Both teens were brutally slain in separate instances last week.

These are the vigils we could find – please add others or additional information in the comments. 365gay will attend the NYC vigil and report back here on Monday (or you can check the live Twitter coverage at http://www.Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco).

Abilene, TX – 5:30PM, ACU campus, next to GATA fountain [Facebook link]

Amherst, MA – MONDAY 11/23 – 6:30PM, Food For Thought Books [Facebook link]

Boston – 7PM, Trinity Church, Copley Plaza [Facebook link]

Chicago – 4PM, Division and California, procession to Humboldt Park Boat House [Facebook link]

Durham, NC – 6PM, Corcoran St, CCB Plaza [Facebook link] (Event previously said Saturday, this will occur with the others on Sunday)

Los Angeles – 8PM, Santa Monica and San Vicente [Facebook link]

New York – 5 p.m., Christopher St. Pier 45

Oakland – 3:30PM, MacArthur and Lakeshore/Grand Ave [Facebook link]

Philadelphia – FRIDAY, Nov. 20.  6:30 PM, Church of St. Luke & The Epiphany, 330 South 13th St.

San Antonio, TX – 8PM, Crockett Park

San Francisco – 7PM, Castro and Market [Facebook link]

Terre Haute, IN – FRI 11/20 – 6:30PM, Indiana State, DeDe Plaza [Facebook link]

The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend Thursday’s dedication of the new Cheney International Center on the Laramie campus.

Protesters plan to be there, too.

The center is funded in part with $3.2 million the Cheneys donated to the university in several installments while he was vice president.

The university’s decision to name the center after Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman, prompted a petition that collected more than 150 signatures. The petition said polices of the Bush administration were “very controversial” and the name will affect how people perceive the center.

Cheney’s support for harsh interrogations – torture, some say – is one reason to oppose naming the center after him, said Suzanne Pelican, who began circulating the petition a year ago.

Pelican also criticized the Bush administration’s “go it alone” strategy when several U.S. allies opposed the invasion of Iraq and didn’t participate in the war.

“We feel that by naming it the Cheney International Center, that the programs and UW can’t avoid being identified with that ideology and that approach to global politics that the Bush-Cheney administration championed,” Pelican said Tuesday.

Pelican is an extension educator in the university’s College of Agriculture who plans to peacefully protest during the dedication.

A phone message left with Cheney’s assistant Lucy Tutwiler wasn’t immediately returned.

A state program matched the Cheneys’ $3.2 million gift with $3.2 million in state funding. The university spent $3 million to renovate and expand an existing building for the center.

A total of $3.4 million has been allocated for scholarships for students to study overseas.

Another Laramie resident opposed to the name is Nancy Sindelar, with the group Veterans For Peace.

“Mr. Cheney is not the best example of demonstrating how nations should get along with each other,” said Sindelar, who is retired. “Putting his name on an international center is counterintuitive.”

Sindelar’s group opposes the Iraq war, and its Wyoming chapter has held weekly protests in Laramie since before the war began.

On Thursday, Sindelar plans to be part of a march to Prexy’s Pasture, the campus quadrangle where the dedication ceremony will be held. Demonstrators don’t plan to disrupt the ceremony but will be visible, she said.

University President Tom Buchanan defended the naming decision in a recent opinion piece in the Casper Star-Tribune, writing “tolerance and diversity cut many ways,” and the new center will benefit students.

“Whether you are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant, gay or straight, white or black, you are welcome at the University of Wyoming. Should we subject potential donors and the purpose of their gift to public referendum? I think not,” Buchanan wrote.

The international center shares a building with the university’s student health center and will have offices for university staff members who work with international students.

Students also will be able to hang out there, said university spokeswoman Jessica Lowell.

“This is a place where international students can come and watch soccer if they want to. There’s a lounge for them,” Lowell said.

Since then, we have made an art of the protest. We carried Silence = Death signs during the AIDS crisis. We ate fire with the Lesbian Avengers. We stormed the country because we were furious about the passage of Prop 8. And we kissed our partners in Salt Lake City and around the country to protest the Mormon handling of gay PDA.

Today, the Freakonomics blog at the NY Times has a circle of experts pontificating on whether protests work.

Their answer?

It depends.

Chester Crocker, professor at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service says that protests matter, but they might wind up having a negative affect. They can undermine governments, apply pressure on policymakers, and get media attention.

Crocker says that some of the most effective protests happen in democracies that already recognize civil rights and political liberties and when they’re “led by skillful political activists and organizers who understand how to manipulate public opinion and targeted at concrete rather than abstract ideological goals.”

On the other hand, street power, he says, can get out of hand and subvert the democratic process.

