(Philipsburg, St. Maarten) The man described as the ringleader in the attack on two gay tourists from New York has surrendered to authorities in St. Maarten.
Under Dutch law the man’s identity will not be released until he goes to trial. Authorities would only say his nickname is “Duracell”.
That brings to four the number of people charged in the brutal beating of Richard Jefferson (pictured) and his friend Ryan Smith in April in the Dutch Caribbean resort.
Chief prosecutor Taco Stein said he believes all of those involved in the attack are now in custody. All four are residents of the French side of the island.
Jefferson, a senior producer for the CBS Nightly News and Smith, a producer-researcher for 48 Hours, were attacked as they left a popular bar in Phillipsburg after an altercation with a group of men who yelled homophobic epithets at them earlier in the night inside the club as Smith and his partner Justin Swensen shared a kiss.
Smith was hit by a car to knock him down. Four men jumped out of the vehicle and at least one started beating him with a tire iron. They then began beating Jefferson. Both victims sustained serious head wounds and were rushed to a local hospital. Once their conditions were stabilized CBS had them airlifted to a hospital in Miami. Swensen escaped injury.
Jefferson had a metal plate inserted in his skull, but has since returned to work in New York. Smith remains in Miami with neurological damage. He is suffering aphasia and is unable to speak properly.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/061406maarten.htm

(Edinburgh) Scots television stars Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan are tying the knot. Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic have followed their exploits as interior decorators, and even though their relationship was never mentioned on any of their series it was obvious the style obsessed pair were a couple.
In fact, they’ve been together for 21 years.
They fronted such Brit series as “How Not To Decorate” and “The Million Pound Property Experiment”. But it was their latest series that convinced them it was time to formalize their relationship.
According to McAllister the idea hit them while they were shooting “Colin and Justin’s Wedding Belles for Five”, where they acted as wedding planners
“We were banging on about the program and how much we enjoyed doing it then we looked at each other and started laughing,”
“We both said ‘we should do this’. It wasn’t that one of us went down on one knee. And we haven’t got engagement rings. We just know now we want to do this.”
They are the latest celebrity gay couple to take advantage of Britain’s civil partnerships.
Elton John and David Furnish tied the knot in Windsor last December. George Michael has announced he will tie the knot with longtime partner Kenny Goss but no date has been set.
Civil partnerships give same-sex couples an opportunity to register their relationships and receive most of the same benefits accorded married couples including pension, immigration, and property rights.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/061206scotland.htm

(Atlanta, Georgia) A federal court judge in Atlanta heard arguments Monday in a lawsuit brought by a White County High School student after administrators refused to allow the formation of a gay club.
In February 2005 students were told they would be allowed to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance, which later became Peers Rising In Diversity Education, P.R.I.D.E..
About two weeks later about 250 angry parents attended a White County school board meeting to protest the club and the board decided to ban all non-academic clubs.
The move staved off a threatened suit by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the students, but when some of the non-academic clubs began holding meetings on school property and have their meetings promoted during morning announcements the ACLU filed a federal discrimination suit.
Today in court students from some of the groups that were allowed to meet testified before U.S. District Court Judge William O’Kelley.
The students said they regularly submitted notices that were read over the PA system promoting their meetings and events and that the school allowed them to put up posters.
Kerry Pacer, president of P.R.I.D.E., who has since graduated, testified that she was booed by students when she received a rose at a school gathering.
But principal Brian Dorsey told the court that non-curricular clubs were not supposed to meet on campus.
ACLU attorneys, however, presented copies of morning announcements that showed otherwise. The lawsuit alleges that White County school officials violated the Federal Equal Access Act.
“The law is crystal clear about how public schools have to treat student clubs: they have to treat them equally regardless of their viewpoint,” said Beth Littrell, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Georgia who represents several members of PRIDE and their parents.
“White County High School has been trying to get around that by saying it has banned all clubs, when in reality it’s been playing favorites and letting clubs that administrators like continue to meet. Students at White County High School have a right to decide for themselves which clubs they want to participate in, and that right has been trampled by the school.”
O’Kelley did not indicate when he would rule.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/061206gaSchool.htm

