NewsWrap
                 for the week ending July 26th, 1997
       (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #487,
                            distributed 07-28-97)
[Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Graham
Underhill, Val M. Cox, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon, and
anchored by Brian Nunes and Cindy Friedman]

  U.S. President Bill Clinton this week met for over an hour of informal
discussion with a dozen gay and lesbian community leaders and the national
president of the group P-FLAG -- Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians
and Gays.  The meeting was organized by the President's openly gay liaison to
the gay and lesbian community, Richard Socarides, as part of a program of
White House outreach to a number of special interest groups.  The President
was particularly interested to hear from some of the activists who are not
affiliated with the major national organizations he's spoken with before.
 One of them was Gloria Nieto, director of Santa Fe, New Mexico's People of
Color With AIDS Foundation: 

Gloria Nieto:  "There wasn't press in the room, which would have lent more
credence to the belief that it was more for looks.  The President said that
he wanted to listen to us, so my concerns, and everybody else's concerns in
the room, were recognized ... and the ongoing thread of conversation was
encouraging the President to use his position, his "bully pulpit", to be as
inclusive as possible.  We encouraged him to look at the issue of sexual
orientation as a discrimination issue."

Some of those issues were abuses of the so-called "don't ask, don't tell"
policy against military service by open gays and lesbians, AIDS, homophobic
violence, and the plight of gay and lesbian youth in hostile school
environments, and when thrown out of their homes.

Gloria Nieto:  "One of the things that we asked the President to do is have
more visibility in our communities -- so that meant, to us, like going to the
Hetrick-Martin [Youth] Center [in New York], or the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian
Center, or comin' with us out to 'The Res[ervation]' -- seein' those things
first hand, you know, so that there's visibilty and there's credibility given
to what our concerns are -- and that's what I feel like this meeting
accomplished.  It wasn't the President talking back to us and giving us pat
answers.  He was taking notes, and people really came from that place of,
'I've been discriminated against, and it's really painful, and you can do
something about it.'" 

Clinton told the group he's planning to nominate five open gays and lesbians
to high positions requiring Senate confirmation and 25 others to mid-level
positions.  He indicated that he wants his administration to be a model of
workplace equality, and emphasized his support for ENDA, the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act.  

  The President's authority doesn't extend to a number of serious legislative
struggles gays and lesbians are confronting at the state level, though, and
historically that's been an arena where conservative groups have dominated.
 This month saw the largest gathering to date of representatives from the gay
and lesbian groups of 32 states, who were organized by the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force to form the new Federation of Statewide Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender Political Organizations.  The Federation is
intended to facilitate cooperation and communication among the statewide
groups, to serve as a clearinghouse for information and ideas, to support
both new and existing statewide groups in their organizational development,
and to improve the working relationships between the statewide groups and the
national organizations.  Some of the specific issues confronting many
statewide groups are sodomy law repeal, civil rights law enactment, and legal
recognition of gay and lesbian families.

   Gay and lesbian families in British Columbia got a boost this week when
the provincial parliament became the first in Canada to give them status
equal to that of unmarried heterosexuals for purposes of child support, child
custody and visitation.  Despite intense opposition from a number of
religious groups, the parliament voted by a landslide to amend the Family
Relations Act to include same-gender partners in the definition of "spouse".
 Although the new definition so far applies only to the specific
child-related issues, British Columbia's Attorney General [Ujjal Dosanjh] is
now in the process of reviewing what may be some 500 provincial statutes in
order to prepare legislation that will fully redefine "spouse" to include gay
and lesbian couples.  He expects to introduce that legislation in 1998.
 British Columbia had previously enacted a law giving equal adoption
opportunities to same-gender couples.

  Three gay and lesbian couples in Vermont this week filed a lawsuit they
hope will win them full equal marriage rights.  Two lesbian couples and one
gay male couple are suing both the state and the three towns which denied
their applications for marriage licenses.  The couples have help from two
private attorneys, the legal activist group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and
Defenders, and the nationwide Freedom to Marry Coalition.  They charge that
Vermont's 150 special rights for traditional married couples should be
accessible to all couples under the state's constitution.   Although the
Vermont couples' lawsuit is in many ways parallel to the case that may bring
equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Hawai'i, Vermont's constitution
does not have the gender equality clause the Hawai'i State Supreme Court used
to justify same-gender marriages.  Therefore, Vermont's state Attorney
General William Sorrell is ready to defend the state's reservation of legal
marriage for heterosexuals only, based on the current marriage law's use of
the language "bride and groom" and "husband and wife".

