Okay, I am SO late posting a link to the current Carnival of Feminists, which is over at Bitch|Lab with a sex positive theme. (BL’s email to me that it was up ended up in my spam folder for some reason. Ugh.)

But it *is* still the current edition, so I don’t feel as bad as I would if there was already another one up.

GO. READ.

I found out about FELONi (Trish Best) when Jen sent me to her MySpace page.

From Diversity Remixed: The Uprising of the Gay Hip-Hop Movement (Sapience Magazine, August 2005) :

Best feels that gay and lesbian hip-hop artists shouldn’t be afraid to come out and say whatever’s on their mind. “When it comes to art, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you represent, as long as you speak from the heart,” she states.

And while we’re on women in hip hop, the B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip Hop exhibition and summit starts this month in Minneapolis. “The B-Girl Be event is an all encompassing female inspired Hip-Hop event that touches on all aspects of Hip-Hop, with emphasis on showcasing female graffiti writers and the community issues that we as women involved in Hip-Hop face.” You can get more info here.

The next edition of the Carnival of Bent Attractions will be hosted at Aman Yala on July 10th. Submissions are due by 12:01am on July 2nd.

Read the current edition of the Carnival of Bent Attractions here.

Jeff Slutzky reports on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California’s ruling on Armando Sandoval’s claims against Merced Union High School District starting on page 8 of the June edition of the LGBT Law Association Foundation of Greater New York’s Lesbian/Gay Law Notes.

In the winter of 2005 Armando Sandoval filed two administrative claims for damages against the Merced Union High School District claiming that “he experienced ‘pervasive, severe and unwelcome’ physical and verbal harassment at Merced Union High School based on his gender and sexual orientation, and that the school district and its employees repeatedly and intentionally failed to take adequate measures to stop the harassment.”

Sandoval claimed that he was called “faggot,” “fag,” “queer,” “homo,” and “cocksucker,” that his classmates threatened to assault, injure and kill him, that he was actually assaulted several times on school grounds during and after school, and that the employees of the school district were aware of the harassment but repeatedly failed to take appropriate or necessary measures to stop the abuse.

Among other things, Sandoval claimed that he was assaulted with a knife outside the school cafeteria, received life-threatening notes on his locker, and was suspended from school after defending himself from being spit on and physically attacked on school grounds. He also claimed that school district employees themselves harassed and discriminated against him by preventing him from taking classes in which he was enrolled, suspending him without justification, taking unwarranted disciplinary actions against him, failing to allow him the same privileges as other students, unfairly seeking to have him evaluated as “learning impaired,” and intimidating him, among other actions.

After his claims were denied, Armando decided to sue Merced Union High School District in federal court.

The school district moved to dismiss a cause of action for sex discrimination and their argument was dismissed by the court.

It moved to dismiss one cause of action, for sex discrimination, on the basis that the California Education Code does not provide a private right of action, citing a prior federal court case from California, Nicole M. v. Martinez Unified School District, 964 F. Supp. 1369 (N.D. Cal. 1997). However, the court dismissed this argument, noting that while Nicole M. was based on the 1994 version of the Education Code, the code was amended in 1998. The court stated that under the amended code, the state legislature intended for the provisions on discrimination to be enforceable through a civil action, and therefore a private right was permitted.

Merced Union High School District also asked that several of Armando’s causes of action be dismissed because they did not appear in his original 2005 claims. The court “concluded that most of the allegations contained in the plaintiff’s complaint arose from the same allegations contained in the plaintiff’s claim under the CGTCA.” But there was an exception:

…with regard to one of the paragraphs of the plaintiff’s complaint, the court ruled that the allegations contained therein did not appear in plaintiff’s tort claims. Although the later tort claim was filed on December 27, 2005, the court noted that one sub-paragraph of the complaint alleged events that occurred after that date. The sub-paragraph noted that when Sandoval returned to school in January 2006, harassment continued and the defendants continued to refrain from taking action to prevent it. Here, the court noted, “plaintiff does not merely elaborate or add further detail to his claim, but alleges two entirely distinct factual occurrences which transpired after the filing of the two tort claims.” The court stated that the school district would have had no notice of, and no reason to investigate, acts occurring after the tort claims were filed. Therefore, based on California law, the court ordered the plaintiff to file a First Amended Complaint within 30 days.

Jay Sennet announced the authors of Self Organizing Men (if you missed the call for submissions, you can still view it here), the first anthology from Homofactus Press, here.

He’s giving out free samples of Self Organizing Men to those who would like to read/review articles from the anthology before the book is released in August.

Three things are needed from you (from Jay’s post “Participatory Art Experience 6669″):

1. You have to be a blogger at least 18 years of age with a regularly updated blog at least 3 months old.

2. You send me an email (jay at jaysennett dot com) with the words “Participatory Art Experience 6669″ in the title (the “6669″ number makes it easier to keep track of the e-mails and makes them harder to get lost etc.). Please include your full name, a statement attesting to your age, date of birth and your blog URL.

3. Please read the article(s). If you find any typos, etc., let me know by email or blog post.

A fourth, that you “blog about what you’ve read, what you think, like, don’t like” and send a trackback here, is voluntary.

Head over to jay sennett jaywalks for more information.

Al Menconi helping parents “communicate values to children”:

“Just to say, ‘Oh, it’s wrong; oh, it’s icky’ is not enough for a parent to tell an 8-year-old,” he said. “The parent has to explain to that 8-year-old why.”

