Glendora Catholic school fires gay teacher after publicized wedding

Christopher Persky, 32, left, and his partner of 10 years Ken Bencomo, 45, both of Rancho Cucamonga, tearfully embrace after getting married at the San Bernardino County Hall of Records in San Bernardino on Monday, July 1, 2013. (Rachel Luna / Staff Photographer)

A Rancho Cucamonga man who taught 17 years at a Catholic high school was fired from his job days after he married his gay partner in a San Bernardino civil ceremony.

While school representatives declined comment on the matter, an attorney representing 45-year-old Ken Bencomo says he was fired because of the same-sex ceremony.

"The reason given was that the marriage occurred and the school's position was that it violated church teachings," said Chatsworth attorney Patrick McGarrigle.

Bencomo, 45, was head of the English department at St. Lucy's Priory High School in Glendora, but also worked as a yearbook moderator and dance coach.

Students say they were aware of Bencomo's sexual orientation.

"He never talked

Ken Bencomo, right, was fired from his job as a Catholic school teacher shortly after his same-sex wedding in San Bernardino. (By Rachel Luna)

about his personal life to his students, but it's something that students and faculty knew," said former student, Abigail O'Brien, 19, of Upland.

McGarrigle also said the school was aware long before he got married.

"St. Lucy's has known of Mr. Bencomo's orientation for years," he said. "Administrators had been introduced to his partner in the past, so the suggestion that Ken's orientation is a surprise or that his lifestyle somehow violated doctrine is at odds with the school's knowlege and what seemed to be acceptance of him until most recently."

In an online petition protesting Bencomo's termination, supporters of the former teacher say a July 2 article in the Daily Bulletin prompted the school to dismiss him. Bencomo

and his husband, Christopher Persky, 32, of Rancho Cucamonga were one of the first gay couples to line up at the San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder's Office to get married July 1 following a Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage.

He appeared in photographs and video for the story.

Sister Helen Dziuk, assistant principal at St. Lucy's, declined comment and referred inquiries to the school's attorney, Joseph Stark.

St. Lucy's officials later issued a written statement, saying the school plans to continue educating students "in the tradition of the Catholic faith."

"As a Benedictine school, St. Lucy's is a community for those who wish to express Christian values in education and develop person and academic excellence," the statement said.

Stark said an attorney representing Bencomo contacted the school on Sunday, but declined to elaborate.

"I have yet to see what his allegations are, so I can't comment," he said.

While about 2,000 people had signed the petition by Wednesday and more than 1,300 had joined a Facebook discussion group about Bencomo, not everyone felt the school's decision was wrong.

James Wellman, a former board and executive committee member for the school, said he thought Bencomo might still be teaching at St. Lucy's had he not appeared in the newspaper.

"We should not forget that Ken has been teaching at a Catholic high school. Anyone who believes that St. Lucy's operates in a totally independent fashion from the Catholic Church is gravely mistaken," he said.

The Diocese of San Bernardino said its Catholic schools prohibit discrimination against teachers or other school employees based on their lifestyle choices.

"However, if a teacher or school employee makes a public display of behavior that is counter to church teaching - such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, having a child outside of marriage - that can impact their employment status," said John Andrews, diocese spokesman.

School policies outlined by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles say a staff member can be counseled or disciplined if he or she engages in "behavior counter to the moral teachings and standards of the church."

Former St. Lucy's student, Brittany Littleton, said policies regarding staff at Catholic schools need to change.

"I am joined by many students and alumni in saying that we believe this is a fight for love and equality, and as such we wish to display love and kindness, even while feeling hurt and shock," the Beverly Hills woman said.

McGarrigle said Bencomo is hoping to resolve issues with the school without pursuing legal action.

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Reach Melissa via email or call her at 909-386-3878.

Get the latest crime and public safety news on Twitter @IECrime.

Source: http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_23767763/glendora-catholic-school-fires-gay-teacher-after-publicized?source=rss

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Four things critics hate about Lohan's 'Canyons'

Movies

Randee Dawn NBC News contributor

7 hours ago

IFC

Lindsay Lohan, James Deen in "The Canyons."

All right, no one expected that Paul Schrader's "The Canyons," starring Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen, was going to be the next "Citizen Kane." But there was some hope that Lohan might revive her career (remember "Mean Girls"? or "Parent Trap"?) with a gritty, raunchy movie.