Political Science professor David S. Meyer adds:

“A protest is a signal about who you are, what you want, and what else you might do. . . . Demonstrators can stiffen the spine of would-be allies in government, suggesting there might be advantages in pressing for new positions on climate change, abortion, or gay marriage. No savvy politician will admit to changing direction in response to demonstrations in the street, but of course, it happens all the time.

When activists make progress, it’s always less than what they want.  . . . People don’t generally take to the streets looking for smaller reforms, but often it’s only by asking for more that they get anything.”

What none of the experts say is what we implicitly know: protests help make a movement out of outrage; they get people involved in the political process; they show people that their voice, their anger, can make a difference. They are outlets for creativity. They educate. They help make a community out of a group of people who may have nothing but their race, gender or sexual orientation in common.

Protests help change policy and change minds, yes; but they also teach the protesters how to organize, how to lobby, how to get media attention. In short, they help create a class of people to lift the whole group up.

So whether or not protests seem to work right away; whether or not the protest itself seems misguided; we need to keep protesting until all our rights are won.

“You must not desist from protesting because you don’t see an immediate result,” said Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University. “What immediately looks like a failure may turn out to be a success.”

The Great Nationwide Kiss-In, an event created in response to a spate of anti-gay incidents that arose out of gay men being publicly affectionate, takes place this Saturday, August 15th. Activists across the country have signed-on to take part, check out this Facebook action page for times and locations in your town.

And from the Kiss-In’s Facebook page:

Why, you ask? Why are you doing this?

After incidents in San Antonio, TX, El Paso, TX and Salt Lake City, UT – where different gay and lesbian couples were harassed or detained by law enforcement or other people for the simple act of kissing in a public place – we need to make a strong statement to everyone everywhere: kissing is not a bad thing, nor has it ever been. It’s not vulgar or inappropriate. It’s a sign of affection that is as old as time itself. And it’s a beautiful thing that we share with our loved ones every single day.
So, go out Saturday at 2 p.m. EST and kiss your sweetheart! Over 50 cities have come on board; see the site for details on yours.

From the release:

Equality Across America, the new grassroots network calling for Federal action to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, has moved forward with plans for a massive national day of action on Sunday, October 11, 2009. Major national LGBT organizations including the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) have endorsed the march as have local and state grassroots organizations like Join the Impact Chicago, One Struggle One Fight and Freedom Democrats of Miami-Dade.

March organizers are also working on actions in all 50 states and calling on all who support our community to call their legislative leaders to press for change. But, more troublingly:

The exact route of march is still being negotiated with the DC authorities.

The march is only two months away. The route isn’t set yet?

I love big gay gatherings, marches, celebrations, protests. I love the energy that rises from them, the sense of committment to our cause, the feeling that we are not alone. But this march still feels rather ad-hoc to me. And I worry that thousands of people may show up without finding toilet facilities, or security, or organization.

And that would look very bad.

Then again, overproduction of marches, with attendant parties, corporate sponsorships and VIP tents sometimes make gay gatherings feel less like a grassroots, political enterprise and more like a commercial one.

Either way, my partner Jenny and I are going. And I met a bunch of women at Mich Fest who are going, too.

But how about you? Will you go? Do you think it’s a good idea? A terrible one? And what are the possible outcomes?

The Empowering Spirits Foundation says the “kiss-in” is intended as a peaceful rally to encourage dialogue between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gay community.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the temple near La Jolla, Calif.

It would be the third kissing demonstration held since Matt Aune and Derek Jones were cited for trespassing on the church-owned Main Street Plaza on July 9 in Salt Lake City.

The couple refused to leave the plaza when security guards who saw the kiss said the behavior was inappropriate.

For the second consecutive weekend, about 100 people gathered to stage a “kiss-in” to protest the treatment of two gay men cited for trespassing July 9 after they shared a kiss on the plaza owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both gay and straight couples exchanged kisses during the protest.

Demonstrators were greeted at the south entrance by a group of protesters carrying large signs that denounced homosexuality, prompting a heated verbal exchange.

Police say no one was arrested or cited, despite a large group exchanging kisses by a reflecting pool at the plaza’s center.

“We didn’t call the police. We didn’t do anything,” church spokeswoman Kim Farah said.

The church bought one block of Salt Lake City’s Main Street to build a plaza in the 1990s alongside the Temple, where Mormon marriages and other religious rituals take place.

Matt Aune has said he and his partner, Derek Jones, exchanged a modest kiss at the plaza 11 days ago, but church officials contend their behavior was lewd.

“There was much more involved that a simple kiss of the cheek,” Farah said in a statement Friday. “They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol.”

