Furor Left & Right Over Mary Cheney’s Pregnancy
Washington, DC - In highly predictable fashion the Religious Right last week voiced dismay at news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, is pregnant, while a gay-rights group said the vice president faces “a lifetime of sleepless nights” for serving in an administration that has opposed recognition of same-sex couples.
  Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby in late spring, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president. “The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation” to the arrival of their sixth grandchild, McBride said.
  Mary Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign, and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. She and Poe moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to the Cheney family.
  Family Pride, which advocates on behalf of gay and lesbian families, noted that Virginia last month became one of 27 states with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. “Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child,” Family Pride executive director Jennifer Chrisler said.
  The couple “will quickly face the reality that no matter how loved their child will be. ... he or she will never have the same protections that other children born to heterosexual couples enjoy,” Chrisler added. “Grandfather Cheney will no doubt face a lifetime of sleepless nights as he reflects on the irreparable harm he and his administration have done to the millions of American gay and lesbian parents and their children.”
  For years, Mary Cheney’s openness about her sexual orientation had posed a dilemma for right wing activists who admire Dick Cheney’s stance on many issues but consider homosexuality a sin.
  Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America described the pregnancy as “unconscionable.” “It’s very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father,” said Crouse, a senior fellow at the group’s think tank. “They are encouraging people who don’t have the advantages they have.”
  Crouse claimed that there was no doubt that the news would, in conservatives’ eyes, be damaging to the Bush administration, which already has been chided by some leaders on the right for what they felt was halfhearted commitment to anti-abortion and anti-gay-rights causes in this year’s general election. Ironically, Concerned Women’s founder Phyllis Schaffley also has a gay son.
  Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the newly announced pregnancy as unwise. “Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said. “Love can’t replace a mother and a father.”
  The vice president’s office declined to elaborate on the circumstances of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy.
  The news was welcomed by Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign. “Mary and Heather’s decision to have a child is an example that families in America come in all different shapes and sizes,” he said. “The bottom line is that a family is made up of love and commitment.”

House Ethics Committee On Foley: “No Foul For GOP”
Washington, DC -  The House Ethics Committee investigation on former Rep. Mark Foley’s sexual advances to former teenage pages has concluded no Republican elected official currently in office acted improperly in their conduct of the probe of Foley’s sexual come-ons to former male pages. The disgraced Florida Republican, who one witness characterized as a “ticking time bomb,” would have been disciplined but his resignation in late September took him out of the House’s jurisdiction, the committee decided.
   However, the report released December 8 did say that Republican lawmakers and aides for over ten years failed to protect the teenagers vulnerable to Foley’s advances and remained “willfully ignorant” of the consequences. “At its core, such conduct is an abuse of power and an abuse of trust of the pages, their parents or guardians and the Congress itself,” the report said. “Behavior of this kind cannot be excused or tolerated, as it undermines the integrity of the House.”
  Overall, according to the report, the evidence showed that “concerns began to arise about Rep. Foley’s interactions with pages or other young male staff members” shortly after he took office in 1995, according to the committee report. Although the committee recommended no punishments, it said the evidence would have subjected Foley to discipline if he had not resigned.
  The committee also criticized Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), reporting that the evidence showed he was told of the problem months before he acknowledged learning of Foley’s questionable e-mails to a former Louisiana page. The report rejected Hastert’s contention that he couldn’t recall separate warnings from two House Republican leaders.
  Hastert responded to the report by saying he was pleased the committee found “there was no violation of any House rules by any member or staff.” He repeated the claim that no evidence was uncovered that salacious instant messages from Foley were known to any House member or employee before that time.
  Copies of the emails and instant messages flooded news coverage as the scandal and its scope widened daily last September. The Ethics Committee report included 26 pages of the messages, redacted to protect the screen names of minors involved.
  The committee concluded that Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was told about Foley’s conduct in 2002 or 2003, a finding based on testimony from Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. Palmer claimed he didn’t recall the warning.
  The committee issued Foley a subpoena, but his lawyer notified the committee the former lawmaker would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights if compelled to testify. The committee dropped the matter to avoid delays.
  The committee said one witness, former House chief clerk Jeff Trandahl, testified he warned the head of the supervisory page board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois), that Foley was a “ticking time bomb” who had been confronted repeatedly. The warning came in November 2005. Shimkus confronted Foley and told him to stop sending e-mails to the former Louisiana page.
  Polls showed the Foley issue was a factor in Republicans losing their House majority in the November elections and in Hastert being driven from his speaker’s post after eight years. The Foley scandal also impacted Wisconsin’s elections - particularly the so-called “Marriage Protection” amendment ballot - according to internal polling conducted by both gubernatorial campaigns.
  Florida and federal authorities are investigating whether Foley broke any criminal laws related to his communications with the teens.
  The investigation was overseen by Representatives Doc Hastings (R-Washington), Judy Biggert (R-Illinois), Howard Berman (D-California) and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-Ohio).

