Philadelphia Gay News Vol. 33 No. 16
Honesty Integrity Professionalism
April 17 - 23, 2009
Judge OKs extension for Scouts case By Timothy Cwiek PGN Writer-at-Large A federal judge has granted a two-month extension for both sides to gather evidence in a case that could determine whether the local Boy Scouts chapter remains in a cityowned building. On April 7, U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter signed a revised scheduling order for the case, postponing the discovery deadline from April 6 to June 5. The discovery phase allows both sides in a legal dispute to gather as much relevant evidence as possible for potential use in the upcoming trial. The Cradle of Liberty chapter has occupied a city-owned building on the Ben Franklin Parkway near 22nd Street since 1928. But the chapter doesn’t permit openly gay participants — a policy that is at odds with the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance. That ordinance, enacted in 1982, forbids antigay discrimination in a variety of venues, including city-owned buildings. For several years, LGBT activists implored
city officials to enforce the ordinance and remove the Scouts from the building or have them pay fair-market rent. Last year, in response to those pleas, city officials told the Scouts they must begin paying $200,000 annual rent for the building by June 1, 2008, or vacate the premises. Rather than cooperating with that request, the Scouts filed a federal lawsuit in May 2008, claiming their constitutional rights were being violated by the rental demand. Shortly after the Scouts filed suit against the city, the city filed an eviction action against the Scouts in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. But that case remains pending and the evidence gathered in the federal case may be used in the state case. The federal case was assigned to Buckwalter, who last fall rejected a motion by city officials to dismiss the entire case as meritless — although he did toss out some of the Scouts’ claims. In December, Buckwalter issued an initial scheduling order, which included the April 6 See SCOUTS, Page 18
FILING FOR FUNDING: About 30 people braved the rain on Wednesday, Tax Day, for a prayer vigil outside U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter’s Center City office, calling for an increase in U.S. tax dollars used to fight HIV/AIDS. Representatives of such organizations as ACT UP Philadelphia, Drexel University American Medical Students Association, RESULTS Philadelphia, Philadelphia FIGHT, Prevention Point and Health GAP recited prayers and chants, asking Specter to not only support increased funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, but also to help repeal the federal ban on needle-exchange funding. Photo: Scott A. Drake
Out candidates ready for race Antigay ad campaign By Jen Colletta PGN Staff Writer Area voters will head to the polls in a few weeks to choose from a long list of judges and other candidates in the municipal Primary, two of whom are members of the LGBT community. Among the judicial hopefuls in the May 19 election are openly gay candidates Dan Anders and Dawn Segal. Former Philadelphia prison commissioner Leon King II had been running as a judge for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, but withdrew his name last week. Dan Clifford, longtime family attorney in Norristown and chair of the Springfield Zoning Hearing Board, had plans to run for the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, but missed the endorsement at last month’s GOP Convention by 18 votes. Gov. Rendell nominated Anders to the Court of Common Pleas in 2007 to fill a temporary vacancy,
making him the first openly gay judge to be appointed to the bench in the state. Anders is now one of 25 Democratic candidates vying for one of the seven open seats on the court, which carry a 10-year term. Anders has been an active member of the local LGBT community for the past decade, chairing former Mayor John Street’s LGBT Advisory Taskforce and serving on the boards of such local organizations as Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania and OutFront! Anders has served in the Family Court Division for the past two years, but prior to his appointment focused his legal practice on commercial litigation with extensive pro-bono civil-rights work. “It has been an honor to serve as a judge on the Court of Common Pleas and to have made a positive difference both for the LGBT community as well as the wider
legal community,” Anders wrote in his Liberty City Democratic Club questionnaire. “My prior experience both as a community advocate and as a lawyer dedicated to preserving civil rights enables me to be a fair and independent trial judge.” Segal, a trial attorney for more than two decades, is running for a judgeship with the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. Segal is one of 13 Democrats vying for one of the four open seats on the court, which have a six-year term. After launching her legal career at a private litigation firm in 1984, Segal worked in the Major Trials Unit of the City Solicitor’s Office for several years and spent 13 years as a master trial attorney with Prudential Insurance Company until she was laid off in 2003. She now works as a trial attorney with her partner, handling civil cases that range from employment discrimination to real-estate- and
launched in Jersey By Jen Colletta PGN Staff Writer
An organization dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage launched a new advertising effort last week that targets the states it sees as the next battlegrounds for marriage equality, including New Jersey. At a press conference in Trenton last week, Maggie Gallagher, president of the Princetonbased National Organization for Marriage, announced the group’s new “Two Million for Marriage” initiative, in which the organization pledges to enlist two million marriage-equality opponents over the next two years to fight against proposed same-sex marriage legislation in numerous states. To achieve this objective, the group launched a $1.5-million national advertising campaign See CANDIDATES, Page 18 that seeks to warn Americans
of what it sees as the damaging effects of same-sex marriage. The centerpiece of the effort is a television commercial, “Gathering Storm,” that began airing last week in New Jersey, Connecticut, Iowa, Rhode Island and New York. The spot features about a dozen individuals, against a background of ominous clouds and lightning, who predict that the expansion of LGBT rights — not just marriage equality — are threatening to restrict religious liberties and that “a storm is gathering, the clouds are dark and the wind is strong.” One woman describes that she is a California doctor who has been forced to choose between her religious beliefs and her job, referring to the 2008 California Supreme Court ruling that found that a medical center that denied fertility treatment to a lesbian violated the state’s See ANTIGAY, Page 18