Apr - May  (Spring, 2001)

GLAD Files for Civil Marriage in MA

[Excerpted from GLAD.org, 5/11]

Seven gay and lesbian couples from five counties in Massachusetts, who were recently denied marriage licenses at their city or town halls, today filed suit in Suffolk Superior Court seeking the right to marry in Massachusetts. The plaintiff couples are represented by New England's Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). The defendant is the Department of Public Health (DPH) which has the ultimate responsibility for enforcing all state laws governing marriage and its licensing in municipalities.

The seven Massachusetts couples have been in committed relationships between five and 30 years. Four of the couples have young children; others have faced health crises. All are concerned about providing the security for each other and their families which automatically comes with marriage and is not available to them.

The law assumes the married couple is bonded emotionally and financially, and provides a framework of protections and obligations for married couples and their children in their interactions with each other, with government agencies and programs, and with other people and institutions. Some laws affect people on a day-to-day basis; others only come into play in times of hardship, illness or death. For a more full description of these protections, see the article on p 2.

Families United Against Hate is a national network being developed by and for families and survivors of hate-motivated violence. It will focus on providing long-term emotional support and technical assistance to families throughout the country.

The Network needs assistance connecting to families and survivors throughout the country who have experienced hate-motivated violence for any reason, including, but not limited to, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, and disability.

Please contact Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz, PFLAG, at 202-467-8180 ext 217 or e-mail lwmahfuz@pflag.org All follow-up calls to families will be made by people who have experienced hate-motivated violence.

Cape Cod Gay Pride

Saturday, June 2, is the date of the 2001 Gay Pride gathering and parade in Hyannis. The gathering place this year is at the corner of Barnstable Rd. and Elm St. (CIGYA House). PFLAG has marched in the parade every year, and invites anyone who wishes to show support for GLBT persons to join with us. We will also have a table at the event with books, pamphlets, t-shirts, mugs, etc., and we need volunteers to be there. If you can give a few hours, please call Pem at 508-432-8119.

Teens & Dignity

The Lower/Outer Cape Community Coalition will present a screening of "Teens & Dignity" at the Juice Bar in Orleans, Rte 28, April 26 at 3:30. The video is about Cape teens and their concerns.

Following the screening there will be an open discussion, which will be taped and featured on Channel 17 and C3TV.

GLBT Hotline Needs You!

The Cape’s GLBT Information Hotline is up and running. Voice Mail is reached at 508-778-7744, with boxes for 11 dif-ferent support groups including PFLAG. If the caller wants to speak with a live person, he/she is directed to call a different number that is connected to call forwarding. This is where volunteers are needed.

All you have to do is agree to be available to answer your home or cell phone for a given time each week. The shifts are 7am - 6pm, 6pm - 11pm, and 11pm - 7 am. Training is provided. For more information or to volunteer call Barry at 508-790-0543.

Weddings in Holland

Beginning April 1, same-sex couples are permitted to wed in Holland. The Dutch action follows 10 years of steadily increasing international support for same-sex couples’ freedom to marry. The new Dutch law requires at least one partner be a Dutch citizen or resident — the same requirement for heterosexual couples who marry or enter a registered partnership.

Civil Marriage Protections Currently for Heterosexuals Only

[www.GLAD.org]

• The law protects the confidential and intimate nature of the married relationship, including visitation rights in a hospital, an expectation of privacy in the relationship, and other privileges.

• The law respects the family as an economic unit, offering a structure for obligations of support during and after a relationship, sharing of pensions even after the earner is deceased, access to social security, and numerous protections after death for a surviving spouse.

• The law acknowledges the interdependence of family members in times of adversity, including family and medical leave rights, workers' compensation dependency benefits, and benefits for children when a parent is unemployed.

• The law helps create and maintain relationships between parents and children, including support obligations, child custody and visitation, step-parent adoption, and assisted reproductive technology.

