Teen Testifies In O.C. Molestation Trial

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA - A teenager testifying in the molestation trial of a former aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said that moments before the pair had sex for the first time, the defendant acknowledged that he could get in trouble because the boy was so young.
The alleged victim, identified only as John Doe, also testified that he told Jeff Nielsen after their second sexual encounter that he wanted to find someone his own age but eventually agreed to meet a third and final time because Nielsen kept "begging" him for one more rendezvous.
The boy began testifying Monday afternoon and continued through Tuesday as Nielsen's defense attorney pursued an aggressive first hour of cross-examination.
The trial got underway last week in a Newport Beach courtroom, four years after one of Doe's Westminster classmates informed a teacher of the alleged relationship. That sparked the investigation that led prosecutors to charge the former aide with mol
Nielsen, 36, has denied the accusations. The case has attracted attention because of his connection to Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and other prominent Orange County Republicans who helped get him into USC law school in the mid-1990s.
Doe, now 18, was a 14-year-old high school freshman living in Westminster when he met Nielsen. His testimony was laced with "I don't remembers" during which he pursed his lips, squinted, shook his head and seemed uncertain of his answers.
On Tuesday jurors learned that Doe has a learning disability, which he said affects his comprehension of what he hears and reads. He also was clearly embarrassed, at times shifting back and forth in his seat, lowering his head and speaking so softly that the judge, only a few feet away, had to ask him to speak up.
Over his two days of testimony, Doe said he fully expected to have sex with Nielsen on March 31, 2003, the first time the two met in person, because they had arranged the get-together through an Internet chat room for gay men interested in sexual encounters.
"That's what the website was for," he said.
On the way to Nielsen's condominium 30 miles away in Ladera Ranch, Doe said, he lied about his age, exaggerating it by a year. Doe testified that Nielsen also lied about his own age, saying he was 26 when he was really 32. Before having sex, Doe recalled, Nielsen told him that "we can get in trouble because of our ages."
The subject didn't come up again, the boy said, until he mentioned it after their second alleged encounter, April 2. Jurors were shown a magnified copy of an e-mail in which Doe appears to tell Nielsen that "we should stop doing this now" because "I need to find someone my own age."
Asked by Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess to explain the message, Doe responded: "He was older. I knew it was wrong."
It was that feeling, he said, that eventually led him to tell a classmate and friend, identified only as Holly, of the relationship. "I was upset with myself, and I didn't know who to go to," Doe said. The classmate later told authorities.
In his first hour of cross-examination late Tuesday, defense attorney Paul S. Meyer sought to highlight inconsistencies in Doe's testimony, particularly regarding the alleged third and final encounter between him and Nielsen, April 25.
from The Los Angeles Times

Air Force Officer Found Guilty Of Rape

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA - An Air Force officer accused of drugging and kidnapping servicemen he met in bars was found guilty Tuesday of raping four men and attempting to rape two others.
A nine-member military jury deliberated for about seven hours in Capt. Devery L. Taylor's court-martial. Taylor gave no reaction upon hearing the verdict.
Taylor, the former chief of patient administration at Eglin Regional Hospital, faces a maximum of life in prison. Sentencing was to begin Wednesday.
"I am pleased. I am emotional, but I am very, very pleased," said Maj. Kathleen Reder, a military prosecutor.
"These men can sit up a little straighter now; I am proud of them," she said of the six victims who testified.
Martin Regan, Taylor's civilian defense attorney, declined to comment before sentencing.
Military prosecutors described Taylor, 38, as a serial rapist who met men in bars, spiked their drinks with the "date-rape" drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, and kidnapped them.
Taylor was charged with two counts of attempted sodomy, four counts of forcible sodomy, two counts of kidnapping and one count of unlawful entry.
Taylor testified that he had consensual sex with five of the men and that the sixth, who is openly gay, raped him. Regan said the men lied to protect their military careers.
Four of the men were in the military when they met Taylor, and a fifth wanted to join the Navy and feared being identified as gay, Regan said.
Regan said Taylor's only crime was being gay in the military and violating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which bans people who are openly gay from serving in the armed forces.
from The Associated Press

NY Restaurant To Remove Exhibit Of Same-Sex Marriage Photos

A traveling exhibit of photographs meant to galvanize support for same-sex marriage seems to have come to a sudden stop at one Westchester County restaurant after its corporate office got word of it.
Since the exhibit of the photographs, including of gay and lesbian couples, opened at the Cosi Restaurant in New Rochelle on Monday, the eatery has received several complaints.
Brien Gately, a spokesman for the Cosi chain of restaurants, said the decision to remove the photographs came about because the display had not gone through the company's proper procedures for approving artwork.
'The comments we received were not the basis for the removal of the display,' Gately told the Journal News.
The Empire State Pride Agenda, an advocacy organization, was not convinced that the removal had nothing to do with the complaints. Josh Meltzer, a spokesman for the organization, said taking down the photographs was a 'knee-jerk' corporate response. The group said Tuesday they would rally in protest of the decision.
Advocates have been pushing for legalizing same-sex marriage and have used the traveling exhibit to get state politicians' attention.
The New Rochelle restaurant referred calls about the situation to its corporate headquarters.
from The Associated Press

Mark Wahlberg 'Creeped Out' By Brokeback Role

Mark Wahlberg is glad filmmaker Ang Lee passed over him when he cast Brokeback Mountain, because the Oscar nominee was "a little creeped out" at the prospect of having to play a gay cowboy.
The Departed star reveals he and pal Joaquin Phoenix were originally considered for the roles of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist in the 2005 film - but both felt uncomfortable about sex act scenes in a tent.
Wahlberg explains, "I met with Ang Lee on that movie, I read 15 pages of the script and got a little creeped out. It was very graphic, descriptive - the spitting on the hand, getting ready to do the thing.
"I told Ang Lee, 'I like you, you're a talented guy, if you want to talk about it more...' Thankfully, he didn't." The parts eventually went to Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger and, though Wahlberg feels it's a film he must see, he has yet to watch Brokeback Mountain.
He adds, "I didn't rush to see Brokeback, it's just not my deal... Obviously, it was done in taste - look how it was received."
from Press Relaese

Just One Look...#53

"Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita" Sets 14-Win Record at 2007 GAYVN Awards