Catch two photo exhibits by Kael T Block, “XX BOYS” and “Lust.s./Love.s,” from 7pm to 9pm on Tuesday, June 20th, the Lexington Club, located at 3464 19th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District.

From the XX BOYS blog:

Kael T Block’s work reminds us of early 80’s New York artists such as Goldin, Wojnarovic, and O’ Sullivan. It too is a journey into a peculiar territory, populated with the marginalized which is to say those forced to choose their own freedom. It’s not only about transgenderism or homosexuality. Block’s work, as that of his New York predecessors, is not only documentarian. The marginality that forces us to constantly invent ourselves- invent our lifes, our bodies, our attitudes, our pleasures- shows itself and directs itself in these images.

Block’s images are not tainted with the depression which invades the images of the early 80’s artists who lived the last sparkle of the 70’s utopia: the discovering of revolution, drugs, sexual freedom, and community life. We are forced to create our life in the present because our generation arrived after the party and we have no golden age to regret. Therefore the people inhabiting Kael t Block’s photographs must face life and try to make it a rich and exciting experience despite the difficulties of such an undertaking.

To be photographed by Block and to pass in the space of image and representation, is to become in turn an icon, if only for a private circle of friends, or for an internet community. The advent of Internet, digital photography and video permits one to create a micro- sytem of representation and one’s own star system in democratising picture’s production and accessability.

Differing from the 70’s, when Warhol was saying that everyone could have his 15 minutes of celebrity, today we can get a minority celebrity. This celebrity is anchored in the counter-culture and the Do It Yourself practices. It’s not necessary anymore to have acces to the mainstream media in order to have a public image and become desirable in your own eyes or in others’. The early 21st century offers the perspective of a democratic and pragmatic counter-culture. Therefore we can think of Bock’s work not only as an alternative proposition to the values of Beauty, Sexiness and Glamour, but also as a permanent renewal and expansion of the iconic pantheon who embodies these ideas. This pantheon is not a parody of the Hollywood pantheon but is a new referencial system. Block creates a system, though admittedly fed with innumerable images of our culture, belongs to us and in which we identify.

Vincent Simon

Click here to visit Kael’s MySpace page.

Ron Hudson, the host of the current editon of the Carnival of Bent Attractions, has started the International Carnival of Pozitivities, “a blog carnival for and by people who are living with HIV/AIDS or their physicians/caregivers.”

Ron will be hosting the first edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities at 2sides2ron in July. Don’t forget to stop by and check it out!

Ron Hudson of 2sides2ron is the quickest carnival host we’ve ever had. I feel like I just emailed him the last submission I had for this month’s carnival, and he’s already got the June edition of the Carnival of Bent Attractions up!

This month’s edition features posts from Musings on Life, Law, and Gender, The Force That Through, My Amusement Park, Air Pollution, High Grade Heroine, Creampuff Revolution, Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs, Rhetorically Speaking, Masculinities in Media, Maman Poulet, Grey Matter Flatulence, Coaching4Lesbians, You Would Think, and Aman Yala. Ron also links us to one of the posts that started 2sides2ron.

On July 10th, Sandouri Dean Bey will host the Carnival of Bent Attractions at Aman Yala. Don’t forget to get your submissions in by 12:01AM on July 2nd!

I’m so excited to see the carnival continue to grow each month. Thanks so much to all the hosts we’ve had so far and all who send in submissions!

A chapter of the Christian Legal Society had enjoyed student organization recognition at Hastings College of the Law for many years, but last school year (2004-2005) their application for recognition was turned down because the group became affiliated with, and required to adopt the by-laws of, the national Christian Legal Society. CLS by-laws “deny voting membership or officer positions to anybody who does not subscribe to an orthodox Christian code of beliefs, and exclude gays from membership or officer positions” (”Federal Court Rejects Law School Recognition Suit by Christian Legal Society Chapter“). Hastings still allowed the group to meet on campus, and to advertise meeting times and locations, but, because CLS by-laws violate Hastings’ non-discrimination policy, along with recognition, they were also denied funding.

The Christian Legal Society filed suit against Hastings back in 2004, claiming they violated “the students’ rights of free speech and freedom of religion by requiring all officially recognized student clubs to comply with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.”

On April 17, 2006, United States District Court Judge Jeffrey White ruled that Hastings “did not violate any federal constitutional provisions when it refused to grant official student organization recognition to a chapter of the Christian Legal Society,” reports Arthur Leonard in the May 2006 edition of Lesbian/Gay Law Notes (see page 4).

From Lesbian/Gay Law Notes:

This lawsuit against Hastings is actually just one among many such lawsuits filed around the country in which the national CLS is bringing the “culture wars” to higher education by attempting to persuade the courts that school policies barring anti-gay discrimination are themselves discriminatory against Christian students. CLS argues that the schools are trying to suppress anti-gay arguments on campus, and that anti-discrimination polices are a content-based restriction on speech and association. As part of these culture wars, the national CLS vigorously supports local chapters in litigating over denial of official recognition.

…snip…

CLS argued that the denial of recognition violated its rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, relying specifically on freedom of speech, freedom of association, free exercise of religion, and equal protection. A year ago the court had granted a defense motion to reject claims of unconstitutional establishment of religion and violation of due process, and had required CLS to refine its equal protection claim in an amended complaint. The April 17 ruling is a final decision on the merits, subject to a likely appeal by CLS.

Read more on Judge White’s decision here.