SGN March 28, 2014 - Section 1

Celebrating 40 Years!

Issue 13 Volume 42

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Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

George Takei will be Celebrity Grand Marshal at Seattle’s 2014 Pride Parade Facebook

by Victor Bogatko SGN Contributing Writer This year’s Seattle Pride Parade will mark its 40th anniversary. To celebrate this historic landmark, organizers of the event, Seattle Out & Proud, will host none other than George Takei to lead the parade as Celebrity Grand Marshal.

The theme of this year’s celebration is Generations of Pride, making Mr. Takei’s appearance all the more special. His career indeed spans many generations and there isn’t a person in the LGBT community (or a “Star Trek” fan) who doesn’t recognize his name.

With a career spanning half a century, George Takei is probably best known around the world as Hikaru Sulu, the role he played in the famous television series “Star Trek.” As an actor, human rights activist, and social media powerhouse, Takei has for many years used his roles and public image to advance LGBT rights around the world. With more than 6.4 million

followers, he’s ranked as one of Facebook’s most influential people, often posting hilarious memos, quotes, and images as well as voicing support for LGBT causes.

A Japanese American, Takei is no stranger to discrimination.

Aside from overcoming anti-Gay bias in a competitive field as an actor, he was interned in two U.S. internment camps during World War II as a child. Today, he is one of Hollywood’s most successful Gay actors, chairman emeritus and trustee of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, and one of the most liked and respected media personalities. He has served as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s “Coming Out Project,” was cultural affairs chairman of the Japanese American Citizens League, and is the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and recognitions.

His obviously busy schedule was Seattle Out & Proud’s biggest obstacle in getting him to come to Seattle’s Pride Parade. “He is absee Takei page 4

Christian charity World Vision Patty Murray, Tammy caves to bigots, reverses policy Baldwin introduce on hiring married Gay employees college anti-bullying bill AP Photo / Ted S. Warren

Entrance to World Vision Headquarters in Federal Way

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Only 48 hours after announcing that it would be open to hiring employees in same-sex marriages, the Christian charity World Vision reversed course, and apologized for its momentary lapse in bigotry.

The organization, based in Federal Way, said on March 24 that after years of prayer, and after considering the different positions taken by Christian denominations, they were prepared to hire Gay

and Lesbian employees who were legally married.

According to Associated Press, World Vision President Richard Stearns announced the hiring change in a letter to staff.

“I want to reassure you that we are not sliding down some slippery slope of compromise, nor are we diminishing the authority of Scripture in our work,” Stearns explained. “We are the same World Vision you have always believed in.”

In spite of Stearns assurances,

the new policy touched off a storm of criticism from right-wing Christian groups. The American Family Association, for example, called for a boycott of the group.

“This decision by World Vision to equate homosexual ‘marriage’ to natural marriage between a man and a woman is in direct conflict with the Holy Scriptures,” AFA said in a statement.

“Christians who support World Vision should stop as should all of

Senator Patty Murray

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced legislation on March 27 aimed at curbing bullying and harassment at colleges and universities.

Called the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act of 2014, the bill would require institutions of higher edsee World Vision page 4 ucation to prohibit harassment,

Senator Tammy Baldwin

and would set up a Department of Education grant program to help support campus anti-bullying programs.

An earlier version of the bill was introduced by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) after Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, took his own life after his roommate and another student invaded his privacy and harassed him over the Internet. see Murray page 6

2 Seattle Gay News

March 28, 2014

Celebrating 41 Years!

Chavez experience warns us about illegal immigration With release of new César Chavez film, former border patrol agent recalls his first meeting with famed labor organizer

by Michael Harpol Special to the SGN Keeping an eye out for harvest crews on a late-summer morning in 1965, my partner, Bill Gibson, and I drove in our green and white U.S. Border Patrol van along a highway lined with vineyards east of Delano, California. A small, black car pulled up close behind us and the driver waved [to] us to stop. A stocky, pleasant-faced Mexican-American man with straight black hair that fell down over his forehead got out and introduced himself as César Chavez, president of the National Farm Workers Association. Coming right to the point, Chavez said his members were complaining that the growers were hiring illegal aliens.

New to the area and enthusiastic about our duties, the Border Patrol had opened an office in nearby Bakersfield just four months earlier. We assured Chavez that we were concerned about the problem and would help.

He explained that the growers would break his striking union if we did not prevent them from hiring illegals; he would provide us carefully screened information to act on.

In 1965, the Border Patrol’s only recourse was to arrest individual illegal aliens. It would be more than two decades before Congress would enact a law barring employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

The year before, Congress ended the Bracero Program, a law that brought hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmworkers annually to the western states to harvest crops.

A coalition of church, labor and community leaders insisted, correctly, that the braceros competed with American farmworkers, marginalizing their opportunities and wages. The braceros were gone, but California growers continued to pay American farmworkers the wages they had been required by law to pay the braceros, $1.10 an hour, setting the stage for a strike.

That summer, the former braceros began to return, illegally crossing the border.

Chavez saw illegal immigrants as not only a threat to his union, but as having different

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interests than the U.S. workers he sought to organize. The illegals slipped across the border, worked for a short time, then returned to Mexico. They were interested only in wages, he said, and not the benefits important to domestic farmworkers and families.

As much as Bill and I wanted to help Chavez, the task proved impossible. Mexican border apprehensions rose from 55,000 in 1965 to more than 200,000 in 1969, and this was just the beginning. Border Patrol staffing did not increase; our vans were simply replaced by buses.

