SGN August 28, 2015 - Section 1

Celebrating 41 Years!

Issue 35 Volume 43

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Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Police release additional footage in LGBT organizations call for decriminalization of Neighbours fire sex work Rentboy bust leads to protests:

Additional footage of this “person of interest” can be found at www.spdblotter.seattle.gov – courtesy of Neighbours

by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor Police confiscate computers at Rentboy.com – Reuters/bostonnewstime.com

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

The August 25 raid on the offices of escort website Rentboy.com has many LGBT activists up in arms, with some organizasee rentboy page 11

U.N. Security Council briefed on ISIS hate crimes

Firefighters responded to Neighbours on Broadway around 11:30 a.m. Friday, August 7, when fire engulfed the Plexiglas window Additional video is being released by of one of the nightclub’s backdoors, activatSPD concerning a fire that a man seen in the ing an overhead sprinkler, which knocked nightclub’s video surveillance footage ignit- the flames down. ed in broad daylight August 7. see neighbours page 5

SPD cracking down on gun violence

Seattle Police Department is cracking down on gun crimes – Isolde Raftery/KUOW photo

Gay Syrian refugee Subhi Nahas speaks as Jessica Stern, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission looks on, at a news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, August 24, 2015 – Mike Segar/Reuters

by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor

There’s been a 30.6 percent increase in shots fired in Seattle through August 17

by Mike Andrew Commission (IGLHRC), briefed the U.N. from the same period last year, and a 16.3 SGN Staff Writer Security Council on anti-LGBT hate crimes percent increase in shooting injuries. More than 15 homicides have occurred in Seattle, committed by ISIS. In her August 24 statement to the U.N. with nine of those being people that have Jessica Stern, executive director of the Indied in shootings this year through August ternational Gay and Lesbian Human Rights see u.n. page 11

17, compared with 10 in the same period of 2014.

One of those murders took place on Capitol Hill, August 16, which claimed the life of a 23-year-old man in a parking lot across the street from Baltic Room and prompted Social Outreach Seattle (SOSea) and about 30 other people from the neighborhood to hold a candlelight vigil August 22 condemnsee violence page 4

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August 28, 2015

Celebrating 41 Years!

Will the Rentboy.com bust be the “Stonewall” of sex work?

by Jay Michaelson The Daily Beast

When the feds targeted a gay escort site, it wasn’t to rightfully address sex trafficking or exploitation, but a suspicious, cruel, and unwarranted attack on male sex work.

[The August 25] raid on the offices of Rentboy.com, resulting in the arrest of seven employees, was a bizarre, unprovoked crackdown on people it’s easy for “respectable” folks to stigmatize or ignore.

On the contrary, this thoroughly unnecessary bust should be the impetus to legalize and regulate consensual sex work.

It should become the “Stonewall” of sex workers, the moment in which they and their allies say: Enough.

There is much that we still do not know about the arrests, coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security and the New York law enforcement.

DHS’s involvement is the most curious element. If anything, this should be a matter for a vice squad – like the “Public Morals Division” now featured on cable television.

Ostensibly, Homeland Security got in because of interstate/international commerce.

But that still doesn’t quite add up. Since when is prostitution a matter of Homeland Security?

So there may be more to these arrests than what we currently know.

It’s also true that Rentboy.com pushed the envelope of the modus operandi that has long governed “escorting.”

Legally speaking, escorts are being paid for their time, not for sexual services, and so they’re not, technically, prostitutes.

This should be the moment that progressives rally behind sex workers, listen to what they have been telling us, and work to protect them.

But Rentboy got cocky, categorizing advertisers by sexual services (as described in the government’s almost pornographic court documents), sponsoring events for

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sex workers and porn stars, and, basically, flaunting it.

One can easily see this bust as the government drawing a line in the sand, a line which Rentboy had carelessly crossed over the years.

Still, progressives, libertarians, and small-government conservatives should be outraged by this mass arrest, which highlights the absurdity and tragedy of the current legal regime.

First, this is not about sex trafficking – the usual specter raised by conservatives and liberals alike.

Sex trafficking is, of course, horrible.

But it’s not alleged in the government’s complaint in this case, and, as we reported last spring, the very real horrors of sex trafficking have long been used as a pretext for conservative Christian moralizing, sex shaming, and government-subsidized religious proselytization.

Want to fight sex trafficking? Fight sex trafficking. Not Rentboy.

Nor is this about exploitation. Rentboy’s business model empowers, rather than exploits, the escorts who advertise there. Escorts pay Rentboy a monthly fee (scaled according to ad placement), and that’s it.

Prospective clients contact escorts directly. Escorts decide how much to work, how much to charge, and who to work with.

Rentboy doesn’t take a cut. The website isn’t a pimp – it’s eliminating the need for pimps.

