March 15, 2005

The Liberty Line is a monthly e-communications update from the Liberty Education Forum. 

2005 National Symposium Update

Time Running Out to Register for 2005 National Symposium! 

There's not much time left to register for the 2005 Liberty Education Forum National Symposium.  To be a part of this historic event, please register TODAY!  Space is quickly filling up.  Hundreds of fair-minded Americans will gather in New Orleans at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the heart of the French Quarter on Bourbon Street from March 31-April 3, 2005. 

LEF's National Symposium is being held in conjunction with the Log Cabin Republicans National Convention.  The National Symposium, scheduled for April 1st, will offer hundreds of inclusive, fair-minded Americans an opportunity to discuss strategy and learn about the key issues affecting gay and lesbian Americans.  The National Symposium's primary focus will be a discussion about our effort to reach the Heartland and make new allies among conservatives and people of faith.  Jimmy Creech, the Chairman of the Board of Soulforce, will share his compelling story of personal faith to motivate and inspire people to join the dialogue about faith and sexual orientation.  Our National Symposium also will bring together a panel of experts and activists to discuss how we can more effectively reach the Heartland.  The goal for this symposium is to provide grassroots activists with information and motivation for helping us reach new allies.    Click here to see a brief video promoting the 2005 Symposium.  Click here to see the latest Symposium agenda.  Click here to register.    To reserve a hotel room, call 504-586-0300 and ask for the special Log Cabin rate.  

Gay and Lesbian Families

More Companies Offer Domestic Partner Benefits

Even as the debate rages about how best to recognize gay and lesbian families, more and more companies are offering domestic partner benefits.  The Charlotte Observer reports that more companies are doing this in order to attract and keep skilled professionals.  "Pigs would take flight before a conservative utility based in the South would ever offer health benefits to same-sex couples, according to conventional wisdom.  But when Duke Energy announced last week it would extend benefits to same- and opposite-sex domestic partners, there were no swine in the skies.  So much for conventional wisdom.

"Even as national political debate lingers over constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, corporate America is taking a more businesslike approach. More than 60 percent of Fortune 100 companies offer such benefits. The bottom line:  Competition for talent trumps concerns about what goes on at home.

"Offering domestic partner benefits 'has been shown to aid in both attracting and retaining employees,' Duke Chairman and CEO Paul Anderson said in a news release last week.

"'There's a business need' for offering domestic-partner benefits, says Steve Graybill, a Charlotte health-care consultant with Mercer Human Resource Consulting. 'Duke didn't do it just to do it.'"

New York Couple Files Lawsuit Against Health Care Center for Discrimination

An upstate New York couple is suing a Syracuse health care center after being kicked out of a wellness program because they're lesbian.  Doctors recommended to 55 year-old Louise Bizzari that she join a wellness program.  Bizzari chose the Charles T. Sitrin Health Care Center.  She applied to the Director of Clinical Rehabilitation Services to participate in an aquatic therapy program offered by the facility. When the Director learned that Bizzari intended to pay for the program through the domestic partner insurance that she receives through her partner of more than 20 years, she told Bizzari that the Sitrin Center wouldn't accept her insurance.  When Bizzari offered to pay for the program out of her own pocket, the Director told her that there were no programs at the Sitrin Center suitable for her. 

New York has a non-discrimination law that protects gay and lesbian New Yorkers from such bias."I can't tell you how humiliating it was to be called names and basically treated like a criminal by this business," said Bizzari. "Going to the pool gave me hope that I would soon see the end of this painful medical nightmare. It's inconceivable to me that any business would treat people this way." 

Gay Parent Prevented from Living With His Family

A Virginia gay man is challenging a custody order that prevents him from living with his son and partner.  A Virginia judge gay Ulf Hedberg custody of his son two years ago, but there was one important restriction: he's barred from having his son and partner live under the same roof.  With the assistance of some gay-rights advocacy groups, Hedberg has filed an appeal with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals seeking to undo the Virginia decision. The appeal seeks to overturn a decision by a Maryland circuit court judge who last year refused to modify the Virginia custody decision and allow Hedberg and his partner to live under one roof.

"This child's world was turned upside down all because a Virginia court issued a knee-jerk anti-gay custody restriction," said Susan Sommer, supervising attorney at Lambda Legal, which advocates for gay rights. "He lost his home, his school, his park and most importantly the proximity of the caring adult who has helped raise him. No one wins with this arrangement, and it's imperative that the court step in and put this child's interests first."  Click here to read more about this story.

