Bay/CA
>>Mayor Evan Low applauds Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling against Prop. 8
City of Campbell Mayor Evan Low
City of Campbell mayor, Evan Low, applauds Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker for his ruling to strike down the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage early Wednesday, August 4. Judge Walker concluded that Proposition 8 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The 136-page decision came in the nation’s first federal court test of a state’s right to forbid gay and lesbian couples. This is the first time a federal court has invalidated Proposition 8 for violating the civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
Throughout the 13-day trial, Prop. 8 supporters failed to provide evidence to support the marriage ban that the proposition enacted. However, Prop. 8 supporters aren’t giving up- in a brief document filed Wednesday evening, lawyers for the Prop. 8 Campaign say that have appealed Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite this, many others, like Evan Low, May of the City of Campbell, are happy about the ruling.
“I am delighted that the federal court recognized the inherent inequality and injustice of Proposition 8,” said Low. “You can not have a subclass of people created under the United States Constitution, the highest law of the land. I am optimistic and confident that Judge Walker’s decision will be affirmed by higher courts.”
Ly Tong pleads not guilty for attack on pop star Dam Vinh Hung
On Wednesday, August 4, Ly Tong, who was accused of assaulting a Vietnamese pop star with pepper spray during a concert last month in Santa Clara, pleaded not guilty to all charges in the Santa Clara County Superior Court. Tong will return to court Oct. 14 for a preliminary hearing.
The 62-year-old anti-communist disguised himself as a woman at the concert, and then sprayed pop star Dam Vinh Hung, police say.
Thus, Tong is being charged with four felony counts, including burglary and the unauthorized use of a tear gas, and one misdemeanor for resisting arrest. Tong was also ordered to star away for pop star Hung.
According to an article in Mercury News, Tung stated that he would probably agree to plead guilty to the misdemeanor, but not to the other charges.
For more information, please visit http://www.mercurynews.com.
Hmong women in U.S. less likely to test for Cervical Cancer
According to a study which appears in the August issue of Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, researchers have found that Hmong women in the U.S. are less likely to get a Pap test.
“Only 74 percent have a Pap test and only 61 percent have had this test within the past three years,” said lead author Dao Moua Fang in an article by Health Behavior News Service.
The study’s results showed that single, often American-born, English-speaking, and educating Hmong women were the least likely to get a Pap test. Fang attributes feelings of denial and unawareness as the reasons for this lack in testing.
In addition, many Hmong women avoid screening for cervical cancer due to cultural barriers, and how their family members may react to the results of the test or even questions of faithfulness raised from wanting to take a Pap test.
Due to this study, Fang and her colleagues have developed a program to help patients by making appointments, translate, and provide education about cervical cancer.
For more information, please visit http://www.cfah.org.
Actually, the court should step back and remove itself from marriage. It has no right to decide anything involving two people getting married. That is under the churches authority. The first reference to marriage, I am familiar with is from the book of Genesis and states, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”–Genesis 2:24 Now, since Genesis is a collection of stories which began when the first man was created, Adam, and first recorded by Moses around 1440-1400 B.C., it is quite obvious that the church, since the separation of powers-church vs. state, has the only authority over marriage. End of story … just the mere concept of “homosexual marriage” defies logic, reason and sanity, and exemplifies the level to which government and courts have fallen to.