It’s not a brothel – it eliminates the need for brothels. Really, it’s hard to imagine a less exploitative system.

So, what this is about is consensual sex work, and male sex work specifically. The immediate question to ask is, why now?

Even if Rentboy was flaunting the “understanding” between, escort services and law enforcement, this sudden set of arrests is a far more egregious rejection of it.

For decades, the “escorting” shell-game has been tolerated, and now suddenly it’s out the window. Now the Rentboy employees – not just the CEO, but administrative

and marketing staff – are being charged with felonies carrying five-year prison terms. That’s not a warning, or a slap on the wrist.

And then there are the more profound questions.

The Rentboy bust comes just as a consensus is building that harm-reduction, rather than criminalization, is the best way to deal with international sex work and sex trafficking.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International voted in favor of the legalization and regulation of sex work.

The World Health Organization (PDF), UNAIDS, and other international health organizations agree, noting that criminalization increases risks of HIV transmission.

Perhaps most importantly, organizations of sex workers themselves, have made similar calls for years.

No one is disputing that prostitution can be exploitative, especially to women and minors, and that the global sex trade is often a kind of slavery. Even legal prostitution can trap women in exploitative power relationships. The question is how best to address these problems, and the emerging answer is that legalization-and-regulation (I’m hyphenating them because the two are inseparable parts of the policy) is better than criminalization.

Too often, criminalization hurts the ostensible victims of the sex industry: vulnerable, poor, exploited people, disproportionately women (both cisgender and transgender).

They don’t report exploitative pimps or abusive johns, for fear of being prosecuted themselves. They can’t get the counseling and public services that they need, because they’re considered criminals. They have no resources, no leverage, no safety.

Besides, if we wanted to help those for whom “survival sex” is the only option, we’d address the conditions that bring that situa-

August 28, 2015

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see “stonewall” page 4

“stonewall” continued from page 3

tion about: like stigma and violence against transgender women of color and LGBT homeless youth, for example.

Criminalization also hurts those for whom sex work is a choice. Many sex workers have other options, but choose sex work for any number of reasons: it pays well, the hours are flexible, and compared with mind-numbing service jobs, it can be emotionally satisfying.

Some of the best sex workers are also ad hoc therapists, connecting on emotional as well as physical levels with their clients.

Some find this work rewarding, dignified, and profitable.

And why do we condemn it, exactly? Because of a religious ideology of repression, which, as we see again and again, leads to abuse and hypocrisy? Because we’ve been

raised to think that whores are dirty? Or that somehow it’s the government’s legitimate role to enforce a certain kind of morality?

This is none of the government’s business.

Where sex work is exploitative, it should be carefully regulated – just like work safety rules and minimum wage laws regulate other potentially exploitative work.

It should be kept away from children – just like pornography, cigarettes, and alcohol. It should be regulated with the health of workers and clients in mind, with appropriate licensing, healthcare, taxation, and benefits.

Based on evidence from other countries, it’s unlikely that the “world’s oldest profession” will really experience a big boom thanks to legalization.

It’s already a huge, unregulated, shady

business – regulation will just turn it into a huge, regulated, non-shady one, with the added bonus of tax revenue for the rest of us.

None of this is to say that Rentboy didn’t break the law. Rather, it is to argue that the law is unjust and unjustified, and that this sudden, selective enforcement of it is suspicious, cruel, and unwarranted.

The only thing that would redeem this bust is for it to become the Stonewall of the movement to legalize sex work. This should be the moment that progressives rally behind sex workers, listen to what they have been telling us, and work to protect them.

It is probably coincidental that the bust happened two months after marriage equality became the law of the land.

But let’s learn from the coincidence.

Same-sex marriage was an important victory for the LGBT community – but it was

also what academics call “respectability politics,” which is when a stigmatized group protests that, in fact, it is totally respectable, and deserves equality on that basis.

But respectability politics excludes those who are not “respectable,” including sex workers, non-monogamists, gender-nonconformists, and those with “weird” sexual tastes.

They are the people left behind by the advances in LGBT equality, and they have often paid the price for our community’s overall success, in the form of backlash, violence, or government action like the Rentboy bust.

And these are the people most deserving of our support, precisely because they are the easiest to ignore.

Columbia Tower Club Philanthropy Committee announces KIRO 7 and GSBA as sponsors of its 2015 Givers Ball On August 25, the Philanthropy Committee of the Columbia Tower Club announced KIRO 7 and the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) as two of its key sponsors for the 2015 Givers Ball on November 7th.

“We are proud to have such great organizations as key sponsors for this year’s ball,” Nick Simonton, Chair of the Philanthropy Committee and member of the Columbia Tower Club Board of Governors said. “The commitment both KIRO 7 and the GSBA show to the Seattle community and its nonprofit organizations is admirable. We’re honored to have them join us.”

