(Okeechobee, Fla.) A federal judge Wednesday ruled that Okeechobee High School must allow the establishment of a Gay-Straight Alliance, ending a legal battle that stretched across two years.

The battle for recognition of the GSA began in 2006 ,when student Yasmin Gonzalez and her girlfriend were told they could not attend the school prom as a couple.

The rejection was one of several incidents targeting LGBT students at Okeechobee High School and led to the formation of the GSA.

The school blocked the club from meeting on campus and the students sought the help of the ACLU which filed the federal suit.

The ACLU argued that the Equal Access Act stipulates that when a school allows any non-curricular club to meet on campus, it must allow all non-curricular clubs to meet on campus.

The school district argued at the time that the Equal Access Act can’t be used in the case of a GSA and that Florida law requires schools to teach abstinence, “while teaching the benefits of monogamous marriage.”

In his ruling Moore made legal history for a federal court, saying that schools must provide for the well-being of gay students to the same extent as straight students, and therefore, the school may not discriminate against the GSA.

The school violated the students’ First Amendment rights, the ruling said.

Judge Moore quoted the famed 1969 Tinker case stating that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Moore went on to state that “the desire of the GSA to meet as a group to discuss matters pertinent to the challenges presented by their non-heterosexual identity and to build understanding and trust with other heterosexual students sounds in the political speech addressed in Tinker.”

In referencing Tinker, Moore was referring to Gillman v. School Board for Holmes County, Fla., a first amendment case won by the ACLU in May. In a two-day trial, the high school principal testified that he believed clothing or stickers featuring rainbows would make students automatically picture gay people having sex.

In June, federal judge Richard Smoak ordered Ponce de Leon High School to pay $325,000 in legal fees to the ACLU after ruling that the school violated student Heather Gilman’s Constitutional right to free speech. Gillman and her friends were suspended from school after wearing clothes and stickers supporting their openly gay friends.

In his order Moore grants students in the Okeechobee GSA “all the rights and privileges granted to other noncurricular groups.”

“Judge Moore’s ruling that GSAs are beneficial to gay students and that they don’t harm straight students is unparalleled. This is a clear victory for the students, for the Okeechobee GSA and indeed for all high school students in Florida,” said Robert Rosenwald, director of the ACLU of Florida LGBT Advocacy Project.

“These are brave students who would not be silenced and did not tolerate discrimination. So many children cannot stand up for themselves, but hopefully this ruling will serve as warning to other Florida schools that equal access truly means equal access, and schools that choose not to follow the law will be inviting similar litigation,” he said.

The order will allow the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and straight students to meet on campus, just as other non-curricular clubs do, to discuss issues about bullying, tolerance and discrimination. GSAs across the state and country have been shown to help gay and straight students feel safer at school, and provide an open forum for students to discuss their fears, hopes and challenges.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that the judge agreed we have a right to create a safe space for gay students at my school,” said Brittany Martin, a 17-year-old upcoming senior at OHS who is the GSA’s president. She added, “All we’ve ever wanted was to have a club to talk about tolerance and harassment so we can try to make our school a better place for all students.”

http://www.365gay.com/

Picture from: google images, "picture of high school"

It is an unforgettable day for same-sex couples and advocates of equality across the nation! The California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the state may no longer exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage in that state.

Lambda Legal, lead counsel NCLR and the ACLU have been fighting thiscase on behalf of 14 same-sex couples, Equality California and OurFamily Coalition for the past four years and today we have made history!

In its powerful decision, the court said, "In light of thefundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right tomarry -- and their central importance to an individual's opportunity tolive a happy, meaningful and satisfying life as a full member ofsociety -- the California Constitution properly must be interpreted toguarantee this basic civil right to all couples, without regard totheir sexual orientation."

California is now the second state in the country where same-sex couples have the freedom to marry. Visit Lambda Legal's Relationships Resources Page for more information.

Now we must all do what we can to make sure that discrimination isnot written into the state constitution in California through a ballotinitiative. Visit the Equality for All website to see how you can help.

"We have waited more than 50 years for the opportunity to marry,"said Phyllis Lyon, 80. She and her partner Del Martin, 84, wereplaintiffs in the case. They have been together 55 years and were thefirst couple married in San Francisco on February 12, 2004. "We arethrilled that this day has finally come."

