Louisville's Fairness Campaign wants to boycott Woody's Tavern, but Woody's may not be legally operating in Kentucky

After David P. Norton apologized in August for racist and sexist comments made about a year ago, Louisville's Fairness Campaign, a champion for LGBTI civil rights in Jefferson County, is again boycotting the bar owned by David Norton.

David Norton, owner of Woody’s Tavern, went public in August to apologize for comments made a year ago to University of Louisville students and a professor, saying “What came out of my mouth was pure filth.” Now, the Fairness Campaign is pushing for a boycott of his bar, Woody’s Tavern, because of more racist comments he allegedly made there last month.

Checkout their inactive Myspace profile, and the graphics on it. (more)

We conducted a search for Woody's Tavern with the Corporation's Division of the Kentucky Department of State and found no business in the Commonwealth currently or previously incorporated under the name "Woody's Tavern," nor it is listed as an assumed named of any business authorized to transact business in Kentucky, a violation of Kentucky law.

According to Kentucky Alcoholic Beverage Control, David P. Norton holds the alcohol license for Woody's Tavern, and is doing business as "Woody's Tavern," even though he is not registered (and therefore, not authorized) to transact business in Kentucky.

David P. Norton leases Woody's Tavern (the actual site), and even if he is incorporated in Indiana or any other state, he is still in violation of Kentucky law and not authorized to transact business in Kentucky because he has failed to register as a foreign corporation with the Kentucky Secretary of State.

You can get into serious trouble for doing business in Kentucky and not being registered, and thus, authorized. (see Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals No. 2005-CA-000196-MR)

When not authorized to transact business in Kentucky, or if the Secretary of State revokes your authority to do business in Kentucky, you are personally liable for your actions; there is no "corporate veil" to protect you (a corporation is treated as a separate legal person, which is solely responsible for the debts it incurs and the sole beneficiary of the credit it is owed).

From the Kentucky Department of State:

Who must file an Annual Report?
Each domestic and foreign corporation, domestic and foreign limited liability company, domestic and foreign partnership, and domestic and foreign business trust must file an Annual Report.

Why must I file an Annual Report?
To assist the Secretary of State in providing the most accurate information to the public, corporations and companies conducting business in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are required by law to file annual reports with the Secretary of State. Failure to file an Annual Report by June 30 will result in a status of bad standing. Failure to file the report by Oct. 31st will result in administrative dissolution or revocation of authority.

Also, the Kentucky Attorney General's Office may pursue and fine companies doing business in the Commonwealth who are not properly registered, or their certificate of authority from the Kentucky Secretary of State's Office has been revoked.

Regardless, if the owner is making sexual and/or racial slurs, as a community we should stand united and boycott it.

Kentucky still needs anti-gay bullying legislation!

Though such legislation always dies in the Kentucky Senate, other school districts see the need for anti-gay bullying rules and/or laws.

Just last year former Senator Ernesto Scorsone tried to force the issue in the Kentucky Senate. Lawmakers have passed legislation related to school bullying since 2005, but it has yet to ever receive a hearing in a Kentucky Senate Committee.

• STORY: 2008 School Bullying Legislation Dies
• STORY: Bullying at Northern Kentucky University
  
• STORY: Bullying at Conner High School

Just this week another major county, Alameda, in the State of California adopted "Safe School Curriculum," that aim to curb anti-gay bullying. School officials say it will help children of gay parents feel welcome at school and help end anti-gay teasing and bullying on the playground.

The lessons also aim to provide a safe environment for children to learn, as well as to offer a framework for teachers to break down stereotypes and teach kids about different types of families.

A student offered testimony during the hearing:

Brian Harris, a 16-year-old student at the Alameda Community Learning Center, told trustees that he has been called anti-gay epithets on campus.

"I have been harassed by other students in the classroom and I have even begun to consider just stopping and giving up on life," Harris said.

"We need to start somewhere," said Trustee Niel Tam, who voted yes.

According to the American Physiological Association, children and/or teenagers who are victims of school bullying have some of the following characteristics:

• Are cautious, sensitive, quiet, withdrawn and shy
• Are often anxious, insecure, unhappy and have low self-esteem
• Are depressed and engage in suicidal ideation much more often than their peers
• Often do not have a single good friend and relate better to adults than to peers
• If they are boys, they may be physically weaker than their peers
  

These characteristics are likely to be both a partial cause and a consequence of the bullying. There is also another, much smaller group of victims, called provocative victims or bully-victims, with partly different characteristics, including frequent reading and writing problems and ADHD characteristics.