Nonetheless, through strikes and boycotts, Chavez won contracts. By the 1970 season, grape harvesters earned $1.75 an hour plus 25 cents a box. The federal minimum wage was $1.20 an hour.

Chavez had begun organizing by signing up farmworkers for burial insurance, a benefit of great importance to them. Now he sought multi-year contracts for his members that would not only permit bargaining with the growers for wages, but for improved working conditions including sanitary facilities in the field, a fair system for rehire, and healthcare. Hire-back clauses reduced the uncertainty in migrant families’ lives.

With grower funding, the union established health clinics for members and their families. Through the NFWA’s lobbying with the California Legislature, the backbreaking short-handled hoe was outlawed.

The golden era for California farmworkers lasted just less than two decades. Some observers blame internal difficulties within the NFWA that caused Chavez to stop organizing. By 1993, he didn’t have a single contract with grape growers. But according to UC Davis farm labor economist Philip L. Martin, “Continuing immigration was the main reason that, in the 1990s, contractors and other agricultural service firms could undermine unions by organizing and deploying workers on farms.”

After the loss of bracero labor in 1964, growers had relegated themselves to working with Chavez, but by the 1980s, with plenty of illegal workers available, they no longer had

an incentive. Contracts were lost to the rival “company” unions established by the Teamsters. Wages and working conditions for farmworkers regressed. Benefits were lost.

Labor-saving agricultural innovation ceased.

By 1978, annual apprehensions of illegal Mexican border crossers exceeded 1 million, remaining at that level until 2008.

In 1987, 22 years after the end of the Bracero Program, a new law made knowingly employing illegal immigrants a crime. It proved ineffective, easily subverted by the use of phony Social Security and immigration documents. A pilot program included in the legislation to electronically verify employment documents has remained just that for 27 years.

Today, an estimated 2.1 million immigrant, citizen and undocumented farmworkers work an average of 100 days or less a year, earning less than $10,000, and living in poverty little different than that John Steinbeck described in Grapes of Wrath.

César Chavez fought to bring farmworkers into the mainstream of American economic life, and the millions of consumers who supported his boycotts aided his quest.

But the great opportunity afforded by the end of the Bracero Program was lost, not

by Chavez, but because powerful economic interests working in Congress blocked reforms that would have ended agriculture’s access to exploitable illegal workers.

March 28, 2014

Seattle Gay News 3

About Michael G. Harpold Michael G. Harpold, author of Jumping the Line (www.jumpingtheline.com), began his 35-year career in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as a Border Patrol Inspector. Early in his career, he met César Chávez and Harpold’s involvement with farm workers during the grape strike led to a lifelong interest in their plight.

He frequently testified before congressional committees on proposed immigration legislation and the INS budget. Harpold holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University at Fresno and attended Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.

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the artists and authors who raise money for them. There are many other organizations that sponsor children around the world who remain true to the gospel.”

Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote on his blog that the new hiring policy was “a betrayal of the nature of the Christian community” and “a denial of how Jesus defined marriage as between a man and a woman when he was asked about divorce.”

Many of World Vision’s previous donors posted denunciations on the agency’s Facebook page, saying they would no longer fund the sponsor-a-child programs that are central to World Vision’s fundraising and education.

While World Vision gets 18% of its operating budget of nearly $1 billion from federal government grants, it gets the bulk of its money from donations by self-identified Christian groups and individuals, so the massive protest put the future of the agency at risk.

By March 26, the World Vision board had capitulated to the threats. Stearns and Board Chair Jim Bere sent a letter of abject apology to supporters saying the board had made a mistake and was returning to its policy requiring celibacy outside of marriage “and faithfulness within the Bible covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.”

“We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness,” they wrote.

“In our board’s effort to unite around the church’s shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consis-

tent with World Vision U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of biblical marriage and our own statement of faith, which says, `We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God,’” Stearns and Bere wrote.

“We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We ask that you understand that this was never the board’s intent.”

HRC, which had applauded World Vision’s initial change of policy, deplored the reversal.

“We are devastated by the decision of World Vision USA to purposefully exclude married lesbian and gay employees after only recently taking an important first step in addressing inequality in their workplaces,” HRC said in a statement.

“While they said their aim was to respect the diversity of religious viewpoints on marriage, they have now buckled under the pressure of the radical right and alienated millions of fair-minded people of faith.

“At a time when people are losing their lives around the globe simply for being who they are, such a reversal is not just sad, but it sends a potentially catastrophic message. The Gospel calls on us to stand with the marginalized wherever they are.

Many of the poorest people around the globe who World Vision serves are doubly marginalized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. At a time when Pope Francis is asking, ‘Who am I to Judge?’ World Vision has decided they can judge with impunity and at great cost to those who need them the most.”

Salt Lake Tribune

World Vision

George Takei

Takei

continued from cover solutely booked all of the time,” says Adam McRoberts, Vice President of Seattle Out & Proud. “It took us two years to make this happen.” Needless to say, organizers of Seattle Pride are ecstatic. “Thrilled, overjoyed! Mr. Takei is perfect for our 40th anniversary theme,” says Adam McRoberts.

The news will no doubt be good for the city and the celebration come June 29th.

“People outside of Seattle are going to recognize us here, that our Pride celebration is a pretty big deal,” a local Seattleite beamed on Facebook after hearing the good news.

The Seattle Pride Parade steps off on Sunday, June 29 at 11:00 a.m. along 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle.

