Milwaukee Police Seek Help With "Hit & Run" Hate Crime
Two Women Seriously Injured In Gruesome Attack Which Followed Anti-Lesbian Slurs
Milwaukee - The Milwaukee Police Department is investigating an alleged "hit and run" hate crime that occurred last weekend in the vicinity of Walker's Pint, a south side tavern popular with the city's women's community. In the early hours of December 30, three women who had just exited the tavern - Angela Emanule, Gaby Caraballo and Beth Swenson - walked into the path of a man trying to back his car out of a parking space. A verbal altercation ensued and the male driver reportedly shouted anti-lesbian epithets at the women. He then drove about a half block away, made a U-turn on 2nd Street and then deliberately hit the women with his vehicle.  The driver then fled the scene.
  Two of the women were knocked unconscious by the collision and had to seek treatment for their injuries. Emanuele suffered a broken nose and a broken left shoulder, and also received multiple stitches for cuts to her forehead and face. Caraballo received two black eyes, facial contusions and a twelve-inch cut to her knee that required surgery to repair.
  Quest spoke with the police department about the story January 5, but the detective on duty was unable to provide additional details. A squad car responded to a third-party call about the incident, but none of the victims reportedly were present when the police arrived.
  In an interview broadcast January 3 on WITI-TV here, Emanuele told reporter Jeremy Ross that the vehicle was a "dark, 4-door sedan," though she could not identify the year or make of the car. The women believe the front of the vehicle will be damaged.
  The women have also sought assistance from the Anti-Violence Project at the Milwaukee LGBT Center, a staff member told Quest. Because the program is victim-centered, any follow-up with the public by the Center will only be with the women's prior approval.
  Anyone who may have seen the incident or the vehicle involved in what the victims and many in the women's community believe was a deliberate hate crime are asked to contact the police department at 414-935-7222.
  Quest will continue to follow this story as it develops. Photo images courtesy of WITI Fox 6 in Milwaukee.

Gay Marriage Ban Advances In Massachusetts
Boston - A proposed constitutional amendment to halt gay marriage is a step closer to making the 2008 Massachusetts ballot, but the state’s newly inaugurated governor has vowed to the fight to preserve the state’s unique same-sex marriage rights.
  Lawmakers voted January 2 to advance the proposed amendment, which would define marriage as the union between a man and woman. The measure still needs approval in the next legislative session before it can appear on the ballot, and both supporters and opponents of gay marriage promised to step up their campaigns.
  “This fight isn’t over,” Democratic Governor Deval Patrick said after the vote. The nation’s second African-American governor opposes the amendment.
  Patrick had been out of the country until New Year’s Day, and he had conducted a furious round of last-minute lobbying to try to prevent the vote. If the Legislature had recessed on the final day of its session, without voting, amendment supporters who had collected more than 120,000 signatures would have essentially had to start over.
  The amendment needed to be approved by 50 members of the current legislature. The vote was 132 opposed to 61 in favor.
  Another 50 members of the next Legislature will need to vote for the measure before the referendum can go to voters on the 2008 ballot. The January 2 vote fulfilled the first part of that process.
  However, seventeen lawmakers who voted last week won’t be returning in the new legislative session, including some of the most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage. Gay marriage supporters believe they will pick up a total of seven votes to block the proposed amendment in the new session. But gay marriage opponents say they’re confident they have a solid base of more than fifty lawmakers who won’t flip their votes.
  About 8,000 same-sex couples have wed in Massachusetts since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state Constitution guarantees gays the right to marry. A few other states offer civil unions with similar rights for gay couples, but only Massachusetts allows gay marriage.
  “There are thousands and thousands of supporters who are committed to ensuring that the rights of a few are never put to a public popularity ballot,” campaign director for MassEquality Marc Solomon said.
  House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, who had avoided calling the proposed amendment to a vote last fall, said its wording discriminates against gays. Other state lawmakers supporting the measure said the legislature was simply upholding its duty to respond to a petition calling for a statewide vote on the issue. In late December the state’s high court had admonished the Legislature for avoiding a vote on the citizen petition last fall but said it had no power to intervene.
  Opponents of gay marriage subsequently withdrew a federal lawsuit that had sought $5 million from the lawmakers who had voted last November to recess the joint session of the legislature in an effort to kill a proposed constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage.
    The lawsuit by VoteOnMarriage.org argued the 109 lawmakers who voted to recess a joint constitutional convention had violated the supporters’ rights to free speech, to petition the government and due process under the law. The suit also sought $500,000 from the lawmakers for the cost of the group’s legal battles. The group withdrew the suit January 4.

