NewsWrap
for the week ending April 18th, 1998
(As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #525, distributed 04-20-98)
[Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Jason Lin,
Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner,
Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle]

Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Greg Gordon

  It was Easter Sunday at historic Canterbury Cathedral, where 2,000 people
and broadcast TV cameras awaited one of the most important sermons of the year
from the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. George
Carey ...when the gay and lesbian direct action group OutRage! intervened:

Dr. George Carey:  “... Luke tells us they were ..."
Peter Tatchell:  "Dr. Carey supports discrimination against lesbian and gay
people!  He opposes lesbian and gay human rights!  This is not a Christian
teaching!  It is wrong for Dr. Carey to oppose an equal age of consent ... it
is wrong for Dr. Carey to say that the Church of England Childrens Society
should ban lesbian and gay foster parents ... it is wrong for Dr. Carey to say
that people who are lesbian and gay should be discriminated against at work
... it is wrong for Dr. Carey to say ..."

That was OutRage! spokesperson Peter Tatchell at the microphone before
security personnel dragged him out of the pulpit.  Six other members of
OutRage! had joined him there with banners underscoring his message; some of
them shouted "shame, shame" at Carey.  Carey simply stood aside during the
demonstration, and afterwards calmly resumed his sermon, saying, "This has
happened before and it will doubtless happen again.  Let's go back to the
service.
Tatchell and another demonstrator suffered slight injuries while being removed
by security.  Tatchell was held for seven hours and then released on bail,
charged under a law from 1860 against "riotous, violent or indecent" behavior
in a church.  He'll appear in court in mid-May and promises to fight the
charge he describes as "absurd."
He later told reporters, "The shame is not our peaceful protest in the
cathedral, but Dr. Carey's support for discrimination against lesbians and gay
men. ... If George Carey stopped supporting anti-gay discrimination, we will
stop disrupting his sermons."
After the service, Carey said, "I was saddened by this disruption.  I do not
think it does their cause any good."  When asked about his personal views, he
spoke only for the Church of England, saying, ""The church has written a
report for debate, entitled 'Issues in Human Sexuality,' in  which
homosexuality is discussed.  The church welcomes discussion on this  matter
and is already involved with serious-minded people in this debate."

  Religious protestors in the Bahamas this week targeted a lesbian tour group.
Five hundred to a thousand members of the church-led "Save the Bahamas" turned
out for the arrival in Nassau of a cruise ship chartered by Olivia Travel,
carrying some 800 lesbian passengers.  Police kept the protestors at the end
of the pier, about a block away from the ship, while most of the passengers
took smaller ships to a private island nearby.  The protestors' shouts, chants
and signs included the messages "No gay ships," "Keep your perversions in your
bedrooms," "Abomination is a sin," "God made woman for man," "We got enough
sissies  in the Bahamas -- we don't need no more."  Save the Bahamas was first
organized to respond to a planned visit by the gay cruise that earlier this
year was denied the chance to dock in the Cayman Islands.
Olivia president Judy Dlugacz said that no previous Olivia tour anywhere in
the world has ever encountered similar protest.  She added that the
demonstration, "won't deter us from anything.  The truth is this is just  a
small group making a lot of noise.  The government of the Bahamas has always
been very supportive."  And in fact the Bahamian Ministry of Tourism went on
to make a formal apology to Olivia.  The ministry included a copy of Prime
Minister Hubert Ingraham's nationally televised address last month, in which
he affirmed the government's duty to protect all citizens and visitors from
discrimination, and denounced what he called the "hysteria" of the anti-gay
protestors.

  A piece of Canada's gay and lesbian history was back in the news this week.
The four authors of a detailed new study of the nation's Cold War national
security campaign called for a government apology and reparations for hundreds
of gays and lesbians victimized in witch hunts and purges carried out by the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Gay and lesbian organizations and labor unions
supported the demands stated by Laurentian University sociology professor Gary
Kinsman:

Prof. Gary Kinsman:  “If most Canadians knew what the Canadian government and
the RCMP was up to in the 1950's and 1960's in terms of the interrogations and
the purges of lesbian and gay men, they would be horrified ... A government
apology would mean that there was finally a recognition that the government
was in the wrong, that RCMP was in the wrong.”


