Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

Sergio Garcia, a gay student, beats out the female candidates. His campaign started out as a bit of a stunt, but it ended up generating dialogue about gender roles on the L.A. campus.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz
May 28, 2009

Sergio Garcia stood in the gymnasium and told the senior class at Fairfax High School not to worry: If he was elected, he wouldn't wear a dress.

"I will be wearing a suit," Garcia said, "but don't be fooled, deep down inside, I am a queen!"

Garcia, 18, spent most of his years at Fairfax openly gay and wanted to be part of the Los Angeles school's prom court -- but not as prom king. He felt that vying for prom queen would better suit his personality, so he decided to seek that crown, running against a handful of female classmates.

He said it started out as a bit of a stunt and challenge -- he wasn't sure the school would allow it. But his campaign for queen ended up being serious and sparking dialogue about gender roles on campus.

A few days before the dance and election, the contenders gave short speeches on why they deserved the crown.

"At one time, prom may have been a big popularity contest where the best-looking guy or girl were crowned king and queen. Things have changed and it's no longer just about who has the most friends or who wears the coolest clothes," Garcia told the crowd of seniors. "Sure, I'm not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye."

The audience erupted in applause after his speech, and a group of his female friends spent the rest of the week wearing pink crowns and campaigning for him.

On Saturday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, wearing a charcoal-gray tuxedo and a black bow tie, he was named prom queen.

"I felt invincible," Garcia said.

He's among the first male students in Southern California to take the title usually owned by female high school beauties.

"It just shows how open-minded our class is," said Vanessa Lo, 18, the school's senior class president.

Lo said that she, like many students, had initially been against the idea of Garcia running for prom queen. But she said he "spoke with complete confidence" and carried himself in a way that made students believe he was serious, not a class clown or joker just trying to get attention.

"His speech was great," recalled Unique Payne, 17, a senior who said she voted for Garcia. "I did it because I support the gay community," she said.

Although many students were supportive of Garcia's run, others were upset and didn't understand why Garcia chose to run for prom queen.

"I'm not really happy about that. He should've run for prom king," said 17-year-old senior Juan Espinoza.

Espinoza said he has nothing against Garcia but believes many students voted for him as a joke so they could see the prom king dance with another guy on prom night.

One member of the prom court also said she didn't think it was right for a male student to take the crown.

Garcia, who lives in Mid-City and is an aspiring choreographer and hairdresser, said he didn't plan on running for prom queen until notices were posted around school. The qualifications didn't include gender, and he said running for king didn't quite feel right.

"I didn't really know if the school approved. I thought 'Why can't I do it?' " Garcia said. "I see myself as a boy with a different personality. . . . I don't wish to be a girl; I just wish to be myself," he said.

Some teachers and students were encouraging, others told him not to "stir things up," he said. But his close friends continued to support him, and after his speech, the campus community seemed to be coming around to the idea.

Fairfax High, which is near West Hollywood at the intersection of Melrose and Fairfax avenues, has often been at the forefront of the gay rights struggle. It has a Gay-Straight Alliance student group on campus, and Project 10, an on-site support program for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, was started there in 1984 after a social worker wanted to help a gay student who was being harassed by his peers. The program has since been expanded to encompass the entire Los Angeles Unified School District.

Project 10's founder, Virginia Uribe, said she was encouraged by news of Garcia's crowning. She said that in the last two years, there have been similar elections to prom and homecoming courts in high schools and colleges around the nation.

"I think that indicates where our society is right now. That the young people, they are not involved in this whole argument about gay rights. They think this whole fight is silly. They just accept people for who they are," Uribe said. "Gender-bending is just kind of in," she said.

By Robert Mackey

Gay and lesbian couples who took advantage of California’s brief fling with gay marriage last year to tie the knot, but now can’t stand the sight of one another, will be relieved to hear that gay divorce remains an option.

Frederick Hertz, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who specializes in same-sex family law, told The Lede that since California’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that same-sex marriages that took place in 2008, before voters approved a ban in November, will remain “both valid and recognized,” that means “all the rules of marriage apply, including divorce.” That said, the state’s new law explicitly outlawing same-sex-marriage does create something of a gray area for couples who live in California, but were married in another state, or nation, and now want to get a divorce. As Mr. Hertz explains, the problem for unhappily married same-sex couples living in a state that bans same-sex marriage, is that “getting a divorce requires a recognition of the marriage.”

In an article explaining how the legal patchwork of state laws makes it nearly impossible for some same-sex couples to get divorced, the Los Angeles Times reported that a lesbian couple from Rhode Island who got married in Massachusetts were later denied a divorce in their home state, since the courts there can not recognize their marriage.

The L.A. Times noted that some couples have apparently been driven to trickery in an effort to get divorced in states that won’t let them get married:

In Oklahoma, a judge unwittingly granted a divorce to two gay women who had married in Canada. The women had filed using just their first initials and last names. On discovering that both members of the couple were women, the judge revoked the divorce, on grounds that they had never been legally married.

