By Ramy Eletreby

Lesbian Teacher in Lake Tahoe Fired Despite Praise from Students

Torril Purvis, 34, is suing the Lake Tahoe Unified School District for allegedly firing her because she is a lesbian. Purvis began working for the South Tahoe Middle School in 2004 under a two-year probationary contract and she claims that she initially got along well with the rest of the staff including the school principal, Jackie Nelson. However, Purvis claims Nelson grew distant with her after she brought her partner of 10 years, Stacy Smith, to a staff birthday party in January 2005. In February 2005, she was handed a “notice of non-reelection” notifying her that her contract would be terminated and was told by Nelson that she was not a “good match” for the district, PlanetOut reports.

The complaint alleges the district discriminated against Purvis on the basis of her sexual orientation and states that Purvis never received an explanation for why she was fired. After Purvis was terminated, her department chair, fellow teachers, students, and parents reportedly came to the math teacher’s defense, signing letters and petitions stating how well-liked she was by her students and co-workers.

OC AIDS Doc Sued

A Mission Viejo woman has filed a lawsuit claiming that a prominent Orange County physician specializing in HIV/AIDS treatment injected her with diluted or altered fluids instead of an expensive immune-boosting medication. Attorneys for the clinic reportedly reached a settlement with her for an undisclosed amount.

Denise Hasenstab of Mission Viejo received infusions at the Center for Special Immunology every two weeks between 1998 and 2004. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, her insurance carrier, was billed approximately $6,000 per infusion. Hasenstab says she did not receive the prescribed treatment, and that her health suffered.

The Center for Special Immunology, founded by Dr. Paul Cimoch, was established in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in 1987. Cimoch, past-president of the Physicians Association for AIDS Care (PAAC), has presented research at nine of the past International Conferences on AIDS, is the author of many HIV-related publications, and the principal investigator for a variety of national multi-center research studies.

The plaintiff is not HIV positive, but has multiple sclerosis (MS) and a genetic gamma globulin deficiency, which weakens her immune system. The Orange County Register reports that there are medical board investigations pending. This is unconfirmed, since investigations are confidential unless violations are found. - Denise Penn

State Levies Fine Against Homeless Facility for Discrimination

The California Fair Employment and Housing Commission ordered New Beginnings, a San Jose board-and-care facility for the homeless with mentally disabilities, to pay Nora Jensen $8,200 in damages for discrimination based on sexual orientation. After Jensen told the facility’s manager, Juanita Prunty, about breaking up with her partner, the San Francisco Chronicle reported July 15, Prunty said, “homosexuality is an abomination” and discriminated against the lesbian.

Jensen moved but told her therapist about the anti-gay treatment. Her therapist contacted Project Sentinel, an anti-housing-discrimination organization, which in turn contacted the commission. A subsequent undercover investigation supported Jensen’s allegations. "A landlord's religious beliefs do not exempt that landlord from adhering to state and federal fair-housing provisions,'' including the ban on housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, the Chronicle reported the commission as saying. A lawyer for Prunty and New Beginnings was unavailable for comment.

GLEH Names New Executive Director

On July 11, Mark Supper was named the new executive director of Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing (GLEH), a nonprofit housing development serving the needs of LGBT elders. Supper will oversee the development of the nation’s first affordable, multicultural LGBT living center featuring a community center, social services, and cultural events. Located on the corner of Selma and Ivar Avenues in Hollywood, the $20.3 million, 103-unit housing development will house individuals of mixed incomes with 30 units specifically set aside for those who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, and those living with HIV/AIDS.

GLSEN & MCC Partner For Teacher/Educator Training Workshops

On July 11, the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) formed a partnership to bring GLSEN’s Teacher/Educator Training Workshops to cities across the United States. These workshops are intended to provide how better to address anti-LGBT bias in schools and making them safer for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. “This partnership is another step forward in our realization that our youth need to be protected from the religious extremists and fundamentalist attitudes that are running wild and out of control in our country at this present time,” said the MCC’s Rev. Neil Thomas.

