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TOP6NEWS - October 19, 2004 1-NEWS: MD legislators file appeal on motion to intervene 2-NEWS: NY judge refuses to block contractor's law 3-NEWS: SSM playing quiet role in MA politics 4-NEWS: Kerry's plan for gay America 5-OP-ED: Marriage can't be defined by an exception 6-FEATURE: Man/Woman stretches gender, but is like everyone else ________________________________________________________ 1-NEWS: MD legislators file appeal on motion to intervene Officials to fight ACLU lawsuit "We have asked to be permitted to intervene so that we might be able to put out a serious and truthful defense of Maryland's marriage statute," said Delegate Donald H. Dwyer Jr., Anne Arundel County Republican. The lawmakers — seven Republicans and one Democrat — were rebuffed last month by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdoch, who ruled that the lawmakers could not join the defendants in the ACLU lawsuit. The defendants are Dorchester, Prince George's, St. Mary's and Washington counties and the city of Baltimore. Mr. Dwyer said a lawyer representing him and the other lawmakers sent a letter of intent to appeal the decision in time for the court's Friday deadline. "I — as a member of the legislature, along with the other members — have an obligation to do everything within [my] power to protect and defend the sanctity of marriage in our state," Mr. Dwyer said. "This is certainly another step in the process that I believe we must follow." ... ________________________________________________________ 2-NEWS: NY judge refuses to block contractor's law Domestic partner bill boostNY Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/243624p-208841c.html Mayor Bloomberg lost a legal round yesterday when a judge refused to block a law requiring contractors doing business with the city to provide equal benefits to domestic partners. The Equal Benefits Law - approved by the City Council over Bloomberg's veto - would require any contractor doing $100,000 or more in business with the city to provide health and other benefits to gay and straight couples. In a last-ditch legal effort, Bloomberg asked for a temporary restraining order to stop the law's implementation. But Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Faviola Soto refused to grant the order yesterday and ordered both sides back to court on Nov. 8. ... ________________________________________________________ 3-NEWS: SSM playing quiet role in MA politics Gay marriage plays quiet role in Mass.By Jennifer Peter, Associated Press Writer | October 19, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/10/19/gay_marriage_plays_quiet_role_in_elections/ BOSTON -- The November elections in Massachusetts were supposed to be Phase Two in the state's epic gay-rights battle, a time for political payback and citizen retaliation for votes cast during this year's debate on gay marriage But the divisive issue, which dominated Statehouse discourse after the state's high court legalized gay marriage a year ago, is not playing a highly visible role in the legislative elections that could ultimately determine the fate of same-sex weddings in Massachusetts. "I've been knocking on thousands of doors and I'm not asked about this issue very frequently," said Democrat Angus McQuilken, a gay-rights supporter engaged in a rematch with Republican Sen. Scott Brown, a gay marriage opponent. Candidates on both sides say most voters are placing other issues higher on their priority list, such as taxes and the economy. Political analysts argue that gay marriage has slipped from the spotlight because most candidates -- regardless of their views -- realize it is simply not a winning issue in a deeply divided state. "I think that it's a two-edged sword and candidates can't touch it without getting sliced by one side of the blade," said Jeffrey Berry, political science professor at Tufts University. "Whatever side they're on, there are voters who are passionately opposed to that view." ... Gay rights advocates need to gain at least five more supporters in the Legislature to prevent the measure from going to voters. Although gay marriage advocates and foes are investing money in candidates who support their viewpoint, the action is mainly behind the scenes. The ho-hum response is in stark contrast to the Vermont elections that came after that state legalized civil unions in 2000. Seventeen Vermont lawmakers who supported civil union rights for gay couples were ousted during the fall elections. