Gay And Lesbian

Maryland's highest court rejected same-sex marriage yesterday and upheld the state's 34-year-old statute defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In a case watched closely around the nation, the Maryland Court of Appeals' 4-3 ruling dealt a blow to gay and lesbian advocates who launched their fight to overturn the state's marriage law three years ago. Yesterday, those advocates pledged to take the battle for marriage to the General Assembly, where two lawmakers have already said they will sponsor legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

BOB HATTOY, 56 Gay, lesbian advocate Bob Hattoy, an advocate for gay and lesbian issues who accused former President George H.W. Bush of doing nothing about AIDS during a speech at the Democratic National Convention, has died in Sacramento, Calif., of the disease. In 1992, just after learning he had AIDS, Mr. Hattoy delivered the DNC speech. "I don't want to die," he said. "But I don't want to live in an America where the president sees me as an enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics."

GOV. PARRIS N. Glendening's bid to enact a law banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians might have been defeated by a Senate committee last month, but the governor is still winning kudos from the gay community.Glendening is the subject of a laudatory profile in the May 25 issue of the Advocate, the national gay and lesbian magazine.In an interview with the magazine, Glendening offered new details on his unsuccessful effort to win General Assembly approval for the anti-discrimination measure.

"It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School" teaches a simple truth: It is better for children to be informed than ignorant.There is a world of information in this public television documentary that looks at six classrooms across the country in which teachers and elementary-school-age pupils are discussing gay and lesbian issues. And it is presented in an engaging, intelligent and straightforward manner appropriate for family viewing."It's Elementary" is public television at its best, offering thoughtful, provocative programming about issues of great cultural import.

Thousands of people gathered in Druid Hill Park yesterday to paint the park with rainbows, triangles and a sense of pride.The Baltimore Pride festival brought community health and legal services, clubs, and activist groups together with area gays, lesbians, transsexuals, their friends and families.The event, sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore, drew an estimated 20,000 people last year and organizers expected a larger turnout yesterday.The festival, in its 19th year, is designed to provide a haven for gay celebration.

Television stations like to tell us in their promotional messages how committed they are to diversity. But, when it comes time to walk the walk and air programs that might be controversial because of the diversity they celebrate, many stations run for cover.Maryland Public Television is backing up its campaign to promote diversity this television season with a couple of productions dealing with gay and lesbian issues, and our local PBS outlet deserves some recognition. Not that MPT has made a major commitment to gay and lesbian programming by any stretch of the imagination.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon ordered revisions yesterday in its "don't ask, don't tell" policy aimed at curbing complaints that military officials have failed to prevent harassment of homosexuals and have engaged in aggressive legal investigations of suspected gay and lesbian troops."

Were Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin writing today, they'd be hard-pressed to land a mainstream publisher. The work of these luminaries of American literature is just too queer. Full of overt descriptions of same-sex love (and, more importantly, lust), devoid of kitsch, camp, celebrity dish, anti-sex polemics or expressions of religious conviction, their work lies at a radical remove from current publishing trends.And yet, gay and lesbian books have never been more popular - or more numerous.

In a series of full-page newspaper ads appearing around the country this week, conservative Christian groups have been calling on gay men and lesbians to "be healed" of their homosexuality -- angering gay rights advocates, who denounced the ads as religious bigotry.The latest ad, which appeared yesterday in USA Today under the title "In defense of free speech," supported the recent remarks of pro football player Reggie White, an ordained minister who created a controversy by denouncing homosexuality in a speech he made in March before the Wisconsin Legislature.

"Queer Cafe 2," a follow-up to last season's evening of short gay and lesbian plays, opens tonight at the Theatre Project. This year's five offerings, produced by the PussyCat Theatre Company, are all world premieres."Penelope and the Sterile Field," by Center Stage resident dramaturg James Magruder, is about the barriers facing a gay man searching for the ideal mate. "The Mirror of Love," by Alan Moore, is a monologue tracing homosexuality throughout history. Pretzels and Longing," by Linda Eisenstein, focuses on the lesbian dating scene.

