Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

The eagle-eyed among our readers -- if there are any -- might have noticed a line at the bottom of the admittedly rare recent posts here, "Post mirrored from seaQwa.com".

"Huh?" you might reasonably have said.

Well, here's what's been happening: This blog -- and only the blog -- is moving to a new home at a new website called seaQwa.com. There's more to the overall site and I encourage you to check it out, but the blog part of it is at seaqwa.com/blogs/Qblog, which is the new home for what you've read here for the past couple of years.

[If you read this post in a feed-reader (and if you don't know what that is, then don't worry about this) please subscribe to this feed of the blog's new home. If you'd also like to get regular updates on news items of LGBTQ insterest, subscribe to this news feed. If you prefer to get updates by email, you'll find a subscription form on all seaQwa pages that have a feed.]

The seaQwa site is still in what I'm calling "preview" mode -- meaning that there's still a bunch of work that has to be completed on the thing. The pages are occasionally inexcusably slow. For that, I apologize. I'm working on a solution.

But you can, nonetheless, see much of what it will become from its current state. In addition to the continuation of this blog in a new setting, the site includes many of the things that I (or, to maintain this blog's persona) that we, your webwrangler, have been doing for the past couple of years on those Squidoo.com pages listed just under the promo box to the right of this column. A big part of what I've been doing there is the news digest. That frequently-updated digest will continue on Squidoo, but it now has its new homebase on the home page of seaQwa.com and, in blog format, on Qnews.

On the home page, you'll also find a "Qticker" of recent blog post headlines from a myriad of bloggers.

I thank everyone who has stopped by here at blog.ttca.org over the years we've been on these green pages and I hope you'll come visit us at our new, blue, and Q-filled home. Oh, and please don't be as shy as you've been on these pages. Add a comment to anything that strikes your fancy (anonymous is OK). You could even add your own posts to the Qyou blog.

What does that mean for this site?

Everything else about this site is staying right here at ttca.org, where it's been for over twelve years now. (And that, is a long, long time in web years.)

Your webwrangler will continue to update this site at his accustomed leisurely pace. Sunny Bruce will continue to greet you on these pages (have you ever noticed that he says something a bit different up in the rose-colored bar on almost every page?) and he will still bring you the latest Cruise alerts in the summer on the mailing list. We might even browse through our extensive galleries and throw up a picture every now and then to this blog.

Please drop by for a visit. Oh, and tell your friends. Thanks.

Labels: blog-on-blog, gay news, Gay Seattle, link bites, Seattle, state:WA

One of two suspects in the hate-crime death of a Sacramento man entered a plea today of not guilty.

Aleksandr Shevchenko, 21, faces a single felony count of intimidating and interfering with a person's rights, a charge that falls under the state's hate crimes statutes.

Shevchenko, with close-cropped brown hair and wearing a white shirt and black pants, shook his head and said "not guilty" when Judge Jaime Rene Roman read the charge against him.

Shevchenko is one of two men charged in the alleged hate-crime killing of Satender Singh in a confrontation at a Sacramento area park on July 1. The other man charged in the case, Andrey Vusik, fled to Russia and is being sought by the FBI on a fugitive warrant. Schevchenko, 22, turned himself into the sheriff's department on Aug. 6 and is free, pending trial, after posting part of a $25,000 bond.

Vusik allegedly punched Singh on July 1 after a day-long series of verbal confrontations between a group of Russian speaking people and a group that included Singh, a Fijian immigrant.

Singh, 26, fell backward, striking his head and rupturing a critical part of his brain stem. He died four days later.

Friends with Singh that day have said the "Russian-speaking" group hurled anti-gay epithets and racial taunts before Singh was punched.

Relatives of both suspects have insisted Singh's death was not intentional. Vusik's wife said her husband acted in self-defense.

The suspects' families have maintained that members of Singh's group were dancing provocatively, using foul language and drinking heavily that Sunday at the park. [SacBee]

Members of evangelical Russian-language churches in Sacramento have long staged protests at virtually every gay-related event scheduled in the capital city. Singh's friends have said that he might have been singled out because he was dancing with both women and men at a lakeside celebration of Singh's recent job promotion. [See previous post.]

Marcos Breton, a columnist for the Bee, last week appealed for calm in what has become a contentious issue in Sacramento.

Because now is the time for moderate voices to step forward. Now is the time for the rhetoric in the Singh case to be dialed down.

In that spirit, it should be stated that the suspect in this case is from Sacramento's Slavic community -- but the entire Slavic community is not suspect.

It should be stated that there were escalating tensions between some Slavic Christians and Sacramento's gay community before Singh was killed -- but the entire Slavic Christian community is not on trial. And neither is the Christian faith. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply inaccurate, a reflection of the fear and anger that have risen as justice has been delayed.

However, we shouldn't forget that long before Singh was killed, leaders in Sacramento's gay community had expressed fears about incendiary language used by some Slavic Christians in anti-gay protests around town -- fears that violence would follow.

When Singh was killed, they believe, those worst fears were realized.

Again -- we don't know if the words of some Slavic Christians created an atmosphere that led to violence.

In interviews with The Bee, members of Vusik's family said they are not affiliated with any anti-gay groups.

"We just got in the confrontation between the churches and the gay community," Vusik's wife, Tatyana, said in a recent interview. "What happened was a tragic accident and had nothing to do with gays."

An article in the Sacramento LGBT bi-weekly magazine, Outword, [issue available only in pdf format] reports that LGBT activists in Sacramento had been calling for greater police protection at gay events long before Singh's death.

"Our goal starting two years ago has been to seek safety for the gay community at our events," said Dr. David Lawson, one of the activists who attended meetings with the county sheriff and district attorney.

"While we have succeeded in increasing the awareness and presence of law enforcement at our events, we have had less success in opening a dialogue between the Queer and Slavic communities," Lawson said.

Labels: crime, gay news, ken hutcherson, news bites

A couple of legal issue bloggers expected the ruling to be appealed when the 10th Circuit Court ruled against the Oklahoma legislature's bizarre decision to deny birth certificates to children born in OK who had been adopted by same-sex couples (in other states, since that's not OK in OK).

Fortunately, that won't happen. The Oklahoma agency that issues birth certificates announced last week that it will honor the appeals court decision.

Tom Cross, the state Health Department's deputy general counsel, said the agency could not meet the requirements to have the 10th Circuit reconsider its opinion.

The agency does not believe that the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the case, he said.

"We will be issuing birth certificates for all adoptions, whether same-sex or not, for children born in Oklahoma," Cross said.

Lambda Legal, which filed cases challenging the hastily-adopted law, celebrated the decision.

"This is a monumental decision, not just for the couples involved in the case, but for lesbian and gay parents and their children nationwide," said Jon Davidson, Legal Director of Lambda Legal. "It means that when same-sex couples have an adoption decree recognizing both of them as parents, the adoption, and their status as their child's parents, must be honored no matter where they go."

