NewsWrap for the week ending January 18th, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #460, distributed 01-20-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Ron Buckmire, Graham Underhill, Adam Sofen, Giney Villar, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon] An Israeli gay man has been awarded a spousal military pension for his deceased partner. Acting as an appeals body, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that to deny him military pension benefits an unmarried heterosexual partner would qualify for would be discrimination based on gender. That's the same kind of reasoning used by the Hawai'i state Supreme Court in the celebrated case that may lead to legal same-gender marriages there. Adir Steiner said the court viewed him as the common-law spouse of the late Colonel Doron Maisel based on their sharing a home and finances and on the public recognition of their relationship. Steiner had won complete acceptance not only from Maisel's family but also from his military colleagues, who invited Steiner to the same public functions as other officers' wives. Although Steiner and Maisel were sexually exclusive, that was not significant in the court's decision, since heterosexual couples are not required to prove anything regarding their sexual relations to qualify as common-law spouses. Maisel died of cancer in 1991 after some seven years of partnership with Steiner. The Israeli Defense Force originally rejected Steiner's claim for the pension. Steiner's attorney believes the current ruling will extend pension benefits to gay and lesbian partnerships throughout the public sector, including not only military personnel, but also such government employees as police and teachers. That's in contrast to the famous 1994 Israeli High Court ruling that gave an El Al Airlines employee spousal travel benefits for his gay partner, a ruling which dealt only with a private company's employment contract. The world's largest airline, United, is being forced to consider a domestic partners benefits policy by a new San Francisco law. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently enacted a first-of-its-kind law requiring that companies contracting with the city extend their employees' gay and lesbian partners the same benefits they provide legal spouses -- and United has a slew of contracts because of its major operations at San Francisco International Airport. Although the law itself doesn't go into effect until June 1st, additional legislation required its implementation for any long-term contracts that came up in the interim. To comply, United would have to extend domestic partners benefits not only to its thousands of San Francisco area employees, but to all its 86,000 employees worldwide. Although United has been considering such a move, and has marketed heavily to the gay and lesbian community, it may well contest the city's requirement. The tabloid "outing" of Tory Member of the British Parliament Jerry Hayes appears not to have damaged his standing with his constituents -- or his wife -- because they just don't believe it. This week the Executive Council of the Harlow Conservative Constituency Association unanimously reaffirmed Hayes as their chosen candidate in Britain's upcoming elections. Hayes' wife spoke to the media and completely denied his alleged sexual relationship with gay activist Paul Stone. Although there is no denying that Hayes and Stone had a close friendship beginning in 1991, Hayes claims it was never sexual, despite publication of his own infatuated love letters to Stone. At the time Stone says the affair began, he was 18 years old and the British age of consent for homosexual acts had not yet been lowered from 21. Hayes has been both a strong advocate for gays and lesbians and visible in the media as a sterling example of the "family values" theme now featured in the Tories' elections campaign. The popular British-based erotic magazine "EuroBoy" is changing its name to "EuroGuy" to avoid prosecution under a new U.S. law. The so-called Child Pornography Protection Act was sneaked through at the end of the 1996 legislative session attached to a finance bill. It makes it a criminal offense to show people engaged in sexual activity in a way that may lead consumers to believe any participant is under age 18, regardless of the model's actual age. Punishments can run to 30 years' imprisonment and fines with no upper limit. Attorneys for "EuroBoy" publisher Prowler Press have advised them that using "boy" in the magazine's name is "like waving a red flag", and U.S. distributors of the magazine have already burned thousands of copies. But although "boy" signifies a child in the U.S., it's commonly used by European gays to mean simply anyone under 30. U.S. media are organizing to challenge the law in court, with the new heterosexual movie "Lolita" expected to be the plaintiff in a test case. Prowler Press is struggling with the question of how to deal with their marketing without using terms such as boy bands, playboys and cowboys. In California, about 500 young gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders descended