SGN January 1, 2013 - Section 1

Page 1

Celebrating 40 Years!

Issue 01 Volume 41

FRIDAY January 4, 2013 FREE! 25¢ in bookstores & newsstands

Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

A new era of inclusion 113th Congress has record number of sexual and religious minorities

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Pocan (D-WI). He joins re-elected incumbents Jared Polis (D-CO) and David Cicilline (D-RI), and As iconic Gay Congressman newly elected Gay congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) retires from Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) and Congress after 16 terms in the Mark Takano (D-CA). House, his legacy will be carried by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

In addition to the seven LGB members, a record-breaking 20 women will serve in the U.S. Senate – including Baldwin – while 78 will be seated in the House. on by a record number of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual members. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was sworn in on January 3 as the first open Lesbian to serve in the U.S. Senate. She has already served seven terms in the House of Representatives. Succeeding Baldwin in her House seat is openly Gay Mark

HISTORIC FIRSTS Takano is the first openly Gay person of color to serve in the House, and Krysten Sinema (DAZ) becomes the first open Bisexual to serve in Congress. She is also the first member of Congress officially to describe her religious see congress page 13

Newly elected open Lesbian U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D) from Wisconsin

U.S. House Republicans Death of an activist Friends say drugs and PTSD – anti-DOMA continues not AIDS – killed Spencer Cox Walter Kurtz

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer While the House Republican leadership shut down the 112th Congress before voting emergency funds for Hurricane Sandy victims, they found the time to arrange continued funding to defend DOMA in court. According to the Huffington Post, a closed-door meeting of the House Republican conference decided on January 2 to include funding for the so-called Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) in the rules package for the 113th Congress. The new House rules also state that BLAG continues to “speak for” the House in its defense of DOMA. BLAG was authorized by the Republican-controlled House to defend DOMA in court after President Obama and the U.S. Department of Justice determined that the law was unconstitutional. The funding allows the House group to hire outside lawyers to argue against marriage equality.

Weddings By the Sea

see doma page 13

Spencer Cox

by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor “AIDS did not kill Spencer Cox in the first, bloodiest battles of the 1980s,” says Mark King, creator and award-winning writer of the HIV/AIDS blog My Fabulous Disease. “It spared him that.” Instead, King maintains, “the

www.oceanshoresweddings.com 206-403-8170 Let us make your wedding day as fun as a day at the beach.

reprieve allowed Spencer’s brilliance as co-founder of the Treatment Action Group (TAG) to forge new FDA guidelines for drug approval and help make effective HIV medications a reality, saving an untold number of lives.” Gay activists like Spencer were consumed by AIDS for so many see cox page 4


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