Gay Rights Activists call it a historic ruling, an appellate court has ruled New York must recognize same-sex marriages performed in Canada.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by a woman in Monroe County. I think it’s amazing, we’re all very excited about it,” Hineseley.

At a youth conference today- hosted by the Gay Alliance of Genesee valley, a sense of victory over the court ruling that New York must recognize gay marriages performed out of state.

Christopher Hineseley, the executive of the Gay Alliance, says it means stability for his wife and daughter. Something he is says is long overdue.

“It’s a great thing for families, it’s a great thing for couples,” who are trying to protect themselves financiallyand legally,” Hineseley.

The ruling comes after a lawsuit filed by an employee of Monroe Community College.

Patricia Martinez sued because she wanted health care benefits for her partner. The two married in Canada, but the college refused.

“We do not believe that gay marriage should be allowed or permitted in New York State,” Martinez.

Pastor Grant Aldridge of Glad Tidings Church in Rochester says the county must appeal the ruling.

“God has strictly spoken that for two men or two women to have sex together is an abomination.” “We do not hate gay people, but we do not approve of what they are doing,” Aldridge.

Hineseley says gay couples deserve the benefits given to married couples.

I think it’s getting harder to understand why someone would want to allow one couple to get married but not another”

It’s very hard to justify discrimination”

The judge that made this ruling says the state legislature can block these marriages from being acknowledged. But until that happens, they must be recognized in New York.

The New York Civil Liberties Union called the ruling a victory for families, justice and human rights.

Source: msnbc.msn.com

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Despite difficulties in buttoned-down corridors of power, institutional and business CEOs aren’t so willing to hide.

Alba Martinez, chief executive officer of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, didn’t know her father was gay until he contracted AIDS and died when she was 21. To the world, Antonio Martinez, an administrator at the University of Puerto Rico, was a heterosexual family man. Only when his disease was diagnosed, in 1986, did he reveal his secret life. Six months later, he was dead at 55.

The traumatic event “reaffirmed my belief in being true to yourself,” says Alba Martinez, 45. “I felt really sad that my father had to lead a double life. Nobody should have to go through life hiding who they are.”

In the buttoned-down business corridors of Philadelphia and other large cities, an increasing number of gay CEOs are not hiding anymore. Some, like Martinez and Sean Buffington, new president of the University of the Arts, have been open about their sexual orientation for their entire professional lives.

They are in the minority. Coming out is serious business in business. Especially for a CEO.

It can stall, or even derail, careers. It can spark backlash from clients or shareholders or boards of directors. It can trigger consumer boycotts or alumni mutinies.

For gay CEOs who keep their sexual orientation under wraps, much of that fear is self-generated, says Kirk Snyder, author of The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives Are Excelling as Leaders.

“That closet has become very familiar,” says Snyder, 47, who came out 15 years ago. “You’re not fooling anybody. Employees take their cues from you. Everybody knows, but nobody talks about it. We can’t live that way anymore.”

Still, not a single CEO of a Fortune 500 company is openly gay, according to Snyder’s research. He says he knows of five who are closeted, however, and he predicts that at least one of them will come out within five years.

Five openly gay CEOs in Philadelphia were interviewed for this article. An equal number declined. Despite being out to their companies and to the gay community at large, several said they weren’t comfortable, or weren’t ready, to be totally public.

One said she wanted the spotlight to be on her company, not on her, regardless of her sexuality. Another was advised by his company not to participate. All agreed it was more difficult to be out in the business world.

Difficulty aside, “I would never even consider working in an environment where I couldn’t be open about who I am,” says Martinez, former commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services, the city’s largest operating department, and a former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Martinez came out while attending Georgetown Law School. (An academic whiz, she began at 19.) Her partner, Roberta Trombetta, 40, an executive with the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, is also a lawyer.

Gay CEOs “are more reticent to stand out in a crowd,” says Bob Witeck, openly gay CEO of Witeck-Combs Communications in Washington and author of Business Inside Out.

“It’s more important to represent the company than yourself. You don’t want to go off script. You don’t want to be perceived by a conservative board of directors as pushing an agenda.”

