The Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force is urging immigrants to contact an immigration lawyer as soon as possible for information on recent legislation on HIV-positive people who are here illegally. Under the LIFE Act (Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act), some people who are in the U.S. illegally would be eligible to apply for permanent resident status.
The filing deadline for the Act is April 30, 2001, and for more information, visit www.lgirtf.org/act.html .
People with sexual orientation and HIV-related immigration questions can contact LGIRTF by phone at (212) 818-9639, and by email at info@lgirtf.org .
HRC praises
LGBT health report
The Human Rights Campaign is praising the federally funded Companion Document for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health for addressing the health needs of GLBTs.
The Companion Document for LGBT Health is a 500-page addition to Healthy People 2010, a publication released by the government last year .
The Companion Document was released last week at a meeting of the National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health. It is a collaborative effort coordinated by the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and dozens of GLBT health experts.
According to GLMA, the document "is written by and for healthcare consumers, providers, researchers, educators, government agencies, schools, clinics, advocates, and health professionals in all settings."
Topics include health services, mental health, public health infrastructure, HIV, immunization and infectious diseases, tobacco, injury and violence prevention, and substance abuse.
See www.glma.org .
Soulforce announces protest plans for 2001
Soulforce has announced its protests plan for 2001, with demonstrations scheduled at The Southern Baptist Convention, Evangelical Lutheran Church National Convention, Mormon Church National Convention and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The protests, part of the Stop Spiritual Violence Campaign, will begin in mid-June at the Southern Baptist Convention. Plans call for vigils, teach-ins, and possible acts of nonviolent civil disobedience
Soulforce has also unveiled its Faithful Dissenter's Campaign, which urges GLBT congregants to withhold all or part of their church contribution from denominations that discriminate against them.
"For 30 years, GLBT people and their allies have been supporting oppression with every dollar we donate and every special talent/gift we volunteer to our local churches," says Dr. Mel White, Soulforce Executive Director. "This campaign by Faithful Dissenters to Withhold Tithes and Offerings is designed to empower and give voice to our oppressed sisters and brothers and to 'step up' the level of spiritual resistance against local congregations and/or denominations that discriminate."
Jealousy was motive for brutal killing, police say
Prosecutors say jealousy and not hate-related bias was the motive behind the January killing of a New York state teen, the Buffalo News reports.
Five people beat, tortured and strangled James Mack, 17, inside an apartment in late January. Four young men and one woman, ages 18 to 20, have been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killing.
Authorities say Mack's relationship with a transsexual named Tashia may have been behind the attack, with some of the suspects jealous of Mack and others jealous of Tashia.
In beating and torturing Mack, his attackers hit him with beer bottles, kicked him, dropped a small TV on his head, stabbed him, assaulted him with a broom handle and strangled him with an electrical cord. They then put him—alive but unconscious—in a bathtub of water. They then burned his body in a trash container. Authorities say he died of drowning, blunt-force trauma and strangulation.
Brothers face trial
in man's beating
Two Pennsylvania brothers have been ordered to stand trial for allegedly beating a man after he made a sexual advance, the Associated Press reports.
Todd J. Clinger, 18, and Troy L. Clinger, 20, are charged with attempted murder in the March 6 attack on Michael Auker, who was beaten, carried to his trailer and left for dead. He was found two days later in a coma, a state he is still in.
"We found him unconscious and bleeding from the head. Every bone in his face was broken," state trooper Frederick Dyroff testified in a preliminary hearing last Friday.
The brothers and Auker had apparently been drinking at Todd Clinger's trailer when the attack started. Troy Clinger's fiancee told police that they men had planned to lure Auker to their home and then kill him because he made a pass at one of the men. The brothers' father is accused of helping them carry Auker home; their mother has been charged with criminal solicitation.
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