PLANETOUT AND ADVOCATE WILL NOT MERGE
PlanetOut Corp., parent company of PlanetOut.com, and Liberation Publications, publisher of The Advocate and Out magazines, said March 8 that their proposed merger is off.
The two companies issued a letter of intent to merge last March.
"Since the time of the letter, the economic environment has changed substantially and we decided to merge with Online Partners [ parent company of Gay.com ] ," said PlanetOut spokesman Bryce Eberhart.
"The terms of the letter of intent reflected another time."
In recent months, many dot-com companies have failed and many others are worth much less on paper than previously, due to a general slowdown in the U.S. economy and to a reluctance by investors to continue funding unprofitable Internet companies.
On March 1, PlanetOut and Gay.com —the largest and most popular non-porn gay sites on the World Wide Web —laid off 29 of their 126 employees.
"Just because you're a gay company you're not immune to what's been happening in this [ dot-com ] field," Eberhart said.
"We announced there would be layoffs when we announced the merger. We're finalizing the mergers of the companies and there were redundant positions.
"This is a completely different economic climate now," Eberhart said. "Our investors are demanding we be profitable by year end. It's a matter of balancing our checkbook and being profitable."
Eberhart maintained that "editorial and content will be a higher percentage of the merged company's budget than it was for either heritage company."
( Reporter Rex Wockner's weekly opinion column "The Wockner Wire" is home-based at PlanetOut.com . )
AIDS Action blasts Bush budget
AIDS Action is criticizing President Bush's proposed budget, Blueprint for New Beginnings, for not showing significant support for HIV/AIDS programs.
The organization claims the budget calls for over $3 billion in funding increases for several healthcare initiatives, but only provides funding for $2.1 billion worth of programs, a shortfall that places HIV money in jeopardy.
"President Bush made no commitment to people with HIV/AIDS in this budget," said Claudia French, executive director of AIDS Action. "At a time when 40,000 new HIV infections are reported every year and more people are living with HIV/AIDS, how can we continue our commitment to prevention, treatment and care with $1 billion less than in previous years?"
Foster child policy struck down in Penn.
A federal court has ruled that a Pennsylvania county can no longer refuse to place foster children in homes with an HIV-positive child, Lambda Legal Defense reports.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by foster parents identified as Mary and John Doe, of State College, Penn. Mary Doe has won awards for her dedication to foster children with special needs, and she has adopted seven such kids. One HIV-positive son still lives with the Does, and when the family told his status to officials, Centre County Children and Youth Services created a policy prohibiting HIV-negative foster children from being placed in homes with a child who is positive.
According to Lambda, the county's reason for the ban was the risk of sexual assault or rough play that could lead to HIV transmission. A federal district court upheld the ban, which was overturned by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
In its unanimous ruling, the court said that "the County's blanket policy discriminates against the Does because of [ their son's ] HIV positive status even though the probability of HIV transmission, and consequently the risk, is next to zero."
