10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

News Briefs

continued from page 3

could provide the basis for in-home tests to protect people from fear of public exposure.

Secondary testing to confirm positive results will still be necessary due to the small possibility of false positive results. Mental health professionals historically have worried about the effects of a positive result on a home test, which is why most HIV testing centers offer counseling to patients being tested.

HUD announces LGBT equality rules

Washington, D.C.-Regulations proposed last year to extend antidiscrimination protections in the Department of Housing and Urban Development were announced on January 30 by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

Donovan told the annual LGBT Creative Change conference, "The Obama administration has viewed the fight for equality on behalf of the LGBT community as a priority and I'm proud that HUD has been a leader in that fight. With this historic rule, the administration is saying you cannot use taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from choosing where they want to live on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity-ensuring that HUD's housing programs are open, not to some, not to most, but to all."

The rules were expected to be published in the Federal Register this week, and will go into effect 30 days after publication.

HUD-assisted housing and HUD-insured financing, across both rental assistance and

Pants

Continued from page 1

handled, yelled, "Get off of them! Those are little guys! Leave them alone!" Ondo, Simcox and Komes were able to retreat inside the house. They told their assailant they were going to call the police, and he told them that he was a police officer. According to the suit, it was only time he identified himself as a police officer.

While they were calling the Cleveland Police Department's non-emergency number, thinking the incident was over, their assailant apparently called the police himself. When officers arrived, Ondo and Simcox were arrested. Simcox was still bloody from the gash on his hand, and Ondo had a black eye. As they were escorted into separate squad cars, the neighbor stood outside chatting with officers, who refused to take Komes' statement.

In jail, the couple were booked and fingerprinted, but officers refused to take their mug shots or take photographic evidence of

Rapid

Continued from page 1

on a bicycle stopped to help.

As the investigation progressed and RTA video footage of the attack surfaced, detectives ruled the attack a hate crime under the city of Cleveland's ordinance covering LGBT victims.

Because the attack happened in an RTA station, the matter was handed off to RTA police. They have been joined by the FBI under the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Act that federalizes hate crimes against LGBT victims and authorizes the FBI to assist with investigations of those

cases.

"The FBI will see if it rises to the level of a federal hate crime," said Special Agent Scott Wilson, "and present it to the U.S. Attorney for Civil Rights to see if charges should be filed."

Lancaster has lived in Cleveland 14 years and has been an advocate for victims of domestic violence and rape victims. "Now I'm the person on the other side of the coin," she said.

Now a student at Cleveland State University, Lancaster is still critical of how her case is being handled. She says that Cleveland police were insensitive as initial responders, and incomplete with the initial report, and that the FBI only got involved because

February 10, 2012

•

www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

home ownership programs, cannot use gender identity or sexual orientation as a criteria under the new rule. Lenders also cannot use LGBT status in determining eligibility for Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage lending. Landlords of HUD-assisted or -insured housing also cannot ask about the sexual orientation or gender identity of applicants.

J.C. Penney stands by Ellen

Plano, Texas-J.C. Penney announced on January 25 that they were hiring Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson for the retail chain, and in the following week, stood firm against a threatened anti-gay boycott.

"Importantly, we share the same fundamental values as Ellen," said J.C. Penney president Michael Francis in a statement. "We couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience."

The company is shaking up its retail outfits with a move from almost constant "special sales" to what they call "fair and square pricing.”

It also marks a return to the store for DeGeneres, who worked at one in Metairie, Louisiana when she was young.

She received support from an unlikely quarter when Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on February 6 likened the threatened One Million Moms boycott of the retailer to McCarthyism.

"If you remember with the McCarthy era,

their injuries, although Simcox had to receive a tetanus shot from the jail nurse for his hand.

They were released three days later, and the charges of aggravated disorderly conduct and obstructing official business were dropped.

A week after their encounter, they were awoken at 5:30 am by police with shields and helmets. Ondo responded to the loud pounding on the door, was punched in the face and shoved into the vacant apartment on the second floor. When Simcox came out to the stairwell, he put his hands up and asked what was going on.

He was asked if he was Jason. He responded that he was Jonathan and did not know who Jason was. This earned him two punches in the face. The police officers eventually decided that Ondo and Simcox were the men for whom they were looking, and told them they were being arrested for

of pressure from a Facebook campaign. The initial police report does not identify the attack as a hate crime, which irritates Lancaster.

Lancaster was robbed of about $40 and her cell phone. She says the emergency call phone at the RTA station was not working, also delaying response to her.

According to Lancaster, she located her cell phone through its GPS tracking. It was at a Lake Avenue address a few blocks away and was making calls from there. Lancaster said the Cleveland police showed no interest in this, even though she believes the phone was either with one of her attackers or calling one of her attackers.

The attack may have also cost Lancaster her apartment. Following television news coverage of the attack, Lancaster was evicted from the apartment she lived in for 13 years. The apartment is owned by the Catholic church.