• The law structures taxation provisions to meet critical family needs such as allowing spouses to transfer property in life and at death without tax consequences, filing joint income taxes, using marital tax rates and pooling tax exemptions, and receiving an unlimited marital deduction when a spouse dies.

• The law anticipates issues of insurance relating to family members' health, illness and death, including the purchase of joint insurance policies.

• The law recognizes that injury to one family member injures all family members by providing claims for wrongful death, loss of companionship of spouse or children, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

• The law protects family members at times of illness and death, including hospital visitation privileges, priority in medical decision-making for an incapacitated spouse, and matters relating to burial.

Florida SJC Backs Gays

[lambdalegal.org 4/3]

The Florida Supreme Court has put an end to right-wing efforts to block domestic-partner benefits for unmarried public employees in Broward County, ensuring that more families can get vital health insurance and other workplace benefits.

Dr. Laura Gone From TV

[excerpted from New York Post 4/2]

Laura Schlessinger says it's not her fault her low-rated TV talk show failed. If you want to point fingers, she says, blame the gay activists who drove away her advertisers.

"I'm very proud of the product we had," she said. "Unfortun-ately, it never even had a chance for the audience to decide ... because the advertisers were intimidated and threatened by GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and their constituency."

Arkansas Court Strikes Down Anti-Gay Sodomy Law

[LambdaLegal.org 3/23]

Ruling Friday that it is unconstitutional for Arkansas to ban consensual sex for adult same-sex couples, a court overturned the state’s anti-gay sodomy law in response to a challenge from seven lesbian and gay state residents, represented by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The ruling emphasized that government oversteps when it tries to dictate highly intimate, personal decisions and when it singles out one group of people for a rule not applied to others.

"This is a victory for every resident of Arkansas. It stresses that the state’s constitution shields their bedrooms from Big Brother," said Lambda Legal Director Ruth E. Harlow.

Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge David Bogard’s ruling:

"It is consistent with this State’s Constitution to hold that an adult’s right to engage in consensual and noncommercial sexual activities in the privacy of that adult’s home is a matter of intimate personal concern which is at the heart of the right to privacy in Arkansas, ...and this right should not be diminished or afforded less constitutional protection when the adults engaging in that private activity are of the same gender."

Under the overturned law, Arkansas singled out same-sex couples for a criminal ban on consensual sex, including oral and anal sex, with punishment of up to one year in jail and a fine of $1,000. The law did not apply to non-gay couples.

State constitutional rights have been critical in the elimination of invasive sodomy laws in many other states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Montana, and Tennessee. In the 1960's, all states still criminalized oral and anal sex. Now, only three states — Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas — have gay-specific sodomy laws and just 12 others still criminalize certain sex acts for both gay and non-gay consenting adults.

Texas Court Upholds Anti-Gay Sodomy Law

The case began September 17, 1998, when sheriff’s deputies, responding to a false armed-intruder report, entered a private Houston apartment where they found two men having sex. Both men were arrested and jailed for over 24 hours before being released on $200 bond each. A county criminal court convicted them of a Class C misdemeanor, which carries up to a $500 fine. Lambda appealed on their behalf.

Texas has had a sodomy law since 1860, but decriminalized such activities by different-sex partners in 1974. Lambda won on its first appeal, but lost the second after the state GOP mobilized its power.

The case now goes to the court of last resort for criminal matters in Texas, where the men will face nine more Republican judges who must survive the next GOP primary.

After they lose there, the next step is the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices will finally have a chance to reverse their own mistaken decision to uphold a sodomy law 15 years ago.

GLBT Harrassment in Schools (5 Articles)

California Getting It Right

In California, Gov. Gray Davis signed Assembly Bill 537, which includes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in the list of groups legally protected from discrimination in schools.

Recommendations by the AB537 Advisory Task Force are

• Acknowledging lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender historical figures when appropriate.

• Identifying and expanding the available lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender resources for school library materials.

