NewsWrap
for the week ending June 6th, 1998
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #532, distributed 06-08-98)
[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 Leo Garcia

  The long-delayed trial of Zimbabwe's first post-colonial President, Canaan
Banana, on 11 counts of sexual assaults against other men, began this week.
Banana pleaded not guilty on all charges.  Most of this week's hearings were
spent on testimony from Jefta Dube, who says he was drugged and raped by the
President while serving as his aide de camp, and then spent three years
suffering forced sex from him under the threat of losing his job.  Dube says
Banana once had him jailed for three days after he rejected his sexual
advances.  When Dube complained to his superiors, they said they could do
nothing.  Finally current Vice President Simon Muzenda, who then was Deputy
Prime Minister, arranged for Dube's transfer out of the State House.  Muzenda
and two police commissioners from the period are among 40 prosecution
witnesses scheduled to appear in the month-long trial.  It was Dube who first
made public the allegations against Banana, in the course of his own trial for
shooting to death a fellow police constable who taunted him as the "wife of
Banana."  Once the judge in that trial ordered an investigation of Banana,
numerous alleged victims came forward from every part of Banana's life,
including some of the ordained Methodist minister's students from the religion
department of the University of Zimbabwe.  Dube also has a civil lawsuit
pending against Banana.  Banana's attorney Chris Andersen, who was once the
Justice Minister of colonial Rhodesia, at first flatly accused Dube of lying.
But as his cross-examination continued, Andersen appeared to be suggesting
that Dube had consented to sex with the President, supporting rumors that he
might use the trial to challenge the constitutionality of the sodomy law
itself.  Banana's trial is of particular interest because he's long been a
political ally of Zimbabwe's current President, Robert Mugabe, who has gained
an international reputation for his vicious rhetoric against gays and lesbians
-- but Mugabe has remained entirely silent about the charges against Banana
thro
ir.

  The Rhode Island Senate this week voted 26 - 17 to repeal the state's
century-old sodomy law.  The bill had already been passed by the state House,
and while Republican Governor Lincoln Almond may or may not sign it, he has
said he will not veto it.  This will make Rhode Island the first U.S. state to
delete its sodomy law by legislative means in a number of years, although in
several cases courts have acted to strike them down.

  The Gainesville, Florida City Commission voted this week to add sexual
orientation as a protected category under the city's human rights law, which
prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, accommodations, and credit.
Despite seven previous public hearings on the matter, there was extensive and
emotional public testimony on both sides before a packed auditorium.  A local
attorney is already planning a legal challenge.

  It took a Human Rights Commission order and three years to achieve it, but
in Canada the city of London, Ontario has finally issued a gay and lesbian
pride proclamation.  HALO, the Homophile Association of London, Ontario had
requested a proclamation in 1995, but was rejected by Mayor Dianne Haskett.
HALO filed a discrimination complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission
which was heard last year, in a highly emotional trial in which Haskett wept
at the conflict between her personal religious beliefs and her public duties.
When the Commission ruled against both Haskett and the city of London,
imposing fines on both, Haskett took a three-week leave of absence and dropped
entirely out of the public view, even though they were the final weeks of her
re-election campaign.  She still won election by a wide margin.  Haskett
excused herself from this week's vote on the proclamation, claiming a conflict
of interest as the only individual named in the Human Rights Commission order.
Two City Councilors voted against the proclamation, even though the city's
legal counsel had suggested that anything less than a unanimous vote might
violate the Commission order and lead to further fines and legal actions
against the city and all the Councilmembers.  HALO members were just happy to
finally have their proclamation, and said they never expected a unanimous
vote.  As soon as it had dealt with HALO's request, the Commissioners voted to
have all future proclamation requests handled by the City Clerk, who said he
would issue any proclamation requested that didn't contravene Council policy
or municipal, provincial or Canadian law.