Keeping the Faith

Organization Challenges the Radical Right

On Sunday May 1st, also known as May Day, Soulforce and hundreds of gay and lesbian individuals, couples, families, and heterosexual allies will stand up to defend their faith.  They'll be converging in Colorado Springs at the headquarters of James Dobson and his anti-gay Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. Soulforce intends to confront Dobson's anti-gay and anti-American rhetoric, and celebrate gay and lesbian families. Activities include nonviolence trainings, a picnic and rally in the park, speakers, singers, and vigils to celebrate all families.

Additionally, Soulforce is going to throw their own family picnic within sight of James Dobson's Focus on the Family compound so he, and others who think like him, can see that all families have value. Organizers from Soulforce hope to meet with Dobson and they'll take the visitor's tour through the Focus world headquarters.  Click here to learn more and register for MAYDAY! MAYDAY!.  The Liberty Education Forum helped support the publication of a new Soulforce report examining Dobson's anti-gay teaching.  Click here to read "A False Focus on My Family."

Battle Over Gays in Anglican Church Continues

The Associated Press reports, "There is no end in sight to the debate over the role of gays and lesbians in the Anglican Communion.  Following a meeting that was keenly important but not decisive, leaders of the churches that make up the worldwide Anglican Communion will be working for at least the next three years to see if they can avoid a permanent split over the issue. The course of the Communion will be set at various meetings from this month through the 2008 Lambeth Conference, a once-in-a-decade gathering of all the world's Anglican and Episcopal bishops.

"At issue is the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, and endorsement of same-sex relationships within both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Most of the world's Anglican bishops hold fast to traditional Christian teaching that gay sex is sinful.

Leaders, or primates, of the Anglican denominations have now agreed to ``slow down a bit'' in working through their differences, said Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, head of the U.S. Episcopal Church. ``Let's make room for one another. Let us reason together.''  Click here to read the entire article.  Click here to read another article about this issue.

Pope Calls Gay Marriage "Evil"

The Pope's new book says gay marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously threatening society.  Reuters reports, "The 84-year-old Pontiff's book, a highly philosophical and intricate work on the nature of good and evil, is based on conversations with philosopher friends in 1993 and later with some of his aides.  In one section about the role of lawmakers, the Pope takes another swipe at gay marriages when he refers to 'pressures' on the European Parliament to allow them.  'It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man,' he writes.  Click here to read more about this.   

Bishop Says Canadian Prime Minister Should Be Denied Communion Because of His Support For Civil Marriage Equality

The National Post reports, "The Catholic Bishop of Calgary says if it was up to him, he would consider excommunicating Paul Martin over his government's plan to legalize same-sex marriage.  Bishop Fred Henry said the Prime Minister's political views clash so severely with the teachings of the Catholic Church that he no longer deserves to receive Communion and suggest the Roman Catholic Church should consider the rare step of excommunication, which would prohibit Mr. Martin from receiving the Eucharist during Mass.

"'You're either with the Church or you're not,'" he said of the same-sex marriage debate.

"'And if you're not with the Church, it's not the Church that's giving you the hard time.  You are separating yourself from the Body of Christ, and that becomes a personal decision that you have to deal with.'"

Defending Freedom

Legislation Introduced to Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Earlier this month, a group of more than 50 House members filed a bill to reverse the 12-year-old 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in uniform.  Introduction of the legislation comes days after a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) showing the ban has harmed military readiness and cost at least $200 million to enforce.   Supporters of the bill cited the cost of DADT as reported by the GAO, changing attitudes within the armed services, and the need for qualified personnel to fight the war on terror as reasons for repealing the ban.  Click here to read a story about this legislation.

The San Diego Tribune reports, "Hundreds of highly skilled troops, including many translators, have left the armed forces because of the Pentagon's rules on gays, at a cost of nearly $200 million, the first congressional study on the impact of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy says."  Click here to read more about the GAO report.

Number of Gays Discharged From Services Drops Again

The push to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell comes weeks after the release of new statistics showing that the number of gays and lesbians discharged has fallen again. The New York Times reports that the Defense Department says "it discharged 653 service members last year for being gay, down 15 percent from 2003. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the rate of discharges has dropped nearly 50 percent."

These statistics point out the absurdness of this policy.  If gays and lesbians were so harmful to unit cohesion and the overall effectiveness of our military, than you expect discharges to increase during a time of war, when the stakes couldn't be any higher.  The fact is though tens of thousands of gay and lesbian service members are playing a vital role in fighting the war on terror. 