The 2015 Givers Ball was reinvented by the Columbia Tower Club’s member-based Philanthropy Committee, which promises a glamourous and fun masquerade ball at

violence

continued from cover ing violent crime.

In other words – people are tired of it and as violence is on the rise, so is the number of people calling on SPD to do something about it.

On Tuesday, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole held a press conference to explain to the public what is going on.

O’Toole said gun violence is mostly committed by a small number of people. At the news conference O’Toole spoke about short-term strategies. One of those strategies she said, is information-sharing with agencies around the Puget Sound and national policing bureaus. In addition, she named such big-picture strategies as task forces, community outreach, and using data to target those frequently committing violence.

“We are focusing on locations where we’ve had a high incidence of shootings,” she said.

Additionally, O’Toole says the department is looking at macro-violence patterns over longer periods of time. She also said they are no longer looking at just “week-toweek” but also now “day-to-day.”

“Definitely our Number One focus is

4 Seattle Gay News

purchased online now at www.GiversBall. org for $150 per person and $250 per couple.

For more information about the 2015 Givers Ball or the Philanthropy Committee, please visit www.GiversBall.org. For information about each nonprofit, visit www. acttheatre.com, www.youthcare.org and www.treehouseforkids.org. #GiversBall Facebook: www.facebook.com/GiversBall one of Seattle’s finest venues: the Columbia Tower Club. This year’s Givers Ball is benefiting three Puget Sound nonprofit organizations: ACT Theatre (www.acttheatre.org),

Treehouse (http://www.treehouseforkids. org) and YouthCare (www.youthcare.org).

Tickets for the November 7th Givers Ball at the Columbia Tower Club can be

on shots fired and shooting incidents,” she said.

Police say most of those involved in recent shootings are gang members. That’s not much of a surprise to most people, especially anyone living in Seattle’s Central District or even much of Capitol Hill. However, O’Toole said that although many involved in shootings have criminal histories and are gang members, that doesn’t diminish the department’s response.

“It’s a horrible tragedy when a young gang member loses his life,” O’Toole said. “I mean every homicide, every death is a tragedy.”

What some might find surprising is that police say much of the gang violence stems from arguments over money or romantic relationships, rather than turf disputes.

That means that bullets have been flying and bodies have been piling up due to love interests and money matters. While there really isn’t any good reason for gun battles in neighborhood and city streets – this crap is outrageous.

According to police, the Federal Way drive-by-shooting that killed 20-year-old Muldhata Dawud in late July might have been ignited by a dispute over a woman.

A day later, 20-year-old Zakariya Issa was

fatally shot in Seattle’s Dunlap neighborhood over a disagreement about money, according to a friend of Issa’s. Issa and Dawud were close friends, but the fatal shootings were not believed to be related.

Suspects have been arrested in both shootings.

According to Assistant Police Chief Robert Merner, violence fueled by infighting between gang members can be more difficult to follow than gang conflicts; however, it’s sometimes easier to get information from informants or from interviewing people involved if it is personal.

Unfortunately, however surprising this information might be to the public, Merner says the trend is not uncommon.

Merner said, “Police and society need to get to the root of what causes a 21-year-old person to pick up a gun and shoot someone over an argument they had over a girl.”

According to police, the cornerstone of the increased effort to put shooters behind bars is a daily meeting at the department’s Real Time Crime Center where officials discuss every violent crime that occurred over the past 24 hours. Important information on suspects’ vehicles and known gang affiliations is widely distributed and specific officers are tasked with making arrests dur-

August 28, 2015

Courtesy of the Columbia Tower Philanthropy Committee

ing the meetings. The meetings began last month, said O’Toole.

SPD has also begun to hold a weekly violent crime meeting with regional and federal law enforcement agencies.

“Shooters in handcuffs, that’s our top priority,” O’Toole said.

The effort recently led to the recovery of a stolen vehicle connected to the August 13 killing of 24-year-old Antonio Jones at 26th and Columbia.

The car’s owner told police she saw her vehicle in a YouTube video, which officers used to identify the suspect and arrest him.

Celebrating 41 Years!

GSBA awarded $10,000 by NGLCC and Wells Fargo to Support LGBT-Owned Businesses Grant will fund effort to increase diversity in corporate supply chains The Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) is proud to announce that the chamber was awarded a $10,000 grant on Thursday, August 13th at the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC)’s 2015 International Business & Leadership Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation, this grant was awarded to expand capacity and offer technical assistance to the GSBA’s Let’s Get Certified outreach and workshop program. The main goal of the program is to foster the development, growth, and sustainability of certified LGBT business enterprises (LGBTBEs®). By becoming a certified LGBTBE, businesses are able to build relationships with America’s leading corporations, generate prospective business and clients, and collectively team with each other for contracting opportunities.

