NewsWrap for the week ending May 10th, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #476, distributed 05-12-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Chris Ambidge, Susan Gage, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon, and anchored by Cindy Friedman and Brian Nunes] It's been two years since a U.S. state enacted civil rights protections for gays and lesbians, but now New Hampshire and Maine will become the 10th and 11th states to pass such laws. Both state legislatures voted their approval this week, and both states' governors, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine, have promised to sign the bills into law. Both bills add "sexual orientation" as a protected category under existing state civil rights laws and both prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations; the Maine bill will also prohibit discrimination in credit. The New Hampshire legislature was considering the civil rights measure for the the third time in three years when the state Senate this week gave its final approval by a vote of 13 to 9, following a House vote in mid-March of 205 to 125. Both chambers are dominated by the Republicans. The bill includes exemptions for small businesses, private clubs, and organizations and corporations that are religious, charitable, educational, fraternal, or social in nature. It had the support of a number of religious organizations, including the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester. Similar measures have been introduced in Maine 9 other times in the last 20 years, most recently passing the legislature in 1993 only to be vetoed by the governor. The initial votes this week were 28-to-5 in the Senate and 84-to-61 in the House. The House debate lasted nearly 3 hours. Concerned Maine Families, a group which had previously mounted an unsuccessful ballot measure to prohibit civil rights protections for gays and lesbians, is already considering an initiative to repeal them. They held a protest demonstration at the State House this week and have been writing letters asking Governor Angus King to veto the bill, but he's determined to sign it into law. Also heading for a governor's desk following a vote this week is Colorado's measure to deny legal recognition to same-gender marriages. Although Governor Roy Romer last year was the first ever to veto such a measure, this year he's expected to sign. Thirty-two states have considered more than 60 such bills this year. As most state legislatures are winding up their sessions, 9 states have defeated them and 6 have enacted them. Romer's signature would make Colorado the 23rd of the 50 states to reject legal gay and lesbian marriages another state might someday perform. Florida's Governor Lawton Chiles is also currently considering the fate of an anti-marriage bill. One would-be governor is Georgia's Attorney General Michael Bowers, who this week announced his resignation from his current post to become a gubernatorial candidate. Bowers gained notoriety by winning "Bowers versus Hardwick", the 1986 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the states' right to criminalize private homosexual acts between consenting adults. Bowers also struck down Atlanta's first attempt to grant its employees domestic partner benefits and is currently being sued by Robin Shahar, who lost a job in Bowers' office after he learned that she and her lesbian partner had celebrated a wedding ceremony. Britain's four openly gay Members of Parliament were sworn in this week, and Chris Smith became the first open gay ever named to the national cabinet. He's now the Secretary for National Heritage, even though he was Labour's spokesperson on health matters before the elections. In his new post, he's responsible for the arts, broadcasting, culture, sports, tourism, and the national lottery. While that may sound like a tame agenda, he had to take immediate action in two events that made the headlines. The first was a fire at the site of the Royal Academy's important national art collection. The second was his announcement that the British Museum intends to keep the so-called Elgin Marbles, when Greece had hoped that the new Labour government would return them to their original home in the Parthenon after more than 180 years. Upcoming issues include the possible sale of the BBC's Channel 4, the allocation of lottery funds, and possible restructuring of the National Heritage ministry itself. Two figures in U.S. politics have publicly identified themselves as gay men. One is Steve Howard, the chair of Vermont's Democratic Party and the youngest man ever to hold such a post in the U.S. At a time when he's embroiled in conflicts within the party, he felt he'd gain self-confidence with his orientation out in the open, and that's proven to be true for him. He said, "This is the first time in my life I've ever been satisfied with myself ... it's wonderful." The other is Brian Bennett, who for a dozen years served as chief of staff for the leading homophobe of the U.S. House of Representatives, former Congressmember for California Robert Dornan. Bennett left Dornan's employ in 1989, and when Dornan asked Bennett to head up his disastrous 1996 Presidential campaign, Bennett declined, fearing a scandal because he had already fallen in love with his current male