By, For & About the St. Louis LGBT Community
Stories from the Web
These are stories which link to external websites with various news and information.
Poll: Checking In Again On Prop 8 [MayorSlay]
Aug 20th
Over at MayorSlay.com, there is a weekly pool. The poll for this week focuses on Gay Marriage.
I encourage everyone to go over and vote your opinions!
Dr. Laura to end her radio show [CNN]
Aug 18th
From CNN.com: Embattled radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced Tuesday she will not renew her contract that is up at the end of the year, telling CNN’s “Larry King Live” she wants to “regain my First Amendment rights.”
Schlessinger, 63, has been under fire for using the N-word repeatedly during an on-air conversation with a caller last week.
In announcing her decision “not to do radio anymore” after being in the business for more than 30 years, Schlessinger said, “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry or some special-interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent.”
[Webmaster Note: I admit, I didn't realize she even had a show anymore. Gaystlouis.com participated in the protests against her TV show in 2000. I need to get those pictures back online.]
Judge: Mo. funeral protest ban unconstitutional [STLToday]
Aug 18th
From STLToday.com: A federal judge Monday ruled that Missouri laws restricting protests near funerals are unconstitutional.
Missouri legislators passed two laws in 2006 in response to protests at servicemembers’ funerals by members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The church contends the deaths are God’s punishment for the U.S. tolerating homosexuality.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan ruled the laws violate the right of free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Court halts California gay marriages pending appeal [KSDK]
Aug 16th
From KSDK.com: A federal appeals court put same-sex weddings in California on hold indefinitely Monday while it considers the constitutionality of the state’s gay marriage ban.
The decision, issued by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, trumps a lower court judge’s order that would have allowed county clerks to begin issuing marriage likenses to same-sex couples on Wednesday.
Gay marriage foes may lack standing for appeal [STLToday]
Aug 15th
From STLToday.com: U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker kept same-sex marriages on hold in California for at least another week Thursday but suggested that top state officials’ support for same-sex marriage ultimately may doom any effort to revive Proposition 8.
Walker’s comments were the first public airing of a possibility that has been increasingly under discussion by legal experts — that the fight over the constitutionality of Proposition 8 might not be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, as many have expected. Instead the case could be brought to an end by the strict legal rules about who is allowed to pursue a dispute in federal court.
The defendants in the case were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown. As the losing parties, they have authority to appeal Walker’s ruling. But Brown and Schwarzenegger have hailed Walker’s decision and said they would not appeal. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger repeated that position Thursday.
St. Louis Man Takes on Catholic Charity [Advocate]
Aug 15th
From Advocate.com: A board member of a Catholic charity in St. Louis who was told he couldn’t be president of the group because he is gay, is now petitioning for change within the organization, stltoday.com reports.
Jeffrey Goldone, who has been a vice president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of St. Louis board of directors for five years, was barred from running for president because he is in a 20-year gay relationship.
“I was told that I could not run for president because my living relationship goes against the Catholic moral teaching,” Goldone wrote in a letter to “fellow Vincentians.” In the letter he asks people to sign a petition saying an “injustice has been done” and asking for the group’s rules to be modified.
Gay member of Catholic nonprofit told he cannot be president because he’s gay [STLToday]
Aug 14th
From STLToday.com: A board member of a Catholic nonprofit organization who was told he could not become board president because he is gay is trying to rally support to modify the group’s rules.
Jeffrey Goldone, who has been a vice president on the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of St. Louis board of directors for five years, was nominated for president in May. He accepted the nomination but was dropped from the running several weeks later.
“I was told that I could not run for president because my living relationship goes against Catholic moral teaching,” which could bring ‘shame and embarrassment” to the society, Goldone wrote in a Aug. 2 letter addressed to “fellow Vincentians.”
Goldone has been in a relationship with his partner for 20 years.
Local Gay Activists Honored by Human Rights Campaign [RFT]
Aug 13th
From the Riverfront Times Blog: Congratulations are in order: Husbands Ed Reggi and Scott Emanuel are being honored next month with the Equality Award at the 2010 Human Rights Campaign St. Louis Dinner Gala.
The HRC is the nation’s largest group working toward equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
The couple’s work on behalf of LGBT equality in our fair city speaks for itself: Emanuel has long been an activist on behalf of LGBT citizens and youth, and Reggi founded Show Me No Hate, an active grassroots coalition.
Lesbian cadet quits West Point, cites “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy [KSDK]
Aug 13th
From KSDK.com: A lesbian cadet asked Monday to resign from the U.S. Military Academy because she can no longer lie about her sexuality and was troubled by the anti-gay attitudes of some around her.
Katherine Miller of Findlay, Ohio, also said she wants to fight for repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, a subject she was studying and writing about as a sociology major at West Point.
“I intend for my resignation to offer a concrete example of the consequences of a failed law and social policy,” she wrote in her resignation letter, referring to the law against gays serving openly in the military.
Miller wrote proudly of her accomplishments as a student, athlete and soldier and said that she had not been pressured by anyone to resign. But she wrote of being “coerced into ignoring derogatory comments towards homosexuals for fear of being alienated for my viewpoint” and that she “endured sexual harassment for fear of being accused as a lesbian.”
53 gay porn pirates face new round of P2P lawsuits [Arstechnica]
Aug 12th
From Arstechnica.com: It’s not just the game plan of the RIAA and the new US Copyright Group—numerous rightsholders have resorted to mass federal lawsuits against P2P users, including those in the gay porn industry. On Monday, Lucas Entertainment filed its first such lawsuit targeting 53 BitTorrent users alleged to have shared its pornographic film Kings of New York.
The complaint is brief. Lucas says nothing about why it thinks that these users downloaded its film except to note that “monitoring of online infringement of Plaintiff’s motion picture is ongoing.” Instead, it has simply presented the judge with a list of 53 IP addresses, all of which are said to have visited gay-torrents.net (“a private website known for its vast index of videos depicting gay pornography”) and then shared the film in question.
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