Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sitting here on Saturday Night
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Just sitting here
Friday, February 13, 2009
Targeted Arrests Prompt Outrage, Protests in NYC
Protesters are planning to gather in front of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's residence in response to a series of arrests targeting gay men.
A group calling itself the Coalition to Stop the Arrests says there has been an epidemic of false arrests of gay men because they were solicited by undercover police masquerading as prostitutes. The Gay City News reports that at least 27 men were arrested for prostitution in eight porn shops in Manhattan in 2008. Since 2004 there have been 52 such arrests in eight difference businesses.
According to a statement by the group, the arrest is usually set up so that an attractive younger officer is sent out to approach middle-aged gay men. The officer allegedly entices the man to have sex. If the man agrees, the undercover officer says he wanted to pay the man for sexual favors, and then, before the man can accept or reject the transaction, he is surrounded by police to make an arrest.
Linda Poust Lopez is legally representing five men who were arrested in fall 2008 at Unicorn DVD in Chelsea. "Generally, these are people who are not working as prostitutes and even when they are confronted by the undercover they may be intending to have sex, but not take any money," Lopez told the News.
The rally is scheduled to take place on Saturday at 17 E. 79th St. from noon to 1 p.m., according to Towleroad.com (Advocate.com)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Gay Immigration Bill Heads to Congress
New York representative Jerrold Nadler will reintroduce a bill on February 12 that would allow gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born domestic partners for U.S. citizenship.
The 2009 version of the Uniting American Families Act, which is to be introduced on Thursday, has 43 original cosponsors, according to Nadler's spokesman Ilan Kayatsky, with the list of cosponsors growing as the date of introduction approaches.
The bill is currently unchanged from Nadler's original House bill, introduced in May 2007, which ended up with 118 congressional cosponsors.
Gays cannot currently sponsor their partners for citizenship because, in the eyes of the federal government, same-sex partners cannot be considered spouses. The proposed legislation would require binational same-sex couples to prove that they intend lifelong commitment to one another as permanent partners, that they are financially interdependent, that they are currently unmarried to anyone else, that they are unrelated to each other, and that they are unable to "contract with that person a marriage cognizable under the Immigration and Nationality Act," according to the original bill. The bill would also change terminology to define those couples as "permanent partners" instead of "spouses." (Michelle Garcia, Advocate.com)