World & National News:

Former Joint Chiefs Chair: Dump “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Washington, DC - The Army general who was Joint Chiefs chairman when the Pentagon adopted its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays says he no longer opposes allowing them to serve openly.
  John Shalikashvili, who retired in 1997 after four years as the nation’s top military officer, had argued that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would hurt troop morale and recruitment and undermine the cohesion of combat units. He said he has changed his mind after meeting with gay servicemen.
  “These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers,” Shalikashvili wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times January 2.
  His view could carry weight at a time when advocates of lifting the restriction on gay service members argue that the military - under the strain of fighting two wars - can ill-afford to exclude any qualified volunteers.
  It’s not clear, however, how much enthusiasm Congress will have for pressing the matter. While many Democrats have denounced the policy as discriminatory, many Republicans have supported it, and members may be reluctant to revisit such a divisive issue. Senator John McCain(R-Arizona), a possible presidential contender in 2008, recently called the military policy “very effective.”
  Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Massachusetts) hailed Shalikashvili’s article and said he would try this year to revive legislation forcing the military to eliminate the policy. In 2005, Meehan introduced a similar bill, which eventually attracted 122 co-sponsors, including Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut and Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
  “There is no place in this country for discrimination, be it on the basis of race, creed or sexual orientation, and there is certainly no place for institutional discrimination codified in federal statute,” Meehan said in a statement.
  The current policy, based on legislation passed by Congress in 1993 after a firestorm of debate, states that gays and lesbians may serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation private. Commanders may not ask, and gay service members may not tell. Over the years thousands have been dismissed under this policy.
  Shalikashvili is not the first former senior military officer to change his mind about gays in the military, though he is perhaps the most prominent. John Hutson, a retired two-star Navy admiral who was the Navy’s top lawyer, said he thinks the nation has undergone so much cultural change over the past decade that allowing gays to serve openly in the military would enhance rather than weaken the cohesion of fighting units. “I think it will absolutely happen,” Hutson said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press on January 2, but probably not during the Bush administration.
  Shalikashvili said he expects fierce debate over gays in the military this year as Congress considers President Bush’s call for expanding the size of the Army, which is stretched thin by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Shalikashvili cautioned, however, against pushing for repeal of the ban early in the new Congress, which he said should be focused on urgent priorities like developing a better strategy in Iraq and healing divisions over the war.
  “Fighting early in this Congress to lift the ban on openly gay service members is not likely to add to that healing and it risks alienating people whose support is needed to get this country on the right track,” he wrote in the Times article.
  In explaining his shift on the issue, Shalikashvili also cited a recent Zogby poll, commissioned by the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, of 545 U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It reported that three quarters said they were comfortable around gay men and lesbians.
  The poll, published last December, also said 37% opposed allowing gays to serve openly, while 26% said they should be allowed and 37% were unsure or neutral. Of those who said they were certain that a member of their unit was gay or lesbian, two-thirds did not believe it hurt morale.
  C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocate for gay rights, called Shalikashvili’s article “enormously significant.” Osburn said it reflects a growing trend of military leaders supporting repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