As corporate America becomes more inclusive and further diversifies its supply chain, certification offers the opportunity for LGBT-owned businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

“The Let’s Get Certified program has become a vital resource to our members as they develop their businesses and engage in strategic planning,” said Louise Chernin, GSBA President. “We are thrilled to receive this generous grant from Wells Fargo and NGLCC which will allow us to expand and enrich our program.”

“Wells Fargo has a rich history of sup-

neighbours continued from cover

The club was closed and empty when the fire was set.

Because the arsonist’s every move was caught on several security cameras surrounding the building SPD and Neighbours Nightclub officials agreed that the footage should be released to the public as soon as

porting diverse chambers of commerce, and we share their commitment to helping small business owners succeed financially,” said Lisa Stevens, Regional Marketing, Small Business and Pacific Midwest Bank Executive, Wells Fargo. “Through our partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), we are proud to provide funding that will support chamber-led entrepreneur training programs and dedicated resources for education, growth and advancement of diverse business owners in communities across America.”

About GSBA Established in 1981, the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) is the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and allied chamber of commerce in North America. GSBA is widely known for its work on busi-

possible so the “person of interest” could be identified and brought in for questioning.

However, despite the release of the footage less than 24 hours after the fire was set, nobody has come forward to claim to know who the person is or where he might be found.

The video shows a tall man walking into an alleyway behind the nightclub. He appeared to be checking the doorway for

ness development, connecting community through business, advocacy on behalf of civil rights and businesses and promoting LGBT tourism through its Travel Gay Seattle initiative. GSBA invests in the next generation of leaders by sponsoring a Scholarship Fund which will give out is two-millionth dollar in scholarships in 2015.

For more information about GSBA, visit www.thegsba.org.

About NGLCC The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is the business voice of the LGBT community and is the largest global not-for-profit advocacy organization specifically dedicated to expanding economic opportunities and advancements for LGBT people. NGLCC is the exclusive certification body for LGBTowned businesses. www.nglcc.org

about ten minutes while making cellphone calls before setting the fire. He is wearing a white baseball hat, sunglasses, has a mustache and is dressed inconspicuously.

Neighbours nightclub officials are hopeful that the new video footage being released Friday morning will lead to an arrest so the man does not set fire to other neighborhood LGBTQ bars and nightclubs. Officials still do not know if Neighbours, which

About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, communitybased financial services company with $1.7 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through 8,700 locations, 12,800 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36 countries to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 266,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune’s 2015 rankings of America’s largest corporations.

Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.

Courtesy of the GSBA

has been targeted twice in the past because of its clientele, was targeted for a hate crime.

The video footage can be found online at www.spdblotter.seattle.gov.

Detectives are still working to identify the person of interest, and anyone with information should call 206-684-8980.

NOM donors revealed!

Group got big bucks from six funders

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer NOM finally turned over its list of donors to Maine officials after years of legal wrangling aimed at concealing its funding sources.

The anti-Gay group raised money nationally that it then channeled into Maine’s 2009 initiative banning same-sex marriage.

Maine campaign finance laws require disclosure of donors, but NOM fought to keep the names secret.

On August 4, however, the Maine Supreme Court refused to overturn a ruling by the state’s Ethics Commission requiring NOM to release the names. Only six names were on the list.

Despite its claims that it is nondenominational, NOM’s donor list reveals it was

largely funded by Roman Catholic groups and individuals.

The largest donor to NOM’s Maine campaign was Sean Fieler of New York City, a prominent Catholic and the president of Chiaroscuro Foundation, who gave $1.25 million to NOM. Fieler’s foundation has also funded the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture, a front group for anti-Gay University of Texas pseudo-scientist Mark Regnerus, author of a “study” condemning samesex parenting.

John Templeton of Pennsylvania and Terrance Caster of California each donated $300,000 to NOM. Templeton, who died in May, was CEO of the Templeton Foundation – created by his father, Sir John Templeton. He was an evangelical Christian and a long-time

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funder of NOM. Caster owns a self-storage chain, and is a prominent donor to Catholic charities.

The group also received $140,000 in 2009 from The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization.

Richard Kurtz, the only NOM donor to actually come from Maine, gave $50,000.

Kurtz has also donated to the Republican Party and several of their candidates.

Benjamin Brown of Michigan gave $200 to the group.

“The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) not only knowingly broke the law, but stonewalled a state investigation for six years – wasting taxpayer money,” said Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Stephen Peters.

“What they were hiding is what we

knew all along – NOM is a sham organization made up of a handful of donors. It’s astonishing that these donors – including only one from inside the state – wasted such large amounts of money trying to take Maine backwards in its journey towards equality for LGBT people.”

Although NOM was successful in barring same-sex marriage in Maine in 2009, the state’s voters reversed themselves only four years later, passing a marriage equality initiative in 2012.

