In November, recently re-elected openly lesbian Mayor Annise Parker of Houston, Texas, directed the city’s Human Resources department to recognize the out-of-state same-sex marriages of city employees for benefits
purposes, to be effective January 1, 2014. Harris County Republican Chair Jared Woodfill found two taxpayers willing to be plaintiffs in an action challenging Parker’s directive, which was filed on December 17 in Harris County District Court. District Judge Lisa Millard issued an order blocking Parker’s … <Read More>
Federal Court Refuses to Dismiss HIV-Related Housing Discrimination Claim Against LeFrak Realty Organization
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote has refused to dismiss a discrimination case brought by a person living with HIV, identified in court papers as L.C., and the Fair Housing Justice Center against a major New York City realtor, Lefrak Organization and its subsidiary, Estates NY Real Estate Services, Inc. Judge Cote’s December 13 ruling found that that plaintiffs had successfully alleged facts supporting a claim that LeFrak’s rental practices at its LeFrak City apartments in … <Read More>
Federal Court Says Old Sodomy Conviction Cannot Be Basis for Current Sex Offender Registration Requirement
Finding that prosecuting a man for failing to register as a sex offender on the basis of an old conviction under an unconstitutional sodomy law would be “unthinkable,” U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg granted a writ of habeas corpus to Charlton Green on December 9, directing that the State of Georgia release him from the obligations of probation to which he had been sentence.
Green, then age 20, and three friends, another young guy and … <Read More>
Weekend Music in NYC: New York Polyphony & R. Strauss’s “Feuersnot”
Quite a combination, this…. On Saturday evening, I battled through the snow to Columbia University’s St. Paul’s Chapel to hear New York Polyphony present a splendid Christmas season program under the auspices of the Miller Theatre Early Music Series. On Sunday afternoon, it was much less of a battle to get to Carnegie Hall and hear Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra present Richard Strauss’s early, and forgotten, opera, “Feuersnot.”
From the sublime to … <Read More>
Federal Court May Approve More “Early” Marriages in Illinois
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman issued a decision on December 10 in Edwards v. Orr, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173801, 2013 WL 6490577 (N.D. Ill.), a class action suit brought by Lambda Legal seeking a judicial order allowing “medically critical plaintiffs” in same-sex couples to get marriage licenses in advance of the official June 1, 2014, implementation date for the same-sex marriage amendment signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn on November 20. Because … <Read More>
European Court Rules on Equal Benefits Case for Same-Sex Couple
Responding to a request from a French court for an interpretation of European law, the 5th Chamber of the European Court of Justice ruled today, December 12, that an employee of a French bank who requested leave and a marriage bonus under the employer’s policy on the occasion of his entering into a pact civil (the French equivalent of a civil union) with his same-sex partner in 2007 had suffered direct discrimination on the basis … <Read More>
New York Trial Judge Refuses to Dismiss Transgender Woman’s Discrimination Claim Against Residential Drug Treatment Program
Finding that a transgender woman who was sent to a residential drug treatment program under a plea agreement had sufficiently alleged that she encountered discrimination there, New York Acting Supreme Court Justice Debra Silber denied a motion to dismiss Sabire Wilson’s housing discrimination claims under state and New York City law against Phoenix House and Sydney Hargrove, the director of Phoenix’s induction unit. Justice Silber’s opinion, dated December 10, was published by the New York … <Read More>
High Court of Australia Says Capital Territory’s Same-Sex Marriage Law is Invalid
Just days after same-sex couples began getting married in Canberra under a law passed by the Australian Capital Territory’s Assembly, the High Court of Australia, that country’s appellate court of last resort, ruled that the territorial legislation was “inconsistent” with the federal Marriage Act 1961 (as amended in 2004), and thus “of no effect.” The same-sex marriages contracted over the past few days are invalid. However, at the same time, the High Court’s unanimous decision … <Read More>
Supreme Court of India Revives Sodomy Law
Today, December 11, a two-judge panel from the Supreme Court of India found “legally unsustainable” the 2009 ruling by the Delhi High Court that had struck down India’s colonial-era sodomy law, Section 377. Justices G.S. Singhvi and Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya issued an opinion that drew immediate protests from progressive elements of society in India, and provoked street demonstrations against the ruling in several cities. The attitude of the justices was most clearly expressed near the … <Read More>
The Miraculous Martin Frost with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Last night I attended Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s second concert in its 2013-14 subscription series at Carnegie Hall, with soloist Martin Frost in the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.
That one-line is enough to communicate that it was a fabulous concert, because Frost is fabulous, and so is Orpheus CO!
I heard Frost play this concerto with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra not too long ago, followed by the same encore he played last night, his brother’s arrangement of … <Read More>