SAN FRANCISCO - Capping an astonishing night at the Castro Theatre, "Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita" made GAYVN history tonight with wins in 14 categories, including Best Picture, at the annual ceremony.
Though it's not unusual for individual movies to be rich in nominations, it is extremely rare for a movie to garner double-digit wins. The previous record holder, Buckshot Productions' "BuckleRoos," won 11 awards in 2005.
"Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita" has the further distinction of winning an award in every category in which it was nominated.
In addition to Best Picture, "Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita" was awarded trophies for Best Actor (Michael Lucas), Art Direction, Best Director (Michael Lucas and Tony Dimarco), DVD Extras/Special Edition, Editing (Frank Tyler), Marketing Campaign, Music (Nekked), Non-Sex Performance (Samantha Samson), Packaging, Screenplay (Tony Dimarco), Supporting Actor (Spencer Quest), Threesome (Jason Ridge, Michael Lucas, Derrick Hanson) and Videography (Tony Dimarco).
In the wake of the Lucas Entertainment juggernaut came Hot House Video with four wins: "Black-n-Blue" captured the Best All-Sex and Best Leather awards; Ty Hudson and Shane Rollins garnered awards for Best Oral Scene in "Justice"; and Kent North's performance in "At Your Service" took the Best Solo Performance prize.
Two of the most prestigious awards are for Best Newcomer and Performer of the Year. Matt Cole, who was nominated in both categories, was named Best Newcomer, and Titan exclusive François Sagat was voted Performer of the Year.
Paul Barresi's powerful performance as a porn-lord in Falcon Studios' "The Velvet Mafia" was awarded Best Non-Sex Performance in the evenings only tied category. Falcon also picked up the Group Scene award for the final orgy in "Spokes 3."
Once again the Best Sex Comedy award went to a Jet Set Productions movie, this year's winner, "Going Under."
Lucas Kazan's "The School for Lovers" was named Best Foreign Release and picked up a second trophy -- Best Actor - Foreign Release -- thanks to Jean Franko's performance.
The Best Sex Scene -- Duo award went to Brad Patton and Brian Hansen for their work in Buckshot Productions' "Manly Heat: Quenched." Another COLT Studio Group title to win was "MinuteMan 28" in the Best Solo Video category.
Channel 1 Releasing's two awards were for "Bi Back Mountain" (Best Bisexual Video) and "Delinquents" (Best Renting Title of 2006). Both movies were from its All Worlds Video brand and both were directed by Doug Jeffries.
The year's Best Ethnic-Themed Video award went to "The Show 1-2," a co-production of Dark Alley Media and Pitbull Productions. Raging Stallion Studios' "Manhattan" won the Best Ethnic-Themed Video -- Latin trophy.
First-time winners included "Lebanon" (Best Pro-Am Release) from new company Collin O'Neal Productions; Dink Flamingo, whose "Rear Gunners 2 (Active Duty)" took the Best Amateur Release award; and BG East, a wrestling/ fetish company, which won the Best Specialty Release award for "X Fights UK XXX."
Other specialty category winners include Titan Media's "Folsom Filth," (Extreme) Bel Ami's "Out in Africa 2" (18-23), and Pantheon Productions' "Rough & Ready (Bears)."
The documentary from Wolfe, "Gay Sex in the '70s," won in the Alternative Release category, and Gorilla Factory Productions' of Peter Berlin classic "Nights in Black Leather" was voted Best Classic DVD.
One of the nights most noted awards was given to '60s/'70s gay icon Berlin as he was inducted into the GAYVN Hall of Fame. Porn pioneers Steven Toushin and Kathryn Reed, director/studio chief Chris Ward, and performers Chase Hunter and Ray Dragon were also inducted during the award festivities.
Awards-show host, comedienne Kathy Griffin, was also presented with a trophy naming her Honorary Gay of the year.
from Press Release

More On Ted Haggard

Even the Great Flood only lasted 40 days and 40 nights.
Yet here we are, 116 days and a really long winter later, still obsessed with Ted Haggard's obsessions.
This is what we have so far: Haggard is "completely heterosexual" after three weeks of therapy at an Arizona facility.
As if. Oh wait. Those three weeks actually were just "the launching point by which years of counsel and fruits of true repentance may be demonstrated.
"There should be no confusion that deliverance from habitual, life-controlling problems is a "journey' and not an "event,'" the Overseers in charge at New Life Church told the congregation last Sunday. "Ted will need years of accountability to demonstrate his victory over both actions and "tendencies."
Translation: You can't be "cured" in just three weeks of homosexuality, which is, according to the Overseers, sinful, habit-forming and a big problem. But you can try really, really hard not to be gay, and pray.
Years from now, we will still be checking up on Haggard and his sex life.
Also, remember that part of the letter Haggard wrote to his congregation right after he got canned, where he said, "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life"?
Well, it turns out that his time with male escort Mike Jones was just the tip of the iceberg. Sunday, the Overseers reported their months-long investigation into Haggard's sex life turned up everything from "sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships."
Translation: Pastor Ted was a busy, busy boy.
In related news:
• The Overseers announced they "found a few staff members struggling with unrelated sin issues."
• A few months back, another New Life Church pastor, Christopher Beard, was axed after admitting to some kind of sex with someone several years ago, before he was married.
• Mike Jones plans to sell the "Haggard-was-here" massage table, where it all supposedly happened, on eBay and donate the proceeds to Project Angel Heart, which delivers food to people suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Also, his tell-all book will be out this spring.
•—The geographic area of relocation for Ted and Gayle (and their children) has now widened. In addition to Missouri and Iowa, they are considering Minneapolis and the Phoenix area. Also, they will get $140,000 this year from the church.
How much more can we take? Well, if you ask the Overseers, we're all supposed to stay in this "Ark" for months — possibly even a full year and 10 days from the day the Haggard flood started.
Think this is a joke? Here is what they told the congregation last Sunday:
"When God judged the world in the time of Noah, Noah's family entered the Ark. It was not until five months had gone by the waters began to decrease. It was after seven and a half months the first sign of the tops of the mountains appeared. It was not until one year and 10 days had gone by that Noah and his family exited the Ark.
"In a similar way, we see the exposure of your pastor [Haggard] as the moment of judgment. Five months from that day will be Easter ... seven and a half months will be Father's Day ... one year and 10 days will be Nov. 14. Our encouragement to you ... is, "Stay in the Ark.'"
In addition to Easter and Father's Day — and St. Patrick's Day and Mother's Day and Purim and Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and Labor Day and the entire month of Ramadan and Yom Kippur and Halloween — by Nov. 14 we will have navigated through elections for City Council, mayor and local school boards.
Yet, through it all, the Overseers expect us to stay on this ship, getting fuzzy updates about Haggard's sexual orientation, ostensibly while the animals get smellier and smellier, until the waters finally recede far enough and we can finally disembark?
It's enough to make anyone want to relocate.
from The Independent / Cara DeGette

A Long Overdo Penis Correction

Waaay back in December of 2005 I posted an article about two students who upset everyone when they built a snow penis. Yesterday Mitch, one of the students set me an e-mail saying that the photo I used was not his penis. He sent me some photos that he had taken so I am posting the correct penis today.
Mitch says "And trust me, it's art!"
Well Mitch I have to agree! Thanks for the photos.
Garibaldi






















Is It Art Or Is It Snow Porn?

