Wells Fargo cuts Scouts $
Portland, Ore.,-based Wells Fargo has asked the local United Way not to give its $400,000 in donations to Boy Scouts of America programs that discriminate against gays or other minority groups.
"We'd like to continue supporting the Scouts, but only those programs that are open to everyone," Bank spokesman Tom Unger told The Associated Press on Dec. 12.
There are currently two Portland-area programs that don't discriminate: Learning for Life, which serves up to 14,000 children, and an annual Technology Awards event that helps finance Learning for Life.
Unger said there are no restrictions on the $40,000 that Wells Fargo employees contribute privately to United Way during its annual campaign.
In related news, Portland General Electric announced last month that it would restrict its $90,000 annual contribution to the United Way from going to the Boy Scouts.
MMOW counting continues
Seven months after the controversial Millennium March on Washington, the event is far from over, the Advocate reports, noting that the event owes creditors nearly $1 million.
March treasurer Michael Armentrout told the magazine that unaudited figures show that organizers spent about $1.9 million and owe about $965,000. Among those owed is the Human Rights Campaign and Liberation Publications, Inc., owner of the Advocate. Gay.com forgave its $100,000 debt last month.
Among the event's projected revenue generators was the Millennium Festival, an outdoor fair of food, entertainment and merchandise that had a $5 entrance fee. Just after the march, hundreds of thousands of dollars were reported missing from the Festival, and the FBI was called in for an investigation that is still pending.
Armentrout said the missing money is as much as $750,000, while organizers said it was about $160,000; it has not yet been recovered.
Traverse City diversity campaign axed
A diversity campaign recently launched by the city of Traverse City, Mich., is apparently over just two weeks after it began, the Lansing State Journal reports.
The campaign involved about 10,000 rainbow-emblazoned stickers that went on all city-owned vehicles, including police cars, firetrucks and snowplows. The stickers also featured jigsaw puzzle pieces and said, "We Are Traverse City."
At a meeting earlier this month, officials decided to remove the stickers because of hundreds of complaints that they promote homosexuality.
Mayor Larry Hardy said he had "no idea it had anything to do with the gay community.''
"I personally think I was kind of conned,'' he said. "I was stupid not to know what the symbol stood for.''
City Commissioner Margaret Dodd, who designed the stickers, said the design "was never in mind just a gay thing.''
She introduced the design after a series of hate crimes in the community, including the gay-bashing of a bartender.
The Detroit Free Press has reported that some churches might buy the remaining 5,000 stickers from the city and distribute them.
Trial of man who killed transwoman begins
A murder trial that began last week in California pits the state against a man who claims the strangulation death of a transgendered woman was an accident and not a hate crime, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Manuel Reyes Eredia, also known as Alina Marie Barragan, was a transgendered 19-year-old whose body was found last year in the trunk of a car belonging to the father of defendant Kozi Santino Scott, 22.
The car was parked near Scott's home, and Barragan was wrapped in sheets that belonged to him.
Scott admits that Barragan came home with him and that they engaged in some sexual activity. However, he claims that a struggle soon ensued and that he put Barragan in a "sleeper hold" to subdue her, not kill her.
He later told investigators that "voices'' had urged him to "choke that person, take that person's life.''
Prosecutors claim that the fight began when Scott became upset over Barragan's gender, a charge that he denies.
Scott's lawyer has said that his client is bisexual but closeted and that the gender of the victim had little to do with the crime. Scott faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted. His trial is set to wrap up next week.
Nearly 2,600 districts limit Scouts' access to schools
A decision by the School Board in East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y., brings to 2,599 the number of districts that have banned or limited sponsorship for the Boy Scouts of America, OUTLOOK Long Island reports.
In late November, the East Hampton district adopted a policy that read, in part: "The national leadership of the Boy Scouts of America has advocated a membership policy that is in direct conflict with the principles of acceptance and diversity which are Board of Education priorities."
The December amendment strengthens that policy to specifically "ban sponsorship for all organizations that discriminate."
The Town of East Hampton, meanwhile, has rejected a similar measure, saying it would violate the "equal access" policy of the U.S. Constitution recently endorsed by the Supreme Court.
Activists to take on
Utah adoption ban
Gay rights activists in Utah are gearing up to fight a new law that bans adoptions by couples who live together but aren't married, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Gay adoptions in Utah have been scarce, but have taken place under a 60-year-old adoption law that has never been challenged until now.
The Legislature passed the gay adoption ban late last year, and it has been signed into law by Gov. Mike Leavitt.
Currently, Utah, Florida and Mississippi are the only states that ban gays from adopting. Vermont is the only state that specifically allows them to adopt.
WORLD:
Communal gay wedding planned in Netherlands
Gay and lesbian couples are signing up to take part in a communal ceremony scheduled for the day the Netherlands' same-sex marriage law goes into effect on April 1. Fourteen couples have already said they wanted to participate in the communal ceremony, an organizer said.
"There's not really a limit on how many can join in the ceremony, but I want to avoid it becoming a crazy spectacle," Krol, editor of the Gay Krant ( Gay Newspaper ) , told Reuters.
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to pass legislation allowing gays to marry and have the same legal status as heterosexuals. Dutch law has recognized registered partnership of gays since 1998, but those couples did not have the same rights as heterosexuals in adopting.