NOM’s fundraising has been on a downward spiral since then, with its 2013 budget down 50% from 2012. The group ended 2013 $2.5 million in debt.

The initial complaint against NOM was lodged by openly Gay Republican party activist Fred Karger.

August 28, 2015

Seattle Gay News 5

Kentucky clerk defies Sixth Circuit, turns away Gay couple

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis – Claire Galofaro/Associated Press

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Kim Davis, Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, defied a ruling by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court and again turned away a Gay couple seeking a marriage license on August 27.

The Sixth Circuit ruled on August 26 that Davis must give marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Nevertheless, a Deputy Clerk in Davis’s office turned away William Smith Jr. and

James Yates when they arrived to apply for a marriage license. It was the third time the couple had been rejected by Davis’s office.

“They just don’t like gay people, they don’t want us to get married,” Yates told The Associated Press. “And they’d rather burn the earth and not let straight people in Rowan County get married either.”

Davis claimed that assisting same-sex couples in getting married violated her First Amendment freedom of religion, and stopped issuing marriage licenses altogether so she would “not discriminate” against

same-sex couples.

She was sued by the ACLU on behalf of two same-sex and two opposite-sex couples who sought to force her to perform her official duties.

A federal district judge ordered her to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, and on August 26 a panel of three appeals court justices rejected Davis’s request for a stay of the lower court’s order directing her to issue the licenses to Lesbian and Gay couples.

The Sixth Circuit panel curtly dismissed her claims to religious privilege.

“The injunction operates not against Davis personally, but against the holder of her office of Rowan County Clerk,” the Sixth Circuit said.

“In light of the binding holding of Obergefell [the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage], it cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court. There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal.”

Davis has said that she will not resign from her post. She can only be removed from office if the state legislature impeaches

her, but that is considered unlikely. If she continues to defy a federal court order, a judge could hold her in contempt and order hefty fines or jail time.

William Sharp, legal director of the ACLU of Kentucky, said he believes the case is simple.

“Religious liberty certainly does not allow public officials to deny government services to the public based on their personal beliefs,” Sharp wrote in a statement. “All that Davis is required to do in her official capacity as clerk is issue a form. In no way is she being forced to endorse anyone’s marriage or beliefs.”

April Miller and Karen Roberts, one of two same-sex couples who sued Davis, told AP reporters they felt vindicated by the Sixth Circuit ruling.

“One step closer,” Miller said. “We might be able to get married in September.”

They had already purchased their wedding rings – simple white gold bands set with diamonds – soon after the Supreme Court’s June decision.

Miller said she was aware that Davis might not back down, regardless of the court’s ruling.

“It’s going to keep going. It’s gonna be a long haul,” she said.

“But it felt so good for a minute,” Roberts added.

Hotel workers protest “$500,000 Green Card” program

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Seattle hotel workers joined their counterparts in other U.S. cities to protest what they call the “$500,000 Green Card” program.

August 25 was a national day of action against reauthorization of the EB-5 program, which allows foreign investors to buy priority treatment when it comes to legal residence in the United States.

The EB-5 regional center program allows investors to put $500,000 into a hotel development or other new business and obtain expedited green cards for themselves and their families.

Each investment is required to generate at least 10 jobs, but hotel workers worry that reported job creation will be undermined by significant loopholes in the program.

The Seattle protest took place at the offices of Yareton Investment Funds, an investor with two EB-5 hotel developments underway.

After a brief rally, a group of Seattle hospitality workers with UNITE HERE, the hospitality industry union, entered the Yareton office to speak with the developer about his plans for creating hotel jobs in the region.

Although the office is listed as the regional center office on correspondence with State and Federal regulators, the workers found it was vacant.

EB-5 has been a popular source of cheap financing for hotel projects in the Seattle area, with hotels proposed or under development in downtown Seattle, SeaTac, Tukwila, Des Moines, Tacoma, Point Ruston,

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Nith Lewis who came to the U.S. in 1981 as a refugee from Laos explained what a good job looks like – Gourish Wibneh/seattleglobalist.com

Renton and Everett.

“I see that there are lots of new hotels getting built in Seattle,” said Westin housekeeper Nith Lewis, who came to the U.S. in 1981 as a refugee from Laos. “But what I didn’t know was how some of those new hotels are getting paid for. When I heard about the EB-5 program, I couldn’t believe it. Do people know this is going on?”

According to a 2012 study by Puget Sound Sage, 58% of hotel workers in Seattle are foreign-born. Sage also found that

August 28, 2015

workers in back-of-the-house positions – positions predominantly held by foreignborn workers and people of color – had median annual earnings of just $21,000.

“This is a real injustice, and it’s an injustice particularly felt by the hundreds of thousands of immigrants working in the hospitality industry, some of whom will now be employed in hotels built through EB-5,” said UNITE HERE Local 8 spokesperson Abby Lawlor.

