Last night I attended the first concert for this season’s Orpheus Chamber Orchestra series at Carnegie Hall. The OCO, which operates without a conductor, performed nine of Johannes Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, originally written for vocal quartet and piano duo but orchestrated by the composer, a set of variations for piano and orchestra by jazzman Brad Mehldau, and Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The juxtaposition of works on this program was a bit unfair to Mehldau, putting him … <Read More>
Supreme Court Refuses to Review Some Pending LGBT-Related Cases: Virginia Sodomy Law; University Discharge of Homophobic Administrator
On October 7, the first day of its October 2013 Term, the Supreme Court announced that it had denied petitions for certiorari in two pending LGBT-related cases, MacDonald v. Moose from the 4th Circuit and Dixon v. University of Toledo from the 6th Circuit.
In MacDonald v. Moose, 710 F.3d 154 (4th Cir. 2013), cert. denied sub nom Moose v. MacDonald, No. 12-1490, 2013 WL 3211338, the 4th Circuit … <Read More>
Nevada Supreme Court Answers Questions of First Impression in Lesbian Custody Dispute Involving Donor Insemination and Co-Parenting Agreement
The Nevada Supreme Court ruled unanimously on October 3 that a child can have two mothers and that a co-parenting agreement made by two women before their child was conceived through anonymous donor insemination with one woman providing the egg and the other being the gestational mother, can be enforceable as an agreement by parents who are presumed to have the best interest of their child at heart. Reversing a trial court decision that treated … <Read More>
New York Lesbian Co-Parent Custody Claim Precluded under 12-Year-Old Decision
The evil that courts do lives on… On October 4, 2013, the New York Law Journal published Rockland County Family Court Referee Dean Richardson-Mendelson’s opinion in Matter of A.F. v. K.H., V-00918-13, rejecting all attempts by a lesbian co-parent to obtain judicial relief against her former partner’s action of excluding her from contact with the children they had been raising together. The principal barrier to her case is the N.Y. Court of Appeal’s old decision, … <Read More>
The New Season Begins – Opera, Symphony, Film, Theater
My new culture season is duly launched. As of last night, I’ve taken in: “Anna Nicole,” apparently the last production of New York City Opera, presented in collaboration with the Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 21; the new film “Don Jon” by Joseph Gordon-Levitt at the AMC Theater on Broadway at 84th Street on September 29; a memorial celebration for my friend, the late Ari Joshua Sherman, at the DiMenna Center for the Arts … <Read More>
Iowa Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Conviction of Gay Man for Exposing Partner to HIV
Affirming the felony conviction of an HIV-positive gay man for the crime of “criminal transmission of HIV” even though the man did not transmit HIV to his complaining sexual partner, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled on October 2 in Rhoades v. State of Iowa, NO. 3-57212-0180, that the attorney who represented Nick Rhoades at trial did not provide ineffective legal assistance when he told Rhoades to plead guilty.
Black Hawk County District Judge David … <Read More>
New Jersey and Illinois Trial Courts Advance Pending Marriage Equality Cases in September 27 Rulings
In a big day for the campaign for marriage equality, trial judges moved the ball forward significantly in New Jersey and Illinois on September 27. Mercer County (NJ) Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson granted a motion for summary judgment filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, ruling that New Jersey must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning on October 21, 2013. Cook County (IL) Circuit … <Read More>
Kentucky Court Rules Against Marital Evidentiary Privilege for Vermont Civil Union Partners
A Kentucky judge denied a motion by a lesbian murder defendant to invoke the spousal privilege to present her Vermont civil union partner from testifying at the trial. Ruling on September 23, Jefferson Circuit Judge Susan Schultz Gibson held that because a Vermont civil union is not a marriage, Kentucky’s marital testimonial privilege does not apply.
Bobbie Jo Clary and Geneva Case were united in a civil union in Vermont in 2004, and later came … <Read More>
Salon/Sanctuary’s Production of “The Heirs of Tantalos”
Last night I attended the first performance of “The Heirs of Tantalus” presented by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, a relatively new organization that puts on early music events in New York City. I had attended one of their concerts last year – a music/dance program starring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo that was really wonderful – but all their other events last season posed calendar conflicts for me, so this as my first return.
The location was a … <Read More>
ENDA, Title VII, and Transgender Rights
With a new push to get a floor vote in the Senate on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which was approved in committee over the summer, it is timely to consider the potential interaction of ENDA with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the main federal employment discrimination statute signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson that went into effect in July 1965. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination by companies with … <Read More>