December 20, 2005
It was the perfect advertisement for Viagra.
And because the 1.5-metre-high penis sculptured from snow was made by second-year McMaster University engineering students, it was stabilized to stand up to kicks and attempts to push it over.
It stood over the weekend until it was knocked down Tuesday by a work crew.
But for some residents, the snow penis was highly offensive and another flashpoint in the ongoing problems of student parties, pranks and antics that plague the neighbourhoods around McMaster.
Retired Mohawk College professor Bill Goruk says the sculpture may have offended families with young children in the area.
He and other residents are tired of students who live off-campus and party in the area.
"How often do we need to be woken up at all hours to hooting and hollering, bottles being broken in the street and students puking on lawns?" Goruk asked.
The students, identified as Mitch and Kevin, said they created the sculpture to relieve the stress of exams.
The sculpture may have upset some people, but most laughed and chuckled at it or took pictures, Kevin said.
"We make snowmen, snow angels, snow forts, and a sculpture that is phallic shouldn't offend someone," Mitch said in an e-mail. "It's there for people to laugh at and be reminded that winter is a time to have fun and be creative."
from AZ Central

IBM Heirs Challenge Lesbian Adoption

PORTLAND, MAINE - In their 14-year relationship, Patricia Spado and Olive Watson spent only five nights apart. They lived in New York, spent summers in Maine, and shared the more practical pieces of a life together - a home, a joint bank account.
But in a time long before civil unions or gay marriage, Watson wanted to ensure that her partner would be taken care of when she was no longer there. So, at a small courthouse in coastal Maine, she adopted Spado.
Fifteen years later, the adoption is being challenged in courts in Connecticut and Maine as Olive Watson's family parcels out the family fortune - and contests their newfound heir.
The case, according to gay activists, is rare and offers an example of how far same-sex couples have gone to attain financial and inheritance protections that married couples take for granted.
"It shows what people are driven to when they don't have access to marriage and the conventional way of forming a family," said Mary Bonauto, an attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based group that won the legal battle that introduced gay marriage to Massachusetts.
At stake is a share in multimillion-dollar trust funds that Olive Watson's father, Thomas Watson, who built International Business Machines into today's IBM computer colossus, set up for his grandchildren. He died in 1993, unaware of the adoption. His wife, who died in 2004, apparently learned of it from her daughter.
With the deaths of both parents, the trusts' beneficiaries - grandchildren, at least 18 of them - became eligible for cash payouts at age 35. But when Spado's lawyer notified the trusts that she was a potential beneficiary as a legal granddaughter, the family challenged the claim in probate court in Greenwich, Conn., where Thomas Watson lived at the time of his death.
Spado and Olive Watson aren't together anymore. They separated in 1992, and while Spado received about $500,000 from Watson, there is nothing in court records to show any arrangement beyond that.
A judge ruled that Thomas Watson did not recognize Spado as his granddaughter and did not intend for her to benefit from the trusts. "It is reasonable to conclude that Watson intended to benefit only those grandchildren who had a typical parent/child relationship with his children," Judge David Hopper wrote.
The size of the estate has not been estimated in court documents, and principals in the case did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Spado and Watson also did not respond to questions about the case.
Spado has appealed. In the meantime, the family trusts are trying to have her adoption annulled in Maine, where they would have to prove deception or fraud.
Briefs filed with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which heard an appeal on a technicality, indicate that the judge who approved the adoption never knew that Olive Watson and Spado had a sexual relationship.
New York, where the couple had been living at the time, barred the adoption of a homosexual partner, but Maine had no such restriction. Nor did it have a provision like Connecticut's that prohibits a person from adopting someone older - Spado, 44 at the time, was a year older than her adoptive mother.
However, the Maine adoption law required that the adoptee had to be living in the state, and the two sides are at odds on whether spending part of each summer vacation on Maine's North Haven island met that requirement.
The couple met in 1978 while Spado was working in Los Angeles. Watson rented a residence in California in order to be with her lover, who later abandoned her career and moved with Watson to New York.
They held joint bank accounts, owned real estate together and exchanged durable powers of attorney and health care proxies. Watson amended her will to name Spado as sole beneficiary.
After their breakup, Watson paid Spado the $500,000 settlement in exchange for relinquishing her claim to certain real estate. But the settlement was apparently not intended to terminate Spade's right to her inheritance as a granddaughter.
According to a court brief filed by Spado in Maine, a letter signed by Watson shortly after the breakup confirms "our agreement that I have not and that I shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my adoption of you."
from The Associated Press

UCLA Gets $1 Million To Study Legal Topics Involving Gay Couples

LOS ANGELES - A gay couple who hope to marry one day has donated more than $1 million to the University of California, Los Angeles, to fund research on legal topics involving same-sex relationships.
The gift announced Friday from John McDonald and Rob Wright will support what is described as the nation's first endowed academic chair in sexual orientation law.
The two say they want to promote objective research, but they also hope to aid the campaign for gay marriage and other gay rights issues.
"This is going to support legal scholarship, legal research and education that covers a whole area so fundamental to creating change," said McDonald, 74, a former chief executive of a medical and hospital management firm.
McDonald and Wright, 58, who worked in advertising and real estate, have lived together for almost 25 years and are registered as domestic partners. The two live in West Hollywood and Colorado.
Some universities have chairs in gay and gender studies, but they're usually in the humanities and social sciences and not in a law school.
A member of UCLA's law faculty is expected to be picked for the chair in three to six months.
from The Mercury News

Just One Look... #52

Send your submissions for
Just One Look...
garibaldigay@gmail.com

Sa Grace Award d' Excellence

The winners for The 5th Annual Sa Grace Award d' Excellence 2007 have been anounced.
GaribaldiGay has won in the catagory for Best Gay Information Website.
Thanks to GC Spotlight Magazine and to all of you out there that voted for this site.
The following is the complete list of winners.