For more information, contact the Seattle Gay News at 206-324-4297 or Seattle Out & Proud Vice President Adam McRoberts at 206-322-9561, ext. 112.

Malixe Photo

(l to r) WA State Ms. Leather 2014 Tris, WA State Mr. Leather 2014 Erik, WA State Bootblack 2014 Decca

On Saturday, March 22, The Cuff Complex hosted the 2014 Washington State Mr. and Ms. Leather and Bootblack Contest as part of the 22nd Annual Washington State Leather Pride Week. The annual contest is sponsored by the Washington State Mr. and Ms. Leather Organization – www.wsmlo.org.

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Celebrating 41 Years!

“REVEALING QUEER” – LGBT HISTORY AT MOHAI FEBRUARY 14-JULY 6 Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry (860 Terry Ave. N. in South Lake Union) present “Revealing Queer,” a landmark exhibit on the history of the Puget Sound region’s LGBTQ community. Admission: $14 general; $12-student/senior/military/ teacher; children under 14 free when accompanied by an adult. Museum hours: 10 a.m.5 p.m. daily, Thursdays until 8 p.m. First Thursdays FREE. www.mohai.org.

GAY CITY ARTS – “INNER OUT” – FEATURING KT SHORES On Thursday, March 27 thru Saturday, March 29, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 30, at 6 p.m., at Calamus Auditorium at Gay City (517 E. Pike St.), join Gay City Arts for “Inner OUT” – featuring KT Shores.

Physics, food fights, and gender non-conformity blend into this meditation on the nature of things inspired by conversations between the artist and her young son. This installation in the cycle is a one-woman spectacle – part science experiment/confessional, part cocktail party/ritual – “Inner OUT” profoundly and absurdly exalts and questions our human condition through the lens of Queer art and culture, parenting, and food. A poem written in dance, film, and Jell-O. Audience warning: contains some nudity, language, and Jell-O. Tickets: $18 general, $12 student/senior. www.gaycity.org.

SEATTLE MEN’S CHORUS – “TOTALLY WICKED” THE MUSIC OF STEVEN SCHWARTZ MARCH 29 & 30 APRIL 5

On Saturday, March 29, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 30, at 2 p.m., at McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St.), join the Seattle Men’s Chorus with special guest Megan Hilty for “Totally Wicked” for a concert featuring the music of Steven Schwartz, including songs from Godspell, Pippin, Wicked, Enchanted, and a whole lot more! Tickets: $58, $68, $78. Advance tickets can be purchased by calling 206-388-1400 or online at www.flyinghouse.org.

SMC also presents an Outreach Concert on Saturday, April 5, at 7 p.m., at South Whidbey High School Performing Arts Center (5675 Maxwelton Rd., Langley, WA).

Tickets for the Outreach Concert and benefit for CADA (Citizens Against Domestic & Sexual Abuse) are $35. 360-675-7057.

EMERALD CITY SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION – 2014 SEASON KICKOFF PARTY On Sunday, March 30, from 3-6 p.m., at World Sports Grille (731 Westlake Ave. N.), join ECSA players, family and friends to celebrate the beginning of softball season. Opening Day is April 6. Players are eligible to win a bat or sporting goods gift cards. http://seattlegaysoftball.com SEATTLE GAY & LESBIAN BOOK CLUB – TELL THE WOLVES I’M HOME The Seattle Gay & Lesbian Book Club meets every Wednesday from 6-7:30 p.m., at Seattle Area Support Groups Community Center (303 17th Ave. E. at E. Thomas St.).

In April, the club will discuss Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Riftka Brunt.

It’s 1986. The world is terrified of the new plague. We learn in the very first sentence that the fourteen year-old girl narrator loves more than any other person alive her Gay

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uncle who is dying of AIDS. Which is walloping in itself – but wait until Uncle Finn’s lover seeks her out as the only one who loved her uncle as much as he did. Get your handkerchiefs ready. As Gay literature enters the mainstream, let’s think about how we describe ourselves and how straight people describe us. We will be able to talk for hours about the way Brunt uses her Gay characters her novel. DON’T read the back of the book – the blurb gives away half the surprises. Bring your opinions!

All GLBTQ folks are welcome to participate in this FREE book club. For more information, visit http://faculty.washington. edu/swittet/SGLBookClub/ SOUTHGATE ROLLER RINK – PRIDE SKATE On Wednesday, April 2, from 9-11 p.m., come get your skate on at the Southgate Roller Rink’s (9646 17th Ave. SW) monthly LGBT Pride Skate event. Meets the first Wednesday each month. This month’s theme is: 2nd annual Superheros vs. Villains. Cost is $7 (with free skate rental, if needed.) This is an ages 18 and older event. www.southgaterollerrink.com.

“SOUTH PACIFIC” – THREE DOLLAR BILL CINEMA’S 7TH ANNUAL DINNER & AUCTION On Friday, April 4, silent auction begins at 6 p.m., fine dining and entertainment at 7:30 p.m., at MOHAI (860 Terry Ave. N.), join Three Dollar Bill Cinema for their 7th annual dinner and auction.