• Creating positive, grade-appropriate visual images that include all sexual orientations and gender identities for use in school.

• Encouraging and supporting student organizations, such as Gay/Straight Alliances, in their work to create safe and tolerant school environments.

• Creating and distributing a model anti-slur, anti-harassment policy that explicitly includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.

• Urging the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to ensure inclusion of AB537 policies in teacher-preparation programs.

• Ensuring that schools post an anti-discrimination policy that explicitly covers actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity on all school campuses in prominent locations.

• Requiring all school members to "sign-off" after receiving information about AB537.

Bullying Not Free Speech

[Seattle Times editorial, 4/10]

The fight over the anti-bullying bill in Olympia, WA, has been a reminder over what is constitutionally protected speech and what isn't. School bullying isn't.

The bill would require every school district to ban bullying. Most of the bigger districts - Seattle, Tacoma, etc.- do so already. Others have no ban on bullying as such, though all have rules against its physical aspect - hitting, kicking and shoving. It's the non-physical part that causes arguments. The bill would require schools to ban behavior, including speech, that "seriously alarms, annoys, harasses or is detrimental to the student, and which serves no legitimate purpose [and] would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress." It bans behavior, including speech, that has "the effect of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for the student."

All this sounds like the university "hate speech" codes that have been rightly thrown out by the courts. In a free society, speech cannot be banned merely because it annoys somebody, or "seriously alarms" them. But a free society is for adults, who are presumed to have a certain thickness of skin. Though the Constitution "does not end at the schoolyard gate," as the Supreme Court once said, it is not available full-strength, either. If it were, there could be no law of compulsory school attendance. Further, at a public school, government is not just a regulator. It is a proprietor. Any school, public or private, requires a code of conduct stricter than what the police would allow on the street.

Harwich High School OK

[Doris Scherbak]

Those of us who were concerned by the Letters to the Editor about the visit of CIGYA and PFLAG to the Harwich High School attended the Harwich High School Council meeting at which opponents of the Safe Schools Project delivered their opinions. Many of the old myths were brought forth: Biblical injunctions against homosexuality, abnormal life style, the "teaching" of homosexuality, etc. The first meeting ended with the Council’s decision to research Federal and State guidelines and to report back at a second meeting.

At the second meeting, Mr. Krol, the principal, reported that Harwich High was in compliance with the regulations. He went on to say that if the school omitted parts of the Health Education curriculum in response to the objections of some parents, the school would be open to censure by the Dept. of Education. He also noted that students who feel uncomfortable with the material in these classes could be excused from such classes, and the health teacher agreed to continue sending notices so that parents would know what was being taught.

We were moved by a report from a new male teacher who told how he had been harassed with gay-bashing remarks and broken windows because he had put up a sticker on his door stating that it was a"safe" place for LGBT's. It was assumed by some of the students that he was gay. This anecdote pointed up the need for teaching tolerance and respect in the high school, for if a teacher could be harassed, how much more likely that a gay student, or one who was perceived to be gay, would be harassed.

Maryland

The Maryland governor signed into law a ban on discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Unfortunately, the bill does not include gender identity/expression. The new law, which Gov. Glendening championed, makes Maryland the 12th state in the nation with such a law.

Florida Fails Again

Gay and lesbian high school students came face to face with homophobia on their trip to the Florida state capital, as one legislator accused them of being the "downfall" of America.

A group of Florida gay and lesbian high school students looking for legislative sponsors for an anti-discrimination law instead got an anti-gay lecture from one state representative.

"I don't understand why the gay population is becoming so vocal," state Rep. Allen Trovillion, told the students after he listened to their request for support of the Florida Dignity for All Students Act. "You are going to cause the downfall of this country. . . . God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is going to destroy you and a lot of others. "

The students had better luck with other legislators and hope to have the bill, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to state non-discrimination laws, introduced next year.

