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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

April 6, 2012

T-shirt

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again the next day. He was again summoned to the principal's office, his mother was called into the school, and was told to remove the shirt or face suspension. Couch again complied.

Over the summer, Couch learned that the First Amendment protects his right to wear the shirt. When school resumed in the fall of 2011, he approached Gebhardt for permission to wear it.

Mr. Gebhardt threatened Couch with suspension if he wore the shirt.

In January 2012, Lambda Legal sent a letter to Gebhardt supporting Couch's right to wear the shirt.

Freedom

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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.

In 2004, the Strategy Network was contracted by the now-defunct Ohioans for Growth and Equality to run a campaign against the marriage ban amendment, which was then on the ballot. That campaign was called Ohioans Protecting the Constitution. James was the political director of the campaign, and his then business partner Ålan Melamed was the campaign's manager.

Until just before the election, all campaign employees were considered employees of the Strategy Network, paid by fund transfers between the campaign and the company.

According to reports filed with the Ohio secretary of state, the Strategy Network was paid $131,800 for consulting between July and October 2004. Another $8,145 was passed through the Strategy Network for employee salaries and benefits.

The Strategy Network and James separated from the campaign on October 28 of

that year.

The relatively short OPC campaign raised a little over $1 million, with consulting payments to the Strategy Network averaging around $32,000 per month.

A successful campaign to amend Ohio's constitution would likely cost around $10 million.

The Strategy Network and Professional Petition Management have consulted for gaming and casino interests regularly since 2006. They worked on a 2010 issue establishing standards for livestock, and they worked for a campaign that defeated a 2007 referendum on a new law limiting strip clubs.

New ballot language is approved

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine rejected James' initial ballot language on March 9. In a letter, he told petitioners that the summary they submitted was not "a fair and truthful statement of the proposed con-

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The school district responded, "The message communicated by the student's T shirt is sexual in nature and therefore indecent and inappropriate in a school setting."

"Schools should be in the business of educating students about First Amendment freedoms, not trampling on their right to express themselves," said Christopher Clark, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal. "The school has not offered and cannot offer any legitimate reason for threatening [Couch] with disciplinary action. They have singledout an intelligent, respectful student and tried to shame him just because he's gay.

stitutional amendment."

On March 26, James and the petition committee submitted new text and signatures. DeWine certified them on April 3, clearing the way for the statewide petition.

The new language simply states: "Be it resolved by the People of the State of Ohio that Article XV, Section 11 of the Ohio Constitution be adopted and read as follows: Section 11. In the State of Ohio and its political subdivisions, marriage shall be a union of two consenting adults not nearer of kin than second cousins, and not having a husband or wife living, and no religious institution shall be required to perform or recognize a marriage."

The current Section 11, which is the 2004 marriage ban amendment, would be deleted and replaced by this new text.

"They have cured the objections [DeWine] raised before," said Mullen, who is an attorney, "but there are still continuing objections around the community.”

Mullen said the broad community needs to discuss and come to consensus on the amendment language before taking the process forward, and Equality Ohio plans to do that.

Solomon pointed to the marriage initiative now underway in Maine as an example of how ballot initiatives should be approached in order to ensure their success.

"Maine is a small state, about 900,000 voters," said Solomon, "and there has been hard work going on for years, since 2009 continuously, to raise money, do public education, and even run television spots. They never stopped campaigning."

In 2009, Maine lawmakers passed a samesex marriage law, but voters repealed it in a referendum. Marriage equality proponents hope to persuade voters to enact a similar measure this November.

Freedom to Marry and other national LGBT advocacy organizations are supporting that effort.

"We want to see and be part of smart campaigns that bring about the freedom to marry," said Solomon. "Campaigns would be wise to figure out a smart, realistic pathway and a plan that is very heavy on public education."

Asked if the current Ohio effort looks like one of those campaigns, Solomon said, "No."

A LESBIAN AND GAY PSYCHOTHERAPY PRACTICE

D.L. DUNKLE & ASSOCIATES

News Briefs

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TG student sues Miami U. over dorm

Oxford, Ohio-A transgender student filed a discrimination complaint with Miami University after he was given a resident advisor assignment to a dorm with female students.

Kaeden Kass filed the complaint in March, saying that the university should have assigned him to a facility with other male students. University officials told him they assigned the room because of the gender listed on his legal records.

A university spokesperson said that the school handles all claims of discrimination seriously, but she could not comment on the issue because of student privacy.

The university offers some gender-neutral housing, but it is currently limited to two suites of four students each and one apartment. Kass said that those suites were not presented as an option when he put in for the RA position. Prisons must allow TG treatment

Washington, D.C.-The Supreme Court on March 26 let stand a ruling that prison doctors must provide medically necessary treatment for transgender prisoners.

