Memorial To Slain Gay Student Matthew Shepard

LARAMIE, WYOMING - The nation and the city of Laramie has become more accepting of gays and lesbians in the 10 years since a gay University of Wyoming student was beaten, lashed to a lonely fence and left to die, his mother said Saturday.
"We've learned a lot, we've talked a lot; we do it in public forums now," Judy Shepard said at a ceremony dedicating a bench to her son, Matthew Shepard. "So it's a wonderful tribute to Matt that these kinds of things are discussed."
Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, five days after he was found brutally beaten and tied to the fence outside Laramie. The two men who killed him are serving life sentences in prison.
The crime triggered nationwide sympathy and revulsion and brought a re-examination of attitudes toward gays.
Shepard's parents established a foundation named after their son. Its stated goal is to "replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance." It also helps young gay people find a safe environment.
Dennis Shepard said his son loved the university, Laramie and Wyoming.
"I cannot say enough about what the university has done since that day to take care of the students here and to open their arms and their hearts to the rest of their country of the lessons learned," he said.
"They are the leaders. And I think the lessons that were learned at that time helped in these unfortunate incidents that we've had since then, like Virginia Tech."
On April 16, 2007, a gunman fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at the Virginia college before killing himself.
University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan said his college has established an annual social justice symposium named after Shepard; created a resource center to support gays, lesbians, bisexuals and others; and developed a center for social justice to research and expose sources of inequity in society.
"Through our actions, we will continue to demonstrate that diversity and inclusion are core values at UW," Buchanan said. "Just as we live with the loss of Matt, we live every day at UW committed to the ideal that we treat all with dignity and respect. A memorial bench can serve as a reminder of that commitment, but we must continue to work hard to make it a reality."
But Judy Shepard noted that Wyoming has yet to enact hate crime legislation, as other states have.
"I regret that," she said. "We still have some negative legislation attempts and discussion and those kind of things. But I'm confident that as the Equality State we can move forward, set an example and really make a statement about what it means to be equal to everybody else."
Dennis Shepard said he hopes people enjoy the bench, which sits outside the university's arts and sciences building with potted plants and flowers on either side. A plaque affixed to the bench, paid for by the foundation, reads: "Matthew Wayne Shepard Dec. 1, 1976-Oct. 12, 1998. Beloved son, brother, and friend. He continues to make a difference. Peace be with him and all who sit here."
"The words that we have written there are heartfelt," Dennis Shepard said. "Matt would have been the first to say so. And as far as we're concerned, with the words here, he's the last to say so."
from The Associated Press

Jim And Tammy Faye Bakker's Son To Preaches On God's Love For Gays

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - Jay Bakker, Christian punk preacher and son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, will speak in Raleigh, N.C., on Sunday about God's love for gays and lesbians, building on a theme his late mother championed.
The pierced and tattooed Bakker grew up in Charlotte at the heels of his parents' Praise The Lord ministry and television network.
The PTL empire imploded in scandal in the 1980s. Afterward, Tammy Faye, who divorced an imprisoned Jim Bakker and married Roe Messner, re-emerged as a television and cult personality - this time embracing gay men infected with the AIDS virus. She died of cancer last year.
Her son is following in her footsteps - fighting to end religious and political discrimination against gays and lesbians, and presenting a nonjudgmental, inclusive face to his Christian faith.
"I'm going to talk about loving your neighbor as yourself, God's amazing grace and the dangers of apathy in our lives," said Bakker.
Now 32 and living in Brooklyn, N.Y., he leads Revolution New York City, a church that meets Sunday afternoons in a bar. Services are recorded and posted on his Web site (www.revolutionnyc.com) "to create an online church for people who have given up on church."
Bakker's activism on behalf of gays and lesbians started three years ago, after he saw friends mistreated because of their sexual orientation.
He began to study the Bible and now says he's convinced that passages condemning homosexuality refer to worship of a fertility god or male prostitution but not the caring and respectful relationships established between people of the same sex.
"I don't think that two people in love is a sin," he said.
Bakker himself is not gay, but is now separated from his wife, Amanda.
The celebrity preacher has paid a price among conservative and evangelical Christians for his convictions.
Engagements to his widely sought-out church appearances were abruptly cancelled, and he stopped speaking publicly for a year.
His journey was the subject of a documentary series broadcast on the Sundance Channel called "One Punk Under God."
Bakker said the scandal that embroiled his parents taught him that he shouldn't compromise his principles - even if it cost him money or church contacts.
Jim Bakker had a sexual affair with a church secretary and was later convicted on federal charges that he sold time shares he could not provide at his S.C. theme park and resort.
Jay Bakker's Raleigh appearance is sponsored by St. John's Metropolitan Community Church, which serves gays and lesbians. It coincides with NC Pride's annual festival today at Duke University's East Campus.
from Myrtle Beach Online

