Steve Rothaus' Gay South Florida - for and about (but not just) LGBT people
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About Steve Rothaus' Gay South Florida
Aqua Girl is underway in South Beach and hundreds of supporters gathered Friday night for a VIP reception at the Lincoln Road Garage to celebrate this year's event, which runs through Sunday.
Honorees at the VIP party: Community Leader Alison Burgos (pictured top row center with her family), who co-founded Aqua Girl; and Volunteer of the year Mary Joe.
Click here to view more pictures from the party. Photos by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff.
The South Florida Mustangs became popular in the 1980s and 1990s with gay square dancing. The group is back, with classes to be held in June in Wilton Manors.
Here's the news release:
EVER WANT TO TRY SQUARE DANCING?
The South Florida Mustangs, the first GLBT International square dance club organized in 1980, opening its doors, its arms and its hearts to Everyone, regardless of gender, culture, race, ethnicity, sex or identity will be offering its open spring beginner's classes on Thursdays, June 6, 13, 20, and 27 from 7pm to 9:30pm. Positively no previous experience required. We'll teach you the ropes beginning with an allemande left and a do-si-do. All you need is a desire to have fun.
Come check us out any Thursday to join in the fun, meet our members and see if you'd like to add this activity to your social calendar. Dances are held at Island City Park Preserve, 823 NE 28 Street, Wilton Manors, FL 33334. Questions? Feel free to call Ken 305-343-1710; Randy 305-458-1649: Tom or Chris 954-525-8365. Dance fee only $5.00, No charge to observe.
Through the year we host house parties, restaurant outings, international fly-ins, and an annual convention. Already a square dancer ? Our caller, in addition to calling beginner's classes, also calls mainstream and plus levels to our newest graduates, and advanced and challenge levels to us old timers. We hope to see you there.
BY STEVE ROTHAUS, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com
Thomas Barker, vice chairman of Miami Beach’s gay Business Enhancement Committee, recently made the case to other committee members for expanding city employees’ domestic partner benefits program. Last week, suffering from a sudden case of shingles while visiting family in Orlando, he himself became beneficiary.
“I had a high fever and neurological pain all over. I got sick in Animal Kingdom and went straight to the emergency room, where they kept me for four days,” said Barker, 29. “If I didn’t have the benefits, I probably would have gone to the emergency room, but I would have racked up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bill that I couldn’t afford. Or I wouldn’t have gotten the care I needed because they would have kicked me out of the hospital.”
Barker owns a small marketing company with one other employee and can’t afford group insurance of his own. He’s had insurance through the city of Miami Beach since he and Robert Rosenwald, a senior assistant city attorney, became registered domestic partners on Nov. 3, 2011.
Miami Beach has offered domestic partner benefits for city employees since 1998. Seven years later, the commission required that most contractors doing business with the city also offer equal benefits to domestic partners.
“The Equal Benefits Ordinance governs companies that contract with the city, that they not discriminate and provide equal benefits for domestic partners as they do for married couples,” said Rosenwald, 43.
Because the U.S. government doesn’t recognize gay marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships, private and public employees who receive health insurance benefits for their partners must pay federal income tax on the value of the premiums. Recently, some businesses and governments have begun to pay for the extra tax.
Last November, Hallandale Beach became the first city in the nation to offer tax reimbursements for employees in domestic partnerships. This week, city commissioners unanimously voted that vendors with five or more employees and city contracts worth $50,000 or more also offer domestic-partner benefits.
In March, Bay Harbor Islands voted to offer domestic partner benefits to city employees. A few weeks later, commissioners agreed to also pay the federal taxes, becoming the first Miami-Dade County municipality to do so.
On May 6, West Palm Beach agreed to reimburse partnered employees for the federal tax. "It’s not a gay issue," said Rand Hoch, president and founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council. "It’s a pay issue."
Miami Beach is poised to do the same in June.
Many Florida colleges and universities, including University of Miami, Miami Dade College, University of Florida also offer domestic partner benefits. Florida International University gives a stipend to domestic partners equal to cost of health insurance for a legally married husband or wife.
A common concern about offering partner benefits is company cost. It’s usually low because so few employees, both gay and straight, actually sign up. Among the reasons: Many are single; some LGBT employees are closeted; others have partners who are covered by their own health insurance at work.
Miami Beach has about 3,500 employees and only 16 with domestic partners take the insurance. Office Depot, based in Boca Raton, reports similar findings. With 9,154 employees, only about 50 take insurance for domestic partners.
Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-rights group, since 2002 has tracked companies that offer benefits and protections to LGBT employees with its annual Corporate Equality Index.
“We need to have consistent equal protections under the law for all workers including those that are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender,” said Deena Fidas, deputy director of HRC’s Workplace Project.