International Award Of Merit

Argentine Men

Come Into My World

Sa Grace Award d'Excellence
(Best blog in the blogosphere)

Beautiful

Best Adult Gay Website / Tulipboys

Best Entertainer Blog / Ari Gold

Best Online Gay Print Magazine / Frontiers

Best Gay Zine / CroatianQueerWorld

Best Gay Visual Artist / GayLab

Best Gay Information Website / GaribaldiGay

Best Nightclub Discotheque Online / GayParty

Best Male Sports Eyecandy Blog / TheRugbyDays

Best Bodybuilders / BodybuildersINC

Best Cruising Website / GayRomeo

Best Adult Magazine Online / TugMagazine

Best Fetish Website / RECON

Best Gay Forum / Manopolis

Best Place To Shop / JockStrapCentral

Best EyeCandy Blog / MenOfTalent

Utah Refuses To Repeal Sodomy Law

In Utah, state law says only married couples can engage in sodomy.
And that's the way legislators want things to remain, even though a Supreme Court ruling says states can't tell consenting adults what's allowed in the privacy of their homes.
A bill that would repeal Utah's sodomy statute, which prohibits oral and anal sex, never received a public hearing and is unlikely to be brought up for debate in the three remaining days of the legislative session.
Sen. Scott McCoy, a Salt Lake City Democrat who sponsored the bill and is the only openly gay member of the Senate, tried to get a repeal of the statute attached to another bill. It was removed by the Republican-controlled Senate without debate.
"I have a hard time understanding how the state could say we have an interest in the sex, in the intimate associations of two unmarried persons, but we don't have an interest in the intimate associations of two married people," McCoy said. "It's black or white. It's the exact same action. What's the difference if it's done in a married relationship? There's no rational distinction between those two settings."
Critics contend the Legislature's refusal to repeal the law is a public indictment of unmarried couples and homosexuals.
"There is a stigma. I think that stigma is intentional on the state of Utah's part. It's saying that people who engage in sodomy, be it heterosexual or homosexual, that those people who engage in sodomy are set aside. They are not good people and are immoral in some way," said civil rights attorney Brian Barnard, who has tried for more than a decade to get courts to overturn Utah's sodomy law.
Most Utah residents and members of the Legislature are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which considers homosexuality a sin that prevents its members from reaching the highest level of heaven.
Senate Majority Curt Bramble, R-Provo, was flabbergasted when asked why sodomy should be illegal.
"If you have to ask why sodomy should be illegal in Utah ...," Bramble said, his words trailing off. "Because I believe sodomy should be illegal in Utah."
It was Bramble who sought the Senate's approval to remove McCoy's amendment from House Bill 86, which would increase penalties for those convicted of a sexual offense against a child. Sodomy against a child would still have been illegal under the bill.
That bill's sponsor, Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said he was pleased McCoy's amendment was removed.
"I did not want it attached to my bill and did not want to go down in history as the representative who legalized sodomy in Utah," Wimmer said. "My bill, which is the most comprehensive (sex offender) bill seen in decades, was about stopping and restricting predators, not expanding a person's agenda."
But Barnard sees it as a statement of the Legislature's agenda.
"What it does is it sets Utah apart as being a backward state," he said. "It is a way of making a statement -- moralizing, if you will -- and attempting to dictate to people what should or should not be done, and it's none of the damn business of the state of Utah."
The sodomy law has rarely been enforced in Utah and courts have refused to hear Barnard's lawsuits challenging it. But he said as long as the law is on the books, police have an obligation to enforce it. That could result in months of embarrassment for someone charged with the crime before it is found unconstitutional, he said.
McCoy said he believes most lawmakers have no problem removing the state's sodomy statute. But, he said, they're concerned how that might look to their constituents. He said even though his bill won't get a floor hearing, at least it brings attention to the issue.
"This is an old, antiquated law we should get rid of. Maybe the openly gay senator running a bill that is nothing but that issue is perhaps not the way we're going to get it done," he said. "However, someone else running a bill that has a bunch of stuff in it, just in there a little lower profile, might get the job done."
from The Daily Herald

No More Fake Balls

Fake bull testicles and other anatomically explicit vehicle decorations would be banned from Maryland roads under a bill pending in the state legislature.
The measure was filed in the General Assembly Monday by Delegate LeRoy E. Myers Jr., R-Washingon, who says children shouldn't be exposed to giant plastic gonads dangling from pickup truck trailer hitches. The bill also would ban depictions of naked human breasts, buttocks or genitals, with offenses punishable by fines of up to $500.
"It's time to take a stand," Myers told The (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail.
The American Civil Liberties Union objected to Myers' bill.
"The legislation is overly broad, and would probably make it illegal to have a sticker on your car of the Venus de Milo from an art museum," ACLU of Maryland spokeswoman Meredith Curtis wrote in an e-mail.
Pamela Campbell whose Bullhead City, Ariz., business sells fake bull testicles, suggested that the swinging decorations can prompt healthy discussions about anatomy and reproduction.
"Do we have to neuter all dogs that walk by us?" she asked. "Where does it stop?"
Last week, Arizona's legislature rejected a measure that would have banned vehicle splash guards bearing racist terms or silhouettes of naked women.
from The Associated Press

Suze Orman 'Out Of The Closet'

NEW YORK - In an interview for The New York Times Magazine this coming Sunday, financial guru and TV host Suze Orman gets on Deborah Solomon's case for not looking out for her own money, partly because "you are a woman." This inspires Solomon to ask Orman if she is married.
Orman says she "has a relationship with life," so Solomon presses her, and Suze then reveals that her "life partner" is Kathy Travis and, "We're going on seven years. I have never been with a man in my whole life. I'm still a 55-year-old virgin."
Orman says they'd like to get married, and both "have millions of dollars in our name. It's killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa."
Pressed again, she says that estimates that she is worth $25 million are "pretty close."
She says she has about a million dollars in the stock exchange, because if she loses it all "I don't personally care."
from Editor & Publisher

Bareback In London, May Ride To B'Way

The London revival of Peter Shaffer's powerful drama about a teenage boy who takes off his clothes and blinds horses began previews on Friday, but it has caused so much buzz that producers already are planning to bring it to Broadway in the fall.
One problem, though, is the length.
Of the play, people, the play!
"Equus" clocks in at nearly three hours, which is a bit of a slog, according to London theater sources who sneaked in early because they couldn't wait to get a look at John Napier's stunning set.
These high-minded people, serious theatergoers all, say part of the problem is that Richard Griffiths, who plays the psychiatrist, is still struggling with his lines. In fact, teleprompters have been installed in the wings to help him out.
The producers are said to be nervous about his performance, but those who know the actor well are confident he'll pull himself together in time for the Feb. 27 opening.
And anyone who saw him last season on Broadway in "The History Boys" - for which he won a Tony - knows how brilliant he can be.
"Richard's always slow to get the lines," one source says. "But when he gets in his stride - and he will - he'll be terrific, as he always is."
All weekend, the theater was packed with teenage girls (mostly American, it seems) who are obviously Peter Shaffer fanatics.
I'm told the 80-year-old playwright is mobbed at the stage door every night.
As an added bonus, the girls get to see Radcliffe, known the world over as Harry Potter, doing some serious acting.
"He's intense and dynamic," one spy says. "This is an extremely daring choice for him, and he's thrown himself into it like a seasoned pro."
Where he comes up short (at least in one instance) is in the sex-
appeal department. Because he must appear naked on stage for 15 minutes, he's bulked up. But he's surprisingly asexual, my spies say.
"You've got to be a serious pedophile to find him sexy," one person says. "He's a teenage boy who is not fully developed yet."
The sexual chemistry between Radcliffe and the actress who plays his girlfriend seems to be lacking. There should also be some sexual tension between him and Griffiths, but that, too, is not apparent yet in this production. (Maybe we should be grateful for small favors.)
Since some theatergoers are there to get a glimpse of Harry Potter in the nude, the house is full of security guards. Right before Radcliffe disrobes, they fan out into the aisles, looking everywhere for cameras. They've missed a few, however, and pictures have appeared all over the Web.
"Equus" will open next week with $3 million in the bank, the highest advance for a nonmusical play in West End history.
The production ends its limited run at the beginning of June, when Radcliffe takes off to film the sixth installment of the "Harry Potter" series.
The plan is to move the production to Broadway after that, with Griffiths and Radcliffe reprising their roles.
"Is it great theater? No. Not yet," says a London source. "But it's event theater. There's Harry Potter. In all his glory."
from The New York Post

