Lance Bass gets Sirius with his new program
Family Portrait: Marissa Colston
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Violence against LGBT people spikes, latest national statistics show
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July 15-21, 2011
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Vol. 35 No. 28
Antigay harassment alleged at Wal-Mart
PPA worker suspended over antigay rant
By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com
By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com
A local gay man has settled a private criminal complaint against an employee of an area Wal-Mart whom he said engaged in pervasive antigay harassment. Blaze Waters, former owner of nowdefunct Northeast gay club Albert’s 2nd Story, agreed to a resolution mediated by the Dispute Resolution Unit of the Philadelphia Municipal Court this week between himself and Wal-Mart employee Rufus Lee Blake. In the agreement, Blake, an employee of the Wal-Mart store #2560 near Franklin Mills Mall, admitted to harassing Waters. A request for comment from Wal-Mart was not returned. Waters, who works as a bartender, said Blake began verbally harassing him about a year ago when he would visit the 24-hour store after work to shop. “He would follow me to the bathroom and call me a faggot and tell me he was going to kick my ass,” Waters said. PAGE 16 Waters said he doesn’t
A representative of the Philadelphia Parking Authority will likely lose his job after he was accused of harassing a gay couple in Queen Village. Jon Gunderson said he and his partner, Paul, were victims of antigay slurs and ridicule last weekend directed at them by Joseph DeJohn, an on-duty PPA parking-enforcement officer. On Monday, PPA suspended DeJohn without pay, with intent to dismiss. PPA spokesperson Linda Miller told PGN that DeJohn is a union worker and, thus, has the opportunity to appeal the suspension, which he must do within 10 working days. “Due to the nature of the allegations and the evidence we had, we made the decision to suspend him but he does have the right to appeal,” Miller said. Miller said DeJohn has been employed by PPA for about a year-and-a-half. Gunderson, 31, and his partner were walking home from getting ice cream Saturday night when they spotted a PPA vehicle parked partially on the curb below a newly installed “No Parking” sign. Gunderson said he snapped a photo of the car, because of the irony, to post later as a joke on Facebook. “As we were walking toward it, I thought, Oh man, that person’s going to get a ticket, and then I saw it was a PPA car and just thought it was hilarious,” Gunderson said. “It was 2 feet onto the curb, blocking a handicap-accessible ramp in a crossing zone — if we’d parked like that I couldn’t imagine the ticket.” DeJohn, whom the couple hadn’t seen in the area, evidently took issue with the photo, as well as the couple. “We started walking away and we heard someone say, ‘Do you want a picture of my balls to go along with that?’” Gunderson said. “And we just said ya know, ‘What? No, we got everything we need. PAGE 14
Eagles player drops antigay slur By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com A member of the Philadelphia Eagles who once made headlines for reaching out to a local bullying victim was recently back in the news for a different type of public display. During a radio show late last month, Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson referred to a caller as a “gay-ass faggot.” DESEAN JACKSON
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SEEING STARS: Adult performer-turned-actor Sean Lockhart (left) accepted QFest’s 2011 Rising Star Award July 8 at Ritz East in Old City. Lockhart, who made a name for himself in the porn industry as the award-winning Brent Corrigan, is starring in two films at the LGBT film festival this year, “Judas Kiss” and “I Was a Teenage Werebear” after roles in such films as “Another Gay Sequel” and “The Big Gay Musical.” “It’s always exciting to watch someone move forward in their career, and Sean is clearly doing that,” said Erik Schut, managing director of TLA Entertainment Group. “We can’t wait to see what he does next.” On July 12, New Jersey college students Matty Daley (from right) and Bobby Canciello turned out for the world premiere of “Our Lips are Sealed,” by filmmaker John Gallino. Daley and Canciello set a new world record with the longest kiss — more than 32 hours — which Gallino condensed into approximately 48 minutes, a film Daley and Canciello saw for the first time at QFest. Photos: Scott A. Drake
PA relaxes HIV-testing restrictions By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com Gov. Corbett last week signed into law a measure that will relax restrictions on HIV testing in an effort supporters say is designed to make HIV testing more routine. But some HIV/AIDS advocates, however, say the new law could undermine patients’ rights. Late last month, the Pennsylvania House and Senate approved a final version of Sen. Edwin Erickson’s (R-26th Dist.) SB 260, which amends Act 148, the Confidentiality of HIV-Related Information Act. Among its stipulations, the measure will lift the requirement that a patient must provide informed written consent that he or she will undergo an HIV test, replaced instead by “documented” consent. The new law states that the healthcare provider will document the patient’s consent or refusal to participate in the testing, but does not offer further details on that procedure. Healthcare providers will also be allowed to offer HIV testing as “opt out,”
where the patient is instructed he or she will receive an HIV test unless he or she refuses. Erickson said the new law will provide for a more “expeditious process,” a goal that has been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, he noted. “This procedure will prioritize identifying individuals who are unaware of their HIV status and getting them into treatment, while sustaining the fundamental voluntary nature of HIV screening,” he said. Ronda Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, however, said existing law had provided ample opportunity to streamline testing. “This new law simply reinforces what has already been done but shifts away important patient protections,” she said. Under the most recent law, patients had to sign a form agreeing to be tested for HIV, and Goldfein suggested that amending that stipulation to a “documentation” of consent is too vague of a policy. “The consent now only has to be documented, and there’s PAGE 14