NewsWrap for the week ending April 12th, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #472, distributed 04-14-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Graham Underhill, Bjorn Skolander, Mark Proffitt, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Mark Saccomano Ellen DeGeneres, star of the ABC sitcom "Ellen", came out as a lesbian this week on the cover of "Time" magazine, in perhaps the biggest coming out story in the history of U.S. television. Her sitcom character will be also be coming out as a lesbian on April 30, something DeGeneres says she wanted to be sure was settled before making her own announcement. She says that until now she had tried to keep her personal life separate from her professional life, but she knew that once her character came out, she would have to come out herself. She said, "I never wanted to be the lesbian actress. I never wanted to be the spokesperson for the gay community. Ever. I did it for my own truth." Meanwhile, the "Ellen" coming out episode has been dropped by ABC's affiliate station in Birmingham, Alabama, after the network refused to allow the show to be run at a late-night hour there. Even though stations will not have the opportunity to actually preview the episode until a few days before its airdate, and even though the network has guaranteed that there are no lesbian kisses involved, WBMA believed it to be inappropriate for family viewing. Local gay and lesbian groups are arranging for a satellite viewing in an auditorium. ABC says that all advertising spots for the special hour-long coming out episode have been sold, but there's already been some controversy on that score. Frequent advertisers Chrysler, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and J.C. Penney had long since chosen not to advertise on the coming out show. However, two gay and lesbian groups' ads were rejected by the network. One spot from the Human Rights Campaign to raise consciousness about workplace discrimination, which the network rejected based on a policy against advocacy advertising. The second was from the lesbian travel service Olivia Cruises, which raised network concerns about children viewing because of its portrayal of lesbian romance. One advertiser known to be booked for the show is a manufacturer of home test kits for HIV. New Zealand's first gay and lesbian TV show ended production this week, despite a season of good ratings and continued public funding. The Horizon program service felt that the show "Out There" had "run its course", although they indicated that some other gay and lesbian series will be in the lineup before the end of the year. Auckland's new Triangle Community Television expects to begin broadcasting on its regional non-commercial UHF frequency this year as well. Also in New Zealand, an open lesbian is being licensed as a preacher despite her Presbyterian Church's move to ban ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. The license makes Alyson Murrie-West available for ordination should a congregation select her to be their minister, and she's already been filling in for other ministers as needed. There was much more support than objection to her licensure in the Wellington Presbytery, but some fear that gay and lesbian clergy could lead to a mass exodus from the church. The ban on their ordination may become church law if it passes a second denomination-wide vote in July 1998. For now, Murrie-West will be continuing her studies on a three-year scholarship at Victoria University, having graduated at the top of her class at Dunedin's Knox Theological Hall. The Netherlands' Evangelic Lutheran Church has decided to boycott the World Council of Churches' conference in Zimbabwe because of the treatment of gays and lesbians there. The group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, or GALZ, had asked the Council to move the meeting long planned for Harare in 1998, but the Council settled for writing a letter to Zimbabwe's government expressing its members' agreement that homophobic discrimination is a violation of human rights. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have been viciously denouncing gays and lesbians for a year-and-a-half, and that led the Dutch Evangelic Lutherans to doubt his promise of free speech for the conference delegates. A church spokesperson said, "We fear homosexuality will be hidden from publicity at the Harare summit, and open discussion will be impossible. Because of this, we will not attend this conference." Also in Zimbabwe, former president Canaan Banana is now the target of a lawsuit by a policeman who charges Banana sexually assaulted him when he served in the palace guard in the 1980's. The allegations first became public in February when the policeman, Jefta Dube, was tried for killing a colleague who teased him for being "Banana's wife". Officials confirmed from the witness stand that they'd received reports at the time not only from Dube but from others as well, but that no action had been taken because of Banana's high office. A police investigation of Banana had already begun, but now Dube is seeking $115,000 in damages as well. Banana