www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com
•
February 26, 2010 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
Longtime friend takes up equality bill in Ohio Senate
by Eric Resnick
Columbus-A state senator with a long history of sponsoring LGBT equality legislation has stepped up to try to get the Equal Housing and Employment Act passed in the Ohio Senate.
The LGBT anti-discrimination bill passed the House 56 to 39 in September with every House Democrat and five Republicans voting yes. It was the first time any measure like it came to a vote in the Ohio General Assembly.
The act would bar discrimination by sexual orientation and gender identity in public and private employment, housing and public accommodations.
Twenty-one other states have similar laws with 14 of them including gender identity, as do similar local ordinances in all of Ohio's largest cities.
Governor Ted Strickland supports the bill and would sign it into law.
The House bill is now in the Ohio Senate, which had no "companion" bill of its own. Controlled by Republicans, many of whom are conservative, the Senate has always been viewed as the tougher fight by the bill's proponents.
Senate President Bill Harris of Ashland has made public statements suggesting he might want to give the act a chance to pass. But he assigned it to the Rules Committee,
sometimes known as "the place where bills go to die."
Harris chairs this committee, whose stated purpose is to set an agenda for the bill, then send it to another panel for hearings.
Dale Miller, a Democrat who represents Cleveland's west side and Lakewood, has stepped forward to try to move the bill.
Miller said the first thing on his agenda is to work with Minority Leader Capri Cafaro of Hubbard to persuade Harris to move it to a committee where it can have hearings.
Miller said a reasonable committee for it would be the Judiciary Civil Justice Committee, which is chaired by Republican Bill Seitz of Cincinnati. It has three Democrats, including Miller, and six Republicans.
One of the Republicans is David Goodman of Columbus, who sponsored the same measure in the last session.
Seitz, while in the House, sponsored Ohio's "defense of marriage act" which passed in 2004.
Miller said the presence of Seitz and other conservatives on the panel made it "a challenging undertaking."
"I'm not sure Seitz will support it, but if a majority on the committee does, he may allow it to pass."
"I try not to speculate as to others' inner thoughts and motives," Miller said of what he thinks it will take for Harris to reassign the bill.
newsbriefs
Harris' office did not return calls in time for comment for this report.
Miller is not seeking re-election in 2010 in order to pursue a seat on the new Cuyahoga County Council. He said the Democratic leadership had serious discussions about whether Miller or Shirley Smith, also of the Cleveland area, should take the lead on EHEA in the Senate, in large part because Miller will not be returning.
"Smith wanted to defer to me," Miller said, "because I have sponsored similar bills in three previous general assemblies."
Miller introduced his first LGBT equality bill in the House seven years ago, and has sponsored them in both chambers in every session since.
"Smith is capable of taking the lead if we don't get it passed this general assembly," Miller added,
He is concerned with the opposition to the bill by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business unless it also contains provisions that would limit damages a discrimination victim could collect and weaken current Ohio non-discrimination laws on other bi-
ases.
House Democrats used a parliamentary move to block the Chamber's amendment package from being added to EHEA on the floor last September.
"There are those who want to turn this
into a tort reform bill," Miller said, "an Democrats get nervous about that. We war to see that everyone has opportunities fc full redress of grievances."
That maneuver is known as a "poiso pill," and Miller's concern is that simila amendments would create a bill that Dem crats cannot vote for.
"The trouble is we cannot get this don without bi-partisan support," Miller said
The Senate is split 21 12 in favor Republicans. Without the poison amenc ments, all Democrats are expected to vot for the measure, and it is believed that thre Republicans would join them. The last tw Republicans, however, might be difficult 1 find.
Miller said all the states are experiencin partisan gridlock like that in the U.S. Co gress, and that Ohio is not the worst of th lot.
"Except for issues of extreme importanc getting bipartisanship on anything is diff cult," Miller said.
Miller added, however, that "outside this bill per se, attitudes toward LGBT peop of many legislative leaders is improving Miller said he does not expect any mov ment of the bill until after the May prima election.
“But it could be passed during lame duck Miller concluded. That is the period betwe the November election and the close of tl session before the new year.
Wave of mob violence targets gays in Kenya
Mtwapa, Kenya-The rumor of a samesex wedding spread a wave of violence across this African nation, spurred by clerics and the media.
According to a report by Doug Ireland in New York's Gay City News, local LGBT and human rights organizations are reporting that the most widespread version of the story has it that a well-known and popular gay man went to his local barber shop at the beginning of the month, and when the barber complimented him, asking why his hair looked so nice, he joked that he was getting married.