Then again.... Based on early reviews, the low-budget film about the seedy side of Hollywood stars' lives may just push Lohan's career even further down the slide it's been on for years.

Here are some reasons not to see (or to see, if you're into masochism) the beleaguered starlet's film, "The Canyons," according to critics ? with one notable exception:

Been here, done this
"Canyons" scriptwriter Bret Easton Ellis was fresh and new after penning "Less Than Zero" in 1985, and red-hot in 1991 with "American Psycho," but his stories of the beautiful drowning in wealth, decadence, drugs and ennui is dated. With "Canyons" he's back on well-trodden territory, and there's not even Robert Downey Jr. around to liven things up. Lohan's co-star James Deen plays Christian, who is "blas?, conceited and narcissistic" and a "trust fund baby with a stunning hillside Malibu pad," writes Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter, but he's "a pale brother to Ellis's totemic character of the 1990s, Patrick Bateman, in 'American Psycho.'"

There'd be serious character flaws, if these characters were remotely interesting
Though psycho, Bateman was at least fascinating. Watching bad people do bad things can work, but there has to be some meat on the bones. "These bozos aren't lively enough to even get cast on a reality TV show, much less be the focus of written drama where some psychological and emotional dimensions are normally expected," notes McCarthy. Along those lines, FilmDaily's John Hazelton has a slightly more positive attitude: The film, he writes, turns out "to be a fitfully intriguing but ultimately aimless psychosexual thriller about pretty young things behaving badly in Hollywood."

It's not even so bad it's good
Cult films can be terrible, yet weirdly compelling. "Canyons" doesn't even seem destined for midnight showings to drunk college students. "Far from the renegade, boundary-pushing, sexually explicit sensation that its makers have been suggesting, 'The Canyons' is a lame, one-dimensional and ultimately dreary look at peripheral Hollywood types not worth anyone's time either onscreen or in real life," says McCarthy.

And the sex is boring
Top priority if you're making a low-budget picture unlikely to make anyone's Top 10 list and you have a prolific porn star on hand: Make the sex awesome. Instead, as Indiewire's Eric Kohn notes, "(T)he mounting scenes of drama don't make the mediocrities especially pronounced so much as they coalesce into a dry, insipid whole." Adds McCarthy, "Any expectations of explicit sex ... are not even approached, much less fulfilled, as there's nothing beyond standard R-rated talk and nudity on hand."

But what about Lindsay?
The New York Times dedicated nearly 7,500 words to the film's production (and Lohan's horrific behavior during filming) in a piece titled, "Here is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie." Kohn offers a post-script in just 10. "Here, Lohan is as bland and unfocused as the material," he wrote. "But even a topless Lohan and a group sex scene lit by swirling neon lights, the story fails to surprise."

But there's always one wild card in the bunch, and that comes courtesy of Variety's Scott Foundas, who can claim the distinction of writing the lone positive review of "The Canyons." (And Lohan noticed: from her court-ordered rehab stint she tweeted a link to it, saying, "Wow...humbled and feeling so much gratitude.")

Foundas loved Deen, who he says "is more than up for the challenge; he holds the camera captive with his chilly, privately amused stare." The picture is Schrader's "most stylish ... in years." And he even compares Lohan's performance to Marlon Brando's in "Last Tango in Paris": "Lohan may not go as deep or as far as Brando, but with her puffy skin, gaudy hoop earrings and thick eye makeup, there?s a little-girl-lost quality to the onetime Disney teen princess that?s very affecting."

So maybe there's hope after all, dubious as a "puffy skin" endorsement is. Will you seek out the highs, and the lows, of "The Canyons"? Let us know below in our "Discuss" section.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/four-things-critics-hated-about-lindsay-lohans-canyons-6C10780484

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Neolithic 'halls of the dead' found

30 July 2013 Last updated at 07:49 ET

Professor Julian Thomas said the find was of "huge significance to our understanding of prehistoric life"

Two 6,000-year-old "halls of the dead" found in Herefordshire have been called "the discovery of a lifetime" by archaeologists.

Teams from the University of Manchester and Herefordshire Council made the find on Dorstone Hill, near Peterchurch.

The team also found possible links between Neolithic communities in Herefordshire and Yorkshire.

