City settles suit over transsexual entertainer Nizah Morris' death, Canadian Church Nixes Gay Marriage Issue, Timing of vote on gay-marriage ban

1. PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER City settles suit over transsexual entertainer Nizah Morris' death
2. ASSOCIATED PRESS West Hollywood: Over 100 couples tie the knot in same-sex ceremony
3. KANSAS CITY STAR Timing of vote on gay-marriage ban now up to court; Measure awaits slot on Missouri ballot
4. NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT Editorial: Law on gays is punitive rather than pragmatic
5. ASSOCIATED PRESS Canadian Church Nixes Gay Marriage Issue
6. ASSOCIATED PRESS Wilton Manors, Florida, Emerges As Gay Mecca
7. ASSOCIATED PRESS Clerk in New Mexico Gay Marriages Loses Election

Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 2004
PO Box 8263, Philadelphia, PA, 19101
(Fax: 215-854-4483 ) (E-Mail: Inquirer.opinion@phillynews.com )
( http://www.philly.com )
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/8813821.htm
City settles suit over transsexual's death
The family of entertainer Nizah Morris gets $250,000. The exact terms were not disclosed.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
The mother of murdered transsexual entertainer Nizah Morris has settled her civil-rights suit against Philadelphia for $250,000.
Notice of the settlement was filed Friday in federal court in Philadelphia, but lawyers for Morris' mother, Roslyn Wilkins, declined to disclose the terms of the financial settlement.
The City Solicitor's Office had no immediate comment on the settlement, which includes Wilkins' legal fees in bringing the lawsuit, but sources familiar with the case confirmed the amount.
A pedestrian found Morris, 47, on the sidewalk, unconscious and bleeding profusely from head wounds, about 3:25 a.m. Dec. 22, 2002, at 15th and Walnut Streets in Center City. She died Dec. 24.
Wilkins filed the lawsuit in September, backed by the Philadelphia-based Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. The suit contended that a chain of negligence led to Morris' death.
Morris, the lawsuit contended, arrived "visibly intoxicated" at 12:30 a.m. Dec. 22, 2002, at the Key West Bar & Grill at 207 S. Juniper St., but bar staff continuing serving her.
By the time Morris left the bar at 3 a.m., the suit contends, she had a near-lethal blood-alcohol level of 0.40 percent - four times the legal limit for driving – and was "barely conscious and appeared to be quite ill."
People on the street were so concerned by Morris' condition, the lawsuit says, that they called 911 for an ambulance. Instead, a police officer arrived, canceled the ambulance call, put Morris in the patrol car, and drove off.
Police officials at the time said Morris did not want to go to the hospital and asked first to be taken to her West Philadelphia home and then dropped off at 15th and Walnut. Minutes after the officer left Morris, she was found on the street by a passerby.
Paul Messing, a Philadelphia civil-rights lawyer who filed the suit for Wilkins, praised the settlement: "We had a difficult case against the city defendants, but I think everybody realized somehow that they wanted this to settle amicably."
Messing said Wilkins would continue to pursue her claims against the bar's owners in Common Pleas Court under state "dramshop" laws, which allow tavern owners to be held liable if they knowingly continue serving a visibly intoxicated person.
Messing said he also believed that settling the claims against the city would help the continuing criminal investigation into who killed Morris.
Messing said the settlement would enable the city's Police Advisory Commission and Racial Unity, an African American gay and lesbian group, to resume investigations into Morris' death.
Although Philadelphia police have made several efforts over the last decade to improve relations with the city's sexual minorities, the Morris death revived complaints of unequal treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals by police and emergency personnel.
Leonore F. Carpenter, a staff lawyer with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, said the lawsuit had not shown that Morris' death was the result of bias against sexual minorities.
Carpenter said the city had agreed to reinforce the existing police policy to take very intoxicated people for medical treatment. She also said she believed the settlement talks would bolster the relationship between police officials and the task force representing sexual minorities.
• Contact staff writer Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2658 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.


Associated Press, June 2, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/06/02/state0316EDT0223.DTL
Over 100 couples tie the knot in same-sex ceremony
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) – More than 100 gay couples were symbolically wed in a ceremony officiated by Mayor John Duran Tuesday night.
"The City of West Hollywood supports marriages for same-sex couples and is working hard to change California law," Duran said in a statement. "Although we do not yet have equal protection under the law, no government can prevent us from loving whom we choose."
The ceremony, hosted by The Abbey Food & Bar, kicked off National Gay Pride Month and attracted members of the City Council and comedian Margaret Cho, said Abbey spokesman Phil Lobel.
At the end of the 25-minute ceremony, the city gave participating couples symbolic certificates commemorating the event, Lobel said.