In a post last month for the Daily Beast, Tim Murphy wrote that same-sex divorce is still relatively rare, but campaigners in favor of same-sex marriage want the right to untie the knot as well:

A recent UCLA study of same-sex couples in states that offer civil unions or legal domestic partnerships showed that these couples broke their legal bonds at about the same rate as straight couples: 2 percent per year. But because it’s only been a few years that gays have had legal unions at all, this amounts to relatively few dissolutions. Also, because most gay couples who’ve married thus far had already been together for many years, the gay divorce rate is still low, says Evan Wolfson, founder of the national gay-nups lobby Freedom to Marry. “I expect that, over time, gay people will probably have the same rate of [marriage] failure as non-gay people,” says Wolfson. “And that’s part of the point. People should be treated equally.”

Jo Ann Citron, a divorce lawyer in Boston, told the L.A. Times that, at least in terms of the law, “the single most important benefit of marriage is divorce.” As. Ms. Citron noted divorce is “a predictable process by which property is divided, debt is apportioned and custodial arrangements are made for children.”

Frederick Hertz, who has a well-timed book on the legal intricacies of same-sex marriage and other kinds of legal partnership coming out soon, says that couples who agree on the terms of their divorce can navigate the legal system in California fairly easily, even if they were married elsewhere — by also applying for a domestic partnership and then dissolving that. The problem, he says, is that in cases where the partners disagree over “parentage, money or property,” one person may be able to “take advantage of the situation” and use the legal confusion to deprive the other person of rights they would have if the partners were not the same sex.

When the history of same-sex marriage and same-sex divorce is written, it appears certain that one Massachusetts couple will feature prominently in both narratives. Hillary Smith Goodridge and Julie Wendrich Goodridge, who blazed a path to the altar, suing for the right to a same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2004, and then getting married that same year, are also blazing a path away from it. The Goodridges separated in 2006 and filed for divorce in February. Luckily for them, they live in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, which will make the split legally, if not emotionally, painless.

This isn't an April Fool's gag. The next installment of Grand Theft Auto is on its way, and like The Lost and Damned and Chinatown Wars, it's still set in the massive world of GTA IV. Rockstar has unleashed a surprise announcement with The Ballad of Gay Tony coming this fall for $19.99, or 1600 Microsoft Points.

The character in focus this time is Luis Lopez, an assistant to Gay Tony, or Tony Prince, Liberty City's premier nightclub entrepreneur. The glitz-addled world could be a little dose of Vice City-style mayhem. According to Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser, expect a "focus on high-end night life." And, according to the press release, expect "uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price."

Also announced was the release of both The Lost and Damned and Gay Tony episodes in a single standalone disc-based game called Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City. At $39.99, it will cost the same as both DLC (downloadable content) episodes, plus it will have a physical disc and box, and will not require GTA IV to dig into its seedy pleasures.

Together, those almost add up to a GTA IV sequel. Perhaps this really is the future of game publishing: build a world once and populate it many times over. On a side note, we wonder if this bit of pre-E3 info is a sign of E309 to come. Will the lousy economy equal more DLC and less standalone content? We shall see soon enough.

As the city council moves closer to legislation recognizing same-sex marriage, critics of the council's recognition of married gay couples look to popular vote for a decision.

WASHINGTON -- Opponents of same-sex marriage have formally requested a referendum to block the District of Columbia from recognizing gay marriages.

The D.C. Council voted earlier this month to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Congress has until July to review the council measure, and if it takes no action the legislation becomes law.

The group Stand 4 Marriage D.C. filed paperwork with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics on Wednesday. The group says it wants to begin collecting signatures.

If approved, the referendum could be put to voters in a special election this year or next or in next year's council and mayoral elections.

Gay rights advocates Wednesday blasted two veteran attorneys for filing a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, California's voter-approved same-sex marriage ban, saying the move is premature and could be disastrous for the marriage movement.

While they knew of the objections, attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies - who opposed each other during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election case - filed the suit Friday in San Francisco on behalf of two same-sex couples who wanted to be married but were denied because of Prop. 8.

The suit claims the voter-approved measure, which the California Supreme Court affirmed Tuesday, denies same-sex couples the basic liberties and equal protection under the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. It asks for a preliminary injunction against Prop. 8 until the case is decided.

Olson said he filed the case not only on behalf of his clients, who include Berkeley residents Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, but on behalf of gay couples elsewhere who want to get married but can't.

"We can't tell them to wait, what, five years" for their state to approve same-sex marriage, he said, but acknowledged that it could take two years for his case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

While Olson shares the same end goal as same-sex marriage advocates, he doesn't share their political strategy - to win states individually, with ballot initiatives or laws approved by state legislatures. Several same-sex marriage advocates intend to put the issue to voters in November 2010.

Olson thinks both strategies can work simultaneously. But many gay legal advocates are urging same-sex couples to avoid filing federal lawsuits because federal courts have not been as friendly to gay rights issues.