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Still trying to recover a response at the Logo prez forum, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson got some help from a not-so-desirable source, Fox's Bill O'Reilly.

When a viewer email questioned his previous remarks that Bill Richardson "looked bad by saying he believed homosexuality was a choice," Fox News' Bill O'Reilly responded, "I think everybody's got to relax on all this gay stuff."

You know you're in trouble if you?re a Democrat and O'Reilly comes to your defense. Huffington Post blogger RJ Eskow caught onto O'Reilly's probably unintentional 'Relax' reference, and so we offer this: (via YouTube)




But that wasn't O'Reilly's only indication during the week that he just can't bring himself to "relax about this gay stuff". He also flubbed a report about a poll that showed the votes of most folks in three swing states wouldn't be affected if a candidate were endorsed by a gay rights group. And then he flubbed it again when someone pointed out he'd been wrong the first time. (But then, he wasn't the only one. Politico.com headlined its story on the poll "Gay support could cost candidates".)

But the incident did help earn O'Reilly a not-so-rare two-fer on Olbermann's Worst Person nomination. [YouTube].

Labels: gay news, news bites, politics, TV

An appeals court yesterday ruled unconstitutional a law passed by the Oklahoma legislature in 2004 that was designed to make a child adopted by a Seattle gay couple into a legal orphan in the state where she was born. [Opinion in pdf format here.] The legislature passed its draconian law after Greg Hampel and Ed Swaya asked the state of Oklahoma to issue a birth certificate for their adopted child that included both their names.

The state's Department of Health issued the requested birth certificate, but legislators quickly responded with the new law on "foreign adoptions" directing that Oklahoma agencies "shall not recognize an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction."

The Denver Post had this summary of the case in November when arguments were presented to the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court:

When Ed Swaya and Gregory Hampel of Seattle adopted their daughter Vivian, now 4, they counted on her eventually getting to know her birth mother in Oklahoma.

But now they're wary of even entering Oklahoma until a federal court in Denver decides the fate of an unprecedented state law that would challenge adoption rights of same-sex couples.

Oklahoma officials this week launched a legal push to uphold the Adoption Invalidation Law, passed in 2004, that would ban state officials from recognizing a same-sex adoption.

Same-sex couples anywhere with legally adopted children would lose their status as parents when inside Oklahoma -- meaning doctors, educators, police and others would treat them legally as strangers.

A federal judge in Oklahoma struck down the law in May.

Oklahoma officials have appealed, and now the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals must decide whether to affirm the lower court's decision -- setting a precedent in what is emerging as a hot legal issue nationwide. The appeals court heard arguments in the case this week.

"This is about my daughter's rights," Swaya said. "We will not go to Oklahoma now, and that is hurting my daughter. My daughter has a right to know her birth mother."

Partners Swaya, 46, and Hampel, 37, were among the adoptive parents challenging the law.

Swaya and Hampel adopted Vivian in 2002 after she was born to a 19-year-old woman named Jenny, who selected them after viewing their website.

Lambda Legal filed suit against the state of Oklahoma on behalf of Hampel and Swaya and two other couples whose adoptions were affected by the Oklahoma law.

Each family is headed by a same-sex couple with children adopted in Washington, New Jersey and California respectively. Two of the families moved to Oklahoma; the third still lives out of state but wishes to travel to Oklahoma. We argued that the law is unconstitutional. A Federal Court struck down the extreme law and prohibited state officials from enforcing it in the future.

For technical reasons, both the lower court and the appeals court declined to consider Hampel and Swaya's specific case, but both courts now stuck down the Oklahoma law based on the situation of one of the other parties in the suit. The appeals court ruled yesterday,

We hold that final adoption orders by a state court of competent jurisdiction are judgments that must be given full faith and credit under the Constitution by every other state in the nation. Because the Oklahoma statute at issue categorically rejects a class of out-of-state adoption decrees, it violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Oklahoma is expected to appeal yet again. A legal-issues blog that called yesterday's ruling a "blockbuster decision" notes that the three-member appellate court issued a divided ruling.

Although the constitutional ruling is a doozy, the crux of the opinion deals with the many procedural quirks of this case. ...

The majority of Judges Ebel and O'Brien didn't buy Oklahoma's elaborate effort to destroy justiciability on the ultimate constitutional question. In a short dissent, Judge Hartz takes issue with the majority?s rush to judgment. As for the merits of the decision, read it now. With so many ways for an en banc court, or even the Supremes, to vacate this decision, you might not have much time.

A different legal-issues blog prefers to look at the merits of the three cases involved and offers this conclusion:

Also, as a practical matter, it has been observed that Oklahoma has the second highest divorce rate, after Nevada. Therefore, if there are gay people that are adopting in Oklahoma, they probably have a more stable relationship than straight married people. So, let me make it clear to all the "family" values types. Wouldn't you rather have mature, stable, gay people (that have been screened for the maturity and stability by the government) adopting and raising kids, then the large numbers of people that got married just because the girl happened to get pregnant? Quite frankly, adoption (gay is straight) is a much more involved process than copulation, and anyone that begins (much less completes) the process is pretty darn sure they want to raise a child.

Labels: gay news, law, Seattle, Washington

The comeback is one of the grand traditions of the entertainment world where they sometimes work. We see attempts even in politics (see, eg, Nixon) but the attempts rarely work out there. So here are a few recent news items that prompt a sense of "we've see that before..."

He's never really gone away, but Joe Fuiten, Bothell's rabidly anti-gay preacher/political activist is back under a new auspices. He formed his own group called after leaving Faith and Freedom Network. But now, he's folded that group into yet another new outfit called Family Policy Institute of Washington.

This one is under the philosophical umbrella (but not, they insist, the financial umbrella) of James Dobson's Focus on Family.

Fuiten's is also encouraging pastors throughout the state to get each member of their congrations to register to vote. Fuiten hopes to target legislators who voted for Washington's domestic partnership registry.
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And then there's Aubrey McClendon, the Sonics silent-partner co-owner, who helped bankroll one of Gary Bauer's anti-gay programs. Slog uncovered his funding of the Bauer project [background] at just about the time that the Sonics/Storm owners started threatening to move their teams away from Seattle -- both teams, including the Storm with its significant lesbian fanbase.

Well, McClendon stepped into it again with -- of all things -- a proposed real-estate development in Michigan. There are -- as often happens with these things -- a wealth of potential problems with the proposed beach-front development. Those potential problems have, of course, attracted a wealth of potential opponents of the development proposal. But, there's one extra problem for McClendon. It seems that his development proposal has drawn fire from an unlikely group -- gay folk in the area. Oops. McClendan bought an area of dunes and beach that is considered by locals to be the gay beach. Oh, boy...

