2 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE July 17, 2009 • www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

Hate crime, 'don't ask' riders may go on defense bill

by Eric Resnick

Washington, D.C.-A group of senators are looking at strategies to do what President Obama is not willing to do: put an immediate halt to gay discharges from the armed services.

The idea, floated this week by first-term New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, is an amendment to a Defense Dept. reauthorization bill that would put an 18-month moratorium on the discharges.

The amendment would join another one proposed for the same Pentagon funding bill, to add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal hate crime laws.

The "don't ask, don't tell" moratorium would force Congress and the administration to focus on the repeal of the 16-yearold law that bans openly gay and lesbian servicemembers.

Most LGBT advocates have been pushing

President Barack Obama to do this by executive order, a move the president has rejected.

Even if the amendment is made part of the "must pass" funding bill, it would merely direct the Secretary of Defense to stop investigating and discharging gay servicemembers. Repealing "don't ask don't tell" would need to be done in a separate piece of legislation.

A bill to repeal the gay ban has been introduced in the House, but has not moved despite polls showing an overwhelming majority, up to 76 percent, of Americans want the ban to be scrapped.

Though he ran on repealing the ban, Obama has angered LGBT advocates with his inaction.

So far, there is no Senate bill, and no lobbying effort by the president to push one.

Until those two things happen, the House bill will probably languish. Meanwhile, an average of two gay servicemembers are discharged every day. Arab Linguist Army Lt.

Dan Choi, who was discharged last week, was the 266th gay discharge since Obama was sworn in.

Gillibrand, who was appointed to fill the seat formerly held by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would face a difficult challenge getting an amendment to pass before the senate goes on summer recess the end of July. However, Majority Leader Harry Reid said July 14 that he would support Gillibrand's effort and take it one step further.

"I want to make it permanent," Reid told the Advocate's Washington correspondent Kerry Eleveld.

Reid has not made the repeal a priority to this point, either, and it is not clear whether or not his support for Gillibrand's proposed amendment is an attempt to stop the discharges without actually repealing the law that requires them, or whether he sees a permanent suspension of discharges as part of a repeal strategy.

Federal DOMA faces three legal challenges

by Eric Resnick

Boston-The federal "defense of marriage act" is now under attack by three lawsuits including one from a state government and by the president who signed it into law.

Former president Bill Clinton, who signed the 1996 law defining marriage as between one man and one woman and saying that states do not need to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, now says he supports full marriage equality.

Speaking at the Campus Progress National Conference June 8, Clinton said he is "basically in support" of same-sex marriage, reversing the position he held as president.

Clinton had previously signaled that his opinion on the matter was "evolving."

With that, Clinton became the highest profile Democrat in a long line who have moved toward marriage equality in the past year.

A Gallup poll released in May found that the majority of Americans still oppose samesex marriage, but a majority of Democrats, 55 percent, now favor it.

Still, legislative attempts to repeal DOMA are not expected any time soon, despite President Barack Obama's campaign promises to tackle it.

But three lawsuits might.

The most recent, and perhaps the strongest, was filed in the U.S. District Court in Boston by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on July 8.

The suit alleges that even though samesex couples marry in Massachusetts, DOMA "denies essential rights and protections" because it "interferes with the Commonwealth's sovereign authority to define and regulate marriage."

"As applied to the Commonwealth and its residents, DOMA constitutes an overreaching and discriminatory federal law," the suit says.

The suit challenges the federal one-manand-one-woman definition of marriage,

seeking to modify federal law so that Massachusetts can regulate marriage as it sees fit.

It does not affect states like Ohio which also prohibit same-sex marriage.

The suit lists benefits including Social Security, pensions, health benefits and taxes as areas where married Massachusetts couples are being denied access by the federal law, and it points out that DOMA resulted from animus toward gay and lesbian people.

Legal commentators admire the approach taken by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, as the suit challenges DOMA from a conservative perspective, and makes a conservative argument: states' rights.

The second suit was filed by Mary Bonauto of the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders of Boston. This is the legal team that won marriage equality in Massachusetts in 2004.

It is is the same U.S. District Court in Boston. It was filed March 3 and will be amended later this month. The Justice Department has until September 18 to respond.

The plaintiffs are eight same-sex couples and three surviving spouses, all married in Massachusetts but unable to access federal rights and benefits due to the 1996 law.

"As United States citizens, each of the plaintiffs is entitled to equal consideration and treatment from the federal government, and with respect to each and every program operated by the federal government, including employment and retirement benefit programs arising from employment with the federal government, Social Security, taxation, and passport services," according to the complaint.

