NEW YORK: Gay Activist Lou Rispoli Near Death After Savage Attack In Queens

Joe.My.God. reports:

Well-known NYC activist Lou Rispoli is reportedly not expected to survive after a brutal attack on the streets of Queens last week.  Andy Humm reports at Gay City News: 

Lou Rispoli, described by friends as the heart and soul of the gay community in Sunnyside, Queens, where he has lived for more than 30 years, was attacked by two men with whom he was seen walking at 2 a.m. on October 20 outside 41-00 43rd Avenue. He was hit in the head with a blunt object with such force that neighbors who heard the assault but did not see it thought he had been shot. Rispoli has been removed from life support and is now in hospice care at Elmhurst Hospital. “He will not survive, and this will be a homicide,” said City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, fighting back tears, at an October 25 press conference. Van Bramer, who is gay and represents Sunnyside, said the assault on Rispoli, whom he knew as a friend and someone who worked on his 2009 campaign, “is a tragedy for our neighborhood and our city.” The victim is 62 years old.

Police do not yet know if the attack was a bias crime. City Councilman Van Bramer today held a press conference urging residents of the neighborhood to come forward with any information they may have. Rispoli married his partner of 31 years last summer shortly after same-sex marriage became legal in New York state.

NEW YORK: State Appeals Court Rejects Bid To Overturn Same-Sex Marriage

Joe.My.God. reports:

Today New York’s hate groups hit the end of their miserable, bigoted road. 

New York’s top court has declined to hear an appeal from a Monroe County-based group that sought to overturn the state’s law allowing same-sex marriage. The state Court of Appeals announced its decision Tuesday. New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative group opposed to same-sex unions, filed a lawsuit against the state Senate last year, claiming that Republicans in the chamber had violated the state’s Open Meetings Law when discussing gay marriage. In particular, the group took issue with a closed-door session held in 2011 with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Senate GOP’s top financial backer and a supporter of same-sex couples.

Openly gay state Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, who successfully led same-sex marriage to victory in his chamber fives times before the state Senate finally concurred, has issued a statement: 

“This is a tremendous moment for our state. With this action, the Court of Appeals has struck a final blow on behalf of each our citizens to marry the person he or she loves. While I had no doubt that this appeal against equality for all was completely without merit, this decision puts an end to hateful discrimination and preserves this hard-won right once and for all.”

Governor Cuomo cheers as well: “With the court’s decision, same-sex couples no longer have to worry that their right to marry could be legally challenged in this state. The freedom to marry in this state is secure for generations to come.”

And as we like to say on days like today: Suck it, NOM!

Empire State Pride Agenda Has A New Executive Director: Nathan Schaefer

NEW YORK: Marriage Supporter And NOM Arch Enemy Wins State Senate GOP Battle

Joe.My.God. reports:

New York state Sen. Mark Grisanti, one of the four Republicans who tipped marriage equality into the win column,has won his GOP primary despite ferocious opposition from the anti-gay hate group NOM, who earlier this year pledged $2 million to unseat every one of those four GOP state Senators.

Senator Mark J. Grisanti, a Buffalo Republican who had also supported same-sex marriage, comfortably fended off a challenge from Kevin T. Stocker, a Republican lawyer who accused Mr. Grisanti of breaking his word when he did so. But Mr. Grisanti’s troubles are not over. He represents a district that is heavily Democratic, and Democrats see him as vulnerable in November: he attracted unflattering attention this year when he took part in a bar brawl in an American Indian casino in Niagara Falls.

“For people that know me, I stand by my beliefs and my convictions,” Mr. Grisanti told his supporters, adding, “There are so many issues that we have done in this year. And unfortunately, you know, my opponent focused on a few. But the people spoke.” The fate of the Senate Republicans is being closely watched nationally, because New York was the first state in which same-sex marriage became legal with the support of a Republican-controlled legislative chamber.

Gay-rights advocates say they believe they will need support from Republican legislators in other states to legalize same-sex marriage, and they have been concerned that if the New York senators were defeated, Republicans elsewhere would be more reluctant to take the electoral risk of voting to allow gay men and lesbians to wed.

Earlier this week Grisanti was attacked by an anti-gay group with a flyer that was described as the “ugliest anti-gay mailer of the 2012 election.”UPDATE: NOM concedes but vows revenge with the Democrat.RELATED: One of the four GOP state senators mentioned above did not run for reelection. The other two primary races remain too close to call at this writing.

NYC: New World Trade Center Commemorative Time-Lapse

NEW YORK: Anonymous Site Threatens To Out GOP State Sen. George Maziarz

Joe.My.God. reports:

An anonymous website is threatening to out New York GOP state Sen. George Maziarz, who voted against marriage equality every time it came up. The site includes a countdown clock promising to expose Mariarz in eleven days. I’ve read no rumors about Maziarz, who is married to a woman, so the site may be just a very cheap election ploy. He’s best known legislatively for creating New York’s version of Megan’s Law, which tracks the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders. Maziarz will face Democratic newcomer Amy Hope Witryol in November and he has been forecast to win reelection easily.

