Garibaldi Gay

Colette & John Yallop

UNITED KINGDOM – A former vicar and his wife have been barred from becoming foster parents after saying they did not want gay couples who are considering adopting to meet them in their own home.
John and Colette Yallop told the local council that, if approved as foster parents, they would be ready to help same-sex couples adopt children and would be happy for a gay person to visit on their own.
But they said they would rather meet such couples at a children’s centre than in their family home to avoid awkward questions from their own young son and daughter.
However, Lancashire County Council said it could not make exceptions to its equality and diversity policies.
Mr Yallop, 62, said: ‘We are not homophobic and have worked alongside gay people, but we believe inviting gay couples into our home for the handover process might be detrimental to our family life and our young children.
‘We don’t want to have to explain to our five-year-old daughter or seven-year-old son why a youngster we’ve been caring for has two mummies or daddies.
‘We accept council policies on equality and diversity. Even if we disagree with the rights of gay couples to adopt because it goes against our Christian beliefs, it doesn’t make us bad foster parents.
‘I suspect we’re not alone in believing children thrive where there is a mummy and a daddy, rather than two parents of the same sex. Nevertheless, this is a personal belief that doesn’t affect our ability to care for and love a foster child.’
Mrs Yallop, 43, said they told a social worker assessing them that they would happily have a single gay person or one partner of a gay couple as prospective parents in their home, or hand over a foster child at a centre.
‘This was something our social worker suggested we put in writing to the council. Then she said our application was being refused because of our views. We were shocked and upset.’
The couple, who have been married for nine years, said they had been told in an initial assessment they would be ideal.
Same sex wedding
A council spokesman said: ‘People who wish to foster must be open to working alongside all approved adopters’ – including gay and lesbian couples
But the council’s Fostering Recruitment and Assessment Team wrote to the Yallops last month to say their assessment was to end because of the couple’s views about their ‘ability to work with particular groups of people (in particular gay and lesbian people)’.
The letter said the request to meet gay couples outside home would ‘greatly affect the child’s experience of the introduction to adopters or carers and would potentially affect the success of their placement’.
‘We started the process of applying to foster newborn-to-four-year-old children in March,’ said Mrs Yallop.
‘We had interviews and completed a three-week course. It means a lot to us to give a child a start in life and seems unfair we are now being discriminated against because of our honesty.’
Mr Yallop, the manager of St Barnabas Church and Community Centre in Blackburn, said they felt it was the right time to foster because of the age of their own children.
‘We knew the assessment process would be intrusive,’ he said. ‘I’m no saint, having had to resign as a Church of England minister after committing adultery while married to my first wife.
‘And I was a bit of a tearaway when I was younger. I knew the details of my going to jail for stealing would come out.
‘But after 20 years as a vicar and then a support worker for people with mental health problems, I feel I’d have a lot to offer as a foster carer.’
County Councillor Susie Charles, Cabinet Member for Children and Schools, said: ‘We must operate within relevant legislation and the council’s equality and diversity policy, which both rule out discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
‘People who wish to foster must be open to working alongside all approved adopters to give the transition the best chance of success.’
But Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting the couple, said: ‘The Yallops have a loving family home to offer vulnerable children. It is not the homosexual community being discriminated against but the Christian community.’
The couple are expected to appeal against the council’s decision.
from The Daily Mail

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Justin Timberlake

Reportedly, 29 year old superstar Justin Timberlake will lend his voice to a gay character named “Paul” on an episode of FOX’s animated comedy “The Cleveland Show.” The show’s creator, Rich Appel, confirms the news that Timberlake is playing a gay character. According to Appel, Justin Timberlake is hysterically funny in the role. Justin will also play a singing character named “Booger” in the same episode.
In the episode featuring Justin Timberlake, the character “Terry” who is voiced by Saturday Night Live’s Jason Sudeikis will fall in love with Timberlake’s character. “The Cleveland Show” is a spinoff of the mega popular animated show Family Guy which also airs on FOX.
Justin Timberlake film career is picking up. He will also be lending his voice to the upcoming animated film “Yogi Bear.” Timberlake lends his voice to the character “Boo-Boo.” Timberlake will have a major role in the upcoming drama “The Social Network” about the creation of Facebook which will star Jesse Eisenberg. The film is set to air in October.
Timberlake has other projects in line including starring opposite his ex-girlfriend Cameron Diaz in the romantic comedy “Bad Teacher“ which is scheduled for release next year.
The Cleveland Show episode featuring Justin Timberlake will premiere next year in February.
from Over The Limit
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Antonio Lara