Kansas City Star, June 2, 2004
1729 Grand Avenue, Kansas City, MO, 64108
(Fax: 816-234-4926 ) (E-Mail: letters@kcstar.com )
( http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar )
Timing of vote on gay-marriage ban now up to court
Measure awaits slot on ballot
By Tim Hoover
JEFFERSON CITY – The legal and political struggle over when voters will decide whether to ban gay marriage reached the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Judges repeatedly asked attorneys for Secretary of State Matt Blunt whether there were any practical reasons why he could not place the proposed amendment banning gay marriage on the Aug. 3 primary ballot. They also asked attorneys for Attorney General Jay Nixon why the measure had to be on the Aug. 3 ballot and not in a special election.
Nixon filed suit against Blunt last month after the secretary of state refused to place the proposed gay-marriage ban on the August ballot, as Gov. Bob Holden had ordered. Two lower courts ruled in favor of Blunt, and Nixon quickly appealed to the Supreme Court.
The seven-member high court did not issue a ruling Tuesday, although Nixon's office asked for one as soon as possible.
Attorneys for Nixon's office told judges that Blunt had "a clear duty" to place the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage on the Aug. 3 primary ballot after Holden issued a proclamation calling for the special election.
"The secretary of state has a lot of excuses for why he has not done what the law requires him to do," Assistant Attorney General Paul Wilson said. "But all of the excuses are of his own making."
Blunt has argued that he could not place the issue on the August ballot because legislative leaders did not sign the joint resolution calling for the amendment until Friday – past the May 25 deadline for Blunt to notify local election authorities.
Though the Missouri Constitution says the governor may order that issues be placed on a special-election ballot before the November general election, the secretary of state's office still must receive 10 weeks' notice, Blunt's office has argued.
Wilson said that, under Blunt's argument, a governor would not have the constitutional authority to set a special election. Instead, Wilson said, a governor would have "nothing more than the right to suggest" a special election.
Judge Laura Denvir Stith echoed this argument at one point, when she said that under Blunt's argument, the governor would never be able to set a special election in August if lawmakers did not want him to.
"It would always be in someone else's hands," Stith said.
But others on the court, including Judge Steven Limbaugh, asked Wilson why the special election would have to be Aug. 3. Couldn't Holden call a special election after that time but before the Nov. 2 general election?
Wilson said the law that sets election dates does not provide any date other than Aug. 3.
Blunt's office contended that Holden could call the election at some date other than Aug. 3. A stand-alone election for the issue would cost an estimated $4 million, versus the $200,000 cost of placing the issue on the August or November ballots.
"There's no language in that statute that says the governor can't call an election for any other day," said Terry Jarrett, Blunt's legal counsel.
However, the judges also repeatedly asked Jarrett whether there were any real obstacles to Blunt getting the 20-word amendment on the August ballot.
Judge Richard Teitelman asked Jarrett why Blunt did not place the issue on the August ballot after lawmakers finally signed the measure Friday.
"You had time," Teitelman said.
"The fact that it may be able to be done shortly thereafter is irrelevant," Jarrett said. Officials with Blunt and Nixon's offices declined to comment afterward, but David Cosgrove, Holden's legal counsel, said the hearing went well.
"At the end of the day, the secretary of state finally conceded there was no real practical reason he couldn't place it (the proposed amendment) on the ballot," Cosgrove said.
Nixon and Holden are Democrats; Blunt is a Republican. If Holden defeats Auditor Claire McCaskill in the Democratic primary, he could face Blunt in November.
Democrats charge that Republicans deliberately have delayed the legislative process to place the measure on the November ballot in an attempt to energize the conservative vote and help the GOP. Republicans say Holden is trying to skirt election laws for political reasons.


Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, June 2, 2004
P.O. Box 449, Norfolk, VA 23501-0449
(Fax: 757 446-2051 ) (E-Mail: letters@pilotonline.com )
( http://www.pilotonline.com/ )
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=71097&ran=110976
Editorial: Law on gays punitive rather than pragmatic
There is far more to condemn than embrace in Virginia's new law banning partnership contracts for same-sex couples.
Regardless of one's position on gay marriage and civil unions, almost everyone ought to agree that a law that disadvantages children and prohibits businesses from offering health-care benefits goes too far.
Forty-two states ban gay marriage. Virginia is among them. But no other state adds that same-sex contracts "purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage" are prohibited and that any such agreement procured in another state is null and void.
This unnecessarily antagonistic language goes well beyond prohibiting gay marriage. It goes beyond rejecting "civil unions," which do not even exist in Virginia law, but are banned nonetheless by the new statute.
The exact meaning of Virginia's new law will be up to the courts. But it's reasonable to conclude, as many individuals do, that the statute jeopardizes child custody and guardianship agreements between same-sex partners. It also imperils health insurance policies currently provided to domestic partners by some private companies.
There may be other ramifications involving wills, medical directives, insurance policies and home ownership agreements.
"Civil union is a proxy for marriage. Domestic partnerships are a proxy for civil unions. You've got to cover all the bases or they'll find a loophole," said Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, author of the new law in explaining its reach.
To Marshall, and to the solid majority of legislators who voted for his bill, stamping out gay and lesbian relationships trumps other consequences. But when lawmakers move from barring future marriages to banning existing contracts, they are doing more than squashing an emerging social movement; they also are interfering with existing lives.
To several thousand children growing up in the 13,800 Virginia households run by same-sex couples, it makes a great deal of difference whether they have two custodial parents or one. If only one parent has custody, and that parent dies, those children could wind up in unfamiliar hands either temporarily or permanently.
And what of companies that currently choose to recruit workers by offering health insurance packages to same-sex partners? What business is it of the state to tell them that they cannot?
Already, Virginia stands alone in prohibiting insurers from writing health insurance policies covering anyone other than a spouse or dependent child. Some larger corporations such as Capital One and Northrop Grumman avoid the law by self-insuring their employees.
Ironically, many of the lawmakers who supported the new legislation are the first to insist that government should stop interfering with business. They also decry the growing expense of providing health care to America's uninsured.
The new policy flouts both those concerns.
No tolerant Virginian wants to send the message that gays and lesbians are unwelcome in this state. By undermining the private agreements that many have reached to protect themselves and their children, the state is doing just that.
This hastily concocted and unnecessarily intrusive legislation should be reconsidered at the earliest opportunity.


Associated Press, June 2, 2004
Canadian Church Nixes Gay Marriage Issue
By Richard N. Ostling
ST. CATHARINES, Ontario (AP) – A proposal authorizing Anglican Church of Canada dioceses to provide blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples was pulled Wednesday, just hours before a scheduled vote on the matter at a national church meeting.
The move reflected caution and confusion among church delegates over the impact the go-ahead would have on the Canadian church – and internationally in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion of which it's a part.
World Anglicanism is already severely split over consecration of an openly gay bishop by the Episcopal Church in the United States.
It remained possible that liberals would try to restore the original proposal to allow "local option" on gay policies, meaning each diocese gets to decide for itself whether to allow the blessing ceremonies.
A revised proposal calls for a two-year study of whether same-sex rituals are "a matter of doctrine," delaying action till the next national meeting in 2007. That measure appeared to be gaining momentum on Wednesday afternoon.
If the 2007 meeting decides doctrine is involved but wants to allow same-sex unions, that would require amendment of church law at two consecutive meetings – further delaying any approval until at least 2010.
• On the Net: Anglican Church of Canada: http://www.anglican.ca


