GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

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

Wedding bells ring in Washington, D.C.

by Anthony Glassman

Washington, D.C.-Wedding bells pealed across the capital after the city's law allowing samesex marriage took effect on March 3.

While protesters sang against the issuing of marriage licenses at the Superior Court building, counter-protesters roamed around looking for anti-gay voices to drown out with songs of their own. Anti-gays were unsuccessful in their continuing attempts to block the law from taking effect. Repeated efforts to bring it before the voters were shot down by the District of Columbia elections board, which ruled repeatedly that ballot measures could not restrict civil rights.

City Council approved the legislation in December, then like all D.C. laws, it went to Congress for review, which was mostly quiet.

Harry R. Jackson, a Maryland clergyman who tried to bring a repeal to the ballot, made a last-ditch effort to delay the law from taking effect by appealing to the Supreme Court, but Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the request on March 2, the same day the law finished its congressional review period.

With a weekend and a required three-day waiting period between applying for marriage licenses and their issuance, the first weddings took place on March 9.

Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C. took extreme measures for the second time in a year, ending

health care benefits for all employees' spouses so they would not have to cover gay and lesbian ones. Last year, they closed their foster care program to avoid placing children with same-sex couples.

The nation's capital joins Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Iowa in allowing full same-sex marriage. Those laws immediately affect just over five percent of the population, according to a tally by Box Turtle Bulletin's Timothy Kincaid.

He tabulated just under another 20 percent of the national population live in states that allow civil unions, broad domestic partnerships or some other construct that offer the vast majority of state benefits of marriage without carrying the name.

Taking into account states whose governments have said they will acknowledge same-sex marriages legal in other jurisdictions and local registries that carry some rights, roughly 46 percent of the United States population has some form of recognition of gay and lesbian relationships.

About seven percent of Ohioans live in Cleveland, Toledo or Cleveland Heights, which have domestic partner registries that confer no rights.

UCLA's Williams Institute estimates that allowing same-sex marriages will bring the District of Columbia $5 million in tax revenue over the next three years and create 700 new jobs. They estimate 14,000 same-sex marriages in the district in that time period.

Passing the tiara

Volume 25, Issue 19 March 12, 2010

Leather Stallion owner Brian Molnar presents Amanda Reckonwith-here channelling Fiancée Knows with a plaque naming her the club's House Diva at a March 6 show. Amanda, a.k.a. Walt Waskawicz, is the latest in a long line of house divas to do drag with a slightly rougher look. Both Molnar and the newest diva fondly remembered Magnolia Thunderpussy, portrayed by Lloyd Pease, who passed away in 2007.

"Lloyd was just a master of this kind of stuff, skag drag," said Waskawicz. Later, he took the stage as Neon Warwick, Dionne's cognitively impaired halfsister. "I like to do silly, fun stuff that makes people chuckle."

Promised fix for TG equality law misses March date

by Eric Resnick

Cleveland City Council will not revise a weakened transgender equality law by the end of March as planned, with budget concerns cited as the

reason.

Council unanimously passed the ordinance on November 30, adding gender identity and expression to the city's non-discrimination code.

The housing protections are complete. But amendments from the city

law department and Council President Martin Sweeney limited the public accommodation and employment protections on the morning of the

vote.

The amendments concerned restrooms and locker rooms.

Under the version passed, employers only have to provide "reasonable access to adequate facilities."

It does not specify what is "reasonable" or "adequate," leaving the possibility that a transitioning person

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could be made to use a facility that is inconvenient or even off the premises, should their employer deem it "reasonable" and "adequate."

The ordinance's sponsor, gay former Ward 14 councilor Joe Santiago, called the amendments and the debate over them "political stuff.”

The "stuff"' appears to be a combination of the councilors' personal issues over restrooms, and the city's ongoing dispute with a transgender woman who was ordered to use the

For the first time, the census will count married gay and lesbian couples

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men's dressing room at a community pool a public accommodation in 2008.

The pool case is presently before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. As amended, the new ordinance allows the city to continue this type of discrimination.

There were never enough votes in council last fall to pass the original version of the measure, which would have had the same protections as transgender equality measures in other Ohio cities.

During the November 30 Finance Committee meeting where the amendments were added, councilor Joe Cimperman, an advocate and co-sponsor of the law, said he would pass a corrective measure by the end of March.

"This is Chapter One," Cimperman said. "This piece can continue to evolve."

Since then, a charter amendment has made council two seats smaller.

Santiago was defeated for re-election in Ward 14, but Jeff Johnson, who has a record of LGBT advocacy, was elected in Ward 8.

Cimperman believes that the new council will have the votes to make the changes, though it is unusual for

city councils to revisit non-budget matters a few months after they pass. Last fall, Cimperman led the measure's unanimous passage made possible by weakening it "grounds to build for next time."

"The goal is by the end of March to amend this ordinance to restore protections, especially in public accommodations."

Cimperman said at the time that he envisioned council taking up a package of LGBT ordinances "in the spring," including one to give city employees domestic partner benefits.

There is currently no ordinance to do that on the table, and no immediate plans to introduce one.

In reply to a March 1 e-mail inquiry, Cimperman wrote, "We are just concluding the budget and have been deep in the deliberations. I am hoping to have more information in a few weeks. As it develops, I will definitely keep you in the loop."

Jacob Nash, a transgender activist involved in passing last fall's ordinance, said Cimperman told him in mid-February that the budget has delayed action on the corrective mea-

sure.

"I'm not surprised that it isn't going Continued on page 9