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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2001)
20 » juna i. ¿uui Scappoose & St. Helens Premier Real Estate Resource Country Nving only 20 minutes from downtown Portland. 3otoi 1. Scott REAL EST ATE cgT ^ *** www.columbiacountyhome.com lenniferpugsley@johnlscott.com 503-543-3751 (o) 503-313-8130 (c) Even though the Boy Scouts already have equal access to schools, Van Hilleary (center) figures it can’t hurt to be prepared N A TIO N A L he Human Rights Campaign derided House passage May 23 of an anti-gay amendment sponsored by Rep. Van Hilleary, R-Tenn., prohibiting federal funding to public schools that deny access of facilities to the Boy Scouts of America, despite the fact that the law already guarantees the organization equal access. A companion measure in the Senate was intro duced by Jesse Helms, R-N.C. “This was an empty, mean-spirited gesture,” said Winnie Stachelberg, HRC political direc tor. “These bankrupt measures will accomplish nothing concrete or substantial in the policy arena and are vivid examples of political grand- standing by anti-gay politicians.... This is really nothing more than a punishment in search of a problem.” To gain support for his amendment, Hilleary issued a letter to his colleagues on Capitol Hill that mistakenly said schools routinely deny access to the Scouts. Reps. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., and Connie Morelia, R-Md., wrote to lawmakers to address the error. Hilleary’s letter “might lead you to believe that such exclusion is lawful and commonplace, and it is not,” they said. “A selective denial of equal access is unlawful. And no school district has ever successfully barred the Boy Scouts from using school facilities that are open to all.” Helms said on the Senate floor last month that “radical militants” were trying to ban the Boy Scouts from campuses. He also said gay activists “demand that everybody else’s princi ples must be cast aside in order to protect the right of homosexual conduct.” T Portland \ Salem \ Vancouver W e s t L in n 19343 Willamette Drive • (503) 635-3115 CLACKAMAS 16317 SE 82nd Drive • C503) 657-9225 T ig a r d 13500 SW Pacific Hwy • (503) 670-9707 I handled this very important case. Let me help you seek justice, too. Carl G. Kiss ~ Attorney at Law ~ Focusing on: • Accidents Causing Injury or Death • Mistakes by Doctors • Mistakes by Lawyers • Probate Disputes • Job Disputes W IN N E R : • Oregon Trial Lawyers’ Public Justice Award • Human Rights Campaign's Equality Award Free Initial Consultation • Personal Attention .(5 0 3 ) 248-0570 888 SW 5th Avenue • Suite 650 Portland, OK 97204 -> ealth Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced May 15 the release of A Guide to the Clinical C are o f W omen with HIV, thought to be the first medical manual specifically writ ten for this population. The publication pro vides practical, experience-based advice and authoritative treatment guidelines for clinicians treating women with HIV. “This new manual could not be more time ly,” Thompson said. "H IV infection among women has become the fifth-leading cause of death among women between the ages of 25 and 44. Information in this guide will help clinicians improve treatment and save the lives of HIV positive women and their babies.” Recent statistics confirm H IV’s increasing threat to women. O f the 43,517 new cases in the United States reported from July 1999 through June 2000, 24 percent were among women. Even more ominously, in the 32 states with confidential HIV reporting, women between 13 and 24 years old comprise more than half of the H new cases of H IV infection. In 1985, by con trast, women represented just 6 percent of the reported 10,000 U .S. A ID S cases. The virus can be especially tragic for preg nant women. Many women learn they are HIV positive only after giving birth to an infant with HIV, yet diagnosis and treatment before birth almost always can prevent transmission of the virus to the newborn. KANSAS he Kansas Court of Appeals has ruled that judges must consider a wide range of factors and not focus solely on sex at birth when deter mining the legal gender of a person who has had a sex-change operation. The decision came May 11 as the court considered the validity of the marriage of J ’Noel Gardiner, a trans woman, to her husband, Marshall. The marriage essentially was voided after his death, when his estranged son successfully chal lenged the union in a dispute over the estate. The trial court ruled that Gardiner’s prior sex change would not be recognized and that her marriage was invalid because she was bom a male and unions between people of the same sex are not legal in Kansas. The appeals court reversed that decision, giving a detailed review of scientific literature and rejecting what it called “a rigid and sim plistic approach” to defining trans people. Rec ognizing the “diverse composition of today’s families,” it noted that biology is “no longer the sole organizing principle” of family life in the United States. “This decision recognizes what transgender people have known for a long time: that some people’s sex is not determined by their anatomy at birth,” said Jennifer Middleton of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. “It is very encouraging to see this court focus on medical knowledge and the reality of people’s lives rather than old-fashioned, narrow notions of what it is to be a man or a woman.” T M IN N E S O TA state court struck down Minnesota’s law prohibiting oral and anal sex May 18. The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the rul ing and vowed to defend its statewide impact if Gov. Jesse Ventura’s administration steps in and tries to limit it to the individual plaintiffs in the case. “This is a tremendous victory— because of A
