Halloween Express misses deadline

Kentucky Equality Federation received a discrimination report when a person who identified himself as the owner of the Halloween Express store located at 3410 James Sanders Blvd in Paducah, KY called a homosexual customer a freak and asked him to leave the store.

Halloween Express was given 48 hours to respond......they declined.

Though each Halloween Express is individually owned, the franchiser has an obligation to the customers who visit stores that bear its name. As such, Kentucky Equality Federation recommends all members, allies, and affiliates avoid Halloween Express stores until further notice.

Blatant intolerance or discrimination must be challenged by our entire community.

UPDATE 3:40 PM: Many of you have questions about the complaint. Additional information is below.

I went into the store and was browsing for a costume. When I went to the shoe section the employees walked away laughing and making crude comments about me looking at women's shoes. I then went to the owner and informed him that i was being treated unfairly and all i got was laughed in the face, and told, "Get out of my store you freak".

Halloween Express (both the owner and corporate) refused to apologize.

Last year an employee at a Steak n' Shake (story) in Louisville called a male customer a faggot.

As a community we must show intolerant people that this type of behavior is unacceptable in a civilized society.

Keep in mind that the American Family Association continues to boycott Ford and Wells Fargo because they support and offer domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples.

Iran and Kentucky; Does the state have the right to kill you?

Does the state have the right to kill you? Consider these two high profile headlines:

1. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced sharp criticism yesterday about his opinions on women, gays, Israel, nuclear weapons and the Holocaust in an appearance at Columbia University, where protesters bearing signs reading "Hitler Lives" lined the streets and the university's president issued blistering introductory remarks inside a crowded lecture hall.
   
   Homosexuals are stoned to death in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
   
   President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran doesn't have homosexuals in their country like the United States.
   
   Iran is marked as critical by the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA).
   
   
2. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider the constitutionality of lethal injections in a case that could affect the way inmates are executed around the country.
   
   The high court will hear a challenge from two inmates on death row in Kentucky - Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. - who sued the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2004, claiming lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
   
   Baze had been scheduled for execution Tuesday night, but the Kentucky Supreme Court halted the proceedings earlier this month.
   
   "This is probably one of the most important cases in decades as it relates to the death penalty," said David Barron, the public defender who represents Baze and Bowling.
   
   Baze, 52, has been on death row for 14 years. He was sentenced for the 1992 shooting deaths of Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and Deputy Arthur Briscoe.
   
   Bennett and Briscoe were serving warrants on Baze when he shot them. Baze has said the shootings were the result of a family dispute that got out of hand and resulted in the sheriff being called.
   
   Bowling was sentenced to death for killing Edward and Tina Earley and shooting their 2-year-old son outside the couple's Lexington, Ky., dry-cleaning business in 1990. Bowling was scheduled to die in November 2004, but a judge stopped it after Bowling and Baze sued over the constitutionality of lethal injection.
   
   

Does the state ever have the right to kill one of its citizens? Do the circumstances make a difference?

States who carried out the most executions last year: China (at least 1,010 but sources suggest the real tally is between 7,500 and 8,000), Iran (177) Pakistan (82), Iraq (at least 65), Sudan (at least 65), and the United States (53).

FACT: The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in retentionist countries. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and the U.S. are the only fully developed countries that have retained the death penalty. The death penalty was overwhelmingly practiced in poor and authoritarian states, which often employed the death penalty as a tool of political oppression.

Though the public stoning of homosexuals is different from a Jury electing to execute a citizen, do the ends justify the means?

Anti-gay groups working overtime to stop the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

Anti-gay organizations are really worried about the possibility of not being able to fire someone because of their sexual orientation.

This is the 4th message I have received from different organizations asking me to help stop it. I subscribe to all friendly and opposing organizations because it is critical that we monitor their actions.

This particular organization (below) wants to stop this legislation in the name of Christianity no less. I'm so tired of organizations using Christianity to justify their hatred.

Across Kentucky I've talked to police officers, firefighters, Wal-Mart employees, government employees, etc. over the past couple of years who have been terminated because they are homosexual or bisexual. It's time to stop this!

In less than one month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be the main speaker at the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) annual gala dinner.