Support LGBT arts! Tickets: $139. www. threedollarbillcinema.org

ALL PILGRIMS CHRISTIAN CHURCH – FREE RECOVERY, INTIMACY & RELATIONSHIPS WORKSHOP On Saturday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to noon, All Pilgrims Christian Church (500 Broadway E.) offers a FREE Recovery, Intimacy and Relationships Workshop. Are you struggling with intimacy in new and old relationships in your recovery journey? Are you ready to have that long-overdue conversation about re-connecting with your inner self, who has the ability to give and receive love? Reclaim the journey that God intends for you. Discover a recovery community that celebrates YOU for who you are. All are welcome at All Pilgrims. Come and join us in a safe and compassionate environment as we are led in discussion by therapist Derrek Zietz, M.S., LMHCA, NCC, around issues of Active Listening, Feelings and Needs, Conflict Resolution, and Intimacy. For more information, contact Victor B. DeLosSantos, CDP Recovery Intern, 206-322-0487; office@allpilgrims.org.

IMPERIAL COURT OF SEATTLE – IMPERIAL PRINCE & PRINCESS BALL The Imperial Sovereign Court of Seattle and their Most Imperial Highnesses, Imperial Prince 39 Jacob Howe and Imperial Prncess 27 DonnaTella Howe invite you to the 2014 Imperial Prince and Princess Ball and Investitures – “Once Upon a Stepdown.”

Come one, come all! Come as your favorite fairy tale hero, heroine, villain or such, as Storybrooke is taking over Velocity Dance Center (1621 12th Ave) on April 5.

Magic is here as we celebrate the year of Jacob and DonnaTella and their year representing the Court of Seattle as Prince see NW NEWS page 16

March 28, 2014

Seattle Gay News 5

Pass ENDA now, Biden says usatopnews.us

Vice President Joe Biden

refused to bring it up in the House.

Biden also said that the U.S. government considers defending LGBT rights a basic part of its foreign policy.

“Hate cannot be a cultural norm,” Biden insisted, in response to some world leaders who have asserted that Western powers want to impose Gay culture on their unwilling people. Biden’s speech came after Russia, Uganda, and Nigeria passed strict new anti-Gay legislation.

“The single most basic of all human rights is the right to decide who you love,” Biden added.

The HRC hailed Biden’s remarks in a statement released the next day.

“Vice President Biden’s inspiring remarks in support of global LGBT equality represent the latest step from a White House that has made fairness and dignity for LGBT people one of its top priorities,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.

“Vice President Biden made it clear that he will not be silent as LGBT people around the world are denied their human rights. As we celebrate new victories for equality here at home, we cannot look the other way as the governments of Russia, Nigeria, and Uganda put their LGBT citizens in the crosshairs. HRC is proud to stand with the Vice President because every person deserves their basic human rights, and no one should face execution, imprisonment or violence because of who they are or who they love.”

of 1000 HRC supporters in Los Angeles.

“My grandkids, my children, and their kids are going to be shocked, it shocks the conscience that this very moment in American history, in some states, an employer can fire you just because of who you are, or who you love,” the Vice President said.

“It’s close to barbaric. I mean think about this, a man, no I really mean this. Imagine, imagine, 20 years from now, as America looks back and says how in the hell could

that have ever been allowed? The country’s moved on. The American people have moved on, it’s time for the Congress to move on, and pass ENDA. Pass ENDA now. Not tomorrow, now!”

ENDA would add protections for sexual orientation and gender identity to federal civil rights laws that protect employees To see and hear Vice President Biden’s from discrimination in the workplace. The complete speech, Google: “Joe Biden Senate passed the measure last year, but ReHRC Dinner.” publican Speaker John Boehner has so far

Murray said she was motivated to reintroduce the measure after hearing that one of her interns, Kristopher Sharp, had been harassed, and had his medical records published by his harassers in a college incident last year.

Sharp was running for a student government position when he was summoned to the dean’s office and shown flyers that had been distributed across campus.

The front showed a picture of Sharp, who is openly Gay, with an X over it and the text: “Want AIDS? Don’t support the Isaac and Kris homosexual agenda.” The back of the flyer showed Sharp’s real medical records that confirmed he was HIV-positive.

The dean told Sharp nothing could be done, and refused to investigate or take any disciplinary action. Sharp described the incident as “devastating.”

“The injustice of the fact that somebody can put his HIV status on a flyer, distribute it, violate his privacy, and [the dean says] there’s nothing I can do about it, is just horrendous,” Murray told the Huffington Post.

“His story is so compelling, and it is so real that it’s just made it real for me,” she said.

“This isn’t just something that could happen, this is something that does happen.”

“Despite statistics telling us LGBT students are nearly twice as likely to be harassed, there is no federal requirement that colleges and universities have policies in place to protect their students,” Murray elaborated in a press statement.

“Thankfully, this bill gets to the heart of this issue by ensuring students and schools

alike have the tools and resources necessary to not only prevent this epidemic of harassment, but assist victims who are too often left with no sense of closure or recourse for their perpetrators. I am extremely grateful for the work my friend Frank [Lautenberg] did to honor Tyler Clementi’s life with this legislation and I am proud to be joined in this effort by Senator Baldwin. No student – whether they’re gay, straight, black, white, Christian, or Muslim – should have to face discrimination and harassment in their pursuit of education.”

“Everyone deserves a fair shot at our colleges and universities across America and this legislation will help ensure people can pursue their dreams free of harassment and bullying,” Baldwin added.

In addition to Murray and Baldwin, the bill is sponsored by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Al Franken (D-MN), Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Murray told Huffington Post that she hopes fellow senators from both parties will sign onto the bill. “I think in this day and age, they ought to,” she said.

The bill has also received support from advocates and organizations including: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, People For the American Way, and significantly from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU).

The Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act of 2014:

Requires colleges and universities receiving federal aid to establish an anti-harassment policy prohibiting the harassment of enrolled students based on their actual or perceived race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion; Requires colleges to distribute their antiharassment policy to all students and employees, including prospective students and employees, upon request; Recognizes “cyberbullying,” which includes harassment undertaken through

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by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Vice President Joe Biden brought down the house at a March 22 HRC Gala with a speech advocating for ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) and insisting that “LGBT rights are an integral part of U.S. foreign policy.”

Biden spoke for 28 minutes to an audience

Murray

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electronic messaging services, commercial mobile services, and other electronic communications; Authorizes a competitive grant program for institutions of higher education to initiate, expand, or improve programs to: (a) prevent the harassment of students; (b) provide counseling or redress services to students who have been harassed or accused of subjecting other students to harassment; and (c) train students, faculty, or staff to prevent harassment or address harassment if it occurs.

AP

Tyler Clementi

Celebrating 41 Years!

Michigan will not recognize 300 same-sex marriages, Governor says; ACLU threatens lawsuit

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

is, in short, no logical connection between banning same-sex marriage and providing children with an ‘optimal environment’ or achieving ‘optimal outcomes,’” he wrote.

All states within the jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals now have same-sex marriage cases pending in the appeals court, and attorneys for the Michigan plaintiffs asked the appeals court for an expedited review of the case.

The Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits have marriage cases pending as well.

Both sides in the Michigan case said they expect the U.S. Supreme Court to issue the final ruling on marriage rights.

“Obviously, we would have loved to have the stay lifted and all same-sex couples be able to marry if they wish to do so,” the plaintiffs’ attorney Dana Nessel said. “I’m hopeful that this case will be resolved as quickly as possible ... I think it’s pretty clear

that our case or another case will end up before the Supreme Court sooner than later.”

“The final decision will be made by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Michigan Attorney General Schuette agreed. “If the citizens of the state want to change the constitution, they can, that’s their right. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules a different way, I will honor that.”

Oddly enough, for someone who argued in court that same-sex couples were necessarily ineffective parents, Schuette took an almost liberal tone when talking about family structure to reporters.

“Families come in all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes,” he said. “I want to have loving parents. I know that single parents and gay parents love their kids. I’m cool with having parents who love their kids.

Whether it’s gay or straight, kids today need loving, attentive parents.”

AP Photo / Carlos Osorio

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said on March 26 that his state will not recognize more than 300 same-sex marriages performed since a federal district judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

The Governor’s announcement came only a day after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals imposed an indefinite stay on the March 21 ruling by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman.

Friedman issued his decision without a stay to allow for an appeal to the Circuit Court, and marriage license offices in Ingham, Muskegon, Oakland, and Washtenaw counties began issuing valid licenses to same-sex couples on Saturday, March 22.

More than 300 couples were married before the Sixth Circuit intervened.

Lisa Ulrey and Donna DeMarco were one of those couples.

“I’m shocked, but not surprised,” Ulrey said of Snyder’s decision. “Everyone was on such an emotional high on Saturday. We felt we were on top of the world. I guess we were naive in thinking the government would be on our side.”

“A stay of the district court’s order is warranted,” the Sixth Circuit Court panel found in a 2-1 decision based on a similar samesex marriage decision in Utah. Appellate Judge Helene White dissented, saying the Utah case did not provide clear guidance or sufficient reasons for a stay.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who requested the stay, said he was not surprised.

“As we anticipated, the Sixth Circuit recognized the similarities to the Utah case and granted our request for stay,” said his spokesperson Joy Yearout. “We will now focus on preparing an appeal in defense of the constitution and the will of the people.”

Governor Snyder admitted the 300 marriages were valid, but said the stay returned the state’s legal situation to what it had been before Judge Friedman’s ruling.

“With respect to the marriages, we believe those are legal and valid marriages,” Snyder said. “The stay being issued makes it more complicated. Because of the stay, we won’t recognize the benefits of the marriage until there’s a removal of the stay.... Hopefully we’ll be able to provide some clarity, at

least from our perspective, relatively soon.”

Dana Nessel, an attorney for two Detroitarea nurses who successfully challenged the same-sex marriage ban, said Snyder’s position is “really an outrage.”

“I think each one of those couples should be furious right now, and I’m very hopeful that those couples will petition the court on their own behalf,” Nessel said.

The ACLU said immediately after the Sixth Circuit’s decision that it would file suit on behalf of the married couples, if the state decided not to recognize their marriages.

Meanwhile, East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett and Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking that he declare the 300 Michigan marriages “lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits.”

“They’re fighting a losing battle,” Byrum said of the Governor and Attorney General.

The U.S. Justice Department, which intervened to recognize Utah marriages – at least for federal purposes – said it was watching the situation in Michigan.

“The department is closely monitoring the situation,” spokeswoman Allison Pierce said March 24.

Equality Michigan said in a March 24 press conference that 17,000 people had signed a petition asking Snyder and Schuette to drop their appeal of Friedman’s ruling.

In his 31-page decision, Judge Friedman, a Ronald Reagan appointee, cited both USA v. Windsor and Loving v. Virginia – the case in which the U.S. Supreme court struck down laws against inter-racial marriage. Michigan law, he said, was unfair not only to same-sex couples, but also to children raised by them.

“No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples,” the judge wrote.

Friedman explained that Michigan law does not even pass rational basis review, the lowest standard of judicial scrutiny.

“Prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying does not stop them from forming families and raising children. Nor does prohibiting same-sex marriage increase the number of heterosexual marriages or the number of children raised by heterosexual parents. There

Governor Rick Snyder

Nathan Phelps remarks on his father’s passing Wikipedia

Nathan Phelps

On behalf of Nathan Phelps, son of for- right to finally have closure to decades of mer Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred rejection, and that was stolen from them.

Phelps, Recovering From Religion issues Even more, I mourn the ongoing injusthe following official statement: tices against the LGBT community, the unfortunate target of his 23-year cam“Fred Phelps is now the past. The pres- paign of hate. His life impacted many ent and the future are for the living. Un- outside the walls of the WBC compound, fortunately, Fred’s ideas have not died uniting us across all spectrums of orientawith him, but live on, not just among the tion and belief as we realized our strength members of Westboro Baptist Church, but lies in our commonalities, and not our among the many communities and small differences. How many times have comminds that refuse to recognize the equal- munities risen up together in a united wall ity and humanity of our brothers and sis- against the harassment of my family? ters on this small planet we share. I will Differences have been set aside for that mourn his passing, not for the man he cause, tremendous and loving joint efforts was, but for the man he could have been. I mobilized within hours. And because of deeply mourn the grief and pain felt by my that, I ask this of everyone – let his death family members denied their right to visit mean something. Let every mention of his him in his final days. They deserved the name and of his church be a constant re-

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March 28, 2014

minder of the tremendous good we are all capable of doing in our communities.

The lessons of my father were not unique to him, nor will this be the last we hear of his words, which are echoed from pulpits as close as other churches in Topeka, Kansas, where WBC headquarters remain, and as far away as Uganda. Let’s end the support of hateful and divisive teachings describing the LGBT community as “less than,” “sinful,” or “abnormal.” Embrace the LGBT community as our equals, our true brothers and sisters, by promoting equal rights for everyone, without exception. My father was a man of action, and I implore us all to embrace that small portion of his faulty legacy by doing the same.”

Courtesy of Recovering From Religion

Seattle Gay News 7

Maryland passes Transgender protections Governor promises to sign

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

cated and committed Equality Maryland Board and staff, amazing coalition partners like the Human Rights Campaign and so many more people and organizations that we will highlight in the coming months.”

“Today the Maryland legislature lived up to its reputation as a fair and just body and rightly recognized that everyone should be treated equally, including transgender

Marylanders,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin.

“Being free from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression is what makes America work.”

A recent Goucher poll found that 71% of Marylanders supported updating Maryland’s anti-discrimination law to include transgender people. courtesy of

Maryland’s House of Delegates passed the Fairness for All Marylanders Act on March 27, adding protections for Transgender people to the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

The vote was a convincing 82 to 57. The state Senate previously passed the measure by 32 votes to 15. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has promised to sign the bill into law.

“I am proud of my 81 colleagues who voted in support of fairness for transgender Marylanders today. Allowing people to earn a living and live without fear of discrimination is the right thing to do,” said Delegate Luke Clippinger, one of the prime sponsors of the bill.

Senator Rich Madaleno was the prime sponsor in the state Senate.

The Maryland Coalition for Transgender Equality (MCTE), a coalition of more than 50 organizations and individuals working to advance civil rights for Transgender Marylanders, hailed the victory as the culmination of many years of work by the transgender community and allies.

“After more than 15 years of advocacy for trans Marylanders, the tremendous work by all of our legislative champions, and the solid support of the leadership in Annapolis, history was made today,” said Jenna Fischetti of TransMaryland, an MCTE coalition member.

“The House of Delegates sent the same loud and clear message the Maryland Senate did: Every Marylander deserves equal

rights under the law. We welcome the Governor’s promised signature and the full and successful implementation of this bill.”

Dana Beyer, the executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, another MCTE affiliate, thanked delegates who pushed the measure through the state legislature.

“The Maryland transgender community can at long last celebrate its equality as full partners in the LGBT community,” Beyer said in a statement.

“After eight long years of struggle, thirteen years after the passage of the sexual orientation anti-discrimination act, Maryland joins with seventeen states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, in providing comprehensive LGBT equality. I’d like to thank Delegates Peña-Melnyk, Clippinger and Cullison for their successful efforts this session, but I also want to remember the efforts of Delegates Hubbard, Mizeur, Kelly and others over the years who made this vote possible.”

Carrie Evans, Executive Director of Equality Maryland, the state’s largest LGBT organization, also acknowledged the many years of work needed to pass the legislation.

“This is the culmination of a very long and sustained effort by Equality Maryland to ensure transgender Marylanders are included in our state’s anti-discrimination laws,” she said.

“Today’s win is the result of so many people and organizations – transgender individuals and their families showing up and telling their stories year after year, elected officials [who supported the bill], many years of dedi-

Jenna Fischetti of TransMaryland

LGBT group takes leading role in Chile protests Flickr

Protest in Santiago, Chile

rights organization in Chile, played a leading role in organizing a massive protest march in Santiago, the Chilean capital.

MOVILH, Movimiento de Integracion y Called “The March of Marches,” the Liberacion Homosexual, the leading LGBT March 17 demonstration demanded that

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

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March 28, 2014

newly-elected Chilean President Michelle Bachelet move forward on her campaign promise to replace Chile’s current constitution – enacted under military dictator General Augusto Pinochet – with a document that protects the rights of all citizens.