California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage

Same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court's 4-to-3 decision striking down state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman makes California only the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriages. The decision, which becomes effective in 30 days, is certain to be an issue in the presidential campaign.

"In view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship," Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote of marriage for the majority, "the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

California already has a strong domestic partnership law that gives gay and lesbian couples nearly all of the benefits and burdens of heterosexual marriage. The majority said that is not enough.

Given the historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of the concept of marriage, Chief Justice George wrote, the state cannot limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court left open the possibility that another terms could denote state-sanctioned unions so long as that term was used across the board.

The state's ban on same-sex marriage was based on a law enacted by the Legislature in 1977 and a statewide initiative approved by the voters in 2000, both defining marriage as limited to unions between a man and a woman. The question before the court was whether those laws violate provisions of the state Constitution protecting equality and fundamental rights.

Conservative groups have proposed a new initiative, this one to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. If it is allowed onto the ballot in November and approved by the voters, Thursday's decision would be overridden. The groups have gathered more than a million signatures on initiative petitions and submitted them to the state.

Justice Marvin R. Baxter, dissenting, said the majority had should have deferred to the state Legislature, which has in recent years increased legal protections for same-sex couples.

"But a bare majority of this court," Justice Baxter wrote, "not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, its own social policy views for those expressed by the people themselves."

The California Legislature has twice passed bills allowing same-sex marriages, but they were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said they would overturn the 2000 referendum.

Mr. Schwarzenegger opposes the current ballot initiative seeking a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. He said Thursday that he respected the court's decision and would not support overturning it.

In 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco directed the county clerk to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Before the California Supreme Court halted the practice, more than 4,000 same-sex couples received marriage licenses in San Francisco.

Blamed Gays In Part For Mortgage Crisis HUD Head Steps Down Amid Criminal Probe

Posted: April 1, 2008 - 11:00 am ET

(Washington) HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.

He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.

The move comes at a shaky time for the economy, with soaring mortgage foreclosures imperiling the nation's credit markets.

In announcing that his last day at HUD will be April 18, Jackson said only, "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters."

Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for him to leave.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said that while Jackson's resignation is "appropriate, it does nothing to address the Bush administration's wait-and-don't-see posture to our nation's housing crisis."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.

The ethical allegations against Jackson "meant that the Bush administration's ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD Secretary," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said after Jackson's announcement.

President Bush called Jackson "a strong leader and a good man." Ties between the two men go back to the 1980s when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood. It was Jackson's personal ties to Bush that brought him to Washington, where he displayed a forceful personal style at HUD for seven years, first as the agency's No. 2 official and since 2004 in the top slot.

Despite a strong commitment to housing for those in need, Jackson was capable of ill-advised public comments.

Last year, after the subprime mortgage crisis erupted, many policymakers underlined the disproportionate impact of the high-risk, high-cost mortgages on minorities and the elderly, who often are targets of predatory lending practices that lure people into loans they are incapable of repaying.

Asked about the problems with subprime mortgages last June, Jackson insisted that many such borrowers were not unsophisticated, low-income people but what he called "Yuppies, Buppies and Guppies" - well-educated, young, black and gay upwardly mobile achievers - with expensive cars who bought $400,000 homes with little or no money down.

In announcing his departure, Jackson said that in his time at HUD, "We have helped families keep their homes. We have transformed public housing. We have reduced chronic homelessness. And we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership."

Bush has been cool to the idea of a big federal housing rescue. "The temptation of Washington is to say that anything short of a massive government intervention in the housing market amounts to inaction," the president said recently. "I strongly disagree with that sentiment."

On Monday on his way out of the country for a trip built around a NATO summit, Bush said he wants Congress to modernize HUD's Federal Housing Administration, allowing more struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

In October, the National Journal first reported on the criminal investigation of Jackson. The FBI has been examining the ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans. Jackson's friend got the job after Jackson asked a staff member to pass along his name to the Housing Authority of New Orleans.

In another instance of alleged favoritism that came to light in February, the Philadelphia housing authority alleges that Jackson retaliated against the agency because it refused to award a vacant lot worth $2 million to soul-music producer-turned-community developer Kenny Gamble for redevelopment of a public housing complex.

U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond ruled Monday in Philadelpia that HUD acted legally and did not retaliate against the housing authority.

Jackson's problems began in 2006, when he told a group of commercial real estate executives that he had revoked a contract because the applicant who thanked him said he did not like President Bush. Jackson later told investigators "I lied" when he made the remark about taking back the contract.