NEW YORK – A sexual tryst turned violent early Friday when a man used a corrosive liquid to douse another man he caught with his transgender lover, police said.
Ruben Olivares, 37, walked into his upper East Side home only to catch his 19-year-old flame about to perform a sex act on Antonio Lara, police and the victim said.
The jilted lover – a porter who works in the building – splashed Lara, 29, with the liquid, which investigators believe to be hydrochloric acid, and high-tailed it away from the scene, cops said.
“She wanted money for oral sex,” Lara told the News from his bed at New York Presbyterian Cornell Weill Hospital. “So I give her $20.
“Then, this guy comes through the door,” the Mexican immigrant said. “He brought a coffee cup.
“I thought it was coffee and he threw it at me,” he said. “It was acid in the coffee – it was very hot.”
Neighbors said they heard a ruckus at about 6:20 a.m.
“The girlfriend came running out screaming, naked,” said neighbor Dianora Niccolini, 74.
Lara said he met the unidentified teen through a phone service he saw advertised on television. She sent him a photo and they agreed to meet before he went to work as a scaffolding builder in Queens.
Olivares used his key to get inside the apartment and soon spotted Lara. An argument erupted and the porter tossed the liquid on Lara, police said.
He suffered burns to his face, neck, arms, chest and stomach. He is in serious but stable condition.
Witnesses said firefighters sprayed the father of two down with water, while cops searched for Olivares.
“The Fire Department guys were telling him to stand still,” said Jason Catlin, 39, who watched the scene from his bar on E. 78th St. “It was crazy. I never saw anything like it.”
Neighbors did not express sympathy for Olivares, who they said has a wife in Queens.
“I feel sorry for Ruben, but he’s not a nice guy,” Niccolini said.
from The New York Daily News

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker

It’s the judge’s turn to be judged.
The federal judge who upended California’s same-sex marriage ban this week is now being scrutinized by some for being gay himself. Which raises another question – should his sexual orientation even matter?
The whole issue has created a rather muddled and finger-pointing debate in newspapers and the blogosphere, as angry supporters of the gay marriage ban argue that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker did not act impartially.
But some experts say his private life doesn’t matter.
Larry Levine, a professor at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento told the Sacramento Bee that Walker’s sexuality doesn’t—or shouldn’t— make a difference.
“I think it’s profoundly offensive to suggest that a judge who is not of the sexual orientation of the majority or the race of the majority or the religion of the majority is unfit to hear the case,” he told the newspaper.
“Are they saying that an African American judge can never rule on an affirmative action case and a Muslim can never rule on a case dealing with religious expression?”
The San Francisco Chronicle said the judge being gay is “the biggest open secret” in a column, although Walker himself hasn’t addressed the speculation about his sexual orientation.
Nonetheless, supporters of the gay marriage ban are outraged.
“Here we have an openly gay federal judge,” Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of The National Organization for Marriage, who advocated for Proposition 8, told the Associated Press. She said the judge was “substituting his views for those of the American people”
Some are saying Walker should have addressed his sexuality before the trial, and Bryan Fischer, issues director for the American Family Association, is urging members to contact their political representatives to impeach the court proceedings.
On Wednesday, Walker ruled the voter-enacted ban, known as Proposition 8 “singles out gays and lesbians and legitimates their unequal treatment.”
The ban was passed in 2008 in a narrowly passed referendum five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. The case is expected to head to the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals.
Walker, 65, was born in Watseka, Ill. President Ronald Reagan initially nominated him, but he wasn’t confirmed until 1989 by George H.W. Bush. The New York Times described him as an “independent-minded conservative” who has come out in favor of the legalization of drugs and once ruled in the mid-90s that the cops used reasonable force when they pepper sprayed anti-logging protesters.
Ironically, he’s previously been denounced by feminist and gay-rights groups for being a member of a private club that only recently allowed blacks admission.
One this is for sure, the verdict on this controversy is still out.
from The New York Daily News