Catholics Attack NYC's Free Condoms

NEW YORK - New York's top Catholic leaders on Thursday sharply criticized the city for "blanketing our neighborhoods with condoms," saying city officials were promoting promiscuity and degrading society by distributing subway-themed condoms.
The city launched the new official condoms on Valentine's Day with volunteers handing out free samples throughout the city, including on a street corner near St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan.
The plan, the Catholic leaders said, "is tragic and misguided," adding that the only way to protect against sexually transmitted diseases is through abstinence before marriage and fidelity among married couples.
"Our political leaders fail to protect the moral tone of our community when they encourage inappropriate sexual activity by blanketing our neighborhoods with condoms," said Cardinal Edward Egan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn in a joint statement.
Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said: "With all due respect to Cardinal Egan and Bishop DiMarzio, we feel differently."
New York officials revamped the condom wrapper in hopes that a distinctive design - featuring the words "NYC Condom" in the fonts and colors used in the subway system - will let them track usage with their annual community health survey.
Egan and DiMarzio said the $720,000 cost of the program "would be far better spent in fostering what is true and what is decent."
from The Associated Press

Gay STD Vaccine Use 'A Waste Of Money'

AUSTRALIA - Gay men who are demanding access to the Australian-made "sex disease" vaccine Gardasil may be wasting their money, says the drug's designer Ian Frazer.
The Scots-born former Australian of the Year said while his vaccine probably protects men from genital warts and genital cancers, they would need to get the jab early in their sexual life to benefit.
"It's their money and their choice," said Professor Frazer, who was responding to reports that homosexuals in the UK had been demanding the vaccine.
"But the reality is that adult males who have sex with other males, and who have been in anything other than a monogamous relationship, are very unlikely to benefit."
Gardasil protects against the sexually transmitted infection, human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer, genital warts and other genital cancers.
In the UK, US and Australia it is approved for use in females and males aged nine to 26, with Australian women due to get free immunisations from April.
But UK media reports show that many private clinics are offering it to men, and one in London says it has immunised dozens in the past six weeks.
One British doctor, Sean Cummings from London's Freedom Health clinic, told the BBC he had happily recommended dozens of gay men pay the 450 pounds ($1,120) for the three-dose course.
Demand had been strong because these men wanted to protect themselves and prevent spreading HPV to their partners, sexual health workers told the UK broadcaster.
Other British specialists argue that licensing should be extended to all adults, saying even the most promiscuous person would not have encountered all four strains of HPV found in Gardasil.
Prof Frazer said the evidence did not support this claim.
He said it was true homosexual men were at a much higher risk of anal cancer and genital warts, particularly if they are HIV-positive, because HPV was common and passed around "very enthusiastically".
"But chances are they already have the strains," he said.
He said current licensing recommendations, which exclude adults, were right for the community but if individuals wanted it, they should have it.
"The gain is going to be pretty small, but if they want to do it that's fine," Prof Frazer said.
"They just need to be informed of the facts."
from The Sunday Times

Nude Daniel Radcliffe And His 'Horse'

Just One Look... #51

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Lesbian Activists Arrested At Focus On The Family

COLORADO SPRINGS - A lesbian couple protesting Focus on the Family’s teachings on homosexuality were arrested Monday at the organization’s Colorado Springs headquarters.
Dotti Berry and Robynne Stapp, from Blaine, Wash., were arrested shortly after 1 p.m. on suspicion of trespassing. The women, representing the Christian gay activist group Soulforce, sat in Focus’ main lobby for about 20 minutes before they were removed.
The women said, through a Soulforce news release, that they were protesting Focus’ teachings that homosexuality runs counter to God’s will and that gays can change their sexual identity.
Soulforce officials said Berry and Stapp are the first participants in a “Focus on the Facts” campaign intended to draw attention to Soulforce’s allegations that Focus twists research findings to support its own beliefs.
According to Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger, the women took an 11 a.m. tour of Focus. Once the tour was over, they asked to see James Dobson, Focus’ founder — a request denied by Focus officials.
Schneeberger said he talked with the women for 10 to 15 minutes before the sit-in began.
“They were very respectful, very quiet,” Schneeberger said.
from The Gazette

