From ecl@mtgzy.att.com Fri Jan 15 09:39:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: from rpi.edu by mail1.its.rpi.edu (4.1/SMHUB40); id AA28341; Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:39:08 EST for buckmr Received: from att.att.com (att-out.att.com) by rpi.edu (4.1/SMHUB41); id AA21143; Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:38:53 EST for buckmr@rpi.edu Message-Id: <9301151438.AA21143@rpi.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:35 EST From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) To: buckmr@rpi.edu Subject: Civil Rights Status: U .H 1 "Civil Rights/Discrimination" .H 2 "Job Discrimination" .BL .LI .I Chicago Tribune, Jan. 24, 1992, p. 1 .R .P For now, the debate is over. The Dallas City Council on Thursday voted 10-5 to retain its ban [on lesbian and gay police officers] after more than six hours of emotional testimony, although council members did ask the city manager to review the police department's screening process for fairness. .P But the clash of cultures sparked by the proposal to lift the ban continues. It is a Texas-size argument steeped in moral, religious and legal terms and played out in the buckle of the Bible Belt, where the lines between church and state seem to be inextricably intertwined. .P Indeed, the issue is likely to rise up again next week when oral arguments start over the constitutionality of the state law [against sodomy], which was declared unconstitutional in a state court last year; that ruling is now on appeal. .P ...Texas is one of nine states to have a sodomy law that bars sex between people of the same gender, while 16 other states have laws that prohibit sodomy regardless of sexual orientation, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. .P ...The [sodomy] law, however, is interpreted differently within the state of Texas. While Dallas has one of the nation's most notorious bans on hiring gay officers, San Antonio, Ft. Worth, Austin and the Texas Department of Public Safety all hire gay employees.. .P Elsewhere, a few police departments, including New York City and San Francisco, actively recruit gay and lesbian officers. But the majority of police departments, including Chicago's, have no policy and deal with the situation case by case when it becomes an issue. .P ...Some opponents brought children as young as 7 to the late-night hearing, attaching to their clothes white stickers with a red slash through the words "homo cops." They talked of fears of AIDS and child molestation by gay officers. .LI .I Tom Watson, SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE, The Boston Globe, Oct. 19, 1991, p.3 .R .sp Atlanta - For Robin Shahar, the religious ceremony in the mountains last summer uniting her to another woman was the spiritual and emotional highlight of her life. But for Georgia's attorney general, Michael Bowers, it was the grounds for withdrawing the staff attorney job he had [already] offered the honors graduate of Tufts University and Emory University Law School after she interned in his office last year. Saying she was left with humiliation and anger in place of the job she was to have started last month, Shahar, 28, said she had no real choice but to defend herself in a lawsuit she and the American Civil Liberties Union filed against Bowers here on Oct. 3. The suit charges Bowers with violating Shahar's equal employment rights and religious freedoms, and ACLU lawyers say they are prepared to litigate it up to the Supreme Court ... While Georgia and the other states do not legally recognize homosexual marriages, they are not considered illegal. Sharar says her marriage ceremony did not violate the law and that she has never sought legal recognition of her union. She says the ceremony, performed by a rabbi, was a religious celebration. "It was one of the real highs of my life, but it cost me my job, and I think that's crazy and outrageous." Bowers gained a reputation as an opponent of gay rights in his successful Supreme Court defense of Georgia's sodomy law in the 1986 Hardwick v. Bowers case, which challenged the law's constitutionality... .LI .I The Advocate, July 16, 1991, p19. .R .sp In a decision that yielded the largest award ever made to an individual for a gay employment bias claim, California superior court judge Jacqueline Taber ruled June 13 [1991] that a former Shell Oil Co. employee who was fired because of his private sexual activities is entitled to more than $5.3 million in damages. ... "The plaintiff [Dr. Jeffery Collins] was fired solely because he was a sexually active homosexual ... " Taber wrote in her decision. California labor law prohibits dismissing an employee solely on the basis of sexual orientation. .LE .H 2 "Legal Protection in Cities and States" .BL .LI .I The New York Times, Metro Section, Jan. 20, 1992, .R .P Gay-Rights Measure Is Signed by Florio--Homosexuals and bisexuals gained greater powers to sue over discrimination in New Jersey under a bill signed yesterday by Gov. Jim Florio. .P ...In a news release announcing he had signed the measure, Mr. Florio said performance, not personal life, should be the main factor in determining whether someone should be hired or accepted as a tenant. .P The new law gives victims of discrimination based on "affectional or sexual orientation" legal grounds to sue or file a complaint with the state Division of Civil Rights. .LI .I Newark [New Jersey] Star Ledger, January 20, 1992, p.5 (by David Vanhorn) .R .P New state law bars anti-gay discrimination - A civil rights bill that extends protection to gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals