Issue 3 Volume 42
Celebrating 41 Years!
FRIDAY January 17, 2014 FREE! 25¢ in bookstores & newsstands
Sec 2 Pg. 1
Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
VICTORY! Judge strikes Oklahoma marriage ban AP Photo / Tulsa World, James Gibbard
Amendment. Unlike the similar judgment in Utah, however, Oklahoma’s attorneys asked for and got a stay of the ruling pending appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court, the same jurisdiction that will hear Utah’s appeal. The state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, passed in 2004, is based on “moral disapproval” and does not advance the state’s asserted interests in promoting heterosexual marriage or the welfare of children, Kern concluded. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage has done little to keep Oklahoma families together thus far, as Oklahoma consistently has one of the highest divorce rates in the country,” the judge noted. The suit, Bishop v. Oklahoma, was filed by two Lesbian couples soon after their state banned samesex marriage in 2004 and has been held up in the federal court system ever since. One couple, Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin wanted to be married in Oklahoma, but their (l-r) Gay Phillips, Sue Barton, Mary Bishop, and Sharon Baldwin celebrate after a federal judge struck down Oklahoma’s Gay marriage ban application for a marriage license A federal judge ruled on January trict Judge Terence Kern found one class of Oklahoma citizens was rejected by the Tulsa County by Mike Andrew 14 that Oklahoma’s ban on same- that the state’s ban on marriage by from a governmental benefit,” and Clerk. The other couple, Gay PhilSGN Staff Writer sex marriages is unconstitutional. Gay and Lesbian couples is “an ar- therefore violates the equal proIn a 68-page opinion, U.S. Dis- bitrary, irrational exclusion of just tection clause of the Fourteenth see oklahoma page 13
Nigerian police begin Hal Faulkner dies mass arrests of Gays
Last wish was an honorable discharge
U.S. condemns stringent anti-Gay laws reuters
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Nigerian police began a mass arrest of Gay men in the northern state of Bauchi, human rights activists reported on January 16. One has already been convicted and publicly whipped. A new law, titled the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, criminalizes same-sex marriage, LGBT organizations, and anyone working with or promoting them. The measure was passed last year, and Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan secretly signed the law on January 7, but news that it has been enacted only reached the outside world with reports of mass arrests. At least 11 and as many as 38 people are reported to have been arrested. Police are said to have obtained a list of 168 Gay suspects through torture. The chairman of Bauchi state Sharia Commission, Mustapha Baba Ilela, told Associated Press that 11 men have been arrested in
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor
Hal Faulkner, a Gay man whose last wish came true earlier this month when his discharge from the U.S. Marines was changed from “undesirable” to “honorable,” died Tuesday in Florida. Just 11 days after receiving his see nigeria page 15
wish, Faulkner succumbed following a battle with cancer. His story, however, will live on undoubtedly as one of the most poignant examples of the toll that laws like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have had on the Gay community. Hal Faulkner joined the U.S. see faulkner page 13