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Wednesday, October 19, 2005, 7:30 pm Wednesday, November 16, 2005, 7:30 pm
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Who needs another toaster oven? |
And though it’s not marriage, at least it’s some form of rights for us in Connecticut. ‘Cause after mine and PJ’s 25 years together it might be nice to be more than legal strangers in our own state, don’t you think?
The reason I wanted to write this was to thank everyone who helped get us from there to here. The first big thanks in my book goes to PFLAG. That wonderful, vibrant group of advocates who meet at the center. They did not let us down. I knew I could always turn to them in this struggle and they always responded. It was their idea and energy that started educational forums on the subject around the state. They helped turn public opinion. They get my Academy Award in humanity for showing straight people how to act.
Now we all get to have the fun of figuring out the where, when and how. Personally I hardly know what to do with the luxury of being able to plan a ceremony as opposed to the previous - “Honey, quick get your clothes on and let’s go to {insert location here} cause they’re letting gay couples get hitched” (Vermont, Canada, San Francisco, New Paltz, Massachusettes). Heck, we could even mull over a choice of wedding colors for Gods’ sake.
After speaking with some possible officiants for our ceremony, I was thinking I might like a Goth counterculture rebel woman to do it until PJ pointed out that that woman probably wouldn’t be a justice of the peace. We’ll keep thinking on it. We have time. We’re thinking of sometime in ’06.
Meanwhile a big thank you to everyone for their efforts which succeeded and to those with the energy who continue to press on for full marriage.
-Moregan
By the Rev. Ron Sala
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Gay characters scant in new TV season |
We’re entering a time that’s both exciting and long overdue. A number of countries and states have begun to recognize the right of same-gender couples to have their relationships legally joined. As with anything new, there will be a period of learning, both for couples and the officiants they contact to perform their ceremonies.
In 1997, I performed my first same-sex “service of union,” or, as I’ve always preferred to say, “wedding.” I also joined several couples at New Paltz, New York. None of those ceremonies have, so far, been recognized by any government. But, starting on Oct. 1, the State of Connecticut will recognize civil unions, which any ordained or licensed member of the clergy, justice of the peace, or other official named in the law, may officiate.
Once you and your partner have decided on having a civil union, you should discuss what kind of ceremony will fit you: Spiritual or secular? In a house of worship, municipal building, catering hall, park, home, or some other place special to you? You can find a list of clergy and justices of the peace willing to perform civil unions on Love Makes a Family’s website (www.lmfct.org). Or ask friends and relatives, gay or straight, who have had a ceremony recently, if they’d recommend the person who officiated and whether he or she will do samegender services.
You’ll want to ask a number of questions of your prospective officiant: Is he or she available when you’d like to have the ceremony? What fee or honorarium does he or she ask for? Is it a set amount, or will he or she make allowance for lowincome couples, if that’s a concern? How much flexibility will the officiant allow in planning the ceremony? Does he or she offer (or require) pre-ceremony counseling, or make referrals to a counselor if requested?
Once you’ve found an officiant who satisfies your basic requirements, ask to meet. Don’t agree to have him or her do your ceremony until you’re confident you feel comfortable. It’s perfectly acceptable to “shop around” and contact more than one person. After all, this is one of the most important days of your life. Realize, also, that the officiant may have his or her own requirements before agreeing, such as whether you and your partner have been together for a certain length of time or have worked through certain issues.
It’s a new day. I look forward to a time when gay and lesbian couples will be able to have weddings that are just as recognized, respected, and routine as straight couples’.
The Rev. Ron Sala is minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford.
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Are You Having a Civil Union? |
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday that Connecticut will not recognize same-sex marriages because the legislature has defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.
“Civil unions performed in other states are entitled to full faith and credit in Connecticut, and cannot be repeated here. Out-of-state same-sex marriages have no legal force and effect here,” Blumenthal wrote in a legal opinion requested by the state’s Department of Public Health, which administers marriage licenses.
Those married, same-sex couples, however, will be able to enter into civil unions in Connecticut.
Currently, Vermont is the only state outside Connecticut that allows civil unions. Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriages. Several states, including California, New Jersey and Maine, allow some form of same-sex domestic partnership.
Suzanne Sheridan, daughter of Giacamo Fazio of Plainview, Long Island and now retired in Charlottesville, Va., and the late Katherine Sheridan Fazio, will enter into a State of Connecticut Civil Union with Rozanne Gates, the daughter of the late Florence Finkelstein Gates and Col. John J. Gates of Houston, Texas. The ceremony will take place on Saturday Oct. 29 at 2 PM in Westport, CT. at the Unitarian Church in Westport. Performing the ceremony will be The Rev. Frank Hall of Westport and The Rev. Barbara Fast of Greenwich. The couple met 9 years ago by introduction from a mutual friend. Ms. Sheridan is the owner of Sheridan Photography in Westport, a portrait and head shot studio specializing in people and pets in all settings. Suzanne is also a private music teacher, a singer/songwriter, and is also a member of the Unitarian gospel/blues/spiritual singing group, “The Key Ingredients” plus the rock/cover band, “The Original Ingredients.”