(New York City)Scientists have identified a common genetic marker that signals a 60 percent heightened risk of prostate cancer in men who carry it, and it may help explain why black men are unusually prone to the disease, a new study says.
The DNA variant may play a role in about 8 percent of prostate cancers in men of European extraction and 16 percent of the cancers in blacks, researchers said.
The study was published online Sunday by Nature Genetics and will appear in the journal’s June issue. The work is reported by Kari Stefansson and colleagues at deCode genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, and scientists elsewhere.
The variant is about twice as common in blacks as whites, so that may contribute to the higher incidence of prostate cancer in blacks, the researchers said.
Stefansson said in a statement that deCode plans to use the discovery to develop a genetic test that might help doctors decide how closely to follow men at high risk and how to treat prostate cancer cases. The study indicated the variant might be associated with more aggressive forms of the disease.
It’s not clear whether the heightened risk comes from the variant itself or from another that lies nearby on chromosome 8.
In general, men run a 1-in-6 chance of developing prostate cancer at some point in their lives. The risk is greater for those who are older, black or have a brother or father who’s had the disease. More than 230,000 new cases are expected this year in the United States, with about 27,000 deaths.
The researchers found that the DNA variant was more common in prostate cancer patients than in the general population, suggesting an association with the disease. They compared a total of 3,430 patients with more than 2,000 others, drawing on study populations in Iceland, Sweden, Illinois and Michigan.
Among whites, the variant appeared in about 19 percent of patients and 13 percent of the other participants. Among blacks, both numbers were about twice as high.

http://www.365gay.com/health/health/051606health.htm

(Warsaw) About 2,000 gays and their supporters marched through central Warsaw on Saturday in the first legally sanctioned Pride parade in the Polish capital.
The marchers were guarded by almost as many police with more than a thousand skinheads and ultra-nationalists lining the route throwing eggs and bottles.
The heavy police cordon prevented the mob from rushing the marchers and police reported few arrests.
At the head of the parade in a show of solidarity with Polish LGBT leaders was Claudia Roth, the leader of Germany’s Green Party.
The city earlier this month gave its official approval for the parade. In 2004 and 2003 then Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski refused to grant permission for a gay pride parade in the capital. Nevertheless, more than 2,500 people ignored the order and marched anyway.
Kaczynski is now president of Poland. Gay rights groups say they’ve suffered even more of a setback since the election victory last fall of his conservative Law and Justice party which regularly denounces homosexuality. A new coalition formed last month has also raised concerns because it includes a right-wing party, League of Polish Families.
Wojciech Wierzejski, a leading member of the LPF, in a letter to Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro and Interior Minister Ludwik Dorn called for a criminal investigation into the “illegal sources of financing” of Polish gay groups.
Gays are under attack in most former Soviet states. Last month police broke up a Pride march in Moscow.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/061006poland.htm

(Warsaw) Gay rights activists and politicians from throughout Europe plan to march through Warsaw Saturday in a show of support for homosexuals, who are waging an intensified battle for acceptance through much of Eastern Europe.
The Equality Parade comes as an increasingly vocal gay rights movement faces off against conservative leaders determined to maintain the status quo. Homosexuality remains very much a taboo in Poland and much of the region, and activists are up against a widespread belief that homosexuality is a perversion and that gays and lesbians should seek psychological help rather than take to the streets in displays of pride.
“Homosexuality should be cured,” said Miroslawa Nowakowska, 55, a retired teacher in Warsaw who voiced the opposition many older and conservative Poles feel to Saturday’s march. “Illnesses should be treated and not advertised.”
Such thinking is to some extent a legacy of decades of communist ideology, which long held that “deviations” such as homosexuality did not exist in the ideal socialist world. In mainly Roman Catholic Poland, it is reinforced by the strong role the church plays in political and social life.
Gay rights groups say they’ve suffered even more of a setback since the election victory last fall of Law and Justice, a conservative party whose leaders have openly denounced homosexuality. A new coalition formed last month has also raised concerns because it includes a right-wing party, League of Polish Families, with a youth wing that has attacked gay pride parades in Poland in recent years.
The group, All-Polish Youth, said Thursday it was canceling plans to rally this Saturday in hopes of preventing a “physical confrontation with leftist fundamentalists.”
A member of the League, Wojciech Wierzejski, also caused a stir in past weeks for asking the interior and justice ministers to investigate gay rights groups to determine whether pedophiles and drug dealers were financing them.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch this week condemned Wierzejski and other Polish leaders who have made anti-gay comments, saying they “constitute a pattern of repression in Poland.”
Law and Justice leader Lech Kaczynski, who won the presidency in October, has also staked out a strong stance on the issue in his past job as Warsaw mayor by refusing permits for the Equality Parade in 2004 and 2005. He argued that “propagating” a gay lifestyle could ultimately threaten civilization.
The issue of gay rights has gained a new intensity since Poland joined the European Union in 2004 along with seven other ex-communist countries, a step which has emboldened activists to speak out more forcefully for an end to discrimination.
“EU membership has had a huge impact,” said Piotr Kaczynski, an analyst with the Institute of Public Affairs, a think tank. “Activists feel more secure in Poland now. They know the EU is watching.”
He says intensified public debate about homosexual rights marks the start of a liberalizing social movement similar to what the West went through in the 1960s and 1970s - years when Eastern Europeans were more focused on the threat of Soviet tanks than fighting counter-cultural battles.
“This is turning into a clash between the liberal societies of Western Europe and North America and those societies that didn’t have that generational, liberalizing moment of the ’60s and ’70s,” Kaczynski said. “In the West, it’s a pointless discussion because it was answered 20, 30 years ago.”
Saturday’s march is expected to draw supporters from throughout Europe, including lawmakers from Germany and Sweden who are mobilizing in reaction to recent violence against gays in the region. A week earlier in Bucharest, Romania, passers-by threw plastic bottles and shouted anti-gay slogans at a gay rights demonstration.
During a march in Moscow on May 27, gay rights activists were pummeled by right-wing protesters and detained by police when they rallied in defiance of a city ban. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said gay parades “may be acceptable for some kind of progressive, in some sense, countries in the West, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, for Russia.”
Several politicians from throughout Europe are also mobilizing to support gay rights. Members of Germany’s Greens party plan to travel to Warsaw to take part in the march, including Volker Beck, who was beaten by nationalist youths during the Moscow rally, as well as Renate Kuenast and Claudia Roth.
The Campaign Against Homophobia said lawmakers from Sweden, France and the Netherlands would also attend in a sign of solidarity.
“This isn’t just about gays and lesbians anymore,” Biedron, the leader, said in an interview. “This march will be a big demonstration against fundamentalism and the violation of human rights.”