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, an ardent and outspoken opponent of gay marriage during this year's debate, has not raised gay rights as part of his well-financed effort to install more GOP lawmakers in the heavily Democratic Legislature. "We don't hear a whole lot of people talking about gay marriage one way or another," said Tim O'Brien, executive director of the state Republican Party. "Reform, tax increases -- that's what people are really caring about." ... "The weddings have gone on and there hasn't been a major catastrophe. The sky hasn't fallen," said Tom Gerace, co-founder of SupportEquality.org, a Web site that funnels contributions to pro-gay candidates involved in the toughest races. But Kris Mineau, head of the anti-gay marriage Massachusetts Family Institute, says the issue isn't dead. Mineau's organization has produced a voter guide on social issues, which is being distributed primarily in churches. The group is also trying to register voters in critical districts. The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign has pumped $600,000 into MassEquality.org to help with its grass-roots efforts in campaigns where pro-gay rights candidates are in jeopardy, said Cheryl Jacques, who left the Massachusetts Legislature earlier this year to head the group. ________________________________________________________ 4-NEWS: Kerry's plan for gay America Kerry’s plan for gay AmericaAn estimated 4 million gay and lesbian voters could determine the outcome of perhaps the closest presidential race in U.S. history. In an exclusive interview, John Kerry makes his case for the gay vote By Chad Graham “I have a 35-year lifetime record of fighting for equality,” says Kerry, who is endorsed by such national gay advocacy groups as the Human Rights Campaign. “The difference between me and George Bush will be the difference to gay and lesbian couples and individuals across this country—whether rights are afforded them or whether or not they are discriminated against.” Since 1992, every Democratic nominee for president has given The Advocate an interview, but Kerry is the only one with the mettle to do it this close to an election. Bill Clinton and Al Gore spoke with the magazine months before facing voters on Election Day. Kerry speaks to us in an issue that will reach readers mere days before November 2. ... The Advocate: At the moment, gay Americans are being used by the Republican Party to fire up their base and get votes. There is a definite climate of political gay bashing in this country. When you are president, how will this climate change? Well, I’ve always fought against [bashing gays for political gain]. I was the first sponsor back in 1985 of civil rights legislation. I voted against [the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act] precisely because it was gay bashing on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and I said so. I stood up and fought against that kind of exploitation. The president has an enormous bully-pulpit power to help Americans focus on things that are important and to put things in their proper perspective. As president I will never be exploiting the Constitution for political purposes. I’m not going to be driving a wedge between people. I’m going to be trying to pass ENDA. I’m going to be trying to pass hate-crimes legislation, and I’m for partnership rights and benefits and so forth. We’re going to have a very different debate in this country. We’re going to be having a debate about equality and fairness, a debate about what is right and how we respect each other. Why should gay and lesbian Americans vote for you, since you don’t support same-sex marriage? ... Would you ever change your mind regarding same-sex marriage? ________________________________________________________ 5-OP-ED: Marriage can't be defined by an exception Marriage can't be redefined by exception It was simply too odd to be coincidence. "I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as," said Kerry. He caught immediate flak, especially from Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife. Equally interesting, however, was Kerry's elaboration. "I think if you talk to anybody, [homosexuality is] not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it. "And I've met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them. I think we have to respect that." Discussion of the family and its interplay with any social issue elicits the oddest reactions from the liberal intelligentsia. Marriage is, by their description, a repressive institution that traps ill-suited and often abusive and abused adults in prolonged nightmares. It is, in Kerry's scenario, a place where homosexuals live "a sort of convention" until they finally "sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were." Undoubtedly, those individuals exist. So, too, do abusive husbands or wives. So, too, do all other pathologies and human failings. Yet, the oddity, the peculiarity, the exception, becomes the first image of marriage projected by those who wish to alter the institution. It would never occur to me to answer a question about whether homosexuality is a choice by framing it as a "trapped in marriage" dilemma. And yet, for the left, questions about why women don't marry before bringing children into the world, or why lower-class men inseminate and disappear, virtually never showing up as relevant in any story concerning the life or death of their children, draw a response that they were "abusive" or deadbeats. What follows then