i
i
news
C A LIF O R N IA
ccording to a Sept. 24 San Francisco
Chronicle article, the San Francisco city
attorney’s office says the Mormon Church may
have violated its tax-exempt status when it
encouraged its California members to help
finance an initia
tive designed to
prohibit same-sex
marriages.
The
report
says this spring
Mormon Church
officials in the
Golden
State
received a missive
on Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-
day Saints letter
head “reminding
them
of
the
church’s commit
ment to ‘assist in every proper way to assure the
passage’ of the initiative.”
According to the Chronicle, the letter said no
fund raising should be done on church grounds,
but it specified where and how checks from
members should be sent.
O n Sept. 23, the deputy city attorney told a
Board of Supervisors panel that it should urge
the Internal Revenue Service to investigate.
A
Said Maureen Murphy, an attorney who rep
resents several of the couples: “The town of
West Hartford needs to recognize that families
come in all shapes and sizes. We hope this will
be a wake-up call.”
ILLIN O IS
n March, the United Methodist Church
indefinitely suspended the Rev. Gregory Dell
for performing a “holy union” service for two gay
men.
T hen, in September, an appeals board
reduced the suspension to one year, ruling that a
suspension must be finite. Dell could return to
the pulpit by July 1, 2000.
I
M ARYLAND
A
C O N N E C T IC U T
T
he Connecticut Commission on Human
Rights and Opportunities has ruled that
the town of West Hartford violated the law by
failing to give unmarried couples a family dis
count at the municipal swimming pool.
The town has long offered discounted mem
berships to families. W hile married couples who
did not have children were allowed to buy the
discounted passes, unmarried couples, even
those with children, were not.
The matter came to a head over a year ago
when a gay couple, Mark Melanson and
Michael Antisdale, questioned their ineligibility
for the discount passes to the Cornerstone
Aquatics Club. Melanson and Antisdale joined
with five other unmarried couples to file com
plaints with the commission, the Sept. 16 Hart-
ford Courant reports.
West Hartford tried to clarify the policy in
March when it decided to give the discount to
all people with children. The town also agreed,
however, to “grandfather” nearly 200 childless
married couples, a move that allowed them to
continue receiving the discounted rate. The gay
and lesbian community reacted angrily to the
move, which excluded childless gay and lesbian
couples.
The commission will work with the town
and the six couples who filed the original com
plaints to try to find a solution. If an agreement
cannot be reached, a public hearing will be held.
contends his Christian beliefs prevent him from
complying with the ordinance.
According to the suit, Hyman’s religious
beliefs compel him to deny employment to and
fire anyone who is a
sexual minority.
A Sept. 13 story
carried by the Busi-
nesswire news ser
vice reports that
Louisville amended
its ordinances in
February to extend
anti-discrim ination
provisions to include
“an individual’s actual or imputed heterosexual
ity, homosexuality, or bisexuality”; people “hav
ing a gender identity as a result of a sex change
surgery”; and those who manifest “for reasons
other than dress, an identity not traditionally
associated with one’s biological maleness or
femaleness.”
Those who violate the ordinance are subject
to fines up to $50,000.
The lawsuit asks that the court declare the
ordinance unconstitutional and unlawful. It
seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting the
city of Louisville from enforcing the ordinance.
But Dell’s return, according to a Sept. 17
Chicago Tribune story, could be brief. Dell has
said he will continue to perfonn unions for
same-sex couples, even though the church’s ban
against such services remains intact. If he per
forms such a ceremony again, he could face
another church trial.
“I’m certainly not going to change the char
acter of my ministry, ministry to all people,” said
Dell.
The Methodist Church is facing two major
showdowns over the issue of homosexuality.
One deals with the impimding church trial of 68
California ministers who backed a union cere
mony for two lesbians. The second involves the
May 2000 general conference of the 8.5 million
member denomination. Both supporters and
opponents of the ban on gay and lesbian unions
plan to lobby for change at the gathering.
“My hope remains that at the May 2000
meeting, our denomination will have the grace
and humility to say that we have a long way to
go before reaching a faith consensus on issues
surrounding sexual orientation," Dell said. “As
we make that statement of the obvious, we must
change the legislative and judicial atmosphere
from its present hostility to one of generosity
and charity.”
K E N TU C K Y
nun ordered by the Vatican to cease her
ministry to gay and lesbian Roman
Catholics says she will obey but will work with
in the church to have the order reversed, says a
Sept. 27 Associated Press report.