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — The head of Target Corp. apologized Thursday over a political donation to a business group backing a conservative Republican for Minnesota governor, which angered some employees and sparked talk of a customer boycott.
Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel wrote employees to say the discount retailer was “genuinely sorry” over the way a $150,000 contribution to MN Forward donation played out. Steinhafel said Target would set up a review process for future political donations.
MN Forward is running TV ads supporting Republican Tom Emmer, an outspoken conservative opposed to same-sex marriage and other gay-rights initiatives that have come before Minnesota’s Legislature.
Steinhafel said the contribution from the corporate treasury to a political effort, which until this year wasn’t allowed, was designed to support Emmer’s stance on economic issues. Ads run by the group were focused on budget policy, not social issues.
“While I firmly believe that a business climate conducive to growth is critical to our future, I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry,” Steinhafel wrote.
He added, “The diversity of our team is an important aspect of our unique culture and our success as a company, and we did not mean to disappoint you, our team or our valued guests.”
A phone message left with a Target spokeswoman for more details on the company’s new policy was not immediately returned.
OutFront Minnesota, a gay-rights advocacy group, posted an open letter urging Target to take back its money from MN Forward. And “Boycott Target” Facebook groups began to appear.
“We appreciate they are taking this really seriously,” said Monica Meyer, OutFront’s executive director. “People will feel good about being heard. Some still will probably be holding back to wait and see what the next statement and the next move is.”
Target is known in Minnesota for helping sponsor the annual Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival.
The reaction to Target’s donation highlights the potential risks for businesses that seek to take advantage of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that prohibited campaign donations from company funds. The ruling changed regulations in about half the states, but the Target donation in Minnesota was among the first major new corporate moves to come to light.
Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York-based Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a retail consulting and investment banking firm, said he thought any consumer backlash against Target would have been small and only a small group of customers would have been angry enough to stop shopping there.
“They don’t want this to go further,” Davidowitz said. “What Target did today is called damage control. And I think damage control is perfectly appropriate.”
The liberal group MoveOn.org said it has gathered thousands of signatures on a petition by people pledging to avoid shopping at Target over the donation. MoveOn said it would hold a nationwide protest at Target stores Friday.
MN Forward has attracted at least $60,000 in donations since the Target backlash erupted and more than $1 million in total since it was formed. The group has also broadened its political profile. On Thursday, it sent out mail pieces on behalf of six legislative candidates — three Democrats, three Republicans.
Brian McClung, the group’s director, said MN Forward planned to push a bipartisan slate of candidates “from day one.”
“This group of candidates has varied backgrounds and positions on many issues, but they all have been focused on making Minnesota a better place to grow jobs,” he said.
According to public campaign reports, other contributors to MN Forward include Red Wing Shoe Company Inc., Best Buy Co., Pentair Inc., Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., Davisco Foods International Inc. and Polaris Industries Inc.
from The Associated Press
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – A day after Proposition 8  was thrown out in court, both sides in California’s debate over gay marriage are focusing on the next fight in a battle that is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Opponents of gay marriage immediately vowed to appeal a federal judge’s ruling saying same-sex unions were legal in California. The next step will come Friday, when U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker holds a new hearing. The judge stayed his order allowing gay marriage at least until then. And it remains unclear if –and when — new gay marriage will begin again in the state.
Lawyers on both sides expect the ruling to be appealed and ultimately to reach the U.S. Supreme Court during the next few years.
Walker’s decision was being carefully analyzed by attorneys with an eye on how the high court might view his legal reasoning.
At least some legal experts said his lengthy recitation of the testimony could bolster his ruling during the appeals to come. Higher courts generally defer to trial judges’ rulings on factual questions that stem from a trial, although they still could determine that he was wrong on the law.
John Eastman, a conservative scholar who supported Proposition 8, said Walker’s analysis and detailed references to trial evidence were likely to persuade U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a swing vote on the high court, to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
“I think Justice Kennedy is going to side with Judge Walker,” said the former dean of Chapman University law school.
Barry McDonald, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University, said Walker’s findings that homosexuality was a biological status instead of a voluntary choice, that children didn’t suffer harm when raised by same-sex couples and that Proposition 8 was based primarily on irrational fear of homosexuality were “going to make it more difficult for appellate courts to overturn this court’s ruling.”