partner. Bennett's painful struggle with self-acceptance approached a nervous breakdown in 1995, finally moving him to come out. When Bennett finally came out to Dornan, his response was, "I've loved you like a son for 20 years, did you think this would make a difference?" However, Bennett's coming out also made no difference to Dornan's homophobic political beliefs. Dornan said this week, "The cutting edge of homosexuality is not Brian Bennett, who loves his religion and his faith. It's the others, who demand of us what they cannot give themselves: dignity and self-respect." In Cyprus, about 120 religious activists demonstrated outside the Parliament in Nicosia this week, protesting a move to repeal the sodomy law there. They carried posters reading "No to sodomy" and "homosexuality - misery, guilt and AIDS". They blocked the entrance to the building for an hour and promised to return in even greater numbers in the coming week to, in their words, "safeguard our morals". The Council of Europe has been pressuring Cyprus to repeal the 1889 law, which provides for 5-to-14 years' imprisonment. The pressure has increased since openly gay Cypriot Alecos Modinos won his legal challenge to the law before the European Court of Justice in 1993. The legislature has been moving towards reform for the last two years, and is expected to repeal the law before ending the current session in July. In Zimbabwe, the police investigating former President Canaan Banana, alleged to have sexually harrassed and sexually assaulted his palace guard during his 1980's presidency, say that more allegations have been "pouring in" from "dozens" of his former associates. Many of those who say they were assaulted or witnessed assaults are current and former students of Banana, a Methodist minister who chairs the religion department at Harare's University of Zimbabwe. Police expect to be bringing at least 8 cases to court within the next four weeks. There's still no comment on the matter from current President Robert Mugabe, who's both Banana's political ally of more than 20 years and a font of viciously homophobic rhetoric. As the Cannes Film Festival opened this week, one chair stood empty as the festival's protest against China prohibiting filmmaker Zhang Yuan from attending. Yuan's "East Palace, West Palace" was one of the first official selections announced this year and is screening as part of the "Un Certain Regard" sidebar. Authorities were outraged by its portrayal of contemporary gay life in China and banned its showing there. The title refers to a pair of public toilets in Beijing's Tianenmen Square, a gay cruising area. The plotline follows the relationship between a policeman and the young gay man he first harrasses and then arrests. Gays are also represented at Cannes in the "Critics Week" sidebar selection "Bent", British director Sean Mathias' realization of Martin Sherman's stage play following three gay men through the rise of Nazi Germany. And finally ... an Associated Press report by one C.K. Woodworth says that the Brigham City, Utah School Board held an emergency meeting this week, to stop insidious propagandizing for same-gender marriage among kindergarteners at Brigham Elementary School. The School Board was responding to petitions with hundreds of signatures, threats of lawsuits, and even the draft of a new state law. More than 200 people attended the meeting, with busloads more promised for the next meeting if no resolution was reached. Complaining parents' remarks included, "If you don't stand up for family values, this country is going to go right down the toilet", "It's upsetting the natural order of things", and "It's an outrage that we can't protect our own children from that sort of filth." What was going on? In a classroom with more girls than boys, teacher Renee Mott sometimes let a girl play the role of "The Farmer in the Dell" when acting out the nursery rhyme -- and sometimes one of those girl-farmers would choose another girl for the stanza "the Farmer takes a wife". Neither the Board nor the parents were impressed by Mott's defense that she had only wanted everyone to have a turn. The Board determined that henceforth it will always be a male who will lead off as the "Farmer" ... yet, in the interests of fairness, the final role of the "Cheese" who "stands alone" will be reserved for a female. School Board president Jack Peterson said of the "Cheese" compromise, "that should be enough to make anyone happy." -------*------- Sources for this week's report included: AFP with Globe Online; The Associated Press; The Bangor (ME) Daily News; The Boston Globe; The Colorado Springs Gazette; The Cyprus Mail; Foster's Daily Democrat (ME); Guy Gannett Communications; The London Times; The Los Angleles Times; The Macon (GA) Telegraph & News; Newsweek; "Out This Week" on the BBC's Radio Five Live; The Portland (ME) Press Herald; The Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald; Reuters; The San Francisco Chronicle; The Telegraph (London); The Toronto Star; United Press International; Variety; The Washington Post; and cyberpress releases from the American Civil Liberties Union; the Human Rights Campaign; the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; the New Hampshire Coalition to End Discrimination; the Victory Fund (U.S.); and Log Cabin Republicans.