NewsWrap for the week ending May 31st, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #479, distributed 06-02-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Bjorn Skolander, Graham Underhill, Susan Gage, Rex Wockner, Alejandra Sarda, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Brian Nunes In Argentina, officials announced this week that surviving members of gay and lesbian couples qualify for the same federal pension benefits as unmarried heterosexual couples. When they examined the 1994 law establishing pension rights for unmarried heterosexual couples, they found it did not specify gender, but only couples who had lived together for at least 5 years "in apparent matrimony", and concluded there should be no discrimination. The policy change was the culmination of a process that began when veteran gay activist and high school teacher Rafael Freda asked his local union's benefits provider for health care coverage after his partner of 10 years lost his job. The provider, OSPLAD, found its contract extended benefits to "any persons living with the affiliate and being overtly subjected to the same treatment as the primary family members," and granted the partners coverage just days after Freda provided certification that the couple had been living together. Once the teachers union had set the precedent, the flight attendants union was quick to follow suit, and Buenos Aires' "Clarin" newspaper went on to raise the question with social security officials. The lower house of the Spanish parliament, the Congreso de los Diputados, has given initial approval to a bill to establish legal domestic partnerships for both heterosexual and same-gender couples for a broad range of social and economic purposes. The vote of 165 to 159 commits this parliament to enacting a partnership law, although it will be at least a year before the process is completed. The vote was remarkable as the ruling Partido Popular's first legislative defeat in a year and a half. The PP lost some of its usual allies as the coalition of Catalan nationalists split on the issue and the Canary Islanders actually sponsored the bill. Even one of the PP's own members of parliament broke party discipline to support domestic partnerships. The Fundacion Triangulo por la Igualdad Social de Gais y Lesbianas, which has been lobbying for the bill for years, called the vote "a major development in the fight for civil rights and quality of citizens." Poland's new constitution, approved by a majority of voters this week, specifically defines marriage as a "union between one man and one woman". That unusual clause was included at the urging of the Roman Catholic Church, to which as many as 90 percent of Poles belong. They were reacting not to demands of gays and lesbians, who are barely organized in the face of intense homophobia, but instead to the growing recognition of same-gender couples elsewhere in Europe. The anti-marriage clause is almost the only substantive victory for religious conservatives in a constitution drafted by a left-dominated parliament. What gays and lesbians had hoped to see in the new constitution was civil rights protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation, but that clause was lost earlier in the development process. The Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights is protesting a cut in immigration quotas for gay and lesbian couples. In 1995, up to 650 foreign partners of gays and lesbians were allowed to immigrate. After the country took its sharp turn to the right, that number was cut to 400, and now Minister for Immigration Philip Ruddock has cut it to 200. The quota for heterosexual couples has decreased by only 7% over the same period. Ruddock announced in December that he was bypassing the Parliament to use the full authority of his department to make sweeping changes in immigration policy, and in March the government won the ability to discriminate on the basis of marital status in immigration. The even further right-wing movement led by Member of Parliament Pauline Hanson has steadily inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in general. Two Canadian provinces are moving toward increased recognition of gay and lesbian couples. Ontario's Chief Human Rights Commissioner Keith Norton has asked the attorney general for recognition of same-gender couples equal to that of unmarried heterosexual couples in 16 statutes, as a means of bypassing what has been a long and costly process of individual court cases. A year-long study has found differential treatment in some 65 statutes, ironically including the definitions of "spouse" and "marital status" in the Human Rights Code. "Opposite sex" definitions of common-law spouses were found to be unconstitutional in a 1995 Canadian Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, Quebec's Human Rights Commission President Claude Filion has called for reform of a law which now allows private health insurance carriers to refuse to extend coverage to same-gender partners. In the coming week, the U.S. movement against legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples will have succeeded in more than half the states. This week, after extended waffling, Florida's Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles announced that he will allow to pass into law without his signature a measure to deny recognition to legal same-gender marriages another state may someday perform. The governors of Colorado and Minnesota are also expected to sign similar measures now before them. Twenty-three other states had already enacted such laws since a 1993 Hawai'i state Supreme Court decision made legal same-gender marriages appear to be a possibility there. That court is scheduled to give its final review to the case of "Baehr versus Miike" in June, but has been considering delaying action because a public referendum may be held in 1998. Even a private religious celebration of a lesbian wedding was enough to lose a lawyer a job with the Georgia state attorney general's office. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-to-4 this week that Attorney General Michael Bowers did not act illegally in withdrawing his job offer to Robin Shahar after learning of her wedding. Last year, three members of the same court had ruled that Shahar's right of intimate association overrode Bowers' concerns for his office's credibility in a state where even private same-gender sex acts are illegal. That was the first time a federal appellate panel had recognized such a right for gays and lesbians. But the full court insisted on rehearing the case, and has now concluded that the state's interest in promoting the efficient working of the state Law Department outweighs Shahar's rights in the matter. It was Bowers himself who in 1986 convinced the United States Supreme Court to uphold the validity of Georgia's sodomy law, and he saw Shahar's wedding as open defiance of that law and of the state's ban on same-gender marriage. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently deciding whether or not to support Shahar in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. There's been an advance in employment rights in Britain as the government secret intelligence unit MI5 included gays and lesbians in its first public recruitment drive. Although former Prime Minister John Major had previously opened security clearances to gays and lesbians, they were still believed to be excluded from MI5 and MI6 until a recent memo stated that, "The fact of homosexuality is not of itself a security worry." Now it's only those who are caught having lied about their sexual orientation who can expect dismissal. Recent homophobic remarks by Namibia's President Sam Nujoma and other members of the ruling SWAPO party have driven the country's gays and lesbians to an unprecedented level of national organizing. The birth of the group called The Rainbow Project was confirmed this week for the first time. The development of the new organization was assisted by the feminist group Sister Namibia, which is receiving an award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for its efforts. The Rainbow Project has three task forces at work in the areas of counseling and social services advocacy for gays and lesbians; public education and consciousness-raising; and legislative lobbying. The Rainbow Project's first legislative priority is repeal of the sodomy law. Members believe that their increasing visibility has already caused politicians to soften the tone of their anti-gay rhetoric. And finally ... in "This Way Out"'s more than nine years of weekly reporting of international news, guess which single item has received the most listener response. No, it's none of the sweeping legal, political, social, or cultural advances for gays and lesbians, nor any of the gruesome violence against them. It's our recent kicker story regarding the nursery rhyme "The Farmer in the Dell". As you may recall, that story described panic in a small Utah town that a majority-female kindergarten class occasionally had a female "farmer" take a female "wife" when acting out the rhyme, leading to a school board decision that for the future only males could play the "farmer" while in fairness the role of the "cheese" would be reserved for females. What cheesed off our listeners was their discovery that the story did not in fact originate with the Associated Press but was intended as a joke by its author C.K. Woodworth. So tonight we can all rest easy knowing that all's well in the Dell ... but questions still remain about the fairies at the bottom of the garden. ------*--------- Sources for this week's report included: The Age (Melbourne, Australia); The Melbourne (Australia) Star Observer, The Associated Press; Cable News Network; Canada News Wire; The London Times; The Montreal Gazette; Reuters; The St. Petersburg (FL) Times; The Advocate; and cyberpress releases from The Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights (Kingston, ACT); Escrita En El Cuerpo (Buenos Aires); Fundacion Triangulo por la Igualdad Social de Gais y Lesbianas (Madrid); The International Lesbian & Gay Association; and The Rainbow Project (Namibia).