ROANOKE, VIRGINIA – A Roanoke fitness club has changed its membership policies after a gay man sued, claiming it sold him a family membership, then revoked it after realizing that his family consisted of two fathers and a son.
Carilion Clinic, the parent company of Roanoke Athletic Club, said Thursday on its Facebook page that it will offer household memberships to cohabiting couples and their dependent children under age 22 who live with them.
The change at Roanoke Athletic Club and Botetourt Athletic Club is taking place “in recognition of the many contemporary households that can benefit from our facilities,” according to the posting. What had been called a “family membership” is now called a “household membership.”
William Trinkle, of Roanoke, sued Roanoke Athletic Club and Carilion last week in Roanoke Circuit Court, alleging breach of contract and violation of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act. Trinkle said that he; his partner, Juan Granados; and their two-year-old son, Oliver, were barred from using the facilities because they didn’t meet club officials’ definition of a family. He sought to have the club honor the contract and reinstate his family membership.
Trinkle’s lawyer, John Fishwick Jr., said his client is pleased with the change, which he said will benefit many types of families. Fishwick said he was discussing the status of the lawsuit with Trinkle in light of the policy change, and said he hasn’t communicated directly with Carilion Clinic officials.
An email and a telephone message left for Carilion Clinic spokesman Eric Earnhart weren’t returned by Thursday afternoon.
Trinkle purchased a family membership May 15. Club officials approved Trinkle’s application, and the family started using the facilities. Trinkle and Granados were shocked when the club’s operations director told them in a telephone call May 24 that same-sex couples don’t meet what they said was Virginia’s legal definition of family.
“It came out of left field, and it was a punch to the gut to both of us,” Trinkle said earlier Thursday in a telephone interview. “We joined the pool so we could have swimming lessons and enjoy the summer by the pool, simple as that.”
Virginia doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage but state law doesn’t specifically define what constitutes a family.
from The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA – A teacher claims in court that her Christian school suspended her son for the “sin” of being gay, then subjected her to “scathing condemnation and blame” for supporting him rather than demanding that he “renounce his sin” – a situation so fraught that it led to her firing.
Sharon Wright sued Covenant Christian Academy in Federal Court. The K-12 school is the only named defendant, though Wright identifies several top administrators in her 30-page complaint.
Wright claims she had taught full time at the defendant school since 2002, enrolled her two sons there, and was teaching fifth grade when the situation blew up. She says the school refused to renew her contract after she asked for accommodations for her adjustment disorder, anxiety and depression, brought on by harassment from the school’s board members, administrators and faculty.
Wright says one of her sons, then a high school senior, announced his sexual orientation on a social media blog on Oct. 12, 2009.
When school administrators learned of this, she says, they “took steps to immediately suspend him from school.”
The complaint continues: “In this regard, Mr. [headmaster Joseph] Sanelli instructed plaintiff and her husband that their son should not report to school the next day until the matter could be fully discussed.
“Shortly after plaintiff’s son’s declaration, plaintiff and her husband met with
Mr. Sanelli, Ms. [grammar school principal Gloria] Stucky, and defendant’s Upper School Principal, Robyn Burlew.
“At said meeting, plaintiff was informed that her son was to be permanently suspended from school and would not be permitted to return until he “renounced his sin.’”
School Board member Rich Raynor followed this up by telling her: “‘your son is broken, and it’s your job to fix him,’” the complaint states.
And, Wright says, Raynor’s wife told her “that this was a ‘battle for [your son's] soul’ and opined that he ‘may have been abused as a child.’”
Wright says in the complaint that the Academy “embraces historic Christianity as represented in the tradition of the Protestant Reformation” and “views homosexuality as a sin.”
Wright says she and her husband advised the school and its leaders that “after consultation with various psychiatric, psychological and pediatric professionals they had come to the conclusion that their son’s sexual orientation was already determined, that it would be potentially harmful to try to ‘reprogram’ him, that they had decided their best course of action was to support him and love him for who he is, and that they could not agree that homosexuality is a sin.”
She says she and her husband “expressed that they disagreed with CCA’s doctrinal position on homosexual behavior, criticized said position, and would not force their son to renounce his sexual orientation as a sin.”
According to the complaint, principal Burlew told Wright “that she (Ms. Burlew) would ‘go out on a limb’ to recommend that plaintiff’s son be permitted to return to school at defendant CCA.”
“Ms. Burlew stated that, in her opinion, ‘everyone struggles with sin’ and that the plaintiff’s son is no different.” (Parentheses in complaint.)
On Oct. 15, three days after her son disclosed his sexual orientation online, the headmaster Sanelli sent White a letter that stated her “support of her son ‘in no way affects the employment of Sharon here at CCA or the enrollment of [her son]. We support Sharon and consider her a valuable member of the faculty,’” according to the complaint.
After more discussions and emails, the defendant decided that while White’s employment and her younger son’s enrollment would not be affected, her eldest son would not be permitted to attend the Academy as an “in school student” and a proctor, textbooks and assignments would be provided to fulfill his academic and graduation requirements, the mom says.
According to the complaint, “at no time” was White instructed that “she must renounce her son’s sexual orientation as a sin in order to retain her employment status with defendant.”
But throughout the rest of the school year, White says, the school organization “proffered unsolicited opinions” concerning her son’s orientation, including the board member’s and his wife’s comments above.
What claims that the constant criticism and blame gave her adjustment disorder, anxiety and depression. She requested medical leave of absence to treat her disability in January 2010, and says she was encouraged to take a “year to heal,” which she calls an attempt to “impose upon plaintiff an involuntary sabbatical for the 2010-2011 academic year.”
White says she informed the school in a letter of May 10, 2010, that she was capable of continuing to teach with the option of taking necessary intermittent medical leaves of absence. But when she requested reasonable accommodation, including intermittent medical leaves of absence, White says, she was denied a contract for the next school year.
She says the school told her she was not offered a contract because her May 10 letter allegedly attacked the school’s position on homosexual behavior, and called those who held such positions “bigots.”
White says this “ostensible basis” for her firing “is wholly without basis in facts and [is] a pretense for intentional discrimination and retaliation.”
“In fact, nowhere in her May 10, 2010 letter does plaintiff use the word ‘bigot’ to describe her feelings toward those at CCA with whom plaintiff disagreed with respect to defendant’s doctrinal position on homosexual behavior,” the complaint states.
“Moreover, days before plaintiff’s May 10, 2010 letter defendant, by and through its agent, Ms. Stucky, recommended that plaintiff not be offered a full-time position for the 2010-2011 academic year, as more fully described above.”
White seeks an injunction, back pay, benefits, reinstatement or front pay, and punitive damages for disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, ADA violations, and violations of the Pennsylvania Human Rights Act and Human Relations Act.
She is represented by Solomon Krevsky, with Clark & Krevsky, of Lemoyne, Pa.
from Court House News
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Jane Pitt, Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt

An anti-gay letter urging Christians to vote for Mitt Romney that was printed today in The Springfield News-Leader has been confirmed by the newspaper as having been penned by Jane Pitt, mother of Brad Pitt.
The verification comes amid some confusion, as the Missouri newspaper first printed an editor’s note denying any relation between the letter writer and movie star. That was later replaced with a second editor’s note, reading, “To clear up earlier confusion, the News-Leader has verified the letter writer is the mother of actor Brad Pitt and local businessman Doug Pitt.”
The letter — itself a response to another opinion piece in the newspaper justifying Christians’ rights to refuse to vote for Romney because he is a Mormon — identifies Mrs. Pitt as “a Christian [who differs] with the Mormon religion.”
But, Pitt continues, “any Christian should spend much time in prayer before refusing to vote for a family man with high morals, business experience, who is against abortion, and shares Christian conviction concerning homosexuality just because he is a Mormon.”
Pitt goes on to write that “any Christian who does not vote or writes in a name is casting a vote for Romney’s opponent, Barack Hussein Obama — a man who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for years, did not hold a public ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer, and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.”
Along with Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt has long been an outspoken champion of gay rights. Pitt once told Ellen DeGeneres, “I’ve said that we would not be getting married until everyone in this country had the right to get married.” The two nevertheless announced their engagement in April, after seven years and six children together.
In January, Pitt said of his mother in a cover profile in The Hollywood Reporter, “She’s very, very loving — very open, genuine, and it’s hilarious because she always gets painted in the tabloids as a she-devil. There’s not an ounce of malice in her. She wants everyone to be happy.”
In the same story, the Moneyball star revealed his own support of Obama in the upcoming presidential election.
from The Hollywood Reporter

Ophelia De’Lonta

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – A U.Va. doctor is recommending a major, surgical procedure for a Virginia inmate seeking a male-to-female, sex change operation paid for by the state.
12 On Your Side has the physician’s letter and an interview with the transgender inmate.
The endocrinologist is advising prison doctors to move ahead with an orchiectomy for Ophelia De’Lonta — the surgical removal of the testicles — to complete treatment for gender identification disorder, and stop De’Lonta’s self castration.
Unsure of what Virginia D.O.C. will do next, Ophelia De’Lonta is cautiously optimistic but believes the recommendation, from a doctor the state hired, solidifies her court fight for a government-funded sex change surgery.
“Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no penological purpose,” said De’Lonta. “It amounts to torture. I’m being tortured because I can’t receive the treatment I’m suppose to have. So, you just let me suffer.”
G.I.D. patients believe they’re trapped in the wrong body. Ophelia struggles with self mutilation when hormone therapy stops working. She’s already cut out one testicle herself.
“The only way that’s going to change if my medical situation changes. If that doesn’t change, its like being choked to death and can’t breathe.”
Dr. Christina Gherghe writes, “The only thing I see left to complete your treatment is orchiectomy, testicle removal. I can not write this as an order. I can only suggest it to your doctors, which I did, in writing and verbally.”
“God forbid that one time is too much and I end up dying. Then what are you going to say? Well, we could have done this or we should have done that. That does me no good, but perhaps it may help somebody else,” said De’Lonta.
De’Lonta’s lawyer filed a motion to have the letter added to the appeals court record, stating it was received after the record was closed.
They expect Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to oppose it. The state has already said sex change surgery is not the only treatment method.
“They ‘re wanting taxpayers to see this as cosmetic. That this is ‘something she wants.’ I respect and admire their intelligence but this is a serious medical situation. Now that I have that from your specialist, somebody that you hired. If you don’t follow it then, you’re in violation,” said De’Lonta.
We’ll see how the court handles the new information.
Meantime, Dr. Gherghe also wrote in that letter that it was up to prison doctors to pursue what she suggested.
She assured Ophelia De’Lonta that she would treat her in the exact same manner whether she was in prison or not.
from WWBT NBC 12