NewsWrap for the week ending September 28th, 1996 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #444, distributed 09-30-96) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Ron Buckmire, Alejandra Sarda, Rex Wockner and Greg Gordon] In Argentina, Buenos Aires' Statutory Convention voted this week to limit police powers that have long been used to torment sexual minorities and sex workers. The city is establishing new laws as it becomes an independent municipality, having previously been ruled by federal laws administered by appointees of the President of Argentina. Under powers known as "police edicts," Buenos Aires police have been free to arrest anyone at any time, jail them, and often physically abuse them, all without the review or intervention of any form of judiciary. In 1995, the police reportedly used police edicts to arrest 150,000 people, and while it was said to be done to check their police records, only 2% were found to be previous offenders. Those arrested were typically held in a police station for about 12 hours. Argentine President Carlos Menem vigorously supported retaining the police edicts, claiming that chaos would ensue without them. Transgendered people have suffered disproportionately from abuse under police edicts, making the edicts a leading target for tranny activists, their families, their lesbigay activist supporters, and more recently, several Argentine human rights groups as well. Transvestite street sex workers say they've averaged 3 nights each week in jail, and frequently that time has been an occasion for torment, extortion, torture, and sometimes even murder at the hands of homophobic police. Visibility has come at a very high cost for other sexual minorities and sex workers as well. The new law brings an end to police edicts and establishes a Board of Magistrates to arraign people arrested for minor infractions. Police will have to bring detainees promptly before a judge, and will no longer be able to make arrests based on suspicion or for the purpose of checking police records. They are also barred from holding detainees' identification and from taking any statements before arraignment. In Romania this week, a committee to work out differences between bills passed by the 2 houses of Parliament agreed to limit the nation's sodomy law to those acts committed in public or causing a "public scandal." That proposal for reform was the version approved by the Senate as a step towards meeting the human rights standards of the Council of Europe. When the same proposal was offered months ago, Romanian gay and lesbian activists feared the potential for abuse posed by its vague language. But a September vote by the Chamber of Deputies had raised the possibility of an even more anti-gay outcome: continuation of criminal penalties even for the private acts of consenting adults of the same gender. That vote sparked a strongly-worded protest from the European Parliament which probably helped tip the Romanian compromise committee towards the more liberarl Senate bill. Although Romania appears to be on the way to sodomy law reform at last, the current reform still poses a serious threat to the human rights of Romanian gays and lesbians. One new paragraph which both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approved criminalizes "organizing or associating, or any act of proselytism" for illegal homosexual acts. This could easily be applied to any community organizing activity among gays and lesbians, whether forming a club, holding a party or printing a leaflet. In the U.S., the Clinton administration has acted to try to head off a Supreme Court review of the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays and lesbians in the military. The first legal challenge to the 1993 policy to come up for possible review by the high court is that of openly gay former Navy Lieutenant Paul Thomasson. His petition claims the "Don't Tell" part of the policy violates the Constitutional guarantee of free speech. He asked for the Supreme Court's review following its own decision earlier this year that struck down Colorado's Amendment 2 for seeking to limit the political rights of only lesbians, gays and bisexuals as a group. There's strong evidence that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" limits the free speech rights of gays and lesbians in the service in a way that the rights of uniformed heterosexuals are not... but so far most judges have been willing to sacrifice equal treatment in the name of the military mission. Thomasson had an outstanding record in the Navy, but in March 1994 he advised four admirals in writing that he is a gay man. Solely on the basis of his letter, he was discharged in June 1995 after a losing effort to convince a federal judge to stop the proceedings. Thomasson lost again in April before a federal appeals panel. The U.S. Solicitor General's Office argues that the policy does not need to be reviewed by the Supreme Court at this time, because all the federal appellate courts deciding challenges to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" so far have found it to be constitutional. There are cases still in process before two U.S. Circuit appellate courts, and the government's brief admits review might be warranted if either rejects the policy. The Supreme Court's decision on whether to hear Thomasson's case could come this week. The Conservative Coalition now ruling the Australian state of Queensland is believed to be preparing to gut the state's anti-discrimination legislation and to eliminate the independent commission established to enforce it. The impact of such a move would be felt by gays, lesbians and bisexuals along with native and ethnic groups, women in general, people with disabilities, youth and the elderly, union members, and those of minority political and religious affiliations. Under the current law, all those groups enjoy legal redress via the Anti-Discrimination Commission in case of discrimination in employment, accommodations and services. Speaking at a public meeting called by the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties in early September, the state's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner John Briton has confirmed that "serious consideration is being given, at senior levels of government, to move responsibility for the investigation and conciliation of complaints of discrimination and sexual harrassment out of the hands of an independent Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission and to give it over to staff of the Magistrates Court." Activists fear that such a move would make the pursuit of complaints prohibitively costly for most of those most likely to experience discrimination. There is also more public trust in the independent commissioners handling these cases than the civil servants of the Magistrates Court. Commissioner Briton called on the public to pressure their elected officials to keep the law and the Commission intact. The Australian Council for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights is coordinating a campaign of letters to Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge and state Minister for Justice Denver Beanland. Australia has been a leader in allowing gay and lesbian foreign nationals to gain permanent residency based on their intimate relationships with Australian citizens, but apparently too many have been taking advantage of the opportunity to suit the current government. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has announced his intention to reduce the number of gay and lesbian immigrants by lowering annual quotas for so-called "interdependency" visas. Ruddock's rationale is that too many couples have broken up once residency has been granted. He's also acting more generally to extend the residence requirement for permanent resident status, deny public benefits to foreign nationals, and substantially increase immigration fees. While permanent residency has in the past been granted on the basis of interdependency to as many as 650 gays and lesbians in a single year, Ruddock plans to limit the number of visas for gay and lesbian partners for the1996 - 1997 year to 100 applied for from overseas and 200 applied for by those already on Australian soil. Once those quotas have been filled, any further applicants will have to wait until the following year. Ruddock's office denies any discrimination in this process, claiming that other immigration categories have been cut back even further. Australia's Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force is urging couples to apply before the new quotas take effect. And finally ... California Assemblymember Pete Knight has built his reputation almost exclusively on his crusade for state legislation to deny recognition to same-gender couples. When Knight admitted recently that his own adult son is in a committed gay relationship, the "Cutler Daily Scoop" remarked, "What, Pete, too cheap to spring for a rehearsal dinner?" To which Shep Shepherd added in the "L.A. Times", "I was talking with my father about same-sex marriages. He said, 'That's nothing new ... your mother and I have been having the same sex for 40 years.'" -----------------*------------------- Sources for this week's report included: The Associated Press; Brother-Sister/Australia; United Press International; The Los Angeles Times; and cyberpress releases from Escrita En El Cuerpo/Buenos Aires and the Australian Bisexual Network.