Great Britain Launches Campaign to Recruit More Gay and Lesbian Service Members

Five years after ending its ban on gay and lesbian service members, the British military is launching a new effort to recruit gay service members.  Plus, the Royal Navy is joining a campaign to ensure gay sailors are treated fairly.  Meanwhile, the British military announced that gay service members will be able to live in married quarters with their partners starting later this year. 

Reaching the Heartland

"I guess I just wanted both to have a voice in this and to provoke people to think, because I don't want to see discrimination written into the constitution of my home state," attorney Jennifer Newlin said. 

Healthwatch

A Warning, From Gays to Gays

A recent op-ed in the Washington Post outlined the importance of personal responsibility in the fight to lower HIV/AIDS infection rates.  Richard Cohen writes. "While gays clearly have their enemies, that should not mean they are immune from criticism. The fact remains that a portion of the gay population -- maybe 20 percent -- conducts itself in ways that are not only reckless but just plain disgusting. Unprotected, promiscuous sex in bathhouses and at parties and using drugs such as crystal meth to prolong both desire and performance are practices that should be no more acceptable for gays than for heterosexuals. Gays don't get some sort of pass just because they're gay.

"About 40,000 Americans a year continue to be infected with the AIDS virus. While their lives can be prolonged, it can be only at considerable cost -- and not forever, either. An increasing number of AIDS victims are heterosexual black women, but most are gay men. Whatever they are, they are first and foremost human beings. They are entitled to their own sexuality, but not to behavior that endangers others, costs us all plenty and, too often, entails a determined self-destruction that too many heterosexuals overlook."  Click here to read the entire article.

Should HIV Testing Be Encouraged for All Americans?

The Associated Press reports that some experts are recommending that virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases.  This would be a major shift from the current health policy. "But two large federally financed studies found that the cost of routinely testing nearly all adults would be outweighed by a reduction in new infections and the opportunity to start patients on drug cocktails early, when they work best.  'Given the availability of effective therapy and preventive measures, it is possible to improve care and perhaps influence the course of the epidemic through widespread, effective and cost-effective screening,' Dr. Samuel A. Bozzette, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies, which appear today in The New England Journal of Medicine."

Report on a New Form of H.I.V. Brings Alarm, Not Surprise

The New York Times recently reported on the impact of a possibly new strain of HIV discovered in the Big Apple. "As word spread of a rare and potentially more aggressive form of H.I.V., first reported publicly in New York on Friday, communities already hit hard by the disease, professionals who combat it, and people who are infected reacted yesterday with fear and skepticism. But few were surprised, given that the sense of urgency about the disease has waned.

"City health officials announced on Friday that they had detected the rare strain of H.I.V. in one man whose case they described as particularly worrisome because it merged two unusual features: resistance to nearly all anti-retroviral drugs used to treat the infection, and stunningly swift progression from infection to full-fledged AIDS. Scientists say that only with more testing will they hope to determine how virulent the strain is and how specific to this one man its effects are.

"That combination drug resistance and rapid AIDS onset, the officials said, could signal a new, more menacing kind of infection, and its discovery set in motion an anxious search by city workers to find the man's sexual partners and have them tested.

"Michael Justiniano, 37, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, said he watched his father die of AIDS in 1993. 'I have spoken to young kids, sometimes here, who say, 'If I get it, it's no big deal. I can just take a pill,' ' he said. 'I'm like, 'Are you stupid?' It is so disgusting. I find it really disturbing.'  Click here to read more about this story.

How to Convince People to Oppose Risky Sex

Over the last decade, AIDS activists and health officials have mounted public awareness campaigns, distributed pamphlets at medical clinics and conducted large-scale studies aimed at increasing condom use and reducing anonymous sexual encounters. Almost every effort has fallen short in high risk groups, experts say: a result of social and political factors, the increasing prominence of Internet liaisons and drug use and dynamics of disease transmission that researchers have only begun to understand. New AIDS and H.I.V. cases increased 1 percent from 1999 to 2003, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of 33 cities in the United States.

"Prevention has always been the neglected stepchild in terms of funding, compared to biomedical research," said Dr. Anke A. Ehrhardt, director of the H.I.V. Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Ehrhardt said that even if this rare H.I.V. strain was an isolated case, "there will be others, and we will have another epidemic unless we put behavioral change front and center and do it better than we are doing it now."  Click here to read the entire story.