UW Board Of Regents Asks For Domestic Partner Benefits
Madison - The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents has voted to ask the Wisconsin Legislature for domestic partner benefits for university faculty members. The regents included the request as part of  their 2007-2009 unclassified pay plan unanimously approved here December 7. The plan also asked for a 5.23% employee salary increase each year over the next biennia, with a total cost of $96 million.
  UW System President Kevin Reilly publicly pleaded with the governor and state Legislature to amend state statutes to provide for domestic partner benefits, calling it “an issue of basic human fairness and the ability to stay globally effective.”
  In also supporting the DP benefit request, Regent Chuck Pruitt equated the quality of a UW education with the quality of its employees. “The evidence is clear that our best and brightest are targets of other universities - private and public -  in other states,” Pruitt told the regents. “Often when they leave, they leave behind not only disappointed students and colleagues, but they also take with them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in outside grants. The best way to retain faculty is to prevent them from wanting to leave,” he said.
  UW-Madison librarian Louise Robbins told the regents the number of individuals applying to her department has dropped due to of the lack of domestic partner benefits and lower pay in comparison to other institutions.  “Over time, UW-Madison has become less and less competitive in the market for excellent faculty members,” Robbins said.
  The regents briefly addressed concerns about the passage of state’s gay-marriage amendment, which may impact the domestic partner benefit request. Ban sponsors, however, claimed consistently prior to that the amendment  would not preclude such benefits.

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New Jersey Lawmakers Introduce Gay Civil Unions Bill
Trenton - A panel of New Jersey lawmakers approved a bill December 7 that would create civil unions giving equal rights to gay and lesbian couple, shunning a push to call those partnerships “marriage.” The State Assembly’s judiciary committee voted 4-2 for the bill, which would provide those unions with the legal rights of married couples.
  The measure follows an October 25 state Supreme Court ruling that ordered the legislature to give gay couples the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples, but left it to lawmakers to decide whether to call it “marriage.” Massachusetts became the first and only state to legalize gay marriage in 2004. Vermont and Connecticut have civil union or domestic partnership laws.
  The New Jersey panel heard sometimes emotional testimony from campaigners on both sides in a four hourlong hearing.
  Steve McIntyre said he has been with his partner for 20 years, and they want to be legally married. “He’s not my roommate, he’s not my partner, he’s my husband,” McIntyre told the panel.
  Karen Nicholson-McFadden, a partner in one of the seven same-sex couples who brought the Supreme Court case against the state, urged lawmakers to vote against the civil unions bill because she said it would continue discrimination against gay and lesbian couples by preventing them from marrying. “The government thinks it’s OK to treat us differently because we are gay,” she said. “I will never be allowed to marry the only person I would ever want to marry if you pass this bill.”
  Among witnesses opposing gay marriage, the Rev. Peter West presented a letter from seven Catholic bishops urging lawmakers to affirm that marriage is “between one man and one woman.”
  A poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut, showed on Thursday that 60 percent of New Jersey voters supported a law allowing civil unions, but half were opposed to gay marriage. The bill was expected to be approved in both houses of the legislature by the end of the year.

Conservative Jews: “Gay Rabbis Can Be Kosher”
New York -  A panel of rabbis gave permission December 6 for same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, a wrenching change for a movement that occupies the middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in Judaism.
  The complicated decision by the Conservatives Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards leaves it up to individual seminaries whether to ordain gay rabbis and gives individual rabbis the option of sanctioning same-sex unions.
  Like many Protestant denominations, Conservative Jews are divided over homosexuality: torn between the Hebrew scriptures’ condemnation of it as an “abomination” and a desire to encourage same-sex couples to form long-lasting, monogamous relationships.
  Reform Judaism, the largest branch of the faith in the U.S., has ordained gay men and lesbians since 1990 and has allowed rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies since 2000. Orthodox Judaism does not countenance same-sex unions or the ordination of gays.
  After years of discussion and two days of intense debate behind closed doors at a synagogue on Park Avenue, the law committee accepted three teshuvot, or answers, to the question of whether Jewish law allows homosexual sex. Two answers uphold the status quo, forbidding homosexuality.
  But a third allows same-sex ceremonies and ordination of gay men and lesbians, while maintaining a ban on anal sex. Four of the law committee’s 25 members resigned in protest of the decision.
  It takes the votes of six panel members to declare an answer to be valid. Thirteen members voted in favor of allowing gay ordination and same-sex ceremonies, and 13 voted against - meaning that at least one rabbi voted for both positions.
  Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, a group of 1,600 Conservative rabbis, predicted some rabbis will choose not to preside at same-sex ceremonies, and he said none would be required to perform them.
  The issue has been particularly difficult for the Conservative movement, which claims about 2 million members worldwide. Conservative Jews generally keep the kosher dietary rules and observe the Sabbath, though perhaps not as strictly as Orthodox Jews do.
  Rabbi Joel Roth, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary who was among those who resigned, said he considers the change to be “outside the pale of acceptable” Jewish law.

