The Right to Choose

Gay Groups Reach Out to Straight Allies
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer
Sat., Oct 13, 2007

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The setting was intimate, the hors d'oeuvres simple and the hostess barefoot, but the house party Gabby Seagrave and LaDonna Silva held for a dozen friends and co-workers was hardly a spontaneous affair.

Over wine and cheese last week, guests signed a form signaling their support for same-sex marriage.

In the couple's family room, they took a quiz on marriage laws and watched a television commercial that could have been for diamond rings, but asked, "What if you couldn't marry the person you loved?"

Such house parties and ad campaigns are just two ways in which gay rights activists are courting sympathetic heterosexuals. They hope these "straight allies" can help persuade a majority of Americans to back their causes.

Bridget Goin, one of the non-gay party invitees to Silva and Seagrave's party, was moved enough by night's end to pledge $20 a month to the gay rights group that helped the domestic partners plan the gathering.

Goin also offered to host a similar reception at her house. "If I have the privilege, maybe I'm the one who has the power to do something about it," said Goin, who is in her second marriage. Though the campaign's messages are often aimed at heterosexuals who have a personal connection with someone who is gay, the initiatives have a purely practical side.

"There are a lot more straight people than LGBT people," said Jody Huckaby, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Huckaby said a straight person has a better chance of convincing someone who may be on the fence on an issue like same-sex marriage than a gay advocate to whom the target of the appeal cannot as easily relate.
"It's important that those of us who work for equality realize the decision makers are the neighbors next door who will be voting in the next election, who will be talking in their faith communities about their stances on homosexuality," he said.

Among other efforts to recruit straight allies:

- PFLAG recently launched a new Web site, endorsed by the advice columnist who writes "Dear Abby," to enlist straight supporters in speaking out against anti-gay jokes and slurs.
- Two Texas groups arranged for straight allies to lead overnight vigils in 30 U.S. cities to draw attention to the discrimination faced by gay men, lesbians and transgender people.
- Next week, hundreds of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at high schools across the country have scheduled "Ally Weeks" to encourage teachers and students to help make their campuses more welcoming for gay classmates and colleagues.
- A gay rights media watchdog group recently rolled out a series of "Be an Ally & a Friend" public service announcements airing on "Access Hollywood" and featuring straight television actors such as Eric Mabius from "Ugly Betty."

Gay rights is not the first social movement to seek supporters among allies who were once considered adversaries, said David Meyers, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine.
White liberals found a place, though sometimes uneasily, championing civil rights for black Americans during the 1960s. Feminists lobbying for an Equal Rights Amendment eventually welcomed men to their ranks during the 1970s.

There is a risk to the strategy activists may be asked to put some goals on the back burner while working with outsiders, Meyers said. An example of that is playing out right now in Congress, where Democratic lawmakers are trying to enact a law that would protect gays and lesbians from job discrimination, but exclude transgender people.

"It's the way you win some stuff," Meyers said. "In every successful movement in the past, there was always important stuff they didn't win."

Sparking conversations is the goal of house parties like the one hosted by Silva, a graduate student, and Seagrave, a police sergeant, as part of the "Let California Ring" campaign.
Equality California, the state's largest gay rights lobbying group, has come up with a list of talking points for supporters who are unsure how to broach the topic of gay marriage.

"It doesn't matter if it's through the courts, the ballot or the Legislature, it's the public understanding of the issue that is the key to being successful in any attempt to have equality," Executive Director Geoffrey Kors said.
___
On the Net:
PFLAG: http://www.straightforequality.org/
GLAAD: http://www.glaad.org/
Vigils: http://www.sevenstraightnights.org/
Watch the ad: http://www.letcaliforniaring.org/
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Hate is "an attack on all of us".

Clergy call for passage of Matthew Shepard Act
More than 1,300 sign letter directed at Senate

by Christopher Johnson

WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 1,300 faith leaders have signed onto a letter urging the U.S. Senate to pass the Matthew Shepard Act (S.B. 1105), a bill which would update the current hate crimes law. Additionally, a new full-page print ad appeared in a recent edition of Roll Call that highlights the broad support of black clergy and civil rights leaders voicing support for hate crimes legislation. The new ad is sponsored by a coalition that includes the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the National Black Justice Coalition.