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/060906poland.htm

(Provo, Utah) A Brigham Young University student has been suspended and four others disciplined for taking part in an April LGBT protest at the school.
Matthew Kulisch, 24, was considered one of the local organizers of the Soulforce Equality Ride demonstration at the school.
He was suspended but the action was put on hold.
“They kicked me out of the university but upon further consideration decided I could stay under certain terms and conditions,” Kulisch told the Deseret Morning News.
He said he plans to leave BYU and enroll at the University of Utah in the fall.
During the Equality Ride protest Kulisch came out during a press conference on April 10. The following day he led a march of Soulforce riders from Provo Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the campus. There he and 23 others held a “die-in” to illustrate the number of Mormon gays who have taken their own lives over what the group called the church’s discrimination.
The Equality Ride was a 51 day cross-country trip organized by the nondenominational group Soulforce to draw attention to schools which do not admit LGBT students.
During two days of demonstrations at BYU 29 riders were charged with trespassing.
Wednesday an attorney entered guilty pleas for 21 of the riders and a judge fined each of them $200. The remaining 8 are expected to enter guilty pleas later this month.
In May 23 people who participated in a gay demonstration at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia were fined $200 on trespassing charges following protests there.
The Ride wrapped up March 26 with a demonstration at West Point where 21 riders were arrested.
Ten riders were arrested on the grounds of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Riders also have been arrested at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia which is affiliated with Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/060806byu.htm

(Washington) “Marriage today is under assault,” announced Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) as he opened debate on a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.
Allard, who is the chief sponsor of the amendment in the Senate lambasted “activist judges” and accused same-sex couples seeking the right to marry of attempting to destroy traditional marriage.
“The U.S. Constitution is already in the process of being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage - but not by democratically elected members of Congress, yet by unaccountable and unelected judges,” he said.
The measure has little chance of moving through the Senate. It needs 67 votes, what is called a super majority. Only one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska supports the amendment and it has divided Republicans.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) allowed the proposed amendment to get through his committee but he said he will vote against the measure on the floor.
“A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry pure and simple,” said Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. His home state is the only area in the country where same-sex couples can wed, the result of a high court ruling in 2003 that overturned the law blocking gay unions.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who says he believes marriage is the union of a man and a woman, said he nonetheless will vote against the amendment.
“The reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another,” Reid said.
“This is another one of the presidents efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract, and to confuse America. It is this administration’s way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens are confronted with each and every day.”
The proposed amendment is almost identical to one which failed to get enough votes to advance in 2004. The amendment drew 48 of the 67 votes needed to pass in 2004 and opponents believe it may get fewer votes this year.
The amendment reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
Earlier Monday President attempted to garner support for the amendment in a televised speech.
“A constitutional amendment is the most democratic method by which our country can resolve this issue,” the President said.
Gay Republicans quickly distanced themselves from Bush’s remarks.
“Good conservatives and loyal Republicans should resist politically motivated efforts to write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution,” said Log Cabin President Patrick Guerriero. “The President’s call for ‘tolerance and civility’ while advocating discrimination rings hollow. In fact, the effort to write discrimination into our Constitution is an intolerant and uncivil attack on gay and lesbian Americans and our families.”
Behind the scenes on Capitol Hill on Monday Senate opponents of the amendment were working to derail the measure before it comes to a full vote on Wednesday.
Democrats and moderate Republicans are working on a procedural maneuver to block an up-or-down vote, killing the measure for the year.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/060506senate.htm

