LGBT CENTER FACING FINANCIAL HARD TIMES
Eight years after opening with great fanfare, San Francisco’s city-subsidized, $12.3 million Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center is on the verge of foreclosure – and is asking the cash-strapped city for a $1 million line of credit to help bail it out.
And from the looks of things, the center will probably get it.
The thinking: The city has already spent about $5.7 million on the building at Market and Octavia streets and needs to “make sure it doesn’t go under,” said Supervisor David Campos who along with fellow gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty is seeking approval of a $1 million “mortgage relief” fund.
According to a new report by the Board of Supervisors budget analyst, the center could need even more public funds to cover the nearly $3 million that it still owes on its mortgage.
“Clearly, it’s unprecedented,” Campos said of the bailout proposal. “But I do believe there is something unique about the role the LGBT Center plays – not only in the life of the community, but the entire city.”
If approved by the Board of Supervisors and the mayor, the bailout would be the first time the city has used its general fund to guarantee mortgage payments on behalf of a nonprofit, according to the budget analyst’s report.
Source – San Francisco Chronicle
MS SCHOOL CANCELS PROM RATHER THAN LET GIRL BRING SAME-SEX DATE
A northern Mississippi school district decided Wednesday not to host a high school prom after a lesbian student demanded she be able to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.
The Itawamba County school district’s policy requires that senior prom dates be of the opposite sex. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi had given the district until Wednesday to change that policy and allow 18-year-old Constance McMillen to escort her girlfriend, who is also a student, to the dance on April 2.
Instead, the school board met and issued a statement announcing it wouldn’t host the event at Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”
The statement didn’t mention McMillen or the ACLU. When asked by The Associated Press if McMillen’s demand led to the cancellation, school board attorney Michele Floyd said she could only reference the statement.
“It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors,” district officials said in the statement. “However, at this time, we feel that it is in the best interest of the Itawamba County School District, after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students.”
The ACLU said a school policy banning same-sex prom dates violated McMillen’s constitutional rights. – Source – AP
MIGHT DENMARK BE NEXT TO ALLOW SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ?
Nearly two thirds of Danes support a call to allow gay and lesbian couples to be married by the Church, a poll showed Wednesday.
Denmark was the world’s first country to allow a civil union for homosexuals, in 1989, but its parliament is now split over a move by the centre-left opposition to amend the law to allow religious weddings too.
The minister for religion Birthe Roenn Hornbech has urged lawmakers to think the question through in-depth before reaching any decision.
But according to a poll published by the Christian daily Kristelig Dagbladet on Wednesday, 63 percent of the Danish population would be happy to see gay couples married at the altar.
A quarter of respondents said they would oppose the move, while 12 percent gave no opinion, according to the Capacent Research poll of 1,304 people carried out of March 5.
Separately, the Berlingske Tidende daily found that six out of 10 bishops with the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church would agree to see gay couples make their vows in Church. – Source – AFP
HUBBY HUBBY ON THE MENU AT THIS GAY WEDDING
Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield will attend the wedding of a gay couple getting married in one of the ice cream maker’s stores in Georgetown.
Keith Spangler-Vellios and Andreas Vellios plan to marry Thursday at the scoop shop. Tuesday was the first day gay couples could marry in Washington. The couple previously married in San Francisco in 2004, but same-sex marriages in California were invalidated. The couple has been together for 11 years and have twin 2 1/2-year-olds.
Ben & Jerry’s symbolically changed the name its ice cream flavor “Chubby Hubby” to “Hubby Hubby” in 2009 after its home state of Vermont began recognizing same-sex marriages. – Source – Boston Globe
