NewsWrap for the week ending June 27th, 1998 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #535, distributed 06-29-98) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Jason Lin, Brian Nunes, Graham Underhill, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Chris Ambidge, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Greg Gordon The landmark news in Canada this week was something that did not happen. After years of fighting every legal battle on gay and lesbian issues tooth and nail through every possible appeal, the federal government has decided not to appeal a ruling that allowed pension plans to recognize same-gender couples. And although Justice Minister Anne McLellan insisted that accepting the ruling of the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Nancy Rosenberg and the Canadian Union of Public Employees would only impact one specific area of the federal Income Tax Act, both gay and lesbian activists and their opponents saw the decision as only the beginning of much broader changes to come. To the astonishment of all, Canadian Treasury Board President Marcel Masse' announced almost immediately that preparations were underway to extend pension rights to the same-gender partners of all gay and lesbian federal employees. The implementation of that concept could be time-consuming since the amendment of some 10 laws is involved and Jean Chretien's government is in no hurry -- but the government's interest in initiating such a move voluntarily was viewed as "history-making." The province of British Columbia had only been waiting to see what happened with the Rosenberg case, and as soon as the federal government declined to appeal, the province instituted pension benefits for its own employees' same-gender partners. Openly gay Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Real Menard has introduced a private members bill to begin opening the definition of "spouse" to include same-gender partners in some of the 70 or so federal laws where they're now excluded. The New York City Council this week passed, by a 39 to 7 vote, an omnibus bill that extends the city's registered domestic partners all the rights and responsibilities of legally married couples. New York City currently has about 8,700 registered domestic partnerships, of which about 45% are gay and lesbian couples. The bill primarily serves to codify as law a number of existing city policies established through mayoral executive orders and other means, in a long list including everything from joint tax appeals to joint burials in the city's cemetery and inheritance of rental unit leases and city business licenses. Because the measure originated with Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, there is no question that he will sign it into law. According to Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund staff attorney Suzanne Goldberg, with this measure, "New York City has done more than any other city to treat domestic partners and married couples equally under municipal law." But not everyone was pleased. With candles and ram's horns, a group of about 20 Hasidic Jews held a protest on the steps of City Hall in which they cursed all the officials supporting the measure. The Alabama state Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that a girl should be given into her father’s custody because of her mother’s lesbian relationship. Although an appellate court had found that the girl's father failed to prove that the mother's lesbian relationship had any "substantial detrimental effect" on the girl, the state's high court did not believe it was necessary to do so. The state Supreme Court ruling said that, "While the evidence shows that the mother loves the child and has provided her with good care, it also shows that she has chosen to expose the child continuously to a lifestyle that is neither legal in this state, nor moral in the eyes of most of its citizens." Kate Kendall of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented the mother, noted that, "What's unique about the case is that it doesn't appear to hold that a lesbian or gay parent is always disqualified from custody. Rather, it enforces upon those parents that they live a lie -- that they not live their lives with integrity or be honest with their children about being gay." Alabama's Christian Family Association hailed the ruling, as its spokesperson Dean Young said, "The Supreme Court has placed the girl with a real family. People aren't fooled. People can say a family is whatever they want to, but God said a man and a woman would come together to start a family, not two women or two men." One young gay Briton had a wish fulfilled this week, when a local government finally agreed to place him in a gay foster home. Ever since family problems put the now-15-year-old boy known as "H" in the care of the state, he's asked to have gay foster parents. His mother supported his request and so did all the social workers involved with his case. But London's Wandsworth Borough Council refused to comply for 2-1/2 years, relenting only when "H" brought the case before a High Court judge. The boy's solicitor Paul Aitchison told reporters, "If this child had been a black child, a request for a black-based placement would have been acceded to almost immediately. ... Wandsworth adopted a political stance, rather than a child-centered stance." A gay teen has won a victory in Fayetteville, Arkansas that should help to make all U.S. schools safer for lesbigay students. William Wagner was the first gay student to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights under Title IX, which sets the requirements for schools to receive federal funding. Wagner charged that the Fayetteville public schools had done nothing to stop a series of homophobic attacks against him by other students. He finally left school in fear for his life after a gang attack left him with a broken nose and a bruised kidney. The Department of Education will now be monitoring the school system for a year to see that it follows through on promises to revise its policies and procedures and to provide training to faculty, staff and students in an effort prevent homophobic assaults. Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund staff attorney David Buckel said, "This is the first case in the nation under the new [1997] Title IX guidelines' explicit coverage of sexual harassment directed at gay students. School principals who question whether sexual harassment of gay students is illegal will learn a big lesson from this breakthrough. And now, more lesbian and gay students may be able to finish high school." But a judge's ruling forcing a Cincinnati-Ohio area school district to reinstate an openly gay elementary school teacher is being appealed. The federal court finding last month that the Clermont County school district had violated teacher Bruce Glover's right to equal protection under the law when it failed to renew his contract because of his sexual orientation, was believed to be the first of its kind and had been viewed as setting a precedent for similar cases. The trial of Zimbabwe's first post-colonial President Canaan Banana on 11 counts of sexual assaults against other men ended this week. High Court Judge President Godfrey Chidyausiku reserved judgment and warned that it may take some time for him to reach a verdict. The week's testimony featured Banana, his wife and others appearing in his defense, who simply denied every point the prosecution's 22 witnesses had made. In fact, Banana said he could not even remember two of the alleged victims from his 1980's tenure in the State House and that he had never met one of the two alleged 1995 victims who had served as his gardener. When asked why so many people would have invented the charges against him, Banana said, "I have no idea." In closing arguments, Banana's attorney said the witnesses against him had not been credible. But he covered all bases by saying that if the judge believed them, he should consider that the sex acts were consensual and should not be considered criminal despite the nation's sodomy law. Challenges to sodomy laws are advancing in the U.S.. The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund announced that its legal challenge to Arkansas' law, which affects only gays and lesbians, will proceed. A Pulaski County trial court rejected a motion by the state to dismiss the case on the basis that the plaintiffs had not really been hurt by the law and had no legal standing to sue. And the American Civil Liberties Union this week filed a new challenge to the "crimes against nature" law in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, charging that it violates the constitutional rights of three plaintiff gay and lesbian couples. And finally ... San Franciscan Phillip Feemster recently created the Queer Brewing Company of San Francisco. Its first product is called Brew Q, which comes in rainbow packaging, and five cents from every bottle sold is donated to gay and lesbian charities. But despite its evident identity, Brew Q very nearly became the first beer to be banned from San Francisco pride festivities, because mainstream brewers Budweiser and Miller were already major corporate sponsors there. Ultimately Brew Q was given the chance to foam with pride, and now Feemster's on to something else: he's developing a natural spring water product he's thinking of calling Crystal Queer.