by Peter DelVecchio

NYC’s Quinn in slush fund scandal

Openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker, and possible mayoral candidate, Christine Quinn is reportedly under city and federal investigation for allegedly diverting $4.7 million into a slush fund, according to a April 3 report in the New York Post.

In 2006, Quinn, a Democrat, became the first woman and out lesbian to serve as speaker.

The practice of “hiding” taxpayer funds was started in 1988, council aides told the Post, so the speaker could quickly allocate money as needed, though one unnamed source told the Post the money was used for political payoffs.

Quinn, who has advocated transparency in the budget process, said she ordered the practice abolished, though some funds were held in reserve and used for legitimate purposes. Quinn said she only recently discovered that funds had been allocated to nonexistent organizations, and she reported the bogus practice to the “appropriate authorities.”

Gay Catholics react to pope’s U.S. visit

In advance of his scheduled visit to America on April 15, Pope Benedict XVI issued a video message saying he is coming to proclaim, “Jesus Christ is hope for men and women of every language, race, culture and social condition. Yes, Christ is the face of God present among us.”

Dignity USA, a gay Catholic group, announced a demonstration before the pope’s April 18 speech to the United Nations to urge him “to denounce violence” against LGBT people and “to end his own language that undermines gay people worldwide,” a press release said.

“We will focus on Pope Benedict’s strident campaigns against civil rights and civil marriage for gay people in many nations, as well as his opposition to the use of condoms to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said Dignity’s Jeff Stone. “We will also highlight growing support for gay civil rights and civil unions among Catholic countries around the world.”

The pope is also scheduled to go to the White House, celebrate masses in Washington, D.C., and New York City, and visit Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Centers, reports ABC News.

PlanetOut sells The Advocate, Out

After reporting a series of financial difficulties, PlanetOut Inc. agreed to sell their book and magazine properties, which include The Advocate and Out, to here! Networks for $6 million in cash, the San Francisco Business Times reported April 9.

According to the Times, last February, “PlanetOut reported a $51.2 million loss for 2007,” with an accumulated deficit of about $89.5 million.

As part of a July 2007 deal to help keep the company afloat, PlanetOut had to sell “our adult businesses,” but was unsuccessful until the deal with here!

The formal agreement should be completed by April 30, with the deal finalized by August 31, the paper reported. San Francisco-based PlanetOut apparently intends to refocus on its Web portal and will sublease its offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, on April 10, The Advocate posted another exclusive interview with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Oklahoma rally supports anti-gay state rep

More than 1,000 people rallied at the Oklahoma state capitol April 2 to support anti-gay Republican state Rep. Sally Kern, The Associated Press reports. Kern has been the subject of controversy since March 7 when the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund posted a video on YouTube in which Kern rants against gays, saying the LGBT community is a “cancer” and poses “a bigger threat [to America] … than terrorists or Islam.”

“What has happened to me has served to advance the Gospel,” Kern told the crowd.

On March 27, Kern met with Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays during which she said gays should not be fired because they are gay. That prompted another controversy.

“I told them that I did not think homosexuals should be fired just because they are homosexuals. They took that as meaning I supported sexual orientation preferences, and I do not,” Kern told the Oklahoman. “I started getting e-mails from the homosexual community thanking me for backing off on my stances. So evidently, they misunderstood me.”

On April 9, PFLAG released the unedited 40-minute audiotape of the meeting, during which Kern agrees that she opposes anti-gay job discrimination.

“[It] is disheartening that she, as an elected leader, has attempted to disavow her own words,” Loyce Newton-Edwards, president of PFLAG’s Oklahoma City chapter, said in a statement.

National Day of Silence to honor Lawrence King

This year’s national Day of Silence, when students remain silent to call attention to mistreatment of their LGBT peers, will be dedicated to Lawrence King, an Oxnard teen shot to death at school, allegedly by a classmate, 365Gay.com reported April 3. The event, which takes place April 25, was started by University of Virginia students in 1996 and went national in 1997. A 2005 study sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a group fighting discrimination against LGBT students, found that gay-bashing remains a major problem in American schools.

House reauthorizes PEPFAR

The U.S. House of Representatives voted April 2 to reauthorize and expand the $15 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), promoted by President George W. Bush and enacted by Congress in 2003, The Associated Press reports. The bill would triple to more than $10 billion in U.S. annual spending on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and other areas. According to the United Nations, 33 million people globally were living with HIV/AIDS in 2007.

“We have a moral imperative to act,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA).

Without U.S. aid, the HIV/AIDS epidemic “will continue to spread its mix of death, poverty and despondency that is further destabilizing governments and societies and undermining the security of entire regions,” said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the committee’s ranking Republican. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and others are threatening to block the Senate version of the bill.

Pregnant man blurs gender stereotypes

When Thomas Beatie’s first-person essay appeared in The Advocate, many reporters—gay and straight—thought the story of “the pregnant man” was a hoax and the picture was Photoshopped.

Then Beatie, his adoring wife and his wife’s two grown daughters appeared on Oprah, in conjunction with an exclusive in People magazine.

Having previously interviewed transgender people, Oprah treated Beatie with dignity while at the same time periodically expressing the audience’s confusion.

A nervous and apparently guileless Beatie said it was “hard to explain” why he wanted to become a man, but quietly asserted that he wanted to bear a child.

“It’s not a male or female desire to want to have a child,” Beatie, 34, told Oprah. “It’s a human desire. And I’m a person, and I have the right to have my own biological child.”

To many, Beatie, who is six months pregnant, appeared to be a shy, thoughtful man with a loving and supportive family.

But not surprisingly, Beatie became the target of nasty comments, including calls on Oprah’s online forum for the state of Oregon to step in and revoke the couple’s legal marriage.

“I’m going to be sick,” said MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brezinski about the story.

Apparently the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and some transgender groups worked with the media behind the scenes. However, only the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a public statement.

“The desire to create and sustain a family is part of the human experience, reaching back through time. Throughout history people have gone to extraordinary lengths to conceive and bear children,” said NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman. “In this factual context, the Thomas Beatie story is neither unique nor exceptional. The mainstream media and blogosphere reaction is unwarranted and appallingly prurient. The real story is that a family seeking to have children has been terribly mistreated by the media and, it appears, by the medical profession. All families deserve care and respect, period.”

Numbers as of 9:30 a.m., April 10

American Deaths in Iraq: 4,032 • www.icasualties.org

American Wounded in Iraq: 29,628 • www.antiwar.com/casualties

Iraqi Dead since 2003: 82,725- 90,251 • www.iraqbodycount.org

Cost of War: $510,001,000,000+ • www.costofwar.com

National Debt: $9,449,131,460,983.17 • www.brillig.com/debt_clock

U.S. Trade Deficit: $195,328,000,000.00+

www.americaneconomicalert.org/ticker_home.asp

Quote - Unquote

“Being a socially responsible organization is a fundamental part of who we are.”

—McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner, regarding the company being given a seat on the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s board.

“I agree, it was a dumb thing to say, and I apologize.”

—Tonight Show host Jay Leno after being called on asking actor Ryan Phillippe to give his “gayest look.”

“It depends on who the president is and their intentions.”

—Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese on whether transgenders will be included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in Congress next year.

“If I was a girl and he was a girl, and I was a lesbian and he was a lesbian, I’d be all over him.”

—Actor George Clooney, about actor Brad Pitt, in the April issue of Esquire.