Ms. Gates is Program Director for the Lynne Thigpen/Bobo Lewis Foundation in New York City, Production Manager for the Westport Arts Center, Adjunct Professor in Department of Theatre at Columbia University, and Executive Director of First Night Westport/Weston.
Ms. Sheridan holds a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy from SUNY-New Paltz and Ms. Gates has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree/Theatre from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
The couple resides in Westport, CT. This is the first Civil Union for both women.
After several years of low numbers, syphilis infection rates are on the rise again within Connecticut’s MSM community.
And Dr. Gary Blick, a Norwalk-based HIV/AIDS specialist and head of the Connecticut HIV/AIDS/STD Task Force, said the rise in syphilis infections could be an early indicator that HIV infection rates within the queer community may soon be on the rise, too.
“When you see this trend upward of a syphilis epidemic and STD epidemic, the cases of HIV are usually to follow after that,” Blick said during a late August interview with Metroline. “And the reason it usually lags is because those that are usually having unsafe sex, are having unsafe sex knowing that they are at risk — or naively not knowing that they are at risk — and they are not the ones that are typically going to go out and get tested.”
Blick added that “typically” men who engage in unsafe sexual activity tend to get tested only “when they get sick” or when “they become aware that they should get tested.”
Although syphilis infections have more than doubled over the past two years within the state’s MSM community — from 22 registered cases in 2002 to 45 cases last year — that has not been the case with HIV. “Right now, HIV (infections) are flat at this point,” Blick said, adding that HIV numbers for the first six months of 2005 have not yet been released by the state, but are expected to be available
later this month.
But while HIV infection rates have remained steady, the two-year jump in the state’s syphilis numbers indicate that men within the MSM community are having increased levels of unsafe sex, Blick said. “Right now, if the (syphilis) trend continues the way it is going…we are looking at about a 10 to 12 percent increase over last year, and that fits in with what we have seeing already,” he said, referring to the 24 syphilis cases that have already been reported to the state since the end of July.
“It still hasn’t flat-lined yet,” he said of the current syphilis rate. “It is still rising.” Blick said the last time the state experienced a sustained spike in syphilis rates, was back in the late 1980’s. The numbers significantly reduced by the mid-1990’s.
“But then, all of the sudden, around 2001, the numbers started creeping up,” he said. “Now, keep in mind, when we are talking about Connecticut, we are talking about very few numbers (overall) compared to what you see in the major metropolitan areas like New York, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.”
Blick created the Connecticut HIV/AIDS/STD Task Force in July 2003 in response to rising STD infection rates. In the last 12 months, the task force has held MSM health fairs in Norwalk, New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport. At the fairs, men are tested for STDs, vaccinated against Hepatitis A and B, and asked to fill out a nine-page survey to help determine how men are becoming infected in Connecticut.
Through the health fair screenings, Blick said task force officials found 33 percent of men tested at the Norwalk health fair carried an undiagnosed STD, 38 percent in New Haven, 64 percent in Hartford, and 67 percent of those tested in Bridgeport carried at least one undiagnosed STD.
“And many of them have more than one STD,” Blick said, adding that while a “significant number” of the undiagnosed cases are syphilis, “the majority are herpes.”
“We were sort of taken aback by this, but we know we are helping because when (men) come in to get diagnosed, we make sure everybody gets tested, treated, and vaccinated,” Blick said.
Blick gained national attention earlier this year after reporting one of his Connecticut patients was the source of the so-called HIV “supervirus” infection in a gay, New York City man.
But Blick said his patient “is virally suppressed, immunologically intact and clinically stable” with what
“appears to be the same strain” as the New York City man. And, therefore, because his patient does not carry a “superstrain” then neither should the NYC man. Blick said Quest Diagnostics/Nichols Institute laboratories discovered in February the strains from the NYC man and his patient to be “nearly identical” after a “thorough search of their genotypic patient database.”
A short time later Blick discovered that his patient and his longtime partner, who is also HIV-positive, had had sex for several hours with the NYC man while using crystal meth in a Manhattan club in October. After discovering the three men had had sex, Blick says another national laboratory, LabCorp, notified him that it had found only one match in its database for the NYC man’s specific HIV strain: the partner of Blick’s Connecticut patient. Blick reported his findings at the Third International AIDS Society Conference On HIV Pathogenesis And Treatment in Brazil in July.
