Human Rights

Civil unions bill on way to governor's desk, One Colorado plans celebration event

It's been a long time coming. After a bill to legalize civil unions in Colorado fell short in both 2011 and last year, the measure finally passed the Colorado House today. Next, the legislation heads to the desk of Governor John Hickenlooper, who's promised to sign it. This breakthrough delights B ... More >>

Catholic hospital's fetuses-aren't-people claim "hypocrisy," says NY Times's Frank Bruni

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni has weighed in on the story first reported in Westword two weeks ago about a father's attempt to sue a Catholic hospital for the wrongful death of his wife and unborn twin sons. Bruni sums up the way the Catholic hospital reacted -- by trying to dismiss the lawsu ... More >>

Fetuses-aren't-people argument was "morally wrong," says Catholic hospital

Catholic Health Initiatives has acknowledged that it was "morally wrong" for its lawyers to argue in court that fetuses aren't people. As explained in our cover story "The Meaning of Life," the Englewood-based operator of 78 Catholic hospitals in seventeen states claimed that it couldn't be held lia ... More >>

Photos: Denver 4/20 Rally schedule announced amid pot shots at Amendment 64

Today, Miguel Lopez, the organizer of Denver's annual 4/20 rally at Civic Center Park, released the schedule for this year's two-day event, taking place on (duh) April 20 and 21. But in addition to a breakdown of happenings on each day, he also shares his often-negative thoughts about Amendment 64's ... More >>

Friends can also betray you: Mexicans pay in blood for America's War on Drugs

Also read: Magical homicides: How Mexico lies about murders

Gary Johnson, Libertarian presidential hopeful, on pot, pride and Jon Stewart

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson, who is now running for president as a Libertarian, stopped in Denver yesterday for Pridefest. He took a break from schmoozing with potential voters to chat with Westword about his campaign, the Libertarian Party, marijuana, gay marriage and his ongoing bat ... More >>

Latino activists prepare for the Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona's SB 1070

MoveShake: Shannon Galpin documentary premieres online tonight

Tonight at 7 p.m., filmmakers Allie Bombach and Sarah Menzies will show the first two films in their MoveShake series online at www.MoveShake.org.The MoveShake films profile people pushing for environmental and social change; Breckenridge-based Shannon Galpin, who founded Mountain2Mountain, an organ ... More >>

These days, schools ignore gay bullying at their own peril

Shirin Ebadi comes to Denver as another Nobel Peace Prize winner pulls out of Chicago summit

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work in Northern Ireland, has pulled out of the twelfth World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates that starts Monday in Chicago. "That's what happens when you don't hold your big Nobel events in Denver!," jokes Dawn Engle, a founde ... More >>

Voices of Refugees: Three refugees to tell their stories at DU event

An ethnic Nepali, Sher Mizer fled the violence of his country, Bhutan, when he was twelve years old. His family ended up in a refugee camp, where a tarp and some bamboo became their home. Mizer yearned for education, and thanks to a scholarship, he was able to study in India. Eighteen years after ar ... More >>

Amnesty International's Urgent Action Network was once based in Nederland

Amnesty International USA is holding its 51st annual meeting in Denver this weekend, when a thousand activists will gather for a call to action to think globally and act locally. Colorado's the perfect spot for that: Amnesty International's Urgent Action Network for the U.S. was based here for more ... More >>

Amnesty International USA: Activists converge this weekend for 51st Annual General Meeting

After a year when it was christened the Angriest City in America, Denver continues to be a hub of national (and this weekend, international) activism. Tomorrow through Sunday, Amnesty International USA will bring its 51st Annual General Meeting to the city, with panels and workshops dedicated to som ... More >>

Five better ways to help Uganda than watching the Kony 2012 viral video

By now your Facebook page has probably exploded with friends' posts of the viral video Kony2012. If you're one of the few who hasn't yet seen the video or read the hash tag on Twitter, Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of Uganda. He's been terrorizing Uganda and Southern ... More >>

ACLU, faith groups urge governors not to sell out to private prison giant

A broad proposal by the country's largest private prison company to buy up and privatize state prisons has been met with a stiff rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of justice policy and religious groups, who are urging all fifty state governors to reject the company's "in ... More >>

