Gay legal battle is over

It may interest your readers to know that the Federal Courts have already decided that campus gay organizations have the right to exist and to use the university facilities made available to any other group on campus. The relevant decisions involved the University of New Hampshire, University of Georgia and Oklahoma University. This is not the first time that the Courts in interpreting and enforcing the Bill of Rights have blazed a trail for those not so well-versed in Constitutional law nor well-traveled in the realm of liberty

Letter from Maine Civil Liberties Union

Typed letter from Gilbert Zicklin, President of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, to Lawrence Cutler, chair of the University of Maine Board of Trustees supporting the decision to protect the civil rights of Wilde-Stein Club members

Denying equality: an analysis of arguments against lowering the age of consent for sex between men

This paper takes a human rights approach to lesbian and gay oppression and critically explores the arguments used to oppose equality in the debates about the age of consent for sex between men. A thematic analysis of Hansard and newspaper reports produced in Britain during the 1990s showed that opponents of the amendment to equalise the age of consent countered with three key arguments laying claim to ethical principles overriding the principle of equality. These were: (1) Principles of right and wrong take precedence over equality; (2) Principles of democracy take precedence over equality; (3) Principles of care and protection take precedence over equality. Two additional arguments (the health risks of anal intercourse, and escalating demands for gay rights) are also outlined. Our findings are discussed with reference to debates on other lesbian and gay rights issues, and we consider the ways in which we might best counter these arguments. </p

2012 CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Accountability and Disclosure

An index of the extent the political spending disclosure policies and practices. Coverage: Top 200 companies in the S &P 500 Index in 2012

Reading Rural Consumption Practices for Difference Bolt-holes, Castles and Life-rafts

Based mostly on evidence from the UK, this paper challenges the rural’s usual association with predominantly conservative politics and practices. It advocates showing awareness of ambiguity in how representations, and specifically in this paper rural representations, and their numerous associated consumption practices are interpreted. A focus is given on the possibility of interpreting these practiced rural representations in the context of responses to the negative features within everyday life identified by writers such as Lefebvre. Drawing specifically on the “postmodern Marxism” of Gibson-Graham (2006), and particularly beginning to deploy what they term “reading for difference rather than dominance”, the paper introduces three “styles” of consuming the rural. These are expressed via the metaphors of bolt-hole, castle and life-raft, and it is argued that they can be read as expressing critique of urban everyday life. In the concluding section, the lessons learned from reading rural consumption practices for difference in this way are brought together to suggest that not only can the rural today be regarded as an active “heterotopia” but that this alternative status could be used to underpin an urban-focused social movement for reclamation of what Lefebvre termed “every-day life”