was signed yesterday by Gov. Jim Florio, who said "arbitrary discrimination of any kind" is not welcomed in New Jersey. The amendment to New Jersey's law against discrimination makes it illegal to discriminate in employment, housing, public accommodations and public contracts against anyone based on sexual orientation. Discrimination victims can file suit or make a complaint to the state Division of Civil Rights. .P "Employees should be judged and treated based on how well they perform their jobs," Florio said in a statement. "Tenants should be judged and treated based upon whether they are good tenants and pay their rent on time. "These are common-sense principles of fairness," the Governor added. There is no room in our state, or our society, for arbitrary discrimination of any kind." .P The legislation, which Florio signed at his official residence in Princeton, passed the Assembly 46-7 and the Senate 21-0 last Monday. Jo Astrid Glading, Florio's deputy press secretary, said the private signing was not meant to keep the law out of the public eye but that the Governor has about 100 bills to sign today and tomorrow that were approved by the lame-duck legislature. .P Gay and lesbian activists had worked for eight years to get the measure approved. The New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition coordinated a bill- lobbying task force that included members of the Campaign to End Discrimination, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women. "Lobbying and education, not demonstration, were the keystone to the campaign's success," said Eric McKinley, a task force co-chairman. .P ...Conservative groups placed more than 1,700 calls to Florio's office last week urging him to veto the bill. Members of the Concerned Women of America of New Jersey argued that gays were adequately protected under existing law and that the legislation was an endorsement of their lifestyle. .P Glading said the legislation, like other civil rights laws, simply offers protection. The state law has already prohibited discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sex and handicap. .LI .I Chicago Tribune, November 5, 1991 .R .P Fired up by activist groups on both sides of the issue, laws that extend civil rights protection to gays and lesbians will once again go through a turnstile of voter sentiment in several cities Tuesday. .P Voters in St. Paul will either reaffirm of reject an ordinance that bars discrimination against gays and lesbians. The measure was first passed in 1974, only to be repealed in 1978 by a 2-to-1 margin after a bitter campaign. The St. Paul City Council restored it last year. But once more, opponents collected the required number of signatures to get the issue on the ballot again Tuesday. .P "It's fairly discouraging to have to do this over and over again," said Barbara Jean Metzger, director of Campaign 90, the gay rights group that hopes to turn out enough voters Tuesday to keep the ordinance. .P ...Gay rights laws have been passed in 115 cities and four states-- Wisconsin, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Connecticut. .LI .I U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 14, 1991, p. 15 .R .P When Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill that would have banned workplace discrimination against homosexuals, he managed to alienate just about every constituency in California ... Even mainstream voters were alienated. A poll just before the veto found 2-to-1 support for the bill. Proponents say they will try again next year. .LE .H 2 "FBI Sex-Deviate Files" .BL .LI .I The Progressive, April 1991, p. 10 .R .P For forty years, according to documents recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI secretly compiled "sex-deviate" files and routinely distributed allegations of homosexuality to both public and private-sector employers. Between 1937 and 1977, when the files were destroyed, the FBI amassed some 300,000 pages of sexual allegations on thousands of citizens. .P The "sex-deviate index" enabled the FBI to give President Nixon "a rundown on the homosexuals known and suspected in the Washington press corps" within days of his request in 1970. In efforts to discredit liberal Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who lost to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, Republicans circulated FBI reports that Stevenson was one of "the two best known homosexuals in Illinois," known to friends as "Adeline." .P In many cases, including Stevenson's, the rumors of homosexuality were never substantiated, but the FBI reports undoubtedly caused massive firings and persecution, particularly when the FBI sent unsolicited lists of "sex deviate" professors to universities. .LE .H 2 "Boy Scouts" .BL .LI .I U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 14, 1991, p. 50 .R .P In separate lawsuits, ... two former Scouts have claimed that much of the Boy Scouts' longstanding "Three G" membership policy -- which specifically bans gays, godless and girls -- is discriminatory, as outmoded as the swastika badges Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouts, once distributed as tokens of gratitude. [Timothy] Curran, a gay ex-Eagle Scout, and [Elliot] Welsh, an agnostic who was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, have both won preliminary legal battles with the Boy Scouts, edging the revered organization toward a kind of identity crisis. .P ...the BSA's [Boy Scouts of America] bylaws also state that advancement is "based entirely upon individual merit." By the latter standard, Curran excelled as a Scout. He attained