LAPD Asks for Terrorism Vigilance; Introduces New Hollywood Captain

Noting the importance of community policing “now more than ever” as international violence increases, Commander Mike Downy of LAPD’s Counter Terrorism Unit asked members of the LAPD Gay and Lesbian Community Forum July 19 to be on the look-out for any “suspicious” looking people or behavior and report “anything unusual” immediately to 877- A THREAT (877-284-7328).

Downy stressed stereotyping Muslim Arabs can be misleading since 80 percent of Muslims are not Arab. There is more of a concern, he said, about “home-grown” terrorism, the disgruntled or angry American next door who embraces an anti-American terrorist ideology. Suspicious activity runs the gamut from counterfeiting, to gunrunning, narcotics trafficking, or rental of storage units, to a concentration of empty peroxide bottles in trashcans. “Even if you think it’s ridiculous,” Downy said, “we welcome the information.”

Also at the meeting at the Police Academy were openly gay Police Commissioner Shelley Freeman and First Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell who introduced the new commanding officer for the Hollywood area, Capt. Clayton Farrell, who replaces retiring Capt. Ron Sanchez. Farrell, McDonnell said, “is somebody who gets it.”

McDonnell said he read the “well-written” lewd conduct policy recently issued by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and was pleased to see that it called for the use of undercover tactics “as a last resort.” “That’s our goal,” he said. Using different strategies such as uniform patrols and environmental changes, arrests have gone down significantly in the lewd conduct-targeted area of Waring and La Jolla, just south of the West Hollywood border. In 2005, there were 34 lewd conducts arrests in that area compared to six so far this year.

“I don’t think this is behind us but I think we can count it as a success,” said Freeman, who added she was pleased by the “very productive” series of meetings resulting in interagency cooperation. “There haven’t been any plain clothes [LAPD officers in that area] since the last time we convened,” when the community expressed its outrage at what was deemed selective enforcement and entrapment.

Asked about his approach to lewd conduct enforcement, Farrell said his job was to “dedicate his resources in a most thoughtful and circumspect” way to combat crime, and he didn’t see lewd conduct as “anything of great concern to our community.” Having a presence of black and white patrol cars is “going to suppress the activity.’ – Karen Ocamb

Berkeley Sea Scouts Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

On July 11, the Berkeley Sea Scouts appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a California Supreme Court decision in March allowing the city of Berkeley to revoke the organization’s free berthing privileges in the city marina. Though Berkeley provided free berthing privileges to the Sea Scouts for over 50 years, the city determined the Scouts’ policy, which prohibits the admission of homosexuals and atheists, violates the city’s 1997 policy to provide free berthing to nonprofits that don't discriminate. The group was welcome to continue using the marina, if they paid the standard $500 per-boat rate. The March ruling by the California Supreme Court upheld Berkeley’s policy of denying the Sea Scouts the nonprofit berthing privilege.

“Berkeley is penalizing the Sea Scouts for exercising their First Amendment right of association in ways that city officials don’t like,” said Harold Johnson, attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation. “May government punish you, or fine you, or subject you to second class treatment if you don’t pass a politically correct litmus test? That’s the question raised by this case. It’s a question that deserves to be heard by the United States Supreme Court.”

Sweating for AIDS Research

The AIDS Research Alliance (ARA) and Crunch Fitness hosted the Revolutions 2-Cycling for Research event on July 22 at Crunch’s West Hollywood location to raise money for HIV/AIDS research. “The folks who participated aren’t all athletes, but they are all caring and their drive will turn two hours of sweaty, heart-pounding fun into a powerful response to the AIDS crisis,” said Revolutions Co-Chair Kelly Dixon. For more information about ARA, go to www.aidsresearch.org.

Liberty Hill Awards $400,000 to Youth Programs

Liberty Hill Foundation’s Queer Youth Fund has awarded $100,000 to four youth groups that support innovative programs and organizing projects aimed at queer youth. The grants are going to The Basic Rights Education Fund, an affiliate of Basic Rights Oregon, to provide leadership programming for the next generation of queer activists; The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center’s Project Q program to develop transgender training; Outright Vermont for capacity building, including gay-straight alliances; and the Student Christian Movement of Canada to develop a queer safe space-safe faith campaign. For more, visit www.libertyhill.org.