I think she wants to bring a gift to the homosexual community.

My sources tell me Pelosi and the House leadership are working to bring to a vote and pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), perhaps in time for this gala dinner.

Jordan, ENDA is the Trojan horse that will usher in radical homosexual rights and the criminalization of Christianity. In many ways, ENDA is even more dangerous than the hate crimes legislation currently being pushed because ENDA will put Christian business owners at great risk.

Last week, a House subcommittee held a hearing on ENDA. More hearings are expected as Pelosi’s team pushes toward a vote, most likely in the next 30 days.

I am deeply concerned that Christian business owners are in jepordy. If the Pelosi Congress has its way with ENDA, Christian businesses will quite possibly face the most severe restrictions and worst flood of crippling lawsuits in our nation’s history.

If ENDA passes, there will be no turning back. That's why I want to flood Congress with at least 25,000 faxes and I need your help.

+ + Help stop the Trojan horse

Again, ENDA is clearly a Trojan horse that the homosexual lobby is trying to use to advance its radical agenda and move our nation toward the criminalization of Christianity.

We cannot let this happen!

Please send your faxes today, and thank you for being the blessing you are to this great Nation.

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

Visit www.kefaction.org to help pass this legislation.

West Virginia gay man being beaten to death ignored by mainstream media

A gay man being beaten to death in Milton, WV is being completely ignored by mainstream media.

Ricky Williams, 45, was at his new residence Saturday when sometime before 9:30 p.m. a man and two women forced their way into his apartment and beat him, Milton Police Chief Greg Mullins said.

At least two people, including maintenance man Michael Seager, came to Williams' defense, injuring two of the suspects before chasing them off, Seager said. Seager, whose grandmother owns the apartment building on Mason Street beside Milton Elementary, reported that a neighbor told him she heard the assailants yelling a derogatory term for homosexuals.

However, Mullins said the case was not being treated as a hate crime.

A Milton police officer and a Cabell County sheriff's deputy responded to a 911 call at 9:30 p.m. to help break up a fight at Williams' apartment, Mullins said.

Williams, he said, was bandaged by paramedics, but refused to go to the hospital. At about 11:23 p.m., another 911 call was made because Williams was in worse condition than originally thought.

Seager said after the melee was over, Williams said he was all right. But he couldn't remember what year it was.

"It became obvious he had head trauma," Seager said.

On Monday, Mullins was taking statements from the suspects, who he said were visibly intoxicated on Saturday night and unable to give one then. He also sought Williams but found out only then that he had been taken to St. Mary's Medical Center and had slipped into a coma.

On Thursday, Mullins said charges wouldn't be filed until he finishes interviews with witnesses and all those involved with breaking up the fight.

Still, until Williams died Wednesday, it was only looking like battery charges, Mullins said. Now, the three suspects could face homicide charges.

"We're not doing anything until we get all the pieces together," Mullins said.

Like Kentucky, West Virginia was once part of conservative Virginia, but split from them during the middle of the civil war in 1863.

This attack occurred more than 100 miles from Welch, WV (remember in 2006 the police chief blocked paramedics from performing CPR on a gay man because he falsely assumed the man was HIV positive and therefore a health risk).

Click here for a list of gay hate crimes in Kentucky.

Personal Privacy: U.S. Patriot Act under fire again

Your right to privacy just got a little safer.

The federal government has been under increased scrutiny from gay rights activists after it was revealed that the Pentagon had been spying on gay groups. The Pentagon also confirmed the previous existence of a "gay bomb."

A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act today, saying investigators must have a court's approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten Patriot Act "offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers."

The ACLU said it was improper to issue so-called national security letters, or NSLs — investigative tools used by the FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information — without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena. Examples of such businesses include Internet service providers, telephone companies and public libraries.

In 2004, ruling on the initial version of the Patriot Act, the judge said the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found that the nondisclosure requirement — under which an Internet service provider, for instance, would not be allowed to tell customers that it was turning over their records to the government — violated free speech.

After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.

The ACLU complained that Congress' revision of the law didn't go far enough to protect people because the government could still order companies to turn over their records and remain silent about it, if the FBI determined that the case involved national security.