In California, San Francisco City Supervisor Bevan Dufty has officially declared his candidacy for mayor, according to the Bay Area Reporter. Dufty, 54, is aiming to be the first openly gay mayor in the city's history. Current Mayor Gavin Newsom's term will expire in January 2012. Dufty said that with a race that will probably be crowded and a political-contribution limit of $200 from people who reside or work in San Francisco, he needs to start fundraising now.
In Georgia, Morehouse College administrators have fired one woman and reprimanded another because of anti-gay e-mails they sent, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The fired woman, an administrative assistant in the president's office, received an e-mail that included wedding photos of a gay couple; she then forwarded the item and added slurs. Morehouse President Dr. Robert M. Franklin said that the school—the only all-male historically Black college in the country—has a no-tolerance policy regarding discrimination.
The student senate at Kansas State University at Salina has rejected a request of $1,000 to bring in a transmale speaker, according to Salina.com . By a vote of 4-2, the senate decided that bringing in Ryan Sallans would be a waste of money and that students would not attend. An LGBT student group requested the money weeks ago.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) has provided $1.9 million to The National Youth Advocacy Coalition; the group will use the funding to provide capacity-building assistance to community-based organizations that provide HIV-prevention services to African-American and Latino youth, according to a press release. NYAC's newly funded project will allow the organization to, among other things, continue its award-winning "You Know Different" project, a social-marketing campaign designed to encourage African-American youth to get tested for HIV.
In Washington state, Microsoft has donated $100,000 in an effort to uphold Referendum 71, a law that expands same-sex rights, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The referendum will ask voters to confirm a law Gov. Chris Gregoire signed in May that gives registered same-sex couples the same benefits as married couples. "Our record on this issue is pretty clear," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said. "Those are the same policies we had at Microsoft even before this was a law."
In Massachusetts, former Boston city councilman David Scondras—the first gay man to hold that position in that city—has filed a federal lawsuit against the Lawrence, Mass., police department, according to Advocate.com . Scondras has alleged that Lawrence police officers beat him when he was arrested three years ago for soliciting sex from a teenager he met on the Internet. He pled guilty in 2007 to enticing a child under 16, and was on probation for 18 months.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ( GLAAD ) is accepting submissions for the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards, which recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the LGBT community, and the issues that affect their lives.Submitted materials must be received in the Los Angeles GLAAD office by Wed., Nov. 18, at 6 p.m. PT. See more at www.glaad.org/mediaawards/21/submissions.
In New York, an openly gay Queens man is in an induced coma after a brutal Oct. 9 attack that police are investigating as a hate crime, according to Gothamist.com . Jack Price, 49, was leaving a deli when two men beat him and yelled anti-gay slurs. Daniel Aleman, 26, has been arrested and charged with assault and aggravated assault as a hate crime; the other suspect has yet to be apprehended.
The Westport, Conn.-based Religious Institute is launching Acting Out Loud, a new resource for full inclusion of LGBT persons in the religious sphere, according to a press release. Acting Out Loud is an online guide for religious leaders who want to take the next step toward full inclusion of LGBT persons and their families in congregational life. The guide is available at www.actingoutloudguide.org .
Campus Pride ( www.campuspride.org ) is seeking nominations for the Voice & Action National Leadership Award, an honorary recognition highlighting the extraordinary contributions of young adult leaders at colleges and universities across the United States, according to a press release. For the second year, the national award is the only one nationally focused on the work of undergraduate college students who are creating positive change for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender ( LGBT ) and ally issues. The application process officially ends Nov. 13.
The National Youth Advocacy Coalition has received a one-year award of $100,000 from the American Legacy Foundation through its Legacy Innovative Grants program to create a national tobacco working group, according to a press release. The working group will target young adults who identify as LGBTQI. The National LGBTQI Young Adult Tobacco Working Group will develop a tobacco needs assessment that will be administered to young adults ( ages 18-24 ) across the country this fall and winter.
According to a report from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 305 businesses ( out of 590 ) received the top score in the 2010 edition of the Corporate Equality Index. The 305 top-rated businesses collectively employ more than 9 million full-time employees. Moreover, the report shows gains in policies and protections across the board, in particular with transgender workers.
In Florida, out lesbian Jane Castor has been named the first female chief of the Tampa Police Department, according to SheWired.com . Castor will command the department's $133 million budget and 1,300 employees. Approximately 300 of the nation's 18,000 police chiefs are women.
Keyontyli Goffney, one half of a pair of gay porn stars who happened to also be twins, has pled guilty to burglary and criminal conspiracy—but will not spend time in prison, according to the Philadelphia Gay News. Goffney was sentenced to two days, but has already served that time; he also received four years' probation. His brother, Taleon, pled guilty in July but received three to eight years in prison.
The NYC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of New York's Board of Directors has unanimously selected Glennda Testone to be the center's new executive director, according to 365Gay.com . Testone is the first woman to helm the facility, which is the second-largest LGBT community center in the world. Previously, Testone worked for the Women's Media Center, where she served as the vice president for three years.
The New York-based AIDS organization Gay Men's Health Crisis ( GMHC ) has released a statement commending Gov. David Paterson for signing a bill that allows the state's health department to oversee HIV-related programs and policies in prisons and jails. GMHC's Sean Cahill said that " [ w ] ith high rates of HIV and Hepatitis C among New York State prisoners, it is essential that the Department of Health overseas HIV prevention and care in our prisons. The Prison Health Bill increases our ability to stop the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in New York."
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has unanimously ordered a lower court to reconsider a ban that stops Angel Chandler, a divorced mom, from having her partner of 10 years and her own children stay overnight at her home at the same time, according to a press release from the ACLU. The lower court invoked the "paramour clause," which is "a legal restriction in child-custody agreements that bars a divorcee's lover from staying in the house overnight while [ s/he ] has custody of children from a previous marriage," according to Encyclopedia.com . Heterosexual couples can bypass this clause by getting married.
Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students have supposedly come up with a software program that uses someone's Facebook data to predict that person's sexual orientation, according to the Boston Globe. The project—given the name "Gaydar" by the students, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree—looked at the genders and orientations of a person's friends and, using statistical analysis, made predictions. Although the technique was fairly successful with gay men, it was not as accurate regarding bisexuals or lesbians.
