NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, April 24, 1995
5B
States new battleground for gay marriage laws
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Harry B. Stock "marries" about two dozen same-sex couples a year. He prays that someday their vows will be legally binding.
But some state lawmakers are trying to ensure that never will happen.
Utah recently passed a law deny legal recognition of same-sex marriages, and a legislator in Alaska is trying to close a loophole that could allow them there.
An attempt to outlaw recognition of same-sex marriage in South Dakota failed in February, but gay leaders think the issue could come up again in the next legislative session.
"I think it's a grave injustice to a body of people who live in a country where we claim by constitutional rights certain freedoms and yet we're denied them because of our sexuality," said Stock, whose flock at the Church of the Disciples, Metropolitan Community Church, is largely gay.
Gay couples are barred from filing joint tax returns. They can't cover each other on their medical insurance policies and sometimes are turned away at hospitals when their partners are critically ill.
Gay activists and conservatives are turning to state legislatures with
increasing frequency over gay rights issues, including same-sex marriage and adoption.
More pro-gay rights legislation has been introduced in states this year than ever before, according to a survey published last month in The Washington Blade, a gay weekly.
The newspaper said 38 pro-gay measures and 11 anti-gay measures had been introduced in state legislatures in 1995. That compared to 27 pro-gay and 24 anti-gay state bills in January 1994. Of those, one pro-gay and one anti-gay measure passed, and the pro-gay measure — a domestic partners bill — was veted by California Gov. Pete Wilson.
A bill barring discrimination against gay in employment, public housing, public accommodation and credit passed the Rhode Island House on March 29, and appears headed for passage in the state Senate. Gov. Lincoln Almond, a Republican, has said he would sign it.
But the anti-gay measures have taken on a new tone this year, attacking homosexuals as undermining the concept of family, say gay rights advocates.
"The same people who would say, I think it's absolutely wrong for you to fire someone just because she's a lesbian," would say, "But I don't think she should be allowed to
adopt a child," said Deanna Duby, a spokeswoman for the liberal People for the American Way.
The same-sex marriage bills in Utah and South Dakota this year were introduced in the wake of a Hawaii lawsuit filed by three gay couples who had been denied marriage licenses.
They maintained that they had the legal right to wed because the state constitution prohibits discrimination based on sex.
The state Supreme Court found that same-sex marriage is constitutional. But it sent the case back to a lower court, asking the state to provide a "compelling interest" in outlawing same-sex unions.
In Alaska, Republican state Rep. Norman Rokeberg said he introduced a bill after discovering that attempts to remove gender bias from their laws in the 1970s redefined marriage as between two "persons," rather than a man and a woman.
Rokeberg's bill would define marriage as "a civil contract entered into by one man and one woman."
Utah's Republican state Rep. Norm Nielsen voiced fear that gay couples would soon be able to go to Hawaii, get married and return to their home states seeking the same legal benefits as married heterosexuals.
Before his measure passed, one section of Utah law prohibited polygamy, same-sex marriage and marriage to people age 14 or under, he said. But the state's law also allowed recognition of marriages performed in other states and countries, without mentioning those exceptions.
Robert H. Knight, director of cultural studies for the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, says legislation to block recognition of same-sex marriages is an absolute necessity.
"The collapse of marriage and family is at the core of all the other social pathologies, from crime to early sexual experimentation among teens to drug abuse," he said. "And to this, I would add homosexual experimentation among young people."
Knight said he doesn't know anyone who wants gays to lose any civil rights they already have. "But I know many people who see special rights for homosexuals as an invitation to tyranny for any who disagree with the homosexual agenda."
Robert Bray, Western field organizer for the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, said these samesex marriage bills were meant to put gay people in an impossible bind.
Simpson jury's rebellious behavior described as 'bizarre'
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — The rebellious jurors in the O.J. Simpson case are doing more talking than listening these days.
Usually, juries sit quietly and listen. To the judge. To the lawyers. To the witnesses.
This trial is different.
A tumultuous week ended Friday with 13 of the sequestered panelists demanding that Superior Court Judge Lance Ilo meet them at their hotel. When they finally agreed to go to court, many dressed in black to protest the dismissal of three of their guards.
"This conduct is bizarre," veteran defense lawyer Barry Tarlow said. "It's virtually unprecedented and
destructive of the jury system, and in some sense a result of what happens when you put 24 strangers in jail together for 100 days."
Monday, they were to talk with the judge and lawyers. Again. One dismissed panelist has talked of racial strife and personality conflicts within the group, along with problems with the deputies guarding them.
Also to be questioned Monday were three deputies, said Assistant Sheriff Michael Graham, whose department handles court security and guards jurors.
The troubles of the 18 jurors and alternates have overshadowed the business at hand: deciding whether Simpson murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman on June 12, 1994.
It delayed this week's testimony until Tuesday, when criminalist Andrea Mazzola is scheduled to retake the stand for further cross-examination.
Last week, to halt testimony for part of Tuesday and all of
Wednesday so he could talk to jurors one-on-one, then said he found no misconduct.
Mazzola's testimony began Thursday, but the trial was knocked off track again when most of the jurors and alternates balked Friday.
The judge then began the delicate task of questioning hurors again.
Legal experts said the jury's actions could be considered contempt of court and could provide the basis for a mistrial, but that was unlikely.
"The division of feeling among these jurors have to heal to some extent ... or you'll end up having a mistrial by hung jury at the end," said Robert Pugley, a professor at the Southwestern University School of Law.
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MONDAY NIGHT at JOHNNY'S!
Whatever the party Johnny's has the room. Try our free party room for 20 to 200.
The University of Kansas
Department of
School of Fine Arts
Music and Dance
University Band
Thomas M. Stidham, conductor William R. Richarson, guest conductor Vincent Gnojek, saxophone soloist
Jazz Ensemble II Steve Erickson, conductor
Jazz Ensemble III Paul Haar, conductor
General admission tickets are on sale in the KU box offices: Murphy Hall, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS, SUA Office, 864-3477; public $4, students and senior citizens $2; both VISA and MasterCard are accepted for phone orders.
7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 25, 1995
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Where are you going to live?
It's that time of year when students are thinking about moving and subleasing. The Kansan can help ease your Summer and Fall leasing and subleasing worries with the Apartment Guide '95.
Deadline for the Apartment Guide is Tuesday, April 25 at 4:00.
The Apartment Guide will run on Thursday, April 27.
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price: 1x2-$12
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Business
price: 1x6 blocks-$42
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