GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

March 23, 2012

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Petition

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officer of the Strategy Network, a campaign consulting firm. According to its website, the firm's specialties include ballot planning and management, voter identification and persuasion, petition and ballot placement, door to door canvassing and web based communications.

He is also the CEO of Professional Petition Management, LLC, which is a signature-gathering firm.

In order to make the ballot, Freedom to Marry Ohio will need to submit 385,253 valid signatures from all around Ohio.

Freedom to Marry Ohio lists its address as 1349 East Broad Street in Columbus, which is also the address of the Strategy Network and Professional Petition Management.

Firms who consult for campaigns get paid whether the end result is favorable or not.

Equality Ohio is still cautious

Equality Ohio is still not endorsing the effort and issued a second statement pointing to "reasonable questions" about the language as one of the

reasons.

Equality Ohio director Ed Mullen said the organization has "engaged in the due diligence and deliberation on the marriage amendment" and the research has shown three significant findings.

Mullen wrote: "There are three clear takeaways from this research:

"1. There is a lot of excitement in Ohio for an effort to achieve marriage equality;

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"2. There are reasonable questions about the current language, process and timing that will need to be resolved before many of the community members we have spoken to will support this effort; and

"3. The effort to achieve marriage equality in Ohio will be a difficult one that will require significant resources, particularly financial resources.'

The organization's caution comes from the response to a presentation made by James at Equality Ohio's Leadership Summit on March 3.

About a month earlier, James had created a Facebook page to cajole Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman into joining a national list of mayors that support marriage equality.

The social media effort was successful, and as it grew, James decided to launch an effort to amend Ohio's constitution.

However, James did not get consensus on the language to be proposed, or find out if there is support for a campaign that could cost $10 million and tens of thousands of volunteer hours.

Jacob McClain of Ask Cleveland noted at the Leadership Summit that James had not been in touch with organizations expert in LGBT ballot initiatives or sought counsel from a campaign in Maine that also seeks to overturn that state's marriage ban by initiative this year.

"We have stirred it up a bit," James responded. "This is what democracy looks like."

"And at the end of March we'll birth a petition,” he said.

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Park board

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Before the council acts, however, they want to clear up what they view as ambiguity on the part of the park and recreation board. Some of the members, she feels, may be willing to support going to a household rate, "but they voted down their chairman's proposal."

Colavecchio said the superintendent will poll the members of the park and recreation board to see what is behind the ambiguity, and noted that city council was slated to have a work session with the Park and Rec board that evening.

"I expect we'll have an answer by the end of the week" about whether city council will get more directly involved, she noted.

The issue came under a spotlight after Shane and Coty May were denied

News Briefs

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the personal and private life of the individual."

Garner was in a relationship with Robert Eubanks. On the night of the arrest that led to the case, the three of them and a possible fourth man were drinking and watching TV in Lawrence's apartment. Eubanks thought that Garner was flirting with Lawrence and left, saying he was going to get a soda, according to Carpenter's book. Instead, he called the police, claiming that Garner was brandishing a gun.

When police came in, Lawrence, inebriated, screamed at them, demanding a warrant. Police noticed sexually explicit gaythemed art on the walls and charged the men with "deviate sexual intercourse."

A gay file clerk saw the arrest report and mentioned it to the bartender at his local pub, who then persuaded Lawrence to call a civil rights attorney. Lambda Legal agreed to defend them, and the case made it to the Supreme Court, where the men were exonerated.

Lawrence died at age 68 last December. Garner died in 2006 at the age of 39.

Pitch

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also wrote the film Stonewall and worked on the series Noah's Arc, did the British television show Metrosexuality and has an even newer film, Fit. He acquits himself admirably here in all of his multifarious professions, including teacher, rattling off a list of famous LGBT people so complete I had to check out Angela Davis on Wikipedia. Oh, I know who she is, but who knew she came out in 1997 in an Out magazine interview? And the stuff about Justin Fashanu, just fascinating.

At its roots, however, Beadle-Blair has crafted an intensely funny film that has real heart. If the ending is too pat, if some of the scenarios are a little too out-there, none of that matters, because it was a fun, light-

a family membership at the natatorium. Coty was injured while serving in Iraq, and Shane is his primary caregiver. Coty uses the pool for physical therapy, and the family rate would save them nearly $270 a year over the $500 per person individual memberships.

Thousands of people signed a Change.org petition created by the Mays, who were married in Washington, D.C. last year.

Medina, Akron and Twinsburg have city-run health facilities that allow same-sex couples to get family rates. Medina changed its "married couple" requirement to any two people in the same household, and Akron allows same-sex couples living together to do the same. Twinsburg Fitness Center allows domestic partners to obtain family memberships.

Top court lets school bias rule stand

Washington, D.C.-The Supreme Court on March 19th refused to hear an appeal in the case barring a Christian campus organization from discriminating against LGBT people who wish to join.

A federal appellate court affirmed San Diego State University's policies barring recognized campus organizations from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. By refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

Alpha Delta Chi, a self-identified Christian fraternity and sorority, sued SDSU, saying the policy violated their freedom of religion. As an officially recognized organization at a public university, however, Alpha Delta Chi was funded in part by taxpayer money.

Compiled by Brian DeWitt, Anthony Glassman and Patti Harris.

hearted romp that entertains greatly. Beyond that, he has given us enough eye candy in a completely sexless film to allow anyone a totally innocent "guilty pleasure."

What is somewhat disconcerting, though, it that all of the actors acquit themselves well. It seems that in American movies, the randomly pretty men cannot act their ways out of paper bags, while in Britain, every Tom, Dick and Harry can do Hamlet. Does anyone know the process by which one. could try to claim political asylum in the U.K.?

Regardless, Kickoff is another win from Wolfe Video, who have been supplying LGBT filmic needs for ages. Long may they howl.

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