By Ramy Eletreby

State Dept. Report Criticizes Anti-Gay Arab Countries

On March 8, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a State Department report condemning "key Arab allies" for their treatment of gays and lesbians, The Advocate reports. Though the report, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices," provides instances of human rights violations in countries around the world, Arab countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), received the harshest criticism. The report specifically cites the UAE's high-profile arrests of over two dozen gay men last November. A UAE official reportedly said that the men would receive the "necessary treatment, from male hormone injections to psychological therapies."

Gay rights groups used the report to criticize the Bush administration's political decisions in the Arab world. "Countries like the UAE are abusing men and women, and the best the U.S. government can do is give them a multimillion-dollar contract to manage our ports," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a statement.

Also named in the report for their negative treatment of gays and lesbians were Iran, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and Poland. In January, Iran, Zimbabwe, and the United States voted against two gay rights groups serving as consultants to the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

Anti-gay Vatican Policy Affects U.S. Catholic Charities

On March 10, the Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities announced it would halt all adoption services because the church could not secure an exemption to the state's non-discrimination law that allows gays and lesbians to adopt children, according to The Associated Press.

The following day, the San Francisco Archdiocese's Catholic Charities received an order via e-mail from its former archbishop, Cardinal William Levada, now second in command to Pope Benedict XVI, stating, "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Under Levada's watch at the archdiocese, five children out of 136 were adopted by "very qualified, very committed" same-sex couples, Brian Cahill, executive director of the Catholic Charities program in the Bay Area, told the paper, adding that the five children had "special needs" and that Levada was aware of at least three of the adoptions.

"The great majority of these kids present problems and, God love them, they need a home, and our primary focus is to find a home for them," Cahill told the Chronicle.

However, Levada's order mandates that Catholic Charities must follow a 2003 Vatican edict that stated, in part, "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children."

"We are going to be looking at this, but I can't speculate what might happen further down the line," Archdiocese spokesperson Maurice Healy told the Chronicle.

On March 15, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney filed legislation to exempt Catholic Charities from state anti-discrimination laws. Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and Democratic legislators say they oppose the measure.

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment

On March 6, a case challenging the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, was dismissed after the Supreme Court unanimously voted to uphold the Solomon Amendment. First passed in 1994, the law requires schools receiving federal funds to provide the U.S. military on-campus access for recruitment purposes or lose their federal grants. Last December, a coalition of six law schools, the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), argued before the high court that the Solomon Amendment infringes upon their academic freedom of speech and association. FAIR claims that the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prohibits gays from serving openly contradicts their universities' non-discrimination policies.

In one of his first rulings concerning LGBT issues, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the amendment does not violate the right of a student or professor to choose with whom to associate. "Students and faculty are free to associate to voice their disapproval of the military's message," Roberts wrote. "A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message."

Baldwin Protests Removal of Gay Health Web-site

On Jan. 21, gay-oriented health information was removed from a Department of Health and Human Services Web site, less than two weeks after right-wing Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote Secretary Michael Leavitt a letter complaining that the Substance Abuse and Mental Services Health Administration's Web site (www.samsha.gov) contained "biased" pro-gay language and condemned homophobia. The Web site was removed after being online for six years, though SAMSHA official Mark Weber claims the removal was due to an overdue agency overhaul and the timing of the FRC letter was just a coincidence.

Openly gay Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) is leading a House inquiry into the removal of the health information. In February, she recruited other Congressmembers to join her in a letter to Leavitt seeking the restoration of the Web content. "In asking you to restore the Web-site as soon as possible, we must warn against any revisions to the Web content that would distort the LGBT community and its preventive health needs, such as equating 'homosexual conduct' with 'significant health risk,'" writes Baldwin. "We hope your department will take a consistent and fair-minded approach in recognizing and assisting with the unique health risks to LGBT individuals."

Wieder leaves LPI

Judy Wieder, corporate editorial director and executive vice president of LPI Media, left the company effective March 22. In 1996 she made LGBT publishing history by becoming the first woman editor in chief of The Advocate. PlanetOut Inc bought LPI Media last November.

"I am not retiring, that's for sure," Wieder told IN. "However, I wouldn't mind a nice rest on the Big Island of Hawaii for a while, where I can get some good help from the tradewinds about how to do nothing. It's important for me to do that if I ever hope to go back into that creative well again. I will always be so proud of my role in changing The Advocate. And all the exciting growth with other magazines, Web sites, and TV shows -- well, I'm just so glad I was the one who was there to help create and guide things when they were happening. But, mostly, I will miss the people dreadfully. How soppy is that? Geez." -- Karen Ocamb

Matthew Shepard Foundation Honors Judith Light and Robert Desiderio

Since playing Jeanne White, the mother of HIV-infected teenager Ryan White in the 1989 TV movie The Ryan White Story (in which Ryan had a cameo), Judith Light, her actor/writer husband Robert Desiderio and their gay managers Herb Hamsher and Jonathan Stoller have been fighting for HIV/AIDS and LGBT rights as fund-raisers and on the streets, including cycling the entire 585 miles of the California AIDS Ride to honor the late Paul Monette.

On March 25 they will be honored at a gala in Denver, Colo., with the Making a Difference Award by the Matthew Shepard Foundation, founded by Dennis and Judy Shepard after their 21-year-old son, Matthew was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in October 1998.

Youth activist Ryan Olson will also be honored at the event started five years ago as a fund-raiser for the foundation by teddy bear enthusiasts. The celebrity teddy bear auction features personalized bears contributed by stars such as Barbra Streisand, Elton John, and Pamela Anderson.

"Judith, Robert, and Ryan are all making invaluable contributions to promote diversity and replace hate with understanding, compassion, and acceptance in our society," Judy Shepard said.

For more information, go to www.MatthewShepard.org/bears. --Karen Ocamb