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urmminews
serves as a source of news,
photos, graphics, audio and
video for more than 1 billion
people a day. In the United
States alone, it serves 5,000
radio and television stations
and 1,700 newspapers.
“Earlier this year, we
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,
. .
. . . .
Steven re tro w
launched a new initiative to
bring DP benefits to the last large media holdouts:
AP, NBC and MediaNews Group,” said Steven
Petrow, National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Asso
ciation president. “W ith A P’s decision, NLGJA
will now focus more intently on the last two major
news organizations.”
Shannon Rose and Jane Brooks
CALIFORNIA
r Jp he American Civil Liberties U nion filed a
it lawsuit May 1 against an Orange C ounty
adoption agency for discriminating against a les
bian couple who sought to adopt children under
foster care.
According to the legal complaint, the Olive
Crest agency is licensed and regulated by the
state and has contracts with four California
counties to recruit, train and certify foster and
adoptive families and to place foster children
with these families. Because it is performing this
function on behalf of state and county govern
ments, it is bound by both the constitutional
requirement to give all prospective adoptive
parents equal treatm ent under the law as well as
California anti-discrimination laws that apply to
businesses and nonprofits.
T he case arose in July 2002 when medical
doctor Shannon Rose and law student Jane
Brooks applied to become certified as
foster/adoptive parents with the goal of adopting
foster children through O live C rest. T h e
women received repeated assurances that they
would he treated fairly.
They filled out numerous forms, got finger
printed and went through the extensive home
study process required for certification. Their
Olive Crest social worker told them that their
home study was fine and that they had been
“precertified” as foster/adoptive parents.
But in September 2002 they were told their
adoption prtKess had been suspended. Under
Olive Crest s new Foster Family Recruitment Pol
icy, they were told, the agency “prefers to place
children with nuclear families" and "other appli
cants will he considered on a case-by-case basis.”
“We were devastated when we heard that
Olive Crest planned to stall our certification
process,” Rose said. “T he ones who suffer the
most, though, are the children who are waiting
for a place to call home.”
A
ttorneys filed a motion June 2 to intervene
in an existing lawsuit on behalf of a parents
group and a children’s theater company who sup
port a schtxtl board that has come under fire for
providing diversity education through the arts.
"The schtxd district did not violate anyone’s
rights,” said Julia Harumi Mass of the American
Civil Liberties U nion of N orthern California.
"In fact, providing diversity education is an
important way to protect students from discrimi
nation and harassment. In a state as diverse as
California, these programs are urgently needed
to make our schools safe and fair for all students.”
T he lawsuit, Citizens for Parental Rights vs.
Novato Unified School District, was filed earlier
this year against board officials in Novato, a town
of about 50,000 located 30 miles north of San
Francisco. The ACLU is representing United for
Safe Sch(X)ls Novato, a coalition of parents, stu
dents and organizations concerned with equality,
and Fringe Benefits, a Los Angeles-hased theater
company whose production of a play on tolerance
has been used by the hoard as part of its diversity
curriculum.
According to the ACLU, the lawsuit was filed
against the district for presenting C ootie Shots:
Theatrical IncKulatkms Against Bigotry in two ele
mentary schools. The series of plays, poems and
songs illustrates the hurtful effects of name
calling and strategies for coping with intolerance
in a schtxd setting. In one entertaining twist on a
traditional fairy tale, a tomboy encounters
Rapunzel in her tower and persuades her to play
outside instead of waiting for her prince.
-s*
r | he state Assembly approved two landmark
1 bills June 4 that would provide significant
rights and responsibilities to registered domestic
partners and reduce discrimination in the work
place. T he measures now head to the Senate,
where a policy committee will consider them
this month.
Assembly Bill 205 would grant registered
domestic partners nearly all the rights, benefits
and responsibilities currently granted only to
spouses under state law. AB 17 would prohibit
state agencies from contracting with businesses
that discriminate in providing benefits to an
employee with a spouse and an employee with a
registered domestic partner.