In addition to the rise in syphilis infections, Blick said recent statistics also indicate a shift in sexual behavior within the state’s MSM community.
Previously, Blick said the majority of queer men who tested positive for an STD were able to trace the source of their infections to sexual activity that took place outside of Connecticut, with the state’s MSM community often choosing to cruise the bathhouses and sex clubs in Providence or New York City.
But over the past three years that has changed significantly. From 2002 to 2003, 60 percent of Connecticut STD cases within the MSM community had a “probable source” identified as “out-of-state,” Blick said. Today that number stands at only 30 percent, down from last year’s statistic of 33 percent.
“So we are seeing a trend that the cases are not being transmitted from outside of the state, but from within the state,” he said. “And that does make sense, since without any major cities in Connecticut, where people can go for sex clubs and things like that, (men) are mostly hooking up over the Internet. And certainly all of the chatrooms are a big way to meet here.”
Blick said the reason behind this shift may be due to the fact that many men are now using the Internet as their primary cruising tool, setting aside the more traditional cruising locations of the past. In addition to chatting and online dating, Blick said men also often set up “P ‘n P,” or “party and play,” sessions through online MSM communities, activity which frequently includes unsafe sexual activity and drug use.
“What we are talking about is doing crystal meth and having unsafe sex at the same point,” Blick said of P ‘n P, which some in the queer community — including Blick — have said could be at least partially to blame for the recent rise in STD rates within the queer nationally. “I certainly think now that it is a big way that people have sex now in the state of Connecticut,” Blick said of the Internet. “And it really has grown to be the majority of the way people are hooking up have been (through) the Internet.”
And so, with syphilis infections still rising within Connecticut’s queer community, Blick said the task force will continue to reach out to provide testing, immunization, education and support. “We started the task force because the numbers were rising,” Blick said. “And so we just have to put this huge effort together and get out there.”
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WANT A HOT TIP? |
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Both sides along the gay marriage divide have vowed to continue their fight after the state Legislature soundly defeated a proposed constitutional amendment seeking to ban same-sex marriage.
The vote means Massachusetts will remain the only state in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed — for now. A year after lawmakers appeared destined to undo a court order that has allowed thousands of same-sex couples to marry since May 17,
2004, the Legislature voted 157-39 against the proposed constitutional amendment Wednesday.
Lawmakers were required to approve it in two consecutive sessions before the proposal could move to the statewide ballot in 2006 for a final decision by voters. The measure, which would have allowed Vermont-style civil unions, won passage by a 105-92 last year.
But the political and social landscape has changed dramatically since then.
Gone was the intensity, the seemingly endless debate and, in some quarters, the taste for stripping away the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.
“Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry,” said state Sen. Brian Lees, a Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the amendment. “This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today.”
The proposal also was opposed by critics of gay marriage, who want to push for a more restrictive amendment that would ban both gay marriage and civil unions. The earliest that initiative could end up on the ballot is 2008. “We’re excited. We’re pumped. This is great. This is exactly what we wanted,” said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.
The state’s highest court ruled in November 2003 that same-sex couples had a right under the state constitution to marry. Now, more than 6,100 gay and lesbian couples have been wed in Massachusetts, though officials have barred out-of-state couples from getting married here. Within a year of the first Massachusetts marriages, 11 states pushed through constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, joining six others that had done so earlier.
The Connecticut Legislature approved civil unions in April, joining Vermont in creating the designation that creates the same legal rights as marriage without calling it such. Earlier this month, California lawmakers passed a measure legalizing same-sex marriage, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has promised to veto it.
As part of its ongoing LGBT support group activities the HGLHC is offering this professionally facilitated support group. It offers an affirming nonjudgmental environment for Transgender folk to explore issues and concerns that matter to them as well as to give and take support. Each participant decides what to do with emotions and personal life-choices or body image, sexuality, relationships, HIV issues and anything else of concern.
The group meets Thursdays from 6:30 till 8:00 PM. The facilitator is Peter Papallo, LCSW and is held at the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective at 1841 Broad Street. As with all other HGLHC Support groups, all participants must register in advance to determine whether this group is right for you at this time, and to answer any questions you might have. Contact HGLHC at (860) 278-4163 X21 or email lizy@hglhc.org
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Upcoming Meetings Mark your calendar for the next three meetings: Wednesdays - Oct. 5th, Nov. 2nd, Dec. 7th |
For my vacation this year, I spent a week on Cape Cod volunteering at Family Week in Provincetown. It was a week that changed my life. As a straight 40-year-old father of two, I’m not the kind of person you’d expect to see at an event celebrating and addressing the needs of families with gay and lesbian parents. But my family has friends within the sponsoring group, the Family Pride Coalition; I am currently unemployed, thus available; and a career counselor said I needed volunteer experience on my resume.
