Partners Hilary Rosen, Recording Industry Association of America chief, and Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, have both announced they'll leave their posts as top dogs to spend more time with their children. Both will leave their positions at the end of 2003.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Inc., the makers of the world's first protease inhibitor, AZT, are on the offensive against Canadian pharmacies that sell AIDS drugs to Americans for less than the drugs would cost in the U.S. According to The Advocate, Glaxo gave an ultimatum to the pharmacies: Stop selling our drugs to Americans or we'll stop selling to you. Glaxo told The Advocate that the company's concerns are about safety. They said proper handling is not ensured when anti-retroviral drugs are mailed.
A case of woman-to-woman transmission of HIV has been discovered in Philadelphia. Researchers revealed in the journal for Clinical Infectious Diseases that a woman in Pennsylvania was diagnosed HIV-positive after engaging in monogamous sexual activity with her bisexual HIV-positive female partner. The woman's doctors presume sex toys allowed the transmission.
A Minersville, Pa., woman will be allowed to go back to court against police officers who threatened to expose her gay son. According to gay365.com, her son shot and killed himself after the officers threatened to out him. A jury ruled in favor of the police officers in November 2001, but a judge set aside the verdict stating the facts of the case did not support the verdict. A judge now has paved the way for the woman to take the case back to court.
Iowa's Civil Rights Commission supports the addition of sexual orientation to the state's civil-rights ordinance, the Iowa State Daily reports. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack offered a trade-off for conservatives in the state: pass gay-rights legislation in return for funding for religious-based social service groups.
Nashville City Council members deferred a vote on the city's proposed addition of sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination ordinance. They were under pressure from religious groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention that threatened to cancel its plans to hold its 2005 annual conference in Memphis if the city passes the ordinance.
Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays announced a new national athletic scholarship for GLBT youth. The scholarship is in honor of former NFL defensive tackle Esera Tuaolo, who came out last year.
Virginia, one of the few states with active anti-sodomy laws on the books, refused to re-appoint Judge Verbena Askew, the first Black woman to have such a position, according to 365gay.com . Virginia Republican House Chairman Robert McDonnell said in appointment hearings that anal or oral sex could disqualify a person from being a judge. Judge Askew never acknowledged her sexuality, but was sued by a female co-worker, though an investigation suggested there were no merits to the case.
After opposition from parents and community members, the West Virginia Attorney General's office scrapped a program aimed at curbing bullying in schools. The program included gay students as a protected class— something religious groups protested. The AG said the controversy surrounding the program has caused the program to become useless.
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