GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

Do ask, do tell

Ohio's Newspaper for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

Welcome Ask Cleveland Canvass

BRIAN DEWITT

Sarah Bartholomew, left, and Katie Caldwell greet volunteers before they set out to canvass voters to support the Cleveland domestic partner registry. Passed by city council in December, the registry has been challenged by a church coalition that wants to repeal it in a fall election. Two pro-gay organizations are campaigning to keep the measure, Cleveland Families Count and Ask Cleveland. Sixteen volunteers, part of the latter group, gathered outside on the warm Saturday afternoon of March 7 before going door to door in the Glenville neighborhood.

Cincinnati students protest after two men bashed near campus

by Anthony Glassman

Cincinnati-A major protest erupted after a gay man and his heterosexual friend were attacked near the University of Cincinnati campus.

The two men were walking back to campus on Clifton Avenue in the pre-dawn hours of March 6, when they ran into three other men that one of the victims knew from high school. But when the trio found out

that the other man is gay, they attacked him and their former classmate, who was protecting him.

Both victims, who have asked that their names not be released, are reportedly doing well following the attack.

It took the University of Cincinnati police 12 days to issue a campus alert. By then, two of the suspects had been arrested and were facing felonious assault charges.

A Hamilton County grand

jury lowered the charges against Ethan Kirkwood and Matthew Kafagolis to misdemeanor assault. Kafagolis is out on $1,000 bond between the two charges, and Kirkwood is out on $5,000 bond.

Kafagolis faces a non-jury trial on April 8. Kirkwood has a pre-trial hearing on April 2.

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Inside This Issue

U.S. reverses itself, now supports U.N. gay

measure

Kiss the girls Page 8

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Letters to the Editors.............

Charlie's Calendar ..........

Resource Directory..............

Classifieds

Volume 24, Issue 20 March 27, 2009

Butler heads off 'married-only' rule

by Eric Resnick

Hamilton, Ohio-Butler County commissioners may have thwarted an attempt by the children services director to give adoption preferences to married heterosexual couples.

The commissioners, alarmed by press accounts that retiring Children Services director Michael Fox proffered a rule giving married couples preference in adoption, ordered an investigation and had the policy stopped.

The rule, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, was changed in December but only became public earlier this month. But it was never used, said Nancy Lisec, an executive assistant with Butler County Children Services.

Lisec said the agency has only about 15 adoptions a year, and none since December.

Lisec said that the agency's intake director Darlene Campbell reviews their policies to make sure they comport with Ohio law.

"But she has a boss," said Lisec, "I'm sure Mr. Fox came up with the policy."

Fox, a former state representative and former county commissioner, served as the agency's head for 20 months.

A Republican, Fox once chaired the House Education Committee. His career was often controver-

sial, with ethical violations over undeclared gifts. There is a current FBI investigation over his role in a county fiber optic contract that led to the county auditor pleading guilty to bank fraud. Fox is retiring in poor health, with his house in foreclosure.

His official retirement is March 31, but he began a medical leave that made March 20 his last day of work.

At the same time Fox proffered the adoption policy, he issued a second one that is also disputed.

Known as the "common sense" policy, it allows Children Services workers to ignore rules that don't make sense to them, or that they think are merely bureaucratic.

The commissioners are reviewing that one, too.

The adoption policy was highlighted in an Equality Ohio e-mail alert suggesting that other Ohio counties may follow Fox's lead.

A check found no evidence that any other counties are looking at similar rules.

A 2006 proposal to ban LGBT adoptions and foster parenting went nowhere in the Ohio legislature and is not likely to return.

Current Ohio law and court interpretations require adoptions and foster care placements to be in the best interest of the child, regardless of the marital status or sexual orientation of the perspective parents.

Study: Gay couples more likely to be poor

by Eric Rosnick

Boston-"The myth of gay and lesbian affluence is just that a myth," says a study published March 20 by the Williams Institute.

The study, titled "Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community" is not the first to challenge the myth of gay and lesbian affluence. But it is the most complete, and the first to use actual census data and other well-regarded studies to track family growth and health indi-

cators.

It is also the first to analyze the causes and consequences of

poverty among gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

"Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are as likely to be poor as are heterosexuals, while gay and lesbian couple households, after adjusting for the factors that help explain poverty, are more likely to be poor than married heterosexual couple households," the study says. "Further, poverty rates of chil-

dren in gay and lesbian couple households are strikingly high," it continues.

The Williams Institute is a think tank that studies sexual orientation law and policy, connected to the University of California Los Angeles Law School.

The perception of gay affluence was largely created in the 1990s by marketing companies seeking to cultivate gay commerce opportunities. With no census data available, the marketing researchers studied groups likely to be well off, like Human Rights Campaign membership lists, magazine subscribers and people who used gay travel agencies.

Though always suspect, those surveys were rarely challenged because the belief that gay and lesbian people had discretionary income to spend made it easier for groups and events like Pride festivals to find corporate sponsors. Some also believed that the perception bred political influence.

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