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2013
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Family Portrait: DJ Ali McCourt spins and wins
Final weekend to vote!
What you should know about the Affordable Care Act
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Oct. 25-31, 2013
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Drexel opens LGBT student center By Angela Thomas angela@epgn.com
Drexel University officially opened the doors to its first-ever center for LGBT students and activities this week. The LGBTQA Student Center, which opened Tuesday, is located on the lower level of Creese Student Center in room 48-C, 3210 Chestnut St. Drexel now joins a number of other universities in the region with designated LGBT centers, including the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Sate University’s main campus and Kutztown University. According to Tatiana Diaz, the director of Drexel’s Student Center for Inclusion and Culture, the center will provide a wealth of information on campus and community events, as well as local and regional resources for LGBT students, including books and maga-
zines. Diaz and four part-time graduate-student advocates from the Couple and Family Therapy program in the College of Nursing and Health Professions will staff the center. Diaz said the student advocates will receive additional training from the Drexel Counseling Center. The center is a one-room space with an additional storage area. Limited Student Affairs funding has been used to get the center off the ground, but Diaz said staff will continue to search for new funding opportunities both internally and through support from alumni or outside funding. Diaz said the concept of the center came from a group of students who saw a need for an LGBT-specific space. “They presented that request to Dean of Students Dr. David Ruth in the winter PAGE 24
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Revelry across the river By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com Pennsylvania took on the unwanted distinction this week of becoming the only state in the Northeast without full marriage equality. Wedding bells rang for samesex couples across New Jersey Monday, marking the conclusion of a decade-long legal battle and bringing the total number of marriage-equality states to 14, plus Washington, D.C. The first marriages took place at 12:01 a.m., with couples in towns such as Lambertville and Asbury Park vying to become the first married same-sex couples in New Jersey. Sen.-elect Corey Booker, mayor of Newark, presided over a number of midnight ceremonies in his town, the first weddings he ever officiated, as he pledged to only officiate weddings once marriage equality became law in the Garden State. “It is officially past midnight, marriage is equal in New Jersey,” Booker shouted to loud cheers in the Newark Rotunda. He first married Joseph Panessidi and Orville Bell, friends of his who have been together for 15 years. “It is one of the greatest privi-
CONGRATULATIONS, NEW JERSEY! U.S. Sen.-elect and Newark Mayor Cory Booker (from right) presides over the wedding of Orville Bell and Joseph Panessidi shortly after midnight Oct. 21 at Newark City Hall. It marked the first wedding Booker ever officiated, as he was waiting to perform ceremonies until same-sex marriage was legalized in New Jersey. Booker married seven same-sex couples and two heterosexual couples Monday morning. At Panessidi and Bell’s wedding, when Booker asked if there were any objections to the union, an antigay heckler yelled from the crowd and was summarily removed by security. Noting that he heard no “substantive and worthy objections,” Booker proceeded with the ceremony to loud applause. Photo: Associated Press/Mel Evans
leges and honors of my life to be conducting the first wedding ceremonies of my time as mayor, and that I get a chance to marry two gentleman who are longstanding friends of mine and upstanding citizens of our state, city and community.”
While some couples actually married Monday, there was some confusion over which towns were waiving the typical three-day waiting period between marriage applications and weddings. But those snags were overshadowed PAGE 6
Boy Scouts store leaves city facility By Timothy Cwiek timothy@epgn.com
OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Maureen Nolan (left), president of Drexel University’s FUSE, cuts the ribbon on the new LGBTQA Student Center Oct. 22. The center will provide a safe space and resources for LGBT students and will host a number of LGBT programs. Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Drexel students, faculty, staff and alumni took part in a panel discussion about the LGBT Drexel community. Photo: Courtesy of Drexel University Student Affairs
A 10-year struggle to evict the Boy Scouts from their city-owned headquarters is nearing an end. On Oct. 22, the Philadelphia Scout Shop stopped doing business in the facility, according to the website of the BSA Cradle of Liberty Council. The retail store is scheduled to remove its inventory from the premises by Oct. 31, under an agreement reached between Cradle and the city. When that happens, all remnants of the Scouts’ 84-year occupancy of the building will be gone.
Cradle staffers vacated the premises in July and are now located in another Cradle headquarters in Treddyfrin Township. The Beaux Arts building, located near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, was the first Scouts headquarters built in America. In September 2003, news emerged that the building was city-owned, yet Cradle never paid any rent to the city. That information prompted LGBT advocates to ask city officials to stop subsidizing Cradle because it excludes people covered by the city’s antibias rules. PAGE 26
National LGBT LGBT History History Month Month Project Project National
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