Jared Polis wants investigation into abuse of LGBT immigrants in detention

Colorado Congressman Jared Polis has called for a government investigation into alleged abuse suffered by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender immigrants detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Here we have people who are at their most vulnerable -- many without access to any lega ... More >>

Juvenile lifers targeted for rape, excessive isolation in adult prisons

​Juveniles doing time in adult prisons, surrounded by older and stronger criminals, rarely fare well. But juveniles serving sentences of life without parole in the United States face particularly daunting prospects of sexual assault, neglect and long periods of solitary confinement, according ... More >>

Review: Lucinda Williams at the Paramount Theatre, 11/12/11

​LUCINDA WILLIAMS at PARAMOUNT | 11/12/11About a halfway through Lucinda Williams' two-hour set on Saturday night, it felt somebody hit a switch at the Paramount Theatre and all the sudden the place was electrified. For the first hour, the crowd of mostly middle-aged folks sat fairly complacen ... More >>

Emad Hussain survived a gunshot, escaped Iraq and wishes the U.S. would stay in the country

Emad Hussain.​President Barack Obama announced last Friday that the vast majority of U.S. troops -- about 39,000 of them -- would be out of Iraq by December 31. But not everyone is happy about the imminent end of the ten-year-involvement, including Emad Hussain, a former member of the Iraqi Ol ... More >>

Lesbian couple fights deportation: Will judge allow undocumented partner to stay in U.S.?

​ In May, we told the stories of two GLBT immigrants living in Colorado and seeking asylum to stay in the United States forever. Their stories of discrimination and abuse in their home countries tested the limits of asylum law. On Friday, another local GLBT immigrant, a lesbian woman named Mrs ... More >>

Same-sex insurance tax penalty: Dave Ensign on his pitch to Boulder Human Rights Commission

Flickr​Update: Out Boulder board member Dave Ensign wants his hometown to become only the second community in the nation to compensate city employees for tax penalties they suffer when buying health insurance for same-sex partners -- and he feels that his proposal before Boulder's Human Rights ... More >>

David Carr of NY Times not offered asylum in Otero County for low-sloping foreheads crack

David Carr.​On Real Time with Bill Maher, New York Times media writer David Carr suggested those of us living Kansas, Missouri and other "middle places" represent "the dance of the low-sloping foreheads." Afterward, as folks with foreheads of all sizes (even giant ones, like Carr's) debated th ... More >>

Proponents of marijuana legalization know that where there's smoke, there's ire

Douglas County voucher plan gives public funds to discriminatory religious schools, suit claims

Videos below.​Update below: A lawsuit filed this morning in Denver District Court challenges the legality of a Douglas County voucher program set to go into effect this fall partly on the grounds that it diverts public money to religious institutions. Yet plaintiffs include the Interfaith Alli ... More >>

Marijuana legalization debate preview: Meet the advocates who'll be hashing it out

Free me.​It's fitting that Wednesday night's debate between Colorado cannabis activists has been dubbed "Round One." The event is being advertised as a "lively and friendly" debate -- but if it's as impassioned and fiery as the comments on our marijuana blogs have been, it might be closer to ... More >>

Gay immigration: What is it like to be gay in El Salvador? Report to the U.N. details the horrors

​ "Coming Out To America," this week's cover story, follows two GLBT immigrants as they apply for asylum in the United States. One immigrant, a transgender woman named Kassandra, is afraid to return to her native El Salvador for fear of persecution. And for good reason. A 2010 report by severa ... More >>

Gay immigration: Queen Boat incident, Egypt's infamous anti-gay raid, is reason to seek asylum

​ "Coming Out To America" tells the story of Sam, a gay Egyptian seeking asylum in the United States. Though Egypt doesn't have any explicit laws against homosexuality, gay men there are routinely arrested and tortured. In one infamous incident, 52 men were arrested in 2001 on a floating disco ... More >>

Gay immigrants aren't alone in fighting the "social visibility" criterion in pleas for asylum

​ What does a gay man look like? Or a whistleblower? Or a woman who, were she to return to her home country, would be targeted for female genital mutilation? Those are the questions raised by "social visibility," a criterion adopted by the Virginia-based Board of Immigration Appeals that some ... More >>

Gay immigrants need asylum from persecution at home

Gay immigrants: When they apply for asylum in the U.S., their pasts influence their future

