Click here to read the Palm Beach County Domestic Partnership Registration Procedures
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The first meeting of the Capitol City GLBT Democrats will be held on Tuesday, April 18 at 7PM in the Family Tree Community Center. We will be discussing the official formation of this chapter. You can get directions at www.familytreecenter.org or by contacting Phillip Perry at phillip@phillipperry.com.
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The inaugural Black LGBT Film/Video Festival will be held on April 28-30, 2006 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

BlackOUT, the international black, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender film and video festival was conceived as a cultural affirmational tool of Black Gay Pride of South Florida to fill a cinematic cultural void for same gender loving people of African descent exploring their cultural Diaspora.

More info: http://www.blackoutfest.org/.
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Amazing Racer Chip Arndt Elected President of Democratic LGBT Caucus

From gaywired.com

- The Democratic Lesbian & Gay Caucus of Miami-Dade County (DLGC) has elected Chip Arndt, of Miami Beach, as president. The Caucus is chartered under the auspices of the Florida Democratic Party (FDP). Its mission is to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues within the Party, to educate voters on LGBT issues, and to assist the Party in electing Democrats to local, state, and national offices.
DLGC is one of 11 chapters of the Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus, the statewide umbrella organization under the FDP representing the GLBT community. The Miami-Dade Caucus is one of the largest in Florida, representing over 485,000 potential LGBT voters, and has historically played a major role in electing local and state LGBT-friendly Democratic candidates.
"Going into the critical 2006-midterms, I'm eager to work with Caucus members to invigorate LGBT voters to elect candidates supportive of issues vital to our lives." Arndt said.
Arndt, a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, and former Wall Street investment banker with Morgan Stanley, is the Executive Vice President for Business Development of Merchant Advantage, a Miami-based eCommerce software company. He is internationally known for winning CBS Television's The Amazing Race. Competing as an openly gay man, his positive image inspired many others to come out, while demonstrating the diversity of the gay community to the Emmy-winning reality program's millions of viewers.
Arndt's passion for civic and political advocacy began at Yale. He was chairman and founder of the Annual Harvard Business, Law, and Kennedy School of Government Debate, and president of both the Leadership and Ethics Forum and the business school's Gay and Lesbian Student Association. He interned for Philadelphia Mayor (now Governor) Ed Rendell, and was involved in the political campaigns of U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd and former Governor Lowell Weicker in his home state of Connecticut. He sponsored a successful fundraiser for Presidential candidate John Kerry, and worked extensively to get out the 2004 LGBT vote. More recently, he has raised funds for gay New York Attorney General candidate Sean Patrick Maloney.
Express Gay News named Arndt "Best Local Male Hero" for using "his fame and good fortune to help others" in response to his tireless round of charity events for the LGBT community. He has hosted fundraisers for the Point Foundation, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, for whom he is a strategic advisor. He has been spokesperson for New York's Braking the Cycle and Miami's SMART AIDS rides, as well as participating in events sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. An Ivy League golf champion, with experience on the professional golf circuit, he conducted a golf clinic at a recent tourney benefiting the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
As the former Public Relations & Marketing Manager for Care Resource, South Florida's oldest and largest HIV/AIDS services organization, he produced AIDS Walk Miami, added Dining Out for Life to their list of major fundraisers, and spearheaded the 21st annual White Party. Under his leadership, attendees' abuse of crystal meth at the famous week-long event was actively discouraged for the first time.
Arndt added, "Together with our progressive allies from other constituencies, we will continue to advance and strengthen the civil liberties of everyone in this great state, where no one should be a second-class citizen, and where each of us is guaranteed social justice and equal opportunity."
Other officers elected include: Joan Schaeffer, Vice President; Chris Gates, Treasurer; and Thomas McDaniels, Secretary.
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Posted March 13, 2006, MiamiHerald.com

Partner benefits again an issue

While most local political candidates focus on issues such as traffic, crime and taxes, they also are being asked questions about what they think about domestic partner benefits.

BY AMY SHERMAN asherman@MiamiHerald.com

In 1999, Broward County became one of the first local governments in Florida to extend domestic partner benefits to employees.

Seven years later, only a few cities in Broward have followed the county's lead.
Gay activists say it's time for elected city officials to offer benefits including healthcare insurance to the partners of their employees.

While in municipal races, most voters and candidates focus on issues such as traffic, crime and taxes, questions about stances on domestic partner benefits matter to some voters. Supporters say it is an important issue that gets to the heart of whether cities practice the diversity they preach.

''If any community is expecting to take the [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] community for granted, they are sadly mistaken,'' said Stephen Gaskill, a gay political consultant.