is the argument that "it takes a village" to raise children. And, consequently, "family" becomes any assortment of well-intentioned adults clustered as they choose in the lives of children. With this alternative seen by the left as equally satisfactory to the traditional two-parent family — especially because the father's cheating and abusive and the mother's a lesbian trapped in a sort of convention — the definition of marriage thus becomes pliable. Ultimately, this debate about marriage really does need to move from the oddity, from homosexuals trapped in marriage, to what is best for children. Without question, what's best for children is a mother and father under the same roof. Exceptions exist, of course. But those exceptions do not define the institution, nor do they obligate equal standing for the alternative choices of adults. ... In mentioning Cheney's daughter, Kerry and Edwards obviously wished to draw attention to perceived differences. But there is no difference in Cheney's position and Bush's. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their homes that does not harm third persons is nobody else's business. That is not the same, however, as redefining marriage. • Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. ________________________________________________________ 6-FEATURE: Man/Woman stretches gender, but is like everyone else Don't give him any labels -- he's just LarryMarianne Costantinou SF Chronicle Tuesday, October 19, 2004 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/19/DDGU09BQ4K1.DTL He's an odd man. Or woman. Take your pick. He has an Adam's apple and a bosom. Both are real. So, too, is the male anatomy he says is tucked under his panty hose. No, he answers patiently, he's not a transsexual. OK, but he's definitely gay, right? Wrong. Definitely not. He's never been with a man. Though, he sometimes tells strangers that he's gay, just to give them a handy label and stop their questions. Well, with his long black ponytail tied in a hot pink scrunchy, black pumps and flower embroidered sweater -- not to mention his size 38B breasts, a gift from modern medicine -- he certainly can't be straight. So, what do we call him? "Larry,'' he says. By his own account, Larry Gladfelder is androgynous. He considers himself feminine and masculine: "Let's go 50-50,'' he says. Even in the Bay Area, where sexual identity is anything goes, Gladfelder says he is gawked at. Perhaps it's his age. At 48, he's too old to be yet another kid with an outlandish look. He is tall and slender, with blue eyes and chiseled features. He looks a bit like Ozzy Osbourne, but prettier. He wears only black from head to toe, from his long pitch-black hair to his size 10 women's shoes. In a dress he's a size 12, but he usually sticks to pants. He wears no makeup except for occasional light foundation and pale nail polish. He crosses his legs like a woman and takes small steps with the dignified air of a lady. But he does not hide that he's a man. He speaks in a normal male voice and otherwise acts like a normal guy. Except that he's not. With his sexuality such a visible part of his identity, one might expect Gladfelder to hang out in sex clubs or bars, or to be active in some sexual rights organization. He doesn't do any of those things. Rather, for the last 23 years, he can be found each and every night, seven nights a week, at Gaylord's, a neighborhood coffee shop in Oakland. Even with the young tattooed and pierced staff, it doesn't get more mainstream than Gaylord's. One of the few cafes open till midnight, it's on Piedmont Avenue, a popular street with mom and pop shops and a small-town feel. On any given night, it's filled with students, retirees, couples and cops. And sitting on the wooden bench out front is Gladfelder. ... He has a 15-year-old son who lives in Chico but whom he has not seen in two years, though he does send monthly child support. His son thinks he is strange, he says, and does not want Gladfelder in his life. His son lived with him and his "quasi-wife" of five years. That was his last long-term relationship with a straight woman. His home life now is a two-bedroom apartment that he rents around the corner from Gaylord's. It is sparsely decorated, a mix of Macy's and Victorian. In the garage is his 1980s Rolls Royce. He shares his home with his pet tarantula, a female he calls Spider, and "a pet human," a friend who crashed at his place some years ago and has never left. His three sisters and three stepsisters live in California, and he visits with them and their children often. "My sisters are pretty straight, compared to me," Gladfelder says. "They're all doing the suburban home and kids thing." He's happy for them. And he says he's happy for himself. He is often lonely, though Gaylord's takes some of the edge off. But he wouldn't want to be any other way, even if he could. "I'm fine with being different,'' he says. "I'm fine with who I am. Not a lot of people can say that."
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