  In Britain, an openly gay man lost his appeal trying to establish his
succession to his deceased partner's tenancy of their shared home, but won
what the London gay and lesbian lobbying group Stonewall called "the clearest
statement yet by any English court that the law needs to change to recognize
the human rights of lesbians and gay men."  Although two of three judges in
the Court of Appeal ruled against open gay Martin Fitzpatrick, all three
judges called on the Parliament to change the law to recognize same-gender
partners.  Judge L.J. Waite, who ruled in favor of Fitzpatrick, said, "There
is no essential difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual couple"
and that the current law is "offensive to social justice and tolerance
because it excludes lesbians and gays".  Stonewall is lobbying the Parliament
to change the law, while Fitzpatrick is planning to appeal to the House of
Lords, Britain's court of last resort.

  Gay and lesbian couples won new recognition in the world of finance this
week as J.P. Morgan & Company announced it will be extending spousal health
benefits to its employees' same-gender partners, becoming the first major
Wall Street firm to do so.  Also this week, California's second- and
third-largest banks, Wells Fargo and Union Bank, announced that they would
also be offering domestic partner benefits to both same-gender and
heterosexual unmarried partners.  California's largest bank, the Bank of
America, had already announced it will allow employees to choose any relative
or domestic partner to receive their spousal benefits.

  Same-gender couples were a major topic as the Episcopal Church USA held its
triennial General Convention in Philadelphia this week.  The convention ended
with a formal apology to gays and lesbians, and in many respects the entire
meeting was a triumph for them.  Domestic partners health benefits for the
church's gay and lesbian employees were approved by a wide margin, although
domestic partners pensions were defeated.  A plan to develop an official
ritual for blessing same-gender couples was replaced by a decision to study
the matter further, but several proposals to reject sexually active gay and
lesbian clergy were soundly defeated.  A gay-friendly Presiding Bishop was
elected, out of a field in which only one candidate did not make a gesture of
support to the gay and lesbian Episcopal group Integrity.  The apology
adopted by overwhelming margins in both the House of Bishops and the House of
Deputies said, "The 72nd General Convention apologizes on behalf of the
Episcopal Church to its members who are gay and lesbian" for "years of
rejection and maltreatment by the church" and affirmed that "We look forward
to these words of apology being translated into deeds of tolerance and
inclusion."

  And finally ... while the Southern Baptist Conference and other right-wing
groups are distressed that the lead character of ABC's sitcom "Ellen" became
the first on U.S. TV ever to come out as an open lesbian or gay, the show and
its now openly lesbian star Ellen DeGeneres both received a strong vote of
support as Emmy award nominations were announced this week.  The show
garnered five nominations from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences,
with three of them specifically honoring the coming-out show known as "The
Puppy Episode".  One of those was Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series,
for which DeGeneres received a story credit.  DeGeneres also got a nod for
Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "Ellen".  But a number
of nominations were also snagged by HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" for its
episode satirizing the months-long media frenzy buildup to "Ellen"'s coming
out, entitled "Ellen, Or Isn't She?"... and in a triumph of typecasting,
DeGeneres was recognized for an Outstanding Guest Performance in a Comedy
Series for her work on "The Larry Sanders Show" playing ... herself.
                              ---------*--------
Sources for this week's report included:  Associated Press;  Boston Globe;
 Canada News Wire;  Globe & Mail (Toronto);  London Times;  Los Angeles
Times;  Philadelphia Inquirer;  Portland (ME) Press Herald;  Reuters;  United
Press Internationl;  Vancouver Sun;  Variety;  Wall Street Journal;
Washington (DC) Post;  Washington (DC) Times;  Washington (DC) Blade;  and
cyberpress releases from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences;
 Anglicans Online;  EGALE (Canada);  Episcopal News; Freedom to Marry
Coalition;  GLSTN (Gay/Lesbian/Straight Teachers Network, U.S.);  Gay &
Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (Boston);  the National Gay & Lesbian Task
Force (U.S.);  Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays;  and Stonewall
(Britain).