Associated Press, June 2, 2004
Wilton Manors, Fla., Emerges As Gay Mecca
By Rachel La Corte
WILTON MANORS, Fla. (AP) – In the most recent elections in this small island city, four out of five candidates were gay. But that is not exactly remarkable in Wilton Manors.
Within the past decade, this once-rundown city outside Fort Lauderdale has become a bustling gay enclave. Gays and lesbians make up perhaps 35 percent to 40 percent of the nearly 13,000 residents.
The initial draw for many was the affordable housing compared with nearby gay-friendly areas in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach.
But even as property prices shoot up, Wilton Manors remains a draw for gays, many of whom say they like the ease with which gays and straights live side by side.
Unlike other communities in Florida with large gay populations, such as Key West and Miami Beach's South Beach, Wilton Manors is a quiet place, not one boisterous, nonstop party.
"Gay people don't just identify with each other," Tom Elliott, who lives in Fort Lauderdale but works at Java Boys, a Wilton Manors coffee shop. "We grew up in small towns with next-door neighbors and churches and schools and knowing all the people. And all of a sudden you can live in a place (like that) where you don't feel like you're the only gay people in town."
Wilton Manors has the third-highest concentration of male same-sex households in the country behind Provincetown, Mass., and Guerneville, Calif., according to the Urban Institute in Washington. And it is No. 33 for lesbian couples, said Jason Ost, a researcher at the institute and co-author of "The Gay and Lesbian Atlas."
Ost said that according to the Urban Institute's calculations, about 5.5 percent of households in Wilton Manors are headed by same-sex couples. That is 10 times the national average, he said.
Wilton Manors is one of four U.S. cities to have a gay majority on its city council. The others are West Hollywood and Palm Springs, Calif., and Mount Rainier, Md.
"Here I am, a straight man and this is supposedly a gay mecca," said Scott Newton, who was elected mayor in March. "But this is a community for all. That's why all the gays come here because it's very welcoming."
Most of the businesses in the downtown's main strip mall are gay-owned or are clearly marked with rainbow flags or stickers. Gay pride rainbow flags fly from businesses and homes along streets lined with palm and Australian pine trees.
Many see Georgie's Alibi Bar & Grill, a gay bar that opened seven years ago, as the catalyst that helped turn Wilton Manors into a haven for gays.
"When we came here, this was a ghost town," said owner George Kessinger, who is gay. "We created something, we put a demand on something."
Kelvyn Rivera, for one, said he decided to move from Fort Lauderdale to Wilton Manors once he saw regulars at Alibi start to move into the city and buy up the then-cheap property.
In addition to Alibi and Java Boys, there is GayMart, a clothing and card store. Also, gay-owned Russotto Realty has helped gays and straights alike find homes in the booming city.
The mayor said there are about 10 development projects under way in the city, the most prominent being Wilton Station, a luxury condo project that has nearly sold out with prices starting at $300,000. Gays are expected to make up a significant portion of its tenants.
Gays were included in focus groups before architects drew up the design for Wilton Station. The condos were advertised in the national gay magazine The Advocate and in 411, a Fort Lauderdale gay publication. The ad in 411 featured photos of a man in a hot tub with his arm around another man.
Janet Fredericks, 48, who has lived in Wilton Manors for 27 years, said that the number of gay neighbors started to increase about five years ago. As a straight, married woman, she could soon be in the minority in her neighborhood.
"For me personally, it's not an issue," she said. "My gay neighbors are friendlier than my straight neighbors."
Not everyone feels the same.
Angie Bermudez, 44, said she and her family have considered moving because of the influx of gay couples. "I'm raising three children, and I have concerns over the normality of them seeing two guys together," she said.
Members of the city's gay population said they do not want straight people to move out and make Wilton Manors a gays-only city.
"It will always be diverse, and most people want it to remain that way," Rivera said. "No one wants to live in a gay bubble."
• On the Net: Wilton Manors: http://www.wiltonmanors.com
Wilton Station: http://www.wiltonstation.com


Associated Press, June 2, 2004
Clerk in N.M. Gay Marriages Loses Election
BERNALILLO, N.M. (AP) – The county clerk who issued marriage licenses to dozens of gay couples in February overwhelmingly lost her bid for a county commission seat.
With all ballots counted, unofficial results Wednesday showed Victoria Dunlap with 76 votes to 199 for Chris Espinosa, Sandoval County election officials said. The results will be not be official until state election officials certify the votes in about three weeks.
She did not immediately respond to calls to her home and office seeking comment Wednesday.
Dunlap granted 66 same-sex marriage licenses eight days after San Francisco began marrying hundreds of gay couples. Nearly 4,000 couples were married there between Feb. 12 and March 11, when California's Supreme Court halted the weddings.
Dunlap insisted she was simply following the law and argued that New Mexico's marriage law is not gender-specific. She stopped issuing the licenses when she received a warning from Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who said the licenses were "invalid under state law."
Dunlap is the county's first Republican clerk since the early 1960s. Her term ends this year, and she chose to run for the commission instead of seeking re-election.