The letter was released by HRC, along with a coalition of organizations that include the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Interfaith Alliance, and the Religious Action Center. The 1,385 faith leaders signing the letter represent a broad spectrum of religious voices urging passage of a hate crimes bill that is expected for a Senate vote in the near future.

The letter states, “We would not support a bill that did not contain ample protections for free speech, including preaching and statements of religious belief. This law does not criminalize or impede upon religious expression in any way.” Read the complete letter at www.clergyagainsthate.org.

In addition to the letter, the ad features a theologically diverse group of black clergy representing tens of thousands of Americans speaking out in support of proposed hate crimes legislation.

The ad states, “As leaders in the black clergy community, we want to voice our strong support for the Matthew Shepard Act. Our faith tells us that an act of hate upon one member of our community — whether because of race, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability — is an attack on all of us.”

The Matthew Shepard Act would update the current hate crimes statute, enacted in 1964, to include more Americans and provide increased protections for those groups already covered under existing law. Nothing in the legislation prohibits the lawful expression of one’s deeply held religious beliefs. Neither the current hate crimes law nor the expanded measures criminalize thoughts or speech; they only criminalize violent acts.

During the House Judiciary Committee’s consideration of the bill, committee members explicitly noted that point. To further ensure that there was no ambiguity, an additional amendment offered by Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) was adopted at markup. The amendment unequivocally stated that conduct protected under the First Amendment’s free expression and free exercise clauses was not subject to prosecution.

On May 3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 1592), by a strong margin of 237 to 180 — with more than 20 Republicans voting in support.

Catholic adoption agency closes rather than accept gay couples

27th July 2007 16:05
PinkNews.co.uk writer

A Roman Catholic adoption charity is to turn away children in care because it refuses to accept the government's gay rights laws.

Catholic Care will end its 100-year-old adoption service, which places 20 children with new families every year, because it does not want to help same-sex couples adopt.

The Sexual Orientation Regulations, passed earlier this year, protect gay, lesbian and bisexual people from discrimination when accessing goods and services.

Now all adoption agencies have to accept same-sex couples as possible parents.

The charity is one of seven Catholic leader Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor threatened to close because of the laws. They receive a total of £10 million a year from local councils.

The government briefly considered an opt out for Roman Catholic adoption agencies.

After meeting with MPs and the Cabinet in January, former Prime Minister Tony Blair bowed to strong criticism from his own party over the exemption.

Ben Summerskill, who as head of gay equality organisation Stonewall spearheaded oppoosition to an exemption for Roman Catholic-run adoption agencies, told PinkNews.co.uk:

"Our clear view is that if you run a public service then you have to abide by the health and safety legislation, and equality legislation too.

"That applies to adoption agencies just as it does to anyone else - no one is above the law

"It is not entirely clear that this is the only reason that Catholic adoption agencies are considering closing.

"Because of the way that social services are now contracted out, a number of smaller agencies have been closing in recent years.

"It would be utterly reprehensible if the Catholic Church were to use closures that were going to take place anyway as an excuse for alarmist claims about important new legislation that supports equality."

Catholic Care decided to stop finding families for children after a vote by its trustees, led by the Bishop of Leeds.

In a statement, the charity said it had reconsidered its work in light of the new Government legislation, according to the Daily Mail.

The charity finds couples and individuals – both Catholic and non-Catholic – willing to adopt, pairs them with children and helps them through the adoption process.

Over the last 20 years, 13 of the 720 adopted children placed by Catholic charities have been with same-sex single people. The Vatican believes gay adoptions are "gravely immoral."

A permanent family is considered the best way to ensure a better life for the 60, 000 children living in care homes and with foster parents.

"Delivered from their darkness"

Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin Mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to "be delivered from their darkness" and converted to Catholicism.

In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine Mass if a "stable group of faithful" request it.

But he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council which allowed the Mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time.

"What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," Benedict wrote.

But the older rite's prayers calling on God to "lift the veil from the eyes" of the Jews and end "the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ" have sparked outrage.

Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a "body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations".

"We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday Mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted," said Abraham Foxman, the group's national director, in Rome.