The men have said they were walking home from a nearby concert and cutting through the plaza on their way home.

A police report said they sat down for a kiss and were approached by a pair of church security guards, who asked them to leave because their behavior was “unwanted.”

Both were handcuffed and Aune was pinned to the ground.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that the men became argumentative and refused to leave after being asked to stop their “inappropriate behavior.” The men say they were targeted because they are gay.

Matt Aune said he and his partner, Derek Jones, were walking home from a concert nearby on Thursday night, cutting through the plaza near the Salt Lake City Mormon temple.

Aune, 28, said he gave Jones, 25, a hug and kiss and that the two were then approached by a security guard, who asked them to leave, telling them they were being inappropriate and that public displays of affection aren’t allowed on the property. He said other guards arrived and the men were handcuffed.

“We asked what we were doing wrong,” Aune told The Associated Press.

Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement Friday that the men were “politely asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior – just as any other couple would have been.”

“They became argumentative and used profanity and refused to leave the property,” she said. The church did not immediately respond to a request for more comment.

Police later arrived and both men were cited with misdemeanor trespassing, Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Robin Snyder said.

“It doesn’t matter what they were asked to leave for,” Snyder said. “If they are asked to leave and don’t they are … trespassing.”

The church has been the target of protests over its support of a ban on gay marriage in California.
To protest, gay couples held a kiss in Sunday at Temple Square

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said 11 men and 15 women each face a charge of unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and loud and boisterous behavior. Their names and ages were not immediately released.

Schneider said the group entered the rotunda, located beneath the Capitol dome, and linked themselves together with a white chain at about 10 a.m. The area is usually crowded with tourists, but police restricted the traffic while they made arrests.

The activists carried signs in support of funding for needle exchange, HIV/AIDS housing and programs aimed at fighting AIDS. They chanted, “Fight global AIDS now,” and, “Clean needles save lives.” They marched in a circle before lying down on the floor.

Police bound the activists hands together and dragged some of the demonstrators to their feet as they arrested them.

The arrests came one day before President Barack Obama is to arrive in Ghana, where 320,000 people are HIV positive, according to the United Nations’ AIDS fighting agency, UNAIDS.

The activists were part of a coalition of five AIDS groups from Washington, Philadelphia and New York. They included ACT UP Philadelphia, DC Fights Back, Health GAP, New York City AIDS Network and Housing Works.

Omolola Adele-Oso of DC Fights Back questioned why lawmakers were bailing out financial institutions instead of devoting more dollars to AIDS programs.

“HIV is not in a recession,” Adele-Oso said in a written statement from the coalition about the demonstration.

The New Delhi parade passed near the Delhi High Court, which is reviewing a law that prohibits gay sex – and can punish it with up to 10 years in prison.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily also said he would soon meet with two other important government ministers to discuss changing the country’s anti-homosexuality laws, according to Sunday’s Hindustan Times newspaper.

Gay rights activists said momentum was on their side.

“This piece of legislation makes no sense,” said Ponni Arasu, 25, a law student and a march organizer. “You cannot deny people their basic civil rights.

Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in India since a British colonial era law included it as a forbidden sexual act “against the order of nature.”

Rights activists say the law sanctions discrimination and marginalizes the gay community. Health experts say the law discourages safe sex and has been a hurdle in fighting HIV and AIDS. Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV.

Supporters of the law, which include leaders of the Hindu right, argue that gay sex should remain illegal and that open homosexuality is out of step with the values of this deeply traditional country.

On Sunday, activists took to the streets of the southern cities of Chennai and Bangalore and the capital, New Delhi. Marching bands blared horns and pounded drums while men wearing saris and women waving rainbow flags chanted for their rights.

The parades came a year after India’s first large gay pride march, a celebration that supporters say would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

“It was the first very overt, celebratory and positive images of the community,” said Leslie Esteves, 33, an organizer in New Delhi. “This is a confident community that has survived and thrived despite the shadow of criminalization.”

Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues.

Still, being gay is deeply taboo and many marchers Sunday covered their faces because they hadn’t told their friends and families about their sexuality.

“Give me support, I want to take off my mask,” read a sign carried by a woman who gave her name only as Ganga.

Marchers said the parade was meant to send a message to authorities to repeal the law criminalizing gay sex, known as Section 377 of the Indian penal code. But it was also meant to reach Indians still in the closet.

“We’re going to tell them that you’re not alone,” said Arasu, the law student. “We are all going to be around to support you so you can live with dignity.”

Rajiv Dua, a community health expert handing out rainbow flags and buttons, said the motivation was simple.

“We don’t want to be ignored anymore,” he said.