Washington, said, criticizing a Massachusetts court decision that advocated gay marriage. In a one-sentence order on Sept. 17, Baltimore City Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock rejected the lawmakers' motion. "[T]he intervention would unduly delay and prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties," Murdock wrote. ... ________________________________________________________ 4-NEWS: NY law gives dp visiting rights New Law Gives Gay Partners Visiting Rights in HospitalsBy AL BAKER NY Times Published: October 2, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/02/nyregion/02gays.html ALBANY, Oct. 1 - Gov. George E. Pataki announced on Friday that he had signed a bill into law requiring that hospitals, nursing homes and other health care centers in New York State grant visiting rights to the domestic partners of patients who are unable to give permission on their own. As a practical matter, the law, which takes effect immediately, means that sexual orientation will play no role in decisions about visiting rights. Advocates of civil rights for gay men and lesbians immediately praised the move, saying that until now domestic partners of ill people could be turned away, at the whim of a hospital administrator, if hospital officials were unable to determine whom the patient wanted to have as a visitor. A proponent of the law, Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a statewide organization that lobbies for civil rights for gay and lesbian people in New York, said the move hewed closely to the governor's record of support on gay rights and further sets him apart from some Republicans nationally, including President Bush. ... ________________________________________________________ 5-OP-ED: J. Turley: Polygamy exposes our own hypocrisy Polygamy laws expose our own hypocrisy If the court agrees to take the case, it would be forced to confront a 126-year-old decision allowing states to criminalize polygamy that few would find credible today, even as they reject the practice. And it could be forced to address glaring contradictions created in recent decisions of constitutional law. For polygamists, it is simply a matter of unequal treatment under the law. ... Religion defines the issue However, in its 1878 opinion in Reynolds vs. United States, the court refused to recognize polygamy as a legitimate religious practice, dismissing it in racist and anti-Mormon terms as "almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and African people." In later decisions, the court declared polygamy to be "a blot on our civilization" and compared it to human sacrifice and "a return to barbarism." Most tellingly, the court found that the practice is "contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western World." Contrary to the court's statements, the practice of polygamy is actually one of the common threads between Christians, Jews and Muslims. ... While the justifications have changed over the years, the most common argument today in favor of a criminal ban is that underage girls have been coerced into polygamist marriages. There are indeed such cases. However, banning polygamy is no more a solution to child abuse than banning marriage would be a solution to spousal abuse. The country has laws to punish pedophiles and there is no religious exception to those laws. In Green's case, he was shown to have "married" a 13-year-old girl. If Green had relations with her, he is a pedophile and was properly prosecuted for a child sex crime — just as a person in a monogamous marriage would be prosecuted. The First Amendment was designed to protect the least popular and least powerful among us. When the high court struck down anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence vs. Texas, we ended decades of the use of criminal laws to persecute gays. However, this recent change was brought about in part by the greater acceptance of gay men and lesbians into society, including openly gay politicians and popular TV characters. Such a day of social acceptance will never come for polygamists. It is unlikely that any network is going to air The Polygamist Eye for the Monogamist Guy or add a polygamist twist to Everyone Loves Raymond. No matter. The rights of polygamists should not be based on popularity, but principle. I personally detest polygamy. Yet if we yield to our impulse and single out one hated minority, the First Amendment becomes little more than hype and we become little more than hypocrites. For my part, I would rather have a neighbor with different spouses than a country with different standards for its citizens. I know I can educate my three sons about the importance of monogamy, but hypocrisy can leave a more lasting impression. ________________________________________________________ 6-FEATURE: WashPost profiles on gay teens (3/4 of 4) Braving the Streets Her Way A voice rolls down the hall. "Felicia, is your room clean?" To be a young lesbian from the trash-blown and violent streets of Newark takes a measure of imagination. Felicia uses a soapy toothbrush to buff her Timberlands, diligently and delicately, still believing that a Friday night can hold some wonder. She contemplates the splendor of Jersey Gardens mall until she remembers the weekend crowds on a city bus, everyone packed like sardines and breathing each others' necks. "No seats," Felicia says, fastening her rainbow necklace. "I got a date, and I don't want her to stand." In courtrooms, statehouses and city halls across the country, a historic battle is being fought over the expansion of rights for gay people. Far below the revolution is Felicia Holt, whose life is as hidden from the national debate as her box of stashed love notes. She cares less about wedding bells than dodging stray bullets and storefront preachers who keep the word "abomination" on the tips of their tongues, reserved for the likes of this high school senior now pulling the brim of her hat low over one eye. Newark. Brick City. Twenty-eight percent living in poverty, 54 percent African American, 30 percent Hispanic, Newark is just a $1.50 PATH train ride from Manhattan, but Felicia hardly ever crosses the river. Her world is Newark and she knows every inch of it, every shortcut through every vacant field. The Pabst brewery has been boarded up since her childhood, but the giant bottle on the roof is still the neighborhood North Star. Leafy suburbs have after-school gay organizations and parent support groups. Felicia's Newark has nothing. On Friday nights, a rattletrap teen dance hall called the African Globe is the one beacon in an otherwise empty landscape for gay teenagers. They descend by the hundreds, Felicia among them, waiting to get inside their dingy sanctuary. Felicia felt none of the windfall of victory many American gays experienced last year when the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized homosexual relations between adults, or when the Massachusetts high court allowed gays to marry in that state. Getting married was someone else's dream. Felicia was more worried about staying alive. ... ********************** Using Her Voice to Rise Above Felicia Holt and Valencia Bailey spring to their feet. After Sakia died, Valencia filled page after page of a spiral notebook, penning an epic rap poem about her best friend, who bled to death in her arms. Now in this overheated auditorium on a winter's night, her poem of gay friendship and loss becomes the 2004 class anthem about the precariousness of teenage life in Newark, where four West Side students died of gunfire in a year. Taking the microphone, Valencia lets the words fly from her mouth. Kia, why did you have to go "Sing it, V." The fact that two lesbians in boxers are crowned as the moment's truth tellers matters little to the crowd. Grief has equalized them all. The auditorium goes atomic. But as the 2004 season approaches, Valencia is still haunted by Sakia's death. Seven months later, the bloody clothes she wore that night still hang in her closet. ... |
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