McClendon's "people" gave a familiar response when asked about the opposition. "[B]ut after all, this is private property," said a spokesman.
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And imagine, if you will, being famous as member of a "gay group" when you were never gay. Oh, the horror, eh? Maybe it would drive you to drink and drugs. Well, it seems that that's exactly what happened to Victor Willis former lead singer and "cop" of the Village People. But don't cry too much for the singer/songwriter. While racking up arrests and rehabilitation stints since leaving the group in the early 80s, Willis has made over a million dollars in royalties on 'not gay' songs he wrote for the disco group, including "In the Navy", "YMCA", and "Macho Man".

Willis is clean and sober now according to his "people", and ready to mount some sort of comeback tour after releasing a promised tell-all book in the fall. And yes, there's a regional connection even here. Turns out Willis wrote "YMCA" in Vancouver. According to his publicist, "Victor Willis wrote about the YMCA and having fun there, but the type of fun he was talking about was straight fun."

We'll have to wait for that tell-all book to get the nitty-gritty about what kind of not-gay fun the guys at the Vancouver Y were having way back when.
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In other 'not gay' news, there's Matt Sanchez, that hot-looking Marine conservative activist from a few months back. Soon after making several appearances on Fox News programs and hob-nobbing with Ann Coulter, Sanchez was identified as a former actor in gay porn known as "Rod Majors" [background]. He said then that making those movies was just a "summer job." Although he's remained a popular search topic on blogs, Sanchez mostly disappeared from News Corp TV. But he's not been forgotten by the company's many media outlets.

Cpl. Matt "Rod Majors" Sanchez turned up again as an expert source in an article in News Corp's Weekly Standard magazine.

Sorry, no local connection to this story.

Labels: celebrities, gay news, news bites, politics, sports

When last we came across a print edition of Spokane's gay paper, Stonewall News Northwest, a banner on the front page of the bi-weekly paper announced that the May 2 issue would be "Our Final Issue; Stonewall suspends publishing".

A letter from then-publisher Mike Schultz explained

...the fun has become increasingly lost on the struggles of declining advertising revenue... While Stonewall has enjoyed a circulation and readership that has tripled over the last two years, stable advertising revenue has declined. ... So what happened to Stonewall? Something very simple actually. Our advertisers didn't hear from you, our reader.

Schultz said that "a deepening relationship with my partner and building our lives together have also taken priority over the cost of personal time for the outreach that it takes to keep our community engaged with Stonewall," but offered a ray of hope that "someone motivated and committed to a level of outreach that transcends the insulated tendency of our community" would buy the paper.

It turns out, that that's exactly what happened, but not without a fair share of drama.

A July 14 story by reporter Donna Tam in Spokane's daily, The Spokesman-Review, tells a story that hints at the messy intrigue that followed. (A note first about that link: It's remarkable that you can actually read an S-R story on the web. Until recently, they hid most of their stories behind a firewall that not only required a nasty registration process -- something too many papers do, but also restricted web readership to those who subscribe to the paper's dead-tree edition. Maybe they had a deal with Weyerhauser, but things seem to have opened up a bit. Something to do with that McClatchy "RealCities" logo that now appears on the page? Maybe... But that's different media story.)

Fred Swink, described in the S-R story as a "recent Chicago transplant" took over the paper in June, but it wasn't exactly a smooth transition, according to the daily.

Since Fred Swink became Stonewall News Northwest's publisher last month, the paper has faced staffing issues and what Swink called an attack on its Web site, leaving Stonewall unable to publish a print edition.

Swink said Stonewall News' Web site was dismantled by a "disgruntled staff member" who managed the site and laid out the print edition. He said the staff member, whom he declined to name, made editorial changes to the paper during layout without consulting Swink and lifted Associated Press wire stories without attributing them or subscribing to the service.

Former arts and entertainment editor Christopher Lawrence identified Stonewall News' previous publisher, Mike Schultz, as the person who worked on layout and the Web site.

Schultz, Stonewall?s publisher for two years, confirmed that he took down the Web site. He said it was not included in the sale of the newspaper.

"They were on loan to Fred Swink as a courtesy," Schultz explained. "It would be fair to say that courtesy has expired."

Schultz said Swink's other assertions are false. Both he and Swink decided that Schultz should separate from the paper after a disagreement about the layout.

For anyone who vaguely watches what happens with these little ink-on-dead-tree outfits, that's juicy stuff. Proof: Tam is able to use the adjective "disgruntled."

It turns at that the "former arts and entertainment editor Christopher Lawrence" became "former" only after Swink took over. After working at the paper since 2004, he resigned "citing creative differences with Swink." As often happens with the staff of gay papers (in our view, unfortunately), Lawrence is also a community activist, serving as chairman of the board at OutSpokane, the nonprofit that runs Spokane?s Pride Parade and Rainbow Festival.

"I think it's tragic," Lawrence said of the tribulations of the paper in the last year. "I'd like to just get back to putting out a paper that is a community paper."

The paper is an important part of the local gay community, said Lawrence. ... "It helps us see ourselves as a very diverse community," Lawrence said of Stonewall. "We don't just go to bars. We don?t just do drag. We don?t just wear leather. We live on farms. We have families."

We didn't see many issues of the paper, but we were always impressed with it when we saw it. It almost always offered a unique local slant on gay news that went beyond republishing press releases -- something often missing from its west-of-the-mountains big brother.

One thing it didn't have, however, was much of a web presence. The best they could manage on their former website were headlines and pdf copies of the print edition's pages. Who knows, given the daily's odd web policies, maybe what Schultz identified as the "insulated tendency of our community" applies more broadly to the Spokane area.

Whatever ends up happening to the print edition under Swink, the paper at least boasts a slightly better website. He's apparently regained control of the url at stonewallnews.net, and offers a website with actual stories on the web. (Unfortunately, in keeping with that "insulated tendency," reading beyond the headline currently requires registration.)

We wish them well, but hope they break Spokane tradition and get rid of that registration requirement.

Labels: gay business, gay news, gay organization, Washington

A conservative group from California finally got its second day in court yesterday when its lawyers argued before a three-judge state appeals court panel that a law signed in 2004 by Mayor Greg Nickels violates the state's "Defense of Marriage Act" -- a law that grants special rights of civil marriage only to heterosexual couples.

PJI's case was dismissed by a King County Superior Court in 2004. The conservative law group filed its appeal after the state Supreme Court narrowly upheld DOMA in the split Andersen decision.

A conservative site, LifeSiteNews.com, that liberally uses scare quotes in its stories offers this take on on the case filed by Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), a non-profit "legal defense" organization that defends "religious freedom" and the "rights of parents" (to use our own version of the punctuation technique).

Matthew McReynolds, the PJI lawyer who argued the case on Tuesday, stated in a PJI press release, "The people of Washington spoke unequivocally through their elected legislators, upholding traditional marriage. Mayor Nickels has absolutely no authority to recognize same-sex marriage in contradiction of state law."

Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, also said, "Our nation cannot exist without continued respect for the rule of law. Having spoken through their elected representatives, the citizens of Washington State are entitled to have their will respected by local officials, regardless of their ideology."

McReynolds further pushed this point before the state Court of Appeals on Tuesday, stating that the mayor was undermining the state ban on homosexual marriage. Referring to the mayor's decision, he stated according to Seattlepi.com, "It's our position that this goes way beyond employee benefits. He (Mayor Nickels) was just using this as an opportunity to undercut the Defense of Marriage Act."

The "LifeSiteNews" outfit overstates the significance of the silly Nichols order that PJI has challenged. Their story claims that Nichols

ordered that businesses give marriage benefits to same-sex couples... . The mayor extended the regular marriage privileges to those couples that were "married" by other governments, such as Massachusetts. The Mayor's policy allows same-sex couples to sign up for benefits without having to file for domestic partnership status.

The order, however, applies only to employees of city departments and not to businesses in general.

As the PI story on the suit points out, it is a mostly symbolic order.

In practical terms, both the lawsuit and the city rules it challenges are largely symbolic. Nickels' order requires city departments to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states.

But that order was largely symbolic because the city already had provided benefits to domestic partners since 1989. However, the order does allow married same-sex workers to sign up for such coverage with less paperwork -- signing on as "married" rather than filling out separate "domestic partnership forms."

The PI reports that one of the judges on the panel, Judge Stephen Dwyer, took a slap at the broad language used by Nichols in his limited order. "The mayor was misleading the public in terms of what he was trying to accomplish," Dwyer said.

According to Christian Post, the California-based PJI is assisted in the case by attorney Darren Walker of Vancouver, Wash. and Brian Fahling of the American Family Association who will act as co-counsel.

G.A.Y blog explains it well under the headline, If it's pro-gay and on the West Coast, PJI's gunnin' for it:

And in case you were confused, they are saying "goes against the state's DOMA law" as if challenging that discriminatory, constitution-vioalting law is a bad thing. Which seems weird to us, as in the not-too-distant future, it will inevitably be those who didn't challenge that historical blight known as DOMA who will be looked at with shrugged shoulders and "how could you not have" eyes. That's because DOMA (at both the federal and state level) is like the equivalent of legislative cow dung, only more foul.

Yet regardless of their "but a discriminatory law is on the books" claims, this executive order does not at all go against the state's wretched DOMA law, as it doesn't confer the right on anyone grant gay marriages or recognize them as legal in Washington; it merely directs Seattle city employees to grant equal benefits.

Here's just hoping the court's informed legal opinion agrees with our quasi-informed, non-legally-binding viewpoints on the order.

Labels: doma, gay news, marriage equality, Seattle

Anti-gay American crusaders, including Redmond's Ken Hutcherson and Oregon's Scott Lively have celebrated the anti-gay energy brought to their movements by evangelical churches for Russian-speaking emigres from former Soviet republics.

A recent assault in Sacramento shows the danger of that "energy" when misdirected.

The death in Sacramento early this month of Satender Singh, a 26-year old immigrant from Fiji, has riled tensions there between the city's large Slavic immigrant population and the LGBT folk against whom some of the Slavs have demonstrated.

The Sacramento Bee has detailed the still-unsolved July 1 hate crime and reactions to it.

Singh was picnicking near Lake Natoma with a small group of Fijian and Indian friends when the attack occurred, according to two people with him that day. The Bee is not identifying the friends because they fear retribution.

Singh was at the park that Sunday to celebrate a promotion he had earned at his call center job, according to the friends, and the group was drinking and dancing to Indian music. Singh was the only one without a date, and was hugging and dancing with other men.

In the hours preceding the attack, a group described as Russian-speaking hurled explicit gay slurs and racial remarks at Singh and his party, according to witnesses and sheriff's officials. When Singh and his friends tried to leave around 8 p.m., they were confronted by the Slavic group and a fight ensued, the witnesses said.

Singh was punched -- once -- in the face. He fell backward and cracked his head, rupturing a part of the brain stem that controls most of life's functions. He died four days later.

A 911 call to the sheriff's office from Wolfgang Chargin warned them that tension was brewing at the park between the two groups.

The Russian-speaking group seemed especially offended by Singh, 26, who was dancing with both men and women, Chargin said.

At one point, Singh's party went into the water and one of the men in the other group walked over and spit on their blankets, Chargin said. The man then went to the lake's edge and shouted something at them that they seemed to find especially shocking, Chargin said.

After watching several verbal exchanges between the two groups, Chargin called 911. He stressed that Singh's group was never aggressive but they were confronted several times.

The county sheriff said his officers responded to the call, but could not locate the groups.


The crime and the reaction to it highlight a social tension that has been developing in Sacramento and other communities for years where evangelical Christian Slavic immigrants have staged aggressive anti-gay protests.

In death, [Singh] has emerged as a symbol of wounds that have festered for some time between Sacramento's gay community and members of the Slavic evangelical community, a thousands-strong group that has become a vocal force denouncing gay rights. It is that rhetoric, some contend, that fueled the attack on Singh earlier this month at Lake Natoma.

"This homicide sort of brings to light what has been feared," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who attended a vigil for Singh last week. "It's tragic evidence of a larger point." [SacBee]

Although Sacramento police have characterized the case as a "high priority," they haven't yet identified Singh's attackers. One commenter to a SacBee story on the crime speculates, "They will not find the Russians who did this, they are a tight lipped community and we have no Russian speaking Officers. Sad, but true."

Another attempts to correct him, but comes to a similar conclusion: "1.we DO have Russian peace officers, my brother is one of them! and I also have 2 friends on the police force who are Russian! 2.We are NOT a tight lipped community-most of us have been here less than 10 years, and are not familiar enough with the laws to step in, when officers truly need our input they come in with an explanation and we are glad to help. Back in Russia, if you helped solve a crime, the criminals will turn around and commit another crime-this time against you-the witness, so excuse us for being hesitant, we are still getting used to the protection we have here. "

According to the Bee, about a third of Sacramento's 100,000 Russian-speaking residents are members of evangelical churches who claim to follow a "literal interpretation" of the Bible and who emphasize the anti-gay messages they find there. In Sacramento, they've staged protests at area schools, at the state Capitol, and at just about any public event staged for LGBT people.

Those leading the anti-gay protests -- many of whom fled religious persecution in the former Soviet Union -- maintain they're exercising their newfound freedom of speech to spread the message that homosexuality is a sin.

"What's going on is very complicated," Feldman said this week. "It's almost a social war starting in Sacramento."

Steinberg, who last year rode as a dignitary in the city's annual gay pride parade, said he has been struck by the magnitude of vitriol emanating from the evangelical protests.