Cultivated For AIDS Victims, Laguna Beach Garden Is Missing Its Keeper

LAGUNA BEACH - The small patch of flowers serves as a reminder. It commemorates lives lost and souls remembered. The ashes of 50 or so are scattered or buried there.
But the freshly turned topsoil and budding sweet alyssum in the modest garden on the Laguna Beach bluff are deceiving: The gardener is missing.
Michel Martenay nurtured this little spot for more than 20 years, tugging weeds and planting perennials on his own time with his own money. He installed stone cherubs and lined the dirt with heart-shaped rocks gathered from the beach below.
Now, the man who cultivated this memorial to those struck down by ailments such as AIDS, which ravaged the city's once-vibrant gay community some two decades ago, is himself battling the disease.
"Every time I cry, because I would like to take care of it again, see my garden," Martenay says, his so-blue eyes brimming, his head in his hands. Instead, he spends most days in an Anaheim hospice. The 25 pills he's supposed to swallow every morning make him sick; he sheds pounds from his hollowed-out frame. Unable to work, he worries about money but tries to stay positive about the future.
He spends his days feeding the songbirds and chasing cats and pigeons from a birdbath in the hospice courtyard. The fuchsia bougainvillea climbing the iron fence is no substitute for his Garden of Peace and Love.
Finding his calling
The native Parisian first visited Laguna Beach more than 25 years ago. He'd broken up with a boyfriend. A neighbor had suggested the pretty city hugged by canyons and waves. He was smitten.
Martenay walked everywhere, through town, along the sand. He stumbled upon a forlorn tangle of weeds, rubbish and beer bottles where he was told the ashes of two strangers were buried.
"This garden, nobody take care," says Martenay in his thick French accent, puffing on the Marlboro Lights he loves. "I feel sorry for them." Thirty-nine trash bags later, he'd found his calling.
"People ask me why I do that. I say, because there is two guys buried there," Martenay says. "I do that with my heart."
A landscaper by trade, Martenay would visit the garden in the mornings and evenings, bringing all kinds and colors of donated and purchased flowers.
For several years he led a Christmas Eve candlelight vigil, honoring the memory of the dead. It drew crowds: "The people was coming crying, laughing, smoking joints." A heartbroken man bought a cherub statue to honor his dead lover. The garden became a touchstone for those who had lost loved ones, particularly to AIDS.
Next door to the former home of the storied gay nightclub the Boom Boom Room, the garden blossomed at the center of Laguna's gay culture.
A treasured spot
Former Laguna Beach Mayor Robert Gentry recalls when AIDS first hit the city in the 1980s: "Everybody was scared to death. People were wearing masks." He was ushered into businesses' back rooms when he discussed the disease.
"Laguna Beach is different today because of HIV," said Gentry, who was mayor from 1982 to 1994. During that time, he lost his partner to AIDS. Laguna "lost dozens and dozens of community leaders and activists and upstanding citizens, and that changed the city."
Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who also lost a longtime partner to AIDS, considers the garden a "sacred spot." He met his late partner on that very block and used to spend weekends in Laguna's historic gay core.
The Garden of Peace and Love, as Martenay dubbed it, "had great significance to many of us who've been through the AIDS epidemic," Rosendahl said. "I would go there and pray literally in my meditative way, and remember people who have passed on.
"I'll never overcome it," he said of his loss, one that's shared by many others. "It will always be in my heart forever -- the pain and suffering we went through as a people."
The city recognized how meaningful the patch of blooms had become to the community, gay and straight. People would stop there to reflect, leave mementos, or scatter or bury the ashes of those they'd lost. The city's HIV committee provided access to a city water line to sustain the garden after the Boom would no longer allow use of its water supply.
"Michel was doing the city a favor," said Jim Spreine, a former Laguna Beach police chief who chaired the committee. "You know he does this because he loves his fellow man."
Martenay became a fixture, always puttering on that seaside bluff, talking to homeless people wandering by or rich couples meandering down the hill. He was a social maven, a tour guide, a devoted groundskeeper.
Eventually, a plaque went up at the garden honoring those afflicted by AIDS. But the gardener says the spot is for everyone, "poor, rich, whatever." With flowers always blooming and constant visitors, Martenay says, those resting there are never alone.
Community effort
About five months ago, Martenay grew weak. The 48-year-old found out he, too, had AIDS. He was in and out of the hospital. Visits to the garden tapered off. He was no longer strong enough to haul flats of flowers down the steep stairs or water vigilantly. He moved to Anaheim, where he could receive nursing care; with no car, he was separated from the plot of land he loved.
Friends stepped in. Jimmy Graesser's home overlooks the Garden of Peace and Love. He knew how much Martenay would worry about his beloved plants, so Graesser started watering when he could. Another neighbor, Joe Nygaard, pitched in, weeding and watering, clearing out dead stalks.
"I've adopted it, it's adopted me," Nygaard said of the spot. Digging in the dirt is "my way of encouraging him not to give up on his life." He treasures the pair of clippers Martenay gave him on a recent trip back; friends bring Martenay to the garden for occasional visits.
Community members organized a cleanup effort over the summer, planting dazzling maroon and gold day lilies, white iceberg roses and red geraniums, all to the back beat of the Beatles and the roaring surf. In clearing the soil, they unearthed plastic bags and canisters of ashes, plus a dirt-caked angel and stuffed bear; the discoveries were tucked carefully back underground.
"Why let his legacy go down the tubes?" asked John Madison, owner of Madison Square & Garden Cafe in Laguna, sweating with effort, as he helped plant the flowers he'd donated.
The community has rallied "to pick up where he left off," longtime Laguna resident Patrick Stanton, 50, said as he cleared out the undergrowth from around a favorite bench. "There's a lot of pain and a lot of tears, also a lot of love and a lot of smiles" in this patch of earth, he said, adding, "It's fitting that it should be beautiful."
A Labor Day fundraiser pays for weekly visits from a professional gardener. Another fundraiser and cleanup day, and beautification measures such as new signs, are planned for the fall.
And yet, for Martenay, the outpouring of help is bittersweet.
"It's very good. I'm very happy," he says wistfully. "But it's too bad -- because it's not me."
Instead, he shuffles between bed and chair and courtyard at the hospice, sleeping often and missing his garden. Sometimes, if he stands outside at night, he can see the fireworks at Disneyland.
On his nightstand sits a single magenta orchid that just lost its exotic bloom. Lately he's planted mums and begonias in the courtyard outside his room. The two-day effort left him worn out the rest of the week. He hopes to return to Laguna Beach, to the garden, while there's still time.
And after that, he has a particular spot in mind: at the foot of one of the garden's little angels, overlooking the sea.
from The Los Angeles Times

Gay Workers Being Treated Better

WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign Foundation recently released the seventh annual Corporate Equality Index, which rates 583 businesses on a scale from 0 to 100 percent on their treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.
The 2009 edition of the CEI reports 259 businesses achieved a perfect score, a one-third increase over last year when the number was 195. The 259 top-rated businesses collectively employ more than 9 million full-time employees.
These workers are protected from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression because of their employers' policies on diversity & inclusion, training, health care, and domestic partnership benefits.
"(The index) shows that corporate America understands that a diverse workforce is critical to remaining successful and competitive," said Joe Solmonese, HRC Foundation president. "In the absence of a federal law that prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, it is up to employers to take the lead and implement policies that ensure all their employees are protected."
Transgender workers have made major gains since the Corporate Equality Index was first published in 2002. That year, just 5 percent of rated businesses provided employment protections based on gender identity or expression. The 2009 Corporate Equality Index reports that figure has increased 12-fold: 66 percent of rated businesses now prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression, a 28 percent increase over last year.
Since 2006, CEI participants have been asked to ensure that at least one of five types of medically necessary treatment was available to transgender employees without exclusion.
For the first time this year, the CEI contains a more detailed review of documentation that businesses submitted in order to determine whether a broader range of medically necessary treatments would be covered by an insurance plan.
In the section entitled "Ending Benefits Discrimination against Transgender Employees," the HRC Foundation found that 49 businesses have taken significant and substantial steps to remove discrimination from at least one of their health insurance plans. These businesses are highlighted in the report's appendices.
from Seacoast