Some States Pushing For Laws To Curb Online Bullying

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND – Ryan Patrick Halligan was bullied for months online. Classmates sent the 13-year-old Essex Junction, Vt., boy instant messages calling him gay. He was threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly by so-called cyberbullies.
In 2003, Ryan killed himself.
“He just went into a deep spiral in eighth grade. He couldn't shake this rumor,” said Ryan's father, John Halligan, who became a key proponent of a state law that forced Vermont schools to put anti-bullying rules in place. He's now pushing for a broader law to punish cyberbullying – often done at home after school – and wants every other state to enact laws expressly prohibiting it.
States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it.
“The kids are forcing our hands to do something legislatively,” said Rhode Island state Sen. John Tassoni, who introduced a bill to study cyberbullying and hopes to pass a cyberbullying law by late 2007.
But others argue that legislation would be ineffective. George McDonough, an education coordinator with Rhode Island's Department of Education, concedes that the Internet has become an “instant slam book” but questions whether laws can stem bad behavior.
“You can't legislate norms, you can only teach norms,” he said. “Just because it's a law they don't necessarily follow it. I mean, look at the speed limit.”
The Internet allows students to insult others in relative anonymity, and experts who study cyberbullying say it can be more damaging to victims than traditional bullying like fist fights and classroom taunts.
Legislators and educators say there's a need for guidelines outlining how to punish cyberbullying. They say the behavior has gone unchecked for years, with few laws or policies on the books explaining how to treat it.
Cyberbullying is often limited to online insults about someone's physical appearance, friends, clothing or sexuality. But some cyberbullies are more creative. In Washington state, a bully stole a girl's instant message username and used it to send out insulting messages.
In New York, two high school boys were accused of operating an Internet site that listed girls' “sexual secrets.” Prosecutors decided not to charge the boys because of free-speech concerns.
Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it will be difficult to draft a cyberbullying law that doesn't infringe on free-speech rights.
“The fact that two teenagers say nasty things about each other is a part of growing up,” he said. “How much authority does a school have to monitor, regulate and punish activities occurring inside a student's home?”
In Arkansas, the state Senate this month passed a bill calling on school districts to set up policies to address cyberbullying only after it was amended to settle concerns about students' free-speech rights.
States are taking different approaches to the problem.
A South Carolina law that took effect this year requires school districts to define bullying and outline policies and repercussions for the behavior, including cyberbullying. One school district there has proposed punishments from warnings up to expulsion for both traditional bullying and cyberbullying.
Some of Oregon's most powerful lawmakers have lined up behind a proposed bill that would require all of the state's 198 school districts to adopt policies that prohibit cyberbullying.
Some local school districts aren't waiting for the state to take action: The Sisters school district in Central Oregon adopted rules that allow it to revoke cyberbullies' school Internet privileges, or even expel a student in egregious cases.
Ted Thonstad, superintendent of the rural school district of 1,475 students, said it was important to clarify by policy how to treat cyberbullying – now prohibited under strict school hazing rules. Previously, the district had guidelines for what types of Internet sites students could visit, he said, but no policy specifically dealt with cyberbullying.
Thonstad said no case prompted the policy, although there were some minor incidents of cyberbullying before it went into place at the beginning of the school year. Nothing has been reported since then.
“It's difficult to monitor if you don't have the right software,” he said. “So you rely on students to let you know when it's going on.”
Other schools are also being proactive. Rhode Island's McDonough sent both public and private school superintendents information and resources on cyberbullying. One school is designing lesson plans to help stop cyberbullying and protect children from Internet predators.
“I think it would be a good idea if there was a law, but I really believe it has to start at home,” said Patricia McCormick, assistant principal of the private St. Philip School in Smithfield, R.I.
McCormick said all the teachers in the school have been trained on Internet safety, and students now receive at least 15 classes on the subject, which includes cyberbullying. But she said stopping the problem will require parental participation.
“Cyberbullying isn't going on in school,” she said. “It is going on at home, and I think there needs to be more programs to educate parents about the dangers.”
News Corp.'s social-networking site MySpace prohibits cyberbullying and tells users to report abuse – to the company as well as parents and law enforcement, according to a statement issued by Hemanshu Nigam, the company's chief security officer.
John Halligan, whose son's suicide has turned him into an advocate for broader cyberbullying laws that would allow victims and their families to pursue civil penalties against bullies, said something must be done to stop the problem.
“I didn't simply want it to be Ryan's school that agreed to do something,” he said. “At the end of the day this wasn't just a problem in Ryan's school.”
from The San Diego Union Tribune

Sexy Crack Video

New High Speed Condom Increases Pleasure

SOUTH AFRICA - A high-speed condom, designed in South Africa, is poised to take safer sex to new heights in a nation grappling with soaring HIV infection rates.
Roelf Mulder, co-designer of the product, said he hoped its aesthetic appeal would help change the latex prophylactic usually thought of as a passion killer into a passion filler, while also preventing the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
“This product is not only designed to help reduce the rate of contamination and infection by ensuring users do not touch the condom, but it can also be easily applied in the dark,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
Mulder stressed that the incorrect application of a condom or accidentally rupturing it with the fingernails could lead to the potential spread of STIs.
The new more hygienic condom is opened by means of two thumb-sized handles, which are used to slide it onto the penis. It can only be applied in one way. The applicator then pops off the bottom, and the entire operation is complete in just three seconds, compared to the 30 to 40 seconds needed to don the traditional or government issue item.
Welcoming the innovative addition to this well-known preventive tool, local sexual behavior experts expressed concern that the product might become a “fleeting novelty” due to its limited market appeal and slightly higher cost.
Clinical sex therapist Elna McIntosh said, “Hopefully the applicator will not become a luxury and end up gathering dust on store shelves as a result of its retail price.”
Although the product is not yet available on the market, Mulder said his company was looking at a cost of between US$3 and $4 (about R28) each, but this could drop dramatically if the product was included in the government’s free condom roll out campaign.
The South African government distributes 30 million free male condoms per month and recently announced plans to more than double this in coming months.
Mulder started thinking about ways of enhancing condom usage after looking at the research into South Africa’s HIV prevention problem and finding that “low condom use was still a real factor” in the ongoing spread of HIV and other STIs.
“The intention of the applicator is to make more people use condoms more readily … this is a small product that could have one of the biggest impacts on our social, cultural and economic future,” he said.
An estimated 5.5 million people are living with HIV and Aids in South Africa - one of the world’s highest figures.
from Press Release

Men Accusing Airman Of Rape Lied To Hide Being Gay

GLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA — Men who say they were drugged and raped by an Air Force officer lied to avoid being revealed as gay in the military, a defense attorney told a military jury Tuesday.
Capt. Devery L. Taylor, former chief of patient administration at Eglin Regional Hospital, is gay and engaged in consensual sex with the men, his civilian attorney, Martin Regan, said during opening arguments in Taylor's court-martial.
Taylor, 38, pleaded not guilty Monday to raping four men and attempting to rape two others; prosecutor Capt. Eveylon Westbrook describes him as a serial rapist. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of all the charges against him. The charges are two counts of attempted sodomy, four counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of kidnapping and one count of unlawful entry.
"This case is about homosexual activity that is not approved of by the military services in our country at this time. Every one of these individuals but one is either in the military service or wants to be in the service," Regan said.
Under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, members who are openly gay are subject to discharge.
Westbrook said Taylor met his victims in bars, spiked their drinks with the "date-rape drug" gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, and kidnapped them.
"Each victim will tell you they felt like they were drugged before he either assaulted or attempted to assault them," she said.
A Pensacola paramedic later testified that he and Taylor were friends and had consensual sex on a previous occasion before the two met again at a bar in July 2004. The man said that he had one beer and that Taylor then bought him a shot, which caused him to become extremely ill.
He said that he woke up in Taylor's home and that Taylor raped him repeatedly, but that he couldn't fight Taylor because he felt drugged.
"My brain knew what was going on, but my body just wouldn't cooperate," he said.
The man said he did not report the encounter to authorities until two years later, when he read a newspaper report about Taylor's arrest.
An Air Force lieutenant who worked with Taylor at the base hospital testified about his 2004 encounter with Taylor. He said he blacked out and does not know whether he was raped. The lieutenant, who is married, said he never had consensual sex with Taylor.
Col. Thomas Cumbie, the military judge, turned down a defense request Tuesday to limit testimony about GHB. Defense attorneys said that its effects were similar to that of alcohol and that none of the victims had traces of the drug in their bodies, but Cumbie said the symptoms were common among all the victims
from Fox News

Just One Look #50

'Ex-gay' movement: Saved? Or Shoved Back Into The Closet?

