Celebrating 41 Years! Issue 38 Volume 42
FRIDAY September 19, 2014 FREE!
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Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Watch the Sixth Circuit, Justice Ginsburg says FACEBOOK
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Facebook won’t budge on socalled “real name” policy; Drag queens mobilizing
On Monday, the protest scheduled for Facebook’s Menlo Park campus had been postponed after Gay San Francisco Supervisor David Campos arranged a meeting with company executives and drag queens. Leading the charge was outspoken Sister of Perpetual Indulgence, Sister Roma, whose real name is Michael
Williams, and Heklina, whose real name is Stefan Grygelko. The meeting, most people thought, was a good sign that Facebook would drop its potentially dangerous policy where the world’s most popular social network is demanding that users – well, not really all, just the LGBTQ ones mostly – change their stage names or chosen names to the name that appears on their birth certificate.
see FACEBOOK page 6
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says the U.S. Supreme Court will likely take one or more marriage cases if the Sixth Circuit Court overturns lower court rulings striking down state bans on same-sex marriage. In a September 16 speech at the University of Minnesota Law School, Ginsburg said “there will be some urgency” for the Supreme Court to rule on the issue of same-sex marriage if the Sixth Circuit bucks the trend in federal court decisions and upholds bans on Gay and Lesbian marriages. The Supreme Court has already announced that it will look at all pending marriage cases in its September 29 conference, the first after the justices return to work from their summer vacations. The court is not obligated to hear any of them, however, and Ginsburg’s remarks seem to indicate that she, at least, would not feel a pressing need to intervene in the marriage issue unless lower courts disagree. In a July interview with Katie Couric, Ginsburg predicted that
the high court would return to the issue of same-sex marriage “sooner or later,” but declined to say when. “The court took the first step in DOMA [United States v. Windsor],” Ginsburg noted. “There will be other cases to come before the court. If not in the new term, then in the term after, or the one after that. Sooner or later the court will answer that question. And of course I can’t predict how the court will decide an issue that may come before it.” In her Minnesota speech Ginsburg noted what she called a “remarkable” shift in public opinion toward samesex marriage. The fact that more LGBT Americans are out, and openly talking about their relationships, Ginsburg said, made the difference. “Having people close to us who say who they are – that made the attitude change in this country,” the justice said. Ginsburg, who likes to refer to herself as “Notorious RBG,” was one of the majority of five justices in Windsor who ruled that DOMA violated the equal protection and due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Subsequent federal see ginsburg page 7
LGBTQ Allyship hosts first LGBTQ Intergenerational Conference FEATURING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Jewelle Gomez & Nic Masangkay
Courtesy of Jewelle Gomez
Courtesy of Honey Bucket
by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor
And even that doesn’t work. Last week local entertainer and activist Chase Silva was told that his middle name, which is Hawaiian and over 20 letters long, was not his legal name. Only, it was. Silva went so far as to upload a portion of his birth certificate, which clearly shows he was telling the truth (not that anyone who isn’t ignorant to names that sound different to “Smith” or “White” needed to see proof). Facebook officials still did not accept the name, and Chase, rather than lose all of his contacts, videos and photos, simply used the middle initial, “N.,” and told Facebook officials where they could shove the rest of those letters and moved on. Meanwhile, the “I AM” photos that are being uploaded by performers (drag, burlesque, but mostly drag) have tripled since last week. The case could easily be made that these entertainers have been targeted because Lady Gaga is certainly not Stephanie Germanotto’s “real name” and I’m pretty sure that well-known author Danielle Steel
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer
Jewelle Gomez
“Where have we been? Where are we going? An exploration of money, power, health and history in the LGBTQ community.” – LGBTQ Allyship
generational Conference. Registration begins at 9 a.m., and the first workshops start at 9:30 a.m. The cost of attending the conference is FREE. Allyship is requestOn Sunday, September 28, at Se- ing a $5 to $25 donation to help attle University’s Student Center them cover costs of the conference; (901 12th Ave.), LGBTQ Allyship see ALLYSHIP page 8 kicks off their first LGBTQ Inter-