"If not for the application of DOMA to all federal programs, the plaintiffs, as persons married under Massachusetts law, would receive the same status, responsibilities and protections under federal law as other married persons," the complaint continues.

The plaintiffs also argue that the third section of DOMA, the part that defines

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Additionally, they contend that section is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government into marriage law, always considered the province of the states.

Like the other Boston suit, this one does not ask the court to invalidate DOMA in its entirety. It does not challenge Section 2, which gives the states the right to decide if

Games

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While the celebration at the Rock Hall is free, attendees must go the Cleveland Synergy Foundation website and click the Frivolity banner to print out the invitation.

According to Cleveland Synergy Foundation co-founder and president W. Douglas Anderson, the bid to bring the games here is now entering terra incognita.

Much of the time, meetings with the site selection committee have been in arenas or community centers, with up to a thousand people from the community. This year, Boston and Washington are holding what they hope will be large rallies to support their bids.

Cleveland, the birthplace of rock and roll, has a built-in advantage in the Hall of Fame and Museum, which will be completely accessible for Frivolity.

"We've turned ours into an event," Anderson said.

QNation.fm, an LGBT online radio station, will broadcast from the event, which will feature entertainment by the North Coast Men's Chorus and the chorus' Coastliners performing songs from Jersey Boys, Windsong, the Blazing River Freedom Band, Dancing Wheels, the Rainbow Wranglers, the Cleveland Fetish Community, Cleveland Kings and Girls, Mona West, Edye Gregory, Brianna Brooks, Maria Garrison, Stevie Reese Desmond and Rosario Garcia.

Those are just the performers who have confirmed their involvement by press time.

Anderson is very hopeful for a large attendance at the event. There have already been 9,000 hits to the website about the party, which he described as a "hodge-podge of frivolity and fun." Anderson, who returned to the city a few years ago after living in California, has become one of Cleveland's most vocal champions, first with the North Coast Athletics Volleyball league, and now with the Cleveland Synergy Foundation.

"Our plan was to not only make Cleveland a welcoming city, but an affordable city for people to come to, and 90 percent of the events would be held in downtown Cleveland," he said. "It's clearly about recognizing the miracle that sits in this city."

The hate crime bill is further along. Known as the Matthew Shepard Act or the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it passed the House in April.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, is adding it to the defense funding bill. The tactic of attaching this bill to a mustpass spending measure is a familiar one.

Leahy and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts tried the same thing in 2007. The bill, which adds federal penalties for bias crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity, survived a filibuster attempt with 60 votes that year.

Then-President George W. Bush threatened to veto the war funding bill if the hate crime measure was kept in.

Congress backed down and removed it in a House-Senate conference committee. Obama has issued no similar threat.

they will recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

The third suit pending is the California challenge that touched off a firestorm of criticism last month when the Obama administration filed its brief that compared samesex marriage to pedophilia and incest.

The suit alleges discrimination by a couple because DOMA does not allow them to be considered married in states they travel to.

All three suits will likely be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court within the next few years, if DOMA is not repealed first.

Cleveland's bid has the support of U.S. representatives and senators, the athletics committee and, of course, the convention and visitor bureaus of both Cleveland and Akron.

An even more fascinating letter of endorsement came from an odd place, hundreds of miles away-the mayor of St. Louis.

"This has never happened before in the history of the Federation of Gay Games that the mayor of another city recognizes a bid to host the Gay Games," he noted.

With an expected participation of up to 15,000 athletes and a quarter of a million spectators, the Gay Games could bring $60 million to northeast Ohio if the bid is successful.

"We've got such a strong case for why the gay games should be held in Cleveland. We have such great value for the athletes and spectators, we're so close to other metropolitan areas and Canada. We have a strong reason for the games to be held here," said Bethany Hilt of Fleishman Hillard International Communications, who are working with the Cleveland Synergy Foundation to promote their efforts.

Hilt points out that there are a number of major metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Canada within 500 miles of Cleveland.

"Your dollar will definitely go farther here than in Boston or D.C., and that's critically important for international spectators and athletes," she noted. "More visitors add up to soldout hotel space and significant economic impact across the entire greater Cleveland region."

While the Cleveland Synergy Foundation's Gay Games bid is not political in itself, if the games were held in Cleveland, the economic impact they have on the area could ripple out into social and political gains.

"It will create the ability for people to recognize that we, as citizens, should have the same privileges that everyone else has," Anderson said. "That is not our primary goal, but we get one opportunity. We get one chance at this."

Free tickets to Frivolity on Friday, July 31 can be downloaded from www.clevelandsynergyfoundation.org/

RockandRollEvent.html..