In a statement, Sister Jeannine Gramick said
she believes it would be “more beneficial” to
minister to gay men and lesbians with the
church’s blessing than without it. But she also
called on fellow Roman Catholics to “help me
find creative, collaborative ways to lift the bur
den of this directive from my shoulders.”
Gramick and the Rev. Robert Nugent,
founders of New Ways Ministry, were sum
moned to the Vatican in July and ordered to
stop their work. A few weeks later, Nugent said
he would stop ministering to gays and lesbians.
Gramick, however, took a month’s leave to
decide whether she would obey the order.
Nugent and Gramick founded the New
Ways Ministry in 1977 to “promote justice and
reconciliation of gays and lesbians.”
M IC H IG A N
onathan Schmitz has been sentenced to 25 to
50 years in prison for killing a gay man who
revealed he had a crush on
Schmitz during a taping of
The Jenny Jones Show.
Schmitz was convicted of
second degree murder for the
1995 shooting of Scott
Amedure. He received a sim
ilar sentence after being convicted of the same
crime in a 1996 trial that was overturned on
appeal.
According to a Sept. 14 Associated Press
report, defense attorney Jerome Sabbota said he
will appeal this conviction too.
J
\
n international public-interest law firm is
challenging a
.ouisville
ordi-
lance that bans
mployment dis-
rimination based
m sexual orienta-
ion and gender
Jentity.
The American
.enter for Law
nd Justice filed
be suit in Septem-
er in U .S. District Court in Louisville. The
enter is representing Dr. J. Barrett Hyman, who
N A TIO N A L
exas Gov. George W. Bush, running hard
for the Republican presidential nom
ination, recently revealed
his views on a number
of gay-related issues.
Bush was respond
ing to questions sub
mitted by an anti
gay
newsletter
called Straight
from the Heart.
Iowan Bill Horn,
publisher of the newsletter,
T
has been questioning presidential candidates
about their views on gay issues, reports a Sept.
14 Associated Press story.
The Bush campaign’s written response to
Horn’s questions states: “Governor Bush
believes marriage is between a man and a
woman and therefore does not believe in gay
marriage.”
T he statement also says Bush opposes adop
tions by same-sex couples because “he believes
children ought to be adopted in families with a
man and a woman who are married.”
Bush also believes the New Jersey Supreme
Court was wrong when it struck down the Boy
Scouts’ ban on gays.
Horn says he plans to press Bush on “the gay
agenda in public education” and on domestic
partner laws allowing benefits for people in gay
and lesbian relationships.
-
2 *
^ ay men and lesbians should be allowed to
serve openly in the military, Democratic
presidential hopeful Bill Bradley said in an inter
view in the October issue of The Advocate.
Bradley also said gay men and lesbians
should be protected by the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, and he told The Advocate he is opposed to
an anti-gay-marriage bal
lot measure pending in
California.
“If I was a voter in
California, I would
not support the
Knight
initia-
i
tive,” Bradley
said. “I think it’s
divisive and...I
don’t think a
referendum is
the place for
this kind of an
initiative.”
However, Bradley said
he is opposed to same-sex marriage because of
“the religious nature of marriage and respect for
the diversity of views on that subject.”
He does support legal protections for domes
tic partners.
W Y O M IN G
A
trial date has been set for one of the
women accused of covering up the killing
of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, in
Laramie last October.
Kristen LeAnn Price, 19, is charged as an
accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.
Her trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 3. She faces
up to three years in prison and a fine of $3,000,
according to a Sept. 17 Associated Press story.
Price was the girlfriend of Aaron McKinney,
one of the two men accused of killing Shepard.
McKinney is scheduled to go on trial Oct. 11 for
first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated
robbery. If convicted, he could receive the death
penalty.
The other man, Russell Henderson, pleaded
guilty in April to felony murder and kidnapping
and is serving two consecutive life sentences in
the Wyoming State Penitentiary.
Prosecutors contend that Price and Hender
son’s girlfriend, Chastity Vera Pasley, drove to
Cheyenne to dispose of Henderson’s bloody
clothing and hid his bloody shoes in a
Laramie storage shed.
Last December, Pasley pleaded
guilty to charges that she was an
accessory after the fact to first-
degree murder. She was
ntenced to 15 to 24
months in prison.
■ Compiled by
K ristine C hatwcod