Martinez says she does not judge other gay leaders on how public - or private - they choose to be. For her and numerous others, however, personal authenticity is essential for good leadership.

“You can’t be in leadership and not be who you are,” she says. “You lead by example. Leaders have to be truthful and open. I couldn’t live any other way.”

Neither could the University of the Arts’ Buffington. One of a handful of openly gay college presidents in the United States, he is also, at 38, one of the youngest.

Born and raised in rural Maryland, Buffington was an altar boy for 10 years. He came out during his junior year at Harvard.

He and his partner of 14 years, Boston Globe arts editor Scott Heller, 46, were married in July in Lenox, Mass. They’ve been commuting since Buffington began his five-year, $200,000-plus contract in mid-August.

Buffington, an arts administrator at Harvard for 13 years, says he was totally up-front with UArt’s search committee about his “marital status.”

It was such a nonissue, he says, that Heller joined him for dinner with the chairman and vice chairman of the board.

Around the 2,400-student campus, “I have gotten absolutely no negative response,” says Buffington, who hosts pizza parties to get to know students. “That doesn’t mean people don’t think it.”

For a university president, being out presents special challenges. Boards of trustees, which tend to be older and conservative, fear it will hurt fund-raising, a huge part of any president’s job.

Some fret over the image of a president attending university functions with his same-sex partner. Or playing golf with donors and not talking about the wife and kids. (News flash: Buffington, who stands 6-foot-2 and wears size 13 shoes, doesn’t like sports.)

For public universities - UArts is private - there’s the additional fear that conservative lawmakers will lobby state legislatures to reduce funding.

As part of a generation that grew up enjoying benefits hard won by older activists, Buffington says he doesn’t sweat the gay stuff. Given the changing sexual landscape, he doesn’t have to.

“It’s easier now. There isn’t the sense of a day-to-day insecurity or fear or anger. Being gay is in my consciousness every day, but it’s not the defining sense of who I am.”

Geography matters, too. Martin Sellers, 59, CEO of Sellers Feinberg, a health-care strategy firm in Center City, says it’s easier for a CEO to be out in gay-friendly Philadelphia than in many other cities.

“You see a lot more [openly gay CEOs] than you used to,” says Sellers, whose 15-year partner, Brian Dorsey, 41, is an actor and playwright. “If you turned the clock back 25 years, there might not have been a single one.”

United Way’s Martinez agrees. “The business community here, as I’ve experienced it, is very enlightened. Leaders understand they have a diverse workforce and a diverse customer base. You can’t be exclusive anymore.”

David Jefferys, CEO and founder of the marketing firm Altus Group, learned that lesson about 10 years ago. That’s when he began adding gay-related businesses to the company’s all-heterosexual accounts.

At the same time, he came out professionally, too. Today, 50 percent of Altus Group’s business is targeted to gays, and Jefferys feels 100 percent whole.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m living two separate lives,” says Jefferys, 50, who grew up in tony Darien, Conn.

“Before, I had to have my private life hidden when I was at work. I had to play a lot of games. You can’t have integrity without honesty.”

Authenticity is what drives leadership ability, in Sellers’ view. “It’s what attracts people, what makes them interested in what you have to say. It’s what forms trust.”

Jefferys came out during his senior year at Villanova. He and his partner, dentist Ron Hayes, 40, have been together 12 years.

Mark Stiffler doesn’t understand what all the noise is about.

Stiffler, 45, CEO of Synygy, an incentive-compensation company based in Chester, has been out since he was 16. He has two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and owns homes in Gladwyne, Florida and Arizona.

“I’m clueless why anybody isn’t out,” says the Harrisburg native, who is single. “I’ve never experienced any problems. I think it helps to be educated and rich.”

Stiffler says he’s been hearing the same arguments for 25 years against letting one’s rainbow flag fly. He’s over it. Even if he didn’t own the company.

“If you lose a job, it wasn’t the right job. If you lose friends, they weren’t really your friends. If your family doesn’t talk to you for 10 years, oh, well.

“Things happen. How you react to them is within your power and control.”

Spoken like a CEO. Gay, straight or otherwise.