“In the last few years, I’ve seen a significant uptick in Florida businesses with regard to implementing inclusive nondiscrimination policies and equitable benefits,” Fidas said. “We’re seeing more Florida companies offering protections based on gender identity. You’re seeing more companies with what’s called ‘transgender inclusive' health coverage. When medically necessary, if a transgender person needs to access mental health counseling, hormone therapies and sometimes surgery, that as part of the overall employee benefits package, those medically necessary procedures are covered.”
Several large companies with big presence in South Florida receive perfect 100 scores on HRC’s index.
“Office Depot as a publicly traded company wants to support its entire client base,” said Frantz Tiffeau, the company’s senior manager of diversity initiatives. “For reasons of doing the right thing, it makes sense to support [the LGBT] community. Members of employees’ families, the employees themselves. It makes good business sense. If they feel that support from a company, they’re going to support that company, as well. Most corporations and counterparts I deal with, it’s part of a standard companywide benefit in global corporations based in the U.S., both public and private.”
Tiffeau, who is based in Houston, said that “we’ve had employees say they only came to Office Depot because of the 100 percent HRC rating and what it meant to them.”
American Airlines has received a 100 score every year since HRC began rating companies, spokesman Bob Witeck said.
“Twelve years later, their culture is now invested in doing it. It’s a no-brainer,” said Witeck, a Washington, D.C.-based communications consultant who specializes in the gay marketplace. “And It’s bigger than just LGBT. It makes [American Airlines executives] sensitive to how that perception is and other kinds of groups and demographics.”
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Large Florida companies with domestic-partner benefits on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index
Airport & Aviation Professionals, Naples
American Medical Depot, Miami
Anspach Effort, Palm Beach Gardens
ASTAR Air Cargo, Miami
Atlantic Biologicals, Miami
Biomed Plus, Miami
Burger King Corp., Miami
Citrix Systems, Fort Lauderdale
DHL Holdings (USA), Plantation
Distribution Video & Audio (Dva), Palm Harbor
Foley & Lardner LLP, Miami
GeoSyntec Consultants, Boca Raton
Gmp Wireless Medicine, Fort Lauderdale
Hand Innovations, Miami
JB Dental Supply Co., Fort Lauderdale
Medical Staffing Network, Boca Raton
Miami Herald, Miami
Moredirect, Boca Raton
Office Depot, Boca Raton
Pegasus Airwave, Boca Raton
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Miami
Ryder System, Miami
Spherion Corp., Fort Lauderdale
Starlims Corp., Hollywood
TG Medical, Jupiter
Ultimis, Islamorada
Vehicle Maintenance Program, Boca Raton
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Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For (2013)
Florida
Rank Company Name No. of Employees
9 Ultimate Software 1,440
32 J M Family Enterprises 3,737
65 Darden Restaurants 177,655
76 Baptist Health South Florida 14,145
77 Publix Super Markets 151,889
All five Florida companies include sexual orientation in their written nondiscrimination policies. Baptist Health South Florida and Publix Super Markets, however, do not offer domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples.
News release from Stonewall Summer Pride:
Stonewall Summer Pride has announced that WSVN Channel 7 News Anchor Craig Stevens will be this year’s Stonewall Summer Pride Twilight Parade Grand Marshal. Stevens, originally from Falmouth, Massachusetts originally moved to South Florida in 1992. In addition to his Anchor duties at Channel 7, he is also an Adjunct Professor at Barry University teaching an introductory course in news writing.
Stevens is active in a number of charities and organizations. In 2009, He was elected to the Board of Trustees for the United Way of Miami-Date. He also serves as Channel 7’s spokesman for Habitat for Humanity, which seeks to improve our community by promoting home ownership. Stevens serves as a vice-president of the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences where he also chairs a committee that specializes in mentoring young TV professionals throughout the southeastern United States.
Stevens will serve as this year’s Grand Marshal to the Stonewall Summer Pride Twilight Parade which takes place at 7:30 pm on Saturday, June 22nd. The parade, featuring an extra-ordinary display of fabulous floats and costumes will run along Wilton Drive, beginning on the south end of the drive at 20th Street and running north ending at 5 Points.
Stonewall Summer Pride 2013, “Journey to Equality” comes to Fort Lauderdale on June 22ndand 23rd in Wilton Manors. The event begins on Saturday evening with the Twilight Parade and entertainment on the main stage and continues on Sunday June 23rd with the annual Street Festival, Vendor Marketplace, a full schedule of Live Entertainment, Kid’s Zone and a whole host of other activities.
For more information on Stonewall Summer Pride, please visit stonewallsummerpride.com.
BY NADEGE GREEN, NGREEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A North Miami mayoral candidate who did not make it into the runoff is not going away quietly.
Anna Pierre, who has said Jesus Christ endorsed her campaign, sent out a rambling mass email Wednesday morning warning the city chose Lucifer “over Jesus.” She also posted the message on her Facebook page.
The two top vote-getters, Lucie Tondreau and Kevin Burns (North Miami's gay former mayor), will head to a runoff on June 4 since both were shy of the more than 50 percent needed to win outright.
