Ellen Degeneres On Lawrence King

Connecticut Rep Comes Out

CT State Rep. Jason Bartlett put rumors to rest when he announced publicly that he's gay. Bartlett, a Democrat who represents Bethel, Danbury and Redding, is the first openly gay, black, state legislator in U.S. history, officials said. The freshman lawmaker, who has been frank about his sexual orientation with relatives, said now is the time to speak out.

OC Memorial For Lawrence King

NCJW/OC, a coalition partner of GLSEN OC, is sponsoring an event on Thursday, February 28th at 7PM at the Aliso Viejo Public Library titled How to Talk With Your Kids About Guns. This event is dedicated to the memory of Lawrence King, and features a speaker from Women Against Gun Violence. Admission is free.

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Lawrence King, 15, was a self-identified gay student who attended Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA. His feminine gender expression "was freaking the guys out" according to one of his classmates.

Apparently, for this, he had to die.

Lawrence was shot at point blank range in his eighth grade English class by a 14-year-old boy who had apparently been one of his anti-LGBT tormentors. Friends of the victim said he was a frequent target of bullying because he sometimes wore makeup and jewelry and had told classmates he is gay.

The teenager sometimes wore feminine clothing and makeup, and proclaimed he was gay, students said. Some of the male students were bothered by his appearance, calling it a distraction, several students said.

"He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails -- the whole thing," said Michael Sweeney, 13, an eighth-grader. "That was freaking the guys out."

The school district superintendent said school staff were aware that King had butted heads with other students, including the suspect, and that they had offered both students help.

Bullying in schools has long been a problem. The U.S. Congress still hasn't passed the Matthew Shepard Act as an appropriate and measured response to the unrelenting and under-addressed problem of violent hate crimes committed against individuals based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability.

State Department Lifts HIV/AIDS Hiring Ban

From Lambda Legal:

We were headed to trial in less than two weeks, set to challenge the U.S. State Department's blanket ban on hiring people with HIV to be Foreign Service Officers.

But today the State Department has lifted the ban.

It has issued new guidelines for people living with HIV under which it will evaluate them on a case-by-case basis, as the law requires. This is a huge victory for people living with HIV.

"At long last,the State Department is taking down its sign that read 'People with HIV need not apply,'" says Lambda Legal's HIV Project Director, Bebe Anderson.

We've been fighting this case on behalf of our client Lorenzo Taylor for the past five and a half years. We also waged a massive public advocacy campaign, collecting 17,000 signatures from people around the country who spoke out against this policy. Today we can all take heart that the State Department heard our voices.

Partly due to the new guidelines, Lorenzo has decided to settle his lawsuit. "I wanted to serve my country as a Foreign Service Officer, but was told, 'Sorry we don't need your kind,'" Lorenzo says. "Now people like me who apply to the Foreign Service will not have to go through what I did. They and others with HIV will know that they do not have to surrender to stigma, ignorance, fear, or the efforts of anyone, even the federal government, to impose second-class citizenship on them. They can fight back."

Lorenzo's case is a stark reminder of the type of discrimination that people with HIV continue to face in the workplace.

California Supreme Court Will Hear Oral Arguments March 4

The California Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral arguments on March 4 in the marriage cases challenging the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.

Fifteen same-sex couples, Equality California, and Our Family Coalition will be represented at oral arguments by Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is serving as co-counsel with Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, Heller Ehrman LLP and the Law Office of David C. Codell.

The marriage cases were filed in March, 2004. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard A. Kramer ruled that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violates the California Constitution. In a 2-1 vote, the California Court of Appeal reversed Judge Kramer’s ruling. Shortly after the Court of Appeal’s decision, the California Supreme Court granted review of the cases in order to consider the constitutional questions itself.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger highlighted that the California Supreme Court should decide the constitutional questions posed by the marriage statutes when he vetoed two measures passed by the California Legislature in 2005 and 2007 that would have permitted same-sex couples to marry.

The marriage cases are among the most heavily briefed cases in the history of the California Supreme Court. It typically issues its decisions within 90 days following oral arguments.

2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the California Supreme Court’s historic 1948 ruling that found it unconstitutional for the state to restrict access to marriage based on the race of the spouses. That ruling was the first of its kind in the nation’s history, and is now the law of the land across the country. The California NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc., and Howard Law School Civil Rights Clinic have urged the court to apply the reasoning from its 1948 decision to the present marriage cases.

Info courtesy of EQCA, NCLR, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU.

Mitt Romney Drops Out

Mitt Romney announced that he is leaving the presidential race to let rival John McCain start unifying the Republican party behind his candidacy. Romney's departure came two days after a poor showing on Super Tuesday left him badly trailing McCain.