his eagle badge in only four years (an honor earned by less than 3 percent of all Scouts) and even organized a new troop of deaf Scouts in Oakland, Calif. Only after Curran disclosed in a 1980 newspaper interview that he took a male date to the prom did the Boy Scouts decide he lacked the requisite merit to work with his Berkeley-based troop. .LE .H 2 "Sodomy Laws" .BL .LI .I Chicago Tribune, Jan. 24, 1992, p. 8 .R .P ...Texas is one of nine states to have a sodomy law that bars sex between people of the same gender, while 16 other states have laws that prohibit sodomy regardless of sexual orientation, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. .LI .I Time, October 1, 1990, p. 98 .R .P In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court [in Hardwick v. Bowers] upheld the right of states to ban homosexual sodomy, and since then, gay and civil rights activists have been fighting the increasing number of prosecutions. Nor are sodomy laws exclusively aimed at gays; heterosexual sodomy is deemed an impermissible act in 18 states. "These laws criminalize our private lives and relationships," says Robert Bray of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "And if it isn't 10 toes up and 10 toes down, heterosexuals risk going to jail too." .LI .I Newsweek, July 14, 1986, p. 36 .R .P In a sharply disputed 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court [last week in Hardwick v. Bowers] upheld a Georgia law that makes it a felony, punishable by 20 years in prison, for consenting adults to commit sodomy--oral or anal sexual relations. While the statute in question applies to heterosexuals, the majority opinion only discussed homosexual acts. .P ...But if the gay community lost in court, it may have already won an important victory in the court of public opinion. Half the states have decriminalized consensual sodomy. And a Newsweek Poll conducted last week by The Gallup Organization reported that 57 percent of those surveyed thought that states should not prohibit private sexual practices between consenting adult homosexuals, and 74 percent said that states should not prohibit heterosexual activity either. .LE .H 2 "Spousal Rights" .BL .LI .I The New York Times, December 18, 1991, Sec. A, p. 26, Late Edition - Final .R .P After a seven-year legal battle that became a rallying cause for gay rights groups, a Minnesota appeals court yesterday granted guardianship of Sharon Kowalski, a 35-year-old woman left brain-damaged and quadriplegic in a 1983 car accident, to her lesbian lover. .P "This seems to be the first guardianship case in the nation in which an appeals court recognized a homosexual partner's rights as tantamount to those of a spouse," said M. Sue Wilson, the lawyer for Ms. Kowalski's lover, Karen Thompson. .P Ms. Thompson had fought since 1984 to be named guardian, over the objections of Donald and Della Kowalski, who said their daughter had never told them she was a lesbian and who barred Ms. Thompson from visiting their daughter's nursing home for several years after the accident. .P A Cause Taken Up - Ms. Thompson's fight to be reunited with her lover became a cause celebre among groups advocating gay rights and rights for the disabled. These groups organized vigils and processions in 21 cities on Aug. 7, 1988, which was called "National Free Sharon Kowalski Day." .P "This case exemplifies the difficulties lesbians and gay men have in safeguarding our relationships," said William Rubenstein, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "The remarkable thing about this case is not that Karen Thompson finally won guardianship, but that it took her seven years to do so, when guardianship rights for a heterosexual married couple would be taken for granted." .P Mr. Rubenstein said the Thompson case had struck a responsive chord among homosexuals, coming just as many gay men whose partners had died of AIDS were finding that they had no legal rights to stay in their apartments, share in the estates or decide where their partners would be buried. .P "This case, and AIDS, have been the defining events of the 1980's in this area," Mr. Rubenstein said. "It's underscored why we need legal protection, and created a terrific incentive to fight for these kinds of marital rights and recognition of domestic partnership." .P The Minnesota Court of Appeals said the St. Louis County District Court in Duluth had abused its discretion in denying Ms. Thompson's petition to become Ms. Kowalski's caretaker and instead appointing a third party, who was a close friend of Ms. Kowalski's parents. "Thompson's suitability for guardianship was overwhelmingly clear from the testimony of Sharon's doctors and caretakers," the appeals court said. .LI .I Newsweek, July 17, 1989, p. 48 .R .P Do homosexual couples have any legal rights as families? ... the New York State Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 2 that a gay couple who had lived together for 10 years could be considered a family under the city's rent-control regulations. Protection against eviction, the majority held, "should find its foundation in the reality of family life. In the context of eviction, a ... realistic, and certainly valid, view of a family includes two adult life-time partners whose relationship is long-term and characterized by an emotional and financial commitment and interdependence." .P ...The ruling was written narrowly to cover only New York City's rent-control structure; the judges avoided ruling on constitutional grounds, which might have opened the door to new interpretations of family status in issues other than housing. .LE