Gay Divorce Case Goes To Rhode Island Supreme Court
Providence - The Rhode Island Supreme Court has been asked to answer a question that illustrates the complex nature of the current state of legal recognition of same sex couples: “Can a couple obtain a divorce if, in the eyes of the state, they were never married?”
  That is the issue sent December 6 to that state’s Supreme Court, in the case of two Rhode Island women who traveled to Massachusetts to marry in May 2004 during a brief period when out-of-state, same-sex couples could wed there.
  Shortly afterward, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney invoked an obscure 1913 statute to prevent same-sex couples from other states from marrying in his state, the only one to permit such unions.
  But the marriage of Margaret Chambers, now 70, and Cassandra Orniston, 59, broke up. Citing irreconcilable differences, the couple filed for divorce here in October. They have no children, and neither of them is contesting the breakup.
  The legal issue is whether a same-sex couple can obtain a divorce in a state that is silent on same-sex marriages. On Wednesday, the chief judge of Rhode Island’s Family Court chose not to rule on the issue, referring it instead to the Supreme Court.
  “There’s no indication that we can either hear same-sex marriages or same-sex divorces,” Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. said during the brief initial hearing.
  Chambers did not attend the proceeding. Orniston said she was uncomfortable with the attention their separation has received. “Divorce is hard enough without the added burden of being a test case,” she said. “We have a right to fail like everybody else.”
  More than 8,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts. No records are kept on same-sex divorces, but attorneys who represent gay and lesbian couples say that, at the least, dozens of same-sex marriages have been dissolved since they became legal. Some civil unions in Vermont also have been legally reversed.
  But Rhode Island law makes no mention of same-sex unions. State Attorney. General Patrick C. Lynch has said the courts and Legislature must decide whether same-sex marriages will be recognized in Rhode Island.
  Orniston’s attorney, Nancy Palmisciano, noted that other than the fact that both parties are female, the case was “a very, very typical divorce in every respect. The issues are no weightier than in any other case.”
  Palmisciano added that her client’s marriage is no less valid than those of other clients who were married in Nevada, Florida, California or even other countries. “They were heterosexuals, and there were never questions over whether they had a right to a divorce. What’s the difference?” she asked.
  “We are not asking the state of Rhode Island to recognize same-sex marriage,” Palmisciano said. “We are asking the state to recognize same-sex divorce. I’m not asking you to issue a marriage license here. We passed that when my client and her spouse received a valid license, according to the laws of the state of Massachusetts.”
  But Louis Pulner, Chambers’ lawyer, worried that the couple’s divorce might become invalid if the state Supreme Court ruled in the future that the Family Court did not have jurisdiction. Pulner filed the motion that Jeremiah accepted December 6, sending the case to the state’s high court. “While this is obviously a unique situation,” Pulner said in court, “nothing is as obvious as having some finality for my client, Ms. Chambers.”
  Michele Granda, a staff attorney in Boston with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said that she could see no legal reason for Rhode Island to refuse the couple’s petition for divorce.  “Married same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections that married different-sex couples have, including the right to separate,” Granda said. “Rhode Island has a long history of recognizing marriages that are entered outside of Rhode Island, and there is no reason to impose a gay exception.”