VIDEO: Here’s Maziarz responding to a question about marriage equality during a 2009 town hall in his Niagara County home district.

NEW YORK: Gay Son Of Wealthy Businessman Willed To Marry A Woman

Joe.My.God. reports:

According to the will of a recently deceased Manhattan businessman, his gay son must marry a woman to receive his inheritance. The son is already married to a man.

• A dear old dad left behind a final, unthinkable request for his gay son: get married — to a woman. The edict surfaced in the will of Manhattan businessman Frank Mandelbaum, who specified that none of his money should go to any offspring his son Robert might have if he “not be married to the child’s mother within six months of the child’s birth.” Frank Mandelbaum, 73, died in 2007, and his will prompted Robert Mandelbaum, a Manhattan Criminal Court Judge, to argue in a court battle over the estate that his longtime partner Jonathan O’Donnell is the only “mother” their 16-month-old son, Cooper, knows.
• The couple married shortly after Cooper’s birth via a surrogate, entitling the child to a share in a $180,000 trust set aside for Frank Mandelbaum’s three grandkids, Robert declared. The Manhattan Surrogate’s Court has yet to approve a settlement to ignore Frank Mandelbaum’s demand as discriminatory and against New York law. The settlement is the only way to solve the dispute over Cooper, Robert Mandelbaum claims in court papers, because the will “imposes a general restraint on marriage by compelling Robert Mandelbaum … to enter into a sham marriage” — which he says violates state law supporting marriage equality.

NEW YORK: Newly-Elected NOM-Backed State Senator Introduces Same-Sex Marriage Repeal

The Wall Street Journal reports:

After running against gay marriage as a state Senate candidate, rookie Republican David Storobin is now trying to repeal it.
Ten days after taking office, Storobin has proposed a bill that would repeal the one-year-old law allowing same-sex couples in New York to marry, one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s most important victories.
“The government has thrust upon the people of this state a definition of marriage that violates their religious and personal moral beliefs,” Storobin argues in the memo attached to the bill.
The effort isn’t likely to go very far. Storobin is the lone sponsor of the measure, and there’s no companion bill in the Assembly, where same-sex marriage has more robust support.
An attorney from Russia, Storobin defeated Democratic City Councilman Lew Fidler in a race so close it needed more than two months and a hand recount to settle.  He assailed his rival for his support of gay marriage during the campaign, and the topic became an important wedge issue that helped the Republican make inroads among a large Orthodox Jewish bloc in the district.
Storobin replaced Carl Kruger, a Democrat convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in prison. Kruger last year reversed his position on gay marriage and voted for the bill, which passed the Senate by a 32 to 29 vote.

NEW YORK: Fifth Grader Banned From Giving Speech In Support Of Marriage Equality

NEW YORK CITY: Federal Judge Barbara Jones Declares DOMA Unconstitutional

Pink News UK reports:

A federal judge in Manhattan has joined judges in California and Boston to rule the anti-equality Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.

The Defense of Marriage Act, passed under the Clinton administration in 1996, when Hawaii Supreme Court seemed on the verge of legalising equal marriage, denies gay spouses Social Security survivor benefits, the ability to file joint tax returns and health insurance rights enjoyed by straight married couples.

Just a week ago, a federal appeals court in Boston upheld an earlier ruling strike down key aspects of the federal law on the grounds of federal constitution. Earlier in May, a district court judge in California became the third federal judge to also declare DOMA unconstitutional along similar lines.

On Friday, US District Judge Barbara Jones ruled that DOMA’s efforts to define marriage intruded ‘upon the states’ business of regulating domestic relations,’ adding: ”That incursion skirts important principles of federalism and therefore cannot be legitimate, in this court’s view.”

She added that a sweeping legislation such as DOMA interfered with a federal system that put domestic relations law exclusively within the terrain of state legislatures.

The case was brought forth by Edith Windsor, whose partner died in 2009, two years after they married in Canada. Because of DOMA, Ms Windsor could not obtain the unlimited marital deduction on her late wife’s estate, and was required to pay over $350,000 in federal estate tax. She filed her law suit in November 2010, and in her ruling, Judge Jones ordered the government to reimburse Ms Windsor the tax she paid to the federal agency.

Ms Windsor, in a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union, said of her 44-year relationship with Thea Spyer: “”It’s thrilling to have a court finally recognize how unfair it is for the government to have treated us as though we were strangers.’

Although the federal government under Mr Obama no longer defends DOMA, it has yet to release a statement on the matter. That said, New York’s Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman declared the decision to be a ‘major step forward in the fight for equality.’

NEW YORK: State Senator Tom Duane To Retire

Joe.My.God. reports:

New York Sen. Tom Duane, the nation’s only openly gay and openly HIV-positive state legislator has announced his retirement.