The EB-5 reauthorization is reportedly

one of the few pieces of immigration legislation likely to get through Congress in this session. In the meantime, an estimated 1113 million immigrants have to pathway to legal status or citizenship.

Protests also took place near EB-5 projects in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

UNITE HERE Local 8 represents 5,000 hotel, restaurant, food service, and airport workers in the Pacific Northwest.

Celebrating 41 Years!

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Celebrating 41 Years!

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August 28, 2015

Celebrating 41 Years!

Mormons to stay in Boy Scouts

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer The Mormon Church announced August 26 that it will continue its affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America despite BSA’s decision to allow Gay adult leaders to participate in the program.

The Mormon Church sponsors nearly 38,000 Scout units with 427,000 boys, accounting for about 18% of all Boy Scout members.

Church leaders said they were disappointed with the Scouts’ decision to admit Gay men into leadership positions and would consider severing their ties with the organization. BSA offered a compromise whereby church-sponsored Scout troops could make their own decisions about who would be appointed to leadership positions.

The Mormon leadership apparently accepted this compromise, but also said the Church would continue to look into ways to serve members outside the United States.

“In the resolution adopted on July 27, 2015, and in subsequent verbal assurances to us, BSA has reiterated that it expects those who sponsor Scouting units (such

u.n.

continued from cover body, Stern urged governments to act immediately to support LGBT people in Iraq and Syria.

“The heart of my message today is this: the international community must understand anti-LGBTI persecution as a component of how ISIS treats those it labels as ‘impure,’” Stern told the Security Council.

“We must recognize that these threats exist on a continuum of violence and discrimination before, during, and after conflict.”

Stern urged the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and individual governments to act immediately to assist individuals, including LGBT people, who are most in need of relocation. She urged the creation of safe houses in Iraq and also urged donor coun-

rentboy

continued from cover tions renewing their calls to decriminalize sex work.

Shortly after U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents and New York City Police descended on the website’s Manhattan office, carting away records, computers, and seven Rentboy staffers, a coalition of five national LGBT groups tweeted out links to a joint statement on sex work.

Lambda Legal, GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center said they “applaud and support Amnesty International’s recent resolution to protect the human rights of sex workers by calling for decriminalization of sex work…”

“For many LGBT people, participation in street economies is often critical to survival,” the groups said, “particularly for LGBT youth and transgender women of color who face all-too-common family rejection and vastly disproportionate rates of violence, homelessness, and discrimination in employment, housing, and education…

“Laws criminalizing sexual exchange – whether by the seller or the buyer – impede sex workers’ ability to negotiate condom use and other boundaries, and force

as the Church) to appoint Scout leaders according to their religious and moral values…” Mormon leaders said in a statement.

“At this time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will go forward as a chartering organization of BSA, and as in the past, will appoint Scout leaders and volunteers who uphold and exemplify Church doctrine, values, and standards.

“With equal concern for the substan-

tial number of youth who live outside the United States and Canada, the Church will continue to evaluate and refine program options that better meet its global needs.”

While the religion was founded in the U.S. and is still centered in Salt Lake City, more than half of its 15 million members now live outside the United States, and there has been active speculation the Church would create its own international

youth organization.

Scout leaders in Utah said they were relieved by the Church’s decision. About 99% of the 167,500 scouts in the state’s two largest councils are Mormon.

“We’ve been worried for about four weeks,” said Rick Barnes, Scout executive for the Great Salt Lake Council in Utah. If the church had left, “it would have meant a lot of rebuilding.”

Boy Scout officials said they appreciate the decision, noting that the organization is successful because of affiliations with groups like the Mormon church.

“The BSA affirms, and will defend, the right of all religious chartered organizations to select their Scout leaders in accordance with their religious beliefs,” the Boy Scouts said in a statement.

The decision was also applauded by Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by Lesbian mothers and who now heads Scouts for Equality.

“It would have been incredibly disappointing for hundreds of thousands of young boys to be denied that opportunity because of the policy change,” said Wahls.

tries to support initiatives supporting psychosocial help for vulnerable individuals.

At a press briefing following the closed Security Council session, Stern told reporters that “Given the extreme and constant forms of attack against LGBTI people we think it’s of the utmost importance for the Security Council to act urgently.”

During the Security Council session, two men targeted by the Islamic State, one each from Iraq and Syria, also shared their experiences with the Security Council. One of the men “Adnan” spoke by phone to keep his identity concealed.

ISIS, which now controls a wide swath of territory in northeast Syria and northwest Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the execution of at least 30 men for “sodomy.”

IGLHRC has cautioned that not all men executed for sodomy might be Gay, since ISIS regularly accuses its political enemies of all

kinds of crimes to justify killing them.

