NewsWrap for the week ending May 16th, 1998 (As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #529, distributed 05-18-98) [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 Tony Torres New York City's Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani this week proposed legislation to treat both heterosexual and same-gender registered domestic partners the same as married couples for all city services, benefits and responsibilities. Democratic City Council Speaker Peter Vallone supports the measure, which is expected to pass easily in about two months. The move will put New York City with San Francisco and Hawai'i at the forefront in recognizing domestic partnerships in the U.S. Some of the specific items in Giuliani's proposal have been in place for as much as a decade in the form of executive orders by his Democratic predecessors David Dinkens and Ed Koch, but would now be codified as law. Just a few of the benefits would include shared parking permits; standing for joint appeals of city tax bills; hospital and jail visitation; continued tenancy for surviving partners in rental units following the death of the lease-holding partner; inheritance of some city- issued licenses; and joint burial in the city-owned cemetery in Brooklyn. On the responsibilities side of the equation, disclosure of a domestic partner's background and financial status will be required as they are for marital partners in applications for business licenses, city-subsidized housing, and candidacy for public office. For city employees, who have already been receiving spousal health coverage for five years, the legislation would offer equal spousal bereavement leave; death benefits and "Good Samaritan awards" for domestic partners of city employees killed in the line of duty; and equal spousal benefits in future collective bargaining agreements. Some conservatives saw Giuliani's move as fatal to any future in Republican politics at the national level, but there are indications that Giuliani's blend of social liberalism and economic conservatism may be more successful than the religious right cares to admit. Their leading candidates have lost some important elections this year, including one this week. Nebraska's gubernatorial campaign featured two big-spending Republican conservatives who vied with each other to be portrayed as the most anti-gay. State auditor John Breslow advertised that he would stop any move towards gay and lesbian marriages, while former Congressmember Jon Christensen promised he would never hire or appoint a gay or lesbian to a position of leadership in his administration. Christensen was endorsed by religious right leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family. But when Republican voters went to the polls, they shrugged off both Breslow and Christensen to give the party's nomination to more moderate Lincoln Mayor Mike Johanns by a substantial margin. Although the three candidates were in agreement on several major issues, Johanns said he would never ask about an employee's sexual orientation. His faceoff in November with Democrat Bill Hoppner is expected to be close. Communications giant AT&T is poised to extend spousal health and legal benefits to its employees' same-gender domestic partners as a result of collective bargaining agreements. The benefits were proposed by negotiators for the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and agreed to by AT&T. Ratification from the unions' membership is still required for the four-year contracts. Alaskans will be voting in November whether to amend their state constitution to restrict legal marriage to one man and one woman. The state House gave its approval this week to a measure previously approved by the state Senate, and the governor has no veto authority in this process. There was just one vote more than necessary for the required two-thirds majority in the House. Activists opposing the measure had thought it would fall short, and have accused some Representatives of changing their votes in trade-offs for construction projects. Rhode Island's century-old "crimes against nature" law is a step closer to repeal with a state House vote of 49 - 40. The law has been most commonly used against gay men engaging in consensual acts in parks and parked cars, although the language of the law equally affects heterosexuals. The state attorney general has also found it to be an easier conviction to win against rape suspects, but supported decriminalizing acts between consenting adults. Religious supporters of the law argued that repeal would sanction homosexuality and lead to moral and civil decline. The state Senate is expected to pass its own repeal measure shortly. Romania 's govenment this week announced an initiative to decriminalize all homosexual acts between consenting adults, but must still obtain approval from the long-refractory parliament. The last round of reform left in place a statute criminalizing homosexual acts which "caused a public scandal," a situation activists have found actually puts gays and lesbians more at risk for arrest and police abuse. Romanian human rights abuses came up for discussion at a recent parliamentary session of the Council of Europe, which had required sodomy reform as a condition of granting Romania membership in 1993. Cyprus may be booted from the Council of Europe next month if it doesn't first repeal its sodomy law as ordered by the European Court of Human Rights. But its parliament, which has long procrastinated on the matter in the face of intense religious opposition, appears to be putting off discussion until the very last minute. The parliament's Legal Affairs Committee has been unable to reach agreement in developing a report on the question, so it's expected to go directly to a floor debate just one day before the Council of Europe's deadline. Openly gay Toronto AIDS specialist Doctor Maurice Genereux was sentenced this week to "two years less a day" for prescribing barbiturates to two men with HIV who used them to attempt suicide. One died and the other was rescued. Genereux pleaded guilty in December to what's been described as the first assisted suicide conviction in North America. Neither side was pleased with the sentence, as Genereux had hoped to avoid incarceration while prosecutors wanted to "send a message" with a sentence of at least six years behind bars. Genereux filed an appeal and was free on bail 24 hours after the sentencing. Genereux has already lost his license to practice medicine, although he is still free to work in related fields. A Japanese doctor has received final approval to perform that nation's first legal sex reassignment surgery. As many as 7,000 Japanese may be interested in the surgery, but until now they've had to leave the country to obtain it, although "back alley" reassignments are suspected to have taken place. Japan still offers no legal recognition of sex reassignment, which is not socially accepted there. Tim McVeigh, the sailor the U.S. Navy tried to discharge because of the gay content of a profile associated with one of his America Online screen names, has been approved for promotion to Master Chief Petty Officer, the Navy's highest enlisted rank. Earlier this year, a federal judge blocked McVeigh's discharge, ruling that Navy investigators had violated both the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That ruling is now pending appeal. A traditional ceremony to celebrate McVeigh's promotion, known as a "frocking," was held this week at Pearl Harbor, but more or less in the closet. Usually celebrated in front of all the troops, the frocking of McVeigh and two others was held instead in a commander's office, with media barred from the event. A high-profile British soldier is now facing investigation and possible discharge for lesbianism. Kerry Fletcher in August became the first woman to enter the 200-member Royal Horse Artillery, a unit so elite that its Captain General is the Queen herself. Fletcher was in the public eye again in November as the first woman to wear the unit's full-dress uniform in a Remembrance Sunday wreath-laying ceremony. But this week a barracks check --instituted by officers out of concern for male soldiers sneaking into the women's dorms -- apparently found Fletcher in bed with a female Australian police trainee. Openly gay singer-songwriter George Michael was sentenced this week after his attorney entered his no contest plea on one misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct. Michael was caught in a Beverly Hills park men's room as part of an undercover police operation, although the exact nature of his act is still unknown. He was fined $810, ordered to perform 80 hours of community service and attend 5 one-hour psychological counseling sessions, placed on two years' informal probation, and banned from the park. "Ellen", ABC's pioneering sitcom with a lesbian lead character, aired its final episode this week but didn't draw much of an audience for it. In fact, the hour-long special, which received major on-air promotion on the day of its broadcast, was the next-to-lowest rated of any new edition of the series, and ABC's weakest performance in the timeslot in nearly a decade. However, ABC also surprised almost everyone this week by announcing that it will air reruns of "Ellen" beginning this month, plus the two episodes which had been taped to precede the finale but were scratched before broadcast. And finally ... Britain is about to get its first overtly gay TV ad, a forty-second spot for Impulse Body Spray. A young man helps a young woman pick up after her shopping bag has spilled its contents. In the romantic tradition, their hands touch, their eyes meet, there's a connection between them. But then another young man comes along, taps the first on the shoulder, and they walk off together arm in arm. It's not clear just how this vignette is supposed to convince its target, described as "young female consumers," to use the product.