(Seattle, Washington) Two different organizations are planning separate, simultaneous gay pride festivities in Seattle for the same weekend of June 23-25, organizers say.
Events will be split among Capitol Hill, the Seattle Center and downtown Seattle. The Seattle Pride festival has long been known as a weekend-long party on Capitol Hill.
In announcing the change, the organizers told The Seattle Times that the festival had outgrown Capitol Hill; that the parade was too long for Broadway and festival-goers were crammed uncomfortably into Volunteer Park.
In addition, garbage and parking were big problems.
But the news is not without some controversy. Some believe there now is a split in the gay community in Seattle.
“This thing is dividing the community; it really is,” said Nick Lovelace, the reigning Mr. Gay Seattle and a volunteer coordinator for a gay-rights activist group called ActionNW.
Longtime gay-rights activist Bill Dubay said he supports and will participate in both the downtown and Capitol Hill festivals. “The last thing we need to do when we’re circling the wagons is to point the guns inward,” Dubay said.
For 31 years, Seattle Out and Proud, which recently changed its name from the Seattle Pride Committee, had produced the Broadway parade and accompanying festivities in Volunteer Park.
Then last year, the group announced it would move this year’s parade to Fourth Avenue downtown and the accompanying festivities to the much bigger Seattle Center.
In May, Seattle Out told the community center and Seattle Gay News to stop using the term “Seattle Pride” in connection with its events, saying the Capitol Hill group was interfering with its ability to operate.
Officials from both organizations downplayed any dissension between them, saying more Pride activities throughout the city are a good thing.
“Throughout this we really have maintained a position of wanting people to participate as much as possible,” said Shannon Thomas, executive director of the LGBT Community Center. “We just want people out there, downtown, up the Hill, back downtown.”

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/06/060306seattle.htm

(Washington) President Bush reportedly will hold a Rose Garden press conference on June 5 to press Congress to enact the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.
The conservative Weekly Standard reports that Bush will gather supporters of the amendment behind him as he makes his pitch.
“President Bush is once again placating extremists and pushing discrimination when he should be finding solutions for the real challenges facing Americans,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese told 365Gay.com.
“It’s despicable that he would use this opportunity and the spotlight of the Rose Garden not to unite the country, but to advocate discriminatory and divisive politics.”
June 5 is the same day that the proposed amendment will be debated in the Senate.
The president has rarely mentioned the proposed amendment since 2004 when it failed to get enough votes to proceed. The measure was reintroduced this year.
The proposed amendment would bar same-sex couples from marrying, block courts and state legislatures allowing gay marriage, nullify marriages already performed in Massachusetts - the only state in the country where they are currently legal - and according to critics possibly block civil unions and override domestic partner laws.
The amendment was introduced by Senator Wayne Allard and reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
While most Republicans were solidly behind the amendment in 2004 the party is deeply divided this time. Earlier this month First Lady Laura Bush said the marriage issue should not be used as an election tool. (story)
The Human Rights Campaign recently came under criticism for endorsing the re-election of Republican Rep. Mary Bono (Calif.). But the organization says Bono is illustrative of moderate Republicans who support LGBT issues.
Bono voted against the marriage amendment in 2004 and has announced her opposition to reintroducing it. She also supported LGBT inclusion in hate crime law and worked to see its passage in the House, although the measure later died in the Senate.
Of reports that one man in Palm Springs was so angry that Bono had been endorsed over a Democrat he changed his will removing the HRC as a beneficiary (story), the group says it was never informed it had been in the will in the first place.
HRC spokesperson Jay Smith Brown tells 365Gay.com that the organization had interviewed Bono’s Democratic challenger, David M. Roth, disputing claims by Roth that he had never been contacted.
In the past HRC on rare occasions has endorsed two candidates in any one race but Brown would say only that in Ross’s case no such decision has yet been reached.
“We will continue to evaluate candidates up to election day and that has been our process all along,” said Brown.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/05/053006bush.htm