Issue 5 Volume 42
Celebrating 41 Years!
FRIDAY January 31, 2014 FREE! 25¢ in bookstores & newsstands
Sec 2 Pg. 1
Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Zmuda firing protest march: Olympia to Seattle I’m going to march – for three days and nights – from Olympia to Seattle with co-organizer Mario Penalver, because we believe that love always wins. We believe that the Catholic Church – or any organized religion for that matter
and state and that the Church, as it stands right now, can fire an employee for having a same-sex marriage, but that doesn’t make it okay. Not now. Not ever. It is always wrong to discriminate. You’ve no doubt, by now, heard of Mark Zmuda, the Eastside Catholic high school teacher who got fired because he married
Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images
by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor
Our goal with this visibility march is to get people to realize that yes, there is a separation between Church and state and that the Church, as it stands right now, can fire an employee for having a same-sex marriage. – should not be allowed to legally fire someone because they are married to someone of the same sex. While I am stopping short at calling for an end to organized religion and you won’t hear me say that Catholics are bad people (all of that would be hateful and ignorant) I will say that our goal with this visibility march is to get people to realize that yes, there is a separation between Church
another man last summer. Well, despite the amazing effort of a group of youth activists from the high school as well as neighboring Catholic schools, tons of media coverage from CNN to FOX cable news, he still is out of a job. A new foundation has been organized in his name and he is fighting the school’s decision to fire him in see march page 20
Ninth Circuit OKs California law ENDA 2014? “No banning “conversion therapy” way!” Boehner says by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
In a January 29 ruling, the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a previous decision by a three-judge panel that California’s law banning so-called “Gay conversion therapy” is lawful. The measure, known then as SB 1172, was enacted in 2012 and protects minors from supposed mental health treatments that claim to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Such practices have been rejected by mainstream therapists and professional associations. In fact, California’s legislature based the law on the unanimous consensus of leading medical and mental health associations that such purported treatments have no scientific basis and put children at risk of serious harms, including depression and suicide. The law was challenged by therapists who wanted to continue offering such “treatments,” on the grounds that they had a First Amendment right to free speech. The Ninth Circuit’s panel ruled in August last year that California’s law was a permissible regulation of medical treatment to
President also omits ENDA from SOTU
Republican House Speaker John Boehner
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer
Republican House Speaker John Boehner told members of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus there was “no way” he would allow ENDA – the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – to come see california page 20 up for a vote in 2014.
“A number of us did meet with, actually the caucus met with Speaker Boehner,” openly Gay Congressman Mark Takano (DCA) told the Washington Blade. “He said no way was it going to get done in this session.” The LGBT Equality Caucus insee enda page 21