Migration Category: news-1-5000-national

Yesterday, 110 members of a gay and lesbian rights group called Soulforce, Inc. were arrested during a protest outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC where 300 U.S. Catholic bishops held their annual meeting. The group was protesting the Church’s condemnatory stance on homosexuality, and had staged similar peaceful protests in the past six months at the annual conventions of several Christian denominations, including the United Methodists and the Southern Baptist Convention. On Monday, seven members of another group attempted to take communion at a mass, but the Catholic bishops refused them. The bishops also denied an invitation to hold mass with Dignity USA, a 30-year-old Catholic group that welcomes lesbians and gays.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops released the first ever Christian Declaration on Marriage, signed by leaders of the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and the National Association of Evangelicals. The declaration pointedly defines marriage as a union between “one man and one woman.” Southern Baptist Convention leader Richard Land warned against “counterfeit alternative relationships” like same-sex unions and “cohabitation.” The declaration calls on religious leaders and churches to develop programs that prevent divorce, encourage abstinence before marriage, and promote a strictly religious view of sexuality. The document cites abstinence-only programs like “True Love Waits” as examples of positive programs that strengthen marriage. True Love Waits, a group that solicits students to sign a pledge to wait until marriage to begin sexual activity and to uphold “biblical standards of sexual behavior,” is supported by various religious denominations, Christian student groups including the Campus Crusade for Christ, and a number of crisis pregnancy centers.

Questions teens submit to a popular sex education website sponsored by Rutgers University suggest that young people lack basic information on sex, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), says www.sxetc.org program manager Danene Sorace. Teens submitted questions on the symptoms of STDs, whether diseases are transmissible by oral sex, the “rhythm method” of contraception and how reliable it is, etc. to the site’s “Ask the Experts” section, which receives almost 1,000 messages per month. Sorace reported at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality that many teens want to know about confidentiality issues in obtaining birth control, and frequently ask about parental consent laws for abortion. Sorace argued that the site’s popularity indicates that students are not getting this basic and much-needed information anywhere else. In a September study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 84 percent of teens interviewed said their school’s sex education program covered abstinence, while only 61 percent said “abortion.”

The Bush campaign failed in its efforts to mute the impact of gender gap issues such as abortion rights and gun control in the presidential campaign.

Concerned about the power of women voters, Republicans tried to hide Bush’s opposition to women’s rights issues and to appeal to women on the basis of his “compassionate conservatism.”

But FDA approval of mifepristone made the abortion issue unavoidable. Before RU 486 was approved, Bush had stated that he as President would take actions to oppose the medication’s availability. But, during the October 2nd debate – four days after the drug’s approval and where he faced Vice President Al Gore who strongly favored abortion rights and women’s access to RU 486 – Bush said that he did not think that the President would have the power to stop the drug from being made available. A few days later his campaign tried to clarify the issue saying that Bush would sign into law Congressional legislation placing restrictions on RU 486 distribution.

The Bush campaign also tried to confuse women voters with a “W for Women” tour, featuring former First Lady Barbara Bush.

Ultimately, however, Bush could not hide from the gender gap. In state after state and demographic subgroup after demographic subgroup, the majority of women rejected Bush. Overall, 10% fewer women than men voted for Bush – a gender gap against Bush even greater than the 1980 gender gap against Reagan. In every single state – with the exception of North Dakota – far fewer women than men supported Bush. (In North Dakota, Bush won 61% of women’s votes and 60% of men’s votes.)

Bush lost younger women. Only 42% percent of women aged 18-29 supported Bush, compared with 51% of men, for a 9-point gender gap. And he lost older women, who gave him only 42% of their votes, while he received support from 53% of men over 60 years old. Bush’s support among unmarried women (38%), Black women (6%), women college graduates (40%), and women without high school diplomas (37%) was extremely low.

Despite the failure of the Democratic Party to feature gender gap issues in their campaign, many women voters understood the differences between the two candidates and voted accordingly.

