Johnny Weir

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Claims that Olympian Johnny Weir was not included in the “Stars on Ice” cast because of his sexual orientation are not true, the figure skating tour said.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation started an online petition last week, saying Weir was being excluded from the tour because he was not “family friendly.” Weir has repeatedly avoided questions about his sexual orientation, saying people shouldn’t be defined by labels.
“We are disappointed that there is untrue and inaccurate information being disseminated,” Stars, which is sponsored by Smucker’s, said in a statement. “Please be assured that the `gender identity and sexual orientation’ of cast members has never been a consideration in the selection of tour performers.”
Weir, a three-time U.S. champion, is one of figure skating’s most colorful and oversized personalities, and his popularity soared after his sixth-place finish at the Vancouver Olympics. Tara Modlin, Weir’s agent, said she approached Stars about adding Weir to the cast and was told “not this year.”
Unlike the old “Champions on Ice” tour, where skaters did individual numbers, Stars is more of an ensemble show. Former U.S. champions Todd Eldredge and Michael Weiss have been longtime cast members, and Stars will also feature Olympic champion Evan Lysacek and current U.S. champ Jeremy Abbott this season.
“While Stars on Ice wishes it could accommodate many more talented skaters as part of our cast, the fact is we cannot sign every skater,” the Stars statement said.
Stars on Ice begins its 41-city tour April 1 in Fort Myers, Fla.
from The Associated Press

UNITED KINGDOM – A Catholic adoption agency that refuses to place children with homosexual couples has won a key legal victory thanks to a loophole intended to protect gay charities.
Catholic Care’s unexpected triumph paves the way for other groups forced to close or dissociate from the church to reopen as Catholic organisations.
Religious campaigners said that the judge’s ruling would galvanise growing resistance to Labour’s gay rights agenda, while secular activists warned of a “tidal wave” of similar legal challenges from Catholic groups.
Catholic Care, which serves the dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough, and Hallam in South Yorkshire, launched the legal action saying it would have to give up its work finding homes for children if it had to comply with the 2007 Equality Act
The law banned adoption agencies from discriminating against homosexual prospective parents.
The adoption agency claimed that a clause of the legislation – Regulation 18 – should permit charities to continue to refuse gay couples if the stated aim of the charity was to provide services to people of a particular sexual orientation. The loophole was inserted to ensure that gay charities could not be sued for discrimination by heterosexual couples.
Catholic Care’s application to write an explicit reference to serving heterosexuals into its constitution was rejected by the Charities Commission, but today Mr Justice Briggs ordered the commission to review its decision. He accepted that the adoption agency could still provided a public benefit even if it did not consider homosexual parents.
The Rt Rev Arthur Roche, Bishop of Leeds, said that the judgement would “help in our determination to continue to provide this invaluable service to benefit children, families and communities”.
He added: “We look forward to producing evidence to the Charity Commission to support the position that we have consistently taken through this process: that without being able to use this exemption, children without families would be seriously disadvantaged.”
Catholic Care was the last of Britain’s eleven Catholic adoption agencies to resist the changes. Some charities like the Catholic Children’s Society, Westminster, and the Catholic Children’s Rescue Society in Salford decided to close their adoption services, while others agreed to accept the regulations and cut ties with the church.
Christian campaigners said that the judgement opened the door for other adoption agencies to reopen under a Catholic banner.
Andrea Williams from the Christian Legal Centre said: “This is a great result and a step in the right direction. It’s upsetting that the other adoption agencies have been forced to close, but this ruling will help them reopen if they so wish.
“The ruling supports Christian groups which want to operate freely and according to traditional values with regard to the nature of family.”
Philippa Gitlin, director of the Caritas Social Action Network, an umbrella group of Catholic charities, said that the trustees of charities that had adapted to comply with the legislation would “carefully consider” the ruling.
She said: “It is entirely a matter for specific consideration by the trustees of each charity what action, if any, they decide is feasible and appropriate in the light of today’s judgement. ”
Secular campaigners condemned the judge’s decision as “alarming” and “a major setback” for gay rights.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “It is unfortunate that the court has enabled Catholic Care to exploit what was obviously an error in the drafting of the equality legislation. The loophole this created was never intended to be used this way.
“If the Charity Commission reverses its previous decision – as the court is asking it to – we can look forward to a tidal wave of similar challenges from bigoted Catholic organisations who are determined not to accord any rights to gay people at all.”
from The Telegraph UK

Students at an elite L.A. private school who posted death threats and antigay messages on the Internet site of a 15-year-old classmate can’t claim the constitutional protection of free speech, a California appeals court has ruled.
The parents of the boy targeted by the threatening and derogatory posts on his website withdrew him from Harvard-Westlake School and moved to Northern California to protect him from classmates who had incorrectly labeled him as gay and pronounced him “wanted dead or alive,” the boy’s father said in a lawsuit brought against six students and their parents.
The defendants had attempted to deflect the charges by seeking a judgment from Los Angeles County Superior Court that the comments were 1st Amendment-protected speech on an issue of public interest, a motion denied by the lower court and upheld by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision Monday.
The Los Angeles Police Department detective who initially investigated the hostile website postings against the student, identified only as D.C., had declined to pursue charges against the other students, saying their “annoying and immature Internet communications did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution.”
The Los Angeles County district attorney likewise declined to prosecute.
The appeals court decision separating cyber-bullying from free speech will allow the boy and his parents to move forward with their suit against the students for alleged hate crimes.
from The Los Angeles Times