Source:philly.com

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BY BRETT GILBERT AND JONATHAN EZOR |Brett Gilbert, left, is assistant dean for career services and Jonathan I. Ezor is assistant professor of law and technology at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.

January 28, 2008

In a condensed primary season like this one, when every day brings a new poll or voting results, it’s hard to focus on policy nuance. This is all the more true when issues don’t garner the attention they should from the outset.

At the MSNBC Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas earlier this month, moderator Tim Russert asked Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards whether they would “vigorously enforce” the law that requires colleges and universities to allow military recruiters or ROTC on their campuses, or risk losing federal funding. All three candidates quickly stated that they would enforce this law, because of their support for the military.

Unfortunately, while support for military personnel and national service is laudable, the candidates, Russert and the media in their post-debate analyses missed a real opportunity to focus on the reason why this law - particularly the recruiting component - has been so controversial and opposed by many within the higher education community.

It has nothing to do with support for the armed services in general. Rather, it is a reaction against the ongoing discrimination against gays and lesbians who wish to serve their country without having to lie about their sexual orientation.

The law in question, called the Solomon Amendment, was first passed in 1995 during the Clinton administration and has been toughened in the years since. Originally, Congress focused only on grants to universities from the Department of Defense. With the current form of the amendment, though, Congress has denied grants and contracts not only from the Department of Defense, but also from the Department of Education and certain other departments and agencies to any college or institution that refuses access to ROTC or military recruiters, or even refuses to give recruiters detailed personal information about eligible students.

For most colleges and universities, refusing federal funds is not an option, so they are forced to comply with this law.

For many within academia, the Solomon Amendment, which mandates active support for military recruiting, is akin to encouraging discrimination against the gay and lesbian students who are members of the campus community, who are prohibited from honorably serving their country’s military due to their sexual orientation.

Most schools wouldn’t welcome other discriminatory organizations’ recruiting efforts. Imagine a modern law school advertising job opportunities for a law firm that expressly did not hire Jews or African Americans. Because of the Solomon Amendment, though, universities are forced to provide space and student information for a school-supported activity from which some of their students are shut out. These requirements go against principles of freedom of opinion and equal opportunity that are supposed to be the keystones of American education.

A group of law schools and faculty called FAIR - Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights - challenged this law as being an unconstitutional violation of the academic community’s First Amendment right to free speech. In March 2006, however, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected this argument, on the grounds that schools, even while providing access to recruiters, were free to state their disapproval of the U.S. military’s discriminatory policies, and that sufficed for free speech.

In reality, though, any statement of protest loses its power when it must be accompanied by unfettered access to facilities, students and information for those against whom one is protesting. This isn’t like playing golf at a country club that won’t allow women members. This is akin to providing land, caddies and potential member information to that same club, while claiming to be against the discriminatory policies. It sounds hypocritical, and it feels that way, too.

It is highly unlikely that the Democratic candidates at the Nevada debate meant to express support for discrimination against gays and lesbians or to oppose free speech. Nevertheless, all three of them essentially did so by pledging to enforce a law that denies colleges and universities real opportunities to express their opinions about the military’s recruiting policies - even while many retired generals and admirals, including Gen. John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly support an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and ban on gay servicemen and women.

Two weeks and two state Democratic primaries have passed since that debate. We still, though, hope that the candidates will take a moment to reconsider their answers. Perhaps they’ll even join in the public call for true equal opportunity within our country’s armed forces, and truly free speech on our campuses.

Source: newsday.com

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Some parents in California are pissed after finding out that photos of their teenaged sons have shown up on some gay porn websites.

The photos of teen water polo players, some boys as young as 14, were displayed next to photos of nude young men and graphic sexual content, an Orange County Register investigation found.

Parents say some of the boys were traumatized and had to seek counseling.

“These kids don’t look at what they do as shameful,” said Joan Gould, an international water polo official and a spokeswoman for a group of Orange County water polo parents. “For someone to come in and take what these kids are doing and take it out of context and exploit these images, these kids and their schools, because you can see the school name on the caps, is just horrible.”

Cops at the University of California, Irvine are investigating whether a campus police dispatcher was the one who photographed the high school athletes for gay-oriented sites.