A decision by U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood could end the lengthy court case against Dow Corning, manufacturer of silicone breast implants. In June 1999, Dow Corning, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning Inc., agreed to pay a total of $3.2 billion in settlements to more than 170,000 women who sued the company for health problems resulting from the silicone implants. In December 1999, federal Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Spector said that any woman not satisfied with Dow Corning’s offer could pursue lawsuits against the parent companies. On Monday, Judge Hood reversed Judge Spector’s opinion, ruling that women who reject Dow Corning’s offer may not sue either parent company. Lawyers representing women in Nevada who have rejected Dow Corning’s settlement are planning an appeal of Hood’s ruling, saying Hood has taken away the women’s rights to say “no” to Dow Corning’s offer.

Women’s rights and gay rights activists interrupted the annual meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops over the weekend, demanding a change to the Church’s stance on women ordination and gay Christians. According to the Washington Post, Janice Sevre-Duszynska of the Women’s Ordination Conference cut short the meeting, asking the bishops to address “the wrong done to women called by God to ordination.” The Catholic Church does not ordain women as priests, despite the recent “graying of the priesthood” with older priests dying and fewer men being ordained.

Gay rights protestors raised the issue of the Church’s hypocritical stance on homosexuality, pointing out that the Church condemns all forms of violence and discrimination against gays and lesbians, but uses violence inducing language when teaching that homosexuals are “intrinsically disordered.”

Hypocrisy dominates in other areas concerning homosexuality and the Catholic Church. According to a recent study by the Kansas City Star, the number of priests who have died of AIDS related illnesses is growing. The AIDS death rates in priests is more than twice that of all adult males and more than six times that of the general population. Despite this fact and emerging discussions about the need for the Church to examine the issues of sexuality, celibacy and safe sex, the Vatican continues to disregard any open conversation about sexuality.

Women voters favored Gore in all major demographic categories with an overall 12-point gender gap (54 percent of women and 42 percent of men voted for Gore). The largest gender gaps were between unmarried women and men and college-educated women and men.

Unmarried women were among Gore’s strongest supporters. Gore won 63 percent of the votes of unmarried women, and only 48 percent of the votes of unmarried men–for a 15-point gender gap. Unmarried women comprise an increasingly significant one-fifth of the electorate.

Among college graduates, 57 percent of women and 39 percent of men supported Gore, producing a whopping 18-point gender gap. On the education variable, Gore’s support among women without high school diplomas was even slightly higher at 60 percent. The gender gap, however, was smaller because 57 percent of men without high school diplomas said that they voted for Gore.

Almost every Black women voter-94 percent-supported Gore. Despite overwhelming support for Gore among both Black women and men, Black women supported Gore at a higher rate than Black men for 9-points gender gap.

Support for Gore by age and gender also had significant gender gaps with 53 percent of young women (18-29 years old) voting for Gore and only 41 percent of young men–a 12-point gender gap.

Among older voters (60+ years), women voted 56 percent for Gore and men voted 44 percent for the same 12-point gap. Independent women also were key to Gore’s vote. Gore won support from 51 percent of independent women, and only 39 percent of independent men. However, only 9 percent of Republican women and 7 percent of Republican men crossed party lines to vote for Gore.

Increased visibility of the abortion issue in the election also could have increased the support of Republican women for Gore. Because of differences between the two parties on women’s rights, gun control, and human service issues, Democratic women comprise 23 percent of the electorate and Democratic men only 15 percent, for an 8-point gender gap.

Visit Women’s Election Watch 2000 for a breakdown of the Gender Gap for Gore by demographic subset and other news on the 2000 elections.

On a weekend marked by the Canadian Remembrance Day, which historically has been marred by abortion clinic violence, a new Massachusetts state law that creates an 18-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics endured its first test. Two hundred pro-choice and anti-choice demonstrators met at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Allston, MA, on Saturday, one day after the law went into effect. Anti-choice protestors declared the law to be in violation of their First Amendment rights, because the law prevents them from approaching anyone entering the clinic without that person’s consent. However, in January 2000, Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the buffer zone around abortion clinics was not a violation of free speech rights. Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to mandate buffer zones for abortion clinics.