“This is not a protest against Ms. Bachelet or for her, it’s just an alert for the political class so they know people have demands,” said MOVILH spokesperson Oscar Rementeria.

“This was the first demonstration where all social causes, represented by more than 40 organizations, participated together in solidarity,” MOVILH noted on its website. “The March, which helped to accelerate the advancement of various social demands , was replicated in other regions and abroad… “[In] Valparaiso and Arica twenty other social organizations protested, just as happened in Paris with Chileans living in France,” MOVILH continued.

Organizers said that “one of the most positive effects of the March was the public voice it gave to various social groups that emerged in the last four years, whose issues were little regarded by the authorities or the media.”

Some organizers estimated the crowd at 100,000 people in Santiago, although the police put the figure at 25,000.

“The march was festive, with a familylike atmosphere, there was no damage or incident,” said the mayor of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Claudio Orrego.

At the end of the day, however, police clashed with some hooded protesters. MOVILH said the police used excessive force

to quell what they called “minor disorders.”

“As the March finished up, some hooded individuals rioted, and minor disorders broke out at the fringes of the closing ceremony, but police were unable to pull back and focus their actions. Instead, they chose to repress the masses with water cannons and excessive and unnecessary force,” the group said on its website.

Bachelet, who served a previous term as President of Chile in 2006-2010, was reelected in 2013 with more than 62% of the vote. Her campaign promised to increase spending on education, improve the national healthcare system, and reduce income disparity. Bachelet also promised to increase taxes to offer a free university education to all students.

Her signature issue, however, was her promise to reform political and economic structures dating from the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Pinochet.

Ironically, Bachelet’s opponent in the 2013 election was her childhood friend, Evelyn Matthei. Both were children of Chilean military officers, but Matthei’s father had supported the Pinochet coup, while Bachelet’s had remained loyal to the constitutionally elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, and died as a result of torture

by Pinochet’s security forces.

Allende’s daughter Isabel, now President of the Chilean Senate, administered Bachelet’s oath of office. Senator Isabel Allende is a second cousin of the writer by the same name.

Celebrating 41 Years!

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Obama beats Putin with LGBT stick Speaking in Brussels March 26, after a meeting with EU and NATO allies, President Obama sought to win support for sanctions against Russia by raising a litany of criticisms against Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Putin’s notorious anti-Gay laws.

In his only policy speech in a four-day visit to Europe, Obama accused Putin of being a menace to “our very international order.”

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military threats to the Ukraine isolated Putin from the rest of the international community, Obama said.

“If the Russian leadership stays on its current course, together we will ensure that this isolation deepens,” the President warned.

In making the case for a united European and American stand against what he characterized as Russian aggression, Obama turned to the issue of LGBT rights.

“We believe in human dignity – that every person is created equal, no matter who you are, or what you look like, or who you love, or where you come from,” he said.

Later in the speech, Obama again brought up LGBT rights, asserting that the U.S. and Europe shared a tolerant culture that was missing in Putin’s Russia.

“Instead of targeting our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we can use our laws to protect their rights,” he said. “Instead of defining ourselves in opposition to others, we can affirm the aspirations that we hold in common. That’s what will make America strong. That’s what will make Europe strong. That’s what makes us who we are.”

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

President Barack Obama speaks in Brussels

Obama’s European tour was intended to convince EU and NATO leaders that they should support his program of economic sanctions against Russia, in spite of the many banking and trade ties that link Europe with the Russians – and in spite of any perceived Russian military threat.

To reassure them of the U.S. commitment

to collective security, Obama also reportedly promised direct military aid for more exposed countries close to the Russian border.

“There’s no question that NATO is prepared to defend any ally against any aggression,” a senior U.S. official told CNN. “To reassure them, we do think we should take additional steps. We’ve already de-

ployed Baltic air policing, additional planes over the Baltic countries. We’ve deployed an aviation detachment to Poland.

“We are looking at doing more things like that. We’ll be discussing very specifically what more can be done in terms of signaling concrete reassurance to our eastern European allies.”

Obama “anti-life, anti-family” Vatican official says courtesy of

Vatican Chief Justice Cardinal Raymond Burke

ing with Pope Francis.

While the President met with the Pope in an all-smiles photo op in the ornate PaA top Vatican official criticized President pal Library, the statement by Vatican Chief Obama as an enemy of “Christian civiliza- Justice Cardinal Raymond Burke undertion” just days ahead of his March 27 meet- lines the fact that Catholic doctrine has not

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

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changed with the change of pontiffs.

In an extensive interview with Polonia Christiana magazine, later reprinted by Life Site News, Cardinal Burke said that Obama “promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.”

“It is true that the policies of the president of the United States have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization. He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies,” Burke told the magazine.

“Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of religion to freedom of worship, that is, he holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions,” Burke said.

Burke also attacked Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, because the law mandates coverage for contraceptives, saying “such policies would have been unimaginable in the United States even 40 years ago.”

“In a democracy, such a lack of awareness is deadly,” Burke said. “It leads to the loss of the freedom which a democratic government exists to protect. It is my hope that more and more of my fellow citizens, as they realize what is happening, will insist on electing leaders who respect the truth of the moral law as it is respected in the founding principles of our nation.”

In the interview, Burke called for the

ACA to be overturned.

“There is hope that the evil anti-life laws of the United States can be overthrown and that the anti-life movement which urges yet more of such legislation can be resisted,” Burke said.