AIDS Prevention Having An Effect

Updated federal estimates of the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States, released yesterday, reveal that although the AIDS epidemic here is worse than previously thought, prevention efforts appear to be having some effect.
Even though the number of Americans living with HIV has risen by more than a quarter-million people since 1998 -- largely because of life-extending antiretroviral drugs -- the number of new cases each year has declined slightly over that period. That suggests that a person's likelihood of transmitting the virus to someone else is substantially lower now than it was a decade ago.
The new, if indirect, evidence that prevention programs are paying off was one of the few encouraging findings in an update on the American AIDS epidemic released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the eve of the 17th International AIDS Conference, in Mexico City.
"Over 95 percent of people living with HIV are not transmitting to someone else in a given year," said David R. Holtgrave, an expert on AIDS prevention at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "What that says is the transmission rate has been kept very low by prevention efforts."
Those include targeting public health messages to high-risk groups, promoting widespread AIDS testing, and getting quick medical care for newly diagnosed cases, which in most cases lowers the person's infectiousness.
The CDC spends about $750 million a year on AIDS prevention. The main finding of its report is that HIV incidence in 2006 -- the latest year for which data are available -- was 56,300 new cases of infection. That is 40 percent higher than the previous government estimate of 40,000, but statistical back calculation suggests that HIV incidence has been unchanged since about 2000.
The more accurate estimate was possible for two reasons. A new testing method lets researchers detect infections that are less than six months old -- which is more quickly than before. New federal regulations also are pushing states to collect data on new HIV infections and not just new AIDS diagnoses.
By the time AIDS is diagnosed, the infection has severely damaged the immune system, making the person vulnerable to unusual infections and cancers. This generally occurs eight to 11 years after infection, assuming that there is no treatment with antiretroviral drugs, which can prolong life for many more years.
In December, The Washington Post reported that the CDC was revising HIV incidence upward to 50,000 to 60,000 cases a year. Yesterday's announcement -- and the publication of a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- is the first official acknowledgment of the new, higher estimate.
"These data corroborate what many of us suspected -- that the epidemic is worse than we thought. However, it doesn't seem to be getting worse," said Jennifer Kates, director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington.
The CDC's portrait of the American AIDS epidemic today shows that gay and bisexual men -- especially those who are young or black -- and their female partners are at particular risk.
In 2006, 73 percent of new HIV infections were in men, 53 percent were acquired through homosexual intercourse, and 45 percent were in African Americans. The incidence rate -- the number of infections per 100,000 people -- was seven times higher in blacks and three times higher in Hispanics than in whites. It was highest in people in their 30s, although people younger than 30 accounted for nearly 34 percent of new infections.
The new study also sketches a 30-year picture of how the epidemic has evolved.
Annual incidence peaked in 1985 at 130,000 infections, dipped to 49,000 in the early 1990s, rose to 58,000 in 1998 and has stabilized at about 56,000 a year.
The number of new of HIV cases acquired through drug injection fell by 80 percent over that period through reduced needle sharing by drug users and, in some places, needle-exchange programs. Infections acquired through homosexual sex, which also peaked in the early 1980s, fell to a low in the early 1990s but have risen steadily since then.
The epidemic in the black community is distinctly different from the national epidemic.
From 2001 to 2005, 38 percent of the new diagnoses in African Americans were in women, and 46 percent of new infections overall were from heterosexual contact. Among whites during the same period, 16 percent of new infections were in women, and 16 percent were from heterosexual transmission.
About half of the CDC's HIV prevention budget targets the black community, said Kevin Fenton, who heads those activities at the agency. He said, however, that the rising HIV incidence in gay men, and in young black gay men especially, is evidence that prevention campaigns have "not reached all those who need it."
Statistics compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation show that 4 percent of the $23 billion the U.S. government is spending this year on all HIV-AIDS activities (including research, medical care and overseas programs) goes toward prevention.
According to a paper published last year in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the CDC's budget for AIDS prevention in 2006 was only 5 percent higher than it was in 1990.
from The Washington Post

Fashion Memo: JC Chasez

Wow, really JC? Really? You're actually going to leave the house in a full-on tuxedo jacket layered over a v-neck summer sweater? And then you'll button up the jacket? Where do you get these ideas, old Bugs Bunny cartoons?
Listen, I know that being in a monochromatically dressed boyband during your formative fashion years makes you an abused child of sorts, but the other four have all made peace with their past and are now looking, well, better than you.
Plus, everyone thinks you're gay - not that there's anything wrong with that - but you'd think a guy who doth protest so much wouldn't dress like the newest conductor of the San Francisco Gay Men's Orchestra. So, get your hand off the wand and hire a stylist, or at least a pyromaniac to torch your closet.
from New York Post

Tap Water Chemicals Not Linked To Penis Defect

NEW YORK - Though some research has linked chemicals in chlorinated tap water to the risk of birth defects, a new study finds no strong evidence that the chemicals contribute to a common birth defect of the penis.
The defect, known as hypospadias, occurs when the urinary outlet develops on the underside of the penis rather than at the tip. Genetics are thought to play a large role in hypospadias risk, but the other potential causes are not fully understood.
Some past studies have suggested that certain chemicals in tap water -- byproducts of the chlorination process used to kill disease-causing pathogens -- may contribute to the risk of birth defects and miscarriage. Other studies, though, have found no such links.
For the current study, researchers led by Tom J. Luben of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used birth records from 934 boys born in Arkansas between 1998 and 2002. Of these children, 320 were born with hypospadias.
Luben's team analyzed monitoring data from local water utilities to estimate the mothers' exposure to two major classes of water-disinfection byproducts during pregnancy.
Overall, the researchers found, women with the greatest exposure to these chemicals were no more likely to give birth to a boy with hypospadias than women with the least exposure.
They report the findings in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
"Our results do not support the hypothesis that continuous or intermittent exposure to tap water disinfection byproduct concentrations within regulatory limits during gestation is associated with giving birth to a son with hypospadias," Luben and colleagues write.
However, the findings are not the final word, either.
The researchers did find that when they accounted for mothers' total exposure to certain chemicals -- through drinking, bathing and showering -- there was some evidence of a link to hypospadias.
There was, however, no clear pattern of hypospadias risk climbing as mothers' exposure to tap water chemicals increased. Such patterns, known as a "dose-response" relationship, are considered to be evidence of cause-and-effect.
The results, according to Luben's team, "could be due to chance."
They call for further studies, with more-precise information on individual women's exposure to tap water chemicals, to help settle the question.
from Reuters

Just One Look...#101

California's Gay Marriages Begin

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - On the front steps of the Beverly Hills Courthouse, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson became the first gay couple to marry in Los Angeles County, and possibly all of California. Tyler and Olson were the leading plaintiffs in the 2004 same sex marriage lawsuit that went before the California Supreme Court, with the majority of justices ruling in their favor on May 15. On late Monday afternoon, it was time to make everything official.
With a crowd that included LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad, actress and producer Honey Labrador and her girlfriend, and many friends and family, the courthouse steps were jammed.
A little after five o'clock, Tyler walked out of the courthouse with Olson and their lawyer, Gloria Allred, waving the official marriage license. Tyler said the couple had ordered their white wedding suits a year ago, expecting this day to come.
"It's a great day for tolerance in America," said Michael Libow, a Beverly Hills real estate agent and master of ceremonies, as more friends and family looked on.
During the Jewish wedding, Tyler and Olson were surrounded by every major TV and radio news outlet in Los Angeles, with most of them broadcasting the nuptials live. "This is a time for celebration and rejoicing," said Rabbi Denise Eger, who married the couple.
Anti-gay protesters also attended the event, but they were silent during the ceremony after Beverly Hills police reportedly warned them to be respectful. Volunteers from the gay community stood next to the wedding crashers with rainbow flags.
For many people, it was hard to hold back the tears, and, to be honest, I was one of them. This hasn't happened often. The only other time emotions blind-sided me on the job was when I covered the 2005 civil disobedience arrest of gay rights activist Jake Reitan and his parents, Philip and Randi, at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado. I'm still not sure why the eyes teared up in Beverly Hills, but watching Tyler and Olson successfully overcome their long struggle, which is the long struggle of every gay man and woman, stirred something in me.
After the ceremony, Janet Singleton, a friend of the married couple, served slices of a four-layered cake named "Eden" to anyone who wanted it...even, she suggested, the protesters.
Just before Robin Tyler ate her cake, she told the crowd, "We stand on the shoulders of thousands of activists who came before us...it's not about us." Tyler added, "We wanted marriage because it's the most special word in the world for someone."
At one point, anti-gay protesters started yelling at Tyler and Olson, calling them an "abomination." Gloria Allred briefly confronted them, waving the supreme court ruling in their faces. More protesters are expected to show up at ceremonies in West Hollywood and Norwalk on Tuesday.
By six o'clock, everything was over, and Tyler no longer introduced Olson to people as her "partner." Whenever she got the chance, she smiled, looked at her longtime companion, and said, "This is my wife." The day, Tyler said, made her feel like Alice in Wonderland.
A lot of music has been running through the head the past couple of days, and after I was driving home from Beverly Hills along Doheny Drive, David Bowie's "Heroes" popped up on the car stereo, with these lyrics adding to a weird buzz fueled by two slices of wedding cake and too much adrenaline:
"I can remember/ Standing/ By the wall/ And the guns/ Shot above our heads/ And we kissed/ As though nothing could fall/ And the shame/ Was on the other side/ Oh we can beat them/ For ever and ever/ Then we can be heroes/ Just for one day..."
On a warm Monday evening in West Hollywood, and a half hour after one of the first same sex weddings in California, it was the perfect gay anthem.
from LA Weekly

