Revel in the new all-male burlesque in Atlantic City
Mother of Flight 93 hero visits Philly for QFest’s “The Rugby Player”
Family Portrait: Shanel Sherese
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July 19-25, 2013
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Vol. 37 No. 29
Gay basher gets reduced prison sentence By Timothy Cwiek timothy@epgn.com
CURTAINS UP: Brittany Lynn (second from left) and her Drag Mafia, along with the Liberty City Kings Drag and Burlesque, got the crowd revved up at the opening of “G.B.F.” July 11 at Ritz East. The QFest opening-night film centers on a high-school setting, prompting the evening’s theme of “Prom Night Gone Wild.” An after-party was held at Lit Ultra Bar. QFest runs through July 22, with a closing-night party 9:30 p.m. July 21 at Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St. Photo: Scott A. Drake
A federal judge has accepted a plea-bargained sentence for a brutal gay basher that’s three years less than federal guidelines recommend. On July 17, U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. sentenced Kevin V. Hannig to 41 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release. The federal guidelines recommend a prison sentence of 77-96 months. On Nov. 10, 2011, Hannig and Justin O’Brien assaulted openly gay inmate Kenneth J. Houck Jr. at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. Houck was reading a gay novel in his cell when the men pulled him from his bunk, kicked and stomped on him, and beat him with a chair. His leg was broken during the assault,
PA Voter ID trial starts
Local health-care groups among LGBT ‘leaders’
By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com
By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com The Human Rights Campaign’s index of health-care facilities that are excelling at LGBT inclusion grew by a huge margin this year — including the addition of a number of facilities in the Philadelphia region. The annual report rated 464 health-care entities as “Leaders in LGBT Health-care Equality,” compared with just 234 last year. A total of 718 facilities were surveyed across the nation. The report evaluated facilities based on four main criteria — patient and employment nondiscrimination policies inclusive of both sexual orientation and gender identity, a visitation policy that explicitly states that LGBT patients have equal rights and LGBT-specific training for key staff members — with participants that meet all four being named as Leaders. PAGE 18 Pennsylvania had eight
and he’s undergone numerous surgeries to prevent its amputation. Houck expects to walk with a permanent limp, he told PGN. With credit for time served and “good conduct,” Hannig, 35, could be released in just over two years. During a prior hearing, Yohn questioned why the government recommended a 96month sentence for O’Brien and a 41-month sentence for Hannig. Assistant U.S. Attorney Neuman Leverett 3d replied that Hannig was the “lesser actor” in Houck’s assault. “Mr. O’Brien was more violent,” Leverett told Yohn. In a letter given to PGN, Houck said the men were equally violent during his assault. “[O’Brien] backed up to the door [of my cell] to see who was around,” Houck wrote. “He spotted [Hannig] and PAGE 8
END OF AN ERA: About 50 supporters, volunteers and staff of ASIAC, including most recent executive director Kevin Huang (third from right), gathered for a bittersweet celebration of the agency’s legacy July 12 at Tabu. The agency, formerly known as AIDS Services in Asian Communities, shut its doors June 30 after nearly 20 years of providing HIV/AIDS services to Asian and Pacific Islander communities and encouraging linguistic access and cultural competency among other HIV/AIDS agencies and governmental bodies. Much of ASIAC’s programmatic activities are being continued by The Philadelphia AIDS Consortium, which can be reached at 215988-9970 or www.tpaconline.org. Photo: Scott A. Drake
A trial that will determine the future of Pennsylvania’s hotly debated Voter ID law opened in Harrisburg this week. The trial started Monday with testimony from several witnesses who offered personal accounts of the detrimental effect of the 2012 law. The measure, spearheaded and supported by state Republicans, requires voters to produce valid, government-issued identification to gain access to the voting booth. Among the complaints against the measure are that it disenfranchises poor, minority and elderly voters, who are more likely than other populations to not have government-issued ID. It could also impact transgender and gender-nonconforming voters whose physical presentation does not match the photo on their ID cards. Some Democrats contend the measure was an effort to keep Democratic voters PAGE 15 from the polls.