15
MILGARD
The mother of the African American boy,
identified as “Mary Doe,” has filed suit against
the Outreach Community Center, alleging race
discrimination and that sharing test results with
the other mother was illegal. United Press
International reported July 30 that she also says
she was threatened with loss of day-care privi
leges if she didn’t agree to the tests.
Roger Leishman, the A m erican C ivil
Liberties Union attorney representing Mary
Doe insists: “If [Mary Doe’s son] was a white kid,
we wouldn’t be talking about this today. Twenty
years into the HIV epidemic, everyone knows
you can’t get A ID S from a snorkel, but when
you’re talking about a black kid, everyone is
willing to forget what they know.”
M ASSACHUSETTS
A
minor fued has erupted between Boston
Mayor Thom as Menino and acting Gov.
Paul Cellucci, reports the Boston Globe.
In late July, Cellucci vetoed legislation that
would have extended health care benefits to
Boston city employees’ domestic partners.
On Aug. 4, Menino circumvented that veto
and issued an executive order to grant the ben
efits.
In vetoing the legislation, Cellucci com
plained that extending benefits to unmarried
partners “undermines strong marriages and leads
to our children growing up without fathers.”
He also said he would have signed the legis
lation if it extended benefits only to same-sex
domestic partners.
NATIONAL
A
n Aug. 4 article in the Boston Globe reports
Dr. Robert Garofalo, a pediatrician at
Boston’s Children’s Hospital, is taking issue with
the recent high-profile ex-gay ad campaign
funded by the religious right wing.
Garofalo’s research on queer teen-agers is
cited in the ads, which assert that substance
abuse and similar self-destructive behavior is the
“visible response to a broken heart”— the impli
cation being that homosexuality causes such
problems.
Garofalo says the claims made in the ads
come “to the complete opposite conclusion" of
what his research illustrates: that higher rates of
substance abuse among sexual minority teens is
most likely a result of the alienation they feel in
an unaccepting culture.
he Human Rights C am paign has
announced the lineup for its gala national
dinner Sept. 19. The scheduled feature speaker
is Vice President A1 Gore. Poet Maya Angelou
is also scheduled to speak.
This will be the first time H R C awards the
National Family Civil Rights Award. This year’s
recipients will be musician Melissa Etheridge
and her partner, producer Julie Cypher.
T
SOUTH DAKOTA
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K
eith Elston, executive director of the
American Civil Liberties Union of the
Dakotas, says using undercover officers to catch
men having sex in public places in Sioux Falls is
acceptable.
“There’s a difference between a trap and
entrapment,” Elston told the Sioux Falls Argus
Leader July 24.
Elston says as long as the police are respond
ing to complaints and not their own possible
prejudices, they’re doing their jobs.
Sioux Falls police recently responded to
complaints of men having sex in park bath
rooms by deploying undercover officers.
Tire Leader paraphrased Elston, who is gay, as
saying that as long as officers are enticing people
to commit crimes they intend to commit any
way, the officers aren’t doing anything wrong.
WISCONSIN
he University of Wisconsin-Madison can
not use an individual student’s mandatory
activity fees to finance political groups the stu
dent opposes, an appeals court ruled Aug. 10.
According to The Associated Press, the 7th
U .S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled
UW-Madison’s use of required student activity
fees to fund activist groups on campus even if
students do not want their money to go to them
violates the students’ First Amendment right to
“freedom of belief.”
T
The court sided with three Christian stu
dents who sued UW for using mandatory stu
dent fees to fund groups to which they objected,
such as the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Campus
Center.
The funding of private groups that engage in
political and ideological activities is not ger
mane to a university’s educational mission, the
three-judge panel said. The court’s ruling
upholds most of a November 1996 decision by
U .S. District Judge John Shabaz in Madison.
UW students pay about $330 in fees annual
ly. Less than 10 percent is used to support stu
dent groups and services.
NORTH CAROLINA
n a July 30 ruling, the N orth Carolina
Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s deci
R eplacement
W indows
sion to take Henderson resident Fred Smith’s
children from him and awarded custody to his
ex-wife.
According to Lambda Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the court’s 5-1 ruling was large
ly based on the relationship Smith shared with
Tim Tipton, who lives with Smith and had been
helping raise Sm ith’s two sons.
“We conclude the trial court could and did
order a change in custody based in part on prop
er findings of fact to the effect that defendant-
father was regularly engaging in sexual acts with
Mr. Tipton in the home while the children were
present,” read the court’s statement.
Lambda confirms Smith and Tipton did have
sexual relations— behind a closed, locked
door— when the children were in the house.
Lambda adds the court also took issue with
Smith and Tipton kissing each other in the
children’s presence and allowing the children
into their room when they were in bed together.
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