Ruth J. Simmons, who five years ago became the first African American president of Smith College, was unanimously elected president of Brown University last week. Simmons is the first female president of Brown and the first African American president of an Ivy League university. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Dillard University in New Orleans, and her masters and doctorate degrees at Harvard University. While at Smith, Simmons established the first engineering program at a women’s college, doubled the college’s endowment, and launched a journal focusing on the concerns of minority women. At her first public speech at Brown, she expressed her commitment to improving access to an Ivy League education to disadvantaged students. Currently, women make up 19 percent of all college presidents, and racial minorities make up 11 percent.

Feminist author Margaret Atwood, 60, best known for her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, received Britain’s top prize for fiction writing„the Booker Prize. Atwood had been nominated three times before, but won this year with her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin. The Handmaid’s Tale envisions a future in which right wing extremists seize control of the country and impose draconian, misogynistic laws on women. Published in 1985, it eerily predicts a regime that is in many ways similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The gender gap—the difference between the voting patterns of men and women—proved crucial in presidential, Congressional, and statewide races. Overall, Gore enjoyed a 12-point gender gap in the nationwide Voter News Service exit polling, with 54% of women voting for Gore but only 42% of men. “Women’s votes are the reason Vice President Gore won the popular vote. If only women had voted, Gore would have had a landslide victory,” said Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, the first political analyst to identify the gender gap as a political phenomenon in 1980.

The gender gap could influence the outcome of several undecided states and races. For example, exit polls in Florida showed an 11-point gender gap in favor of Gore. In Oregon, where no winner has been declared, a 13-point gender gap also favors Gore. And in the dead heat Washington Senate race, Democratic candidate Maria Cantwell enjoys a 10-point gender gap.

Read the full press release on the gender gap and Election 2000.

Visit Women’s Election Watch 2000 for a detailed, state-by-state analysis of the gender gap, plus information on key women’s races.

Radio personality “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger’s new television show has suffered from poor ratings and pulled advertisers. As of today, a CBS affiliate in Philadelphia will no longer air the show. Other CBS affiliates announced on Nov. 7 that they would move the show to the post-1-AM time slot in crucial television markets like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Television experts note that many shows moved to this time slot are cancelled. Dr. Laura has been the focus of protest, especially since Paramount announced that it would carry her television show, for her statements that gays and lesbians are “deviants” and “a biological error.”

A poll released yesterday by the Health Insurance Association of America shows that abortion ranked third with voters as a key issue in their selection of a presidential candidate. In a survey of 800 actual voters, Republican pollster Bill McInturff and Democratic pollster Mark Mellman Found that 16 percent of respondents found abortion to be a key issue in the presidential election. The top two concerns were social security, with 24 percent, and education, with 23 percent. McInturff and Mellman said that it was not the candidates but grassroots activists who made a real difference in making abortion a focal point of the campaign, citing the ad campaigns run by NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

Learn about the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Get Our HER Vote Campaign, an effort to mobilize young women voters.

Exit polling results reveal that the electorate is far less religious and far more supportive of gun control laws and abortion rights than the political consultants of both parties would have us believe. Voter News Service nationwide exit polling found that 41% of voters said that they either seldom (28%) or never (14%) attend religious services. Sixty percent of voters support stricter gun control laws. The majority of voters – 56% — support abortion rights, with 23% believing abortion should always be legal and 33% saying abortion should mostly be legal.

Election 2000 saw appeals to unions and “working families” with little reference to women workers. But it was working women nationwide, who were a mainstay of Gore’s support. Of working women, 58% voted for Gore with only 39% for Bush.

An anti-gay ballot measure in Oregon failed by a narrow margin of 53-47. Ballot Measure 9, the so-called Student Protection Act, would have prevented Oregon public schools (including elementary schools, secondary schools, and community colleges) from “encouraging, promoting, or sanctioning homosexual/bisexual behaviors.” Schools who did not comply could have lost all or part of their state funding. Voters in the mostly urban Multnomah County, which includes Portland, voted almost 2-to-1 to reject the measure, while rural counties favored the anti-gay measure.

