In Baytown, Texas, a male rapist who preys on other men has struck at least five times since April in and around the town, according to the Associated Press. The attacker—described as a 18-to-21-year-old clean-shaven Black man with a shaved head—identifies and stalks young men and attacks them at gunpoint or knifepoint in or near their homes. The Justice Department says that one in 33 men in the U.S. has been a victim of rape or attempted rape.
In Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill that sought to block the state from giving public employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex couples, The Anchorage Daily News reported. In the first veto of the young administration, Palin rejected the bill despite her disagreement with a state Supreme Court order earlier this month that directed the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.
Ohio Gov.-elect Ted Strickland has appointed the state’s first openly gay agency director, The Washington Blade reported. Columbus city councilwoman Mary Jo Hudson, who chairs the Jobs and Economic Development Committee, has been named insurance director.
In Knoxville, Tenn., 15 men were arrested in Tyson Park after a sting revealed the spot to be a meeting place for gay sex, according to an Advocate.com item. Fourteen of the 15 men, who were aged 33 to 62, were charged with indecent exposure and some also with drug possession, resisting arrest and assault.
Across the country, Conservative Jewish college students are praising the movement’s increased inclusion of gays and lesbians, even though they acknowledged it would do little to change their already accepting campus communities, according to JewishTimes.com. Nathan Weiner, executive director of the National Union of Jewish LGBTQ Students, said that Conservative groups on campus already include gays and lesbians, but added that the move will definitely impact USY, the movement’s youth group, which had restricted employment to heterosexuals.
Minneapolis Fire Chief Bonnie Bleskachek, hit with five separate lawsuits alleging discrimination, has been removed without severance as chief and given a lower-ranking job, according to 365Gay.com. The city’s executive committee considered firing her but feared it would result in further litigation. Mayor R.T. Rybak told reporters that ‘ [s] he has been severely and significantly demoted, and her pay will be cut by $40,000.’
Gay retiring Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., called coming out ‘the most gratifying thing that’s ever happened to me,’ in an interview with The Washington Blade. After he came out in 1996, Kolbe spurned many in his party to become a strong supporter of gay rights initiatives, and even received a perfect score in 2006 from the Human Rights Campaign. Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Sammon says Kolbe served with ‘honor and distinction’ during his 11 terms. U.S. Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., will be the only openly gay members of Congress.
A new poll shows that more New Hampshire residents are in favor of civil unions for gays than equal marriage rights, but neither position has a majority, Advocate.com reported. In the poll, 35 percent of respondents were in favor of same-sex marriage while 44 percent preferred civil unions. The state legislature—which will have Democrats in power for the first time in 130 years—will take up two proposals on same-sex civil unions.
Nine Virginia Episcopal churches—displeased with LGBT-friendly denominational head Katharine Jefferts-Schori and the 2003 ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson, among other things—plan to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, an initiative of the Church of Nigeria led by ultraconservative Archbishop Peter Akinola, according to The Washington Blade. Akinola once said, ‘I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows [and] lions, we don’t hear of such things.’
In Georgia, the White County school district will set up an anti-bullying program at White County High School and pay $10,000 to a group of students who sued for the right to have a gay-straight alliance, according to the White County News. The deal also includes the school district paying more than $168,000 in court costs to the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped the students in their legal efforts to form the alliance.
Lawrence could become the first city in Kansas to legally recognize same-sex partnerships, according to an item on Advocate.com. Gay Lawrence city commissioner Mike Rundle has asked the city to research an ordinance creating a city-run domestic partnership registry. Rundle has said that a registry would provide documentation to local private employers who offer domestic-partner benefits, among other things.
Santa Cruz, Calif., school officials are rethinking having campus blood drives after a student donor was turned away because he’d previously had sexual encounters with men, the AP reported. Ronnie Childers, 17, volunteered to give blood at Harbor High but, after waiting three hours in line, was told he could not donate. Blood drive officials were enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on donations from men who have had sexual relations with other men anytime after 1977.
In Clark County, Ohio, couples planning to marry are asked if either person is transsexual—making the area possibly the only jurisdiction in the country where people are asked to swear they are not transgendered before receiving a marriage license, according to 365Gay.com. Under Ohio law, a person’s birth gender is the only one considered legal. Therefore, a trans woman can legally marry a female in Ohio, but gay and lesbian couples cannot wed.
Massachusetts’ highest court has refused to order the legislature to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, according to NBC30.com. The Supreme Judicial Court said that lawmakers have a clear obligation to vote on the measure—but that the court has no power to force them to act. The amendment, which would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, needs the support of at least 25 percent of the legislature to appear on the 2008 ballot.
In Minneapolis, a federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling that a Minnesota school district must give a gay-straight student club the same rights and privileges it gives to other school groups, 365Gay.com reported. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary injunction ordering The Osseo School District to place LGBT students at Maple Grove High School on equal footing with other students.
In San Francisco, evaluations of the 2002-05 marketing initiative known as the Healthy Penis program have found that gay and bisexual men were aware of the program’s humorous cartoons and that those men were more likely to undergo syphilis testing, 365Gay.com reported. During the initiative, funny and provocative cartoons were placed in LGBT publications and posters were set up along streets in the Castro and in bus shelters. The campaign has also been used in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle.
The American Library Association’s (ALA) GLBT Round Table (GLBTRT) will announce the 2007 Stonewall Awards for the best gay and lesbian literature during ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, taking place Jan. 19-24. The announcement will take place Jan. 21 at the GLBTRT Social held at the Seattle Public Library.
A recent study conducted by the RAND Corporation and UCLA found that few GLBT teenagers tell their doctor their sexual orientation, according to a RAND press release. Of the sample, only 35 percent said their doctor was aware of their orientation. In addition, 21 percent said their doctor raised the issue, and very few had doctors that discussed sex at all. The study was published in the December issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.