Edward E. Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said he believed the judge’s ruling was both legally and morally wrong.
“All public law and public policy is developed from some moral perspective, the morality that society judges is important,” he said. To say that society shouldn’t base its laws on moral views is “hard to even comprehend,” he said.
Gay-marriage opponents plan to appeal the ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That court’s decision will probably be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In his decision, Walker said the evidence showed that “domestic partnerships exist solely to differentiate same-sex unions from marriage” and that marriage is “culturally superior.”
California “has no interest in differentiating between same-sex and opposite-sex unions,” Walker said in his 136-page ruling.
The ruling was the first in the country to strike down a marriage ban on federal constitutional grounds. Previous cases have cited state constitutions.
In striking down Proposition 8, Walker said the ban violated the federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Previous court decisions have established that the ability to marry is a fundamental right that cannot be denied to people without a compelling rationale, Walker said. Proposition 8 violated that right and discriminated on the basis of both sex and sexual orientation in violation of the equal protection clause, he ruled.
from The Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A federal judge overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban Wednesday in a landmark case that could eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry in America.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker made his ruling in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the voter-approved ban violated their civil rights.
Gay couples waving rainbow and American flags outside the courthouse cheered, hugged and kissed as word of the ruling spread.
“This is a victory for the American people. It’s a victory for our justice system,” said former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who delivered the closing argument at trial for opponents of the ban.
He said the ruling “vindicates the rights of a minority of our citizens to be treated with decency and respect and equality in our system.”
Despite the favorable ruling for same-sex couples, gay marriage will not be allowed to resume immediately. Judge Walker said he wants to decide whether his order should be suspended while the proponents of the ban pursue their appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The judge ordered both sides to submit written arguments by Aug. 6 on the issue.
Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.
California voters passed the ban as Proposition 8 in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
Walker, however, found that the gay marriage ban violates the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses while failing “to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”
“Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” the judge wrote in his 136-page ruling.
Both sides previously said an appeal was certain if Walker did not rule in their favor. The case would go first to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then the Supreme Court if the high court justices agree to review it.
Walker heard 13 days of testimony and arguments since January during the first trial in federal court to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married.
The ruling puts Walker at the forefront of the gay marriage debate. The longtime federal judge was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
The verdict was the second in a federal gay marriage case to come down in recent weeks. A federal judge in Massachusetts decided last month the state’s legally married gay couples had been wrongly denied the federal financial benefits of marriage because of a law preventing the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex unions.
The plaintiffs in the California case presented 18 witnesses. Academic experts testified about topics ranging from the fitness of gay parents and religious views on homosexuality to the historical meaning of marriage and the political influence of the gay rights movement.
During trial, Olson told Judge Walker that tradition or fears of harm to heterosexual unions were legally insufficient grounds to discriminate against gay couples.
Olson teamed up with David Boies to argue the case, bringing together the two litigators best known for representing George W. Bush and Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election.
Defense lawyers called just two witnesses, claiming they did not need to present expert testimony because U.S. Supreme Court precedent was on their side. The attorneys also said gay marriage was an experiment with unknown social consequences that should be left to voters to accept or reject.
Former U.S. Justice Department lawyer Charles Cooper, who represented the religious and conservative groups that sponsored the ban, said cultures around the world, previous courts and Congress all accepted the “common sense belief that children do best when they are raised by their own mother and father.”
In an unusual move, the original defendants, California Attorney General Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, refused to support Proposition 8 in court.
That left the work of defending the law to Protect Marriage, the group that successfully sponsored the ballot measure that passed with 52 percent of the vote after the most expensive political campaign on a social issue in U.S. history.
Currently, same-sex couples can only legally wed in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.
from The Associated Press