HRC’s World AIDS Day Report Card: USA Gets An “F”
Washington, DC - The Human Rights Campaign released its third annual World AIDS Day report card today highlighting yet another year of failed policies to combat the HIV/AIDS global pandemic. The report card, for the last three years, has rated the U.S. Congress’ and the Bush administration’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in four key areas: prevention, care and treatment, research and global AIDS. This year, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the first reported case of AIDS, the report card includes a new category evaluating our nation’s leaders on efforts to combat AIDS-related discrimination.
  “We are hopeful that with a new congressional leadership the failed policies of the past will not continue to be repeated,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Since we began this report card three years ago, the Bush administration and congressional leadership’s response to this global pandemic has been grossly inadequate. The American people sent a message in these midterm elections that they want to see real actions on issues affecting people’s lives, and we are optimistic that their voices will be heard in relation to the efforts to combat this disease.”
  Since the Human Rights Campaign issued its first World AIDS Day report card in 2004, the grades have continued to fall well below passing. The
2004 grades were: Prevention (F); Care and Treatment (D); Research (C); and Global AIDS (C). The 2005 grades were: Prevention (F); Care and Treatment (F); Research (D); and Global AIDS (C).
  “As in years past, this report card does not take away from the extraordinary work that has been done by many outspoken champions fighting to put real policies in place to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said Solmonese. “Unfortunately, too often in the past their courageous work has been overshadowed by a government leadership that was more focused on allowing ideology to drive our response to HIV and AIDS. As the new members of Congress are sworn in, we look forward to working with a leadership that will seek real, scientific solutions to protect the well-being of all Americans.”
  The 2006 report card is as follows:
  Prevention: F The Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership continued to pursue policies that undermine effective prevention strategies on HIV/AIDS. The only federal funding stream for sex education in our schools remains limited to unproven and medically inaccurate abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that fail to teach youth how to protect themselves from HIV. This year, congressional leaders jettisoned language unanimously passed by the Senate mandating that these programs be medically accurate.
  Furthermore, the Bush administration added additional restrictions to these federally funded abstinence-only programs mandating that “the term ‘marriage’ must be defined as ‘only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife,’ and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” This new anti-gay restriction illustrates that these programs are not driven by public health concerns, but rather by narrow right-wing ideology.
  Care and Treatment: D Years of inadequate funding levels for the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act turned this year’s reauthorization of this crucial program into a zero-sum game pitting states with newer and emerging HIV/AIDS epidemics against those that have been the traditional epicenters of the disease. States with newer and emerging epidemics have traditionally been short-changed by the Ryan White CARE Act and are in desperate need of more funding to provide life-saving treatment and care. However, since Congress has effectively flat-funded the program for six years, new formulas that would give these states critically needed funds would inevitably result in deep and possibly destabilizing cuts for the communities with the plurality of current cases. The Ryan White CARE Act, the payer of last resort, is a crucial part of our nation’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it is extremely disappointing that the program’s reauthorization deteriorated into a formula fight, pitting low-income Americans with HIV/AIDS against each other depending on where they live.
  Research: F Last December, Congress approved a Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill that gave less than a 1 percent funding increase to the National Institute of Health, the smallest percentage increase since 1970. In February of this year, the president released his fiscal year 2007 budget which proposed flat-funding NIH, specifically cutting $15 million for AIDS research. Meanwhile, Congress plans on passing a continuing resolution instead of passing a Labor-HHS appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007, which means cuts for NIH. Furthermore, the House of Representatives passed a bill to reauthorize NIH that capped funding increases at 5 percent each year, which is barely enough to keep up with the inflation index for biomedical research and development.
  As people living with HIV/AIDS around the world hope for the development of microbicides and other crucial preventative and treatment options - and one day a cure - cuts to AIDS research and to NIH mean that new funding for this crucial research will be extremely limited.
  Global AIDS: C The Bush administration and Congress have made significant steps in raising awareness and dedicating funding to fight the global AIDS pandemic. Unfortunately, many of these important initiatives have come with ideological strings attached.
  In April, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report reviewing the expenditure of HIV prevention funds through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. Current law mandates that 33 percent of PEPFAR prevention funds must be dedicated to abstinence-until-marriage programs. The GAO found that the abstinence-only restriction hindered the ability of HIV/AIDS organizations respond to local prevention needs. The earmark forced many programs to cut spending for mother-to-child transmission prevention, contributed to a lack of understanding of cultural norms and reduced the ability to appropriately target vulnerable populations. Instead of outsourcing our failed prevention policies overseas, U.S. global AIDS policy should allow local organizations flexibility to provide the most effective HIV prevention possible.
  Ending AIDS-Related Stigma/Discrimination: F  The 2006 UNAIDS Report on the Global Epidemic asserts that understanding that homophobia is one of the key “drivers of the epidemic” is “absolutely fundamental to the long-term response to AIDS.” According to these experts, ending the AIDS pandemic “will depend largely on changing the social norms, attitudes and behaviors that contribute to its expansion” through the enactment of “laws and policies that directly challenge gender inequality and bias against ... men who have sex with men.” This year, we add a new category to HRC’s World AIDS Day report card dedicated to evaluating the government’s performance in this realm.
  In June of this year, on the 25th anniversary of the day that the first AIDS case was reported by the Centers for Disease Control, President Bush held a press conference to call on Congress to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would permanently ban same-sex couples from enjoying equal rights and protections of marriage. The president, surrounded by some of the most virulent anti-gay and homophobic voices in the nation, told the amendment’s proponents, “I’m proud to stand with you.”
  And last spring, Congress stripped out of a child safety bill a provision passed by the House of Representatives by a wide, bipartisan margin to give law enforcement tools to confront hate violence against LGBT Americans, calling it “a poison pill.” When our nation’s leaders use same-sex couples as political scare tactics and deny law enforcement resources to confront violence driven by anti-gay violence, it is clear that they do not understand the implications that fueling homophobia has on creating a culture that is up to the task of ending HIV/AIDS.
  The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