GLAAD Picks Top Gay Defamers of 2006
New York - The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has announced its picks for the worst media and anti-gay voices specific to defame the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in 2006.
  GLAAD’s President Neil G. Giuliano put the media on notice to stop all anti-gay rhetoric that has fed a climate of hatred and prejudice against LGBT Americans. “Every day, LGBT people are viciously attacked and slandered by those who create and or profit from anti-gay messages,” Giuliano said in a January 3 press release. “Such expressions of intolerance clearly have an impact on how people treat members of our community.” When these acts occur, GLAAD works with reporters, editors and bookers and producers to ensure their stories are fair and accurate, and speaks out publicly as an authoritative voice of anti-defamation of the LGBT community.
  “The amazing and unprecedented visibility of our lives and the issues we face every day makes it imperative that GLAAD respond decisively to such blatant bigotry,” Giuliano added. “Every day, we are on the front lines of the fight to change hearts and minds, in sometimes easy, sometimes heart-breaking circumstances. The media has a responsibility to make certain our voices are heard and our community is visible. This will be achieved when we convince those around us that our lives and our relationships deserve nothing less than full equality and respect.”
  GLAAD’s 2006 Anti-Gay Defamation Offenders include the following:
  Time publishes Dobson’s Misleading Claims About Gay & Lesbian Families  Following widespread media coverage of the announcement that Mary Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant, Time magazine made the unusual misstep of inviting anti-gay fundamentalist James Dobson (Focus on the Family) to contribute a column that, unsurprisingly, contained significant misrepresentations. Dobson’s column – “Two Mommies Is One Too Many” – can be read at time.com .
  New York Post Publishes Two Anti-Gay Cartoons in Three Weeks  New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas published two defamatory editorial cartoons in October 2006. The first depicted a man carrying a sheep wearing a bridal veil to a “New Jersey Marriage Licenses” window and the second featured former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey “comforting” former Rep. Mark Foley.
  Imus and Chris Matthews Air Juvenile Homophobia on “Imus in the Morning” on MSNBC  On the Wednesday, January 18 edition of “Imus in the Morning” on MSNBC, host Don Imus and guest Chris Matthews (host of MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and NBC News’ “The Chris Matthews Show”) used an exchange about “Brokeback Mountain” to engage in a sophomoric display of homophobia.
  Ann Coulter Spews Homophobic Slur on MSNBC’s Hardball  Host Chris Matthews gave a free pass to guest Ann Coulter’s use of a defamatory anti-gay slur, the second time in the past year that the NBC News commentator has tacitly offered an on-air embrace of anti-gay prejudice.
  St. Maarten Newspaper’s Defamatory Embrace of Gay Bashing  GLAAD urged U.S. media covering the brutal anti-gay attack on two CBS News employees in St. Maarten to turn a spotlight on a local newspaper editorial that glorified gay bashing, trivialized the assaults, and called gay people “faggots” and “homos.”
  MSNBC Host Tucker Carlson Chooses Defamation Over Education  On “The Situation with Tucker Carlson”, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson made defamatory comments about Lily McBeth, a transgender New Jersey substitute teacher. In reporting on McBeth’s story Carlson said, “I’m pretty tolerant of whatever people want to do, very tolerant, in their private lives. If men want to dress up like women that’s fine. I think it’s dorky, but you know, it doesn’t hurt me. If a person voluntarily undergoes castration, that is totally different. That is an act of a crazy person. That’s like setting your hair on fire or blinding yourself. You are unstable if you voluntarily castrate yourself simply because you feel uncomfortable in your own sex and I don’t want a person that unstable teaching my kids.”
  Stop the Presses! Defamatory Column Not Okay Reno’s El Sol de Nevada newspaper ran a column claiming that gays and lesbians get married to have access to heterosexual rights and to be less “tempted” to engage in pedophilia. Written by a psychologist, the column further described gays and lesbians as suffering from symptoms of neurosis, a direct result of neurotic relationships with family members.
  The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org.

