NewsWrap
for the week ending November 22nd, 1997
(As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #504, distributed 11-24-97)
[Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill,
Jim Birkitt, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle]

                          Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Tory Christopher

  In California, the personal intervention of Republican Governor Pete Wilson
didn't stop the Board of Regents from making University of California the
first statewide agency to extend spousal benefits to the same-gender partners
of its gay and lesbian employees.  Wilson not only actively lobbied the
Regents, he made appointments to three empty seats on the Board within two
days of the vote in an effort to turn the tide, but the benefits were adopted
13-to-12.  Although technically a Regent himself, Wilson hasn't actually
engaged with the Board since he charged in to help end the University's
affirmative action program, which boosted his abortive bid for the 1996
Republican Presidential nomination.  Ironically, it was Wilson's leading ally
against affirmative action who helped to push through the partnership
benefits; in both cases, Ward Connerly believed he was acting for fairness.
 Wilson's moral argument that recognition of gay and lesbian partners would
damage traditional marriage was not very effective in convincing the Regents,
but did win him the applause of the Christian Coalition.  The first request
for partner benefits by a University of California employee came 18 years
ago, and activists have lobbied heavily for the benefits for the last seven
years.

  Registering a lesbian partnership has led to suspension for a priest of the
Church of Norway, and because it's the state church, the matter came up for
discussion in the national Parliament this week.  Even though civil
registries give same-gender couples in Norway nearly all the benefits of
legal marriage, the Church of Norway does not celebrate them and expects its
gay and lesbian clergy to remain celibate.  Recently-elected Christian
Democratic Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik is also an ordained priest in the
Church of Norway.  He said that the bishop who ordained lesbian Siri Sunde
believes she broke a promise by registering her partnership.  Bondevik
absorbed criticism from Members of Parliament from across the political
spectrum for Minister of Church Affairs Jon Lilletun having spoken out of
turn to demand Sunde's resignation in the press.  Sunde's fate is entirely in
the hands of the Church, but the relationship between church and state has
become an increasingly hot potato in Norway.  The Labor Party, which is the
largest in Parliament but not part of the ruling coalition, set a goal at its
recent convention to force the church to abide by national laws prohibiting
employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.  The church reaffirmed
its complete ban on hiring of gays and lesbians for lay jobs and the bishops
agreed they were ready to separate the church from the government.

  U.S. President Bill Clinton included at least two openly gay clergy among
some 120 religious leaders honored at a White House breakfast this week:
 Harvard University chaplain Peter Gomes and founder of the gay-affirming
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches Troy Perry.  Although
some of the numerous denominations represented at the breakfast have
histories of intolerance towards gays and lesbians, no clergy were known to
have refused their invitations because of the presence of the gay men.  Three
conservative groups issued a joint press release condemning the White House
for honoring Perry, but there was no further evidence of their protest.  In
response to that verbal assault, two White House aides contacted Perry with
reassurances, and he was given both preferred seating and a chance to speak
one-to-one with Vice President Al Gore.

  In Germany, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats were the only
major national party without a gay and lesbian caucus -- but no more.  The
new group Gay Christian Democrats held its first meeting in Bonn last weekend
with attendees from five of the 16 German states.  Despite the party's use of
"family values" rhetoric and its long history of actively opposing measures
favorable to gays and lesbians, the new group claims there are a number of
closeted gays and lesbians in the party hierarchy, who they hope to encourage
to come out.  They say that there are gays and lesbians even in the inner
circle around the Chancellor, who isn't personally particularly concerned
about sexual orientation.  Several members of the Gay Christian Democrats say
they advanced to leadership positions in the party's youth organization but
were disempowered once their sexual orientation became known.  Spokesperson
Lars Luttich told the media that, "It must be possible for someone to say 'I
am a homosexual' without the danger of suffering discrimination."  The group
plans a Holocaust seminar in February and a national conference in March.