On Monday, Mr. Duane, a Democrat, will announce his decision to call it quits, opening up the seat in a district that stretches from the Upper West Side to Greenwich Village, and across to the East Village. No, it is not his health. No, he does not have another job lined up. And no, Mr. Duane said cheerfully in an interview, he has not done anything illegal or embarrassing that is about to make news. Instead, Mr. Duane, 57, said that he had simply tired of ricocheting between the city and Albany, as he has for nearly 14 years — a number he repeated at least a dozen times — and that he was eager to try something new. “It’s not that Albany isn’t a lovely place, but it’s not home,” he said. “I always knew that I was going to have another chapter in my life, and it’s time for me to start that new chapter.”

The New York Times speculates about Duane’s replacement.

With Republicans now holding a slim majority in the Senate, Mr. Duane’s departure is unlikely to alter Albany’s balance of power, since whoever wins the Democratic primary on Sept. 13 will be an overwhelming favorite in November. The shortlist could include State Assembly members Deborah J. Glick and Brian Kavanaugh. Other possibilities are Brad Hoylman and Corey Johnson, the chairmen of Community Boards 2 and 4.

You may recall Duane’s amazing 2009 speech to the state Senate during that year’s failed bid for same-sex marriage. Give it a minute, it builds and builds.

NEW YORK: Assembly Passes Transgender Rights Bill 

The Advocate reports:

The New York State Assembly today passed a bill banning discrimination based on gender identity and expression, but its prospects in the Senate are uncertain.

This is the fifth time the Assembly has passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, according to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the statewide LGBT rights group. However, it has stalled in the Senate every time.

The bill passed the Assembly with broad bipartisan support, Pride Agenda reports. The chamber “has consistently set an example on transgender rights, and today is no exception,” said Lynn A. Faria, Pride Agenda’s interim executive director, in a press release. “Now it is time for the State Senate to remedy the patchwork of protections that cover transgender people in localities and counties across the state and pass this statewide law.”

Within the state, cities including Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester have passed transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws, as have Westchester, Suffolk, and Tompkins counties. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have similar laws. 

Antitransgender discrimination is widespread; in a survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 74% of transgender people reported experiencing harassment or mistreatment on the job. Support for nondiscrimination legislation is widespread as well, however, as 78% of New Yorkers are in favor of a transgender civil rights bill, Pride Agenda notes.

Photographer Uses Camera To Fight Back After Gay-Bashing 

The Advocate reports:

Art photographer Iannis Delatolas says he was gay-bashed at a Brooklyn, N.Y., bar while dozens of onlookers did nothing to help.
Delatolas told the story to Michael Musto of The Village Voice. He said he took his dog, Tulip, to Mission Dolores, a hipster bar in Brooklyn, where a “frat boy” in his 20s cut in line in front of him. 
“I told him to wait his turn and he mouthed off some ‘fuck you, you fucking queer,’” Delatolas remembers. “I had some loud words with him, and he took his beer and left. I was shaken, I go there all the time, I never thought this would happen there.”
A security guard asked the man to leave, and that, Delatolas tells Musto, is when the shouting match really began. One of the man’s friends, he said, suddenly attacked and punched him nearly a dozen times before the security guard could stop it. After all that, the moment Delatolas says haunts him is when he asked for help.
“I get up in a daze,” he tells the Voice. ”I ask for a witness as I am dialing 911. The courtyard is packed with about 30 mostly white hipsters. No one comes forward.”
Delatolas shot the self-portrait you see here the next day and says it’s “helped me take back my dignity, it was my way of fighting back.” 
Learn more about Delatolas’s art on his website.Read the complete first-person account as told to Musto.

USA: Tyler Clementi’s Lover Testifies In Ravi Trial

The Advocate reports:

The man captured on a webcam making out with Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who ended his life in September 2010, testified Friday in the trial of Dharun Ravi, Clementi’s roommate.

The man was identified only as M.B.; his full name was not allowed to be released, nor was his photograph.

M.B. said he met Clementi through a gay social network and that they gathered for three trysts in Clementi’s dorm. During the second assignation, M.B. testified, he noticed a webcam pointed in his direction. He also said he was careful to leave before Ravi, who secretly set up the webcam, returned to the dormitory.

Though M.B. said he and Clementi had sex that night, students who testified to watching the video said they only saw the men kissing. When he left the dorm that evening, he said there were about five students watching him as he left. The third time he met with Clementi, he heard disturbing comments made in the dorm courtyard, but he was not allowed to elaborate on what was said. 

Media reports indicate M.B. appeared to be in his 20s, trim, and neatly put-together, an appearance that contradicted with Ravi’s description of him. Ravi claimed he taped Clementi and M.B. because M.B. appeared “sketchy” and he was worried he might steal his computer.

Ravi faces 15 criminal counts, including bias intimidation, for secretly taping his roommate and showing the footage to other students. Read more here.