Stern also noted that even before the rise of ISIS and its conquest of territory in Syria and Iraq, “LGBTI Iraqis and Syrians have been persecuted by intolerance permeating all aspects of life. It was not only the State that abdicated responsibility: some families would rather harm their own children than see their so-called ‘honor’ besmirched.

Some have twisted faith to incite violence.”

Stern then proposed five action items: • All U.N. agencies in Iraq and Syria must have tailored LGBTI programming.

• UNHCR and governments must continue to act with urgency for those most in need of relocation.

• The Government of Iraq should remove barriers to access to direct services and justice.

• The Government of Iraq must respect freedom of expression and allow indepen-

dent radio stations to operate.

• Donors must fund initiatives by LGBTI Iraqis and Syrians and by their allies. Resources should support immediate needs, like safe houses and psychosocial support, and long-term rights-based initiatives and norm building.

While she described the situation of LGBT people in ISIS-controlled areas as dire, Stern still held out hope for the LGBT community in Iraq and Syria.

“In conclusion, I want to share a ray of hope,” she said at the end of her presentation.

“Recently, a gay friend from Iraq founded a new organization for LGBTI Iraqis: IraQueer. Now with members across the country, they’re finding ways to survive – even in ISIS-controlled areas.

“If they can find a way, so can the international community. Today is a first step.”

many to work in hidden or remote places where they are more vulnerable to violence.

Research and experience have shown that these laws serve only to drive the industry further underground, make workers less able to negotiate with customers on their own terms, and put those who engage in criminalized sex work at higher risk for abduction and sex trafficking.”

The organizations were quickly joined by a number of individual activists, who also condemned the raid.

“To many in our community this feels like a throwback to when the police raided gay bars in the ’50s and ’60s,” Transgender activist and performer Justin Vivian Bond wrote in a widely circulated email.

“This invasion of a consensual hookup site which is run for and by members of the LGBT community feels like a real slap in the face after gentrification and the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations drove so many gay bars out of business and forced people to meet online instead of in person.”

Activist Danny Cruz said he had posted ads on Rentboy “to supplement income” for about seven years after he moved to New York. He said he had talked regularly to the executives who were arrested, both about his business and about staying safe.

“I don’t see why the government would be interested in what two people do behind closed doors,” Cruz, who is now involved

in the Los Angeles Sex Workers Outreach Project, said.

Derrick De Lise, publisher of the online magazine Queer Voices, said the fact that the government went after a Gay escort website, without making mention of protecting sex workers, made it seem as though the site’s Gay orientation attracted the government attention.

“With no rhetoric coming out of their press releases or statements about trafficking or concern with the sex workers, it doesn’t match what is happening in other cases,” he said. It was as if “yet another homophobic raid had occurred,” he added.

For some activists, the focus on sex workers, Gay or straight, is problematic.

“It’s troubling to think that we’re investing resources and time to target Rentboy and sex workers,” writer and activist Alex Garner said, “when what we really should be having is a reasonable and thoughtful conversation about the decriminalization of sex work. We have an entire police force we should be overhauling, we have murders of trans women happening in large numbers, and we’re devoting our time and energy to cracking down on sex work. Who’s choosing to prioritize it?”

Rentboy CEO Jeffrey Hurrant, one of the seven arrested in the August 25 raid, denied running a criminal enterprise.

“Twenty years we’ve been doing it [run-

ning Rentboy.com],” he said. “And I don’t think we do anything to promote prostitution. I think we do good things for good people and we bring good people together.

And I hope that justice will be done in the end.”

Hurrant added that “there is no place on this website where somebody says I’ll have sex for money because that is against the law.”

Hurrant and the other arrestees are charged with “conspiring to violate the Travel Act by promoting prostitution.”

In addition to the contents of Rentboy’s offices, federal officials have seized more than $1.4 million from six bank accounts belonging to Hurrant or his company. The domain name “Rentboy.com” was also seized and the site is now offline.

The federal complaint alleges that between 2010 and 2015, Rentboy.com grossed more than $10 million.

In 2014, federal authorities seized myRedBook, a California-based website that ran sex ads. MyRedBook’s owner, Eric Omuro, was charged with using the mail and the Internet to promote prostitution and with laundering money derived from the site. Omuro pleaded guilty in 2014 to facilitating prostitution, and admitted that the site allowed prostitutes to post ads. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison.

August 28, 2015

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Four GOP losers sign NOM pledge to repeal marriage rights

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Four Republican presidential hopefuls have signed a NOM-inspired pledge to repeal marriage equality if they are elected in 2016.

Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, and Ben Carson vowed to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s “illegitimate” decision legalizing it in Obergefell v.

Hodges.

They also promised to prevent schools from promoting the “redefined version of marriage,” and to direct the Justice Department to investigate cases where anti-Gay activists have been “harassed or threatened” by the LGBT community.

In spite of their naked pandering to social conservatives, none of the four seems likely at this point to win the Republican nomination, much less be president.