The case involved a Wisconsin law that banned prison doctors from providing care to transitioning inmates like sexual reassignment surgery or hormone treatment. The law passed in 2005.

The following year, Lambda Legal filed suit against the law on behalf of transgender women in prison who "were receiving severe physical and psychological harm after the medical treatment they had been receiving under prison doctors' care was abruptly cut off due to this new draconian law."

The law was struck down by a federal court, and a three-judge appellate court panel upheld that ruling. Wisconsin appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to take the case, leaving the earlier rulings that the law was a violation of constitutional proscriptions against cruel and unusual punishment and violated the Equal Protection Clause to stand.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons, after losing a similar case last year, changed its policy to allow prisoners access to evaluation and treatment along the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's Standards of Care.

'Bully' film to be released unrated

Los Angeles-Bully, a documentary by Lee Hirsch on the struggles of students facing harassment in schools, will be released without a rating, after the Motion Picture Association of America refused to overturn its assessment that the film should be rated R.

The Weinstein Company, which is releasing the film, made the decision in late March after a very public campaign to change the film's rating so that youth could see it unaccompanied and so that it could be shown in schools, which generally will not allow R-rated films.

The film, which was slated for release on March 30, will play without a rating, so theaters will have to decide independently whether or not to allow young people in.

Celebrities like Zooey Deschanel, Katy Perry, Joel McHale, Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper all supported changing the rating to PG-13, before Harvey Weinstein decided to release it unrated. The rating system is voluntary on the part of the film studios.

"The small amount of language in the film that's responsible for the R rating is there because it's real," said Hirsch. "It's what the children who are victims of bullying face on most days. All of our supporters see that, and we're grateful for the support we've received across the board."

Adrienne Rich has died at 82

Santa Cruz, Calif.-Lesbian feminist poet

toid arthritis, from which she had suffered for most of her life.

Long concerned with identity politics because of her perch at the crossroads of being Jewish, a woman and gay, she argued for the rights of women throughout her career.

She first came to prominence in the 1950s, when she was a student at Radcliffe, and since then she won a National Book Award and a MacArthur Foundation grant, among other hon-

ors.

Born in Baltimore in 1929, she was encourage by her father to write poetry. At college, W.H. Auden chose her work to be published in the Yale Younger Poets series.

She married in 1953 and had three children; in 1970, she and her husband became estranged, in part because of her acknowledgment of her attraction to women. He died of a gunshot wound in August 1970, and it was ruled suicide. She is survived by her sons David, Pablo and Jacob, her sister Cynthia, two grandchildren, and writer Michelle Cliff, her partner of over 30 years.

Russia may prohibit pro-gay speech

Moscow The Russian parliament is considering a bill barring the spread of "homosexual propaganda” to minors.

Similar to a law passed in St. Petersburg, the national bill would levy a fine of 500,000 rubles, the equivalent of $16,500. It was submitted on March 29 by lawmakers from Novosibirsk who accused the media of “normalizing homosexuality."

Homosexuality was decriminalized 1993, but still faces strong opposition in the country.

Madonna will play a concert in St. Petersburg on August 9, and announced on Facebook that she planned to speak out against the local law, which took effect on March 11. The bill's sponsor said that if she does, he wants her to be charged under the law.

Euro court says marriage is not a right

Strasbourg, France The European Court of Human Rights ruled against European Union member states having an obligation to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The case revolved around a lesbian couple in France who wanted to jointly adopt a child. They are in a civil partnership, but French law restricts adoption to married couples.

The judges also said that, if same-sex marriages are legal, churches that refuse to perform them are guilty of discrimination, which undercuts legislative exemptions for churches that oppose same-sex marriage.

"The European Convention on Human Rights does not require member states' governments to grant same-sex couples access to marriage," the ruling says, according to the Telegraph newspaper in London. "With regard to married couples, the court considers that in view of the social, personal, and legal consequences of marriage, the applicants' legal situation could not be said to be comparable to that of married couples."

In Britain, the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron put forward a proposal for full same-sex marriage; the country already has civil partnerships. It is not yet clear how the ruling, especially the considerations about religious institutions, would affect Cameron's plans.

Bullied teen attempts suicide

Wellsville, Ohio-A teenager in this Ohio River town near Pennsylvania tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills after being bullied by his classmates for being gay.

Austin Rodriguez overdosed on medication for bipolar disorder on March 16, and the follow-

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Adrienne Rich passed away in her home on March 27 at the age of 82. Her family said the cause of death of complications from rheuma-

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