California Gay Weddings May Start June 14

Same-sex couples in some California counties will be able to marry as soon as June 14, the president of the California's county clerks association said.
Stephen Weir, who heads the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said Monday he was told by the Office of Vital Records that clerks would be authorized to hand out marriage licenses as soon as that date, which is a Saturday and exactly 30 days after the California Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage should be legal.
The court's decisions typically take effect after 30 days, barring further legal action.
"They are shooting for the 14th," said Weir, adding that the state planned to give California's 58 counties advice this week for implementing the historic change so local officials can start planning.
Suanne Buggy, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health, which oversees the vital records office, would not confirm Monday that state officials have settled the matter of when counties can or must start extending marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"We will be getting guidance out to the counties soon," Buggy said.
According to Weir, it would be up to each county clerk to decide whether to open their offices to gay and lesbian couples on that Saturday or to wait until the following Monday.
Some clerks have said they would try to accommodate couples at the earliest possible date, depending on their staffing and anticipated demand, he said.
If the court's decision does take effect on June 14, couples could, in theory, plan to obtain their licenses and take their vows at 12:01 a.m. that day, he said.
As it happens, Weir's office in Martinez already holds open hours on the second Saturday of each month, so serving couples who want to get hitched as soon as possible won't be a problem, he said. He and his partner of 18 years hope to be the first ones to tie the knot.
"Just because we have been so close to it, and so far, I would really like to be first," Weir said.
An effort, however, is under way to stay the Supreme Court's decision until voters can decide the issue with an initiative planned for the November ballot. The measure would overrule the justices' decision and amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.
Justices have until the ruling's effective date to weigh the request, but could give themselves longer to consider it, attorneys have said. Another complicating factor is that the Supreme Court also directed a mid level appeals court that upheld the state's one man-one woman marriage laws a year ago to issue a new order legalizing same-sex marriage, and it's not clear when the appeals court would comply.
Massachusetts is the only other state to legalize gay marriage, something it did in 2004. More than 9,500 same-sex couples in that state have wed.
from The Associated Press

Photos Of High School Water Polo Players Merit No Charges

Orange County, CA - Two men, including a UCI police dispatcher, who allegedly took photographs of area high school water polo players that were posted on gay sex websites will not face criminal charges, the Orange County District Atty.’s office said Thursday, although a university investigation continues.
“We investigated this case extensively — we pursued the criminal angle and also asked if we could pursue a civil lawsuit,” said Orange County District Atty.’s spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder. “There’s nothing in the statutes that would make this be a crime.”
Although prosecutors found the photographers did not break any laws, the water polo players and their parents still have the option of filing a civil suit, Schroeder said.
“This doesn’t preclude the victims from going after the people who put up the pictures and made money off theses images,” she said.
Newport Harbor High School Water Polo Coach Jason Lynch said he wasn’t surprised to learn that posting the photographs of young male players in small bathing suits on the Internet was not against the law.
Since word of the photographs spread through the local aquatics community, Newport Harbor officials and parents are keeping a closer watch on who comes to the pool with a camera, he said.
“We’ve continued to take some steps to be more vigilant and police the pool deck,” Lynch said. “We’ve designated some of our booster parents to be more vigilant of people who come with cameras. It’s still hard with little tiny cameras and cellphones, but at least we’re trying to do something.”
Parents and school officials now keep an eye out for people with cameras equipped with telephoto lenses, and photographers from visiting schools need a pass when they go to Newport Harbor for water polo events, Lynch said.
Scott Cornelius, 44, a UCI police department employee, remains on paid administrative leave as the university’s investigation into his conduct in the case continues, said UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon.
Cornelius was placed on paid administrative leave in January after he and another photographer, Allen Rockwell, were accused of posting photos of unsuspecting high school-aged male water polo players, including Newport Harbor High School students, on websites with gay pornographic content.
UCI is conducting its own investigation to see if Cornelius’ conduct broke any university regulations. The investigation is examining whether photographs Cornelius allegedly took were taken on department time, a police department official told the Daily Pilot in March.
The discovery of numerous photographs of area, underage water polo players on gay porn websites prompted a state Assembly bill that would make it a crime to take and publish photographs of minors without their knowledge or consent on pornographic websites. AB 2104, written by Assemblyman Cameron Smyth (R-Santa Clarita), would make such acts a crime punishable by up to one year in county jail and/or a $5,000 fine. The bill has already successfully passed out of the Assembly public safety committee and has been passed onto the appropriations committee.
from The Daily Pilot

Thanks to NGblog for the heads up.

Related Article: Teen Swimmers' Photos Put On Gay Sites

Surrogate Mothers Fulfilling Gay Men's Parenthood Dreams

NEW YORK — An ever-growing number of gay couples are paying tens of thousands of dollars to have surrogate mothers carry their babies, turning America's concept of traditional family on its head.
It took two women and two men for two-year-old twins Katherine and Connor to come to life.
Their fathers, Michael Eidelman and A.J. Vincent, who have lived together for years, invested love, time and all their savings to build their family in New York's Chelsea neighborhood.
The eggs were donated by a woman in Washington state and fertilized in vitro with sperm from both men. The fertilized egg was then inserted in the uterus of a woman from Ohio.
Each man is the biological father of one of the twins, who were born in Los Angeles, where the laws are less stringent for same-sex couples.
"I am so glad that we chose that pathway," said Eidelman, a 40-year-old dermatologist.
"It definitely has challenges on a day-to-day basis. You never know what is coming your way," he said. "But, on the other hand, it is more rewarding than any other thing I have done in my life."
To fulfill their dream of parenthood, the couple turned to Circle Surrogacy, a company that helps people find egg donors and host mothers and navigate through the legal and medical insurance process.
"It is a very successful business," said Circle Surrogacy President John Weltman.
"In 12 years we have grown 6,000 percent with no borrowing whatsoever and profit made every month," he said. "We expect to double in the next two and half years."
When the company was launched, 10 percent of its clients were gay couples. Today, 80 percent are same-sex couples from 29 countries.
"Actually, of the 250 or so couples we have helped, all but about four are still together, a less than two percent break up rate, as opposed to the national average of 50 percent," he said.
The "gay baby boom" has made families with two fathers a common sight in New York City's daycare centers and parks, although gay couples legally marry only in one US state, Massachusetts.
"It is not looked at anymore as something so weird or strange," said Sanford Benardo, president of the Northeast Assisted Fertility Group from Boston, Massachusetts.
"More and more people are doing it," said Bernardo, whose company has clients from Asia to the Middle East and Europe. "It is not for celebrities anymore."
The process costs at least 100,000 dollars, with 25,000 dollars going to the surrogate mother and between 4,000 and 10,000 dollars of the egg donor. The rest goes to the agency, medical costs and legal fees.
Coupled with adoption, the number of families with gay parents is growing. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, between one million and nine million children under the age of 18 have same-sex parents today.
Henry, a blue-eyed baby turning two in August, has two fathers -- Christopher Hietikko and Jeffrey Parsons -- both in their 40s. His surrogate mother, a lesbian from California, has been made part of the family.
"We became very close and we still are very close," said Parsons, a psychology professor at Hunter College. "We didn't want to treat it as a business arrangement. We wanted to treat it more like creating a family."
The two men don't know who fathered Henry, but they will take a DNA test once they are ready for a second child to decide who will be the next baby's biological dad.
For their first child, the sperm samples from both men were mixed together to give each an equal chance at becoming the biological father, Parsons said.
The boy was born in California, and the names of both fathers appear on the birth certificate.
The psychologist insists that children born in these 21st-century families are as happy as kids whose parents are a woman and a man.
"The research shows very clearly that what children need the most to strive and survive is a safe, and secure, and loving home," he said.
"It really doesn't matter whether there are two moms in that home, two dads in that home, a single dad, a single mom, whatever, as long as a child knows that he/she is loved and is cared for."
from AFP

