National News: Task Force decries anti-gay bigotry involving teen shot in hate-laced attack

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student in Oxnard, Calif., was shot in the head yesterday by a classmate. King was declared brain dead, but his body remains on a ventilator for possible organ donation. According to the Associated Press, the Ventura County prosecutor has filed charges of attempted murder with a hate-crime enhancement, but can't discuss the facts behind the case.

Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“Right now we don’t know exactly how anti-gay hate expressed itself in the murder of Lawrence King. What we do know is that he was harassed on a daily basis because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. We do know that adults at his junior high school did not stop it and that kind of tolerance of anti-gay bigotry is pervasive in our nation’s schools. Our hearts go out to Lawrence’s family — and to all young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender kids who are — right now, right this minute — being bullied and beaten in school while adults look the other way.”

National News: State Department drops ban on HIV-positive diplomats

State Department drops ban on HIV-positive diplomats
By Matthew Lee, Associated Press February 18, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under pressure from a lawsuit, the State Department is
changing rules that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming U.S.
diplomats.

Effective Friday, the department removed HIV from a list of medical
conditions that automatically prevent foreign service candidates from
meeting an employment requirement that they be able to work anywhere in the
world.

The change was made after consultation with medical experts and in response
to a lawsuit filed by an HIV-positive man who was denied entry into the
foreign service despite being otherwise qualified, the department said..

Prospective diplomats with HIV will now be considered for the foreign
service on a case-by-case basis, along with those with other designated
ailments like cancer to determine if they meet the "worldwide availability"
standard, it said.

Officials denied that the policy had ever intentionally discriminated
against HIV-positive people and noted that the policy had applied only to
incoming diplomats, not those who had contracted the virus or other
diseases while in the foreign service.

"We have a policy requiring that all foreign service officers be worldwide
available as determined by a medical examination at the time of entry into
the foreign service," said Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman.
"That has not changed."

The department's chief medical officer had "revised its medical clearance
guidelines on HIV based on advances in HIV care and treatment and
consultations with medical experts," Gallegos said. "The new clearance
guidelines provide that HIV-positive individuals may be deemed worldwide
available if certain medical conditions are met."

The decision was hailed by Lambda Legal, a New York-based group that
advocates for the civil rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender
people and those with HIV and represented the plaintiff in the lawsuit
against the State Department.

"The new guidelines mean that candidates for Foreign Service posts who have
HIV will now be assessed on a case-by-case basis, as the law requires,"
said Bebe Anderson, the organization's HIV project director. "At long last,
the State Department is taking down its sign that read, 'People with HIV
need not apply.'"

The change in policy came less than two weeks before the trial in the
lawsuit brought in 2003 by Lorenzo Taylor, a trilingual international
affairs specialist who passed the difficult foreign service application
process but was rejected after he told the department of his HIV status.

"Now people like me who apply to the Foreign Service will not have to go
through what I did," Taylor said in a statement. "They and others with HIV
will know that they do not have to surrender to stigma, ignorance, fear or
the efforts of anyone, even the federal government, to impose second-class
citizenship on them. They can fight back."

Lambda Legal said the suit had been settled "partly due to the new
guidelines," but the State Department said the policy switch was not part
of the settlement.

"The change simply reflects medical advances in the area of HIV care and
maintenance," Gallegos said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

News: 365.com Reporting Al Gore Voices Support for Gay Marriage

Al Gore Voices Support For Gay Marriage
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: January 23, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(New York City) Former Vice President Al Gore has come out in favor of
same-sex marriage.

"I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to
heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians," Gore said in a
posting on his person blog in the Current.com website.

"Shouldn’t we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one’s
partner regardless of sexual orientation?"

Current is the news network founded by Gore.

"[T]he loyalty and love that two people feel for one another when they fall
in love ought to be celebrated and encouraged and shouldn’t be prevented by
any form of discrimination in the law," Gore said in the video posting.

In 2000 when he ran for president Gore said he supported civil unions or
contracts but not marriage.
His turnaround was hailed by gay Democrats.

"We applaud Vice President Gore for firmly stating his support for allowing
same-sex couples the freedom to marry. It is a position which some would
still call courageous, but which a new generation of Americans would call
common sense," said Jon Hoadley, Executive Director of National Stonewall
Democrats.

"Vice President Gore has demonstrated leadership on this subject, and we
encourage all Democratic leaders who restrain their consciences out of
political expediency to demonstrate their leadership as well."
None of the frontrunners seeking the Democratic nomination for president
supports same-sex marriage.

"Clearly, the environment is not the only thing that Al Gore is right
about," said Sean Kosofsky a spokesperson for Triangle Foundation,
Michigan's largest LGBT rights group.

In New Jersey, where gays are pressing the legislature for same-sex
marriage, Garden State Equality said Gore's remarks made him the
highest-ranking public figure in the United States to endorse marriage
equality for same-sex couples.

New Jersey allows civil unions but Garden State Equality says it has
received complaints from 512 couples since the law took effect on February
19, 2007 that employers are not respecting their civil unions because civil
unions are not marriage.

Nearly 100 civil-unioned couples and other witnesses recently testified
about the failure of the civil union law over eight hours of hearings of
the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, which will release its first
interim report on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, the one-year anniversary of
the law.

"Al Gore gets it in a way that the others don't," said Steven Goldstein,
chair of Garden State Equality.

"In the real world, civil unions don't give same-sex couples the rights and
benefits of marriage, because employers view civil unions as inferior. In
New Jersey, the failure of employers to recognize civil unions like
marriage has resulted in a failure rate of our civil union law of at least
1 in every 5."

Legislation to allow gays and lesbians to marry in Maryland will be
introduced on Friday.

The issue of same-sex marriage will be argued in the California Supreme
Court later this year, and in Vermont, the first state to allow civil
unions, a committee set up by lawmakers will deliver its report on whether
to convert civil unions to marriage sometime this spring.

Massachusetts is the only state where same-sex marriage is legal.

©365Gay.com 2008 [source]