Professor Julian Thomas said the "very rare" find was of "huge significance to our understanding of prehistoric life".

The remains of the halls were found within prehistoric burial mounds.

Yorkshire link

Archaeologists believe they were deliberately burnt down after they were constructed and their remains incorporated into two burial mounds.

They think the timber buildings may have been "halls of the dead" similar to others from the Neolithic period found in Europe.

Bodies may have been placed in the halls before being moved to nearby chambered tombs.

Prof Thomas said: "These early Neolithic halls are already extremely rare, but to find them within a long barrow is the discovery of a lifetime."

The halls are thought to be have been built between 4000 and 3600 BC.

A flint axe and a finely-flaked flint knife found on the site have "close affinities" with artefacts dating from around 2600 BC found in eastern Yorkshire, the team believe.

Dr Keith Ray, Herefordshire Council's county archaeologist, said the axe and knife may not have been traded, but placed there as part of a ceremony or an ancestral pilgrimage.

He added: "These subsequent finds show that 1,000 years after the hall burial mounds were made, the site is still important to later generations living 200 miles away - a vast distance in Neolithic terms."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23501252#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Sen. Gillibrand continues effort to upend military sex assault laws

Chair of the Senate subcommittee on Personnel, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., right, greets panel members testifying in March at a hearing on sexual assault in the military on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Carolyn Kaster / AP)

By Donna Cassata
The Associated Press

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Source: http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20130729/NEWS05/307290011

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Israel to free 104 Palestinians in peace talks

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel will free 104 Palestinian prisoners to coincide with the resumption of long-stalled peace talks brokered by the United States.

"I agreed to free 104 Palestinians in stages, after the start of negotiations and according to progress," he wrote on his official Facebook page.

He did not give details on those to be freed or confirm reports that talks would open in Washington on Tuesday.

A Palestinian official earlier told AFP that the Washington meeting would be attended by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, his Israeli counterpart Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and US officials.

The sides are expected to meet for an informal dinner on Monday evening, on the eve, he said.

Israel's Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom said this week that talks could resume next Tuesday, but neither the date nor venue have so far been confirmed.

"At this time, it seems most important to me that the state of Israel enter (negotiations)," Netanyahu wrote.

"This is important both to maximise the possibility of ending the conflict with the Palestinians and to solidify Israel's position in the complex international reality surrounding us," he added, writing in Hebrew.

Haaretz newspaper said the initial talks would be to lay the parameters of formal negotiations.

"According to senior officials in Jerusalem, the meeting in Washington is expected to deal primarily with the agenda for holding negotiations, including the subjects to be discussed and the timetable," according to Haaretz.

Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting will hear a formal statement from Netanyahu on the resumption of peace talks and mandate a ministerial committee to handle the prisoner release, the government website said.

Israeli news website Ynet said Netanyahu would head the prisoner committee deciding which prisoners are to be freed and when.

The cabinet is also set to endorse a draft bill to submit any peace treaty with the Palestinians to a referendum.

Such a vote would be a final endorsement of a treaty after ratification by the government and parliament.

A briefing paper published by the cabinet office said the proposal comes "in light of the significant diplomatic developments accompanying the opening of negotiations by the state of Israel with the Palestinian Authority".

The draft is seen as a gesture to right-wing ministers apprehensive of concessions that could be demanded of Israel in the talks.

The cabinet paper said the government saw approval of the new draft as "urgent and important" and said it would be asking parliament to streamline its passage into law.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/israel-to-free-104/758620.html

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Contacts in Montreal for place for cyclist to stay on his way across Canada

Anas Cheema, a BC student is cycling across Canada to raise money for SOS Children's Charity, and he is looking for a place to stay in Shawville or surrounding area this evening (Sunday July 28th), as well as Montreal (Probably Thursday or Friday). He stayed with us last night and I can say he is a lovely young man, very friendly and enthusiastic about his cause. He was a pleasure to have stay with us.

Here is a story about what happened to Anas in Winnipeg: http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/sto...-winnipeg.html

Please pm me if you have a room or even some land for Anas to pitch his tent and offer him a warm shower and possibly breakfast to fuel him up for his day.

Katherine Wieser.

Please also like Ana's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bikeacrosscanada

Source: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/904115-Contacts-in-Montreal-for-place-for-cyclist-to-stay-on-his-way-across-Canada?goto=newpost

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