“The pro-life movement in the United States has been working since 1973 to reverse the unjust decision of the Supreme Court which struck down state laws prohibiting procured abortion. It is true that the Supreme Court decision stands, but it is also true that the pro-life movement has grown ever stronger in the United States, that is, that more and more citizens, especially young citizens, have been awakened to the truth about the grave evil of procured abortion.”

It is not clear whether Burke was speaking for himself, or whether his statement carries the weight of Vatican authority. Pope Francis removed Burke from the Congregation for Bishops last December, but also appointed him to the office of Chief Justice. Before going to the Vatican, Burke was Archbishop of St. Louis.

Religious experts said that the Pope would not break openly with the positions expressed by U.S. bishops on issues like contraception and same-sex marriage, even if he would prefer they not be so strident.

“The Vatican has to be very careful to not create a gap between what they’re saying and the bishops are saying,” Catholic University of America professor Stephen Schneck said. “They will be very careful not to undercut the American bishops in that regard.”

March 28, 2014

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NW NEWS

continued from page 5

Dear Kiki with D, I need help. I found out my long-term boyfriend who I was living with was cheating on me. How long it had been going on and how many times I don’t really know and I don’t want to know.

Regardless, I packed my things, moved out, and ended it. Or tried to end it.

I started dating other people as a means to distract myself from missing him, but it just backfired on me and left me missing him more, even though he cheated on me.

We now hang out pretty frequently and he wants to get back together. He has really shown me that he is trying to be better by doing little things that he knows will make me happy. Right now things between us are going great. But I am still so worried that if we get back together he will cheat on me again.

I know I am probably crazy to go back to someone who cheated, and everyone says “once a cheater, always a cheater,” but I think he saw how badly he messed up when I moved out and started dating other people.

So, what should I do? Give him a second chance or move on completely?

–Burnt Boy in Bellevue

Dear Burnt Boy in Bellevue, I don’t believe in the “once a cheater, always a cheater” thing. Many couples can move past this kind of betrayal.

But in your case, something is missing – and it seems to be the gory details. You have no idea what this guy did or how long he was doing it. You say that you don’t want to have this information, but how can you decide whether it’s worth sticking around, if you don’t understand what happened and why? You can’t take him back until you know what went down and why he wants a second chance. If you don’t get the story, you’re going to fill in your own narrative – and it probably won’t be accurate.

It’s great that he’s being nice to you, but nice isn’t necessarily honest. Tell him that you need to talk about what happened during the cheat. After you get his story, you can decide whether you want to forgive or just walk away.

Hope this helps. Remember be true to you, love yourself, encourage yourself and others.

–D

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Tickets are $15 at the door. Limited advanced ticket purchase at Brown Paper Tickets are only $10, and saves you $5 off the price! http://bpt.me/615351 (Purchaser responsible for associated fees when using BPT.) Also starring tonight, Rainier 40 Eric Bonesteel and Olympia 43 Rodeo Drive, as they present Investitures, presenting their Reign Titles for the 43rd Monarchy of the Court of Seattle.

Doors open at 6:00pm, Investitures will start at 6:30pm, and the Ball begins at 7:00pm. You don’t want to miss this!

EMERALD CITY SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION – 2014 SEASON OPENING DAY On Sunday, April 6, from 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m., at North SeaTac Park, SeaTac, and Moshier Park, Burien, the Pacific Northwest’s largest Gay softball organization begins its 35th season with games on 5 fields all day, with post-game party at R Place, 619 E. Pine St. For more information and complete schedule, visit http://seattlegaysoftball.com.

NORTHWEST BEARS – “SPRING THAW XX” APRIL 10-13 www.nwbears.org INSPIRE YOUTH PROJECT – “THE BIG BAIL OUT” On Wednesday, April 16, from 4 to 9 p.m., at The Lobby Bar (916 E. Pike St.), help raise money to send children affected

by HIV/AIDS to Camp Rise n’ Shine! Grab your team of four and come on down to our

jail located at The Lobby Bar. Our sheriff will sentence you to an hour of jail time where you will call friends and family to raise your bail and help send a kid to Camp Rise n’ Shine! Sign up your team of 4 today!

Contact Mandy at mandy@inspireyouthproject.org. Donations to Inspire Youth Project and the “The Big Bail Out” event are also welcome. www.inspireyouthproject.org CAMP TEN TREES – “S’MORE FUN!” 2014 CAMP TEN TREES DINNER & AUCTION EVENT Each summer, LGBTQA youth and youth of LGBTQ families come together to strengthen inner courage, build life skills, and find community through the fun of the Camp Ten Trees summer camp sessions. Get a taste of that same camp magic by being a part of our 2014 dinner and auction event, “S’more Fun,” and you’ll be letting our campers know that their joy, resiliency, and well being are of paramount importance to you.

On Saturday, April 19, at 6 p.m., at Herban Feast’s Sodo Park (3200 1st Ave. S.), join us at “S’more Fun” to raise the vital funds necessary to ensure that every youth who needs this camp can attend, regardless of ability to pay. Camp Ten Trees changes lives. Our supporters make it possible.

Go to www.camptentrees.org to donate an auction item, purchase a ticket, sign up to be a table captain, become an event sponsor, or make a tax-deductible donation. Act now to save your spot at “S’more Fun.” Event tickets are $60 individual; VIP individual $125. RSVP for “S’more Fun” requested by April 4. Register online at www.camptentrees.org or call 206-2889568. Help sustain for this year and years to come, the camp that’s not just a camp … it’s a revolution!

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