NewsWrap for the week ending April 25th, 1998 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #526, distributed 04-27-98) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Jason Lin, Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by David Hunt and Cindy Friedman The Ontario Court of Appeals this week took aim at Canada's Income Tax Act and the government agency that implements it, Revenue Canada. While there have been many advances in Canada's recognition of same-gender couples, pension benefits have stayed out of reach, because of the Income Tax Act's heterosexual definition of "spouse." The nation's largest union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, had decided in 1992 that it wanted to extend its private pension program to give equal treatment to gay and lesbian couples. That move was blocked when Revenue Canada threatened to remove the pension fund's tax-exempt status, and the union took the case to court along with one of its partnered lesbian members, Nancy Roseberg. The government didn't even contest that the language of the law is discriminatory, but relied on an earlier Canadian Supreme Court decision that found discrimination was justified, in the case of government pension payments set up to meet the needs of older women who'd been economically dependent on their husbands. But the Ontario Appeals Court found unanimously this week that there was no adequate justification for Revenue Canada to force the union's private pension plan to discriminate. The ruling condemned the Income Tax Act as violating the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, saying, "Aging and retirement are not unique to heterosexuals. The sexual orientation of surviving partners can in no way be seen as any more relevant to whether they should be entitled to income protection their partners have paid for, than would be their race, colour or ethnicity." The court ordered that to remedy the discrimination the Income Tax Act's definition of "spouse" should be read as including same- gender partners. John Fisher, executive director of the national advocacy group EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, said the decision "opens the door for same-sex pension benefits, certainly, but it's also a very significant statement by the courts that discriminating against same-sex co ly immoral, it's unconstitutional. Clearly the broader impact of the ruling is the federal government must reconsider the definition of spouse in all federal laws to ensure it doesn't discriminate against gays and lesbians." At least one attorney believes that the ruling potentially forces the individual provinces to do the same. In France, a national bill to establish extensive social and financial rights for unmarried couples is sparking opposition from as many as one-third of the country's mayors. Michel Pinton, a center-right politician and mayor of Felletin, Creuse, sent a letter to all 36,000 of his fellow mayors around the country, and says he's gotten one-third of them to sign a petition urging the national parliament to kill the bill for what's called a "contract of social union" or CUS. Pinton's plea leans heavily on the fact that French mayors are responsible for officiating at marriages, although the CUS would only require that some local government official register the contract. Pinton also makes his entire argument against same-gender couples, when the CUS proposed by the Jospin government is open to any two people, regardless of gender or relationship. But while activists supporting CUS reject the idea that Pinton was able to collect 12,000 signatures in about two weeks, a number of mayors have expressed their personal reservations about the contracts, and especially about any personal involvement in registering them. Those mayors include some of the leadership of the official Association of French Mayors, even though the Association's group position on the contracts is neutral. And while some same-gender partners are campaigning to preserve their relationships, others are struggling to dissolve them. A judge's ruling this week in an unusual case in New York upheld the formal separation agreement that a lesbian couple of 14 years had developed with the help of attorneys. Although the wealthier of the two women, AIDS specialist Dr. Barbara Starrett, kept up her agreed payments to Ann Silver for three years, she then reneged on the last two years of payments the agreement had called for. Starrett's attorney argued that she had signed the agreement under duress, in her eagerness to end a relationship she felt was financially and emotionally exploitative. Judge Edward Greenfield disagreed and ordered Starrett to make the balance of the payments; Starrett will appeal. Her attorney called the question of a separation agreement between an unmarried couple "an important issue," while Silver's attorney called the same situation "a garden variety contract case." In the wake of Maine voters' February repeal of statewide protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation, a half-dozen towns have been working towards enacting their own local civil rights laws for gays and lesbians. This week, Bar Harbor became the first to complete