GALE Fund Gala, Feb 10

The first GALE Fund Ball was a great success, with about 300 people attending, a wonderful mix of GLBT’s and Straights. Music was provided by The Moonlighters and the Three Marys, with a finale of "The Star Spangled Banner" during which everyone held hands and sang. The Ball was organized by the Welcoming Congregation Committee of First Parish Church, Brewster, and raised about $8000 for .the GALE Fund.

Too Butch? Too Gay?

[excerpted from President's Column, PFLAG, St. Louis]

This month's column will talk about something that isn't usually discussed very openly. It isn't exactly internalized homophobia or maybe it is. What I am talking about is our discomfort with and judgment of GLBT folk who act and look different from straight folk.

Once at PFLAG I heard one of our most supportive parents describe her distaste for individuals who cross these gender taboos. As if there are good gays who look and act straight, and then there are those others who flaunt their difference.

What I have learned from my son is that we all have a right to be who we are and to express ourselves according to our true selves, not some standard that the dominant culture sets.

All of us have the potential to grow in beautiful ways because of our connection to the GLBT world. We should grow in terms of tolerance, respect for differences, and the ability to move outside the box of the cultural and religious mainstream in terms of our thinking and values. Our GLBT loved ones should not be limited in expressing themselves because they have to live up to a standard of behavior and dress that makes the straight world comfortable.

Scouting for All

Scouting for All, a group whose aim is to change the Boy Scouts’ position on gays, is looking for volunteers to help with their Information Rally in Boston May 30 - June 3 during the National Council Meeting of the Boy Scouts of America.

To volunteer, call Dave Rice at 707-763-8378.

GLBT Group Info

Dates to Remember

Apr 16, May 21, Jun 18, Jul 16: Brewster PFLAG, 7 pm

Apr 19, May 17, Jun 21, Jul 19: Straight Spouse, 896-9060

Apr 22, May 27, Jun 24, : Transgender Support, 432-8119

Apr 26: "Teens & Dignity," Juice Bar, Orleans 3:30

May 12: South Shore Gay Pride Festival, Braintree UU, 11-3

May 12: SpeakerTraining for Safe Schools, Waltham

June 2, Gay Pride Parade, Hyannis, 56 Barnstable Rd.11:30

PFLAG/Cape Cod, Brewster

PO Box 1167 Orleans, MA 02653

MISSION: Promote the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, their families and friends, through Support, to cope with an adverse society; Education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and Advocacy, to end discrimination and secure equal civil rights.

MEETINGS: 7 pm on the third Monday of each month at First Parish Church, Brewster; everyone is welcome. For information call 508-240-2737, 508-432-8119, or 508-398-6471.

MEMBERSHIP: Dues-paying members support the efforts of PFLAG both locally and nationally. Ten dollars goes to PFLAG National (includes subscription to Pflagpole), and the balance is used for our own Newsletter and the purchase of pamphlets, books, and videos. Our fiscal year begins October 1.

OFFICERS: Co-Leaders, Pem Schultz. & Rob Lewis; Treasurer, Jeanne Chagnon; Corresponding Sec’y, Betsy Cochran; Publicity, Anna Green and Martha Berndt; Newsletter, Doris Scherbak and Joann Figueras; Program, Sandy Bayne; Library, Martha Berndt; Computers, Joann Figueras; other board member Randy Kendall.

NEWSLETTER: Published four times a year. We welcome articles and/or comments. Send to above address or call 508-240-2737 or 508-255-7307. E-mail: j.figueras@verizon.net.

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_____$35 Family_____$25 Individual _____$15 Limited income

$________________Additional donation for our local chapter.

Name_______________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________

City, State, Zip________________________________________

Telephone___________________________________________

Checks are payable to PFLAG/Cape Cod, Brewster. Mail to Jeanne Chagnon, Treas., 5 Kate's Path, Yarmouthport MA 02675

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