"Some of the epithets, some of the signs are not only disrespectful of the gay and lesbian community, but they are disrespectful of the entire community," he said. "The words are vile ... and words may give people the implicit license to take the next step and hurt people. ...

Florin Ciuriuc, a former executive director of the Slavic Community Center of Sacramento, said he was disturbed but not surprised to hear of the attack at Lake Natoma.

Ciuriuc said he was among those leading anti-gay protests a few years back but that he stopped participating as the movement became more menacing.

"I saw that people were hungry for violence, for blood; different ideas where we have to be aggressive, where we have to scream," he said. "I don't want people from my community killing each other or other people because they are getting aggressive."

Viktor Chernyetsky, administrator of Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, strongly disagreed with Ciuriuc's assessment. Chernyetsky said Slavic leaders teach homosexuality is a sin, but do not support physical violence. [SacBee]"

There's no indication in the Bee stories that Singh actually was gay. It's clear, however, that his attackers -- who probably weren't all that familiar with the traditions of Bollywood -- perceived him to be so. And that appears -- judging by their reported actions -- to be why they attacked him and his friends.

"Why has Mr. Singh's death galvanized this community?" asked Georgette Imura of the Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Advocacy. "He was targeted because of his ethnicity and his perceived sexual orientation ... and possibly, his racial background. It's touched us on so many different levels."

In Sacramento, LGBT groups have joined with support groups for Asian/Pacific Islanders to stage several well-attended vigils for Singh. In memorial shortly after Singh's death, hundreds gathered to honor a young man that most had never met. The Sacramento gay magazine, Outword, offers this highlight: [magazine in PDF format]

The laugh was infectious, and brought smiles to all those who heard it as it was played from a cell phone and amplified so that all at the memorial service and rally could hear it. It was not meant for that, however, it was simply a phone call to a good friend, a shared laugh and now a treasured memory.

The phone call and the laugh were from Satendar Singh and it was played at a memorial service in his honor before a crowd of over 300 people, most of whom had never met him, nor knew him, but gathered to remember his life that was taken in a senseless and tragic murder and possible hate crime.

The service was held at 8 p.m. in the Peace Garden at the State Capitol on Friday, July 6 and was organized by the Capital Unity Council and members of Sacramento's gay and religious communities.

Singh, a recent immigrant from Fiji, was called "The Lucky One" by his family because he had won a lottery for a visa and the chance to come to the U.S. His luck ran out on Sunday, July 1...

Singh was remembered again yesterday when those attending a long-planned a "West Coast Diversity Summit" in Sacramento turned it into another vigil to the young man's memory. For the first time in weeks, a minister from one of the evangelical Slavic churches spoke out about the attack.

There was no mistaking the fundamental differences between Bishop Nikolay Gelis and most of his audience Saturday at the first West Coast Diversity Summit.

His Russian words reverberating throughout Trinity Cathedral Hall in midtown Sacramento, Gelis preached with the help of a translator that he believes "normal families" are men and women who produce children, building strong communities for the betterment of a nation.

In the audience sat about 50 gay and lesbian activists and allies, undoubtedly with different definitions of family and societal betterment.

But in the end came common ground.

"We do not support any form of hate or persecution," boomed Gelis, a leader at a local Pentecostal Slavic church.

Advocating that everyone "love each other and have peace," Gelis received thunderous applause and the only standing ovation of the afternoon summit.

Good words, of course, and -- no doubt -- welcome in Sacramento where folks have to deal with daily tension built from simmering threats of violence. But Gelis's American anti-gay allies in churches -- including Hutcherson -- have been speaking out against a hate-crimes bill in Congress that would make the very kinds of distinction between speech and violent action that Gelis was making. As long as the preachers insist on a supposed "right" to incite violence, it's difficult to put much faith in those kinds of words.

Labels: crime, gay news, hate crime, ken hutcherson, religion

Just to catch up on what other folks were saying before and after the Pride week festivities...

The lede of the PI story by Keri Murakami on yesterday's parade focused on a Japanese tourist who unexpectedly got caught up in the big crowds:

But in the Seattle Pride Parade's second year downtown, there were those, like Yui Igarashi, who planned to spend the day shopping, but instead ran into parade crowds.

She was at the corner of Fourth and Pine holding her digital camera up, trying to shoot over the two tall men in front of her.

Retreating to change memory cards on her camera, she said, "It's very live."

Igarashi, who is visiting from Japan, had never seen a gay pride parade in her home country. "It's very open," she said, as peacock feathers from the headdresses of a few men in the parade peeked over the crowd.

The Times story by Marsha King called the parade "dazzling celebration of Seattle's gay and lesbian culture."

In advance of the weekend, the PI ran a couple of stories about Seattle's gay history, including a remarkable column by the paper's cranky columnist, Joel Connelly. He recounts his return from a trip in 1978 to find a headline that would often be repeated in the years to come.

A headline across the top of the Seattle P-I front page carried big news: Seattle had just become the first town in America to vote AGAINST a bid to repeal its city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Anita Bryant and her ilk were turned back by a civic campaign, chaired by Mayor Charley Royer's then-wife Rosanne, arguing the right to privacy.

The remarkable vote, in what was then called the Queen City, was driven home as I dragged my duffel bag through customs in San Francisco. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was on TV announcing that Mayor George Moscone and gay fellow supervisor Harvey Milk had been murdered.

The 1978 campaign that defeated the anti-gay initiative was probably unknown to most who celebrated here the anniversary of the Stonewall protests in New York, but it was Seattle's own Stonewall.

Connelly does a great job of tracing the political and social tolerance in the city that was both given its birth by that initiative fight and reflected in the outcome.

PI reporter Keri Murakami traces the history of the Double Header, the Seattle bar that was in many ways like New York's Stonewall except that its customers never attracted the kind of raid that would lead to the Stonewall protests.

Seattle University professor Gary Atkins wrote in a 2003 history of gays in Seattle, "For the next three decades, one gay man or woman after another would find that all-important staircase on Washington Street, go down into the underground, and begin the process of both coming out and finding a new family."

And gradually, the scene moved upstairs to the Double Header.

Rose Bohanan, who is quoted in Atkins' book, recalled that she hadn't been to the Double Header for years. Now 66, she said she was a teenage runaway when she came across the Double Header in the '50s.

"For a 17-year-old, it was heaven on Earth. Finally finding people like me, and finding out I wasn't the only one," she said in an interview. "I was a street child, and the drag queens took me in. They taught me how to behave, not to be a fool."

There were fights in the bar, she said, because sailors would come in to harass the drag queens, but, she said, "There's nothing like an angry drag queen. I've seen some sailors dragged out with a high heel embedded in them."

That was a long time ago, but friend-of-The-Stranger and YouTube star Chris Crocker sent Seattle a greeting to remind us that it's not so different than what folks elsewhere deal with today.