"It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation."

Some bishops in France as well as liberal clergy and Catholics elsewhere have expressed concerns that allowing freer use of the Tridentine liturgy would imply a negation of Vatican II, the 1962-65 meetings that modernised the Roman Catholic Church.

They also feared it could create divisions in parishes, since two different liturgies would be celebrated.

The liberal French Catholic magazine Temoignage Chretien published an editorial in Latin explaining that it was not concerned about the language in which the Mass was celebrated but by "the view of the outside world held by most supporters of the traditional rite ... of a church that sees itself as the sole holder of the truth. Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, this stand is untenable".

Benedict has told bishops that such fears are "unfounded" as the Mass celebrated in the vernacular remained the "normal" form while the older version was an "extraordinary" one that would probably be sought by only relatively few Catholics.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, said the new rules did not "impose any return to the past, nor any weakening of the authority of the council, nor the authority and responsibility of bishops".

Benedict was acting in a bid to reach out to the followers of a French ultra-traditionalist, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who split with the Vatican over the introduction of the new Mass and other Vatican II reforms. He was excommunicated in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without Rome's consent. The bishops were excommunicated as well.

The group has expressed rejoicing and thanked Benedict for the move.

In one small village in western France, a church was recently occupied by Catholic traditionalists demanding a Mass in Latin.

A new priest, replacing a conservative who led the parish for 40 years, had been ordered by the local bishop to end the unauthorised but previously tolerated older rites.

- OBSERVER

"Kill him! Kill him!"

Peter Foster, Delhi
June 20, 2007

A SENIOR minister in the Pakistani Government has urged Muslim countries to break diplomatic relations with London and claimed a suicide bomb attack would be a justified response to author Salman Rushdie's knighthood.

The Pakistan Parliament called on the British Government to reverse the decision to award the knighthood or face further protests from Muslim nations.

"If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified," the Minister for Religious Affairs, Ijaz ul-Haq, told Pakistan's national assembly.

"If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified," the Minister for Religious Affairs, Ijaz ul-Haq, told Pakistan's national assembly.

"This is an occasion for the (world's) 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mr ul-Haq said. "If Muslims do not unite, the situation will get worse and Salman Rushdie may get a seat in the British Parliament."

His comments provoked an angry response around the world. Effigies of the Queen and Rushdie were burned in the eastern Pakistan city of Multan as students chanted: "Kill him! Kill him!"

Article 528 of the Penal Code

"Da Vinci Code" under investigation in Italy
Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:22PM EDT

By Eric J. Lyman

TAORMINA, Italy (Hollywood Reporter) - More than a year after its premiere, "The Da Vinci Code" is being investigated by Italian state attorneys on the grounds that it is "obscene" from a religious perspective.

Earlier this year, a complaint against the film was filed by a group of clergy near the Italian village of Civitavecchia, where the state prosecutor's office said it would open a criminal investigation into the film. The complaint says the film violates Article 528 of Italy's Penal Code.

The complaint names 10 people, including director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown.

The investigation means the case will have its day in court in the seaside port village about 40 miles north of Rome, though a judge could elect to throw out the charges. But it is significant that the state prosecutor agreed to investigate it.

It is unclear what the unnamed complainants -- reported by the state prosecutor to be Catholic clergy from the area -- are seeking.

Under the terms of Article 528 of the Penal Code, if found guilty the defendants will have a criminal record in Italy and would each face jail time of at least three months and fines of at least 103 euros ($139). Jail time is capped at three years, but there is no upward limit on the fines, legal experts said. The defendants cannot be extradited for the charges, but they can be apprehended if they are already on Italian soil.

The development comes as Howard is beginning preproduction work here on "Angels and Demons," the highly awaited sequel to "Da Vinci," also authored by Brown.

Asked why the case is being opened now, some 13 months after the film debuted at least year's Cannes Film Festival, an official at the Civitavecchia state prosecutor said he wasn't sure.

"I don't know," the official said in a telephone interview. "Maybe they (the clergy who filed the complaint) have just seen the film."

Both the book and film version of "Da Vinci" attracted widespread criticism from religious groups, but this appears to be the first time parties have taken legal action against the work.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.