The probe of Jackson's comment by the HUD inspector general ended with no action taken against him, but the investigators brought to light friction between the HUD secretary and some contractors who have long done business with the agency, a number of them donors to Democrats. On Monday, the IG's office said it had seen Jackson's latest remarks and "there is nothing more that we can add."

In the IG probe, some of Jackson's own aides contradicted his account of one incident in which investigators found the HUD secretary had blocked a contract for several months to one heavily Democratic donor. Jackson blamed his aides for the delay in the award.

Jackson was the first black leader of the housing authority in Dallas, where his integration efforts caused clashes with some local homeowners in predominantly white neighborhoods.

©365Gay.com 2008

The Vagina Monologues

Documentary segments produced by Meema Spadola

Buy a copy at the HBO Store

Eve Ensler's award-winning performance of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES premiered on HBO on Valentine's Day 2002. This production, now available on DVD and VHS, features new interviews with a diverse group of women.

“My Lawfully Wedded Spouse – Redux”

A Fundraiser for Joplin Gay & Lesbian Center

A “Freedom To Marry Week” Event

In Support of Equal Civil Marriage For Gays and Lesbians

Who

Me, You, & All Our Friends

(21 & over, ID required)

What

Dance & Reception

With DJ, Wedding Cake, and Cash Bar

When

Valentine’s Day · Thursday Night

February 14^th, 2008

7:00 pm – 1:30 am

Where

Groove Lounge

2331 East 7^th Street, Joplin, MO

Why

To raise money for Joplin Gay & Lesbian Center

To have fun, to socialize, and to meet new people

To check out the new Groove Lounge

How Much

$5 Donation Per Person

Cash at the Door

RSVP Requested, Not Required

gaylesbiancenter@gmail.com

leemcd@alumni.brown.edu

Lee McDaniel @ 417/622-7821

More Info

MySpace - www.myspace.com/gaylesbiancenter

Yahoo 360˚ - http://360.yahoo.com/gaylesbiancenter

Freedom To Marry - www.freedomtomarry.org/node.asp?id=3605

JoplinGays on Yahoo - http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/JoplinGays/

Al Gore Endorses the Freedom to Marry

In Video, Former VP and Nobel Laureate Explains Why Ending Discrimination in Marriage Matters

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: January 23, 2008
MEDIA CONTACT:
Evan Wolfson, Executive Director
212-851-8418
evan@freedomtomarry.org
Mobile: 646-263-5552

(New York, January 23, 2008)— As the country awaits state high court decisions in marriage cases brought by couples in Connecticut, California, and Iowa; the New Jersey legislature prepares to deal with the reality that civil unions don't work; and the 11th Annual Freedom to Marry Week (Feb. 10-16) approaches, Nobel Laureate Al Gore has added his voice in support of ending same-sex couples' exclusion from marriage.

In a personal video posted on Current TV January 17, shortly before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Al Gore spoke out in favor of the freedom to marry. The former vice president stated: “I think that gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women, to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians.”

In response to Gore’s unequivocal and heartfelt statement making the case for marriage equality, Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry (Simon & Schuster 2004), said, "Al Gore, a true world leader, explains it perfectly. The freedom to marry is about protecting all families and promoting loyalty and love and commitment. As on so many crucial questions, Gore gets it right, and shows what leadership really means."

View Al Gore’s video with transcript on Freedom to Marry’s website and read a full response by Evan Wolfson on the Huffington Post.

Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Launched in 2003, Freedom to Marry is headed by Evan Wolfson, nationally recognized as a central "architect of the marriage equality movement." Freedom to Marry guides and focuses this social justice movement on a nationwide level, serving as a strategy and support center for national, state, and local partners, a catalyst that drives and shapes the national debate on marriage equality, and an alliance-builder fostering support from non-gay allies.

Classic LGBT Film - tbd
Monday, October 22nd
6:30-9:00 pm

Modern LGBT Film - tbd
with animated shorts, too
Thursday, October 25th
6:30-9:00 pm

Rocky Horror Picture Show
Celebrate Halloween with The Center
Monday, October 29th
6:30-9:00 pm

All films shown at Joplin Public Library on Main St.
For more info, call Lee McDaniel.
Joplin Gay & Lesbian Center
417/622-7821