NewsWrap for the week ending September 6th, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #493, distributed 09-08-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Martin Rice, Mark Proffitt, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon, and anchored by Cindy Friedman and Tory Christopher] Ireland's best-known gay activist just might become its next President. It's a longshot -- bookies set the odds at 20-to-1 in July, and if Social Democratic & Labour Party leader John Hume decides he wants the job, there may be no election at all -- but supporters of Senator David Norris are actively seeking the 20 members of parliament required to endorse his nomination. Norris is distinctly handicapped by being an independent, and will need the support of a major party to achieve his nomination. In 1990, the Parliamentary Labour Party nominated exiting President Mary Robinson even though she was not a party member, and three MP's have asked the PLP to do it again for Norris. Norris has an international reputation as a leading scholar specializing in the works of Irish writer James Joyce, as well as having won the high esteem of his colleagues in his 10 years in the Senate. Norris, a former chair of Ireland's Campaign for Homosexual Reform, is also renowned for his lawsuit challenging Ireland's sodomy laws that ultimately succeeded in the European Court of Human Rights in 1988. As a result, Ireland went on to decriminalize homosexual acts in 1993. The various Irish political parties will be determining their Presidential nominees over the next two weeks for an election to be held October 30. Mexico City's thousands of sex workers of both genders this week agreed to some regulations in the course of negotiations with city officials, according to a Reuters report. Male and transgendered sex workers are now restricted to working in a single district, while female sex workers may also work in a second district. Trade may be carried out between the hours of noon and 6 AM, although dress code restrictions apply until midnight. The sex workers will have to be prepared to present identification documenting that they have medical checkups on a regular basis, and are not allowed to work when they are ill. The agreement is expected to be codified into law by the Mexico City Council in the near future. A U.S. appeals panel this week upheld the military's right to discharge servicemembers who say they're gay or lesbian even with no evidence whatsoever of prohibited acts or even of the intention to engage in them. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in a 2-to-1 decision became the fourth federal appeals court to reject the argument that the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy violates Constitutional guarantees of free speech. Instead, the majority maintained that the discharges resulted not from two servicemembers saying they were gay, but because of their own failure to prove that they would not engage in gay sex. The dissenting judge believed that the "severe burden" the policy placed on freedom of speech was unjustified because it did not actually contribute to improved military effectiveness. The appeals court had combined the cases of decorated veteran submariner U.S. Navy Lieutenant Richard Watson and California Army National Guard Lieutenant Andrew Holmes. Both men had announced their sexual orientation to their commanders as a matter of conscience after the new policy was announced in 1993. In previous district court trials, Watson had lost and Holmes had won. The Dutch Supreme Court has rejected a lesbian couple's bid to co-adopt each other's children. Both women underwent artificial insemination, one giving birth to a boy and the other a girl. The couple plan a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Earlier this year the Dutch parliament rejected a bill to open adoptions to same-gender couples, although a parliamentary committee is reviewing the question. New Zealand's highest court, the Court of Appeal, this week heard arguments in three lesbian couples' lawsuit to be legally married. All five Court of Appeal justices are deciding the case. The couples' attorney argued that the 1955 Marriage Act did not define marriage in a way that excludes same-gender couples, while more recent anti-discrimination legislation seemed to require equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. One justice said that heterosexual-only marriage was not discriminatory since it did not prohibit gays or lesbians from marrying someone of the opposite gender. The government's attorney noted that if marriage is a right, it is not absolute, because there are already restrictions against marriages between relatives and those by people of limited mental ability and by people already married to someone else. In the last round of the couples' legal struggle, the court decided that it did not have jurisdiction over the question and that it was up to the Parliament to decide. However, the New Zealand government has recently rejected two important opportunities to give gay and lesbian couples legal recognition equal to that of unmarried heterosexual couples for purposes of property rights and inheritance. There was happier news for same-gender couples this week as a Chicago suburb became the first municipality in Illinois to establish a registry for gay and lesbian domestic partners. The Oak Park Village Board of Trustees voted for the registry 5-to-2 and plans to implement it beginning in mid-October. The progressive town with a heavy concentration of gays and lesbians was also the first in the state to extend spousal benefits to the domestic partners of its gay and lesbian employees, but no one has actually taken advantage of that offer in the 3-1/2 years since its passage. That won't be the case with the registry, even though its benefits are entirely symbolic -- a number of couples are already planning to be the first in line to get their certificates. There are similar registries in only about two dozen cities in the U.S. Australia's Uniting Church at its national meeting in July did not vote to affirm openly active gay and lesbian clergy, even though 10 of its ministers came out at the meeting. The discussion highlighted deep divisions between the church's most liberal and most conservative factions, and those conflicts have focussed since on the second-highest ranking minister in the national hierarchy, now-open lesbian Reverend Doctor Dorothy McRae-McMahon. It was officially announced on September 1st that McRae-McMahon has resigned as the denomination's national Director of Mission -- but it was not the sometimes hateful personal attacks that led her to step down. She told the church's National Standing Committee that her "continuing presence in the senior position may be putting in jeopardy the mission tasks of the Church and may be distracting the Church from its real work." She also said, "I am not going to move away from the struggle. I'm much freer to speak when I'm not in a representative position. I can say anything I like now." McRae-McMahon did not resign her ordination, however, and still faces a disciplinary complaint. Her resignation has not yet made any real difference in conservative members' quest for power, which has featured threats by some congregations to defund the national organization. Three former denominational presidents have now been asked to form a committee to help the church resolve its sexuality struggles. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa has upheld a complaint of bias against a Christian-oriented TV show that portrayed homosexuality as a sin. The Commission did not punish the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, or SABC, because none of the guests on the show were advocating hatred, and because it would be unconstitutional, in the Commission's words, "to expect religions to change just because of a public platform." But the Commission did rule that, "when it comes to a subject with public dimensions, some balance should be built in." In the SABC's "Quest" program aired on the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, host Mark Manley and some videotape clips attempted to provide some contrasting points of view, but all three guests condemned homosexuality as a sin. The Broadcasting Commission found that either there should have been another more tolerant guest or a separate, related program with a more gay-friendly point of view. And finally ... Chicago's plans to include rainbow lights in a $3-million facelift for its gayest neighborhood, North Halsted, have not met with universal acclaim -- even from gays and lesbians. The plan to include two 25-foot-tall gateways and 200 steel towers bearing lights in the colors of the rainbow flag, as well as numerous improvements to the infrastructure, was greeted with some skepticism at a community meeting with the architects and city officials this week. Some residents feared the gay decor would make non-gays feel excluded, while others believed it might attract gay-bashers or insult those gays and lesbians living elsewhere in the city. Pretty much everyone was pleased with the other improvements, though. As one local put it, "Widening the sidewalks on Halsted Street is wonderful. Taking Halsted and putting it in drag is not wonderful." ----*----- Sources for this week's report included: The Age (Melbourne), Agence France Presse, Associated Press, The Australian, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Christchurch (New Zealand) Press, The Guardian (London), Herald Sun (Melbourne), Independent Radio News (New Zealand), Irish News, Irish Times, London Times, Melbourne Star Observer, New York Times, New Zealand Herald, PlanetOut's NewsPlanet, Press Association (UK), Reuters, South Africa Press Association, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Star Observer, United Press International, Gay International News Network, Queer News Aotearoa (New Zealand); and cyberpress releases from the Campaign for Human Rights (New Zealand), GAP (New Zealand), Gay & Lesbian Equality Network (Dublin), and the International Lesbian & Gay Association.