Another such reminder from the experience of Seattle Men's Chorus who tried to do edgy posters for their annual Pride Week concert over the weekend. But edgey turned out to be offensive to several merchants who demanded that the Chorus censor its poster promoting the concert.

The promotional material for this weekend's concert at McCaw Hall, for example, features two protesters hoisting picket signs that proclaim: "God hates fags" and "You're going to hell."

Coleman's intent was one of humor, a spoof of the very religion with which many gays struggle and to which so many have found a closed door. He titled the performance "Scared Faithless: God and Gays in the 21st Century." ...

"I probably made a mistake," Coleman admitted Thursday. "I guess I was naive and just didn't realize that people would be that uncomfortable with that image and those words. After all, we live with this all the time."

The concert will explore ? through song and performance ? the pain some members have faced in seeking acceptance in their church. But it will also celebrate the warm welcome gays have felt in other communities of faith.

While many of their songs are religious, the Seattle Men's Chorus is secular, its mostly gay members hailing from many different faiths ? or none at all.

And in other censorship news, a school administrator in New Jersey apologized after his staff was ordered to black out an image of two men kissing that was included in the school's yearbook.

And congradulations to Randy, Mark, Scott and the big crew who've worked so hard to create Butch the big, pink, gay poodle mascot of the LVHS Classless Reunion. Butch won the second-place prize offered by The Stranger for entries in the Sunday parade. (And congrats to The Stranger judges for not holding grudges. [This is a point where we're glad that they ignore this blog.]) Congratulations as well to Nothwest Bears for thier grand-prize entry, "Bears, Bath & Beyond" [Times photo].

Labels: gay news, gay pride, Gay Seattle, history, Seattle, Seattle Pride

Some local and local-ish gay news you might have missed:

• Bullying starts at home: A few Olympia parents upset by school's pro-tolerance program -- Olympian

Some parents of students at Olympia's Washington Middle School were "livid" after their young'uns had to sit through a school assembly that advocated tolerance of gay and lesbian folk among them.

And these are the folks who get "special rights" under our current marriage laws.


• Justice Bobbe Bridge to retire; Wrote dissent in gay marriage ruling -- KOMO (AP)
  Bobbe Bridge will retire from the Washington Supreme Court at the end of the year. Bridge wrote a stinging dissent in the 2005 Andersen case, in which a plurality on the Court upheld Washington's special-rights-for-heterosexual-marriage law, aka "Defense of Marriage Act."



• Smith and Cantwell offer bill to fix federal taxation of domestic partners -- 365Gay.com
  Two northwest senators -- Oregon's Gordon Smith (R) and Washington's Maria Cantwell (D) -- introduced a bill that would give domestic partners the same federal tax advantages on employer-provided health benefits now enjoyed by married couples.



• Eli Sanders goes south to visit YouTube star; Southerners upset -- The Stranger + Towleroad
  
  
  
  The Stranger's Eli Sanders traveled into unfamiliar territory last week when he went south to visit with YouTube phenom Chris Crocker. He came back with a great story about how the web gives queer folk access to a much wider world even when they live in a small Southern city. Sanders calls it "one of the most fun and heartbreaking stories I've ever had the chance to write for The Stranger."
  
  Andy Towle has been featuring Crocker's videos for months on his great news blog, but when he posted a link to Sanders' story, Towleroad readers from the South erupted with wounded Confederate pride. Something (and we can't figure out what) about Sanders' story or Crocker himself offended several Towleroad commenters.
  
  Commenters on Crocker's MySpace page responded more favorably.



• Is Sally Clark just too darn nice? -- Seattle Weekly
  
  The town's conglomerate-"alt"-weekly did a story on "Seattle nice" a few weeks back and featured the city council's out lesbian is the best current example of the phenomenon. But that's probably because the even-nicer Richard Conlin (who is neither out nor lesbian, by the way) isn't running for re-election in this cycle.



• Tina Podlowdowski to leave Lifelong AIDS Alliance -- SGN
  
  Clark's former boss and former (and not so nice, according to some reports) city council member Tina Podlowdowski has resigned from her post as executive director of Lifelong AIDS Alliance. David Richart was appointed interim executive director of the service/advocacy agency.

Updating Hutcherson and Latvia:
Redmond's Pastor Ken apparently didn't make it to Latvia for Riga's (finally) successful gay pride observance. Or if he did, he didn't tell his "prayer warriors" about it -- which would be surprising. He has, however, asked them to "Pray for my attempt to get a meeting with President Bush and Condaleeza Rice to discuss issues with the American Embassy in Latvia."

That must mean that he is, once again, upset that the US embassy joined with just about every original EU country to urge Latvian authorities to protect the right of peaceful assembly.

We post news items more quickly on two Squidoo pages: Gay Seattle (northwest items) and Gay News (national and international items).

Labels: gay news, Gay Seattle, latvia, marriage equality, youtube

The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force has released results of what they call "the largest-ever national survey of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans."

The Task Force study of the results is titled Living in the Margins and shows high reported rates of discrimination.

Nearly every respondent (98 percent) had experienced at least one form of discrimination and/or harassment in their lives.

• Eighty-five percent had experienced discrimination and/or harassment based on their race or ethnicity
• Seventy-five percent reported that they had experienced discrimination and/or harassment based on their sexual orientation
• Nearly seven in ten (69 percent) transgender respondents said they had experienced discrimination because they were transgender.
• Nearly all respondents (89 percent) agreed that homophobia and/or transphobia is a problem within the broader API community.
• Seventy-eight percent agreed that API LGBT people experience racism within the predominantly white LGBT community.

A Task Force press release on the study quotes Mala Nagarajan of Trikone-Northwest in Seattle. "The lives of Asians and Pacific Islanders are complex," Nagarajan said, "and they are made invisible by popular perceptions of our community as 'the model minority.' This report helps shatter those myths and raises important issues from which we as a community can and need to mobilize."

Despite being the "largest ever" such survey, it still draws data from what strikes us as a relatively small sample. We're far from statistics experts, and the Task Force report doesn't list the survey's margin of error, but the data is drawn from "more than 860 respondents" in 38 states and the District of Columbia. That looks to our inexpert eye like a small group, which means that some of the results might be skewed.

The Task Force collaborated with API LGBT community organizations to administer the survey. The results show a high level of political involvement among respondents.

67 percent reported that they planned to vote in the 2006 mid-term election (approximately 20 percent reported that they were ineligible to vote).

Of those eligible to vote, a strong majority (67 percent) of respondents were affiliated with the Democratic Party, with 20 percent not affiliated with any political party. Two percent were Republican.

Strong majorities of respondents also reported that they participate in other political activities, including signing petitions (81 percent), participating in marches or rallies (65 percent) and contacting their elected officials (55 percent).

This is a point where the sample size and the methods of finding respondents -- through community organizations that are more likely to attract politically active members -- might lead to imbalanced results.