The Register said it found photos of players from 11 Orange County high schools in addition to schools in Los Angeles and San Diego counties on several pages of one gay porn site registered to a London address.

PLEASE NOTE: The photos here are NOT the photos of the teenaged boys. These men in this photo are a part of British college waterpolo team.

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From Mr James Johnston.

Sir, Three cheers for the investment banks actively trying to recruit gay and lesbian staff in Asia. However, Raphael Minder’s article “Cool reception for Asia’s gay workers” (January 15) acknowledges but barely touches on the numerous difficulties that these new gay recruits may experience later in their careers once “partnered” if they consider transfers to other Asian countries.

Two years after I was transferred to Tokyo my male partner was refused re-entry to Japan at Narita airport and had to return to England. The agreement made earlier with the immigration authorities was no longer deemed acceptable. Although HSBC’s human resources department had given him all the benefits of an “expat” spouse, Japanese immigration law could not treat him similarly.

Five months of unwelcome separation followed before he could return to Japan. Despite finding a workable solution, the uncertainty surrounding subsequent annual visa renewals curbed my willingness to extend my stay in Japan and we returned to England just two years later.

Visa problems are not the only impediments to successful international relocations for gay staff. Even at senior levels, gay or lesbian partners are more likely to have their own careers than their heterosexual counterparts. An overseas transfer or promotion for one may require the abandonment of a career by the partner. A reluctance to abandon a satisfying career for the uncertain stimuli of the “expat spouses” circuit is sometimes understandable.

James Johnston,

Source: ft.com 

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In a recent University of San Diego study, psychologist Robert-Jay Green revealed some discoveries that demonstrate how same-sex relationships may be healthier than straight ones, according to an article by United Press International.

The study found that couples in same-sex relationships were more flexible in terms of gender roles, parenting, and household responsibilities.

It also found that lesbian couples are emotionally closer than gay couples, who, in turn, are emotionally closer than heterosexual married couples.

“It all comes down to greater equality in the relationship,” Green said to UPI. “Research shows that lesbian and gay couples have a head start in escaping the traditional gender role divisions that make for power imbalances and dissatisfaction in many heterosexual relationships.”

According to the article, the researches concluded, “heterosexual couples could learn from gay couples about sharing housework and childcare, using softer communication in conflict, and having more nurturing behaviors toward one another and their children.”

Source: advocate.com

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>BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhuanet)– A new drug-resistant superbug staph is being transmitted among gay men, U.S. researchers said as quoted by media reports Wednesday. >    The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is spreading among the gay communities outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

>    The Castro district of San Francisco, which has a higher gay population in the United States, has been hardest hit, researchers said.

>    But the superbug was said to spread through skin to skin contact, therefore, anyone could get it.

>    “It is skin to skin contact, not sexual orientation, that is crucial for it to be passed on,” said a spokesperson for the Health Protection Agency. 

>    ”These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin to skin contact occurs during sexual activities,” said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study.

>    The bacteria can cause life-threatening and deep-tissue infections if they enter the body through a wound in the skin and only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.

>    Most people carry staph in their noses but community-based MRSA also can live in and around the anus and is passed between sexual partners.

>    Staph killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

Source: news.xinhuanet.com

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Gay couples who got married abroad could have their partnership recognised here as soon as the Government’s Civil Unions bill is introduced.

According to a report in today’s Irish Times, dozens of gay couples are already travelling to the UK and Canada to get married in advance of the eagerly anticipated bill.

Same sex civil partnerships and marriages that were obtained in other countries are expected to be recognised here as soon as the Civil Unions bill is introduced, under a number of conditions.

The bill is also expected to be automatically recognised in countries where same sex civil partnerships and marriages are already legal.

The Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has already stated a civil union bill for gay couples is expected to be published before the summer.

The proposed partnership scheme will allow same sex partnerships to avail of rights similar to those available to married couples in areas such as tax, pension and benefits.

Source: belfasttelegraph.co.uk

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The Government’s planned civil partnership scheme for gay and lesbian couples is likely to provide for the automatic legal recognition of civil unions or weddings in certain other countries, it has emerged.

