NewsWrap for the week ending July 18th, 1998 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #538, distributed 07-20-98) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Graham Underhill, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Leo Garcia and Cindy Friedman The city of Pisa this month became the first in Italy to legally recognize a same-gender couple, two lesbians who have lived together for 11 years. Although Pisa established what's still Italy's only domestic partners registry last February, only three unmarried heterosexual couples had registered previously. Mayor Piero Floriani said the registry "represents for the community the acknowledgment of the existence of different types of relationships." The national organization Arci-Gay called on other Italian cities and on the national legislature to follow Pisa's lead. But the Vatican newspaper "Osservatore Romano" called the registry of the lesbian couple a "provocation" and denounced the city's recognition of both heterosexual and same-gender unmarried couples. Two lesbian couples in South Africa have filed an immigration lawsuit in the Cape Town High Court. One woman in each couple is a foreign national whose residence permit has not been renewed, since the Department of Home Affairs decided in December to stop issuing permits based on same-gender relationships. Officials have promised not to deport either of the women until a decision has been reached in a major constitutional test case brought by six same-gender couples and the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. However, Home Affairs will continue to refuse renewals and take action against other non-citizens in gay and lesbian couples. Because a British lesbian couple lost a case in the European Court of Justice earlier this year, a key legal challenge to Britain's ban on military service by open gays and lesbians will not be heard there. Gay former British Navy medic Terry Perkins' lawsuit had been referred to the EuroCourt by Britain's High Court more than a year ago, but this week that referral was withdrawn. Perkins' argument was that his dismissal from the military based on the gender of his partner constituted gender discrimination -- which unlike sexual orientation is a protected category under Europe's Equal Treatment Directive. However, since the same argument failed in the EuroCourt when British Rail worker Lisa Grant sought spousal travel benefits for her lesbian partner, the High Court now viewed Perkins case as having no chance of success. But many believe the military ban's days are numbered: there are still other legal challenges pending in the EuroCourt, Europe's Amsterdam Treaty will recognize sexual orientation as a category protected from discrimination, and more British cases will become possible when the government completes its current process of incorporating into national law the European Convention of Human Rights. The only U.S. servicemember ever to win a court ruling that a branch of the military service had violated the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Master Chief Petty Officer Tim McVeigh, this week ended his 18-year career in the Navy. Despite his outstanding record, the Navy had moved to discharge McVeigh based solely on the "gay" content of a profile associated with one of his America Online screen names. Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin found that the Navy had violated the policy in its investigation of McVeigh, and that both the Navy and America Online had violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Both settled with McVeigh, America Online revising its policies and paying him an undisclosed amount, the Navy paying his legal bills and allowing him an early retirement with full benefits. McVeigh has lecture appearances scheduled in the near future, and then he intends to write a book about his experiences. To date, McVeigh has stood by the letter of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and refused to state whether or not he is in fact gay. Wearing a different uniform but also afloat, a San Francisco area Boy Scouts Sea Explorers group has found a new berth for its boats. After decades of providing the group with free docking space, the Berkeley City Council earlier this year withdrew those privileges because of the national Boy Scouts of America's policy against gays. This week, the Richmond City Council gave the group free space in its marina, but only with a non-discrimination policy and a six-month review of its implementation written right into the lease agreement. The Sea Scouts group in question has never been known to discriminate and had no problem with adopting a policy contravening the national Scouts'. Because it includes primarily disadvantaged youth, regular fees for the boats would be prohibitive. One U.S. Congressmember's sexual orientation this week made a difference in the progress of national legislation. Conservative Republicans led by Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado had planned to undo President Bill Clinton's executive order against discrimination in federal employment based on sexual orientation, by means of a rider on a Treasury appropriations bill. What they hadn't taken into account was that the floor manager for that appropriations bill was their own party's only openly gay Congressmember, Jim Kolbe of Arizona. Republican leadership intervened to stop Hefley from creating what they envisioned as a "public relations nightmare." Hefley said he had no desire to "poke [his] finger in [Kolbe's] eye, and added, "I did not even think about it in terms of him being openly gay. I think that's the direction we want to go in, not focusing on people's sexual orientation. I thought of him as a colleague." Kolbe is strongly opposed to the measure. But Kolbe's popularity in his party has only won a brief respite on the issue. Hefley will be proposing his amendment to a Commerce Department appropriations measure in the coming week, and his anti-gay proposal will actually have a wider scope as a result of the change, potentially affecting all federal employment instead of just the Executive Branch. Nor is Hefley's the only anti-gay rider pending in the closing days of the Congress. Representative Frank Riggs of California is taking specific aim at a city in his own state, San Francisco. He's proposing withdrawal of federal funds from any city which requires its contractors to provide its employees' domestic partners with the same benefits as legally married spouses. San Francisco is currently the only city to enact such a law, and could stand to lose $260-million-dollars if Riggs succeeds with his amendment to the Veterans Affairs - Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill. Five anti-gay billboards came down this week in four Wisconsin cities with the expiration of a contract for four weeks' display. Purchased by minister Ralph Ovadal's Wisconsin Christians United, the signs declared, "Homosexuality is not a family value. Homosexuality is a sin!" In Madison, where two of the signs were sited, they sparked display of hundreds of countering yard signs, a candlelight vigil demonstration, and a city proclamation of tolerance -- and were blamed by many for a serious gay-bashing attack. Ovadal sneered that "forces of tolerance" in Madison had destroyed one of his signs once and the other twice, and only security guards had prevented further damage. He declared the campaign a complete success, saying it had reminded everyone "that the homosexual movement is a fascist one which tolerates no deviation from its philosophy and political agenda." Similar sentiments were expressed in full-page ads placed in three U.S. national newspapers this week in an unprecedented coalition effort by 15 leading U.S. Christian conservative groups. That so-called "Truth in Love" campaign promoted the idea that gays and lesbians can go straight with the help of God and various "change" ministries and therapies. Gays and lesbians in Australia became concerned that a similar campaign might be staged there, and quickly took action to try to head it off. The group Gay and Lesbian Equality called on the Australian federal government to require investigation by the Ministry of Fair Trading of any group claiming to "cure" homosexuality. GALE spokesperson John Derry said, "It's important that the government regulates mental health services, and if these people are making a promise to provide a service which is obviously not going to eventuate, then they should be banned." Although there are already several "ex-gay" ministries in Australia, Derry said they "have not produced any long-term survivors from their programs." And finally ... all did not go smoothly for those ads, even in the U.S.. The first in the series of three ads placed at a cost of $200,000 listed an incorrect telephone number, so that callers reached not a source of referrals to "change" ministries, but an Alabama electrical contractor. And it may have been the international homosexual conspiracy, the Devil, or merely an errant automatic spell-checker, but the PR Newswire version of the Family Research Council's first press release about the ads described the sponsors not as "pro-family organizations" but as "profanity organizations."