Vatican Embraces Oscar Wilde’s “Temptation” Quips & Others
Rome - Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, gay icon and deathbed convert to Catholicism, has been paid a rare tribute by the Vatican. His aphorisms are quoted in a collection of maxims and witticisms for Christians that has been published by one of the Pope’s closest aides.
  Wilde (1854-1900) had long been regarded with distaste by the Vatican as a dissolute and disgraced homosexual who was sentenced for acts of gross indecency over his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas.
  The book, compiled by Father Leonardo Sapienza, head of protocol at the Vatican, includes such Wildean gems as “I can resist everything except temptation” and “The only way to get rid of a temptation is yield to it” - hardly orthodox Catholic teaching.
  Father Sapienza said that he had devoted the lion’s share of Provocations: Aphorisms for an Anti-conformist Christianity to Wilde because he was a “writer who lived perilously and somewhat scandalously but who has left us some razor-sharp maxims with a moral”. The book also includes contributions from the Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila.
  Father Sapienza said that Wilde had been a great writer of powerful force and dazzling intelligence who was now chiefly remembered not for his promiscuity but for plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband as well as moral tales such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which a vain young man pays a terrible price for selling his soul to gain eternal youth.
  Father Sapienza said that he wanted to “stimulate a reawakening in certain Catholic circles”. Christianity was intended to be a radical cure, not a humdrum remedy for the common cold: “Our role is to be a thorn in the flesh, to move people’s consciences and to tackle what today is the number one enemy of religion - indifference.”
  “What a surprise!” the Italian tabloid La Repubblica said in response to Wilde’s inclusion. “A homosexual icon has been accepted by the Vatican.” Vatican watcher Orazio La Rocca described the book as a bombshell.
  Pope Benedict XVI is a stern opponent of gay marriage and has reinforced Catholic teaching that homosexuality is a disorder. On the other hand he has belied his reputation as a hardliner since his election, reserving most of his fire for apathy and relativism in an attempt to revive Christian faith in Europe.
  Wilde, who was married and had two children, was arrested and tried in 1895 over his relationship with Lord Douglas (known as Bosie), son of the Marquess of Queensberry, who had accused Wilde of sodomy. The writer sued Queensberry but lost and was sentenced to two years’ hard labor.
  Throughout his life Wilde displayed a great fascination with Catholicism, once remarking: “I am not a Catholic - I am simply a violent Papist.” He was born in Dublin to a Protestant family but fell under the spell of Catholicism at Oxford. He even made a journey for an audience with the Pope, but declared: “To go over to Rome would be to sacrifice and give up my two great Gods: Money and Ambition.” The way for Wilde’s rehabilitation was paved six years ago by a Jesuit theologian, Father Antonio Spadaro. On the centenary of Wilde’s death, he raised eyebrows by praising the “understanding of God’s love” that had followed Wilde’s imprisonment in Reading.
  Father Spadaro said that at the end of his life Wilde had seen into the depths of his own soul and in his last works, such as De Profundis, had made “an implicit journey of faith”. He said that Wilde had come to see that God was capable of “breaking hearts of stone and entering into them with mercy and forgiveness”.
  Among the bits of Wilde’s  wit and wisdom included in the new book are the following:
  “Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.”
  “I am not in favor of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage.”
  “One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead. I see an intimate connection between the life of Christ and the life of the artist. Christ’s place indeed is with the poets.”
  “I can resist everything except temptation.”
  “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
  “It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
  “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
  “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
  “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
  “Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.” (Aside to Wisconsin’s Rantin’ Ralph and Julaine: you’re so vain, you probably think this quote is about you.)
  “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
  “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
  “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” (One of the reasons Za is soooo experienced.)
  And lastly: “What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to use.”

