news notes
Compiled by Dan Van Mourik
Q-Notes Staff
Carolinas
“Married” lesbians charged
SUMMERVILLE, SC—Two Summerville
women who married each other in the spring
of 1998 now fece charges for breaking state law.
The SC Law Enforcement Division (SLED)
charged Marsha Vicky Haas, 27, and Susan M.
Gilman, 29, with same-sex marriage. Haas was
also charged with fraudulent change of a name
on a driver’s license, SLED Lt. Mike Brown said.
Several months ago, state probation officials
noticed that Gilman, a parolee who had trans
ferred from another state, had identified her
self as a man on her driver’s license application.
SLED’s Vehicle and License Crime Unit inves
tigated and discovered the marriage. Brown
said; Charleston attorney John Chalmers said
that he married the couple in March in his of
fice after they showed him a notarized marriage
license from Charleston County. The license
lists the groom as Scott Gilman Austin and the
bride as Marsha Vicky Haas, records show. State
law prohibits same-sex marriages and Chalmers
said he had no idea he was marrying two
women. Gilman was convicted in September
of two counts of having false identification.
Further investigation led SLED to charge Haas
with one count.
ours Out 100
NEW YORK, NY^—Charlotte’s Andrew
Reyes and Raleigh’s Rev. Jimmy Creech have
been selected to “Out 100” — Ot/Tmagazine’s
annual look at some of the people who defined
the past year. Reyes was selected by Hispanic
magazine as one of the nation’s 100 top Latino
entrepreneurs and the Charlotte accounting
exec ran for county commission, but pulled out
of the race before the general election due to
an illness in his family. Creech is a United Meth
odist Church minister who performed a cov
enant ceremony for two lesbians at his church
in Omaha, NE for which he was suspended and
stood trial for violation of church principles.
Although acquitted, the events caused the
Methodist Judicial Council to gather last Au
gust and make a binding declaration that “cer
emonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall
not be conducted by our ministers and shall
not be conducted in our churches.”
Churches protest
CHARLOTTE, NC—An Episcopal church
in Charlotte and two others in Raleigh are cut
ting their giving to the diocese to protest the
denomination’s position on homosexuality.
Leaders of the three parishes say the denomi
nation has abandoned historic Christian tenets
by moving toward full inclusion of gays and
lesbians. St. Margaret’s in Charlotte and St.
Timothy’s and Church of the Holy Cross in
Raleigh are withholding 80 percent of the dues
the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina says
they owe next year. The Episcopal Church
passed a resolution apologizing to gays and les
bians for past treatment, some dioceses extend
health insurance to partners of gay employees
and several bishops bless gay unions.
National
Huffington comes out
WASHINGTON, DC—Michael
Huffington, 51, the man who spent $28 mil
lion on a failed Senate candidacy in California,
says now that he’s glad he lost because it has
allowed him to reveal a long-held personal se
cret: he’s gay. Huffington came out in an ar
ticle by David Brock in the January issue of
Esquire. Huffington was divorced from colum
nist and socialite Arianna Huffington in 1997.
The article says he told his fiancee of his past
homosexual activity before they were married.
There is no small irony in the decision by the
former Republican congressman, a staunch
conservative, to tell his story to Brock. A fel
low conservative. Brock struggled with the de
cision to disclose his own homosexuality in a
1994 interview with the Washington Post.
Huffington was one of the few Republicans to
support an end to the ban on gays in the mili
tary, but said at the time that he was not voting
to “promote the gay lifestyle.” He also voted
for an amendment blocking the District of
Columbia from spending money on a domes
tic parmers program. He received relatively low
marks from the Human Rights Campaign.
Gay group settles suit
LANSING, MI—State Rep. Deborah
Whyman will pay an undisclosed amount to
setde a lawsuit filed against her by the Detroit-
based Triangle Foundation. The group filed the
defamation suit last year, objecting to literature
from Whyman’s 1996 campaign that said the
Triangle Foundation supports pedophiles.
Whyman’s attorney, Rob Huth, stressed that
Whyman would not apologize as part of the
setdement. Whyman also will not pay the Tri
angle Foundation direcdy, but will make a con
tribution to a separate charity in the name of
the Triangle Foundation, said Rudy Serra, the
foundation’s attorney. The amount Whyman
will pay is not being disclosed.
Lesbian lied about attack
ST. CLOUD, MN—A lesbian student at
St. Cloud State University who said she was
attacked and beaten because of her sexual ori
entation now admits it never happened. Police
said the 22-year-old Jennifer Prissel lied in
October when she reported being attacked by
two men in a university parking lot. Police Chief
Dennis O’Keefe said that the woman’s allega
tions didn’t add up, that a medical report said
her injuries were self-inflicted and that she ad
mitted under questioning that she had lied.
O’Keefe said that no charges will be filed against
her. She later apologized in a letter to the cam
pus newspaper.
Judge halts Boston law
BOSTON, MA—K Massachusetts judge
ordered an end to a program providing health
benefits to domestic partners of people who
work for the city of Boston, including gay
couples, but the coverage will not stop imme
diately. Suffolk County Superior Court Judge
Charles Grabau issued a preliminary injunction
to overturn the city order that activated the
program, but referred the matter for appeals
court consideration. Health insurance benefits
for domestic partners became available in No
vember. Grabau ruled that the city order con
flicted with state law which does not allow in-
Q-Notes ▼ January 9, 1999
surance for domestic partners.
PAGE 3
Man gets life
OPELOUSAS, LA—James Willard Austin,
21, originally from Wetumpka, AL was ordered
to serve two life sentences plus 30 years for
armed robbery for his role in the murder of
Michael Miller, a gay man kidnapped at gun
point ftom a rest area in May 1996.
Hate crime mystery
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Police say they
will investigate as a hate crime a suspeaed anti
gay assault on a man who is either unable or
unwilling to identify himself. The man was
found stumbling along the street by hospital
security near St. Mary’s Medical Center. Doc
tors treated him for small cuts on his scalp and
slight swelling on his face, and then discovered
an anti-gay epithet on his chest. “You should
all die. You don’t deserve to live...queers,” it said.
“All I can tell you is he’s just not talking to any
body. They don’t know whether he is refusing
to or can’t,” said hospital spokeswoman Marilyn
Diamond. The man initially said he recalled
nothing and did not want police involved. The
hospital called officers anyway. The man car
ried no identification. Drug and alcohol tests
indicated the man was sober.
Left out
WASHINGTON, DC^Despite the efforts
of gay and lesbian medical professionals, the
Dept, of Health and Human Services’ (HHS)
10-year agenda blatandy ignores the needs of
sexual minorities. “Hedthy People 2010” is
HHS’s “prevention agenda of the nation” for
the decade 2000-2010, but in its current draft
form, it pays little attention to lesbians, gays,
bisexuals, and transgendered people, even in its
discussion of AIDS. National organizations,
including the Gay & Lesbian Medical Associa
tion (GLMA) and the Human Rights Cam
paign (HRC), have been seeking to correct the
omissions. One of the agenda’s two broad goals
is to “eliminate health disparities” and it speci
fies as target, underserved groups racial and eth
nic minorities, women, people with low in
comes, people with disabilities, and children.
See NEWS on page 15
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