Carson is faring best in the polling, with a new Qunnipiac poll showing him at 12% – far behind leader Donald Trump at 28%.

Cruz comes in with 7%, Santorum barely registers with 1%, and Jindal has no measurable support at all.

According to Qunnipiac, all major Democratic contenders – Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden – beat all major Republican contenders when matched head-to-head, but with Sanders and Marco Rubio in a statistical tie.

Nevertheless, NOM was happy with its latest recruits.

“NOM has invited every candidate for president to sign our pledge, and we en-

courage those who have not yet signed to do so as soon as possible,” the group’s president, Brian Brown, said in a statement.

“While many of the GOP candidates talk the talk about supporting marriage, these four candidates have distinguished themselves as true champions, having pledged to the American people to take very specific actions to advance the cause of marriage.”

Cruz is a Southern Baptist, Santorum and Jindal are conservative Catholics, and Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist.

Venice mayor wants to ban Pride: “Let them go do it in Milan,” he says

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wants to ban Pride celebrations in the iconic Italian city.

“There will be no Gay Pride in my Venice,” Brugnaro told La Repubblica newspaper. “Let them go and do it in Milan, or under their own windows.”

Brugnaro, a right-wing businessman in the Silvio Berlusconi mold, was elected

mayor of Venice in June. Veneto, the region that includes Venice, has a Pride Parade every year. It was last in Venice in 2014 and is scheduled to return there in 2016 after being hosted by Verona this year.

“Venice is not his city,” Flavio Romani, President of the Italian LGBT rights group Arcigay, told Reuters.

“At the moment he is governing it, but he won’t last long given the fool he is making of himself. He is becoming obsessive about this. Venice does not deserve it.”

Brugnaro has already offended his city’s LGBT community by ordering books depicting Lesbian and Gay families off the shelves of local school libraries.

Fabrizio Marrazzo, spokesman for another LGBT group, Gay Center, accused Brugnaro of trying to turn Venice into an “off limits” city for Lesbians and Gays.

“We have to respond. We cannot accept such blatant discrimination,” he told AFP. Elton John has already denounced Brugnaro as a “bigot,” while Italian LGBT

activists vowed to hold a 2016 Pride Parade in Venice whether he likes it or not.

“We will be back next year and we invite the mayor to march at the head of the parade with us. That way he will see what a Gay Pride really is,” Romani said.

Marrazzo urged the LGBT community to hold a national Pride celebration in Venice next year, headed by Elton John.

Condoms not entirely to blame for erection problems, new study says

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Condoms are not entirely to blame when men who use them experience erection problems, a new study says.

The study, published in the August Journal of Sexual Medicine, surveyed 479 men between the ages of 18 and 24 who had used a condom during sex in the previous 90 days.

Of the men surveyed, about 62% had condom-associated erectile problems before penetration, after penetration, or during both instances.

In the population as a whole, previous studies have found that between 16% and 30% of young men experience occasional erectile dysfunction, regardless of condom use, so at first glance the study’s findings might suggest a significant increase in erection problems resulting from condom use.

However, researchers said that the young men who reported condom-associated erectile problems were more likely to report trouble getting hard even when no condom was used.

In general, young men who had trouble staying hard using condoms were significantly more likely to be classified as having mild to moderate erectile dysfunction than the ones who weren’t affected by using con-

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Condoms not entirely to blame for ED problems – www.untiedmag.com

doms.

In fact, researchers said they had deliberately over-sampled men with condomassociated erection problems, recruiting participants using flyers that read “Do condoms interfere with your erections?” and “Do condoms interfere with your arousal?”

Their purpose was to determine what role, if any, the condoms themselves played

August 28, 2015

in erection issues.

“Condom-associated erection problems have been a very under-researched topic,” study co-author Dr. Cynthia Graham explained. “Increasing evidence suggests, however, that they may influence whether condoms are used correctly or from start to finish of sex.”

For the actual survey, the men were first

asked how often they had erectile problems in the last 90 days when they were not using condoms. They were specifically asked to explain at which point they lost their erections during the hook up – before putting it in or after (but before they reached orgasm).

Then, the men were asked about their erectile problems in the last 90 days when they were using condoms. They reported how often they lost or started to lose erections while putting the condom on before intercourse, and then how often they lost or started to lose erections while wearing a condom during intercourse.

“Men who first experience loss of erection when they use condoms might worry about [difficulty] experiencing erections more generally and hence be more vulnerable [to erectile problems],” the study stated.

The study also cited previous research that found difficulties performing with a condom usually lasted only for the first 60 seconds of sexual activity.

Researchers also found that 37% of participants reported that they were never actually taught how to use a condom, which may help explain why they believe using one can have a negative impact on sexual performance. Schools need to be much more effective in sex education, the study concluded.

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