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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

February 12, 2010

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

United Way gets its first Pride Council in Columbus

by Eric Resnick

Columbus-The United Way of Central Ohio has launched the Pride Council, the first and only United Way affinity group in the nation for LGBT donors. United Way of America sees it as a model program to be replicated in other areas.

Gay Central Ohio United Way board member Tom Grote says the Pride Council will ultimately identify more LGBT contributors and direct more United Way money to LGBT organizations.

United Way giving fell out of favor among many LGBT contributors after a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision exempting the Boy Scouts from equality laws, based on the group's claim that opposition to homosexuality is one of their core values.

United Way organizations continued funding the Boy Scouts. Some local United

Ways made exceptions to their own nondiscrimination rules in order to do so.

That led to additional anger over a second issue: very few LGBT programs got United Way funding. In some communities, progressive philanthropists set up competing agencies to re-direct their charitable giving.

The Central Ohio organization began to address this. While continuing to fund some Boy Scout programs, it also created a place on its board for LGBT representation in 2003.

That seat was first held by Mary Jo Hudson, who resigned in 2006 to take a cabinet post with Governor Ted Strickland. Grote has been in the seat since.

The United Way of Central Ohio currently gives money to the Kaleidoscope Youth Center and the Columbus AIDS Task Force.

They also gave an early $10,000 gift to help establish the Legacy Fund in 2001 and has provided leadership training to LGBT professionals. UW also funded the LGBT census in central Ohio, which helped to assess the needs of LGBT individuals and families.

Grote said the Pride Council, launched January 21, will build on this work. It is led by a 15-member steering committee of LGBT community leaders.

"The first goal is to aggregate LGBT money already being given," said Grote. "People will be able to check a Pride Council box on their donor cards."

Grote explained that doing this will let the United Way know how much money is coming from the LGBT community in the same way that aggregating political contributions tells politicians how strong their LGBT support is.

"If we can identify LGBT donors, it will be a powerful thing," Grote said.

Grote said another goal is to provide opportunities for LGBT and non-LGBT people to interact, which will introduce more corporate leaders to LGBT people and facilitate more interaction between LGBT and non-LGBT community leaders.

"The other goal is to raise more money for the United Way," Grote said. "People can designate their contributions to LGBT organizations."

Grote said he expects that more United Way money will come to LGBT programs as a result of the Pride Council.

Grote said that United Way of America has contacted its central Ohio affiliate for guidance in setting up similar LGBT programs in other communities.

The Pride Council is online at www.liveunitedcentralohio.org and on

Facebook.

Obama condemns Uganda anti-gay law at prayer event

by Anthony Glassman

Washington, D.C.-Both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used their opportunity to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 4 to vilify a proposed Ugandan law that would impose the death penalty on "habitual" violators of the country's ban on homosexuality.

The bill would bar “promotion" of homosexuality and would carry a three-year penalty for those who failed to turn in a gay man or a lesbian within 24 hours.

AIDS activists warn than the prohibition on "promoting" homosexuality would cripple prevention efforts in the east African nation.

John Carroll

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of the University Community, strikes at the very heart of this institution."

It later quotes a Vatican catechism: "They [gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people and those questioning their sexual identity] must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."

However, the statement then says that the university "also draws to the attention of all its members the traditional Catholic moral teaching that properly locates sexual activity within the relationship of a man and a woman united for life through marriage as husband and wife. Our religious identity therefore impels us to recognize the norm of chastity for everyone, whether homosexual or heterosexual, just as that same identity likewise impels us to recognize the norm of universal love and respect."

Obama referred to the law as "odious," while saying that, regardless of one's stance on same-sex marriage, targeting someone because of their sexual orientation is "unconscionable."

Clinton, who has attended every Prayer Breakfast since 1993 when her husband was the newly-minted president, spoke of the good that religion can do, as well as its darker side, when it is used to oppress.

"But religion, cloaked in naked power lust, is used to justify horrific violence, attacks on homes, markets, schools, volleyball games, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples," she said. "From Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan to Nigeria and the Middle East, religion is used as a club to deny the

"Given the imprecise legal definitions of the terms involved, and the ongoing attempts to codify shifting societal attitudes both through statutes and legal precedent, the University deems [changing official antidiscrimination policies] unwise and inappropriate," the statement concludes "The distinctions between sexual ori entation and sexual conduct essential! to Catholic teaching may not be the chief consideration of civil authoritie: and judicial bodies. As a Catholic, suit University, John Carroll Unive sity must always and will always ave any attempts by external civil judici: bodies to determine how it may or ma ̧ not conduct itself according to its special religious identity."

Niehoff was, according to JCU student Kevin Henderson, in Jamaica at the time of the protest, but cut short his trip to schedule an open forum on the subject slated for February 7.

BODY LANGUAGE NOT FOR MEN ONLY

human rights of girls and women, from the Gulf to Africa to Asia, and to discriminate, even advocating the execution of gays and lesbians."

"So in the Obama administration, we are working to bridge religious divides," she continued. "We're taking on violations of human rights perpetrated in the name of religion. And we invite members of Congress and clergy and active citizens like all of you here to join us."

"Every time I travel, I raise the plight of girls and women, and make it clear that we expect to see changes. And I recently called President Museveni, whom I have known through the prayer breakfast, and expressed the strongest concerns about a law being

"We're waiting to see how the dialogue goes tomorrow before taking further action," he said on February 6. "Students will not be silent on this issue until a formal nondiscrimination policy is passed."

He pointed out that the lack of a formal policy gives license to students to harass and discriminate against LGBT students.

While Henderson has never been made to feel unwelcome on campus, he knows other students who have.

"At many times, students feel unsafe, and that's something that has really come out in this dialogue," he noted. "Many students experience harassment and many times it goes under the radar."

Just over a year shy of graduation, he has started the process of picking a graduate school. As the discussion on JCU's campus heats up, whether a school has an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination policy is becoming an in-

considered in the parliament of Uganda,” she, stressed.

The same week, a resolution in the House of Representatives put forward by Democrat Howard Berman of California and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and a matching Senate resolution from Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and his Republican compatriot Tom Coburn of Oklahoma were both introduced. The House measure has 39 co-sponsors, and the Senate version currently has four.

The Senate version calls on Uganda's parliament to reject the proposed law, while the House version urges all nations to decriminalize homosexuality.

creasingly important criterion for him. "It will be a huge consideration. These kinds of polices affect the level of openness and honest communication that students can have because of the level at which they can freely express themselves," he said, noting that freedom from harassment allows "interaction with students and professors in a meaningful way."

"I'm really hopeful that the policy will change and I do think that after seeing the student response, the administration and board will see the importance of this kind of policy," Henderson noted.

While Niehoff believes that implementing an official policy goes against Catholic doctrine, at least two other major Jesuit educational institutions disagree: Boston College bars discrimination by sexual orientation, and Georgetown University protects both sexual orientation and gender identity.

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