is a professor of theology and an ordained minister. In Austria, a gay Roman Catholic deacon blessed the union of a lesbian couple in the province of Styria. Catholic officials declared the ceremony invalid and cast doubt on the deacon's standing. Previously, a gay and a lesbian couple had been blessed by Lutheran ministers in August and September in the country's first publicized same-gender weddings. Activists say there may have been as many as nine others which did not come to public attention. A national meeting of Austria's gay and lesbian activists in November had named 1997 "the year of partnerships" as they focus their efforts on a campaign to win legal recognition for same-gender couples. Vietnam's first known gay wedding was held April 7th in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City with about 100 guests, according to Reuters. A police spokesperson told a local newspaper that the department would have liked to stop the affair if they had known about it, but that there are currently no laws against it. Britain has granted an extended stay to Brazilian national Ander Da Silva based on his 6-year relationship with Briton Mark Watson. It's the nineteenth case in which the British government has recognized gay and lesbian relationships crossing national boundaries, but it's special because Watson is the founder and chair of the Stonewall Immigration Group that helped the other 18. Watson had been an immigration officer himself until 1994, when he tried to forge Da Silva's passport so he could stay in the country. That led to expulsion for Da Silva and a 6-month jail term for Watson. On his release, Watson founded the Stonewall Immigration Group, which he says has 100 other applications pending and 500 other couples in the group. Also in Britain, two of the 20 novels nominated for the 30,000-pound Orange Prize are by and about lesbians. One is the latest from renowned author Jeanette Winterson, a funny and philosophical work set aboard the Queen Elizabeth II called "Gut Symmetries". The other is a first novel from Manda Scott called "Hen's Teeth", a high tech mystery thriller set in Glasgow in which a lesbian doctor tracks the murderer of her ex-lover. The Orange Prize, the United Kingdom's largest award for a single book, is designated for "the best novel of the year written by a woman and published in the U.K." The San Francisco 49ers this week announced the National Football League's first spousal benefits for employees' unmarried partners, both heterosexual and gay and lesbian. The plan will bring the 'Niners into compliance with the city's pioneering new law requiring equal treatment of unmarried couples by all of its contractors. The San Francisco Giants major league baseball team had previously been the first professional sports team to announce domestic partners benefits. The U.S. Department of Defense this week clarified that military personnel who report homophobic harassment have a right to see their complaints investigated and not their own sex lives. That's the message of a memo from Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn, obtained by openly gay Congressmember Barney Frank and publicized this week by the gay and lesbian Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, SLDN. It says that when military personnel report "threats of harm to their person or property based upon perceived homosexual orientation," it "should result in prompt investigation of the threat itself. Investigators should not solicit allegations concerning the sexual orientation or homosexual conduct of the threatened person. Service members should be able to report crimes free from fear of harm, reprisal, or inappropriate or inadequate governmental response." SLDN has a number of clients whose complaints of harassment resulted in their own discharges, and had noted that there was no departmental guarantee against such repercussions. And finally ... Australian Chris Tsakalos' first-of-its-kind lawsuit against his school in Penrith for failure to protect him from the homophobic assaults of other students has only begun its journey through the courts ... but the 14-year-old has already won an important victory. Relegated to home studies after leaving four schools because of the abuse he suffered, Tsakalos will now be able to attend classes at yet another school. This time, the Department of Education is guaranteeing his safety, and providing anti-homophobia training to the faculty and students. Tsakalos said, "I'm very happy. I really wanted to go back to school. Now I can be safe." ---------*----------- Sources for this week's report included: Reuters; The Associated Press; The New York Times; USA Today; Queer News Aotearoa (New Zealand); The Christchurch (New Zealand) Press;; The New Zealand Press Association; The San Francisco Examiner; The Washington Post; The Detroit News; United Press International; BBC Radio 5's "Out This Week"; the E! Cable Network; Time; Newsweek; and cyberpress releases from the American Civil Liberties Union; National Gay & Lesbian Task Force; Servicemembers Legal Defense Network; Human Rights Campaign; and Home Access Health Corporation.