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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2002)
march 15.2002 • Jvat rTiTTTTTiTI news fare proposal calling for significant federal and j death of Paul Chmiel, his gay cellmate at Brooks state funding of programs to promote and foster Correctional Facility. A Muskegon Q iunty jury deliberated for less heterosexual marriage. than a day before announcing the verdict. Keep Released Feb. 26, his plan encourages “healthy marriages and two-parent married fam faces a possibility (if life in prison during sen ilies as a goal.” This includes the expenditure of tencing March 19. He killed Chmiel in a brutal attack, using $300 million for projects devoted to promoting his bare hands to crush the inmate’s ribs and heterosexual marriage, of which $100 million will subsidize state and local experimental proj strangle him. The mur ects for premarital counseling and education as derer admitted in a writ ten confession he hated well as research to foster sound marriages. “Lesbian mothers on welfare cannot marry,” gay men. said Sean Cahill, NGLTF Policy Institute direc Chmiel allegedly of tor. “T he safety net should support all families in fered oral sex to his roommate in exchange need, not only those which pass a conservative litmus test.” for a cigarette. Although no sexual contact or assault was claimed to C A L IF O R N IA have occurred, Keep still Q anta Barbara resident C lint Scott Risetter, 7 37, died Feb. 24 as a result of hums he sus felt the need to slap him, tained to his body after being doused with gaso crush several ribs and his neck, and press his neck line and set on fire. into a bunk railing, eventually killing him. According to the Los Angeles Times, Martin “It was a pretty vicious death,” Michigan Thomas Hartman, 38, attacked him because he State Police Detective Sgt. Gary Miles told the was a gay man who was “unhappy and depressed so he didn’t need to he around in the world.” Muskegon Chronicle. “The motive is his dislike of The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and homosexual males.” Jeffrey Montgomery, Triangle Foundation the Pacific Pride Foundation condemned the executive director, added: “This case helps bring killing March 4. to light the risk and vulnerability of gay prisoners. According to the lead investigator in the W ithin the correctional system, gay people are case, Hartman admitted he has a lot of hatred horribly devalued. A t least this jury understood toward gay people. He has been charged with the value of Paul’s life, even if too late to save it.” murder, arson and a hate crime. “Acts of violence such as this against mem M A S S A C H U S E TTS bers of our community are unthinkable, yet they occur with alanning frequency around the coun n p h e Supreme Judicial Court ruled Feb. 21 that the state’s centuries-old sodomy laws try," said Darrel Cummings, NGLTF deputy exec are inapplicable to private, consensual conduct. utive director. “We are deeply saddened, angered In a brief unanimous ruling, it found that two and ever more committed to changing the envi ronment that fosters and supports this kind of provisions providing penalties of up to five and 20 years for convictions for oral and anal sex, hate violence. Those in religious and political respectively, may not be enforced against people leadership— such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and, most recently, Chief Justice Roy Moore of as long as they did not intend public exposure. Nine individuals who engage in conduct of the Alabama Supreme Q iurt— must once and for all end the hateful rhetoric that inspires homo the type prohibited by the laws challenged their constitutionality because they criminalize com phobia and accompanying hate crimes.” mon acts of intimacy. Although the court techni Pacific Pride organized a candlelight vigil and memorial March 4. NGLTF encouraged the sexu cally dismissed the case because none of the plain tiffs was subject to prosecution, it declared for the al minorities community and its allies to contact first time that neither of the Massachusetts officials and urge that this hate crime, and all bias- statutes applies to private, consensual conduct. motivated activity and rhetoric, not go unnoticed. “This is a tremendous victory,” said Jennifer “We are outraged and saddened by the news Levi, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defend of such a heinous crime,” said Janet Stanley, ers attorney. “The court today clarified that Pacific Pride executive director. “This is a time these antiquated laws may not be used to for all Santa Barharans to come together to intrude on individuals’ rights to engage in com denounce such actions.” mon acts of intimacy in private settings." J H M IC H IG A N M ichael G lenn Keep was found guilty of second-degree murder in the April 2000 m m t. 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