  In Canada, Alberta's Minister for Family and Social Services Lyle Oberg
announced this week that the province will continue its new policy against
gays and lesbians providing foster care.  That policy says that, "Children
will not be placed with a family living in a non-traditional arrangement, or
with a single person, when it is known within the community that they are a
practicing gay or lesbian."  Although Oberg had declared himself to be
open-minded when the policy was issued in July, he had demanded proof that
gays and lesbians could be effective foster parents, and he now remains
unconvinced after reading the available research.  The Edmonton woman who's
become the symbol of this controversy, known as "Ms. T," fostered 73 children
over 18 years to the acclaim of all who knew her.  But when she divorced her
husband and began living with a lesbian partner, she was advised even before
the current policy was issued that she would receive no further placements.
 One child continues to live with her.  She is going to court in hopes of
having the policy struck down for violating the Canadian Charter of Human
Rights.

  The Western Australia Legislative Council this week decided to send to
committee a bill to equalize the age of consent and to protect gays and
lesbians from discrimination.  Activists were angered that Premier Richard
Court broke a 1993 campaign promise to allow members to vote their
conscience.  But the bill's author, Councilmember Helen Hodgson, was pleased
by the outcome, because debate had indicated that the Council was generally
confused about the bill.  She feels the delay in action will provide a chance
to educate them. 

  In New Zealand, after extensive testimony and debate, the Auckland City
Council has denied funding to the annual gay and lesbian HERO parade, one of
the city's largest events and a fund-raiser for AIDS charities.  Most
opponents were distressed by a float in the last parade on which a pair of
lesbians demonstrated sadomasochism -- or as Mayor Les Mills put it, "If
Santa took his clothes off and was whipped by the seven dwarfs, we wouldn't
want to fund [the annual Santa Parade] either."  A 12-12 tie left Mills to
cast the deciding vote against HERO.  Organizers say the parade and festival
will go on without the city's contribution to clean-up costs.  They do have
another option for the future -- earlier this year, Wellington Mayor Mark
Blumsky said he would welcome HERO to his city, even though it would
overshadow Wellington's own DEVOTION event.

  Asian sex workers have recently reached a new level of outspoken activism,
first as speakers at the Fourth International Conference on AIDS in Asia and
the Pacific and last week as 3,000 attended a three-day international
conference of their own in Calcutta.  Gay men have been in the forefront of
their organized efforts to change laws and police practices in recognition
that "sex work is an occupation."  Calcutta male sex worker Netai Giri told
the media, "We too want our rights to solicit customers publicly and put an
end to harassment by police and criminals."  Malaysian male sex worker
Kartini Slanmah of the Asia-Pacific Sex Workers' Network said, "it is the
unsafe conditions at work rather than sex work itself that causes the risk of
HIV infection."  He explained that it takes about 20 minutes to negotiate
condom use, while sex workers rushed by the threat of police harassment give
in to customers' demands for unprotected sex. 

  In Denmark, a third-grade class project has led to the recovery of a
previously-unknown poem by Hans Christian Andersen, the gay nineteenth
century author of popular tales such as "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly
Duckling".  One student's father was suddenly reminded of the hand-written
poem Andersen had given her great-grandmother on the death of her 13-year-old
son in 1836.  Odense University's Hans Christian Andersen Institute believes
it's authentic and called it an exciting find.  The poem will have its first
publication in the elementary school's newspaper.

  And finally ... the Vatican's house organ "Osservatore Romano" astonished re
aders this month with an article in which its veteran theologian Father Gino
Concetti appeared to be quoted as saying, "Homosexuals do have the right to
be considered different, to practice their homosexuality, to live together,
to make up a couple and to have children.  They have the right to adopt
children and even to demand social rights."  In fact, these are all positions
which Concetti has vociferously opposed for thirty years.  The newspaper's
editor Gianfranco Grieco said that somehow the word "not" had been deleted
from everywhere it appeared in the article, which he blamed on a computer
glitch -- or possibly the Forces of Evil.