the process by a Town Council vote of 6-to-1. The new law allows people to file civil lawsuits if they feel they've experienced discrimination in employment, housing or credit. Bar Harbor had never had any civil rights ordinance before, relying on state laws against discrimination. Another Maine town, South Portland, also moved towards civil rights this week as its City Council voted 6-to-1 to place a ballot initiative before the voters in November. The lone holdout was a City Councilor who actively supports gay and lesbian civil rights, but wanted the Council itself to pass the measure, rather than divide the town with a referendum campaign. Romania was again criticized for civil rights violations by Amnesty International this week, as the Council of Europe met in parliamentary session in Strasbourg. The Council stopped monitoring Romania a year ago but in the time since expected the nation to meet civil rights standards that were a condition of Romania joining the Council in 1993. Amnesty is "greatly concerned" about Romania's lack of progress, including the national sodomy law's continued prohibitions against gays and lesbians organizing or gathering, as well as consensual sex acts between adults which "cause a public scandal." Although Romania's new Prime Minister Radu Vasile was defensive at first, claiming Amnesty was looking at isolated incidents, he soon made some strongly-worded promises for change. Romania hopes to soon become a member of the European Union. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe gave gays and lesbians this week the kind of public verbal bashing he hasn't dished out in well over a year. Speaking on the occasion of the death of his nephew, "Herald" newspaper editor Charles Chikerema, Mugabe said, "Animals in the jungle are better than these people because at lesat they know that this is a man or a woman. Lesbianism is not part of Zimbabwean culture. Will God not punish us because of such practices?" Describing homosexual activity as un-Christian, Mugabe criticized the World Council of Churches for planning to include in its upcoming global conference in Harare the group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, known as GALZ. It was GALZ' efforts to display their materials at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair that first sparked Mugabe's viciously homophobic diatribes in 1995, which he continued despite international protest. As a result, the Council had taken criticism for choosing Harare as its meeting site, with the Dutch Evangelical Lutheran Church planning to boycott the conference because of it. But for more than a year, Mugabe's longtime political ally Canaan Banana has been facing allegations of sexually assaulting other men, and until now Mugabe has been keeping quiet on the whole subject. The immense popularity Mugabe has long enjoyed in Zimbabwe is slipping badly now, as the nation teeters on the brink of social and economic collapse. But the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church made a strongly positive statement this week at the annual conference of the U.K.'s Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway told the group, "As a straight man and religious leader, I feel I cannot continue without apologizing to you for the way many religious institutions, including the Christian church, have persecuted you." He was particularly critical of those who justify their anti-gay attitudes with certain Bible texts, describing some scriptural passages as "ignorant." He said, "The interminable dispute over the precise interpretation of the few texts in the Bible that mention same- sex relationships, as though we were made for the texts and not the texts for us, is one example of where we need to change our outlook. We have recently abandoned the text's tyrrany over women as we abandoned its justification of slavery, and soon we will abandon its ignorant misunderstanding of homosexuality." And finally ... after a year of unprecedented lesbian visibility, the ABC sitcom "Ellen" will be ending forever in May. This week the network finally gave official confirmation that it will not pick up the show for another season ... something it had stubbornly refused to do while acting in a manner that at least two months before had convinced openly lesbian star Ellen DeGeneres that cancellation was inevitable. Although the network made no comments about its decision, executives had been disturbed that "Ellen" had been losing a substantial part of the audience from its hit lead-in "The Drew Carey Show." While "Drew" and "Ellen" were clearly “strange bedfellows”, ABC found a happy marriage for "Drew" in "Ellen's" timeslot with the midseason success "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place." "USA Today" asked, "Would ABC actually jettison a Peabody Award-winning comedy for some pointless mediocrity that might better be titled 'Two Guys, One Girl and No Brains'? You bet." DeGeneres herself said, "I loved doing the show every week. This was an important chapter of my life, and although I'm disappointed the show was cancelled, I look forward to moving beyond the stereotype. Look for me in my new sitcom, 'Two Girls, a Horse and Some Wine Coolers.'"