NewsWrap for the week ending May 9th, 1998 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #528, distributed 05-11-98) [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 Frank Stoltze The Johannesburg High Court this week struck down five laws criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults, in a test case brought by the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. The ruling does not affect the other eight South African provinces. In finding the laws at odds with South Africa's 1996 constitution, Judge Jonathan Heher wrote that to penalize a gay man or lesbian "for the expression of his or her sexuality can only be defended from a standpoint which depends on the baneful influences ... of religious intolerance, ignorance, superstition, bigotry, fear of what is different from or alien to everyday experience and the millstone of history." Several hundred men had been convicted under the laws each year, but the laws had even more impact in limiting the lives of gays and lesbians and in offering a rationale for abuse and discrimination. The Coalition welcomed the ruling "as a beacon in the continuing struggle by all South Africans for a society founded on the recognition of the equal dignity of each and every one of us." The ruling African National Congress also welcomed the decision, calling it "a challenge to all South Africans to tackle the prejudices and misconceptions which enabled such legislation to exist intact for so many years, and which continues to pervade our society." Homosexual acts are a capital offense in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, and an Agence France Presse reporter this month watched soldiers beating two of their colleagues accused of the crime. The men were humiliated by being driven around Kabul in the back of a pickup truck with their faces blackened and were whipped with a thin stick. They were then thrown into a public fountain, at which point other soldiers joined in beating them, before they were thrown into jail. Executions for homosexuality are known to have been ordered against five men already this year in Afghanistan. Openly gay former British professional soccer player Justin Fashanu was found hanged on May 2nd, apparently by his own hand. He was 37 years old. He had been accused of sexual assault by a 17-year-old player on a team he was developing in the U.S. A note Fashanu left behind said those charges were part of an extortion attempt, but he didn't seem to trust the justice system to exonerate him, and didn't want to cause embarrassment to his family and friends. Fashanu's athletic abilities were already attracting attention when he was 14 years old, and he went on to make headlines in 1981 as the first Black player a British team had ever paid one million pounds to acquire. But almost immediately he clashed with his coach and was fired, at a confusing time when he was both discovering his sexual orientation and evangelical Christianity. He also suffered a knee injury that kept him off the field for several years, journeying from team to team and country to country without much success. In 1990, he publicly identified himself as a gay man, the first sports professional in Britain to do so. Peter Tatchell of London's direct action group OutRage! said Fashanu never recovered from the grief of the rift his coming out created with his brother John. Tatchell said, "He was a sincere, warm-hearted person who was destroyed by homophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and a lack of support from fellow football players and managers. ... His decision to come out was a very brave one. No other gay footballer has shown similar courage." The Sydney Swans Australian rules football team has joined in a New South Wales anti-homophobia campaign, which kicked off this week with a press conference in their locker room. Swans team members and model Kate Fisher are among those who appear on bus posters in the campaign for tolerance, which also features events at more than 150 youth agencies, including 40% of the state's government schools. The Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project is coordinating the campaign with funds from the state Attorney-General's Department, whose research found that young people between the ages of 15 and 24 were responsible for 70% of homophobic assaults. High school students demonstrated in Tennessee and South Carolina this week, protesting their principals' decisions to cancel free concerts by the Grammy- winning openly lesbian duo, the Indigo Girls. Germantown High School near Memphis this week became the third school to cancel, and although principal Ed Hedgepeth said it was because the musicians had used an offensive word while appearing at a high school in Atlanta, Georgia, students generally attributed the decision to homophobia. Fifty of them demonstrated in protest with signs reading "Homophobia is a Social Disease" and "Free Speech is Dead at FHS." At Irmo High School in South Carolina, which had been the first to cancel the Indigo Girls when parents complained about their sexual orientation, some 200 students protested by walking out of their classes to hold a demonstration at the hour when the duo would have been performing. Ten of those students have been given 8-day suspensions. The Indigo Girls found other venues to put on concerts which students from both those schools could attend without charge. But elsewhere in the U.S., there were advances for the civil rights of gays and lesbians this week. In Ypsilanti, Michigan voters in a special election soundly affirmed a human rights ordinance the City Council had passed, defeating a repeal initiative sponsored by religious conservatives. In Fayetteville, Arkansas, the City Council voted to override a mayoral veto, to reinstate a resolution adding sexual orientation and family status as categories protected from discrimination in city employment. It's the first such policy in the state. And the Arizona state Senate this week narrowly approved a measure to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Because the move came as an amendment to a bill already passed by the House, it will next be discussed in a House-Senate conference committee. U.S. President Bill Clinton spoke out against workplace discrimination in a letter of congratulations to the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Pride Coordinators. He wrote that, "We stand to lose when any person is denied or forced out of a job because of sexual orientation. I commend each of you for your dedication to working for an America that celebrates our diversity, builds on our strengths and fulfills our fundamental values of mutual respect and compassion." Pride celebrations were held this past week in Northampton, Massachusetts; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also in Philadelphia, the City Council this week passed three domestic partnership bills which the mayor had already promised to sign into law. Domestic partnership has been before the City Council for five years, and lobbied for even longer. One bill extends city-paid spousal health benefits to the same-gender partners of the city's gay and lesbian employees. Another allows all city employees to choose any individual, regardless of relationship, as the beneficiary for their pension benefits. The third extends to all the city's same-gender couples what's now a marital exemption from the city’s tax on real estate transfers between the members of the couple. But this year's most notorious figure in the gay and lesbian marriage controversy, the Reverend Jimmy Creech, has lost his job. Creech was acquitted of charges of disobedience by a church court by a single vote in March for having presided at a lesbian couple's commitment ceremony. He was told this week that his appointment as head pastor of Omaha, Nebraska's First United Methodist Church will not be renewed. The main reason is the division his action’s caused within the congregation, as some 400 of its members have separated from the church since his acquittal. Both the assistant pastors have shared Creech's views on gay and lesbian union ceremonies, and one is leaving her post voluntarily, but the other has promised he will not preside at such rituals until they've been considered by the United Methodist General Assembly in the year 2000. Canada this week launched a national survey to better understand the lives of its lesbian, gay and bisexual citizens so as to make informed public policy decisions. Because of its national network and position of trust, distribution of the survey is being spearheaded by the national group EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere. The $185,000 pricetag for distributing 40,000 surveys, and another $185,000 to process the data once its been collected, are being funded in part by the federal Departments of Justice, Status of Women, Canadian Heritage, and Health. The surveys will find out about lesbigays' demographics; their level of acceptance by self and others, their ability to access housing, education, employment and services; their experiences of suicide and violence, both domestic and gay-bashing; and the nature of their partnership and parenting relationships. The one question that won't be answered by the project is just how many lesbigays there are. And finally ... Hollywood is watching to see how the public accepts actress Anne Heche as Harrison Ford's romantic costar in "6 Days, 7 Nights," now that she's the partner of America's most famous lesbian, Ellen DeGeneres. It doesn't help matters that there's a sort of double entendre in two trailers for the film, which Disney swears was not planned. The pair are marooned on a wild island, and Heche is shown standing waist-deep in a river screaming to Ford that, "Some sort of creature has just swum up my pants!" As Ford is reaching into Heche's clothes to pull the critter out, the narrator says, "This summer, find adventure in the most remote place known to man."