MAY 30, 2008
justpuC»
northwest
Continued from Page 7
same-sex partners and their children and that the
index identified areas the hospital needs to work
on to improve its score next year.
Legacy Emanuel Hospital, which did not par
ticipate in the survey, did not respond to requests
for comment by press time.
Because of staff changes, spokesman Gary
Walker said Providence Hospital and St. Vincent
Medical Center lost track of the survey. He added
that he knows both hospitals participated but that
he was unable to access the answers.
Providence’s new regional director of diver
sity, Isaac Dixon, wrote in an e-mail May 20 that
the hospital is committed to policies that benefit
its queer employees. “We continue to be commit
ted to continuous review and improvement of the
care experience for all our patients,” he said.
Mtxleled after HRC’s Corporate Equality In
dex, the first Health Equality Index was released
in October 2007 but didn’t reveal results from
nearly 1,000 of the United States’ largest hospi
tals that participated. That changed in 2008, with
88 U.S. hospitals responding to the Web-based
survey. A total of 27 hospitals and six hospital
networks representing 61 hospitals are listed.
According to Tom Sullivan, HRC’s manager
of family projects overseeing the Health Equality
Index, the results are still too small to rank. Yet, he
said, there are plans to expand the survey beyond
hospitals to include long-term care facilities, com
munity health clinics and other health care centers
to meet the survey’s goals to improve the quality of
health care for sexual minority patients.
For more information visit www.hrc.org/
issues/hei.asp.
DOWNTOWN
Trans Leader Honored
lite National Gay and Lesbian Task Force set out
to name 90 queer women who are leading the way
to full equality. Among those women, announced
May 15, is Jenn Burleton, founder and executive
director of TransActive Education & Advocacy and
co-founder of TransYouth Family Allies.
Burleton has been an active leader in the trans
community since transitioning at age 18 in the
1970s. She is a board member and West Coast
sector leader for the Parents, Families and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays Transgender Network and is
an in-demand public speaker and educator on the
subject of transgenderism and gender nonconfor
mity in youth.
Burleton, a musician and composer, is also a
documentary filmmaker. She directed Transgender
Children —Out of the Shadows, which has been
viewed on YouTube more than 300,000 times and
translated into several languages.
TransActive,
located
at
1631 N.E.
Broadway, is an educational outreach and ad
vocacy group supporting families of trans and
gender-nonconforming youth. For more infor
mation visit www.transactiveonline.org.
tattoos & piercing
women’s
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Visit us on the web:
www.downtownwomenscenter.com
Call (503) 224-3435 or
(800) 742-9292
511 SW 10th Ave., Suite 905
Portland, OR
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3336 SE Harrison St.
Milwaukie, OR 97222
503-794-9393
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P:ear Homeless During Move
In the midst of a capital campaign to purchase
a downtown building, p:ear, a nonprofit organiza
tion meeting the needs of homeless and transi
tional youth through arts programming, received
a $25,000 gift.
The gift came from a $1,000 donation from
the Leatherwood Family Fund of the Oregon
Community Foundation and a $24,000 dona-
Continued on Page 10
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Repeal Watch:
IP146 Appealed to Supreme Court; Catholic Conference
to Endorse Anti-Equality Initiatives
In another strategic move, the American
Civil Liberties Union and Basic Rights Oregon
have appealed the certified ballot title for IP
146—an initiative petition to repeal the Oregon
Family Fairness Act, which provides a panoply
of rights and responsibilities to committed same-
sex couples—to the Oregon Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court appeal could delay the
signature-gathering efforts for IP 146 by at least
several weeks if not longer, according to the
state Elections Division office.
The IP 146 appeal comes on the heels of
two outstanding state Supreme Court appeals
regarding separately filed rights-stripping ini
tiative petitions—IP 144, which seeks also
to repeal the Oregon Family Fairness Act but
shows signs of legal flaws, and IP 145, which
seeks to repeal the Oregon Equality Act, a non
discrimination law providing sexual orienta
tion and gender identity protections. All three
initiative petitions are sponsored by a coterie
of Republican legislators with ties to longtime
equal rights foes David Crowe, the director of
Restore America, and former state Rep. Mary-
lin Shannon, R-Brooks. Shannon herself is a
opinion and final judgment on the IP 144 and IP
145 appeals, and it is unclear when that might
happen. This leaves Concerned Oregonians, the
officially sanctioned political action committee
organizing volunteers and raising money in sup
port of the initiative petitions, an increasingly
small window of time in which to circulate the
petitions. The organization has only until July 3
to produce 82,769 valid signatures for each ini
tiative petition in order to qualify for the No
vember ballot.’
In spite of these setbacks, Concerned Or
egonians has been working behind the scenes to
shore up resources and support for their initia
tives, and recently scored endorsements for their
efforts from the Oregon Catholic Conference—
a cooperative entity encompassing both the
Catholic Archdiocese of Portland and Diocese
of Baker in eastern Oregon, with a total of 150
member parishes serving nearly half a million pa
rishioners—and the Catholic fraternal organiza
tion Knights of Columbus, which has pledged to
assist in signature-gathering efforts, if and when
the petitions are approved for circulation.
Visit www.justout.com for the latest “Repeal
co-sponsor of IP 146.
The Supreme Court has yet to hand down an
Watch” updates.
—Stephen Marc Beaudoin
ep
vcme &ee out
neta deafe/kA iff
atea/ neta ttentAt
1969 NE 42nd Ave.
1 block north of Sandy • 2 blocks from Max
Always Accepting Quality Consignments
503-288-1051 hollywoodantique@comcast.net
www.hollywood-antiques.com
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