Transgender rights advocate Karen Gross, who is assisting Lancaster with negotiating both the attack and the eviction, said

Lancaster has found a new home and at this time is not pursuing the church for housing discrimination.

Cleveland's fair housing ordinance protects transgender residents.

in the '50s and they were trying to hunt down communist sympathizers and not let them work and put them... What is the difference between McCarthy era Communist blacklist in the '50s and the million moms saying, 'Hey, J.C. Penney and all you other stores, don't you hire any gay people, don't you dare.'" he told guest Sandy Rios, a previous president of Concerned Women for America and current president of Culture Campaign, an anti-gay, conservative Christian activist group.

Court allows counseling student to sue

Ypsilanti, Mich.-A conservative Christian graduate student who was ejected from Eastern Michigan University's counseling program can sue the school for religious discrimination, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on January 27.

The school's practicum for its counseling program follows the American Counseling Association's code of ethics, which requires compassionate care for LGBT clients. Former graduate student Julea Ward said she would counsel clients that homosexuality was sinful and they need to change their lives.

The administration tried to work with her, to explain why that was an inappropriate response, but instead of following a mediation plan, she instead withdrew and filed suit.

The appeals court did not rule on the merits of her claim, but instead said that it

assaulting a police officer.

Simcox's brother Jesse asked if he could at least bring them pants and shoes. The police let him go back upstairs twice, since he first returned with shoes with laces, but refused to let him give them pants. "Faggots don't get to wear pants in jail," he was told.

In the van used to retrieve people for outstanding warrants, they were the first people picked up. The next man laughed at them, saying they must have done something really bad, since the police had called him first to let him know they were on their way so he could get dressed.

They were left in a holding cell for a day, wearing only their underwear and T-shirts, before a female corrections officer gave them pants.

At trial, Ondo and Simcox were found not guilty of all charges.

Prop. 8

Continued from page 3

can't "accidentally" have children, they opined, there is no reason for them to get married.

"Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently," the court wrote in its opinion. "There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted. Because under California statutory law, same-sex couples had all the rights of opposite-sex couples, regardless of their marital status, all parties agree that Proposition 8 had one effect only. It stripped same-sex couples of the ability they previously possessed to obtain from the state, or any other authorized party, an important right--the right to obtain and use the designation of 'marriage' to describe their relationships."

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect in California, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort," the opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt reads.

"The people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group

should be heard by a jury in federal court in Detroit. U.S. District Judge George Steeh, who will likely preside over the trial, ruled in favor of Eastern Michigan University in 2010.

Wedding bells for lawmakers

Boston-Barney Frank, the long-time openly gay Massachusetts representative who is retiring after his current term, will marry his partner, Jim Ready.

The couple have been together since early 2007. They have not set a date yet.

While Frank's home state allows samesex marriage, Ready will not enjoy spousal benefits from Frank's tenure in Congress, since the Defense of Marriage Act precludes extending federal benefits to same-sex part-

ners.

A little south, New York Assemblyman Danny O'Donnell, brother of comedian Rosie O'Donnell, got his marriage license on January 25. O'Donnell, who long championed his state's efforts to legalize samesex marriage, was engaged to his partner of 31 years, John Banta.

Four days later, thanks to O'Donnell's own efforts and the signature of Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the legislation last year, O'Donnell and Banta were married before hundreds of guests, include many of his fellow Assemblymembers.

Compiled by Brian DeWitt, Anthony Glassman and Patti Harris.

The complaint cites numerous grounds for the suit, including violation of equal protection constitutional clauses, cruel and unusual punishment, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault.

It also accuses officers of making "false and perjured statements” to gain the warrant that produced the second, 5:30 am arrest.

Their off-duty neighbor is named as one of the defendants, along with the city and six other officers and 20 unnamed male and female police department and jail employ-

ees.

The Cleveland Police Department did not return requests for comment by press time. Interim Law Director Barbara Langhenry told WJW Channel 8 that the city has no comment.

for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry.”

The court's ruling also pointed out that this case, like Romer, did not revolve around LGBT citizens being stripped of a federal right.

"In Romer, Amendment 2 deprived gays and lesbians of statutory protections against discrimination. Here, Proposition 8 deprived same-sex partners of the right to use the designation of 'marriage.' There is no necessity in either case that the privilege, benefit, or protection at issue be a constitutional right," the court wrote, excusing itself from deciding whether there is a constitutional right to marriage.

The court left the stay of the decision in place that kept same-sex marriages from again being performed in the state. If the Proposition 8 proponents do not appeal the ruling, the stay will lapse and marriages will résumé in California.

However, the Prop. 8 supporters have said that they will appeal to the Supreme Court, rather than take it to the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for an en banc hearing.

The sole dissenting vote on the panel was that of N. Randy Smith, a George W. Bush appointee. Reinhardt is a Carter appointee, and Michael Daly Hawkins was appointed by Bill Clinton.