Sgt. John Kowalczyk wasn't hiding his sexual orientation; he just wasn't broadcasting it. But word was spreading through the police academy, and he sensed tension. He asked to address his fellow officers and got right to the point. "I'm gay," he said. "What do you want to know?" He answered questions for the next hour - some inquisitive, others downright insulting - and spent the rest of the training academy working to show his peers that he could hold his own as a cop. Seven years later, Kowalczyk, 31, remains one of the few openly gay officers in the Baltimore Police Department.

Selection of Warren is disrespectful to gays The reason so many gay and lesbian Americans are absolutely outraged over President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to lead the inaugural invocation is very simple: Pastor Warren has compared the marriage of two same-sex adults to incest and pedophilia ("Obama defends choice of conservative pastor," Dec. 19). Unfortunately, in many TV and newspaper reports since this story has broken, this critical fact has been left out. And indeed, those of us who are irate and sickened by Mr. Warren's selection are often being described as whiny and being told we need to get over it. Mr. Obama says he wants to bring together people with divergent opinions - and that's a completely respectable goal.

One captain in the Marine Corps had to sign the confining orders to send a lesbian to jail, but was so disturbed that the next day the officer, who was also gay, submitted his resignation papers. Another man, from the Naval Academy Class of 1958, was kicked out of the military because his name was found in the address book of a "known homosexual." Other gay men and lesbians left the service because like Steve Clark Hall, a nuclear submarine captain who retired after a 20-year Navy career, they could no longer bear the burden of harboring an enormous secret about their identity.

Veterans like to say that the difference between fairy tales and war stories is that the former start, "Once upon a time," while the latter start, "There I was." Recently, I became a conscientious objector in the only kind of war we professors have the courage to fight: a culture war. At a political science academic conference, I had the temerity to suggest that rather than refusing to hold our conventions in states without gay marriage, we academics should encourage reasoned exchange between gay rights supporters and opponents to find solutions everyone can live with.

When John Waters' 1988 film Hair- spray first came out on video, a staff member at Lambda Rising bookstore bought a passel of aerosol hairspray cans at the drugstore across the street and asked the filmmaker to sign them. As a promotion, the shop gave an autographed can to every customer who purchased a video. Such antics helped spur loyalty among customers at the store, which sells gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender books as well as digital video discs, music, magazines, greeting cards and gifts.

Court deals a blow to marital equality Along with other parents of gay and lesbian children, I am stunned at the Maryland Court of Appeals' ruling against a right to gay marriage ("Court upholds marriage law," Sept. 19). As the parent of four grown children, I am really upset that this ruling will allow one of my daughters to be discriminated against because she is gay. My husband and I are an interracial couple, a couple who once could not legally marry in Maryland. But fortunately, the courts ruled in our favor when they struck down laws forbidding interracial marriages.

Maryland's highest court rejected same-sex marriage yesterday and upheld the state's 34-year-old statute defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In a case watched closely around the nation, the Maryland Court of Appeals' 4-3 ruling dealt a blow to gay and lesbian advocates who launched their fight to overturn the state's marriage law three years ago. Yesterday, those advocates pledged to take the battle for marriage to the General Assembly, where two lawmakers have already said they will sponsor legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

DURING THE PAST three decades, Louis Hughes has demonstrated for gay rights in Annapolis and Washington, helped set up community and medical services for gays and lesbians and received awards for his efforts to prevent suicide in sexual-minority youths. Although he's proud of his history as an activist, Hughes worries how his sexual identity may affect his old age. If he must one day enter a nursing home, for instance, the retired Baltimorean worries that being openly gay could put him in jeopardy -- when he's too weak to protest.

BOB HATTOY, 56 Gay, lesbian advocate Bob Hattoy, an advocate for gay and lesbian issues who accused former President George H.W. Bush of doing nothing about AIDS during a speech at the Democratic National Convention, has died in Sacramento, Calif., of the disease. In 1992, just after learning he had AIDS, Mr. Hattoy delivered the DNC speech. "I don't want to die," he said. "But I don't want to live in an America where the president sees me as an enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics."

Right to marry is a key to happiness Marylanders of all races should be reminded that it was not long ago that interracial marriage was subject to discrimination ("Gay marriage case in Md. court," Dec. 5). In 1967, in Loving vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court defined the freedom to marry as an individual right that cannot be infringed upon by the majority. Chief Justice Earl Warren summarized the court's decision, "Under the Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race, resides with the individual and cannot be infringed upon by the state."