The cities of Hollywood, Miramar, Oakland Park and Wilton Manors provide domestic partner benefits. It's also likely that adding the benefits will be discussed in a few cities after the election, including Fort Lauderdale.

For the first time countywide, the Dolphin Democrats, a gay political club in Broward, has made domestic partner benefits for city workers an election issue. In a written questionnaire, the club, which has a membership of about 400, asked city candidates competing in the March 14 elections whether they would support offering domestic partner benefits to city workers.

''For me as a gay man, being able to access healthcare benefits is one of the most important problems we face these days,'' said Bill Vayens, who coordinated the survey for the Dolphin Democrats. ``Married couples can get benefits automatically. I say why not me?''

More than half the candidates in the nonpartisan races didn't respond to the questionnaire. Political consultants say that could mean they are avoiding the issue, simply got bombarded with surveys or, in the case of Republicans, didn't want to respond to a Democratic survey.

But of those who replied, a majority supported domestic partner benefits and other gay rights.

AN AID TO RECRUITING?

Domestic partners are generally defined as nonmarried couples in long-term committed relationships who live together. Domestic partner benefits allow employees' partners to get the same benefits as spouses, such as healthcare insurance.

Some employers who offer domestic partner benefits offer them only to gay couples, on the premise that straight couples have the option of getting married. Other employers offer the benefits to gay and straight couples.

Nationwide, about 130 city and county governments and 11 state governments offer health benefits to domestic partners, according to The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay civil rights organization. About half of Fortune 500 companies offer the health benefit, up from a handful in the early 1990s.

An increasing number of companies in South Florida have added domestic partner benefits since the 1990s.

Greg Baldwin, a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight, convinced his employer to add the benefits in 1995. Since then, The Miami Herald, Disney and other companies added some domestic partner benefits, he said.

Baldwin said offering the benefits helps to recruit workers.

'It tends to convince people when a firm says `we don't discriminate' they mean it,'' he said.

Broward County has long had a reputation for having a politically active gay community. A majority of the Wilton Manors City Commission is gay, and gay activists organized a get out the vote effort for John Kerry in 2004.

SHIFT IN FOCUS

The gay community celebrated when Broward County approved domestic partner registry and benefits for county workers in 1999. But since then, attention has turned to other issues such as fighting the state's ban on gay couples adopting.

Michael Albetta, president of the state GLBT Democratic Caucus, says he hopes the state will someday offer domestic partner benefits. But for now, support is more likely on the local level. ''We might as well start from the ground floor and go up,'' said Albetta, who also chairs the campaign committee for the Dolphin Democrats.
But candidates say few if any voters have asked them their stances on domestic partner benefits.

Bryan Caletka, a Davie candidate, doesn't expect to score points with many voters for his stances in favor of gay rights issues. But he says it's only fair that voters know his opinions.

''To be completely honest, I think it would hurt me given the religious nature of my constituents,'' he said.

The Dolphin Democrats posted candidates' questionnaires on their website. In some cases, the questionnaire answers -- or lack thereof -- may not tell the full story about whether candidates would push for benefits.

For example, the website lists Pembroke Pines candidate Ron Pacella as a ''total supporter'' who wrote he would be ''honored to receive the support of the GLBT community.'' But in an interview, Pacella said he didn't recall the questionnaire, had no opinion about domestic partner benefits and would need to study it. His opponent, Carl Shechter, who didn't complete the survey also said in an interview that he would need to study the issue.

Pembroke Pines City Commission recently approved a new firefighters contract that includes bereavement leave for domestic partners at the request of the union. Otherwise, the city doesn't offer domestic partner benefits.

''I'm finding more and more people are living together instead of getting married,'' said union President Tony Napolitano. ``They would be able to get the time off should something happen to their partner.''
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July 14, 15 & 16

Those are the dates we’ve set for our summer meeting. While at our last board meeting and at our Tampa meeting we had talked about holding our meeting in the Florida panhandle, we determined that hotel costs in that area during the summer would be cost prohibitive. Add that to the added distance most members would have to travel and we decided on a different location:

Tallahassee

We still thought it was important to hold our meeting in the northern part of the state as we work to extend our outreach into those areas. It will also help to support our efforts to establish a chapter in that county.

Part of this meeting will be devoted to workshops and training in addition to a general meeting and an opportunity for candidates to meet and greet us.

More details will follow as we firm up the location, schedule, etc.

In the meantime, I’d ask that each of you make a serious effort to join us in Tallahassee and to talk up the meeting in your regions and encourage all Caucus members and members of your local chapters to join us.

Thanks!
Michael Albetta
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Check out the new website for the Stonewall Democrats of Pinellas County at http://www.stonewallpinellas.org
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