NewsWrap for the week ending March 6th, 1999 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #571, distributed 3-08-99) [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 The murder of a gay man in Alabama is drawing widespread attention from the U.S. national media. Coosa County Sheriffs say that both Charles Butler, Junior and Steven Mullins have confessed that they killed Billy Jack Gaither because he was gay. Although they say that Gaither had made sexual advances toward them -- something his acquaintances find unlikely -- they did not react immediately, but spent the next two weeks planning their assault. They called Gaither and arranged for him to pick them up in his car. They took him to an isolated spot where they beat him and stuffed him into the trunk of his own car. They then drove him to another remote area, took him out of the trunk, bludgeoned him to death with a wooden ax handle, and burned his body with two kerosene-soaked car tires. President Bill Clinton issued a statement expressing his outrage and grief at "this heinous and cowardly crime [that] touches the conscience of our country," and called again for passage of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Tracey Conaty of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force told This Way Out: Tracey Conaty: “This murder of Billy Jack Gaither, the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, and the racist murder of Mr. James Byrd in Jasper, Texas are not isolated incidents. These hate crimes do not happen in a vacuum. They happen in a society in which people are taught to devalue and dehumanize entire groups of people. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are not equal in this society, we are still second class citizens, and that is part of the reason why hate crimes happen ... Discrimination and hatred are part of the same continuum, and the right-wing is responsible for fostering a climate in which hate crimes can occur. We want them to stop their unrelenting attacks, for political and financial gain, against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and other minority groups.” Currently, Alabama's hate crimes law does not include crimes against gays and lesbians, although a bill to change that was introduced in the wake of the widely-reported October bashing murder of Matthew Shepard. In Wyoming, where Shepard was attacked, the last vestige of a slew of hate crimes bills was killed this week. While a half-dozen measures for stronger sentences for bias-motivated crimes had already been defeated, a bill to establish a task force to study hate crimes and how to prevent them had passed the state House. But Republican Majority Leader Hank Coe kept the bill off the Senate floor because he felt it had nothing to add to the current statistical reporting by the state Attorney General. In New Mexico, Republican Governor Gary Johnson this week vetoed a hate crimes bill, the second time he's done so. New Mexico was the only Western U.S. state whose legislature approved a hate crimes bill this year. In California, a bill to help protect students in public schools from harassment and discrimination is being opposed by a major media campaign. Professional homophobe Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition is reportedly spending $25,000 to place ads opposing the bill, which are now running on eight Christian radio stations in five markets. The ads are wildly inaccurate. For example, they include allegations that the bill would require hiring quotas for gay and lesbian instructors at private religious schools, when the bill in fact has nothing whatever to do with hiring or with private schools. The bill to add sexual orientation as a protected category under the state Education Code's student anti-discrimination provisions was introduced by openly lesbian state Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl. China's first gay and lesbian campus group only won official recognition last month, but it's already experiencing backlash. A student group describing itself as an "alliance to protect ethics" has been putting up posters protesting the Chinese University's Tongzhi Culture Society. The protesters have also been throwing out the Society's monthly magazine. One poster said, "We found the magazines dirty and meaningless, and they encouraged insane homosexuality and sex abuse. These seriously affect the psychological health of people." The Tongzhi Culture Society's first campus event, a discussion forum held this week, featured calls for tolerance and freedom of expression. Gay Moroccan Muhammed Choukri's noted autobiographical novel, "Plain Bread", has been dropped from the curriculum of the American University of Cairo. Choukri's book was cited for "indecency" because of its descriptions of his homosexual experiences. Although the university is privately-run, the withdrawal was announced to the parliament this week by Egypt's minister of higher education Mufid Shihab. Shihab said that, "Egypt allows free thinking but rejects violations of its values and traditions." The British government's bill to lower the age of consent for sex between men from 18 to 16 was approved for the third and final time by the House of Commons this week by a vote of 281 - 82. The bill now moves to the House of Lords, which is expected to reject equalizing the gay male age of consent with that for heterosexuals, as it did last year. Conservatives who seem to believe the law will make a difference in who does or does not grow up to be gay are not satisfied by the biggest change from last year's bill, the creation of an "abuse of trust" offense designed to protect 16- and 17-year- olds from the advances of adults in positions of authority over them. However, this year the government has promised to use the Parliament Act to override the Lords if necessary. The United Kingdom is planning for the first time to include a count of same-gender couples in its next census, which will be held in 2001. Couples will be able to select among "married," "unrelated" and "partners" to describe themselves. In data analysis, those who respond as "partners" will be further analyzed to count gay and lesbian couples. Martin Walker of the gay and lesbian lobby group Stonewall said, "We have been fighting for years for homosexual relationships to be recognized because we are fed up when forms just offer the choice of marriage or heterosexual couples." Gay taunts led to violence in a British professional soccer match this week, and both parties involved are facing misconduct charges from the Football Association. Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler was using both words and gestures throughout the game implying that Chelsea defender Graeme Le Saux is gay. When Le Saux tried to complain to officials, he was himself warned for wasting time. Le Saux elbowed Fowler in the head and knocked him down while referees' attention was elsewhere. Gay taunts are something Le Saux has experienced throughout his career from opponents, fans and even teammates, apparently because his tastes are more intellectual than the stereotypical working class soccer pro. Transgender Thai kickboxer Parinya Kiatbusaba announced this week that he's ready to retire from the sport and undergo sex reassignment surgery. It was only a year ago that Parinya made his big-league debut in Bangkok, where he knocked out his opponent while wearing full makeup and pink nail polish. He went on to gather fans all over Asia and was even invited to Japan. Once Parinya has become physically female, he hopes to make a career in show business, preferably as a folk singer. Singer Dusty Springfield, bisexual herself and a favorite of many gays and lesbians, died of breast cancer this week at the age of 59. The versatile British-born singer known as the "White Queen of Soul" had a string of 17 hit singles in the 1960's, including "Son of a Preacher Man" which was recently revived in the film "Pulp Fiction". After a period of relative obscurity, Springfield had a revival of her own in 1987 when the Pet Shop Boys collaborated with her on "What Have I Done to Deserve This". Springfield had just been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and was about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Also dying of cancer this week, at the age of 74, was José Quintero, the two-time Tony-award-winning director credited with reviving the works of Eugene O'Neill in the 1950's and all but inventing off-Broadway theater. He's survived by his long-time partner Nick Tsacriosa. Quintero won his first Tony for the 1956 premiere of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", and his second for the 1973 production of "A Moon for the Misbegotten". He was one of a group of young artists who in 1951 founded Greenwich Village's legendary Circle in the Square theater. And Harry Blackmun, U.S. Supreme Court Justice from 1970 - 1994, also died this week, at the age of 90. Although best-known for crafting the 1973 majority opinion in the key abortion rights case "Roe v. Wade," Blackmun was also a dissenter in the high court's landmark ruling on sodomy laws, in the 1986 "Bowers v. Hardwick" case. While the majority affirmed the states' right to criminalize private non-commercial sexual conduct between consenting adults, Blackmun chided his colleagues for their knee-jerk homophobia. He wrote that the fact that "individuals define themselves in a significant way through their intimate sexual relationships with others suggests, in a nation as diverse as ours, that there may be many 'right' ways of conducting those relationships." Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Executive Director Kevin Cathcart said that, "Justice Blackmun's eloquent dissent in 'Hardwick' set the standard for constitutional analysis of lesbian and gay civil rights. His words gave us hope that someday we would find justice in the Supreme Court."