As the school official in Alameda County, California said, "We need to start somewhere." Well, we obviously need to start somewhere here in Kentucky also..... but for now, children and teenagers will have to continue to suffer because of homophobic lawmakers who believe the legislation will be used to "promote homosexuality," or our so-called "gay agenda."

If you are a victim of school bullying, report it here*.

* If you or anyone else is in immediate danger, notify school officials or local law enforcement immediately.

Anti-gay violence increases across the nation

There is an alarming increase in anti-gay violence across the nation.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports more than 7,000 anti-gay hate crimes in 2005 alone (latest year statistics are available), and since 2003 at least 58 people have been murdered because of their sexual orientation. 6 of those 58 deaths have happened rights here in Kentucky!

Gay/Lesbian/Straight Education Network, is advocating a countrywide vigil in protest against violence toward the gay/lesbian community. This national effort is in reaction to the Feb. 12 shooting at a California school of a 15-year-old gay student that left him brain dead. Another student shot him in the head because of his expressions of his sexual orientation.

In Florida’s Broward County, 17 year-old Simmie Williams Jr, was murdered last week, which Police are investigating as a possible hate crime based on his sexual orientation or gender identity.

In West Virginia, Ricky Williams, 45, was beaten by a man and two women forced their way into his apartment. Williams later died from brain damage.

A Metropolitan Community Church in Washington, D.C. was shot up for the second time in recent weeks and the congregation is worried that hatred could be behind the attacks because of who was worshiping. The Metropolitan Community Church in Northwest ministers to the largest congregation of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people in the D.C. Area.

Those facts are from an amicus brief that two gay groups — Pink Pistols and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty — have filed in [District of Columbia v. Heller]. Pink Pistols is a shooting group who believes we should take up self-defense with guns).

Gun control laws in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not prevent Jacob Robida from acquiring a gun, and hate crime laws did not deter him from entering a gay bar in New Bedford and shooting several patrons. After learning he was in a gay bar, Robida pulled out a gun and shot one person in the face, another in the head (twice), and a third person in the abdomen.

The boundaries of queer-minded comedy also come up once again this past Friday, thanks to a gay punch line and some politically-minded video editing. Canadian comedian Harland Williams, appeared on Conan O’Brien this week and delivered a fairly recognizable joke: Brits call cigarettes “fags” and it’s confusing for North Americans. Williams stated “I’d like to smoke a fag and boil a couple of lesbians myself.”

Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern has received more than 7,000 emails and death threats after making the statement that gays are indoctrinating our children at age two, and are "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam." “Oh and also gayness is a cancer that spreads just like life-threatening toe cancer.”

What can be done to stop this? How does the LGBT community protect itself?

Republicans kill school bullying bill

Just as I predicted to the Herald-Leader in January, the school bulling bill has died in the Kentucky Senate. Thank you Senator Scorsone for trying to force the issue in the Senate.

The House passes this bill every year, and every year the Senate kills it. So long as David Williams is president, nothing with the name “gay” on it will ever make it through the Senate.

I hope Kentuckians everywhere remember this in the next election. Republicans in the Senate don’t want our school children protected, or give educators the tools they need to address bullying problems with gay students. Gay and lesbian people makeup a large part of the Commonwealth’s population, and it would make things much easier for the next generation if students know calling someone names or bullying them because of their perceived sexual orientation isn’t acceptable; teaching tolerance and diversity at an early age could also reduce future hate crimes.

Kentuckians across the Commonwealth should be ashamed of our elected Republican leaders.

The Courier-Journal reports:

Senate Republicans yesterday beat back an effort by Democrats to force the so-called "bully bill" from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Democrats, led by Sen. Ernesto Scorsone of Lexington, failed on a party-line 15-20 vote to win approval of a discharge petition to take the bill from the committee and push it a step closer to a vote on the Senate floor.

Senate Bill 12 would require school districts to develop plans to combat bullying, report instances of it to the state Department of Education and identify bullying as a cause for suspension or expulsion of students.

Scorsone said the bill, first filed in the Senate in 2005, has never received a committee hearing. The measure has overwhelming support in the House, where it has passed four times.

"We want kids to learn to read. Well, a scared kid can't be taught to read very well. If a child is worried about going out at recess, they're not going to have any time to figure out a math problem," Scorsone said.

The first version of the bill defined classes of students to be protected under the bill, including gay and lesbian students. But those provisions were removed in later versions to make it more palatable to those who had concerns, said Sen. Julian Carroll, D-Frankfort, the main sponsor of the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, said Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Stivers, who wasn't in Frankfort yesterday, has been working on amendments to the bill. But he stopped short of promising that Stivers, R-Manchester, would allow a vote in the committee.