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - The Rev. Ted Haggard story has reignited discussion about what makes a person gay - and whether someone can switch sexual orientation and become an "ex-gay."
On one side are organizations like Focus on the Family and Exodus International, which at conferences across the country teach that homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be overcome.
On the other are groups such as Truth Wins OUT, formed specifically to counter such ministries and whose director, gay activist Wayne Besen, says there's no such thing as an "ex-gay."
"It's a recloseted homosexual," Besen said. "I have never met an ex-gay who isn't on the payroll of a group like Focus on the Family or Exodus."
Besen monitors both ministry groups, sometimes attends their conferences and said he has exposed "ex-gays" - including a former Focus on the Family employee - in compromising situations. Just last week, Truth Wins OUT posted two videos on YouTube aimed at further debunking what Besen calls "the ex-gay myth."
A video released Thursday features Robert L. Spitzer, a Columbia University psychiatry professor who says Focus on the Family is using his research on homosexuality out of context. And on Valentine's Day, Besen posted a nine-minute video that features a Mormon couple who are divorcing after 25 years because the husband is gay.
Besen said the movement to reform gays by encouraging marriage ends up hurting spouses and children.
"There is a lot of pressure to be normal and get married," Besen said. "They treat the spouse as collateral damage in their social experiment."
Besen said no amount of therapy - he calls it "praying away the gay" - can turn a gay person straight.
"It's about denial. If you look at the programs themselves, it's about actors playing roles," he said.
"All roads run through Colorado Springs," Besen said of the ex-gay movement. "James Dobson's calling the shots."
Besen's Web site calls the "Love Won Out" conferences sponsored by Focus on the Family "the single biggest ex-gay threat individual communities face."
Focus on the Family holds six such conferences a year that average 1,000 attendees each, according to Melissa Fryrear, the ministry's director of gender issues and self-described former lesbian. The most recent conference was Feb. 10 in Phoenix.
"We're addressing a number of topics related to homosexuality from an orthodox Christian viewpoint," Fryrear said. "We're offering attendees an explanation as to what we think is the development of same-sex attraction."
Fryrear and others in the movement believe environmental factors, temperament, childhood influences and a person's interactions with peers all can contribute to the formation of same-sex attractions.
She said a disproportionate number of people she's worked with have had a breakdown - real or perceived - in their family relationships.
"Understand we're not saying that in every case. We've talked with some men, for example, and their father wasn't able to be really physically and emotionally present to them."
The result, she said, is that some men then seek out the affirmation of other men in homosexual relationships.
"We don't believe there's a gay gene. We also believe that by and large, men and women don't choose these feelings," she said.
Fryrear said she spent 10 years immersed in the gay community, beginning at age 16. In 1992, when she was 26, she said she "made a conscious decision that homosexual behavior was wrong" and began intensive work that included counseling, support groups and conferences.
"I've come out of so many closets, it's a wonder I can find my shoes," she said. "And by the way, they're pumps now instead of Army boots."
Fryrear believes her attractions to women were influenced by the fact she was adopted and by other childhood issues.
She said that even if science can prove a genetic link to homosexuality, it would not change what Focus teaches.
"The reason why is because homosexuality for us is also a moral issue," she said. "It's really what we believe and what we're for is sexual behavior expressed within the boundary of marriage between one man and one woman."
Fryrear said she has not talked with her former partner in more than a decade. She said she is very happy with her life and has a preference for red-headed men.
She doesn't have a boyfriend, but is "accepting proposals."
At Focus, she has the position once held by John Paulk, whose story of leaving homosexuality and getting married was on the cover of Newsweek in 1998. Paulk also was on the board of Exodus International and became the face for the organization's cause.
He made national news again in 2000, this time when Besen photographed him at a gay bar in Washington, D.C. He resigned from Focus in 2003 and moved with his family to Oregon, where he is a chef and owner of a catering company.
Paulk declined a request for an interview, saying he is living a normal life out of the media glare with his wife and children.
Floyd Godfrey, director of Family Strategies & Coaching in Phoenix who works with men wanting to change their sexual orientation said he, too, spent several years in counseling. He said he's now been married 14 years and has three children.
Godfrey, like Fryrear, cited "a constellation of factors" behind same-sex attraction, which often includes "a disruption in the connection with their father," and that his work focuses on the emotional issues behind those factors.
"If a young boy misses the bonding or insufficiently bonds with the same-sex mentor, that need for bonding doesn't go away," he said.
"This is not a fast therapy," he said, adding he only works with people who want to change. "If a kid is coming (to therapy) and their parents want them to change, we don't do that."
Besen believes no amount of therapy or prayer will make someone straight.
"I think Haggard has done more damage to the ex-gay cause than any activist could do in a hundred years," Besen said.
"If this guy couldn't pray away the gay, who can?"
from The Kansas City Star

Swimmer Trapped By Beach Balls

A man got a nasty surprise when he tried to get out of his deckchair and found his testicles had become stuck between two slats of wood. Mario Visnjic had been swimming naked off Valalta beach in Croatia and his testicles had shrunk in the cool sea. When he sat down they slipped through the slats and then, as he lay in the sun, expanded back to normal size. He was freed after he called beach maintenance services on his mobile phone and they sent a member of staff to cut the deckchair in half.
from Bore Me

Just One Look... #49

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Tim Hardaway Nude Locker Room Video

World's Largest Condom On Display

February 18, 2007 In recognition of National Condom Week, a Washington retailer of sex products will sail a monster condom balloon the height of a two-story building, tethered on a 120-foot line over its Tukwila store. The condom will fly through the weekend to remind citizens of the importance of condoms and safe sex. The sturdy 20-foot pink condom has a diameter of 6-feet and is filled with 450 cubic feet of helium, a volume that requires the contents of four large welder’s tanks to fill. In a classic case of getting the events out of sequence, National Condom Week is celebrated the week after Valentine’s Day each year. It was started in 1978 by students at the University of California-Berkeley and over three decades has become an important global event in the promotion of condom use as an effective method of decreasing the risk of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, not to mention reducing the risk of pregnancy.
The condom is a promotional effort by Castle Megastore, a 17-store upscale adult retail chain with stores in five states, which stocks more than 100 styles of condoms.
from GizMag