on the state government in Sacramento this week for the second annual Youth Lobby Day. They called on legislators to recognize the needs of sexual minority youth, to support AIDS prevention programs, and to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The climactic event was a rally at the Capitol, where the enthusiastic crowd cheered the speakers and booed references to anti-gay Republican Governor Pete Wilson. Openly lesbian California Assemblymembers Carole Migden and Sheila Kuehl addressed the crowd, in addition to young people who described their personal experiences of harassment and encouraged each other to be proud and demand to be heard. Kuehl has reintroduced a measure to add "sexual orientation" as a protected class under the state's anti-discrimination policy for public schools. In the Philippines, there's considerable energy and growing activism among gays and lesbians, but getting organized on a national scale is a major challenge. This week, two groups announced their plans for major national gay and lesbian conferences to take place at almost the same time, which may be more than the Philippines' fledgling movement can handle. Babaylan, the gay group at the University of the Philippines, prepared for a national conference by holding the first in a series of national meetings of gay and lesbian leaders this week. It was a first attempt by groups who have not worked together before to address their common concerns. But because there were only a handful of lesbians among the 50 participants, the women felt a need to meet separately to prevent their issues from being lost amidst the overwhelming male majority. Both the lesbian caucus and the pre-arranged workshops addressed issues of coming out, identity, economic issues, politics, and the place of gays and lesbians in society. Most of the same participants will meet again in February to develop a working structure for organizing the national conference, after discussing the first session with their various constituencies. Meanwhile, another group, PROGAY, the Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines, was announcing its plans for a conference to the international media, saying they hope to unify "grassroots" gays and lesbians to achieve more representation in the national arena. PROGAY had been expected to attend the Babaylan meeting, but didn't make it. They caught the attention of the wire services with a demonstration protesting Philippine President Fidel Ramos' plans for a national computerized identification system. Ramos believes the I.D. cards will help both to combat fraud and to expedite business transactions and government services. Opponents say it will stifle dissent, and PROGAY is concerned at how easy it would be to encode data such as gender identity, sexual orientation and HIV status. Cobb County, Georgia has a new group of County Commissioners since November's elections, and in making a fresh start they're leaving behind the County's notorious resolution condemning what it called "the homosexual lifestyle". That resolution was passed by the County in 1993 largely at the instigation of Commission Chair Bob Byrne, who said this week, "the resolution is officially behind us with our new board coming on. That is a good place to leave it.... There will not be a similar resolution introduced to that magnitude. As Chairman, I can assure you of that." Byrne and the former Commission had clung to the resolution despite a firestorm of controversy, including boycotts by the Olympic Games and the Tour Dupont bicycle race, and even Byrne's daughter coming out publicly as a lesbian to denounce the measure. But it never represented the opinion of most of the County's residents or businesses, and continuing pressure from the group Cobb Citizens Coalition has finally buried it. The Coalition will now focus on establishing protections from harassment for the County's students. And finally ... the U.S. has been waiting for weeks to see if the title character of the ABC-TV sitcom "Ellen" will be the first to come out as a lesbian, and now will have to wait until May to find out. Star Ellen DeGeneres has been playing it cute and coy through a series of media appearances that have failed to help the show's declining ratings. But while taping an episode January 10th, singing a song the character writes at a rock 'n' roll fantasy camp, DeGeneres ended the third take singing, "So here's what I have to say ... And by the way, I'm gay! It's OK! I'm gay! I'm gay!" The audience screamed and cheered as she continued repeating, "I'm gay! I'm gay!" to the end of the song. However, a spokesperson for ABC insists it was an ad lib that will never be broadcast. ---------*--------- Sources for this week's report included: The Associated Press; Business Wire; The Hong Kong Standard; The Jerusalem Post; The London Times; The Pasadena (CA) Star-News; Reuter News Service; The San Francisco Chronicle; The San Francisco Examiner; United Press International; and cyberpress releases from GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation); the Cobb Citizens Coalition; incite!; Prowler Press; and SQUIRM.