Already, dozens of gay and lesbian couples are travelling to countries such as Canada and the UK to wed or obtain civil partnerships, in the hope their unions will be recognised in Irish law shortly.

Senior sources say that civil unions or weddings will have the same legal recognition as new civil partnerships in Ireland, as long as they meet a number of conditions.Such a provision is contained in civil partnership legislation in the UK, which recognises unions in almost 20 countries, including the US, Canada and France.Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has said the heads of a Bill that would allow for civil partnerships for same-sex couples will be published before the summer.

Figures supplied to The Irish Times by the General Register Office in the UK show that almost 50 couples from the Republic have travelled to either Northern Ireland or Scotland to avail of civil partnerships. Figures are not available for England.

Canadian authorities also say they are dealing with a major influx of same-sex Europeans, especially Irish, seeking to get married.

Brian Sheehan, managing director of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (Glen), says many couples are hopeful that the law will soon change in Ireland.

“People want to make financial and legal commitments to each other and to have them recognised in law, even if it isn’t recognised in Irish law yet. But couples also want to make a very public statement of their commitment towards each other,” Mr Sheehan said.

The Government’s proposed civil partnership registration scheme will allow gay couples avail of rights similar to those available to married couples in areas such as tax, pension and benefits.

However, it could take time before it is enacted, as the legislation is due to include the more complex issue of providing State recognition for cohabiting couples of all genders in long-term relationships.

Glen says the the lack of recognition causes acute hardship for gay people who have a non-EU partner.

One couple affected are Brian Hayes from Shankill, Co Dublin and his partner David Bowman, a US citizen. The pair married in Canada two years ago but Mr Bowman has no right to live here. He has obtained a work permit in order to live here legally, but he has been unable to get more secure status. They say they are unable to secure a mortgage, while they are also denied next-of-kin rights as well as tax and inheritance entitlements.

Mr Hayes, a software consultant, said: “This isn’t a theoretical issue. These are major practical problems which we want to get sorted. I don’t want to sound like I’m jumping on to the moral high ground, but I do feel like a second-class citizen.”

Source: ireland.com

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Britain’s senior Roman Catholic leader used his New Year message to praise marriage and deliver an implicit attack on the Government’s gay equality laws.

- Have you say: Do you agree with the Cardinal?

- Women who stop church ‘put health at risk’

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Church in England and Wales, said most parents did not want their children to be taught that marriage was just “one lifestyle choice among many”.

The cardinal said the traditional family remained central to the well-being of society but was being dangerously eroded.

While society was slowly waking up to the dangers of climate change and pollution for the planet, it was still destroying the family, he said.

“It has taken us a long time to realise that if we cut down trees, use cars with highly leaded fuels and build factories with toxic emissions, we were gradually destroying the ecosystem within which we live and breathe.

“Perhaps, however, it has been harder for us to admit those elements in our relationships or in our society which have contributed to the fragmentation of the family.

“Yet it is equally true that we are rapidly moving the very structures on which society is built and on which humanity depends; we are gradually destroying the ‘ecosystem’ that supports the family.”

The cardinal said he was aware that many people had suffered broken marriages or were “courageous” single parents and he understood their sorrow and hurt.

However, he emphasised the Catholic Church’s commitment to the home as the focus of family life and the centrality of Christian marriage.

“Most parents do not want their children to be taught that marriage is no more than one lifestyle choice among many,” he said.

“They do not want to expose their children to the risk of becoming promiscuous or indulging in drug and alcohol abuse.

“Many, many young people, when expressing their dreams and hopes, express the desire to one day be happily married and to have a family.”

The cardinal’s comments follow a series of clashes between the Catholic Church and the Government over the introduction of gay equality legislation and civil partnerships.

Some Catholics have even questioned the Cardinal’s role in the recent conversion of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who was instrumental in pushing through many of the reforms.

In his message, the cardinal urged parents to bring God into their homes so that their children would carry Christian values into the next generation.

“Our children are the messages we send to tomorrow,” he said.

“We can forget easily what is said in church, or even in school, but we don’t forget what happens in the home.

“Somehow, if we take God’s Word into our daily life and try to live it, then we are scattering the seed ourselves for the younger generation and generations to come.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk

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