Pierre received less than 1 percent of the votes, but she said does not believe the numbers. Of 6,786 ballots cast for mayor, she captured 56 votes.
“They claimed I only have 56 votes, you can believe them if you want. I know they are corrupted and some members of the current administration were ready to do anything to have their protégé elected to (perhaps) prevent their butt from going to jail in the near future. But I never expected them to go this far,” she wrote.
BY CARLI TEPROFF, CTEPROFF@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Any companies doing work for the city of Hallandale Beach may soon be required to offer domestic partnership benefits to their employees if they provide equivalent benefits to married couples.
On Wednesday, the commission will decide whether to beef up its procurement code to match Broward County and several other cities that will hire only companies that offer equal rights to all employees.
“Everyone should be treated equally,” said Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Alexander Lewy, who is sponsoring the requirement.
“I do not support spending our tax dollars on companies that discriminate based on whether you can or cannot be married,” Lewy said.
Hallandale Beach began offering equal benefits to domestic partners in 2006.
Wednesday’s proposal — which applies to businesses with five or more employees, and for contracts over $100,000 — comes on the heels of Hallandale Beach becoming what is believed to be the first in the nation to offer a tax reimbursement to employees in domestic partnerships.
In November, the commission agreed to give employees with domestic partners what could amount to be between $500 and $900 to offset federal taxes that the employee pays on benefits for a partner.
Jared Kenwood, a journalism student at Broward College, recently interviewed singer Lorna Luft, one week before she began treatment for breast cancer.
Luft, Judy Garland's younger daughter, spoke to Kenwood March 19 at Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, where she performed her tribute show, Songs My Mother Taught Me.
“If you want to go into this business, you have to learn to do it all. Don’t learn how to be vocal aerobics and stand on a stage and not do anything else but that. There is something in between the songs called dialogue and you have to be an actor and learn how to be choreographed,” Luft told Kenwood.
Click here to read more at The Judy Garland Experience website.
From LGBT activist Jeff G. Peters of Tallahassee, who grew up in North Miami Beach:
London Innovators examines the global impact of some dynamic individuals & groups helping to shape the world we live in.
London Innovators is an inspiring new feature documentary. The film is being made in cooperation with Southbank Oia Films LLC. We have a lot of wonderful, dedicated people involved with this film project. We hope you'll join us! Your contribution and help in promoting the project is the key to the success of this film. We truly appreciate your help! You're getting involved at the crucial beginning phase of the documentary. Help us make this one of the most successful Indiegogo film campaigns!
My name is Jeff G. Peters and I'm the Director/Producer on this project. I have a background in the arts with an emphasis in film, literature & theatre. I've been the Executive Producer on several films including, Gods Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick, and Dead Buffalo. I've also produced movie sountracks. I'm a judge with the Tallahassee Film Festival and serve on the board of Anhinga Press, one of the oldest publishers of beautiful books of poetry - here in the US. I have a passion to bring innovative indie films to audiences. To that end, I've raised money and helped bring many indie films to art cinemas; films including the award winning, Immokalee U.S.A.
News release from South Florida Gay News and Miami Marlins:
“YOU CAN PLAY NIGHT” PROMOTES EQUALITY IN SPORTS, BENEFITS LOCAL LGBTQ YOUTH GROUPS
Ft. Lauderdale – May 13, 2013 – South Florida Gay News (SFGN) and the Miami Marlins have teamed up to host an evening of baseball to promote equality in sports and to benefit South Florida area LGBT youth organizations. “You Can Play Night” will take place Friday, June 14 at Marlins Park beginning with a social mixer at 5 p.m. followed by the baseball game versus the St. Louis Cardinals at 7:10 p.m.
“With the recent announcement of Jason Collins coming out as a pro athlete, the timing for ‘You Can Play Night’ is perfect,” said Justin Wyse, Sales Manager for SFGN. “The message the You Can Play Project makes to LGBT youth and their allies who are involved in sports is that locker rooms should be safe and sports venues should be free from homophobia. Athletes should be judged on talent, heart and work ethic and not sexual orientation. We are delighted to partner with the Marlins to bring this message to our local youth.”
Tickets to “You Can Play Night” start at $20. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to South Florida LGBT youth programs, including Pridelines Youth Services, Safe Schools South Florida, The Pride Center, NVEEE, Sunserve, Youth Pride Band and The Alliance for LGBTQ Youth. For tickets, order before June 10 at www.marlins.com/ycp.
“You Can Play Night” is sponsored by Storks Bakery, Dugout Sponsor; 93.9 MIA, Mark’s List, Hotspots, Wire Magazine, She Magazine, and The Murry Agency Public Relations, Media Sponsors. Special thanks go to the Gay and Lesbian Business Exchange (GLBX), the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (MDGLCC), Greater Ft. Lauderdale Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (GFLGLCC) and Rainbow Business Coalition (RBC).
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