But, despite those possible problems, it's a fascinating report that goes a long way toward fulfilling the study's goal:

to collect basic demographic data on API LGBT Americans and quantitatively analyze the effect of multiple minority identities on their experiences of discrimination and harassment, as well as their political and civic participation.

The study authors conclude in the report's Executive Summary:

This study reveals insights into the lived experiences of API LGBT people. Through understanding the intersections of racism, homophobia/transphobia, sexism and classism and how these affect API LGBT people, key issues emerge as recurring opportunities for proactive organizing. The issues addressed in this report cut to the heart of community members' experiences as a racial or ethnic minority in predominantly white LGBT settings, and likewise, as LGBT participants in predominantly heterosexual API environments.

An anecdotal example of the complexity demonstrated by the survey data is provided on the website of the Seattle group Tricone-Northwest. Tricone describes itself as "a vibrant, diverse group of individuals creating a social, supportive, educational, and political space for differently oriented South Asians and their family, friends and community."

The group's goal is to "to create a safe and inclusive world where differently oriented South Asians can freely express themselves and reach their unlimited potential by building community, increasing social and political visibility, and promoting racial and sexual equality."

These kinds of statements are usually hammered out by consensus in group meetings. Notice that even the usual alphabet soup of "LGBTQA" (choose at least three) doesn't seem to work. Instead, the group shows the complex nature of its intended membership by using the term "differently oriented."

They describe the term:

By differently oriented we mean those individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer and those who choose not to accept a label or prefer other identities such as hijra, kothi, meti, men who have sex with men (MSM) or women who have sex with women (WSW).

The survey breaks out results for the 30 respondents who live in Washington. That's a tiny sample size, but the results are generally in line with the overall survey results with a few notable exceptions. Washington respondents were more politically active, with 80% saying they planned to vote in the upcoming elections, compared with 67% of those in the overall survey.

Within the small and politically active sample, Washington respondents also identified slightly different political priorities, showing more interest in two issues -- marriage equality and discrimination -- recently addressed (partly) by the state legislature.

• Marriage equality ---------------- WA: 40%, Overall: 35%
• Immigration ----------------------- WA: 37%, Overall: 32%
• Media representations ---------- WA: 33%, Overall: 37%
• Job discrimination/ harassment - WA: 33%, Overall: 29%
• Hate violence/harassment -------- WA: 33%, Overall: 39%

In the overall results, one-third of respondents reported being in a committed relationship, and 10 percent had a domestic partner. Washington respondents were more likely to be partnered, with more than double the number having a "domestic partner" even before the state-wide DP registry takes effect. In Washington 20% of respondents reported being in a committed relationship, 23% had a domestic partner, 7% were dating and 37% were single. The remaining chose various other categories.

The Washington sample shows how the issue of labels plays out in the numbers (where respondents could choose multiple labels). Results from the larger survey are included in square brackets:

50% self-identified as gay [47%], 27% as lesbian [19%], and 3% bisexual [9%], while 20% identified as "queer" [20%]. The remaining chose various other categories.

Local LGBT groups should note one startling stat in the Washington breakout. The Washington respondents were more likely to report "that API LGBT people experience racism/ethnic insensitivity within the predominantly white LGBT community." 87% of the Washington respondents agreed with that statement compared with 78% in the overall survey. Again, the small sample size might skew things, but the number indicates that there is probably much work to do in these parts. The number is high here and elsewhere despite long-time presence from API groups in local Pride marches and in some community organizations.

Labels: equal rights, gay news, gay organization, Seattle, Washington

The Soulforce Equality Ride bus made an unscheduled lunchtime stop yesterday in Kennewick on its way from Seattle to Nampa, Idaho where activists will visit Northwest Nazarene University.

The bus and its twenty-plus rider visited Vista Youth Center, a drop-in center for "LGBTQA" youth that opened in February. On its web site, the center describes its mission this way:

We work with GLBTIQQA individuals 14-21 years old and offer unique combinations of direct service, social service, referrals. Our programs are youth-driven and based on the model of peer support and leadership.

[And we, too, have only only the vaguest notions of what the various collections of initials might mean.]

According to the Herald story, one of the riders on the Soulforce bus is from Kennewick and is inspired by the new facility in the Tri-Cities.

The bus stopped at the Vista center to show support for the facility, which opened six weeks ago to provide a haven for gay youths. Seventy young people from around the Tri-Cities have attended the center, including a crowd of 39 on April 5, said Mark Lee, executive director and founder.

Although the Soulforce Equality Ride primarily is stopping at colleges, it stopped by the Vista center for lunch Thursday in part because bus passenger Allison Eby, 29, is from Kennewick.

"Coming back with this bus and seeing this new center opening is really exciting," Eby said. "I really wanted to help bring some attention to this new center, because I think it's really important the youth have some place to go."

When she came out eight years ago, she wasn't aware of a gay and lesbian community in Kennewick, she said.

"So I think I felt pretty isolated," she said.

Because it was a daytime stop and the center doesn't usually open until after school at 3pm, most of the center's usual visitors were not there to greet the bus.

Instead, the travelers were greeted by about 20 people, including Vista Youth Center supporters, members of River of Life Metropolitan Community Church in Kennewick and a women's group from Shalom United Church of Christ in Richland.

The center depends on volunteers and contributions from local groups and churches.

The driving force behind the center is Mark Lee, 44, of Kennewick, a recent Portland transplant who spent years in the computer industry and is on the board of the nonprofit Equity Foundation.

The Oregon-based group promotes education, social justice and the welfare of LGBTQ people, according to its Web site.

When Lee moved here, he was looking for a way to become involved in the community, he said. In talking with Tri-City social service providers, he discovered there were few resources for gay youths.

He quickly found people willing to help with a youth center.

Along with volunteers..., the Benton-Franklin Health District and Planned Parenthood of Central Washington have agreed to send staff members during center drop-in times. They'll be available to provide education and give referrals.

Labels: activism, gay news, LGBTQ, Washington

Busloads of mostly gay and largely Christian activists have been visiting Christian colleges throughout the country for a month to talk to students and faculty about LGBT issues on campus. They call themselves "Equality Riders" and are sponsored by the gay Christian organization Soulforce. The group's website summarizes the group's purpose:

In 2006, during the inaugural Equality Ride, participants traveled to nineteen schools and engaged students, faculty, and administrators in conversation about the damaging effects of homophobic doctrine, the false notion that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities are sick and sinful. This year, the journey continues with fifty young adults going to thirty-two Christian colleges and universities.

Most of the publicity that's been generated by this year's ride -- which is operating with one bus visiting colleges in the east and another visiting western colleges -- has come from colleges that have barred the Riders from their campuses and sometimes had them arrested.

But another, less publicized response has come from students at many of the same colleges and even from administrators at other Christian schools.