  Orlando, Florida's City Council this week voted to allow more than 700
rainbow flags to be hung from lightpoles in celebration of pride.  The
question had spurred more than 1,000 people to contact City Hall, and the
national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue demonstrated against the flags
during the meeting.  Once the rainbow flags had been approved, the Council
declared a moratorium on any further flag displays until it could review the
city's policy on the question.  All of the $15,000 to purchase the flags and
to pay city workers for hanging and removing them had been raised from private
sources by the staff of the local gay publication "Watermark".  Operation
Rescue has been kicking off its annual national campaigning with a series of
demonstrations this week in Orlando, the time and place chosen because of the
annual unofficial Gay Day at Disney World ...

Reporter Tony Winton:  Outside the gates of “The Magic Kingdom” about a
hundred members of the group Operation Rescue railed against what they say is
Disney’s endorsement of the ‘homosexual lifestyle’.  Operation Rescue leader
"Flip" Benham:
"Flip" Benham:  “They don’t want anyone to bother the parading of this
horrible lifestyle that brings death to those who practice it!”
Tony Winton:  Protesters hired a plane to fly around Cinderella’s castle with
an anti-homosexual message.  Disney spokesman Bill Warren says the company
doesn’t endorse any lifestyle:
Bill Warren:  “We have a strong policy against discrimination, and we think we
have a product that should be enjoyed by everyone universally.”
Tony Winton:  And many people who saw the protesters simply ignored them.
Tony Winton, Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

  As eight U.S. states held primary elections this week, Democratic San Diego,
California City Councilmember Christine Kehoe became the first open lesbian
ever to win a major party nomination for a seat in the U.S.House of
Representatives.  Three other lesbians are also seeking Congressional seats
this year, although no open lesbian has ever served in the House.  Two
California gays and a lesbian won a San Francisco judgeship, the Los Angeles
County Assessor job and a seat on the Hayward City Council, while some other
results are not yet final.  But also in California, Bob Dornan, who for nine
terms was the Congress' most vocal homophobe until his defeat in a contested
election in 1996, won the Republican nomination for a rematch with Democratic
Representative Loretta Sanchez.

  Openly-gay Episcopal priest Gene Robinson was a finalist, but was not
selected to replace John Spong as Bishop of New Jersey.  It took four ballots
on June 6th for clergy and lay delegates to pick John Croneberger to step in
when Spong retires in 2000.  Spong has been the two-and-a-half-million-member
Episcopal Church’s leading advocate for ordination of gays and lesbians, and
for recognition of their relationships.  All six finalist candidates to
replace him share those views.  There has never been an openly-gay or -lesbian
Episcopal bishop in the U.S., although one came out after he retired.  Even
the ordination of openly-partnered gays like Robinson is generally rejected.
Robinson is an assistant to the Bishop of New Hampshire.

And finally ... Donald Wildmon's American Family Association has been an
enthusiastic advocate for Internet filtering software as a means for parents
to censor their children's web-surfing, in large part to prevent children from
learning about gays and lesbians.  In fact the AFA has a business agreement
whereby it promotes one particular filtering package, X-Stop.  But suddenly
the shoe is on the other foot, as the most popular filter software,
CyberPatrol, is now filtering out the AFA's own website ... because its
homophobic content violates CyberPatrol's standards on intolerance.
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                            McNally's Tony Allows Pointed Thanks

Openly gay playwright Terrence McNally's latest Tony Award -- the 4th of his
career  -- was a well-timed victory, coming just after the resolution of a
headline-making controversy over his newest work.  The Manhattan Theatre Club
had announced it would cancel its production of McNally's "Corpus Christi",
after news that the play involved a gay Jesus figure who had offstage sex with
his apostles drew hellfire from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights and other conservative religious groups.  A series of telephone calls
soon followed, threatening the destruction of the theatre, and McNally’s life.
However, a number of the most influential playwrights in the U.S. mounted a
protest, and on May 29th the theatre reversed its decision.  McNally used part
of his Tony acceptance speech to comment on the incident:

"... I want to thank the theatre community.  You came together when I was in
trouble, it was a time of oppression, and you spoke up, you came together
overnight, our voices were heard -- and we won, and I'm very grateful for that
... (applause) Without you I wouldn't be standing up here, either -- and
eventually, none of us would -- so (holding up his Tony) this is for freedom.
Thank you."

Openly-gay playwright Terrence McNally, accepting his latest Tony Award on
June 7th.