Luke Macfarlane Says He Is Gay

LOS ANGELES — Next month, in the season finale of his hit television series Brothers & Sisters, Canadian actor Luke Macfarlane will dress his best and say his vows as his character, Scotty Wandell, marries his partner, Kevin Walker.
It's an episode the London, Ont.-born actor is looking forward to, on may levels: It's one of the few shows on network television to portray a gay marriage between two main characters - a feat the 28-year-old actor is quite proud of, from a professional perspective. But the episode also holds personal resonance for Macfarlane, who wants to be married himself some day, and has finally decided to go public with his own sexual orientation.
Though no secret to his family and close friends, Macfarlane has, until now, been guarded about his personal life as a gay man. Over lunch in Los Angeles, where he lives, he initially insists that he has no concerns about his public revelation - but a few seconds later he is shifting nervously in his chair, and concedes that he is "terrified."
"I don't know what will happen professionally ... that is the fear, but I guess I can't really be concerned about what will happen, because it's my truth.
"There is this desire in L.A. to wonder who you are and what's been blaring for me for the last three years is how can I be most authentic to myself - so this is the first time I am speaking about it in this way."
The episode, which started shooting yesterday and will air on May 11 on ABC and Global, is a monumental step in television culture, he says.
"From a standing outside perspective, and also as someone who is gay, I think that it's a very exciting time. How exciting that we're saying, 'This can be part of the cultural fabric, now,' because it is two series regulars, two people that you invite into your home and you see every week. It's telling of the beginning of more waves and I'm very proud of that."He does, however, note that a certain irony still exists: While a show featuring a gay marriage may be an important step toward building tolerance, it's still an attention-grabber in today's television world.
"Most importantly, in portraying gay people, the more we realize it's just like portraying anybody else and, gay marriage, it's not about two people being gay, it's about two people who love each other and who have decided to commit to each other for the exact same reasons any other couple would get married. Hopefully, the more that becomes part of the cultural awareness it won't be," he pauses and says, employing a mock, exaggerated voice of a television announcer, "a spectacular Sunday episode."
Sitting on the patio of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, wearing a grey T-shirt and red jacket, Macfarlane says he does intend to keep a certain amount of his life private. Asked if he is currently in a relationship, his answer is quick: "That is my personal life. That is where I draw the difference." He does allow though, that he would like to be married some day.
Macfarlane's road to Hollywood was relatively smooth, and mostly free of bit parts and day jobs most struggling actors undergo. Growing up with two sisters (one of which is his fraternal twin), he attended London Central Secondary School, where he was interested in maths and sciences, briefly toiling with the thought of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a doctor. He spent his summers in Cedar Springs, Ont., exploring the wilderness with friends. At Lester B. Pearson School For The Arts, Macfarlane decided to change his course.
"I was in a band when I was in high school and I was bitten by the performance bug, if anything else. I had this notion that maybe I wanted to be an actor. ... I thought it might be a neat career. I thought if I was going to try that, I should shoot for the best and I auditioned for Julliard.
"I was the only Canadian at Juilliard at the time," he says. "When you go somewhere different, you immediately have to determine yourself ... everyone made fun of me because I was like, 'I am Canadian' and it was a way to create my identity through separation, which I think a lot of Canadians do. There's a kind of integrity to being an observer of a culture. I think Canadians have that privilege innately. We are like the observers of the American culture."
Barely out of Juilliard, he was cast in off-Broadway plays, the Robert Altman miniseries Tanner on Tanner, the 2004 film Kinsey and a starring role in the 2005 Steven Bochco television series Over There. It was his stint in theatre that landed him his current television role - Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz saw Macfarlane on stage in the show Where Do We Live, and asked him to play Scotty Wandell, originally a guest-starring role which grew into a regular part.
"Roles tend to pick me. That's sort of where I am in my career. I've always been very lucky, especially in TV, which is something that really interests me. ... I don't turn my nose up at it like a lot of people do. There are very few things that 13 million people tune in to witness, so television is a really relevant and powerful thing."
Though he will soon be seen in the CBC miniseries Iron Road alongside Peter O'Toole and Sam Neill, Macfarlane, has little free time to pursue other roles at the moment. "[ABC] bought and paid for me as a series regular," he says with a smile, "so I will be there for a long, long time."
from The Globe And Mail