Elton John

Elton John didn’t mince words in slamming his fellow musicians for boycotting Arizona over the controversial SB 1070 immigration law. From the stage at his sold-out Tucson Arena concert Thursday night, John savored a few choice, not-so-family-friendly words:
“We are all very pleased to be playing in Arizona. I have read that some of the artists won’t come here. They are (expletive)wits! Let’s face it: I still play in California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights whatsoever. So what’s the (expletive) with these people?”
John has never been one to cave into political pressure from his musical colleagues. He ignored an artist boycott of Israel in June over the flotilla fiasco and played a show in Tel Aviv. He also played Rush Limbaugh’s latest wedding reception in early June, which drew the ire of gays and lesbians. Limbaugh is vehemently anti-gay marriage; John is married to his longtime partner David Furnish.
from The Arizona Daily Star

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GUERNEVILLE, CALIFORNIA — Sonoma County has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit by an elderly gay man who said social workers kept him from seeing his dying partner in the hospital.
Clay Greene, 78, of Guerneville filed a lawsuit earlier this year, claiming the county’s Public Guardian program discriminated against him because of his sexual orientation.
Greene accused social workers of denying him hospital visitation rights to see his partner, Harold Scull, despite signed wills, medical declarations and powers of attorney naming each other as spouses. The couple was not married nor registered as domestic partners.
The lawsuit also alleged that after Scull’s death, social workers forced Greene into a nursing home and sold the couple’s property, including art and heirlooms.
The county’s lawyer, Gregory Spaulding, denied the discrimination claims but admitted mistakes in selling the couple’s property.
Greene was kept away from Scull because of previous domestic violence allegations, according to the county. According to a sheriff’s report, Scull went to authorities with a black eye and said Greene threatened to kill him, though Scull was later unwilling to lodge a formal complaint.
“The county remains confident in its position that there was no discrimination in this case,” Spaulding said, noting that the plaintiff removed the discrimination allegations from the lawsuit three weeks ago.
Under the law, officials can sell property worth $5,000 or less to cover medical expenses, but the couple’s property sale brought in more than $25,000 at auction, Spaulding said. Errors in that case have led to revised policies at the Public Guardian’s office, he said.
Spaulding said the county settled the case Thursday to avoid further expense.
“It just made economic sense to stop the bleeding,” Spaulding said. “To end the case and avoid all expenses and costs.”
Calls to Greene’s attorney, Anne Dennis, were not immediately returned Friday.
from The Mercury News

Panorama Magazine Cover

The Catholic Church in Italy was embroiled in a fresh scandal on Friday when photographs apparently showing homosexual priests attending gay nightclubs and engaging in casual sex were published in a magazine.
A journalist from Panorama, a conservative weekly news magazine owned by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, used a hidden camera to film interviews with three gay priests, who introduced the journalist to the gay clubs they apparently frequent, and allowed the journalist to film their sexual encounters with strangers, including one in a church building.
One of the priests, a Frenchman identified only as Paul, celebrated Mass in the morning before driving the two escorts he had hired to attend a party the night before to the airport, Panorama said.
The Catholic Church in Italy, still reeling from the paedophile priest scandal, responded on Friday by ordering homosexual priests who are leading a double life to come out of the closet and leave the priesthood.
In a statement on Friday, the Rome diocese insisted that the vast majority of Rome’s 1,300 priests were truthful to their vocations and were “models of morality for all.”
The Vatican did not comment on the Panorama investigation, but a senior source said: “This is the usual silly season rubbish to attract readers during the quiet summer months.
“There is no proof that the people involved are from the clergy.”
A preview of the article sent out by Panorama said: “By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but at night, it’s off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital’s gay scene.”
Panorama described its investigation as “deeply disturbing” as it detailed how the priests – two Italians and a Frenchman – happily took part in gay events and had casual sex.
The Catholic Church insists on celibacy for priests and sees homosexuality as a sin. In 2008 the Vatican issued guidelines which said that any would-be trainees should not join if they had “deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”
Panorama editor Giorgio Mule said: “This was a two week investigation and was not aimed at creating a scandal but showing that a certain section of the clergy behaves very differently.”
from Telegraph UK
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Lt. Dan Choi

Army Lt. Dan Choi, the gay New York soldier who became the national face of the battle to overturn the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, was booted by the Pentagon on Thursday.
Choi, an Iraq war veteran and West Point grad, found no honor in the honorable discharge he got.
“After 11 years since beginning my journey at West Point, and after 17 months of serving openly as an infantry officer, this is both an infuriating and painful announcement,” said Choi, of Manhattan.
“It hurts, but then you remember what your service really meant,” he told the Daily News. “Wearing the uniform is not about symbols or rank. It’s about fighting for freedom and justice.
“It’s the absolute duty of my life to fight this,” he said.
Choi, 29, a Army reservist and member of the New York National Guard, has been challenging efforts to discharge him since coming out last year on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
This year, he chained himself to the White House fence to protest the 17-year-old law that has forced more than 12,500 men and women from the military.
Choi, who is fluent in Arabic, was an infantry platoon leader in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.
President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates support repealing the DADT policy, which lets gays serve as long as their sexuality stays secret.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), are resisting and say letting gays serve openly would negatively affect military morale.
from The New York Daily News

