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Saturday, November 15, 2003

Lis linked to this story below. The comments at alas a blog on the extreme ashcroft thread are about to break 200. Some of the discussion is high quality, so less so. Someone took umbrage at my use of the term vanilla. For the record, I tend not to use perfume, i'm more likely to splash on a little vanilla extract or angostura bitters.

He's here, he's queer, he can't get not-for-profit status. Harvey Silverglate passes along this absurd story from the New York Law Journal. It concerns one Christopher Barton Benecke, who considers himself to be "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender" (all four?), and who wants to obtain not-for-profit status for a group that he founded called Queer Awareness.

It looks like it's not going to happen. Benecke ran afoul of the language police who work for the state of New York. They ruled that the word queer is indecent and degrading, and therefore is banned by a state law governing the names of not-for-profit corporations.

Thus, for Benecke, the price of being queer includes not being able to claim tax-exempt status.

Benecke is suing on First Amendment grounds. Needless to say, he should win.


I'm here. I'm queer. I'm a first amendment lawyer. I wasn't trying to be offensive in my a.s.b.-type usage of vanilla. If I was trying to offend, I could just express a few of my opinions on kid-porn.

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