january 23. 2004 » J— t — t |2 1
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He is one of only six judges that the Human
Rights Campaign has opposed out of approxi
mately 200 nominated by Bush.
“Judge Pickering has advanced a body of
jurisprudence that does not reflect Americas
highest values, and the individuals within his
jurisdiction deserve better,” H RC president
Cheryl Jacques said. “A man whose career has
been marked by racial divisiveness and anti-gay
prejudice cannot be trusted to fairly interpret
the laws of our country.”
In a speech before the 1984 Mississippi
Southern Baptist C onvention, Pickering
lumped homosexuality with social problems,
according to The Clarion Ledger. “We as
Southern Baptists should lead the way in
strengthening traditional moral values,” he
said, adding that society has been degraded by
such things as pornography, homosexuality
and divorce.
Also troubling is Pickerings handling of a
1994 hate crime incident involving three men
who burned an 8-foot cross on the lawn of an
interracial family while using racial epithets.
When sentencing one of the defendants, he
gave what was considered a “lenient” sentence
for the cross-burning, in order to “make the
punishment commensurate with the drunken
prank that I think it was, even though it did
have racial overtones.”
Kent Greenfield is one of hundreds of law
professors challenging the Pentagon’s campus
recruiting policy
❖
coalition of law schools, professors and
legal organizations is asking the Third Cir
cuit Court of Appeals to overturn a 1996 law
granting the Defense Department unfettered
access to university students.
The groups have argued that the law, known
as the Solomon Amendment, forces universities
to violate nondiscrimination policies that
include sexual orientation. Within the past year,
Defense Department officials began more rigor
ously enforcing the law.
The suit says the military’s “don’t ask, don’t
tell" ban on queer servicemembers is incom
patible with university policies prohibiting
campus recruiting by employers who discrimi
nate on the basis of sexual orientation. Serv
icemembers Legal Defense Network filed a
friend-of-the-court brief Jan. 12 supporting
those claims.
"Our military should play by the same rules as
other campus recruiters,” executive director C.
Dixon Osbum said. “Universities have every
right to expect that their lesbian, gay and bisexu
al students will enjoy the same employment
opportunities as their heterosexual students. The
Solomon Amendment is an unfair attempt to
force federally sanctioned discrimination on our
A
campuses. It violates the very foundation of equal
opportunity.”
Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law pro
fessor leading the suit, told The Associated Press
in September that Pentagon leaders are “using
this law to reach into the core of our education
al philosophy and change it.”
The coalition includes prominent law
schools as well as the Society of American Law
Teachers, which has more than 900 members.
The schools have organized under the “Forum
for Academic & Institutional Rights” banner to
protect their identity, fearing retribution from
the Defense Department.
NEW JER SEY
ew Jersey has become the fifth state to give
legal protections to same-sex families and
will honor partnerships established in other
states. It joins Hawaii, Vermont, California and
Massachusetts in moving toward marital recog
nition for committed gay couples.
Under New Jersey’s new law, domestic part
ners and their children gain access to impor
tant family protections such as hospital visita
tion, making emergency medical decisions,
claiming each other as exemptions on state
income tax filings and qualifying for exemp
tions from the state inheritance tax. The bill
also requires the state to provide dependent
health coverage to state employees with same-
sex partners and allows but does not require
private companies to do the same. But the law
falls far short of providing the full range of tan
gible and intangible protections accorded
through marriage itself.
Evan Wolfson, executive director of Free
dom to Marry, hailed the bill signed Jan. 12 by
Gov. James E. McGreevey as “a step in the
right direction” but noted that “states like
New Jersey would do the country and its fam
ilies a favor if they avoided the detour of sep
arate and unequal and went right to the clari
ty, security and equality that comes only with
the freedom to marry. One of the major bene
fits of marriage is being able to say to your
family, your kids, the community, the govern
ment and those you do business with wherev
er you are, ‘I am married.’ There is no verb for
civil union, and nobody
writes songs about domestic
partnership.”
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Evan Wolfson calls New Jersey’s domestic
partner bill a positive legislative step that still
falls short
A marriage license confers more than 1,000
federal and state rights and responsibilities,
including the right to visit a spouse in the hos
pital; make medical decisions for a spouse if he
or she is ill; take family and medical leave to
care for a sick spouse; file joint tax returns; and
inherit property, disability and Social Security
in the event of a spouse’s death.
“Marriage equality is a matter of equal pro
tection under the law,” Furmansky said. “The
option to marry— or not to marry— is a funda
mental right, and to deny us that right is myopic
and anti-family.”
OHIO
he Franklin County Correction Center is
refusing to administer time-sensitive HIV
medication to an inmate serving time in the facil
ity, ignoring a letter sent by the American Civil
Liberties Union informing administrators of his
condition and need for the medication.
“This is very serious,” said Dr. Howard Gross-
man, a highly respected HIV expert in New York
City. “A lapse in treatment could cause him to
become resistant in only a mat
ter of days and then the dnigs
won’t work.”
The inmate, who does not
wish to be identified by name
MARYLAND
to protect his right to confi
egislation has been intro
dentiality, is serving a 10-day
duced in the Maryland
jail sentence for driving under
General Assembly that would
the influence. Prior to report
amend the state constitution to
ing to the facility to begin his
say “only a marriage between a
sentence, he contacted the
man and a woman is valid in
A C L U after he was told not
this state.” A section of Mary
to bring his medications to
land Family Code already con
the jail.
tains this language.
The A C LU sent a letter to
Free State Justice, Maryland’s
the facility on the day the
queer civil rights organization,
inmate began his sentence,
decried the legislation Jan. 13,
Dr. Howard Grossman says
Jan. 14, notifying the authori
calling it “salt in the wound” for
an Ohio correction center’s
ties of his condition and outlin
countless thousands of commit
refusal to administer H IV
ing their legal obligations to
ted couples— many with chil
medication could have
provide the necessary medical
dren— who already are not con
serious health consequences
treatment. Attorneys also
sidered family in the eyes of the
for an inmate
called administrators and were
government. Sponsored by Dele
assured
that
the
inmate would receive his treat
gate Charles R. Boutin, R-Cecil & Harford Coun
ment in a timely manner.
ties, House Bill 16 would require passage by three-
“My son is willing to pay for his crime, but
fifths of the legislators in both houses of the Gen
serving a short jail sentence shouldn’t he life-
eral Assembly and ratification by voters on the
threatening,” said the Columbus man’s mother.
November ballot in order to succeed.
“My son is alive today only because he has been
“Boutin may feel he is defending marriage,
extremely careful in taking his medications. I’m
but in actuality, he is tearing down families that
the state already discriminates against,” execu really afraid of what this interruption will do to
tive director Dan Furmansky said. “Further his health.” J H
more, he pri>poses to sully our most sacred state
Compiled by News Editor JlM R ados TA, who can
document with outright discrimination agaiast
be reached at jtm@justout.com.
his own constituents.”
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