The advocates say it took 17 years to undo a 1986 Supreme Court decision that upheld Georgia's sodomy law. An Arkansas court used that law as justification to deny a lesbian mother custody of her children, said Jon Davidson, legal director at Lambda Legal, a national gay rights group.

"It is a difference in strategy," said Davidson. "We agree with the goal (of the federal lawsuit). But if (they) were to lose, it could be a huge setback for the gay rights movement."

Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court "typically does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states," according to a three-page political strategy memo titled "Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California."

Co-sponsored by nine gay and civil liberties organizations - including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal - the memo said "even the strongest gay-rights decision the court has issued - the Lawrence v. Texas case striking down laws against intimacy for gay couples - explicitly commented that it was not saying anything about formal recognition of same-sex relationships."

"There is much we can and should do together to strengthen our hand before we put a federal marriage case before the justices," the memo said.

But Olson, a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, said he and Boies have 80 years of experience between them and Olson has won 75 percent of the 55 cases he has argued before the Supreme Court.

Still, filing a federal lawsuit at this point "sounds like a silly and rash act," said UC Davis law professor John Oakley, an expert on the federal court system. "There is no evidence that the Court is near that point (to approve same-sex marriage.)"

Andrew Pugno, general counsel of Yes on 8/ProtectMarriage.com, said while the suit "has very little chance of succeeding," he will "provide a vigorous defense" of the statewide same-sex marriage ban.

I am a straight man, with a big gay chip on my shoulder.

A while back on my Twitter page (yes, I know how ridiculous it sounds), I mentioned that, if I believed in the devil, Pat Robertson might be him.

Being a fairly liberal-leaning guy with either liberal friends or Republican and Christian friends who don't believe that being one has anything to do with the other, I was surprised at how many people took offense to what I had to say.

These people weren't friends of Mr. Robertson but friends, apparently, of God. They had "spoken" with him and he had assured them that he was no friend of the gays. He also told them that he loved America more than any other country and was a huge fan of Dancing With the Stars.

The small controversy or "Twitter-versy" (patent on phrase pending) all started when I had made the mistake of asking why two people of the same sex shouldn't be able to make the same life-long commitment and (more importantly) under the same god, as straight people. Why can't my gay friends be as happily married as my wife and I? It seemed simple to me, but let me start off by telling you a series of things that I believe to be true:

I am a person who believes that people are born gay. I don't think you have any control over what moves you or to whom you're attracted. That's why it's called an attraction and not a choice.

I believe that America is a great nation of even greater people. I also believe that anyone who says that this is a "Christian nation" has RHS, or revisionist history syndrome, and doesn't realize that most of our founding fathers were either atheist or at least could see, even in the 1700s, that all through Europe at the time, religion was the cause of so much persecution that they needed to put into their brand new constitution a SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE so that the ideals of a group of people could never be forced onto the whole. (I also find it funny when people point out to me that it says "one nation under god" in our pledge of allegiance, not realizing that this was an addition made in 1954 during the communism scare of the McCarthy era. It's not surprising, however, knowing that these same people would punch me in the mouth if I called Jesus a Jew.)

I believe the fact that an atheist, who doesn't believe in God at all, is allowed to enter into the holy land of marriage while a gay Christian is not, shows that this law is arbitrary. Are we to believe that anyone who doesn't live their life according to the King James Bible isn't protected by the same laws that protect those who do? Using the same argument that I've seen on the 700 Club, that would mean that Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim weddings are also null and void.

I believe that to deny this right to the gay population is to say to them, "this god is not your god and he doesn't love you." There isn't one person who is against gay marriage that can give me a reason why it shouldn't be legal without bringing God or their religion into it. Still, I'm amazed at the audacity of a small, misdirected group of the ultra-conservative Christian right wing, to spend millions of dollars, in a recession, on advertisements to stop two men or women who love each other from being able to be married, but when you present any opposition to them, they accuse you of attacking their religion. Isn't it funny that the people who are the quickest to take someone's basic rights to happiness are always the loudest to scream when someone attacks their right to do so?

But this isn't a paper about religion. How could it be? Since we clearly have a separation of church and state, how could a conversation about laws have anything to do with religion at all? I'm writing about basic civil rights. We've been here before, fighting for the rights of African Americans or women to vote, or the rights of Jewish Americans to worship as they see fit. And, just as whites fought for African Americans or Christians for Jewish Americans, straight people must stand up and be a voice for gay people.

I've heard it said before, many times, that if two men or two women are allowed to join into a civil union together, why can't they be happy with that and why is it so important that they call it marriage? In essence, what's in a name?

A civil union has to do with death. It's essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It's about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn't make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of "separate but equal" and we know how that works out.

The support of legalizing gay marriage is in no way meant to change the ideals of the section of Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin. But we should refuse to let other people's ideals shape the way we live our lives. Each of us has a short ride on this earth and as long as we stay in our lane, and don't affect someone else's ride, we should be allowed to drive as we see fit.