The barber reported it to the imam of his mosque, who told his parishioners to keep tabs on all local gatherings to ensure that no same-sex weddings took place.
That got picked up by a radio station, then spread to other stations.
While Kenya is only about ten percent Muslim, the coastal region surrounding Mtwapa contains 60 percent of the country's Muslim population, so the imams carry great power.
A February 11 press conference held by Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya regional coordinator Sheikh Ali Hussein and Bishop Lawrence Chai of the National Council of Churches of Kenya took to task gay clubs in the city, as well as a medical clinic co-sponsored by Oxford University in England.
The following day, a crowd as large as 300 people surrounded the clinic, and Faridi, the vigilante leading it, went into the clinic and ordered police to arrest an employee. Police arrested another staff member at his insistence, and then the crowd ransacked the clinic, destroying computers and ending their treatment of HIV-positive Kenyans.
Mobs attacked other men they suspected of being gay across the city, and police often arrested the victims instead of their assailants. When a mob finally attempted to attack the police station to get at the detainees, police repelled them with tear gas.
According to Denis Nzioka, a Kenyan gay activist, national media coverage of the attacks was overwhelmingly homophobic.
New Hampshire marriage ban stopped
Concord, N.H.-The state House of Representatives slapped down two attempts to overturn New Hampshire's six-week-old same-sex marriage law on February 17.
Within an hour, lawmakers voted 201135 to kill a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as an opposite-sex institution and 210-109 against a bill that would have repealed the law, which took effect less than two months ago.
Republican Rep. David Bates, who has organized an effort to have towns across the state pass non-binding resolutions calling for the amendment, attempted to have the vote on the amendment delayed until March 17, after most of the town meetings, but he was unsuccessful.
Republican Rep. Anthony DiFruscia, however, did not agree with the effort to bully the House.
"Political blackmail will not prevail over logic, law and equal rights," he said, according to the Boston Globe.
La. must put both dads on birth papers
New Orleans-A federal appeals court ordered the state of Louisiana to issue a gay male couple in San Diego a birth certificate for their adopted son with both fathers' names on it.
The boy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2005, and Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith adopted him in April 2006.
The couple lived in Connecticut at the time.
In October, 2007, the couple sued Louisiana's state registrar's office for the birth certificate after the office refused to put both their names on it.
The February 18 ruling was a unanimous decision of the three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and requires the registrar to put both adoptive parents on the birth certificate. It cites the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, pointing out that Louisiana is required to recognize the out-of-state adoption even if its own law does not allow same-sex couples to adopt children together.
Texas AG says women can't divorce
Austin, Texas-Attorney General Greg Abbott has for the second time intervened in a same-sex divorce case.
Two women, who married in Massachusetts in 2004, returned to their home in Austin and adopted a boy. A little over a year ago, they separated. In the second week of February, they reached an agreement over the division of their assets and custody of the child, and the agreement called for 'them to divorce.
District Court Judge Scott Jenkins agreed to their proposal, and told them to submit it in writing, and he will sign it in March.
However, Abbott has intervened, arguing that the women cannot be divorced since Texas does not recognize the marriage that is being ended. Instead, he said the court should void the marriage.
Jenkins asked both sides to submit briefs
that include whether a divorce could be granted under the federal Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution.
Abbott also intervened in a similar case between two men in front of District Judge Tena Callahan last year. Callahan ruled that barring same-sex marriage violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Abbott appealed, and the case is pending before a Texas appellate court.
Gay R.I. mayor to run for House seat
Providence, R.I.-Openly gay mayor David N. Cicilline is one of two Democrats seeking the U.S. House of Representatives
of the many
reasons
3
why you should advertise in the Gay People's Chronicle
Advertising in the Gay People's Chronicle puts your business in front of a very loyal market.
Advertising in the Gay People's Chronicle
is VERY economical.
The Gay People's Chronicle reaches over 35,000 readers per week.
CALL DAVID
440-986-0051
seat being vacated by Rep. Patrick Kennec at the end of his term.
Cicilline and Rhode Island Democrat Party chair Bill Lynch announced they we throwing their hats in the ring a day aft Kennedy made public his decision not seek reelection.
Cicilline made state history in 2002 whe Continued on page
Special Pricing for the
First
200
150
MEMBERS
4pm-8pm Weekdays
10am-2pm Weekends
KANYTIME FITNESS Clifton Centre
216.221.1712
11517 Clifton Blvd. anytimefitness.com