Bromances Aren't Uncommon As Guys Delay Marriage

In a 2007 episode of NBC's hospital-based comedy "Scrubs," the show's two main characters, J.D. and Turk, break into a musical duet proclaiming their mutual affection. "Guy love. That's all it is," the song goes. "Guy love, he's mine, I'm his. There's nothing gay about it in our eyes."
Turk and J.D. are two straight male doctors who are, without a doubt, in a bromance, a relationship defined as "the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males," according to urbandictionary.com.
From "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to "Good Will Hunting," popular culture is filled with examples of straight guy love. The sitcom "Friends" often crafted jokes around the ultratight nature of Joey and Chandler's relationship, and in the 2005 film "Wedding Crashers," Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson seemed to have something more like a tortured love affair than a friendship.
But close male friendship isn't just a quirky television fantasy or a running gag in the movies. Real-life bromances are everywhere. Kevin Collier, 26, a New Jersey construction manager, has lots of manly things in common with his best friend, including but not limited to, "tattoos, motorcycles and chicks," as Collier put it. But that hasn't stopped his friends from accusing him of having a "man crush" on his best friend Don Carlo-Clauss, 28, a semiprofessional fighter whose day job is in marketing.
They first met on the wrestling team at the University of Virginia. It was a bromance founded on shared misery. "When you spend six months out of the year being miserable together, you wind up with a lot of close relationships with your teammates," said Collier.
In No Rush To Settle Down
Experts say the prevalence of these friendships can in part be explained by the delay in major life milestones. Fifty years ago, a man could graduate from college, get a job and get married all within a couple of months. But today's men are drifting, as opposed to jumping, into the traditional notion of adulthood.
"The transition to adulthood is now taking about a decade longer than it used to," said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York whose upcoming book is called "Guy Land: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men." One set of men Kimmel interviewed for the book were fraternity brothers at Dartmouth College. Following graduation, seven of them squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment in Boston.
Financial pressures help fuel bromances because they make living with a roommate a sensible option. In addition, men are getting married later — an average age of 27, according to a 2007 report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, up from the average marrying age of 23 in 1960. Men with more education are marrying even later, in their 30s.
David Popenoe, director of the marriage project and an emeritus professor of sociology at Rutgers, cited the acceptance of premarital sex and the greater numbers of men and women who live together as reasons for the delay in marriage.
Freedom Fuels Friendship
Men in bromances agree that when singlehood abounds, male friendships flourish. "Being single as opposed to married allows us to do things like go on these random excursions," said Joe Tipograph, 27, a graduate student at Emory University who recently spent a week in Key West with his two best friends from high school.
Tipograph, David Abrams and Greg Kopstein have a triangular bromance of sorts that began when they were kids growing up as neighbors in Rockville, Md. They went to separate colleges but reunited one summer to work as camp counselors in New Hampshire.
"Greg and I would always get in trouble, but they knew if they fired either one of us, Dave would quit," said Tipograph of how the three became a package deal. Recently Tipograph wouldn't join in a football gambling pool unless he could do so with Kopstein. Their friends dubbed them "Team Brokeback," referring to the 2006 tale of cowboy romance between Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.
Since graduating college, they've played a game of musical apartments, each having lived with the other, in one city or another, over the years.
Gay? Who Cares?
According to Peter Nardi, a sociologist at Pitzer College who specializes in male friendships, all these phrases are safer than they used to be because men are less afraid of being perceived as gay. It has become more acceptable for them to show some emotion. Al Gore and Bill Clinton hugged when they won the 1992 election and sports figures cry on camera when they're busted for steroids, Nardi pointed out.
There seems to be little worry about perceptions of homosexuality in a bromance filled with macho pursuits like drinking beer, watching sports and playing video games. But rifts can occur when serious girlfriends enter the picture or someone moves to another city. Tipograph and Kopstein both have girlfriends and make it work.
Bromancers say they keep spark alive by making an extra effort to see one another and keeping an open and honest communication. Collier and Carlo-Clauss rode Harleys from San Diego to Las Vegas together. Varellas is temporarily playing water polo professionally in Italy, while Hopkins trains just north of Los Angeles, but the two talk on the phone once a week.
Gerrity will be moving out of Mariner's apartment come fall when he heads to graduate school, and they'll be trying long distance. "We had a long talk about it," said Gerrity. "I won't see him everyday," said Mariner. "But I don't think we're going to break up our bromance."
from The Seattle Times

mexico

The Mexican city of Guadalajara is threatening to move gay clubs out of the city center in advance of the 2011 Pan American Games that will take place in the city, according to Carlos Oceguera, who owns two such clubs.


"By growing your own vegetables, you-'re going to increase consumption of them because they are on hand,"

HIV Is A Gay Disease

In a public statement last Friday, Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, rattled the homosexual activist community by joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pro-family organizations and a growing number of homosexual activists willing to admit that homosexual behavior is both extremely high-risk and primarily responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
Addressing the topic of AIDS, Foreman drastically deviated from the "gay" lobby's party line by admitting, "Internally, when these numbers come out, the 'established' gay community seems to have a collective shrug as if this isn't our problem. Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi, we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that."
A little over a year ago, Lorri Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Gay and Lesbian Center, similarly shocked the "gay" community by stating that, "HIV is a Gay Disease. Own it. End it."
Foreman's admission comes on the heels of a letter from Matt Barber, Concerned Women for America's (CWA) Policy Director for Cultural Issues, inviting Foreman and other homosexual activists to work together in discouraging homosexuals from engaging in the high-risk behaviors researchers recently determined are responsible for the epidemic spread of a potentially deadly strain of staph infection among certain segments of the "gay" community. The CDC has acknowledged that many of those same high-risk behaviors, such as male-male anal sex, are chiefly responsible for spreading HIV/AIDS.
Matt Barber addressed Foreman's admission: "It's extremely encouraging to see Matt Foreman, a homosexual activist who has for so long been in denial about the dangers of the lifestyle he has promoted, publicly coming to terms with the undeniable perils of that lifestyle.
"I only hope he will now stop promoting homosexual conduct and push for other liberal elites, especially those running our public schools, to do the same. Educators must truthfully address the 'gay' lifestyle's potentially deadly consequences.
"It's criminally reckless for the National Education Association and liberal educators to put political correctness and a deceptive political agenda above the lives, health and well-being of America's children. The evidence is there for all to see. 'Gayness' is not about 'who you are,' it's about 'what you do.' The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has now, in effect, acknowledged that reality. Their honesty is refreshing and unexpected," concluded Barber.
Concerned Women For America
from Christian News Wire

New Life Church And Haggard Reach New Agreement

COLORADO SPRINGS - The New Life Church has announced that former Pastor Ted Haggard has requested to end his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team. The church has accepted his request.
According to those familiar with the arrangement, the agreement releases Haggard from restrictions imposed on him in November 2006 after he was removed from the New Life Church leadership. Haggard was the lead pastor and founder of New Life Church until it surfaced he had visited a gay male escort and had bought methamphetamine.
9Wants to Know first reported the story after interviewing the escort, Mike Jones, and talking with then Haggard.
Haggard and his wife and part of their family are now living in Phoenix.
The change in the status of the relationship between Haggard and leaders of the church who were in charge of his restoration process means the legal contract initially signed by both sides is no longer in place. One person familiar with the arrangement said it's less of a separation between Haggard and the church and more of a trust that both sides will abide by any further agreements.
The news release from the New Life Church was first sent to parishioners on Tuesday night and then sent to the media. New Life Church states it "recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future."
from Nine News

