The City of Philadelphia notified the Boy Scouts that its deadline to either pay fair market price to rent city-owned property or get out as Dec. 3. The City has been trying to reach an agreement with the Boy Scouts to change its anti-gay policy for several years, reported Philadelphia Gay news.
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's online campaign ads were accidentally placed on Gay.com, according to the New York Times. Romney opposes same-sex marriage.
Ferndale, Mich., recently elected its first openly gay mayor, Craig Covey, Detroit Free Press reported. Covey was a city councilman for many years, and is CEO of the Michigan AIDS Prevention Project. He received 54 percent of the vote.
Puerto Rico's Senate voted to approve a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Queerty.com reported, but the President of the House, Jose Aponte, put the brakes on a vote until next year. The next legislative session starts Jan. 5, 2008.
Prevention Justice Mobilization ( PJM ) , a national movement endorsed by over 100 organizations and initiated by Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project ( CHAMP ) , will hold a series of events around World AIDS Day. PJM will end in a Dec. 4 rally outside of Atlanta's National HIV Prevention Conference to demand increased prevention efforts, according to a press release.
Jon Buice, one of the 10 men convicted of beating a gay Texas man to death in 1991, was recently denied parole, the Houston Chronicle reported. Buice has served about one-third of his 45-year sentence, and will be up for parole again in two years.
Virginia recently let a man who owns 'POOFTER' vanity plates know that he must return the offensive plates that the commonwealth of Virginia gave him almost 11 years ago. The word is British slang for a gay man, and the plates' gay owner says he chose them because 'it's just an amusing word that I self-identify with,' according to the Washington Post.
The San Francisco-based Episcopal Diocese of California recently approved same-gender blessings, according to an Oasis California press release. Episcopal churches in the Bay Area can now offer same-sex blessings on a trial basis.
A city council race in Fort Worth, Texas, got ugly when a councilman said at a Republican Women's Club meeting that citizens should vote for fellow party member and City Council candidate Chris Turner because he is a straight Republican, as opposed to gay Democratic candidate Joel Burns, Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
The New York Post reports that a gay lawyer is accusing a Bronx Supreme Court Judge of being homophobic. Justice Richard Lee Price allegedly demanded attorney Robert Feldman stop 'dancing' in his courtroom 'in a flamboyant nature.'
The Family Equality Council released a book of LGBT family poems titled Heartsongs, according to a press release from the organization. The book, which includes over 50 poems, can be downloaded for free at www.familyequality.org/resources/poetry.
MyOutSpirit, a social networking Web site for spiritual LGBT's, announced that it will give away $1 million in free advertising to LGBT-affirming body, mind and spirit nonprofits that don't charge for their services. See www.MyOutSpirit.com .
For full accounts of the passing of former presidential HIV/AIDS advisor R. Scott Hitt and Washington, D.C.'s observance of gay veterans, please read www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com .