AB 205 received a vote of 41-32, while
AB 17 garnered a vote of 42-32. All of the sup
port votes came from Democratic members of
the Assembly, while every Republican voted
against both measures.
NEW YORK
following a request from Gov. George Pataki,
the U nem ploym ent Insurance Appeal
Board has agreed to reconsider its decision deny
ing unemployment benefits to Jeanne Newland,
a lesbian who left her job in Rochester to re
locate with her partner of nearly six years.
T he American Civil Liberties U nion filed an
appeal on behalf of Newland that is pending in
the New York Supreme C ourt’s Appellate Divi
sion, Third Department. In a letter to the court,
the state attorney general’s office has asked it to
refrain from deciding the case, pending the
reconsideration by the appeal board.
Newland worked as a technical support rep
resentative for Element K, an educational tech
nology company. She left her job in November
2000 to be with her partner, who had accepted
a higher-paying job in Virginia.
After the couple moved, Newland looked
aggressively for employment but had no luck.
Nine months later, she was urged by the local
unemployment office to file for benefits from
the state of New York, which regularly grants
such benefits to married couples and occasional
ly to engaged couples.
T he legal standard by which the Labor
Department reviews such matters is not based
on marriage but on whether the person seeking
benefits had “good cause” to leave his or her job.
Nevertheless, when Newland applied for bene
fits, she was denied simply because she is not
married to her partner.
“1 hope that our relationship and commit
ment to each other will finally be recognized for
what it is,” she said. “After having such a difficult
F
time finding a job and struggling financially, it’s
encouraging to. know that my case may make a
difference to other lesbian and gay couples who
find themselves in the position that I was in.”
Aaron Price
GEORGIA
former college student was convicted
June 11 in the heating of a dormmate he
thought was making sexual advances toward
him. Aaron Price, 19, was found guilty of aggra
vated assault and battery but was acquitted of
committing a hate crime.
He was sentenced in Fulton County Superi
or Court to two 10-year terms, which will be
served concurrently. He is the first person to be
tried under Georgia’s hate crimes law, which was
passed in 2000.
Price said he interpreted stares into a shower
stall from Gregory Love as sexual advances and
claimed he was acting in self-defense when he
left the bathroom and returned to assault Love
with a baseball bat last November at Morehouse
College in Atlanta. Love, who suffered a frac
tured skull in the attack, said he did not have his
glasses on and mistook Price for his roommate.
A
PENNSYLVANIA
ne week after its nondiscrimination policy
was made public, the Cradle of Liberty
Council of the Boy Scouts of
America officially ousted 18-
year-old Gregory Lattera and
apparently fired him from the
summer camp job he held for
the past three years for reveal
ing his sexual orientation.
In a letter dated June 6,
Scout executive William T. Gregory Lattera
Dwyer III told Lattera: “We
have received information that has compelled
us to revoke your registration. We therefore
request that you sever any relationship you may
have with the Boy Scouts of America. A refund
of your registration fee is enclosed.”
The letter gave no indication of what the
BSA’s actions were based on or what Lattera had
to address in his request for a review. W ithin
hours of receiving the letter, he called Dwyer for
details about his expulsion.
“He hung up on me as I was trying to get the
rest of my questions out,” Lattera reported. “He
said: 'Well there ya go...you went and made
your sexual orientation open. If you had just
kept your mouth shut and been a good Scout
and employee you wouldn’t have this problem.’
I said, ‘I have a few more questions,’ and Dywer
said, ‘God bless you, Greg’ and hung up. T hat
was the end of the conversation.”
Two years ago, the Boston M inutem an
Council of the BSA adopted a similar non
discrimination policy. O ne week after it was
reported in The Boston Globe, the council
backpedaled when Mark Noel, another openly
gay Eagle Scout, was turned down for a position
as a merit badge counselor. JT1
O
Compiled by News Editor J im R adosta , u A o can
be reached at jnv@justout .com.
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