Kelly said school districts already have the authority to create such bullying plans. He said he's concerned that the law would place a "bully" label on students that would follow them through their entire careers.

Minister found guilty in gay "therapy" case

Isn't this sick (and typical) of people who think homosexuality can be "cured."

A minister and former Christian college instructor has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a young man who sought counselling after he feared he was homosexual.

A jury returned with the guilty verdict early last night after only a few hours of deliberations. Terrance Lewis, 60, will be sentenced at a later date.

In earlier testimony, the alleged victim, now 29, told court he started meeting Lewis for counselling sessions in early 2000 after his parents caught him viewing gay pornography on the family computer.

Lewis — a family friend and minister — confided he had his own sexual identity issues and the two embarked on weekly counselling sessions designed to “assist me to be straight and to live a straight life,” the man said.

The man said Lewis started a program of “touch therapy,” which included the two kissing and fondling each other and engaging in sexual roleplaying.

Stupid, unfounded Homophobia: Kentucky Basketball Fans Outraged Over Photo of Players' Embrace

From The Official Queen of Shade:

If a photo says a thousand words, apparently this seemingly innocent photo of two University of Louisville basketball players embracing has produced thousands of words spewing gay panic.

Hundreds of irate readers have contacted the Louisville Courier-Journal after the publication of the image. It shows Cardinals players Jerry Smith hugging Juan Palacios in the first half of their game against the University of Louisville after a big, emotional play. One reader accused the legendary conservative newspaper of "pushing the homosexual agenda."

Louisville Courier-Journal public editor Pam Platt explains. "Some of the comments registered by angry, offended and/or baffled readers: 'Awful,' 'an embarrassment,' 'horrible decision,' 'poor judgment,' 'distasteful,' 'a mystery' and 'shame on you.' " Then, she nails it: "What is it about two athletes sharing a moment of physical and emotional closeness in the middle of a big game, in the middle of a basketball court, that puts some people off so much?"

Sports fans should be used to witnessing these moments and photos of athletes bonding and it's just beyond the pale that so many (presumably very! straight!) readers would read gay subtext into an innocent sports photo. Platt makes an interesting argument that content is a Rorschach test and people bring "their own ideas and baggage to what they see and read—or what they don't see and don't read into words and images." Or, perhaps, what they would like to see.

The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage

Andrew Sullivan posted something today that I loved. I wanted to share it with you:

Social conservatism resists change and that therefore extending civil marriage rights to gay couples is inherently liberal. The reform corresponds with the evolution of civil marriage away from procreation and toward companionship - and social conservatives worry about such change. In that sense, I don't disagree with Reihan's point. The most coherent conservative objection to same-sex marriage is simply resistance to any tampering with a vital social institution.

But as societies change, conservatives have to adapt. Given that our society now has a huge number of openly gay couples, many with children, and that the law has to respond to this social reality, the practical decision conservatives have to make is: what shall we do about this? My fear, expressed almost two decades ago now, was that the ad hoc responses - domestic partnership, civil unions and the like - were as practically unavoidable as they were subtly undermining of marriage. Give gays domestic partnerships and marriage-lite and straights will demand them as well. And so marriage becomes less special and less constructive an institution.

I can see that, back in 1989, when I first made the case, the jump to full marriage equality seemed a leap. But two decades later? When it has become the norm in many countries and in one state? When civil unions exist in many other states? Why does it remain socially liberal to resist the conservative logic of including everyone within the same family structure, with the same responsibilities? And, of course, when you actually listen to the current advocates of banning such marriages - and unions - you do not hear nuanced or Hayekian social arguments very often. You hear truisms - "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman" - or religious invocations of the "sanctity" of a civil institution.

I suppose marriage equality is socially liberal in as much as it tries to defend and integrate a previously despised minority. But it is socially conservative in its attempt to envelop that minority in the traditions and responsibilities of family life. In this, it is exactly the same as welfare reform: ending a disincentive to family life among a minority that needs more social stability. I have to say that having finally begun to live a married life, all my previous intuitions about its integrating impact have been borne out more profoundly than I ever imagined.

If you can make the leap to seeing gay people as the equal of straight people, then encouraging their marriages to one another is arguably one of the most socially conservative measures now subject to national debate. That's why it remains so saddening that so many social conservatives still regard it as definitionally anathema. I don't think it's a leap to believe that homophobia or fundamentalism are the critical stumbling blocks. Or that they are the real reasons for the resistance.