Once again, not sure this was sent out. -Greg ---------------------------------------------------------------- NewsWrap for the week ending February 20th, 1999 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #569, distributed 2-22-99) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Chris Ambidge, Ross Stevenson, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Leo Garcia and Cindy Friedman A full-page ad of protest by the religious right in the "New Zealand Herald" did no damage to Auckland's ninth annual gay and lesbian HERO Parade. The crowd of 200,000 was larger by one-third than the previous record turnout. There was nothing in the parade to justify a right-wing politician's claim it is a "public orgy." Prime Minister Jenny Shipley kicked off the event by announcing that she's asked the Ministry of Justice to report in March on the legal status of gay and lesbian couples. But the gay and lesbian community was concerned about the anti-gay ad, which represented a rare New Zealand use of a U.S.-style right-wing strategy. While the religious right ad said, "It takes more than a parade to make a hero," gays and lesbians placed a countering ad in the same format saying, "It takes real heroes to stand up to hate." Football star and minister Reggie White was a leading figure in last year's U.S. religious right print advertising campaign which called on gays and lesbians to seek help to change their sexual orientation. White also joined several anti-gay political campaigns. In early February, a large ad in the national paper "USA Today" offered a tribute to White signed by 100 National Football League players. It concluded, "So get ready, America, because we're standing with Reggie to defend the Gospel." Romanian Orthodox Church members this week protested a production in Bucharest of "Angels in America", gay writer Tony Kushner's Pulitzer- and Tony-award-winning gay-themed play. Protestors made phone threats to theater employees, insulted audience members as they arrived at the theater, and tore down posters advertising the show. A spokesperson for the Young Orthodox Community in Romania said, "It's a shame and a lack of good sense to stage such evil plays, which fail to distinguish between right and wrong." Another violently-protested production, the lesbian-themed film "Fire", has been approved for viewing in India for a second time by the national Censor Board. Members of the ultraconservative Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena Party had carried out a series of violent protests against theaters showing the film and people involved in its production. Those protests led to unruly debate in the national parliament and a national Supreme Court case seeking protection for the film's audiences. They also led the Indian government to ask the Censor Board to reconsider the film, but it once again gave its approval without requiring any cuts. New York City's Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization has been denied a city permit to protest the group's exclusion from the annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade. This is the fifth consecutive year the city has refused to let ILGO march in protest. The U.S. Supreme Court several years ago affirmed the right of Boston's Saint Patrick's Day Parade organizers to exclude gay and lesbian groups. As the Vatican's leading doctrinaire met with his counterparts from North America and the Pacific in mid-February, he and others repeated the Roman Catholic Church's hard line against same-gender relationships. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in an opening address that, "There are moral absolutes; we need them. Homosexuality cannot contribute to real human good." He told reporters who asked about blessing same-gender unions that, "Blessing is a recognition that this is a way of good and a confirmation in this action [of an] underlying internal good ness. So if it is true what we say that this is not a contribution to human good, [to] confirm as a blessing this way would not be helpful for these persons." One focus of the meeting was plans to make Catholic colleges and universities more strictly religious, promising future clashes with students and faculties seeking equal treatment of gays and lesbians. Canada's Supreme Court this week agreed to take up a long-running case against Canada Customs' seizures of gay and lesbian publications. Vancouver's Little Sisters bookstore has been fighting this legal battle for more than a decade. In spite of that, Little Sisters says there have actually been more seizures over the last year than previously. Just this month, four dozen copies of the book "Best of Gay Erotica 1999" headed for Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop were seized, even though 400 copies of the same book had gone through with no problem to the Toronto office of Publishers Group West Canada just three weeks before. Most seized books are literally burned, since appeals are lengthy and bonded carriers refuse to ship out items which have been declared obscene. Also in Canada, charges