NewsWrap for the week ending December 20th, 1997 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #508, distributed 12-22-97) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Martin Rice, Ross Stevenson, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Tory Christopher Amnesty International, the world's leading human rights watchdog group, has made commitments to expand its work on human rights violations against gays and lesbians. Amnesty's highest decision-making body, the International Council, wound up its annual meeting this week in Cape Town, South Africa having adopted several resolutions regarding gays and lesbians. However, activists were disappointed to discover that, despite twenty years of discussion and their active lobbying efforts, they still lack the votes to win the explicit addition of sexual orientation to Amnesty's so-called "mandate," or mission statement. Since 1991, Amnesty has been taking up gay and lesbian cases by an agreement to interpret the mandate as including them,without having actually changed its wording. But now Amnesty has agreed to increase the visibility of its work on human rights violations against gays and lesbians, notably in the group's special activities leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1998. Amnesty also agreed to support an international meeting of those elements within the organization which are working on gay and lesbian issues. Most importantly, Amnesty adopted a resolution to integrate its work on human rights violations against gays and lesbians into all its research, campaigns, actions, and publications -- a move which should increase the resources Amnesty will now be able to devote to gays and lesbians. Amnesty also made a landmark move with general impact that may have great significance for gays and lesbians: the group agreed to extend the scope of its activities beyond its customary exclusive focus on governments' human rights vi ions, to take up violations performed by other entities, in cases where governments have either been complicit or failed to prevent or stop the abuses. The quest in New Zealand for equal marriage rights for same-gender couples has reached the end of the judicial road and will now move into other arenas. Three lesbian couples who were suing to obtain marriage licenses were unanimously rejected this week by the full bench of the nation's highest court, the Court of Appeal. Primarily the court decided that it was up to the Parliament to extend the 1955 Marriage Act beyond heterosexual couples even if it is discriminatory, as two judges indicated that it was. One of them, Justice Thomas, wrote that, "gays and lesbians are denied a basic civil right in that freedom to marry is rightly regarded as a basic civil right. In a real sense, gays and lesbians are effectively excluded from full membership of society." New Zealand's only openly gay Member of Parliament Tim Barnett took that as an open invitation for the introduction of a private members bill, since the government has shown no indication of acting favorably towards same- gender couples. The three plaintiff couples say they will take their case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. New Jersey this week became the first U.S. state to explicitly declare that gay and lesbian couples applying to adopt children will be judged on exactly the same standards as legally married couples. State officials reached a settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The agreement, which applies equally to unmarried heterosexual domestic partners, allows both members of a couple to become adoptive parents at the same time in a one-step process. The latest U.S. group to sign off on the national Freedom to Marry Coalition's resolution in support of equal marriage rights for lesbians and gays is the American Psychoanalytic Association. This week the group's Executive Council adopted the resolution reading, "Because mar iage is a basic human right and an individual personal choice, resolved, the state should not interfere with same-gender couples who choose to marry and share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities and commitment of civil marriage." Numerous other organizations and celebrities have also affirmed the resolution. The Kentucky Court of Appeals has decided that the state's domestic violence law applies to same-gender couples, allowing victims to obtain restraining orders against their abusers and to have them enforced. The 1992 statute uses gender-neutral language, and the majority decision found that, "To exclude same-sex couples ... would be to deny them the same protection that other couples are afforded." It's the first time that Kentucky has considered the word "couple" to include gay and lesbian pairs. However, a state legislator has already prefiled a bill for consideration in the upcoming session that would specifically restrict the law's application to heterosexual couples only. The Board of Aldermen of Newton, Massachusetts voted this week to extend spousal health and pension benefits to not only the partners of its unmarried city employees, whether heterosexual or same-gender, but also to any adult relative unmarried employees may choose. The opposition has already organized a campaign to place a repeal measure before the city's voters. The Ypsilanti, Michigan City Council voted unanimously this week to adopt an anti-discrimination ordinance including sexual orientation among 14 protected categories. Months of heated public debate served only to increase councilmembers' conviction of the necessity of protections from discrimination for gays and lesbians. The opposition has already organized not only a campaign to place a repeal measure on a city ballot, but also to have a referendum on a measure to prohibit any city legislation recognizing gays and lesbians as a minority group. That's the same strategy that led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Colorado's statewide Amendment but has been left intact on rehearing by a federal appeals panel in the case of Cincinnati, Ohio's Issue 3. Although many civil rights laws prohibit discrimination in the area of credit, few complaints or lawsuits are actually filed for credit violations. A 1993 complaint to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination was settled this week as the First Citizens Federal Credit Union in New Bedford paid $5,000 and wrote an apology to a gay male couple. Paulo Lopes and David Nichisti say the credit union would not even hand them a loan application form. The couple has broken up since filing their complaint, but wanted to encourage others to challenge discrimination. Since the credit union makes no admission of any wrongdoing, the apology the men received is a rather lukewarm one. Another apology was ordered this week in Australia as the New South Wales Equal Opportunity Tribunal issued its first ruling in a case of reverse discrimination. The owners of the lesbian nightclub Sirens were found to have illegally discriminated against Brett Halliwell on the basis of his gender when he was ejected from the club almost two years ago. Although the tribunal clearly bought into Halliwell's version of events, in which he had been drinking but was not intoxicated and was "assertive" rather than "aggressive," it refused to award him any damages. As the clubowners tell the story, Halliwell was both drunk and aggressive, barging in past the door staff without paying admission and running up several flights of steps to the dance floor. They also denied his report that staff explicitly told him that he must leave because he is a man. The bar itself closed a few weeks after the incident. The gay-themed film "The Hanging Garden" won three major honors at Canada's Oscars, the Genie Awards, including Best Screenwriter for open gay Thom Fitzgerald in his feature debut. "The Hanging Garden"'s story of growing up gay in Halifax had previously won the People's Choice award and shared Best Canadian Feature Film hono at the Toronto Film Festival. Also this week, the U.S. Golden Globe Awards nominations were announced, with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation counting gay-related nominations in 16 of the 24 categories, twice as many categories as last year. Those nominations included nods for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for open gay Rupert Everett's gay role in "My Best Friend's Wedding" and for Best Actress in a TV Series for open lesbian Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres, who's won everything from an Emmy to civil rights awards this year since coming out both in real life and as her sitcom character, was also named Entertainer of the Year this week by "Entertainment Weekly." "EW" listed openly gay singer-songwriter Elton John at number nine on its annual list, but he's getting another award DeGeneres never will: he's due to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1998's New Year's Honours List. The knighthood honors his unprecedented fund-raising for AIDS charities as much as his remarkable impact on the world of music, for which he'd already been named a Commander of the British Empire. He'll be knighted under his birth name, Reginald Kenneth Dwight, so it’ll be Sir Reginald, not Sir Elton. And finally ... several hundred Armenians seem to believe it can be an advantage to be gay or lesbian. According to a report from the Armenian news agency Armenpress, about 600 Armenians have applied for asylum in The Netherlands to escape homophobic persecution in their homeland. Yet Armenpress learned from sources in the Netherlands that less than one percent of that group are in fact lesbian or gay. It was not reported just what kind of test Dutch authorities used to determine the refugees' "real" sexual orientation.