NewsWrap
                 for the week ending March 22nd, 1997
          (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #469,
                             distributed 03-24-97)
[Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Rex
Wockner, Graham Underhill, Martijn Dekker,  Bjorn Skolander, Lucia Chappelle
and Greg Gordon, and anchored by Cindy Friedman and Brian Nunes.]

  There's been some drama during the last two weeks over the inclusion of
civil rights protections for gays and lesbians in Europe's constitutional
treaties.  Dutch Green Member of the European Parliament Nel van Dijk
published on the internet confidential documents showing that Europe's
current Dutch Presidency was moving to delete the protections from
discrimination based on gender, age and sexual orientation which had been
drafted by the preceding Irish Presidency.  The International Lesbian and Gay
Association and the Green Party protested, and the European Parliament passed
a resolution demanding the reinstatement of the civil rights clauses.  This
week, Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo announced to the foreign affairs
committee of the Dutch Parliament that the Dutch Presidency has changed its
position, and is now drafting new recommendations for the Intergovernmental
Conference revising the treaties.

  The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. this week voted to adopt as church law a
so-called "fidelity and chastity" amendment denying ordination to openly
active gays and lesbians.  The amendment is one of those measures which
reacts to gays and lesbians without ever naming them:  it states a
requirement that church officeholders live either in fidelity within a
heterosexual marriage or else remain chaste.  The Kentucky-based,
2.7-million-member denomination was hoping this vote would end twenty years
of struggle on the question of ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians, but
it appears to have deepened divisions instead; the margin of victory for the
amendment has been running about four to three.  Hundreds of gays and
lesbians are said to have served in clerical and lay leadership positions
within the church despite a 1978 policy that their holding such positions did
"not accord with God's will", a policy which was reaffirmed in 1993.  A
recent study indicated that hardly any of the gay and lesbian ministers
remained chaste -- in fact, most had long-term partners.  A number of critics
within the church have openly questioned why the amendment barred ordination
based only on sexual sins and no others.

  Anglican bishops in South Africa this month issued a press statement
apologizing for their church's historic hostility to gays and lesbians.  As
bishops of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa held a synod in Cape
Town, they staged a press conference to issue a statement on behalf of
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njonjonkulu Ndugane, which read in part, "As
a church we have been responsible over the centuries for rejecting many
people because of their sexual orientation.  The harshness and hostility to
homosexual people within our church are neither acceptable nor ... in accord
with our Lord's love of all people.  We repent of this attitude and ask
forgiveness of many homosexual people who have been hurt, rejected and
marginalized because of this deep-seated prejudice."  They also said they
"are unhappy at the tendency in some quarters to attack homosexuals on the
basis of simplistic interpretations of certain scriptural texts", and called
for more study of original texts of those sections of the Bible.
 Nonetheless, the bishops still believe that the only proper place for sex is
within heterosexual marriage.

  Swaziland's first gay and lesbian advocacy group has been rebuffed by the
Swazi government.  The newly-formed Gay and Lesbian Association of Swaziland,
or GaLeSwa, says there has never been anyone before to speak up in the face
of homophobic lobbying and abuse, and their mission is to win recognition of
gays and lesbians as equal members of Swazi society as the nation moves
towards democracy.  But Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini rejected GaLeSwa's
bid for recognition in a press conference last week, saying he felt no need
to "condone" the behavior unless it proved to be the will of the majority of
citizens.  Although Dlamini believes homosexuality is generally considered to
be abnormal and unacceptable by most Swazi people, he did note that there are
no laws against it.

  The Swedish Parliament saw a slew of gay-friendly bills introduced this
session, but the ruling Social Democrats have now been able to defeat two of
the most important ones with the help of the Christian Democratic and
Conservative parties.  Despite the ruling party taking heavy criticism in the
floor debate for their opposition, they defeated both a constitutional ban on
discriminatory legislation and a prohibition of "Incitement to Hatred of
Homosexuals".  Four smaller liberal and leftist parties supported the measure
against incitement, which was spurred by a rising tide of neo-Nazi violence
in Sweden.

  An item in an Australian gay and lesbian newspaper this week forced a court
 to declare a mistrial in the case of a heterosexual couple accused of
killing an openly gay New Zealander, Stephen Dempsey in 1994.  Richard
Leonard is accused of first shooting Dempsey with a bow and arrow and then
dismembering him in order to store his remains in a freezer for several
months, before disposing of them with the help of Denise Shipley.  The gay
and lesbian "Sydney Star Observer" published the fact that immediately
following the trial for killing Dempsey, the same couple would be tried for
the vicious stabbing murder of a non-gay cab driver.  The prosecutor and
judge agreed that the linking of the two cases was prejudicial, and Leonard's
trial will be rescheduled.  Leonard had at first claimed he was defending
himself against unwanted sexual advances from Dempsey. 

