Residents of Cambridge, Mass., are questioning why a gay-themed billboard was abruptly taken down after three months with no complaints. According to the Cambridge Chronicle, the ad promoting the Web site gay.com featured two shirtless men wrapped in an American flag. It appeared atop the Cambridgeport Saloon but after an anti-gay group lodged complaints, the billboard was quickly replaced by a recruiting ad for the United States Navy. The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to have the city manager ask Clear Channel, the media giant that owns the billboard, why they took it down earlier than scheduled.
A Virginia conservative group announced that it was withdrawing its support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts's confirmation because of his work helping overturn a Colorado referendum on gays, the Associated Press reported. The group, Public Advocate of the United States, is one of the first conservative organizations to not support the judge.
Centering power in Congress and targeting the Supreme Court were the apparent goals of various speakers at 'Justice Sunday II,' a nationally televised rally at a Nashville church, CBS News reported. 'All wisdom does not reside in nine persons in black robes,' House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told the congregation. 'The Constitution is clear on the point that the power to make laws is vested on Congress.'
A Cherokee Nation tribal court has now issued a temporary restraining order barring a lesbian couple from filing their marriage certificate with the tribe, according to 365Gay.com . Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds exchanged vows in Cherokee in May 2004 after the tribe gave the couple a certificate without protest. However, since then legal battles have kept it from being filed.
The California Supreme Court said that it would not immediately decide whether a state ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, the Associated Press reported. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer and others wanted to bypass an appeals court hearing to hasten a ruling from the state's highest court. The case will remain before the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, where it could take months for a decision.
An arbitrator has ruled that a San Francisco man who says he was devastated after being identified as gay on a national Spanish-language radio show will be paid $270,000 by Univision Radio, according to the San Jose Mercury News. In 2002, Roberto Hernandez received a phone call from a man who said that he met Hernandez at a San Francisco gay bar. The man then told Hernandez that the talk was being broadcast live on the Raul Brindis & Pepito Show.
A federal appeals court ruled that a gay man with AIDS from Mexico who fled to San Francisco after a local policeman forced him into sexual acts is eligible for political asylum, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Reversing rulings by immigration courts that ordered Jose Boer-Sedano deported to Mexico, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said he had been a victim of persecution in his homeland and would probably face further abuse if he were sent back.
An immigration judge in Los Angeles ruled an HIV-positive transgender woman from Honduras may remain indefinitely in the United States, according to the Associated Press. Judge Jan D. Latimore agreed that the woman, Cristina Gomez Ordonez, would be in physical danger and would likely be denied crucial medication should she be forced to return to the island.
A conservative group has set its anti-gay sights on corporate giant Starbucks, according to the web site Direland. The Concerned Women of America—an organization run by Beverly LaHaye, the wife of fundamentalist preacher Rev. Tim Lahaye—is up in arms over a quote on the backs of some of the company's cups. The quote, from gay writer Armistead Maupin, reads: 'My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.'
DignityUSA, in a statement, urged its Dignity/Northern Virginia chapter to take immediate steps to comply with DignityUSA's Oct. 2004 policy banning child molesters from serving as Dignity Chapter Presiders or prayer leaders. The release was issued regarding Harry Benjamin, who had presided at services for the local chapter. Benjamin was found guilty of sexually abusing a minor in Michigan in 2003 and was sentenced to prison for one year.