June 5, 1981. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its first warning about a rare pneumonia called pneumocystis circulating among a small group of young gay men.
Unrealized at the time, it was the official beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Dr. Michael Gottlieb, then a 33-year-old immunologist at the University of California Los Angeles, treated one of the first patients, a 31-year-old gay male with pneumocystis.
“In those days patients were essentially given a terminal diagnosis,” Gottlieb says. “We had no medication whatsoever. At the very beginning we did not even know it was viral infection.”
In 1982, the CDC coined the term AIDS, for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, but the cause was still unknown. In 1983, the virus was finally isolated and given a name: Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV.
At that time there were no treatments. Patients died quickly. Today, with the development of antiretroviral drugs and a much greater understanding of the disease, people who contract HIV in the United States are living decades.
The drugs carry side effects, some extremely debilitating, but because of those drugs, a small number of long-term survivors are experiencing what they couldn’t have imagined when they got their diagnosis in the epidemic’s early days — middle age.
“The first antiretrovirals were introduced in 1987; that gave us a glimmer of hope,” Gottlieb says, describing drugs that disrupted the virus’ ability to multiply in the body.
Dr. Michael Gottlieb, then a 33-year old immunologist at the University of California Los Angeles, treated one of the first patients.
Dr. Michael Gottlieb, then a 33-year old immunologist at the University of California Los Angeles, treated one of the first patients.
“In 1996, the advent of the protease inhibitor and the so-called cocktail changed the prognosis for HIV, and that therapy has required considerable refinement, because even that therapy had complications from the drugs themselves that caused a lot of damage — lasting damage — and many of those long-term survivors suffered and continue to suffer the complications of the earlier medication.”
Jim Chud is one of those long-term survivors. The 53-year-old AIDS activist says he was a 20-year old bisexual athlete at Yale University when he contracted the virus. Chud thinks it was 1977 when he got sick. He was leading a double life: He had a steady girlfriend, but took weekend visits to the bathhouses in New York.
By 1985, Chud was living in Washington. Having watched many of his friends get sick and die, Chud was at the head of the line when the new HIV test arrived. By 1989 he had full-blown AIDS — the most advanced stages of HIV. “I thought I was going to die,” he says. “I didn’t think I would see 30.”
He started volunteering for drug trials. One, a National Institutes of Health study looking at the combination of drugs AZT and DDC, left him paralyzed for four months. He has had more than 30 surgeries on his spine and neck.
In 1999, Chud contracted a fungal infection in his sinuses that spread to his brain. There were more toxic drugs and six more surgeries. Over the years he’s been on 12 different HIV drugs. Today he’s disabled and along with HIV medications takes prescriptions to battle pain, infections and depression.
Continue reading 30 Years With HIV

The Middleton Grange School

NEW ZEALAND – A Christian school in New Zealand was ordered to compensate a former coach who was fired because he is gay.
The Middleton Grange School in Christchurch booted the coach based on Christian beliefs that homosexuality is a sin.
The school offered to rehire the 28-year-old man, who declined to be named, but he rejected the offer. The amount of money the school is forced to pay the ex-coach was also undisclosed.
“At first I was shocked. I’ve never felt so small in my life,” the man told the New Zealand media. “I started to kind of blame myself,” he said.
School board members will also have to undergo human rights awareness training as part of the settlement.
“We care for him and respect him,” the school’s principal, Richard Vanderpyl, said of the former girls’ netball coach.
Vanderpyl said he offered the man his old job, but was told he “secured another position” elsewhere.
The man was hired in February, but the school board fired him after finding out he is gay.
“It’s hard enough to go through finding yourself, and accepting yourself and being ‘out’ in the first place,” the man said. “Having to go through discrimination doesn’t help.”
He said he is pleased with the school’s settlement and is happy the boardmembers will undergo sensitivity training.
“I am glad it won’t happen to anyone again at that school,” he said. “It was definitely a hard thing to go through.”
from The New York Daily News
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