​ In some countries, being gay is illegal. Gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender immigrants from countries that persecute, torture or imprison homosexuals can apply for asylum in the United States. Winning it, however, is another story -- a story in which immigrants' past can make or break the ... More >>

Q&A: H.R. of Bad Brains just wants everyone to love Jah and learn how to love universally

​Bad Brains (due tonight at Summit Music Hall with Frontside Five and the Other Russia) is a band that's consistently mentioned in the same breath as Black Flag and and Minor Threat as groups that made massive contributions to defining the hardcore/punk movement in the late '70s and early '80s ... More >>

Civil Union Act should pass in CO House if not blocked by extremists, says Sen. Pat Steadman

Pat Steadman.​Update below: Today, in all likelihood, SB 172, intended to legalize civil unions in Colorado, will be okayed by the state senate, following debate yesterday that warmed the heart of its sponsor, Senator Pat Steadman. Next, however, the bill must be approved by the Republican-con ... More >>

Scientology's got a hold on you: Five believers you might not expect

The guy who invented Scientology also wrote this.​The dark empire of Church of Scientology, well known for its extensive real estate holdings, expanded its reach in Denver yesterday by throwing down $8.5 million in cash money on a new facility to house its secretive minions. Believed by its ad ... More >>

What week is it? A breakdown of everything you could be celebrating, December 6-12

​For about the next two weeks, the daylight hours will continue to get shorter, leaving little to do but contemplate the existential despair that comes with the gathering darkness, and maybe try to get some Christmas shopping done. Unless you're Jewish, in which case it's day six of Hanukkah, ... More >>

Happy UNbirthday

Asylum Denied: Only a fraction of Mexicans get U.S. asylum

ACLU puts out travel alert for people traveling to Arizona due to new "racial-profiling" law

Joe Arpaio.​Planning on traveling to Arizona over the upcoming holiday weekend? A fan of dry heat? The American Civil Liberties Union, joined by the Colorado branch, has issued a travel advisory due to the recent passage of SB 1070, which the organization describes as "Arizona's racial-profili ... More >>

Solitary-confinement report conclusions outrage prison activists

Colorado's supermax is so much fun the state is opening a second one. ​The release of a twelve-month study about the mental effects of solitary confinement at Colorado's supermax is still weeks away. But preliminary results leaked from the report -- which suggest state prisoners suffer little ... More >>

The Whole World’s Watching

The Unkindest Cut

An Opportunity to Stand Up

In Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's reign of terror becomes state policy, thanks to state Senator Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer

A report from Juarez, the bleeding front line of the war on drugs

Topless firefighters, drunk beauty-school students and equality ruled the weekend

Aaron Thackeray​Starting with Thursday night, our crew of drunken shutterbugs racked up more than 200 "Over the Weekend" nightlife photos -- everything from a Human Rights Campaign rally to random beauty-school students getting hammered in a burrito shop. See photos of it all at westword.com/ ... More >>

ACLU sues Jeffco sheriff Ted Mink, says he unlawfully imprisoned man for 47 days

Ted Mink allegedly held a man for over a month without charges.​The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against the Jefferson County Sheriff, accusing him of illegally detaining a man for 47 days for the suspicion that he was an illegal immigrant. Sheriff Ted Mink, the ... More >>

Single payer health care rally for Obama visit: The concept is better for everyone except those getting rich off current, broken system, organizer says

Dr. Margaret Flowers will speak at the rally.​President Barack Obama's visit to Denver today is prompting more spectacles than just a medical marijuana protest featuring Sensible Colorado's Brian Vicente, which is scheduled to be underway at this writing. For instance, there's also "Rally 'Ro ... More >>

Immigrant hot potato one reason for ongoing protests at Aurora detention center

A photo of an ICE bust in progress, from the organization's 2008 annual report.​Since May, an interfaith group has staged a vigil the first Monday of each month at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, 11901 East 30th Avenue -- and they'll be there again tonight at 6 p.m. Among the many rea ... More >>

Ladies Night foe Steve Horner doesn't even live here. So how can we discriminate against him?

Summer Heats Up

The Human Rights Torch Relay takes Beijing to task.

Give Peace Jam a Chance

Adolfo Perez Esquivel speaks out.