In related news, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will progress with its case to protect the privacy rights of lesbians and gays. A Federal Appeals Court ruled earlier this week that Philadelphia police violated a gay teenager’s constitutional right to privacy when they threatened to reveal his sexual orientation to his family members. Police questioned 18-year-old Marcus Wayman when they found him in a parked car with a 17-year-old male and arrested them for under-age drinking. The police found condoms in the car and lectured the two teens about the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality, threatening to tell Wayman’s grandfather that he was gay. Shortly after being released from police custody, Wayman committed suicide. His mother sued the town and the police officers for violating her son’s right to privacy. The case will continue in further appeals.

A record number of women candidates won their Congressional races in California, increasing women’s representation to 31% of the 52-seat California Congressional delegation. Senator Dianne Feinstein easily won re-election to the U.S. Senate, beating Representative Tom Campbell by 56.1% to 36.4%.

Women figured prominently in the gains Democrats registered in the California Congressional delegation – accounting for 3 of the 5 seats wrested from Republicans. A total of 16 women won House seats in California. Former Representative Jane Harman won her bid to regain the seat in Congress (District 36) she gave up two years ago to run for Governor, beating incumbent Steve Kuykendall (R) in a very close race (by a margin of only 3,800 votes out of more than 220,000 votes cast). State Senator Hilda Solis beat incumbent Representative Marty Martinez in the Democratic primary (District 31), and easily won the general. Martinez switched parties to become a Republican after losing the primary. State Assemblywoman Susan Davis beat incumbent Brian Bilbray (R) in another very close race in Congressional District 49.

Women picked up five new seats in the State Assembly, increasing from 25% to 31% of the lower house of California. Barbara Matthews (D), Rebecca Cohn (D), Fran Pavley (D), Los Angeles City Councilmember Jackie Goldberg (D), Jenny Oropeza (D), Gloria Negrete McLeod (D), Janice Leja (R), Lynn Daucher (R), and Christine Kehoe (D) all won their races for open seats created by term limitations. Carol Liu (D) beat the former spokesperson for the California Right to Life Committee Susan Carpenter McMillan (R) for an open seat. Wilma Chan (D) beat incumbent Audie Elizabeth Bock (I) who won her seat as a Green party candidate two years ago before switching to Independent.

Sheila James Kuehl (D) won her bid for an open seat in the State Senate, and two incumbents won their re-election races to guarantee women 22.5% of the Senate seats. Nevertheless, because of the loss of two other women Senators to term limits, women suffered a net loss of one in the state Senate.

The gender gap – the difference between the voting patterns of men and women – proved decisive in presidential, Congressional, and statewide races. Overall, Gore enjoyed a 12-point gender gap in the nationwide Voter News Service exit polling, with 54% of women voting for Gore but only 42% of men.

Gore would not have won the electoral votes in 16 of the 20 states in which he was victorious without the gender gap. “Women’s votes are the reason Vice President Gore is within striking distance of winning the presidency. If only men had voted, Bush would have won the race easily,” said Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, the first political analyst to identify the gender gap as a political phenomenon in 1980. In 16 of the states that Gore won, he had the support of the majority of women voters, but did not have majority support among men. The Florida exit poll also reveals an 11-point gender gap that could provide the margin of victory for Gore. The largest gender gap was in the Delaware race in which Gore won 64% of women’s votes, compared with 44% of men’s. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and the District of Columbia, the majority of both women and men voted for Gore. Click here for state-by-state gender gaps in votes for president.

The gender gap also was responsible for Congressional victories. All 5 of the U.S. Senate races in which Democrats picked up seats were the result of women’s votes. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) won with a 10-point gender gap, Bill Nelson (D-FL) with an 11-point gender gap, Thomas Carper (D-DE) with a 12-point gender gap, Mark Dayton (D-MN) with a 9-point gender gap, and Mel Carnahan (D-MO) with a 6-point gender gap. In all of these races, the surplus of women’s votes made up for less than a majority of men’s votes.

Newly elected Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John Corzine (D-NJ) had large gender gaps of 11-points and 13-points respectively, and also won the majority of men’s votes.