Gay Mayor Reaches Out To Hardaway

As the firestorm continued over Tim Hardaway's anti-gay remarks on radio, the mayor of North Miami, who is gay, invited the ex-Heat star to spend a day with him.
On Friday, Hardaway accepted, the mayor said.
''We're just trying to show him that there are living, breathing people that just happen to be gay,'' said North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns, who lives with his partner of 23 years and an adopted daughter.
He's still working out details of the visit with Hardaway's representatives and expects they will make a joint announcement on Monday, Burns said.
The plan is for Hardaway to join Burns and his family for a routine weekday at the mayor's office and home -- doing things like dropping off Burns' child at school, meeting with constituents and dinner with the family.
Hardaway has been hit hard since the broadcast on the local AM radio station 790 The Ticket, in which he said, ''I don't like to be around gay people'' and ``it shouldn't be in the U.S. or the world.''
Although he apologized within hours, the NBA canceled his remaining appearances at this weekend's All-Star festivities in Las Vegas, and he lost at least two major endorsement deals.
On Friday, Hardaway spent the day with his family, pleading for privacy as television cameras continued a vigil outside the gates of his Pinecrest home.
Terry Washington, a spokeswoman for Hardaway, said the former five-time All-Star had not yet spoken to Mayor Burns and that an announcement would be "premature.''
Hardaway played for the Heat from 1995 through 2001. On several occasions, he expressed interest in returning to the Heat's roster but was turned down.
He now has ownership in several South Florida businesses, including Tim Hardaway's U.S. 1 Car Wash in Miami and Tim Hardaway's House of Wings in Coconut Grove.
Burns has some experience building bridges outside the gay community, since he won the mayor's seat decisively in 2005 despite some hostility in a city without much of a gay constituency.
He has been open but low-key in public about his relationship with Rob Flint, his partner of 23 years, and their adopted daughter, Autumn. During the mayoral campaign, Burns said he understood the discrimination faced by the Haitian Americans and African Americans who predominate in the city.
''I don't expect [Hardaway] to be waving a peace flag anytime soon, even after this,'' Burns said Friday.
"But maybe he'll be less likely to say something bad about people if he knows them and understands a little more.
from The Miami Herald

Schwarzenegger To Veto Second Gay Marriage Bill

SACRAMENTO -Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would veto a bill that would legalize gay marriage in California for the second time if state lawmakers pass it again this year.
In June 2005, the California Legislature became the first lawmaking body in the United States to vote in favor of allowing same-sex couples to wed. Schwarzenegger refused to sign the measure, saying it was in conflict with a 2000 voter-approved measure that shored up the state's one man, one woman marriage laws.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, reintroduced the gay marriage bill in December, but Schwarzenegger said on Thursday that his thoughts about it have not changed in the last year and a half.
"I wouldn't sign it because the people of California have voted on that issue," Schwarzenegger told a high school student who asked him about the bill at a California YMCA Youth and Government conference.
The governor said voters should make the decision, "but it should not be me or the Legislature."
Geoffrey Kors, executive of the gay rights lobbying group Equality California, said Friday that he hoped Schwarzenegger would take the time to meet with gay and lesbian couples before promising another veto.
"How would the governor feel if his right to marry First Lady Maria Shriver had been put to a popular vote?" Kors said.
from The San Francisco Chronicle

NBA Sends Hardaway Home

The NBA banished Tim Hardaway from All-Star weekend in Las Vegas because of his anti-gay remarks.
Hardaway, who played in five All-Star games during the 1990s, was already in Las Vegas to make a series of public appearances this week on behalf of the league. But after Hardaway said, "I hate gay people" during a radio interview, commissioner David Stern stepped in.
"We removed him from representing us because we didn't think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us," Stern told reporters Thursday at the opening of a fan festival at a Las Vegas casino, part of the NBA's All-Star weekend.
Stern said he had not spoken with Hardaway, who left Las Vegas on Thursday, but he planned to do so.
While Stern said a discussion about openly gay players could be part of future rookie orientation programs, he doesn't see a need to address the league.
"This is an issue overall that has fascinated America. It's not an NBA issue," Stern said, pointing to the ongoing debate over gay marriage at the state and federal levels.
"This is a country that needs to talk about this issue," he said. "And, not surprisingly, they use sports as a catalyst to begin the dialogue."
Hardaway apologized for his comments, which came a week after John Amaechi became the first former NBA player to say he was gay.
"As an African-American, I know all too well the negative thoughts and feelings hatred and bigotry cause," Hardaway said Thursday in a statement issued by his agent. "I regret and apologize for the statements that I made that have certainly caused the same kinds of feelings and reactions.
"I especially apologize to my fans, friends and family in Miami and Chicago. I am committed to examining my feelings and will recognize, appreciate and respect the differences among people in our society," he said. "I regret any embarrassment I have caused the league on the eve of one of their greatest annual events."
The NBA brings in many former players to take part in various All-Star events. Hardaway had already represented the league in Las Vegas earlier this week at a Habitat for Humanity event and a fitness promotion. The former U.S. Olympian was also scheduled to be an assistant coach at a wheelchair game Thursday night and later appear at the fan-oriented Jam Session until Stern told him he was no longer welcome.
"His views are not consistent with ours," Stern said.
Amaechi, who spent five seasons with four teams, came out last week in advance of the release of his autobiography, "Man in the Middle." He is the sixth professional male athlete from one of the four major U.S. sports - basketball, baseball, football, hockey - to openly discuss his homosexuality.
"David Stern has sent a clear message," Amaechi said on Good Morning America on Friday. I'm very pleased that the NBA put their money where their mouth is."
Though Stern said last week a player's sexuality wasn't important, Hardaway disagreed Wednesday on a Miami radio show.
"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team," the former Miami Heat star said. "And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."
When show host Dan Le Batard told Hardaway those comments were "flatly homophobic" and "bigotry," the player continued.
"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," he said. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."
Hardaway also said if he did find out that a teammate was gay, he would ask for the player to be removed from the team.
Hardaway apologized later Wednesday night in a telephone interview with WSVN-TV in Miami, but the furor over his remarks continued Thursday.
"I don't need Tim's comments to realize there's a problem," Amaechi told The Associated Press in a phone interview Thursday. "People said that I should just shut up and go away - now they have to rethink that."
Two major gay and lesbian groups denounced Hardaway's remarks.
"Hardaway's comments are vile, repulsive, and indicative of the climate of ignorance, hostility and prejudice that continues to pervade sports culture," said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "And by apologizing not for his bigotry, but rather for giving voice to it, he's reminding us that this ugly display is only the tip of a very large iceberg."
Said Matt Foreman, president of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force: "Hardaway is a hero to thousands of young people. And that's what makes his comments so troubling. Sadly, his words simply put the pervasive homophobia in the NBA on the table."
Amaechi, who detailed his life in "Man in the Middle," hoped his coming out would be a catalyst for intelligent discourse.
"His words pollute the atmosphere," Amaechi said. "It creates an atmosphere that allows young gays and lesbians to be harassed in school, creates an atmosphere where in 33 states you can lose your job, and where anti-gay and lesbian issues are used for political gain. It's an atmosphere that hurts all of us, not just gay people."
Amaechi taped a spot Thursday for PBS' gay and lesbian program "In the Life." He said the anti-gay sentiment remains despite Hardaway's apology.
"It's vitriolic, and may be exactly what he feels," he said. "Whether he's honest or not doesn't inoculate us from his words. It's not progress to hear hateful words."
from The Associated Press