Scientists, Activists Say “Baa” To Gay Sheep Experiments
Portland -Scientists and gay rights activists around the world have criticized experiments being conducted in the United States that aim to turn gay sheep straight. Oregon State University has been conducting research into the hormonal balance in the brains of rams who are attracted to other rams.
  The scientists claim their research is aimed only at reducing or eliminating gay sheep. About one in ten rams mount other rams instead of ewes. This 10% cost farmers money, and scientists have been experimenting with changing the hormone levels in the brains of these ‘gay’ animals. So far the tests have been successful, with formerly ‘gay’ rams mounting ewes.
  University biologist Charles Roselli characterized the outcry against the experiments as political correctness run amok. “In general, sexuality has been under-studied because of political concerns,” he said. “People don’t want science looking into what determines sexuality.”
  “It’s a touchy issue,” Roselli admitted. “In fact, several studies have shown that people who believe homosexuality is biologically based are less homophobic than people who think that this orientation is acquired.”
  Roselli also said that possible applications of his research to humans were not a matter for him.
  Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Bioethics at Glasgow Caledonian University, who has written to the researchers pressing them to stop, told the London-based paper The Times that he doesn’t believe the motives of the study are homophobic, but their work brings the terrible possibility of exploitation by homophobic societies. “Imagine this technology in the hands of Iran, for example,” Schuklenk said. “It is typical of the US to ignore the global context in which this is taking place.”
  According the Schuklenk and other scientists, the relatively simple process of altering the hormonal balance of the brain could easily be applied to humans, raising questions about the nature of homosexuality and the possibility that in future parents could screen unborn children for ‘gayness’ and also have their children treated to become heterosexual.
  Critics of the experiments have been led by tennis champion Martina Navratilova, who branded them homophobic and cruel, as well as deeply insulting to gay and lesbian people. In a November letter to the university Navratilova wrote: “I respectfully ask that you pull the plug on this appalling and misguided research.
  “Surely you can find a way to redirect the millions of public tax dollars that are being wasted on these experiments to a more fruitful venture,” Navratilova continued. “Perhaps by funding a gay and lesbian community centre to foster dialogue and acceptance for people of all sexual preferences?”
  British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell compared the experiments to Nazi research in the early 1940s that aimed at eradicating homosexuality. “They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.”
  British columnist Johann Hari saw the whole controversy both as bizarre and a bellwether. “Whatever happens in 2007, we already have the most surreal headline of the year: ‘Sheep have right to be gay, says Martina Navratilova’,” Hari wrote in The Independent. “But behind this headline and buried beneath the battery of baa-aad jokes it seems to beckon, there is a strange and serious story that will ripple out through the 21st century in ways we cannot predict.”
  Hari characterized the university experiment as a validation of “the first hard evidence of biological differences between gay and straight mammals,” that scares homophobes because they “know that when people realize this, homophobia becomes unsellable.” 

State News:

  With the housing slump upon us, we are faced with new opportunities in the Wisconsin real estate market. I love seeing my gay brothers and sisters making real estate history by creating new "Hot" neighborhoods and shopping districts. Nothing makes me happier than to see a house in my Walker's Point neighborhood get cleaned up with that Subaru in the driveway. I know a Pride flag is soon to follow.
  With the downturn I have mentioned, the market is filled with eager sellers and not enough buyers. This means that if you have purchased a condo or a home in the past two years and are panicked that it might not be worth what you want (or need) it to be worth, have no fear! You have invested in one of the most conservative investments you can have. If you purchased the property in the last few years with the intention of re-selling it for a profit, hold off for 6 months if you can. Summer is when kids are off school and yards look great, and the surplus in the market will have tapered off. Enjoy what you have; don't be pressured into thinking you need to upgrade.
  If you need to sell in this market, I can not stress enough how "staging" your house to sell will put you ahead of your competition. Being part of this community, the major asset we have is access to tons of free decorating tips. When I have clients come to me to stage a house for sale or a builder's model, they often times say that one of their "designer" friends said to do the same color/arrangement. Start listening to the brilliant friends you have around you. If you don't have access to a professional for no charge, then I implore you to lok at the sale of your home as a business decision. Get the help of a "stager". This is someone who comes in for a fee (usually about $300) to arrange your rooms, tell you what needs to go or go into storage, and also give advice on changing simple wall color, floor covering, etc. to get top dollar for your house/condo. Houses that are staged and polished will command a higher price and sell more quickly.

     If you are looking to buy in this market, you are in a great position! When looking for a house in this market, follow a few simple tips:
     1. Find out how long the house has been on the market. (90 days and above is a stale listing).
     2. Look past dated carpet, wall color and appliances. These are quick fixes. If you're as picky as I am, you'll want to change them anyway.
     3. Don't be afraid to bid well below asking price. This is a tough market for sellers, so take full advantage of that.

  In this column, I want to make note of professionals in our real estate community who I recommend. These are people who have a good track record with our community. If you have someone you've had a great real estate experience with, I'd love to hear about it at:
www.ariadesignconsultants.com