  In Spain, proposed legal recognition of unmarried couples, including gay
and lesbian domestic partners, this week led to an unprecedented tie vote in
the Congreso de los Diputados, the lower house of Parliament -- in fact,
there were two tie votes, in quick succession.  The Christian democratic
Partido Popular minority government opposes the measures, while the leftist
PSOE and Izquierda Unida parties proposed them.  The bills could give Spain
some of the strongest domestic partners rights in Europe, with financial
rights including pensions and inheritance.  While the Congreso's chair called
for a recess, Partido Popular went in search of missing Members of
Parliament, and found two members of its frequent ally the Canary Islands'
regionalist party Coalicion Canaria to defeat the bills by two votes.  But
the process didn't end there.  The Canary Islanders said they believed
domestic partnership laws should be enacted in the near future, and promised
to introduce one of their own if necessary.  Another frequent ally of the
Partido Popular, the Basque party, complained that the two-vote margin was
too narrow.  The Partido Popular did vote in a last-minute proposal to set up
a committee to study the issue, although the committee is not mandated to
report until the Parliament is entering its summer recess.  But the PSOE and
the IU came back the very next day to reintroduce measures identical to the
earlier ones, and those should be voted on within a few months.  Partnerships
are the leading gay and lesbian issue in Spain, leading some 10,000 to
demonstrate last month in the largest gay and lesbian protest there in many
years.

  In Canada, Alberta's Conservative provincial government has barred gay and
lesbian couples and other so-called "non-traditional families" from serving
as foster parents, although children already placed in such homes are not
being removed.  The situation for single men and women is unclear.  One
lesbian in the Edmonton area has been an outstanding foster parent for 17
years, but the government is refusing to allow her to foster any more
children beyond the one now living with her.  She's challenging the new
policy with the support of the Alberta Foster Parent Association and is
expected to be appearing in court once she's exhausted the government's
internal appeals process.

  In Calgary, Alberta, the school board established new guidelines to create
a "safe and secure learning environment" for lesbian and gay students and
staff.  Plans include special counseling services for students and activities
to increase awareness of homophobic harassment and violence, but the opposing
Parents Response Association may bring a lawsuit against the school district
to stop them.

  The British Columbia Teachers Federation this week passed a resolution to
develop anti-homophobia resources for the training of teachers, to help them
implement the province's anti-discrimination curriculum.  Late last month in
Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, the school board passed a measure against
discrimination and sexual harassment but voted down a proposal to provide
counseling and other special services for gay and lesbian students.

  And finally ... leave it to London's direct action group OutRage! to be
outrageous, and what better time than the weeks leading up to Britain's
national elections?  But while they've previously threatened to "out"
closeted gay Members of Parliament, this time they'd like to "out" those MP's
who are homophobes -- and they want to do it scientifically.  Clearly
OutRage! members were very much impressed by the recent reports of
experiments by Dr. Henry Adams of the University of Georgia, who used a
device to measure men's sexual arousal as they watched erotic films, and
found that homophobes were much more likely to be themselves turned on by
homoerotic imagery than other men.  That jibed well with a popular belief
that many gay-haters are repressed gays themselves.  So OutRage! is now
proposing the ultimate political "litmus test" -- that the 20 MP's with
anti-gay voting records don the device, watch some films ... and see what
comes up.
                              ---------*----------
Sources for this week's report included:  The Associated Press;  The Canadian
Broadcasting Corp.; Canadian Press Association;  The Chicago Tribune;  The
Dallas Morning News;  ENI;  The Philadelphia Inquirer;  Press Association
(Britain);  The Press (Australia);  ZA Now (South Africa);  The Sydney Star
Observer (Australia);  and cyberpress releases from News from Swedish
Lesbian/Gay Politics (Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights - RFSL);
 Miguel Angel Sanchez/Fundacion Triangulo por la Igualdad Social de Gais y
Lesbianas;  Hein Verkerk/Groenlinks;  Steffan Jensen & Bjorn Skolander/The
International Lesbian & Gay Assn.;  and Presbyterians for Lesbian & Gay
Concerns.