GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

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Ohio's Newspaper for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com Volume 27, Issue 10 November 4, 2011

BRIAN DEWITT

Martina Navratilova watches as Elton John returns a serve during the celebrity match of the World Team Tennis Smash Hits benefit. The two were among four out players in the October 27 event at Public Hall; the others were Billie Jean King and Amélie Mauresmo.

Tennis event raises $500K for AIDS Taskforce, Elton John charity

by Anthony Glassman

Cleveland-Elton John and Billie Jean King brought their World Team Tennis Smash Hits tournament to Cleveland on October 27, raising a half-million dollars for charity and breaking a 9-9 tie in previous events.

In addition to the exhibition games featuring some major tennis names, a live auction sold off some hugely impressive items. Included among these were two piano benches signed by Elton John, 45-minute hitting sessions with Andy Roddick and Martina Navratilova, packages with tickets and accommodation for the French Open, the U.S. Open, Wimbledon and the Super Bowl, as well as two nights at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, along with

two tickets to Elton John's new show.

A number of the auction items were doubled. After a winning bid of $5,500 was put in for one piano bench, for instance, John offered to sign a second one for the second-place bidder.

It was the 19th annual event, and benefited the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland. In its almost two decades of existence, the WTT Smash Hits have raised over $10 million for charity.

Team Billie Jean was comprised of Billie Jean King, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Jan-Michael Gambill and Coco Vandeweghe. Team Elton was made up of Sir

Elton John, Andy Roddick, Amélie Mauresmo, Mark Knowles and Lauren Davis, who lives in the Cleveland suburb of Gates Mills.

The event took the coed team format, with one set each of men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles.

In men's doubles, Team Billie Jean took the early lead with McEnroe and Gambill defeating Roddick and Knowles 5-2. The women's doubles also saw King's team pulling ahead, with Navratilova and Vandeweghe overtaking Mauresmo and Davis 5-1.

In women's singles, however, continued on page 2

Cuyahoga puts off partner benefit vote

by Anthony Glassman

Cleveland-The Cuyahoga County Council on October 25 put off a vote on proposed domestic partner benefits for county employees, sending it back to committee at the behest of the committee chair and the sponsor.

The measure was slated for its second vote, the eleventh item on the agenda. When it came up, however, council president C. Ellen Connally announced that Human ́ Resources, Appointments and Equity Committee chair Yvonne Conwell and council vice-president Sunny Simon had asked that it be sent back to the committee for more hearings, which will be announced on the committee website.

At the head of the meeting, four people spoke out against extending health insurance benefits to domestic partners of city employees. At least one cited propaganda from Citizens for Community Values, an anti-gay organization in the Cincinnati suburbs.

Doris Durica used the same arguments she made two years ago during the city of Cleveland's deliberations over passing a domestic partner registry, saying that the legislation was "ripe for fraud," that she could register as a domestic partner with a friend of hers and claim benefits while providing little proof of a relationship, and called domestic partnerships "counterfeit family," akin to counterfeit money.

During the Cleveland city council meetings, she handed out photocopied dollar bills, using the same "counterfeit" claims.

She was followed by another speaker who cited a single instance of a lesbian mother of an adopted

child shaming her daughter in public as an example of the unfitness of gay and lesbian people to be parents, then freted that the domestic partner benefits would be followed by same-sex couples being allowed to jointly adopt.

Gay people can already adopt in Ohio; they simply cannot do so as a couple, which deprives the child of the stability of having both members of the couple listed as their parents.

Ilona Frank then made an economic argument against the benefits, which would cost a small fraction at most of what benefits for married couples cost. She cited CCV and Bowling Green's equality ordinances, omitting that voters upheld the measures last year.

The final speaker on the topic, William Brownley, quoted from the state's anti-marriage constitutional amendment and its provisions barring the recognition of statuses designed to substantially duplicate the rights and benefits of marriage.

However, that issue already has made it through the courts in Ohio, with suits against domestic partner benefits in public universities being dismissed, and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the amendment specifies "all of the attributes of marriage," not some of them. The chief justice noted that this includes only marriage and civil unions.

That ruling came in a domestic violence case in which an unmarried abuser argued unsuccessfully that he should be exempt from domestic violence laws because they create a spousal relationship where the amendment would prohibit it.

Video shows teen bashed in classroom

by Anthony Glassman

Chillicothe A gay 15-yearold was attacked in his classroom on October 17. His assailant was suspended and faces the possibility of felony assault charges.

The attack was captured on a cell phone video camera and

Inside This Issue

Michigan moves to cancel DP benefits and local rights laws

posted to Facebook and YouTube. The victim's mother, Rebecca Collins, was interviewed by WSYX Channel 6 news in Columbus and provided a running commentary to the video, noting that the other

continued on page 2

News Briefs .....

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Abraham Lincoln:

Charlie's Calendar ......... Resource Directory.. Classifieds

A life in the closet?

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