STATEWIDE - Another View's season premiere takes a thoughtful look at the black gay experience and the attitudes African Americans have toward homosexuality. The recent landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling has propelled gay rights to a new level, while primetime television and popular media offer programs and articles on the combined black and gay experience. This program features a black lesbian couple, Alicia Toby and Saundra Heath, who with six other gay and lesbian couples have filed suit against the state of New Jersey to legalize same sex marriages. As Toby explains, this lawsuit is about basic rights. "We want the bottom line. And the bottom line is that if anything should happen to any one of us I don't want someone coming in here and saying that my wife can't have this after we spent many, many years together. I want to know that anything we built together goes to her." Heath agrees, "We don't wear signs that say 'I'm a lesbian'-' I'm a gay man.' We don't have to do that. But we do have lives. And we want to be a part of life - the life cycle."

Another View also explores the issues related to homophobia with an emotional interview with Latonna Gunn. Gunn recounts the story of the fatal stabbing of her fifteen-year-old daughter Sakia on the streets of Newark after she rebuffed the advances of a 29-year-old man and revealed she was a lesbian. Since Gunn's death, representatives from gay and lesbian groups as well as local activist organizations have held rallies to protest violence against gays and lesbians.

Upcoming programs this fall include the study of the AIDS epidemic and its devastating impact on African-American women and children. In December, the Another View Bookshelf will profile Jill Nelson, author and columnist, and Solomon Jones, staff writer for Philadelphia Weekly and author. Jill Nelson, who grew up in Harlem, has written Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience; Straight, No Chaser: How I Became a Grown-Up Black Woman; Police Brutality: An Anthology; and Sexual Healing. Solomon Jones is a native of North Philadelphia whose latest novel, The Bridge, deftly illustrates the pain inflicted upon the only innocent victims in the drug trade - the children. A veteran journalist who began writing professionally in 1993, Jones is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Pipe Dream, which was published by Random House in 2001. He has been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia magazine and the Philadelphia Tribune.

Also watch for The Spoken Word Café when it returns later this season providing a venue for area artists to perform original works. Visit the web site at www.njn.net for program dates and times.

Linda L. Coles is executive producer, Candace Kelley is host, and Wayne Bryant Jr. is assistant producer of Another View, NJN's award-winning public affairs program serving New Jersey's diverse ethnic community and covering issues about the African-American experience.