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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 1996)
ju st out ▼ January 5, 1 9 9 6 ▼ 7 SERIOUS INJURYDEATH CLAIMS resulting from: PFLAG gets high- powered legal help Hogan & Hartson LLP, a prominent District of Columbia law firm, has agreed to provide Parents, Families and Friends o f Lesbians and Gays pro bono legal assistance in PFL A G ’s battle with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. Hogan and Hartson attorneys will deal with First Amendment issues raised by C BN ’s legal threats against television stations that air ads from PFLAG’s “Project Open Mind,” a national and grass-roots outreach campaign to fight the spread of homophobic hate speech and activities. The campaign was launched in November in W ashington, D.C., Hous ton, Atlanta and Tulsa. The first television ads featured anti-gay statements by Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Sen. Jesse Helms paired with images of gay-bashing and gay-related teen suicide. Robertson and CBN threatened legal action to prevent the ads from airing. Television stations have refused to run the ads in the wake o f CBN ’s legal threats. ing Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). No one yet has asked Gingrich to co-sponsor this version. The most sig nificant change is to add AIDS wasting syndrome and spastic conditions to the list of diseases ap proved for use. Log Cabin Republicans spokesman David Greer said “the medicinal purposes have been validated.” He urged Republicans to support the bill. Robert Kampia, director of government rela tions for the Marijuana Policy Project, is “excited” by introduction of the bill. But he admits “it is going to be tough to make this a priority for any committee to hold hearings because there are so many other things going on.” He hopes hearings will take place next year. Auto accidents • Medical Malpractice ■ Unsafe Products ■ Free Consultation No Attorney Fee Unless You Recover 295-1940 621 SW Morrison, #1218 H a la G o r e s Attorney at Law I AM COMMITTED TO MAXIMIZING YOUR RECOVERY Problems with your dream house? We can help! Kristine Chatwood Supreme Court asked to review job bias case Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a petition in December asking the U.S. Su preme Court to review a decision by a Pennsylvania state court in a dispute concerning the terms of an employment contract. Daniel Miller, a certified public accountant, was employed by Demuth Management Consultants for five years. He was fired in 1990 when his employer, Donald L. Demuth, discovered M iller is gay. Years earlier, Miller had signed an employment contract with Demuth which included a clause that stated “homosexuality” was “cause” for discharge. An other clause in the contract provided for hefty pen alties if any of D emuth’s clients took their business to Miller after his termination. After the firing. M iller started his own business. Demuth subsequently sued Miller to invoke the latter clause. Thejudgment found in favorof Demuth. Miller was subjected to a penalty of more than $ 100 , 000 . Pennsylvania law does not prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Kristine Chatwood Frank introduces medical marijuana bill A bill to regulate the medical use of marijuana was introduced in the U.S. House o f Representa tives on Nov. 10 by Barney Frank (D-Mass.). HR 2816 is being co-sponsored by four other Demo cratic members of Congress. The bill would reclassify marijuana from aSched- ule I “nocurrently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” medicine to a tightly controlled Schedule II medicine under the Controlled Sub stance Act. “It is cruel to deny a proven, safe and helpful remedy to people who are seriously ill,” Frank said. “ More addictive, expensive and less-efficient nar cotics are regularly prescribed by physicians, and the ban on allowing marijuana to be included in the list has no reasonable basis.” Advocates claim that marijuana is equal or supe rior to other treatment options— in terms of effec tiveness, dosage control and cost— for alleviating a variety o f medical conditions. Most important to the lesbian and gay community is its use as an appetite stimulant to treat AIDS wasting syndrome and to combat the effects of nausea associated with radia tion- or chemotherapy used in treating Kaposi’s sarcoma, breast and other forms of cancer. The bill is modeled after one first introduced in 1981 by Rep. Stuart McKinney (R-Conn.)and then co-sponsored by m any other Republicans, includ Arts & Crafts Construction Barney Frank He sees the Judiciary Committee as a favorable venue. Frank is a member o f that committee, and its chair, Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), “understood that mari juana did have some medical benefits and he seemed to think it was not an outrageous idea to make it medically available,” said Kampia. Subcommittee Chair Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) co-sponsored the original bill in 1981. Frank, in a keynote address to the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws in September 1994, called this “probably the most important undiscussed issue that we have. The fear to talk about this is so great that even when you do talk about it, people don’t pay much attention.” “Medical marijuana is one of the easiest public- policy issues I’ve ever heard,” Frank said. “For the government of the United States to deny a doctor’s right to prescribe what he thinks is best for that patient is wholly at variance with most of the prin ciples my colleagues profess.” He vowed “to continue to try to shame my colleagues into changing this policy.” specializing in repair & remodeling o f period houses call Steve at 648 6968 or 1 800 684 9038 licensed/bonded/insured CCB # 107844 unes Bob Roe hr Ithaca denies gay marriage license request The city of Ithaca, N.Y., spent several months considering the request by two gay men for a mar riage license before finally deciding it just wasn’t ready to make the commitment. In a legal memoran dum, City Attorney Charles Guttman passed the buck to the New York State Health Department, which oversees licensing, when he noted that the Health Department had stated that “city clerks should not issue a marriage license to persons o f the same sex.” Phillip G. and Toshav Storrs, the couple that applied for the license, called Guttman’s statement a “cop-out.” They are considering a lawsuit to compel the granting of a license, reports the New York Times News Service. The mayor, the city attorney and the Ithaca Common Council all supported issuing the license. Although the city decided it did not have the author ity to issue the license, Guttman wrote, “Denying same-sex couples an equal right to choose a marital partner renders their unions legally invisible and deprives them of the panoply o f practical day-to-day rights, duties and benefits that are linked, often exclusively, to official marital status. Interference with their right to marry also means that society as a whole is deprived of a way of stabilizing and re enforcing their valuable family unions.”. i > - 1 ’• Kristine Chatwood But h a vin g H IV isn’t one of those tim es. It’s w h en you could use som e help. If yo u or som eone yo u know has HIV, call us. W e can get yo u m edical care and caring people to talk to. W e can help w ith housing, food and m edicine. You don’t have to have m o n e y or insurance. You don’t even have to tell us y o u r nam e to find w hat’s here for yo u . just call us. O regon AIDS Hotline 1-800-777-2437 Partnership Project 295-O2II you don’t