California February 5, 2008 Election Results

Hillary Clinton bested Barack Obama statewide 52-42% and countywide 55-38%.
John McCain outpolled Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee statewide 42-34-12% and countywide 40-37-11%.

See Orange County results by city at the Orange County Register.

Propositions 91, 92, and 93 were all voted down.
Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 were all approved.

ECCO-endorsed Jordan Brandman won a seat on the Anaheim Union High School Governing Board.

New York State Judge Validates Non-NY Same-Sex Marriages

In a decision at once common-sensical and profound, a New York State appeals court ruled Friday that same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions are entitled to recognition in New York. It was common sense because it simply accorded same-sex marriages the same legal status as other marriages. It was profound because of the way it could transform the lives of gay people.

The plaintiff in the case, Patricia Martinez, a word-processing supervisor at an upstate college, married her longtime partner, Lisa Ann Golden, in Canada in 2004. When Ms. Martinez applied for health care benefits for her spouse, the college denied the application on the grounds that New York did not recognize the marriage.

The court, by a 5-0 vote, declared that the college was wrong. Employers in the state must accord same-sex couples the same rights as other couples. To reach that result, it simply applied New York’s “marriage recognition rule.” Under this century-old common-law rule, marriages validly contracted out of state must be accorded respect in New York, and parties to such unions treated as spouses, regardless of whether the marriage would be allowed in New York.

The rule applies unless the Legislature explicitly prohibits recognition or recognition would be abhorrent to public policy. Unlike many states, New York has not passed a law denying recognition to same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The court rightly decided that recognizing same-sex marriages would not be “abhorrent.”

It's Super Tuesday — Vote!

Hillary Clinton guest posted on the LGBT site The Bilerico Project yesterday and discussed many of her feelings about our community and its concerns.

ECCO Endorsements For February 5, 2008 California Elections

Update: Voter Guides have been printed and mailed.

Update 2: Dennis Kucinich (D) has withdrawn from the race.

Update 3: Rudy Giuliani (R) and John Edwards (D) have withdrawn from the race.

Update 4: Rudy Giuliani and Governor Schwarzenegger have endorsed John McCain in the CA primary. John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich haven't made an endorsement as of 2/2/8 although Kucinich did designate Barack Obama as his second choice to his supporters in the Iowa Caucuses.

ECCO will be mailing a Voter Guide that covers endorsements for the California Propositions and Anaheim Union High School Board. In lieu of the Voter Guide mailer, this post will help absentee voters.

Propositions
No Position on 91: Transportation Funds
NO on 92: Community Colleges. Funding. Governance. Fees.
YES on 93: Limits on Legislators; Terms in Office [Prop 93, if passed, will allow almost all current LGBT members to remain in office!]
NO on 94: Amendment to Indian Gaming Compact — Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians
NO on 95: Amendment to Indian Gaming Compact — Morongo Band of Mission Indians
NO on 96: Amendment to Indian Gaming Compact — Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation
NO on 97: Amendment to Indian Gaming Compact — Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians

Anaheim Union High School
Jordan Brandman — Endorsed
Denis Fitzgerald — Unacceptable

ECCO will not be endorsing any candidates in the presidential primaries.

Instead, the Voter Guide will feature a comparison chart with candidates' positions relevant to our community.

Democratic Candidates
• Hillary Clinton
• John Edwards
• Dennis Kucinich
• Barack Obama

Republican Candidates
• Rudy Giuliani
• Mike Huckabee
• John McCain
• Mitt Romney

Issues
• Military "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy
• Hate Crimes
• Same-Sex Marriage; Civil Union; Domestic Partnership
• HIV/AIDS
• Employment Non-Discrimination (ENDA)
• Healthcare
• Gay Immigration
• Choice; Judicial Nominees
• Iraq War

The information for the Voter Guide was gathered from the January 15, 2008 issue of The Advocate, the USA Today website, the CNN website, and the candidates' websites.

To obtain a copy of the Voter Guide, send ECCO an email with your postal address to eccopac@yahoo.com.

NY Court Recognizes Canadian Marriage Equality

Marriage equality took a step forward this week:

In a landmark case, an American court has ruled that gay couples who tie the knot in Canada can be treated as legally married in the state of New York. Justice Joan Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex marriages performed outside the country are valid, even though gay New Yorkers cannot be legally married in their home state.

This is the first time Canadian same-sex marriage laws have triumphed in U.S. court, according to Alphonso David, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, which intervened in the case.

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If the ruling holds up on appeal, "it will mean for all practical purposes, same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York," because people can easily cross the border to get married, said Koppelman.

While the lower-court ruling is not technically binding on other state courts, it's significant in that "it says you can recognize a (same-sex marriage) even if locally you can't perform it," and lays out historical examples of that recognition, explains Mark Strasser, a law professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, who has written extensively on same-sex marriage.

Read the full story at canada.com.