Women voters also disproportionately supported Democratic House candidates, with 53% of women and only 44% of men voting Democratic. The gender gap is fueled by issues such as abortion rights, gun control, military spending, women’s rights, and human services.

Women will gain three or four seats in the US Senate with the wins of Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Mel Carnahan (D-MO), who will be replaced by his wife Jean, and with Maria Cantwell (D-OR) in a race still too close to call. In each of these races, women’s votes on the gender gap made the difference with a majority of women voting for the woman candidate and a majority of the men voting for her opponent. Clinton’s win can be directly attributed to an 11-point gender gap in the NY Senate seat race. A 10-point gender gap elected Michigan’s first woman Senator when Stabenow (D-MI) beat out single-term incumbent Spencer Abraham (R-MI). Carnahan’s election came with a decisive 6-point gender gap. At this hour, Cantwell (D-WA) is in a statistical dead heat–49 percent to 49 percent–with opponent incumbent Slade Gorton (R-WA) for the Washington State Senate seat. These wins give the US the largest number of women Senators in history.

With several races still too close to call, women have already gained three new women Representatives in the House: Hilda Solis (D-CA), Jane Harman (D-CA), and Susan Davis (D-CA). All three are pro-choice and strong feminists. In Florida, feminist Elaine Bloom (D-FL) is in a race against anti-choice Rep. Clay Shaw (R-FL), still too close to call. Bloom’s district is the same Palm Beach district in which Jewish American voters are questioning irregularities affecting the Gore numbers. Anti-choice Rep. Jim Rogan (R-CA), who was on the House Judiciary Committee impeachment panel, was defeated by pro-choice Adam Schiff (R-CA) in California. Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), pro-choice and progressive, was defeated in Connecticut. The Democrats have picked up 9 seats and have lost 8, with one more possible loss and one more possible gain.

As of noon today, Maine’s Measure 6, a referendum that would make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal, was narrowly defeated 51 percent against the anti-discrimination measure and 49 percent in favor of it. A 21-point Gender Gap played a crucial role in this referendum with 38 percent of men voting against and 59 percent of women voting for the anti-discrimination initiative. Anti-gay initiatives in both Nebraska and Nevada that would ban gay marriage in the state received strong support. Nevada saw 70 percent for the ban, 30 against, and in Nebraska 71 percent of voters were for the ban, 29 against. Seven percent fewer women voted for the ban than did men.

Measure 9 in Oregon, an anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender measure that prohibits “school instruction encouraging, promoting, or sanctioning homosexual, bisexual behaviors,” is still up in the air with 51 percent against the ban and 49 percent supporting the ban; 81 percent of precincts tallied. Colorado voters rejected Amendment 25, which would impose a 24-hour waiting period on women seeking abortions. Voters in California and Michigan also rejected referenda on vouchers for private schools. And voters in Alabama lifted a near century-old unenforceable ban on marriage between interracial people.

Five women hold state governor positions„the largest number in history. In the New Hampshire Governor’s race, pro-choice incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) beat Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), in Delaware, pro-choice Ruth Ann Minner (D-DE) beat John Buris (R-DE) for that state’s Governorship, and in Montana, Judy Martz (R-MT) will be the next Governor. These three women join Governor Jane Dee Hull (R-AZ) and Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R-NJ) to make up the largest number of women in Governors’ offices in history.

In other state news, Barbara Hafer (R-PA), a pro-choice Republican edged out her opponent, Catherine Baker Knoll (D-PA), an anti-choice Democrat, in the race for the State Treasurer of Pennsylvania.

Visit www.feminist.org/election2000 tonight for Women’s Election Watch 2000 presented by the Feminist Majority _ the most comprehensive feminist election analysis and real-time returns on the world wide web! Women’s Election Watch 2000 features:

• Women’s Congressional and statewide races
• Key abortion rights races
• Abortion and feminist statewide ballot measures
• Gender Gap analysis in the 2000 elections
• The only feminist Election 2000 chat room with a special appearance by Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal
• Live streaming video with Eleanor Smeal

Join feminists across the nation and monitor the balance in Congress, the status of women candidates, and the gender gap at the polls.