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Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Waiting for SCOTUS: Why no news may be good news
U.S. Supreme Court justices
The high court listed seven marriage suits from five states as cases that it might possibly acThe U.S. Supreme Court passed cept for hearings. They were disup its first chance to accept one cussed at the court’s September or more marriages cases for their 29 conference, but none made current term. the initial list of cases that the by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer
justices decided to hear. That list was announced October 2. The court is not required to hear any cases that come to it on appeal from lower courts. Typically, the justices will agree to take cases where there are important legal
principles involved, and a Supreme Court decision is required to set a national legal standard. To date, all but one of the federal district courts that have ruled on same-sex marriage have decided that bans on Gay and Lesbian marriages are unconstitutional. That one, in Louisiana, is currently on appeal before the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court. All the Circuit Courts that have ruled on marriage have also decided that same-sex couples have a right to marry. Circuit Courts are the intermediate legal stage between the federal district courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. Absent disagreement on the issue among the Circuit Courts, the Supreme Court justices may see no point in hearing any of the marriage cases. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said as much last month, when she told a college audience that “there will be some urgency” for the high court to accept a marriage case only if one of the circuit courts
bucks the trend and rules in favor of same-sex marriage bans. While marriage equality advocates have filed briefs asking the Supreme Court to rule on the marriage issue once and for all, a quick decision by the court may not be the best outcome for Gay and Lesbian couples waiting to be married. When the Supreme Court struck down DOMA in USA v. Windsor, it relied on the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In that ruling – which, by the way, was a close 5-4 vote – the justices said that the federal government may not define marriage in a way that disadvantages Gay and Lesbian couples, but they left open the possibility that states could define marriage in whatever way they wanted. In contrast, federal district judges have relied on the Fourteenth Amendment to strike see SCOTUS page 7
by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor
Grupo Dignidade
A protest led by the Gay rights organization Grupo Dignidade
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer What is the most dangerous country in the world for LGBT folks? You might answer Uganda, where parliament was considering a law to execute “habitual” Gays. Or Zimbabwe, where the president regularly compares Gays to dogs and pigs. Or Russia, where neo-Nazis gangs lure young Gay men into ambushes, and laws forbid people even to say they are Gay or Lesbian. Very few people would say Brazil. Yet Brazil has the highest rate of LGBT murders in the world,
according to a group of Brazilian activists who tracked anti-Gay hate crimes this year. The Gay Group of Bahia compiled hate crime data from January 1 through September 29, sifting through police records and news reports, since there is no official reporting of anti-Gay hate crimes as a separate category of crime. They found that at least 216 LGBT people had been murdered in Brazil in the first three quarters of the year. The greatest number of victims were Gay men – 59% of see Brazil page 14
Sometimes, as it has been said before, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word. You can go a lifetime waiting for some people to say it. Others never do. But the LGBTQ and allied community, as well as users of the world’s largest social network, Facebook, only had to wait for three weeks. On October 1, after a meeting with drag queens, Transgender people, and other members of the community and our allies, Facebook apologized for the policy. In an attempt to offer a clarification, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox wrote, “I want to apologize to the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, Transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community for the hardship that we’ve put you through in dealing with your Facebook accounts over the past few weeks.” “Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name,” Cox continued. “The spirit of our policy
is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that’s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess.” Cox said that part of what’s been so difficult about this conversation is that Facebook supports people like Sister Roma
Brazil: Most Facebook apologizes for dangerous country in “real name” policy the world for Gays?
and Lil Miss Hot Mess and “so many others affected by this, completely and utterly in how they use Facebook.” For weeks the drag community in Seattle, and elsewhere, has suspected that they were targets see Facebook page 6