NO DISCO PARTY ON GOOD FRIDAY IN CORNWALL ENGLAND
The event’s organiser, Jason Hudson, wanted to book the Miners’ and Mechanics Institute building in St Agnes, Cornwall, on April 2, under the name Gay Pride Productions.
He said he was initially told he could use the venue in the former tin mining village but the booking was later cancelled by the chairman of the committee as it was “unsuitable” for the hall.
Mr Hudson, from St Agnes, who expected the event to attract 300 guests, said: “I was told it wasn’t the right kind of event – but salsa and aerobics are, I suppose? The bar is empty most nights and I explained this would attract custom. I feel this is discrimination.”
Mr Hudson, who is married with children, added: “I have a lot of gay friends in the area and they told me they have nowhere to go.”
In a statement, Dawn Brown, the Institute’s chairman, rejected any suggestion the committee was anti-homosexual.
“I admit I had personal reservations as the date is Good Friday,” she said.
“Although the strict licensing hours which applied on Good Friday have been relaxed in our increasingly secular society, the sensitivities remain, and St Agnes has a large and active Christian community whom I would not wish to upset.
“We want to create a family-centred venue. We don’t want the bar full one night if it drives away custom the rest of the week.” – Source – Telegraph
ARE GAYS AND LESBIANS EXCLUDED FROM CLINICAL TRIALS ?
Concerns about gay discrimination expanded from matrimony or the military to a new corner of society this week: clinical trials for medical treatment.
Experts at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia worry that doctors may needlessly exclude gay men and lesbians from clinical trials that investigate a range of topics from cancer to diabetes and depression.
A study of 243 clinical trials related to couples and sexual function after various medical treatments showed that 37 trials explicitly excluded people in same-sex relationships, according to a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday.
“The National Institutes of Health guidelines really require scientists to have sound scientific reasoning for why they need to restrict the study to one ethnic group or sex,” said Brian L. Egleston, lead author on the paper and an assistant research professor at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “But there’s not this same level of oversight when it comes to gay and lesbian patients.”
Doctors wanting to test a new drug or treatment often use age, behavior, disease or sex to narrow down which people can participate in clinical trials. It’s a crucial step to make sure the drug is tested only on those who could benefit and that outside diseases or behaviors don’t complicate the experiment.
“It’s not unusual in studies to decide who your target population is and exclude people who are not in this target population,” said Susan Cochran, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health. Cochran was not involved with the study.
“The bigger problem is if everyone just decides they’re going to exclude sexual minorities,” she said. “Then their health issues are never dealt with.” – Source – Read the full article at ABC News
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY OBJECTS TO ELECTION OF LESBIAN BISHOP
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office yesterday described the election of an openly lesbian bishop in the United States as “regrettable” and warned that it could further threaten the unity of the Anglican Communion.
The London office of Dr Rowan Williams responded to the election of Canon Mary Glasspool to a suffragan see in Los Angeles by warning of “important implications”. The statement from Lambeth Palace said that further consultations would now take place and regretted that calls for restraint had not been heeded.
The Episcopal News Service reported that Canon Glasspool, who held from the start that her sexuality was not an issue, had received the necessary consents from bishops and standing committees in the US for her consecration by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to go ahead in May.
Her election comes after that of the Anglican Communion’s first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose election in 2003 took the worldwide Church to the brink of schism, where it remains. Both Bishop Robinson and Bishop-elect Glasspool have been with their current partners for many years.
Her election was strongly opposed by conservatives and is expected to exacerbate tensions and imperil the success of the new Covenant process, intended to find a basis of common doctrine and practice for the entire Church.
Canon Kendall Harmon, a conservative blogger, said: “I’m very sad but I’m not surprised. It represents not simply a decision or a single act but a habit and therefore a pattern and therefore a chosen direction, without question.” Source – TimesOnline
METLIFE STUDIES LGBT BOOMERS
LGBT Baby Boomers have withstood many years of discrimination and say their approach to retirement and aging has been shaped by these experiences. “Still Out, Still Aging: The MetLife Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Baby Boomers,” conducted with the American Society on Aging (ASA) and its constituent group, the LGBT Aging Issues Network (LAIN), shows LGBT Boomers will approach retirement differently than the general population and most will delay retirement until they are 70. Largely single and living alone, they will rely more on close friends than family for support as they age.
“Boomers in the LGBT population, born between 1946 and 1964, advanced the gay rights movement,” said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute. “Born into a generation known for social activism, they were activists on a personal mission, forced to fight discrimination in school, in the workplace, in government, in society and among their own families. The result is a cohort of strong individuals who will continue to blaze trails as older Americans.”- Read the full study here
