NewsWrap for the week ending October 5th, 1996 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #445, distributed 10-07-96) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Ron Buckmire, Alejandra Sarda, Bjorn Skolander, Alan Reekie, Rex Wockner and Greg Gordon] Italy's Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini and Austria's Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel this week jointly proposed a major human rights clause for the basic treaty of the European Union, explicitly including sexual orientation as a protected category. Their proposal came at a conference in Luxemborg developing recommendations to create "social cohesion" within the Union and to make European membership more meaningful to average citizens. They called on the Union to ensure that no discrimination will occur, to actively combat intolerance and to punish any member nation's continued infringements with suspension of benefits. The Union is involved in a multi-levelled process of revising its treaties and gay and lesbian rights are being discussed at each level. In mid-September, the European Parliament approved a strongly-worded resolution to abolish unequal treatment of gays and lesbians, specifying that legal ages of consent should be the same for heterosexual and homosexual acts, and including workplace rights and all areas of the law. In early September, the Intergovernmental Conference working specifically on the revision of European treaties considered a proposal by Ireland for new anti-discrimination provisions with sexual orientation as a protected category. The revised treaty will ultimately have to be approved by all 15 member nations of the European Union in a process that could take one to two years. As Durban, South Africa develops its local government policies in a process of democratic restructuring, local gay and lesbian activists have added their specific demands to the mix. Gayline Durban and the province-wide KwaZulu-Natal Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality asked Durban's North Central Council to establish equal treatment for its employees and to declare their sector a gay rights municipality -- a term without meaning in law but psychologically supportive to gay and lesbian citizens. The two groups also requested equal access for gays and lesbians to government-supported housing, government funds to establish a gay and lesbian counseling service, safe havens for gay and lesbian youth fleeing violence in their homes, and a good supply of gay and lesbian books in all public libraries. The Democratic Party is expected to introduce these proposals to the Council soon. Canada's Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear a case which could force the addition of sexual orientation as a protected category in Alberta's provincial human rights law. It's a lawsuit brought by openly gay lab worker Delwin Vriend, who in 1991 was fired from his job at the King's University College in Edmonton because of the school's religious objections to homosexuality. At the trial court level, Vriend prevailed with the argument that Alberta's omission of protections based on sexual orientation were contrary to the Canadian national Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the court directed the provincial legislature to amend the human rights law. When that ruling was appealed, however, a majority of the appellate panel condemned it as "judicial legislation" and struck it down, noting that the legislature had rejected those amendments on several previous occasions. The appellate court also believed that gays and lesbians already had protection equal to that of heterosexuals under the existing law. Also in Canada, the Ontario Human Rights Commission this week announced a ruling that orders all the cities in the province to extend spousal benefits to the domestic partners of their gay and lesbian employees. Also based on the national Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Toronto Metro employees Mary Woo Sims and Bill Dwyer argued successfully that the Ontario Municipal Act and the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act both illegally discriminated by defining spouses exclusively as partners of the opposite gender. Damages were awarded to both plaintiffs -- 11,200 Canadian dollars to Dwyer and 4,000 to Sims. Ironically, the case was won partly because the government argued that same-gender households did not need spousal benefits because they have no children. When it was demonstrated that some gay and lesbian households do indeed have children, the Commission used that as a rationale to extend benefits to all of them. The provincial court's order cannot yet apply to pension benefits in particular, because those are regulated under the federal Income Tax Act. However, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in a September ruling called on the national government to act swiftly to amend those regulations. And another discriminatory provision of Canada's Income Tax Act has now been reversed in a technical interpretation by Revenue Canada, so that spousal health benefits for employees' gay and lesbian partners are no longer unfairly taxed. While the same health benefits for both married and unmarried heterosexual partners had been tax-free to the recipients and a tax write-off for the employers, the definitions in the Income Tax Act had made them a tax burden to both in the case of same-gender couples. In fact, employers had to either