John Mayer As Borat

High HIV Incidence Among Gay Men With Syphilis In The US

US investigators have found a high incidence of recent HIV infection amongst men diagnosed with primary or secondary syphilis. In a study published in the February 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes HIV incidence was 11% amongst gay men with early forms of syphilis. The investigators suggest “intensive and integrated HIV/STD testing, care and prevention services are needed for men diagnosed with syphilis.”
Since the late 1990s numerous outbreaks of syphilis have been recorded amongst gay men in industrialised countries. There are concerns that these outbreaks could have implications for the spread of HIV amongst gay men. This is because syphilis infection can be a marker of risky sexual behaviour and because syphilis can facilitate the transmission and acquisition of HIV.
Some research from the US has found a high incidence of HIV amongst gay men with syphilis. To gain a better understanding of the relationship between incident HIV infections and primary and secondary syphilis infection, investigators analysed data from men diagnosed with the sexually transmitted infection at sexual health clinics in Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco between January 2004 – January 2006.
Blood samples used to diagnose syphilis were tested for HIV infection. Samples which were HIV-positive were then further analysed to see if the HIV infection was recent.
A total of 457 cases of syphilis were identified in the three cities, but the investigators restricted their analysis to the 357 men with primary or secondary syphilis. These men had a median age of 35 years and were ethnically diverse (37% white, 30% black and 25% Hispanic). Most of the men (85%) were gay.
Consistent with other research, the investigators found a high prevalence of HIV infection (45%) amongst men with primary and secondary syphilis.
This infection was well-established in most of the men, with 61% having a record of a positive HIV antibody test six or more or a history of antiretroviral therapy six months before their syphilis diagnosis.
But further blood tests showed that eleven men, ten of whom were gay, had evidence of recent HIV infection. The investigators calculated that HIV incidence amongst men with early syphilis was 10% per year for all men and 11% per year for gay men.
Further analysis showed that HIV incidence varied according to age. Amongst men with early syphilis aged under 30 incidence was 14% per year, 8% for men aged 30 – 39, and 5% for men aged 40 and above. Incidence also appeared to differ according to ethnicity, with an incidence of 14% per year amongst white men, 7% amongst black men and 6% amongst Hispanic men.
“In this population of consecutive men diagnosed with early syphilis in STD clinics in Atlanta, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, we found a high incidence of HIV infection during 2004 and 2005,” write the investigators.
The investigators work supports earlier research from the US that found that syphilis outbreaks were concentrated in gay men, many of whom are HIV-positive and were engaging in high-risk sexual behaviours.
“In these sexual networks, HIV-uninfected men acquiring syphilis are simultaneously at a high risk of HIV acquisition for multiple reasons”, suggest the investigators. They go on to explain “recent syphilis infection…facilitates HIV acquisition because syphilitic ulcers disrupt epithelial and mucosal barriers and local inflammation may lead to the recruitment of CD4 target cells to the site of ulceration.”
Furthermore, because these HIV-negative men are sexually active within networks that have a high prevalence of HIV-positive men “their probability of encountering an HIV-infected partner is increased.” Finally, HIV-positive men in these networks with syphilis are more likely to transmit HIV because their “viral load may be elevated in early syphilis infection.”
The investigators recommend that HIV-negative men diagnosed with syphilis should have follow-up appointments at sexual health clinics three and six months after their treatment for syphilis to verify that this treatment was successful and “for repeat HIV antibody testing, risk reduction education, and linkage to HIV care in the event of seroconversion.”
from Aids Map

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Turns 15

It was 15 years ago, Tuesday, that President Clinton rolled out the policy that came to be known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which relaxed the long-standing bar against gay men and women serving in the U.S. military. While the move was initially hailed as progress for the rights of gays in the military, today many see it as a liability.
Her Navy career had been "relatively stress-free" before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" took effect, says Joan Darrah, a retired captain, and a lesbian, who served in various intelligence billets from 1972 to 2002. She kept her sexual orientation secret during her career, but that denial took its toll after "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" led to increased focus on homosexuality in the ranks. She recalls having to administer a survey on the topic to 250 subordinates in the wake of the new policy. "We all sat down taking this survey asking, 'Do you know a gay person, and, if you did, what would you do?' " Dannah recalls. "I was physically sick after I did it — I went into the bathroom and threw up because of the stress of standing in front of the command and saying, 'We're now doing a survey about gays in the military.' "
The issue exploded during Clinton's first week as President, triggered by those in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill opposed to his campaign pledge to reverse an executive order barring gays and lesbians from serving. "The issue is whether men and women who can and have served with real distinction should be excluded from military service solely on the basis of their status," Clinton said at the time. "And I believe they should not."
While the phrase "don't ask, don't tell" wasn't used at that January 29, 1993, press conference, that's what everyone soon began calling the policy. It boiled down to this: the government would no longer "ask" recruits if they were gay, and so long as military personnel didn't "tell" anyone of their sexual preference — and didn't engage in homosexual acts — they were free to serve. But, by the end of 1993, opponents of the change, led by Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee, succeeded in writing into law the ban on openly gay men and lesbians in uniform. Barring the pre-enlistment question about homosexuality "was the only compromise Congress let Clinton get away with," says Elaine Donnelly, president of the non-profit Center for Military Readiness which supports continuing the ban. "The law respects the power of sexuality and the normal human desire for modesty in sexual matters."
Writing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" into law meant that no new President can eliminate the ban without first convincing a majority of Congress to go along — a far higher hurdle than Clinton faced. All the Democratic candidates favor lifting the ban; the GOP candidates support keeping it. "I think President Clinton meant well, but when he set out to implement his vision he ran into a buzz saw," says Aubrey Sarvis, an ex-GI and executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit group dedicating to lifting the ban. "I see very few, if any, good things about 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' — it means you have to lie or deceive every day."
About 12,000 service members have been booted from the military since the law took effect, including dozens of Arabic speakers whose skills are particularly prized by the military since the advent of the war on terror. While the number discharged for their sexuality has fallen from 1,273 in 2001 to 612 in 2006, Pentagon officials insist they are applying the law as fairly as ever. Gay-rights advocates disagree, suggesting the military — pressed for personnel amid an unpopular war — is willing to ignore sexual orientation when recruiting becomes more difficult. Last May, a CNN poll found that 79 percent of Americans feel that homosexuals should be allowed to serve in the military.
But Americans in the military seem less friendly to the idea of junking the ban. A 2006 opinion poll by the independent Military Times newspapers showed that only 30% of those surveyed think openly gay people should serve, while 59% are opposed. "I don't think they'll succeed, but I think they'll try," Donnelly says of the Democrats' efforts to repeal the ban. Darrah, the retired Navy officer, says success depends on who moves into the Oval Office a year from now. "I believe if we get a Democratic president we'll get rid of the ban," says Darrah, who is backing Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House. "The younger generation doesn't care one bit."
from Time Magazine

God Hates Fags At It Again....

from God Hates Fags

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

Teen Swimmers' Photos Put On Gay Sites

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA - Several gay adult Web sites have posted photographs of teenage water polo players from several high schools in Southern California, a newspaper reported.
Some of the pictures, of boys as young as 14, were displayed next to photos of nude young men and graphic sexual content, an Orange County Register investigation found.
Parents, coaches and school officials were alarmed, and parents said some of the boys were traumatized and sought counseling.
"These kids don't look at what they do as shameful," said Joan Gould, an international water polo official and a spokeswoman for a group of Orange County water polo parents. "For someone to come in and take what these kids are doing and take it out of context and exploit these images, these kids and their schools, because you can see the school name on the caps, is just horrible."
Police at the University of California, Irvine, confirmed they are investigating whether a campus police dispatcher had photographed the high school athletes for gay-oriented sites. The man had not been charged, and police Chief Paul Henisey said he remained on duty.
"We're looking into the matter," Henisey said. "We're not exactly sure about what we have or what kinds of issues there are."
It was not clear if posting the pictures constituted an offense.
"With free speech and photography, there's a gray cloud in terms of what is legal, constitutional," said state Assemblyman Jose Solorio, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee.
Solorio said he would have the committee investigate the matter.
The Register said it found photos of players from 11 Orange County high schools plus schools in Los Angeles and San Diego counties on several pages of one gay porn site registered to a London address. Photos were also posted on other sites, the paper reported.
from The Associated Press

