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