My experience during Family Week turned out to be far more significant than the sum of all of these things. While I have been a supporter of gay marriage and gay rights, it had always been from an intellectual standpoint and from outside the issue. I supported gay rights because equality seems only logical. But during the course of my week in Provincetown, surrounded by the reality of hundreds of gay families, I began to emotionally understand and appreciate the struggles these parents and children face every day: children ostracized and threatened at school and on the playground for having two moms, parents in crisis denied access to civil and legal resources, the stares and antagonism that gay parents and their children constantly endure. As a straight white guy, I have never even been close to facing these sorts of things. But to the parents and children participating in Family Week, these issues are all too real — they cut to the heart and spirit of humanity.
The issue for them is about loving families, nothing more. To see children 4 and 5 excited because they get to march in a parade and carry homemade signs that read “I Love My Dads” or “I Love My Lesbian Mom” struck an unexpected emotional chord in me. As a parent, I know the unconditional love that grows exponentially between parents and children. I cried a lot throughout the week. I can only imagine how difficult life would be for my family if our love was constantly questioned by strangers, colleagues, teachers, doctors, the courts and the country as a whole.
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PFLAG Mission |
When I read Sen. Rick Santorum’s vitriolic statements attacking samesex marriage, I feel ashamed to be from Pennsylvania. He claims to care about the well-being of children, yet he focuses his energy on undermining, criticizing and ignoring the reality of loving gay families. Citing bogus, biased research not recognized by the American Society of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, Santorum is making life harder for very real children.
I am proud to now live in the only state in America that recognizes the marriages of gay parents. I look forward to the day when Massachusetts is simply one of 50 states recognizing gay marriage and the rights of gay families. I am confident that the day will eventually come when gay parents will not have to endure ignorance and bigotry, and I am confident that the day will come when a 4-year-old child will not need to carry a banner in order to express her love for her lesbian mom, because everyone will already know it, accept it and celebrate it. It’s about love, and love is a really, really, really good thing, not something to be feared.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Speaking at a conference of Exodus International, the largest religious group promoting the idea that gays can can change their sexual orientation, Rev. Jerry Falwell endorsed forcing gay and questioning kids into counseling designed to change their sexual orientation. Falwell compared allowing a child to identify as gay with allowing children to play on the interstate and dismissed psychologists’ claims that consent is fundamental to a healthy counseling relationship and that parents should not force their gay kids into therapy.
Exodus International’s 30th annual Freedom Conference took place last week at the Baptist Ridgecrest conference center nearAsheville, N.C. Around a thousand people participated in the week-long program that featured workshops on spiritual warfare, fulfilling traditional gender roles and organizing as a political movement. This year’s conference had a higher than usual profile because one of Exodus member ministries, Love in Action, is under investigation by the Tennessee Department of Health for violations of state law. Love in Action advertised therapeutic counseling to treat homosexuality as well as drug, alcohol and porn addiction. Concerns about safety and professionalism at Love in Action were raised after a 16-year-old Tennessee teen blogged that his parents were forcing him into an unconventional program to turn him straight.
The Stay Close CampaignWhy This Campaign is So Important
• It is estimated that one in 4 families includes someone that is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.
• 69% of GLBT youth report experiencing some form of harassment or violence, with 46% reporting verbal harassment, 36% reporting sexual harassment, 12% reporting physical harassment, and 6% reporting physical assault.
• Gay and lesbian youths are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other youths.
• Of 1.3 million homeless children on America’s streets, 500,000 are thought to be GLBT kids thrown out by their parents.
How This Campaign Came About
These facts could not be ignored any longer. So in 2002, PFLAG NY took the lead in developing an awareness campaign to get the word out about the PFLAG organization to parents, families, teachers, clergy, politicians, GLBT people, and the general public. The goal was to reach people who would most benefit from PFLAG’s services and, ultimately, to increase acceptance, reduce bigotry, and change hearts and minds.
PFLAG NY partnered with PFLAG Metro DC and recruited talented individuals from various fields (advertising, PR, law, media) to work pro bono on the awareness effort, which became known as the “Stay Close” campaign. After three years in the making, PFLAG NY and PFLAG Metro DC are proud to launch “Stay Close,” featuring straight celebrities with their gay relatives. The message is clear: Stay Close to your loved ones because relationships are too precious to lose.
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What a incredible year this is turning out to be for marriage equality. Here in Connecticut, our legislature became the first in the country to pass a civil union bill without court order, and in doing so, became only the second state with civil unions after Vermont. Two years ago, a civil union bill went nowhere - this year, it passed with strong bipartisan support. The work that Love Makes A Family does, with the support of so many of you, has helped move the debate significantly. Passing a marriage equality bill in our home state is that much closer!
Lookin’ Good!