provide entirely separate coverage or keep separate records of gay and lesbian domestic partner benefits. Now same-gender couples will be treated identically to heterosexual ones for the 20 or 30 percent of Canadian employers now offering them spousal health benefits. In Australia, New South Wales' 2-year-old state law against defamation has resulted in an award of damages for the first time. The recipient is an openly gay pensioner with AIDS who was severely harassed, insulted and threatened by a heterosexual couple living next door to him. The Equal Opportunity Tribunal ordered the couple to pay the gay man 50,000 Australian dollars. In Zimbabwe, Attorney General Patrick Chinamasa has said there is no legal action underway against two individuals who threatened members of the national gay and lesbian organization at July's Zimbabwe International Book Fair. The New-Jersey-based Magnus Hirschfeld Centre for Human Rights had inquired about two men who were quoted in the international wire services. One was Lawrence Chakaredza, who threatened that his group would destroy the entire book fair if the organization Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, or "GALZ", was allowed to display there. The other was public prosecutor Herbert Ushewokunze, Junior. After a High Court ruling blocked the government's attempt at censorship and allowed GALZ to appear at the fair, Ushewokunze joined the 100-man group that mobbed GALZ's booth and said he "did not care what the decision of the High Court was; this is a 'Court of the people'." The Attorney General described that riot as a protest demonstration protected by constitutional guarantees, and said that in both cases any prosecution would require an eyewitness rather than merely a press account. In Argentina, Buenos Aires transgenders, gays and lesbians thought they'd scored a victory when the convention developing the city's new home rule eliminated the so-called "police edicts", which had allowed police to arrest anyone at any time, jail them and at times torture them, without judicial review of any kind. But in the interim before the new laws take effect, the police appear to be retaliating by using the police edicts even more vigorously against the activists who helped repeal them. On October 1, police raided the gay club In Vitro, arresting all the customers and the drag performers and jailing them for more than 24 hours without making any charges against them. A dozen transvestites were arrested the same night and 8 more the next. One officer of the Argentine national tranny activist group OTTRA was arrested, held overnight and verbally abused for at least 4 consecutive nights, while another has received telephone death threats. Repeal activists are planning a protest at police headquarters. The state of Western Australia is celebrating pride all this month. The Lesbian and Gay Pride Festival opened with a fair at Perry Lakes and will conclude with the climactic street parade and party in Perth on November 2. Acclaimed Western Australia artist Geoffrey Wiese is exhibiting both as part of a group show in Perth with the artists' collective "That Way Inclined" and solo in his first international exhibition in New York City. This week about 250 gays and lesbians attended the Alaska Pride conference at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. Under the title "Health, Growth, Spirit", workshops took a new age approach to achieving physical and mental health holistically. Keynote speakers addressed spiritual issues, and political activists reflected on the state legislature's actions this year against same-gender marriages and domestic partners benefits. And finally ... fundraising AIDS Walks have been taking place in many locations across North America. AIDS Walk Canada involved 69,000 participants in 62 communities from Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territory who raised a total of more than 2.7 million Canadian dollars. Montreal had the largest crowd, at 30,000 people. Toronto raised the most money, more than 3/4 of a million dollars. The smallest group was 3 high school girls in Newfoundland, who braved high winds and rain. The shortest route was walked by 50 staff and inmates on the grounds of the Dorchester Penitentiary. In the U.S., the celebrity-studded 12th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles set new records for participation -- about 28,000 walkers ... for funds raised -- almost 3-and-1/2-million U.S. dollars ... and for bribery. Bribery? Well, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan had noticed last year that the only top level official of his administration to participate was the chief of police. So this year, he offered to personally contribute $1,000 to the event for each of his department heads who walked. He thought perhaps 5 would take him up on the offer, but it turned out to be ... 36. -----------------------*------------------------ Sources for this week's report included: The Los Angeles Times; Rex Wockner International News Service; The Associated Press; United Press International; Reuter News Service; The Toronto Star; The Financial Post/Denmark; the Anchorage Daily News; and cyberpress releases from New Jersey's Magnus Hirschfeld Centre for Human Rights; the Canadian AIDS Society; Europe's Gay & Lesbian Equality Network; Escrita en el Cuerpo-Lesbian/Pansexual Women's Archives and Library Electronic News Service/Buenos Aires; and the International Lesbian & Gay Association.