NewsWrap for the week ending May 15, 1999 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #581, distributed 5-17-99) [Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Martin Rice, Rex Wockner, Alan Reekie, Chris Ambidge, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Leo Garcia and Cindy Friedman Alberta's provincial parliament this week approved government legislation to allow gays and lesbians to co-adopt their partners' children. It's a major turnaround for a Conservative administration in one of Canada's most conservative provinces, which for years resisted civil rights protections for gays and lesbians and denied them all adoption rights. Yet passage of the measure could not have come more quickly and easily, going from introduction to enactment in a single day as part of a housekeeping bill the parties agreed to without floor debate. In fact it may have been too quick and easy. While the bill amended a section of the Child Welfare Act to replace the heterosexually-defined term "spouse" with the gender-neutral "step-parent," it did not include a definition of "step-parent." One conservative attorney believes this may amount to no change at all, and the gay and lesbian group EQUAL=Alberta is also concerned that the courts could still interpret "step-parent" in a more traditional, heterosexual way. A pending lawsuit filed by two lesbian couples seeking second-parent adoptions, which the provincial government has agreed not to contest, may help to resolve the question. In France, the Jospin government's bill to extend most of the benefits of legal marriage to unmarried couples was rejected without discussion this week by the Senate. The Socialist majority has twice forced approval in the National Assembly over strenuous conservative opposition. But the Right dominates the upper house, and it has been trying to replace the government proposal with one that is broader but weaker in its application. Although both houses must agree on common language before the bill can proceed, the government still expects to achieve final passage before the year is out. The government proposal would create contracts known as PACS, Pacts of Civil Solidarity, which would be registered at city halls and recognized by the federal government for purposes including taxation, inheritance, social security benefits, and immigration. Its opponents, backed strongly by the Catholic Church, believe it represents a threat to traditional marriage. But while the French Senate didn't want to discuss domestic partnerships, a U.S. Senate committee was finally ready to talk about hate crimes. Despite intense lobbying since the October bashing death of open gay Matthew Shepard, a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week was the first action taken on one of President Clinton's top legislative priorities, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Shepard's mother was present to give emotional testimony in support of a bill she believes might send a different message to people like those who killed her son, and save some other family from having to suffer like her own. The bill would add sexual orientation to the current national hate crimes law as a basis for bias motivation, but it would also greatly expand the federal government's authority to intervene in criminal prosecutions. That gave Republican Committee Chair Orrin Hatch some constitutional concerns, although he promised to draft amendments to deal with them. In opposing the bill, the religious right has claimed it would create "thought crimes" and lead to prosecutions for anti-gay speech, although in fact it would apply only where there are charges of serious violence against a person. A hate crimes bill in Texas died this week despite a determined effort by Democratic lawmakers. Texas' existing hate crimes law does not define any specific protected categories because there were objections to referring to "sexual orientation" when it was enacted in 1993, but that has left it too vague to be enforced. The last time the state legislature considered a bill to name categories in the law including sexual orientation, it passed the Senate but was rejected by the House. This time the House passed it by a healthy margin, but Republicans blocked it from reaching the Senate floor before this week's deadline for the session. Although sexual orientation was almost completely omitted from public discussion, Democrats say the bill would have passed easily without it -- especially since Texas has been in the national spotlight for the racist murder of African-American James Byrd, Junior. Democrats charge that Republicans blocked the bill to preserve Republican Governor George Bush from having to take a position on it, because he is the leading candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 2000. Many observers believed that approving the bill would hurt Bush in Presidential primaries, while vetoing it would hurt him in the general election. Republicans say it is the Democrats who made the hate crimes bill into a political football, with both President Clinton and Presidential hopeful Bill Bradley publicly involving themselves in support of the Texas bill. But a hate crimes bill in Missouri appears destined to become the first law including sexual orientation to be enacted since the murder of Matthew Shepard. This week the Missouri House voted 20-to-14 in support of a measure by Democratic state Representative Tim Harlan. Last month, the state Senate approved a similar measure. Harlan's proposal is part of a larger crime bill which will next be considered in a House-Senate conference committee. And a hate crimes bill including sexual orientation also advanced in Alabama this week, passing out of the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 6-to-5 to head to the House floor. But in Louisiana, a bill to protect gays and lesbians from job discrimination was rejected by the House Labor Committee by a vote of 8-to-3. A similar measure is pending discussion by the full state Senate, but even if it were to pass there, it would have to face the same House Labor Committee. Transsexual Leigh Varis-Beswick has been elected to the city council of the Western Australia town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Varis-Beswick, who is pleased at the chance to give something back to the town where she grew up as a male, has an unusual occupation for a politician. She said, "Being the madam of a brothel is not grounding for entering local politics or councils but I don't see that as a barrier. Why can't I have a go? A lot of people said to me, being a poofter and a sex change and all these sorts of things, 'How dare you?' And I said, 'How dare I not? I'm just as good as you are, and I'm going to get in there and have a go.'" Threats from Israel's religious right to interfere with transsexual Dana International's taping of a song with Bible lyrics in Jerusalem this week, failed to materialize. Dana last year became Israel's first-ever winner of the EuroVision Song Contest, and she was preparing a segment for the broadcast of this year's competition. United Torah Judaism Party Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Rabbi Haim Miller said it was a "desecration of the holy" for Dana just to be filmed in Jerusalem, much less singing lyrics often used as a Sabbath hymn. He and other Haredi threatened to bring a crowd to disrupt the taping. But when it came down to it, there was no protest, and the extra security personnel were holding back not opponents but fans. Dana appeared in Yemenite dress with 150 dancers before the walls of the Old City, to belt out first Stevie Wonder's "Free," and then the original composition she called "an adaptation of a religious song that also celebrates freedom." Dana said, "I am giving the world a message of freedom on the threshold of the third millennium." Sir Dirk Bogarde, winner of two Best Actor awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Artists, died this week at the age of 78. Bogarde's pioneering role as a gay barrister who stands up to extortionists in the 1961 film "Victim" is widely credited with advancing the repeal of Britain's sodomy laws. Before that, he was a matinee idol and a top box office draw who was often referred to as "the British Rock Hudson." After "Victim," he turned increasingly to art house films by the top European directors, including a number of gay or homoerotic roles. His most famous gay role was in Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice," which Bogarde considered to be his finest work. In his own life, although he never publicly discussed it as he did his heterosexual affairs, Bogarde's most important relationship was with his manager Anthony Forwood, lasting more than 50 years until Forwood's death. And finally, Franco Zeffirelli's new film "Tea with Mussolini" opened this week, with Lily Tomlin among the women in its stellar cast. Tomlin plays a lesbian archeologist who goes by the name of "George," and who despite the film's 1930's setting doesn't hesitate to dance with other women. In fact, in the words of "Washington Post" critic Thelma Adams, ‘George’ is so butch that she "makes Indiana Jones look femme."