January Edits

Just One Look...#100

Motorola Commercial

HIV On The Rise With Young Gay Men

NEW YORK - For years he had numbed his pain and fear with drugs, alcohol and anonymous sex. But in a flash of clarity one day, when the crystal meth was wearing off, Javier Arriola dragged himself to a clinic to get an H.I.V. test, years after he stopped using condoms.
He knew the answer before he received the results, but it was far worse than he thought: At age 29, he had full-blown AIDS.
He had planned to have a party for his 30th birthday. Instead he was thinking of hanging himself in his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.
“There were feelings of terror, like when you were a little kid and there’s that thing that terrifies you,” he said. “This was it. The worst nightmare, and I brought this onto myself.”
The number of new H.I.V. infections in men under 30 who have sex with men has increased sharply in New York City in the last five years, particularly among blacks and Hispanics, even as AIDS deaths and overall H.I.V. infection rates in the city have steadily declined.
New figures from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that the annual number of new infections among black and Hispanic men who have sex with men rose 34 percent between 2001 and 2006, and rose for all men under 30 who have sex with men by 32 percent.
At a time when the number of new cases among older gay men is dropping — by 22 percent in New York City during the same period — AIDS experts are bearing down on what they say is a worrisome and perplexing growth of H.I.V. infection among young men like Mr. Arriola.
So far, they say, the significant factors feeding the trend appear to be higher rates of drug use among younger men, which can fuel dangerous sex practices, optimism among them that AIDS can be readily treated, and a growing stigma about H.I.V. among gays that keeps some men from revealing that they are infected. There has also been a substantial increase in the number of new infection cases among young white men who have sex with men, but still that group had fewer new cases in 2006: 100, compared with 228 among blacks and 165 among Hispanics.
The rising rates for young men in New York City come as federal health officials acknowledge that infection rates nationwide, while flat, may be substantially higher than previously thought because of underreporting.
The highest rates of H.I.V. infection nationally are among gays, blacks and Hispanics, with a recent trend toward a younger infected population mirroring New York City’s experience, according to AIDS researchers, who say they are concerned that the country’s infection rates over all have not declined in the past 10 years.
“It’s really unconscionable that we haven’t had a decrease in new infections in the past decade in the United States,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, chief of infectious diseases at Harlem Hospital Center and a professor of public health at Columbia University. “It’s not anymore in the headlines; many people think it’s gone away, and it hasn’t gone away.”
AIDS activists and medical providers say the rates among young men could signal a new wave of the disease.
“Unless you start pulling it apart, unless you start looking at really addressing this and talking honestly, unless you start talking about it in a real way,” said Soraya Elcock, deputy director for policy at Harlem United Community Aids Center, in a neighborhood that has one of the highest infection rates in the city, “we’ll be here in another 20 years having the same conversation.”
As a young, black gay man, Lynonell Edmonds says it seems like a miracle that he has not contracted the AIDS virus. Before he turned 20, he had a haunting realization: in his group of 20 close gay friends, he was the only one without H.I.V.
Mr. Edmonds, now 25, does outreach work for the Harlem AIDS center, trolling Craigslist and other online meeting spots as a “sexpert,” encouraging men to be tested. He and a crew of outreach workers also go to gay nightclubs late at night, with a van carrying H.I.V. tests that can be conducted on the spot. The crew parks the van, which has no obvious signs of its mission, on the street. When they go into the clubs, they make conversation and delicately inquire whether a clubgoer would like to take the test.
Mr. Edmonds said that for many gay black men there is a sense that getting the virus is almost inevitable.
“A lot of guys say, ‘I’m going to get it anyway,’” Mr. Edmonds said.
Mr. Edmonds and other gay men say the stigma of being infected with H.I.V. is growing, and may be greater now than it was in the 1990s, when the AIDS epidemic became a unifying cause, a shared tragedy for gay men.
“I call it, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’” Mr. Edmonds said. “People are not asking — it’s like it’s an offensive question.”
Kyle, who found out that he had the virus two years ago, at the age of 23, said he had grown weary of what he called “pity dates,” men who agreed to go out with him after he revealed he was infected, but had no intention of pursuing a relationship. He said that out of about 10 men he had dated in the last two years, only one — who was, at 40, the oldest — was willing to go beyond pity dates.
“They blame you and want nothing to do with you; they put you at the end of the line,” said Kyle, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used because he said he believed his condition would hurt him professionally. “The older generation sees AIDS as a tragedy, the younger generation sees it as self-destructive behavior.”
He said he was infected by someone who did not reveal that he had the virus until after they had unprotected sex.
For Mr. Arriola, who struggled with being molested as a child, the H.I.V. diagnosis put him at rock bottom, he said.
He continued to use drugs for several more months, but then, as his suicide plan was becoming an obsession, he called a friend who was a recovering addict. He got clean and sober, joined a 12-step group, started going to therapy and has slowly pieced his life back together.
“For me today, I’ve done a lot of work to accept myself. I don’t drink and drug, I meditate, there’s a lot of visualization of the person I want to be,” he said. “A lot of it is acceptance. I’m 32, I’m Latin, I’m gay and I have H.I.V. And I don’t feel bad about it. It’s very, very important for me to not feel shame about this.”
As the face of the epidemic grows younger, city health officials acknowledge that their efforts — including a widespread condom distribution program, new investments in education programs at places including churches, and more availability of H.I.V. testing — are falling short.
“It leaves us a little bit scratching our heads: What is it that is going on?” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. “Something clearly is not working, and it’s literally about life or death.”
The city, which has the highest number of AIDS cases in the nation, about 100,000, and one of the highest H.I.V. infection rates, according to the health department, has made great strides in bringing down H.I.V. rates among intravenous drug users and pregnant women. The department, which is giving out three million condoms a month in a program begun last year, has also recently announced several efforts to expand rapid testing, which provides results within a day.
The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, said in an interview that the increasing rates among younger men was being driven by stubbornly high rates of substance abuse, involving drugs like crystal methamphetamine and cocaine, which not only reduce inhibitions but can also lead to “hypersexuality”: extended periods of sexual activity, potentially with multiple partners.
Dr. Frieden also said that another likely explanation was “treatment optimism,” and the many messages gay men receive through AIDS drug advertisements that people like Mr. Arriola can live long and normal lives.
“People who grew up watching their friends die of AIDS are a lot more careful than those who didn’t,” said Dr. Frieden, who said he cared for large numbers of AIDS patients in his earlier medical practice.
He said the department was planning to begin a new H.I.V. prevention campaign aimed at younger men, and a new marketing strategy for their condom campaign later this year. “When’s the last time we saw someone with lesions walking through Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen?” said Victoria Sharp, director of the Center for Comprehensive Care, which is currently providing medical care and other services to 3,000 H.I.V. patients at Roosevelt Hospital and in Harlem. “You don’t see it, and we haven’t seen it since the mid-1990s, so there is a whole generation or two who have grown up without seeing the physical manifestations.”
Health officials said they were also concerned about the growing number of patients receiving concurrent diagnoses of both H.I.V. and AIDS, after waiting too long to be tested. And while some policymakers say more aggressive testing could partly explain the higher infection rates, experts say one in four people with H.I.V. do not know they are infected, so the actual rates could be much higher.
Since receiving the AIDS diagnosis, Mr. Arriola, now 32, has developed a large group of sober friends, become a licensed real estate broker, repainted his apartment — all things that seemed impossible to imagine in the darkness of his drug use and when he learned he had the disease.
Then, he said he would look in the mirror and see the worthless person he believed he was. “I won’t make it to 35,” he would say.
But these days, with the antiviral drugs he takes, about five pills a day, his health is good, he said. Around his apartment, he has posted upbeat messages to himself, like the one on his mirror, where he has written “thank you.”
On the refrigerator he has a list of goals: “Write a book, own New York City property, spread love, own a business (20 million), get a college degree, run a triathlon, have a family (partner, car with driver and kids) and 190 pounds (muscle).”
from The New York Times