against the gay amnesiac who found himself in Montreal in mid-October have been dropped. When Matthew Honeycutt was finally identified by his family in Tennessee after his story was broadcast on "Hard Copy" last month, Canadian authorities arrested him for malicious mischief and obstruction of justice. He had apparently entered the country using a driver's license with his brother's name, and Montreal police did not believe his amnesia story. Prosecutors cited humanitarian grounds for dropping the charges, although Honeycutt's Montreal attorney said they really had no case against him. Sadly, returning to his family and former home has done little to bring back Honeycutt's memory. A gay Iranian refugee has been granted a hearing before Britain's High Court. It's an important test case that will consider two questions. One is whether gays and lesbians can be viewed as a "social group" under the provisions of the Geneva Convention. The other is whether it's reasonable to send gay and lesbian refugees back to their oppressive homelands in the belief that they can be safe there by pretending to be straight. An immigration adjudicator had ruled that plaintiff Mherdad Jawwdat would be all right in Tehran if only he cut his hair short and didn't wear makeup in public. The adjudicator imagined that even if police recognized him they would believe he had changed his ways. U.S. gay author, anthologist and literary agent Robert Drake is unconscious and in critical condition in a Dublin hospital following a severe gay-bashing. Drake had been living in Ireland while working on a new novel. Two weeks after he was discovered in his home in Sligo, two suspects voluntarily made statements to police, but neither has yet been arrested. Several Irish press reports have described those attackers as the victims -- of a "homosexual pass." The gay-bashing of a California teenager has led to a series of protests. Adam Colton, founder of the Gay Straight Alliance at San Marin High School in Novato, was not only badly beaten -- the word "fag" had been carved into his abdomen and forearm with a pen. The attack apparently occurred on campus, but Colton has no memory of the events and police have so far been unable to develop leads. In his support, about 150 students held a spontaneous demonstration; then about 1,000 students and faculty turned out for a formal rally at the school; and local organizations staged a rally for the Novato community. Spain's Supreme Court has upheld the punishment of a Navy corporal for physically attacking ten draftees he believed to be gay. The Court called it "absurd" that in appealing his one-year sentence Corporal Francisco Javier Crespo Lopez tried to hold his victims responsible for their own injuries. The ruling was hailed by members of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association. In Canada, J. Gary Cohen was sworn in this week as the first openly gay or lesbian judge to be appointed to the bench in British Columbia. The dignitaries involved in the ceremony gave full recognition to Cohen's partner of almost 20 years, attorney Bruce Fraser. Lesbian Christine Quinn easily won a special election this week for a seat on the New York City Council. That seat was vacated when the Council's first openly gay member, Tom Duane, moved on to become the first openly gay New York State Senator. Quinn had served as Duane's chief of staff. Two of her three opponents were a gay man and a lesbian, as are more than one-third of the voters in the Third Council District. An unofficial interdenominational ordination ceremony was held this week for open gay Darryl Macdonald. For several years he's served as the minister at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Lachine, Quebec, a congregation that last year split from the Presbyterian Church in Canada rather than give up Macdonald. He lives openly with his partner and the Presbyterian Church won't ordain sexually active gay and lesbian ministers. Nonetheless some of the clergy at the ceremony were Presbyterians, who may face disciplinary action as a result. And finally ... former Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell has been making the talkshow rounds backpedalling on the "outing" of Teletubby Tinky Winky in his "National Liberty Journal." He now claims he had nothing to do with the article, blaming it on an editor, and denies even being aware of it until approached by reporters. But the widespread ridicule of the attack on the children's show character has continued unabated in the national media, and it's definitely damaged the credibility of the U.S. religious right. The quarter-million-member Christian Action Network this week announced a major campaign to require an "HC" label on TV shows with what they call "homosexual content," which seems to mean any representation of a gay or lesbian character. Inevitably one of the first things they were asked was whether that included Tinky Winky. Network spokesperson Phillip Vaught said, "I don't think that would be necessary because he's not a gay character. At least not the way I look at it."