TX Court
Won't Bar Adoptions
Legislation to block adoptions and fostering by Gays and Lesbians in Texas failed this year, and on June 21 a court case to the same end lost a round. Texas District Court Judge Bill Rhea rejected a request by the Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute for an emergency order to stop the state Department of Protective and Regulatory Services from making adoptive and foster placements in households with Gays and Lesbians. The opposing American Civil Liberties Union dubbed "political grandstanding" the Institute's plan to present testimony by several caseworkers and by a Lesbian couple who serve as foster parents; the judge refused to hear that testimony, asking for written briefs instead.
Rebecca Bledsoe is the plaintiff seeking the emergency order against adoptions and fostering by Gays and Lesbians; she did so with a motion filed in May on the same day that the Texas House State Affairs Committee heard testimony on one of two bills under consideration that would have the same effect. In 1997, Bledsoe, then a supervisor with Child Protective Services, removed a baby from the home of a Dallas Lesbian couple who had fostered him and were adopting him. Bledsoe justified her actions with Texas' rarely enforced 19th-century sodomy statute, but she was demoted (while retaining the same salary) for failure to follow agency procedure. (The boy found a home with out-of-state relatives.) Her case revealed that there really was no clear state policy either for or against Gays and Lesbians acting as foster or adoptive parents, and the Institute joined with her to try to force a policy against them, as well as to seek her reinstatement as a supervisor.
The ACLU's national Gay and Lesbian Rights Project and Texas chapter intervened in Bledsoe's main case in Oct. 1998 on behalf of a Lesbian foster mother threatened with removal of the child in her care. The ACLU believes that adoptive and foster parents should be judged on their individual abilities rather than their sexual orientation; as attorney Jennifer Middleton said, "There are too many needy kids in Texas waiting for good homes to let bigotry dictate their fate."
While Florida and Arkansas are the only two states left with such restrictive laws, state agencies in Utah and Louisiana this year adopted anti-Gay policies. [from NewsPlanet]
Florida Judge:
Domestic-Violence Law
Covers Gay Couples
A judge has ruled that Florida's domestic-violence law covers Gay couples. The ruling came in the case of a Tampa man who was charged with violating a domestic-violence restraining order taken out by his former partner. Public defenders had asked the circuit court judge to dismiss the case, saying the injunction was invalid. They maintained that the judge who signed the injunction wrongly recognized a homosexual relationship as family. Florida does not recognize marriages between same-sex partners. But the judge says the two men did live together as family. They cohabited for seven years and shared joint bank accounts. [from Advocate]
Co-Defendant
in Alabama Hate Crime
Pleads Guilty
On Feb. 19, Billy Jack Gaither of Sylacauga, AL, was bludgeoned to death by an axe handle. His corpse was then moved to a remote location and set afire. Charged with the hate crime of murdering Gaither, on May 20 Charles Monroe Butler, Jr., 21, and Steven Eric Mullins, 25, entered pleas of innocence. On Thurs., June 24, Mullins changed his original plea to guilty, under the assumption that this would result in a life sentence rather than the death penalty. A judge is expected to sentence Mullins on Aug. 2, the same day that Butler goes on trial on capital murder charges.
Gay Ambassador Sworn In
According to the Associated Press, James Hormel, a Gay San Francisco businessman and wealthy Democratic Party donor, was sworn in June 29 in Washington, D.C. as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg almost two years after he was nominated, with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presiding.
He became the nation's first openly Gay ambassador at a ceremony in the State Department's main reception room.
Demonstrators protesting the appointment marched outside as Hormel, an heir to the Hormel Meat Co. fortune, took the oath.
Hormel has been a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and the party. Since 1997, he has given $132,000 to the Democratic National Committee, $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and $15,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
He also has given $10,000 to the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a Gay and Lesbian political action committee. The campaign fund's political action committee contributed $803,125 to federal candidates during the last election, with $711,400, or 89 percent, going to Democrats.
Broadway in Vegas
Miss Spectacular is the title of musical man Jerry Herman's next project, which will debut in May 2001, though not on Broadway but at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas. The show, about a young fille who dumps the Midwest for a shot at becoming a Vegas star, is the first of what Sandy Gallin, Mirage's chairman and CEO, plans to be a series of original musicals to premiere at the Vegas Strip hotel. Meanwhile, a production of the hit musical Rent is set to hit the Las Vegas Hilton in the fall. [from Advocate]