Outgames Files For Bankruptcy
Montreal - The Montreal Outgames has filed for protection from its creditors while seeking a way out of debt to its suppliers.
  “We didn’t want to go into bankruptcy,” Outgames co-chairperson Marielle Dupere said. “We want to pay our suppliers.” Dupere added a future press release would explain the organizers’ reasoning for the filing.
  Filing for protection under the federal Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act temporarily protects the Outgames from being forced into bankruptcy or sued for payment. A provincial government audit has reported the Outgames recorded a deficit of $5.3 million, of which $2.2 million was owed to suppliers. The rest of the deficit was mainly unpaid government loans.
  One of the suppliers who is still owed $5,845.64, four months after the international sports and cultural event, said he is running out of patience. “If we don’t get paid, we’ll have to sue them,” Matthew Robert told the Montreal Gazette.  Robert is the co-owner of 22Dragons, a company that ran a dragon boat event at the Outgames in August and claims he was taken in by the hoopla surrounding the event and by organizers’ promises.
  More than 10,000 people took part in the Outgames, established for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered athletes.

Lance & Reichen Call It Quits - For Now
New York - Lance Bass and Reichen Lehmkuhl are calling it quits - for a little while at least. The pair are attempting to work out their relationship, according to a statement they offered exclusively to People magazine recently.
  “We remain the best of friends,” the pair insisted. “Please respect our privacy as we try to work things out during this difficult time.”
  Bass’s spokesperson confirmed December 4 that they had ended their relationship. Speculation spawned by Hollywood gay gossip Perez Hilton that the pair had broken up began after Bass was spotted without Lehmkuhl at a party at Pure Nightclub in Las Vegas spread over the Internet the weekend prior to the announcement.
  In a People cover story last July former ‘N Sync heartthrob Bass, first revealed his relationship with Lehmkuhl, 32, when he also admitted he was gay. “I’m more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life,” Bass claimed at the time. “I’m just happy.”
  Bass said that he and Lehmkuhl had been dating for a few months, and that the two were friends first. “Actually, it’s funny, he was my real estate agent,” Bass told the magazine.
  Lehmkuhl, a model-actor-Amazing Race winner, had been equally enthusiastic and supportive of Bass’s decision to come out. According to the article Reichen shared that he was “just really proud of Lance and the decision he made.”
   He did it all on his own and I just stood by and supported him,” Lehmkuhl said. “It’s just been great.”
  During their relationship, the two made many public appearances together, including red-carpet events and Lehmkuhl’s book release party for his memoir Here’s What We’ll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy,.
  Bass currently is developing an Odd Couple-inspired sitcom pilot with former ‘N Sync-er Joey Fatone in which his character will be gay.  Bass also has a role in the upcoming comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Texas Right-Wing Nativity Scene Sports Gay Couple
Austin - An unusual Nativity scene recently drew curious looks from passers by on the University of Texas campus here. The scene featured a gay couple, “Gary and Joseph,” instead of Mary and Joseph, a terrorist as an angel and Lenin, Stalin and Marx as the three wise men.
  The scene was built by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who say what they’re called an “ACLU nativity scene” that allegedly included positions taken by the American Civil Liberties Union.  “The idea is to bring attention to the ACLU and also to bring attention to the issue of taking down nativity scenes during the christmas season or trying to silence you know, the word Christ and the word Christmas,” Tony McDonald of the Young Conservatives of Texas told KVUE-TV.
  The ACLU disputed the accuracy of the display, but said the conservatives had a First Amendment right to express their opinions any way they chose.  “I think it’s fairly festive,’’ ACLU executive director Will Harrell told the station. “We want to make sure they have a right to freely exercise their First Amendment right. But keep in mind, nothing in the First Amendment requires that you be accurate about the information. The First Amendment protects parody as well.”
  The display was taken down by the group on December 12.

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