Philadelphia Gay News Vol. 34 No. 31
Honesty Integrity Professionalism
July 30 - Aug. 5, 2010
In ‘constitutional manner,’ city may evict Scouts By Timothy Cwiek PGN Writer-at-Large
BON VOYAGE: Local athletes were dressed and ready to go during a sendoff party July 22 at Stir as the LGBT community came together to wish them good luck in their trip to Cologne, Germany, for the Gay Games. The 55 Team Philadelphia athletes making the trip include the organization’s co-chair, Kurt Douglass (from left) — modeling the local contingent’s opening-ceremony shirt — Michael LoFurno, marketing chair Bob Szwajkos, treasurer Carl Funk — wearing the closing-ceremony shirt — Adelina Santiago and Jan Elsasser. The local competitors will play 13 different sports throughout the weeklong event, which ends Aug. 7. Photo: Scott A. Drake
Philly athletes head to Games By Jen Colletta PGN Staff Writer Local LGBT athletes were doing their last-minute packing this week before shipping off to Germany for the world’s largest LGBT sporting event. The Gay Games, held this year in Cologne, Germany, will include representation from 55 athletes from the Philadelphia area. The quadrennial Olympic-style event runs July 31Aug. 7, with opportunities for athletes to compete in 35 different athletic disciplines. The Philadelphia contingent will participate in 13 sports, covering everything from bowling to martial arts to tennis to wrestling. The largest groups, with 15 and 13 athletes, respectively, will compete in softball and swimming
events. Kurt Douglass, co-chair of Team Philadelphia — the umbrella organization that oversees all of Philadelphia’s LGBT sports clubs and the local delegate to the Gay Games — said the countless hours he and marketing director Bob Szwajkos, as well as all of the participants, put in to prepare for the trip paid off at the send-off party last week at Stir. “At the bon voyage party, you could really see that the entire community is behind Team Philadelphia and all of the athletes, so that’s the reward we were able to get for the year we had out there,” he said. Szwajkos agreed that organizing the local contingent was no easy feat. “We’ve been to more fundraisers and more sportSee GAY GAMES, Page 8
A federal judge has cleared the way for the city to once again begin eviction proceedings against a local Boy Scouts of America chapter, but he cautioned that any new effort must be done in a constitutional manner. However, city attorneys want U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter to overturn an unfavorable portion of last month’s jury verdict, which invalidates the city’s prior effort to evict the Cradle of Liberty Council. The city has been trying to evict the council from a city-owned facility for four years because the council won’t permit openly gay participants, or, in the alternative, pay fair-market rent. Last month, a federal jury said the city was “reasonable” in wanting to evict the council, but it wasn’t “reasonable” when it asked the council to “repudiate” BSA’s anti-gay policy to remain in the building rent-free. That alleged request placed an “unconstitutional condition” on the council’s right to occupy the building rent-free, jurors said. On July 14, Buckwalter entered judgment on the verdict by inval-
idating the city’s prior eviction effort and denying the city’s request for $333,000 in back rent from the council. But Buckwalter also ruled the city may begin eviction proceedings against the council once again, “provided it does so in a manner which does not violate the constitutional rights of [the council].” Buckwalter’s two-page order revises his November 2009 preliminary injunction that blocked the council’s eviction. The injunction is now permanent, and specifically acknowledges the city’s right to evict the council if it’s done constitutionally. Despite this acknowledgment, city attorneys want Buckwalter to overturn the unfavorable portion without a new trial or hold a new trial on that issue. “As a matter of law, the government has a right to condition subsidies on nondiscriminatory conduct,” city attorneys stated in a July 21 filing. In prior court briefs, the Scouts maintained that the city impermissibly conditioned its rental subsidy on the relinquishment of the council’s constitutional right to See SCOUTS, Page 12
NJ Supreme Court refuses gay-marriage case By Jen Colletta PGN Staff Writer Marriage-equality supporters suffered a blow in the Garden State this week when the New Jersey Supreme Court declined to hear a case filed by same-sex couples seeking the right to marry. The court released the split decision Monday, with three justices consenting to take the case and three opposed. Four justices must consent for a case to proceed, and the seventh seat is currently vacant. The justices wrote that, instead of heading to the state Supreme Court, the case should instead be heard by the lower courts because it “cannot be decided without the
development of an appropriate trial-like record,” which leaves the door open to the case eventually making its way back to the highest court. Justice Virginia Long wrote the dissenting opinion for the court, saying the oral arguments that could have been delivered before the Supreme Court would have made up for the lack of a trial record. The case was filed earlier this year by six same-sex couples who served as the original plaintiffs in Lewis v. Harris, the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case that found that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits as heterosexual married couples and paved the way for the state’s civil-union law.
The couples asked the court to revisit its decision in the original case, considering the reported failures in the civil-union law that have prevented some same-sex couples from receiving equal treatment, which are enumerated in a 2008 report by the Civil Union Review Commission. The commission cited numerous cases of samesex couples who were denied benefits by employers, hospitals and other entities that didn’t understand the meaning of civil unions, and recommended that full-marriage equality would remedy those issues. Hayley Gorenberg, deputy director of Lambda Legal, which is representing the plaintiffs, said her agency is “terribly disappointed” in the ruling.
“Our plaintiffs and the New Jersey legislature’s own Civil Union Review Commission documented the rampant discrimination same-sex couples face as a consequence of civil-union status, and this ruling now relegates our plaintiffs to second-class citizenship for even longer,” she said. Gorenberg said Lambda Legal is currently assessing “possible next steps in Superior Court.” The New Jersey legislature defeated a marriage-equality bill in January, and Republican Gov. Chris Christie has said he is opposed to such efforts. See NEW JERSEY, Page 2