A press release from the west coast Soulforce bus tells of the group's reception last week at two California colleges:

At Fresno Pacific University, administrators collaborated with the Equality Riders on the westbound bus to create a setting for meaningful dialogue. On April 3rd, Equality Riders participated in classroom discussions and gave presentations on topics such as "Progressive Theology" and "In God's Image: Identity and Scripture." Over meals, Equality Riders talked with concerned faculty who wanted to learn what they could do to make Fresno Pacific a safer learning environment for LGBT students.

The Fresno Pacific student handbook states that "the university is opposed to homosexual, premarital and extramarital sexual relations." But while FPU Director of Communications Diana Bates Mock affirmed that the institution's views had not changed, she acknowledged that "there is a better appreciation for listening to each other."

Previously, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where an LGBT student group has already been working towards official recognition, Equality Riders found similar opportunities for genuine dialogue. Although the Pepperdine student handbook identifies "homosexual conduct" as grounds for discipline, Equality Riders were invited to lead the prayer at a prayer service in which Riders, students, and faculty joined hands.

A similarly tolerant reception is expected when the Equality Riders visit Seattle Pacific University on Wednesday, April 11. Jonathan Hilbrands is coordinating the visit from the western bus. He reports on the Ride website

Soulforce is working closely with the school administration to develop a schedule of events that would provide a unique forum for the conversation about homosexuality, faith and society.

SPU has posted a itinerary for the visit on its website. The activists from the bus will be officially welcomed to the school at 8 am by the dean of students, assigned "student hosts" and given name tags. They'll be given several chances to interact with students and faculty throughout the day, including scheduled breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings; a worship service; a lengthy dialog session in the afternoon at the Student Union Building; and a "Open Campus Forum and Q&A" in the late morning.

The forum features a speaker from Soulforce -- Haven Herrin, co-director of Equality Ride -- who will present a talk called "Genesis: Beyond the Binary." SPU Professor Frank Spina will present "An Old Testament Scholar's Reflections on Human Sexuality." The (probably) contrasting 30-minute lectures will be followed by an open question and answer period for faculty and staff.

In other words, both SPU and Soulforce are approaching this visit as an educational opportunity for the campus, much as Fresno Pacific and Pepperdine did the week before.

SPU student body president Bethany Krumm, quoted in today's PI story, symbolizes that attitude. She told PI reporter Christine Frey that she plans to meet with members of the Equality Ride, but isn't yet sure of her position on homosexuality. She noted that college is a time to explore such issues.

"I'm still working that out," she said. "I'm really interested in hearing what's going to happen with the forum ... what this looks like and deciding where I stand on the whole issue."

Those interested in joining the dialog at SPU can register through the Soulforce website.

Even at Baylor University, where the administration barred Soulforce activists from talking with students on campus, the visit has had a significant effect, according to a report in the student paper there.

Almost two weeks after Soulforce Equality Ride's stop in Waco, the Baylor campus is still feeling its effects.

This time, it's in the form of an online student petition protesting Baylor's statement on human sexuality.

Addressed to President John Lilley, the petition reads, "We, as students, recognize Baylor as a Christian University, and place an utmost importance on love and acceptance. We find Baylor's attitudes, actions and policy on homosexuality to be offensive, bigoted, and antiquated and wrong.

"Our goal is to have a University that is tolerant of sexual minorities. We feel that spiritual superiority and judgment does not further our Christian message, but degrades it. Fueling attitudes of fear and hatred towards those of homosexual orientation is wrong, regardless of how one feels about how the Bible interprets homosexual practice."

Also see: This week's SGN has an great story by "contributing writer" Liz Meyer on the Riders:

almost all of the bus riders represent that still seemingly incongruous convergence, the place where "Queer" meets "Christian." Evangelical Christian, even.

Kourt Osborn, a young Transgender man riding on the West Coast bus, acknowledges that many view "Queer" and "Christian" as mutually exclusive.

"A lot of fundamentalist Christians, and some certain members of my family, would say there's a paradox there," says Osborn.

He also concedes that, for him at least, identifying as Queer takes precedence in some ways.

"If someone was like, 'Pick one,' I would definitely pick being Queer, because that's just who my friends are. I don't really say I'm Christian and Queer, I say I'm Queer and Christian."

See also: Last week's post here summarizing a Michigan gay paper's story on a gay and a lesbian student as Spring Arbor University (SAU) in is suprisingly relevant to the SPU visit. SPU might share the "bubble" that the students at SAU describe because it's a closely related institution. Along with five other schools, both SAU and SPU are members of the Association of Free Methodist Educational Institutions.

A complicated story about a doctinal/tenure dispute at another of the seven Free Methodist schools offers this simple (and overly simplified) summary of the denomination:

A denomination with 77,000 members in the United States, the Free Methodist Church of North America traces its origins to 1860, when its leaders separated from the main Methodist body because they believed it had strayed from the basic teachings of John Wesley, its founder. In breaking away from their parent church, the Free Methodists, in common with members of the other groups that constituted the nineteenth-century Holiness movement, emphasized Wesley's doctrine of sanctification-the "second work of grace," a postconversion process of moral and spiritual development. Like other contemporary Holiness groups, such as the Wesleyan Church, the Church of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Salvation Army, and the Church of the Nazarene, the Free Methodist Church belongs to the National Association of Evangelicals, a defining organization for American evangelicalism.

One of the other schools in the association offers this bit of history about the universities and colleges:

Free Methodist founders were mostly educated leaders and they wanted strong educational opportunities for youth from the beginning, believing that God does not place a premium on ignorance. (Hogue, History, 305) Therefore, nine Free Methodist educational institutions dotted America from east to west before Greenville College became the tenth Free Methodist school in 1892.

Labels: activism, gay news, Gay Seattle, religion, Seattle

SAU is our own little enclave, it seems disconnected from the rest of the world, including Jackson. We are a little happy conservative place where nothing happens, or if anything bad or dirty happens, it is swept under the rug. Everything in SAU is good. It's this whole psychological mind screw."

That's how Drew Hinkle, a gay student at Spring Arbor University in Jackson, Michigan, describes the school to Michigan's gay newspaper Between the Lines.

Another student interviewed by the paper asked them not use her real name. They call her "Jamie" in the story. She agrees with Hinkle about the isolation of the school:

The more classes I take, the more I hear about, even the professors will mention the bubble, that it makes SAU a safer place. That it's not penetrated by the outside world. They don't allow anything they believe to be non-Christian to stay in the bubble. They pretty much exile them off the campus.

Not surprisingly, Jamie said she'll be leaving SAU after this school year.

Julie Marie Nemecek, a professor and administrator at the private school will also be leaving SAU in June. Unlike Jamie, Nemecek's departure isn't through choice, but also reveals something about the bubble.

The Washington Blade's excellent online edition carried this wire report about Nemecek's termination in early February:

Christian university fires transgender professor