NewsWrap for the week ending January 23rd, 1999 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #565, distributed 1-25-99) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Chris Ambidge, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Leo Garcia and Cindy Friedman U.S. President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address this week was the first ever to mention gay and lesbian issues. After he had referred to the White House initiative on race and introduced African-American civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, he went on to say: President Clinton [tape]: "Discrimination or violence because of race or religion, ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation is wrong, and it ought to be illegal. Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Non- Discrimination Act, and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the law of the land." The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. It's the only gay and lesbian civil rights legislation ever to make it to the floor of either house, but it fell one vote short of passage in the Senate in 1996. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would add "sexual orientation" and several other categories as the basis for bias crimes punished under federal law. Energetic lobbying efforts in the wake of the beating death of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard failed to move this bill in the last Congress. Some sources say that the White House had considered having Shepard's mother sit with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State of the Union address, but reportedly concluded that her presence would have appeared "too much like an 'in your face' dig at Republicans." A bill to add sexual orientation to Idaho's hate crimes law was killed in committee this week by a 2 - 1 margin. The committee chair admitted that even the 1983 "malicious harassment" law itself would probably not have passed his panel if it were introduced today. But the head of the state's Human Rights Commission was surprised by the extent of support for the measure in public testimony before the committee, and plans to try again next year. A Wyoming state legislative committee also heard public testimony on a hate crimes measure this week, but did not vote and has not yet scheduled further discussion. Canaan Banana, Zimbabwe's first post-colonial president, will serve at least one year in prison "at labor" for 11 assorted counts of homosexual assaults. Most of those assaults took place during Banana's 1980's presidency against staff at the presidential mansion. Banana was sentenced to a total of 10 years in jail, with up to five years suspended if he does not commit a similar crime for three years. Another four years will be suspended if Banana pays reparations to Jefta Dube, his primary victim, and to the family of a man Dube killed for taunting him as "Banana's wife." The charges against Banana came to light in the course of Dube's trial for that murder. Banana has appealed both his convictions and his sentence. The group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, GALZ, which had been largely silent on the case, issued a statement saying that, "The political theater in which Banana's trial took place made it well nigh impossible for him to receive a fair hearing. The climate of homophobia has reached hysterical proportions in this country and there are those who have seen fit to exploit the situation for their own enrichment." GALZ went on to criticize Banana's sentence and the national sodomy law. Currently the law makes no distinction between consensual homosexual acts and forced homosexual assaults. Sentences under the existing law range widely, from a fine of $400 to a prison term of seven years. GALZ viewed the prison term Banana received for sodomy against Dube as appropriate for a rape, but noted that the trial had not determined the question of consent. GALZ saw the sentencing provision allowing Banana to pay reparations instead of serving time as a confusion of criminal law with civil law, noting that rapists have never been allowed to buy their way out of jail. GALZ would like to see consensual acts decriminalized altogether and sexual assaults dealt with under the same laws applied to heterosexual rapes. Britain's law against "gross indecency" was considered in the High Court this week, as five of the so-called "Bolton 7" appealed their convictions and sentences. The "Bolton 7" are gay men who were convicted and sentenced for a group sex party held in one's private home, because a homosexual act with any third party present is illegal. There is no equivalent law affecting heterosexual acts. There were high hopes that recent decisions in the European Court of Human Rights would convince the judges that no sentences could be imposed based on the discriminatory law, but the judges rejected those arguments. At the time of the party, Craig Turner was a few months shy of 18, the gay age of consent. He argued that the age of consent law was intended to protect him rather than criminalize him, but the judges also rejected that argument. It's an argument that will be heard again, as British lawmakers consider a measure to drop the gay age of consent to 16, to match the age for heterosexual acts. Meanwhile, the High Court bench reserved judgment on the Bolton 7's sentences, which they're expected to reduce to fines -- the typical sentence for "gross indecency" charges for public acts. The state of Maryland has voided the last of its sodomy laws in an unusual legal settlement. The American Civil Liberties Union had already won a class action suit in the state's highest court which extended to gays and lesbians an earlier decision decriminalizing heterosexual oral sex. In finalizing that agreement this week, state officials agreed voluntarily to also declare a separate law criminalizing all anal intercourse to be unenforceable with respect to private consensual acts. The ACLU is now content to drop its plans to lobby Maryland lawmakers to repeal the sodomy laws. However, at least one legislator is thinking of introducing a repeal measure, which would be likely to succeed in the current state legislature. The Pentagon this week reported a record number of discharges for homosexuality in the twelve months ending June 1998. There's been an increase in gay discharges in each of the five years since the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was adopted. That policy was supposed to make it possible for gays and lesbians to remain in uniform if they were discreet. But the new record of 1,145 ejections marks a 92% increase over the last year of the outright ban on gay and lesbian servicemembers. The long-denounced gay witchhunts are clearly continuing, as the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas was responsible for fully 65% of all the Air Force's gay discharges. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network rejects Pentagon claims that these servicemembers were coming out voluntarily, giving examples of discharges based on statements in therapy sessions and in private diaries. There's been an urgent call for letters of support for an Iranian gay seeking asylum in Sweden. Having exhausted all his appeals, the Iranian was about to be deported this week when new evidence won him a brief reprieve. The man had claimed that he would be killed if he returned home, and it's now been reported that Iranian officials are harassing his mother and have executed his boyfriend for homosexuality. Sweden's gay and lesbian group RFSL and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have called for letters to the Aliens Appeals Board in Stockholm. There was a stir this week when Canada's "Globe & Mail" reported that the government was considering an omnibus bill to treat same-gender couples the same as unmarried heterosexual couples in all federal laws. Prime Minister Jean Chretien went on to deny that there would be any omnibus measure, but confirmed that the government is mulling over a series of court rulings that equal treatment is guaranteed under the national Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Foundation for Equal Families recently filed a lawsuit against the government seeking to modify 58 discriminatory statutes. Two gay men in Japan have celebrated a marriage ceremony in a Shinto shrine, believed to be the first to do so. The shrine's chief priest rewrote the ritual for them because he was so impressed by their determination. He said they were overwhelmed with emotion at being able to hold the ceremony. And finally ... E-mail activism temporarily knocked a major thesaurus right off the Internet. Word got around that in the Merriam-Webster thesaurus, which is also licensed to America Online, the listings under "homosexual" were largely a series of derogatory terms, even -- incorrectly -- "pedophile." GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, joined in calling for clearer labeling of the insulting nature of the synonyms. Both Merriam- Webster and AOL responded by quickly taking the entire thesaurus off-line. A Merriam-Webster spokesperson apologized, noting that for 25 years it's had a policy against listing entries for racial and ethnic groups, and that sexual minorities should have been added to that policy by now. The thesaurus is going back online with the entire "homosexual" entry deleted, and Merriam- Webster has promised a review of other problematic listings for sexual minorities.