After a 'Day of Silence' event at her school, Caitlin Meuse, 16, was found beaten and unconscious outside her Concord, Mass., home. The Boston Globe reports that Meuse was released Sunday from Boston Medical Center. Meuse was treated for head wounds, facial cuts and missing teeth. Her father says she still has memory lapses, including no recollection of the beating. Day of Silence is an annual nationwide event held to call attention to harassment and bias against GLBT youth in schools.
The New York Daily News reported a very disturbing anti-gay attack on a New York subway car: 'Two Bronx teenagers were busted ... after allegedly videotaping themselves on the subway as they menaced a man and taunted him with anti-gay remarks. The pair flicked a lighter at a passenger on the Times Square shuttle while yelling: 'You faggots got to burn,' cops said. Daniel Jamile and Nkrumah Ajomajberin, both 17 and from the Bronx, were arrested minutes [later], police said. The suspects ... grabbed a 24-year-old man from Edison, N.J., and threatened to burn him with a lighter while yelling anti-gay slurs at him and his two friends, police said.' The alleged attack comes weeks after a 53-year-old man was viciously beaten on the upper East Side by three Queens men. The suspects yelled anti-gay slurs.
The Permanent Partners Immigration Act, sponsored by New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, hit 100 co-sponsors for the second session in a row. Republican Rep. James Greenwood became the 100th co-sponsor to sign the bill. Nadler called for hearings on the bill that would allow gays and lesbians to sponsor their partners for U.S. immigration. New Congressman Rahm Emmanuel from Chicago has also signed on as a sponsor.
A 13-year-old gay boy from California apparently committed suicide last week, according to the Davis Enterprise. The Holmes Junior High student who took most of his classes at Davis School for Independent Study, was found dead at home. Police say the death may have been a suicide. The boy had recently announced to friends that he was gay.
The rainbow flag is about to get a 're'-design, reports Gay.com . Gilbert Baker, who created the original rainbow flag, will unveil the 'new' flag in his hometown of Key West, Fla. The idea is not so new. Baker wants gays to embrace his original design, which includes two more colors than the current commercial reproductions. The 'new' eight-color flag will be on display in Key West on June 15.
The Michigan Department of Corrections will no longer label gay and lesbian inmates, reports the Detroit Free Press. The ACLU of Michigan urged the Department to drop the notations from prison records, and director William Overton agreed.
Three people were charged in the killing of a 30-year-old California man because he was thought to be gay, reports AP. Dominique Daniel England, 19, Daymon Douglas Schrock, 20, and Jeanne Soja, 29, were being held this week on $1 million bond each for the murder of Robert Alan Maricle, 30. Maricle was reported missing Dec. 14.
The Connecticut legislature's judiciary committee rejected a bill that would have granted the rights and responsibilities of marriage to gays and lesbians, according to the New Haven Register. The committee rejected the bill 26-16. This was the first time Connecticut legislators have voted on a bill of this sort. Republican state Sen. John Kissel said he was concerned about the negative impact the recognition of gay partnerships would have on children.
Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot spoke to the board of the Human Rights Campaign last month, reports 365gay.com . Anti-gay conservative groups like the Culture and Family Institute criticized the move. Racicot told the board members that the Republican Party stands for inclusion.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed an executive order last week that gives benefits to the domestic partners of state employees, according to KOBTV. Domestic partners must have lived in a committed relationship for 12 consecutive months and must sign an affidavit that the partners are in a domestic partnership.
The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts residents narrowly support gay marriage. A Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll shows 50 percent of residents support gay marriage while 44 percent oppose it. Public opinion may or may not affect the state's supreme court which may make the final decision on the matter this summer.
Gay business owners in Fort Lauderdale are critical of the Convention and Visitor's Bureau (CVB) 'Rainbow Guide,' reports the Miami Herald. Owners of gay businesses suggested that the CVB reproduce the Rainbow Carpet Lodging & Hospitality Alliance's 2003 Guide Map or the hotels' own pamphlets, rather than the guidebook that the owners say is heavy on advertising and light on content.
Some of Fred 'God Hates Fags' Phelps' crew traveled to Connecticut this weekend to protest Center Church in Hartford, reports the Courant. Phelps' daughter and her sons were on hand to carry signs and sing 'God Hates America' to a gay-friendly church on Palm Sunday. Fred himself was in Iowa protesting. The newest placard: 'Matt: 4 Years in Hell.'
The Utah Supreme Court has issued a unanimous ruling that brings to an end a five-year legal battle over the proper role of courts in determining whether lesbians and gay men can be fit role models and otherwise participate as full citizens in our society. The plaintiffs, a group of Utah County citizens, had sought declarations that because Wendy Weaver is a lesbian, she is unfit to continue her successful 20-year career as a teacher and coach at Spanish Fork High School. The Court agreed with the ACLU and rejected the plaintiffs' claims as 'improper ... at the most fundamental level.' Weaver, who now goes by her original name, Wendy Chandler, still teaches at Spanish Fork High, and was given the good news at school by her partner, Rachel Smith.
The San Francisco Examiner reported April 11 that a 44-year-old drag queen with a history of being abused is facing murder charges after fatally stabbing her boyfriend in a South of Market residential hotel, according to police. Cindy Flaglar allegedly stabbed her longtime boyfriend during a disagreement at the C&W Hotel. Neighbors say they suspect the man regularly abused the suspect.
President Bush has announced the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas called Pryor's nomination 'extremely troubling' and said it was 'an unfortunate continuation of this administration's efforts to pack the appeals courts with divisive far-right nominees.' Pryor is a fervent opponent of reproductive rights for women.
A M2F transgender woman filed a workplace discrimination lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft and other managers, according to 365gay.com . Tracy Nichole Sturchio is a border patrol specialist and claims she was not allowed to wear a dress or use the women's rest room during her time as a government employee. Sturchio hopes to win more than $500,000 in damages.
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