With the full knowledge of a series of four prime ministers, at the direction
of cabinet ministers, the RCMP carried out investigations that led to the
identification of some 9,000 gays and lesbians in the Ottawa area alone.  The
new report estimates that, based solely on their sexual orientation, more than
1,000 gays were ousted from military service, and hundreds more gays and
lesbians lost their jobs in government as a result.  Although the basis for
the security campaign was a belief that gays and lesbians were more vulnerable
to extortion than others, there was never a single documented case of a
foreign power subverting a gay or lesbian by this means.  In fact, as Kinsman
and his colleagues interviewed victims of the national security campaign, they
were amazed how many gays told them, "The only people I ever experienced
blackmail from were the RCMP themselves, who tried to get me to give them the
names of other homosexuals.  They'd basically say, 'terrible things are going
to happen to you unless you give us names."

  One name that's been given out a lot lately is that of George Michael, the
British Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who last week was nabbed in an
undercover police sting in the men's room of a Beverly Hills park.  The Los
Angeles County District Attorney's office announced this week that it will
proceed to prosecute Michael on one count of misdemeanor lewd conduct.  A
second charge of indecent exposure was dropped.  Indications are that Michael
will enter a plea of guilty when his case goes to court next month, and he's
not likely to be sentenced to any jail time.  Although Michael took the
occasion of his much-publicized arrest to identify himself to the public as a
gay man more clearly than ever before, he is outraged by the way the tabloids
have treated his story, and may take legal action against them for publishing
what he says are lies.

  Another singer in a media firestorm is Turkey's Bulent Ersoy.  Ersoy was a
pioneer in the 1980's in winning legal recognition as a woman after undergoing
sex reassignment surgery, but she pushed the cultural envelope a little
further this month when she married her much-younger boyfriend.  Outraged
public figures have condemned the marriage as violating traditional family
principles.

  Another "marriage" in trouble is the one between the American Broadcasting
Corporation TV network and "Ellen", the first-ever U.S. TV series to center on
an openly lesbian character.  The sitcom was scheduled to return from hiatus
in the coming week with the first of its last three episodes of the season.
Instead, ABC has announced that "Ellen's" temporary replacement, "Two Guys, a
Girl and a Pizza Place", will continue for two more weeks, and then only the
"Ellen" season finale will air.  The network cites the replacement show's
superior success at holding the audience from the show leading into the
timeslot, but amazingly will still not say that "Ellen" won't be back for the
1998-1999 season.  The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, GLAAD, is
protesting the loss of the two other episodes, which may air sometime in the
off-season.

  Open lesbian Paula Vogel this week won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for
her play, "How I Learned to Drive”.  The show is just ending a successful
15-month run off-Broadway in New York which has won numerous other awards.
With a mix of humor and pathos, it presents a young woman's seduction by her
charming but insidious middle-aged uncle.  Vogel has long served as the head
of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University and was previously
best-known for her Obie award-winning play "Baltimore Waltz."

  In the U.S. this week, Iowa became the 28th state to deny legal recognition
to same-gender marriages another state may someday perform, as a bill which
had passed by massive margins in both houses was signed into law by Governor
Terry Branstad ...  and Alaska has moved a step closer towards denying gay and
lesbian marriages by means of a constitutional amendment.  The Alaska state
Senate passed a resolution that will put the proposed amendment before the
voters in November, if the state House agrees.

  And finally ... in the course of the Alaska state Senate's debate, Democrat
Johnny Ellis tried a satirical approach to those who cite the Bible as their
reason for opposing gay and lesbian marriage.  He proposed adding the Ten
Commandments to the state constitution, with the first commandment translating
into legislation-ese as "Section 1:  Gods:  This state recognizes that the
Lord is God.  A person shall not have strange gods before the Lord."  In a
similar vein, Democrat Al Adams referred to the Biblical injunction that
moneylenders charging excessive interest rates should be stoned to death, and
asked, "Are we going to amend the constitution to attack bankers?"