NewsWrap for the week ending May 20, 2000 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #634, distributed 05-22-00) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Martin Rice, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Chris Allen and Leo Garcia The last man to be fired from the British military for homosexuality is the first to be reinstated. Navy chef Richard Young was ousted after six years of service because of an anonymous phone tip, just days before the European Court of Human Rights struck down Britain's ban on gays and lesbians in the military as a violation of privacy rights in August. In January, Britain adopted a new code of conduct prescribing equal treatment regardless of individuals' sexual orientation, and Defense Minister Geoff Hoon invited those booted under the old policy to reapply. Young learned this week that he will be reinstated with his full former pay, seniority and rank of able seaman at his former base, HMS Drake in Plymouth. Britain's sex laws will soon be facing their biggest overhaul in a century. For almost a year-and-a-half, a government committee has been reviewing them, and this week the panel passed its report on to Cabinet ministers. The report will be published in July to allow the public to comment before new legislation is drafted. Some of the laws are 200 years old and have grown archaic. The reforms will offer more equal treatment of gays and lesbians and heterosexuals and of men and women, as well as more protection for child and adult victims of sexual assaults. Currently, only men can be charged with indecent exposure or pimping, only men can be imprisoned for importuning, and two men kissing in public can qualify as gross indecency punishable by up to five years imprisonment. Ministers are reportedly bracing themselves for massive opposition, given the current controversies over equalizing the age of consent for sex between men with that for heterosexual acts and over the proposed repeal of Section 28. Section 28 is the Thatcher-era prohibition against local governments devoting resources to the "promotion of homosexuality." A woman's lawsuit charging the Glasgow City Council has violated the clause by funding six gay and lesbian and AIDS organizations last week won the Council's voluntary agreement to suspend the grants until the case has been decided. Now the anti-gay Christian Institute has announced that it will file two or three similar lawsuits against local authorities in Britain, although it has yet to name its targets. Angela Mason, executive director of the national lobby group Stonewall, said, "They're unlikely to be successful in the courts, but what they're trying to do is put the fear of God into everybody and make it almost impossible for any public body to fund work involving lesbians and gay men." A policy of discrimination against gays has lost the Boy Scouts of America its fund-raising access to state employees in Connecticut. The state's Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ruled unanimously that the Scouts can no longer be a recipient of state employees' contributions through payroll deductions. One commissioner said that under Connecticut law, "The state can't discriminate, businesses can't discriminate and further, the state can't associate with groups that do." A Christian group at Tufts University in Massachusetts that had lost its student funding and other privileges for denying a bisexual woman a leadership role, has won a reprieve. On appeal, a faculty-student committee has reversed the April ruling of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary to "derecognize" the Tufts Christian Fellowship. But the appeal panel only took issue with the Judiciary's process, not with its conclusion, and called on the Judiciary to hold a hearing to reconsider the question in the new school year. The Christian Fellowship is particularly pleased that it will be able to use school communications systems to recruit incoming freshmen before that hearing is held. The Fellowship has maintained that it denied a leadership role to Julie Catalano not because of her bisexual orientation, but because she does not share the multi-denominational group's belief that all sex outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong. Another religious conflict is threatening the long-planned LGBT World Pride celebration in Rome. The Vatican and newspapers that support it have been pressuring the city to block the July march as incompatible with Catholic observances of the Jubilee Year in the Holy City. Interior Minister Enzo Bianco has said he'll base his decision on public safety concerns. Italy's commander of police Fernando Masone has turned in a report with a grim estimate of the situation, saying police would be powerless to stop "ungovernable" gay activists from protesting against the Vatican in St. Peter's Square. The presidents of two neighboring provinces called on Rome to delay World Pride at least a year. And the U.S. is becoming increasingly involved, with eleven politicians and academics writing to Vice President Al Gore to withdraw his letter of support to World Pride, and San Francisco Archbishop William Levada being quoted in opposition to the Rome march. World Pride organizers have vowed that if Rome withdraws their permit, they will march in protest against the Vatican. A small group of right-wingers held a street demonstration of their own in Rome this week, displaying a banner reading, "Yes to traditional families, no to gays." West Australia Pride will be returning to its customary route through Perth's Northbridge neighborhood this year. Insulting treatment by the Perth City Council had decided Pride to move to Subiaco, whose mayor and council had warmly welcomed the big march. But then a big turnout of opponents at a May Subiaco City Council meeting convinced councilors to withdraw Pride's permit. Meanwhile, members of Gay and Lesbian Equality - West Australia this week demonstrated at Perth City Hall, where the mayor was holding a reception to launch Law Week, a national public education observance. The Law Week theme is "The Law - Serving All Australians," but West Australia's state laws are by far the least favorable in the nation for gays and lesbians. About 100 demonstrators picketed outside City Hall calling for passage of the state's proposed Sexuality Discrimination Bill. A few protestors infiltrated the mayor's reception to stand silently with banners about their unequal treatment under the law. Their message was acknowledged and applauded by some of the speakers. Demonstrations in the U.S. continued this week in the on-going protest of a new TV show planned for anti-gay top-rated talk show host "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger. This week there were pickets of a TV station in St. Louis, Missouri and a radio station in Phoenix, Arizona, where Schlessinger was broadcasting live. But the big news of the campaign this week was at the corporate level. Just a week after signing on to sponsor the TV show, household products giant Procter & Gamble decided both to cancel that sponsors hip and to end its purchase of ads on Schlessinger's radio show. Procter & Gamble believes it can find many other advertising opportunities that will be less controversial. Then United Airlines leaped on the bandwagon. A customer pointed out United's in-flight magazine had carried ads for the radio show in March, and United immediately announced that it would no longer accept ads for Schlessinger since they gave offense to customers and employees. Schlessinger's radio syndicator Premiere Radio Networks said that sponsors come and go in the course of a year, and that it had only purchased the United ads for the one month. Her TV producer Paramount expressed disappointment in Procter & Gamble but said it had plenty of other sponsors lined up, although it refused to name them. The anti-gay Family Research Council, though, called for counter-protests of Procter & Gamble. Minnesota Senate President Allan Spear retired this week with the close of the legislative session there. Spear has been the longest-serving openly gay or lesbian elected official in the U.S., first elected to the state Senate in 1972 and publicly announcing that he is gay in 1974. At 62, Spear simply felt ready to retire, and is also leaving his assistant professorship in history at the University of Minnesota. Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, Spear's colleague throughout his political career, said, "When you stood up to speak, everyone listened. That is the highest compliment you can have in this chamber." Others praised his intelligence, wit, oratory, fairness, perseverence, and integrity, as well as the anti-homophobia education he provided just by being who he is. In 1993, Spear won passage of a bill in Minnesota to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. And finally... Curt Bludworth of Atlanta, Georgia is one remarkably giving man. A year ago, he learned that a healthy person can donate part of their liver for transplant, and that in a couple of months their liver will regenerate to full size. He offered to transplant specialists around the country to undergo this procedure to save the life of someone in need, and in mid-May he underwent five hours' surgery to do just that for someone he had never met. Because of strict rules against the appearance of paying for body parts, Bludworth had to pay for his own travel and lodging as well as taking time off from work. Bludworth said that "it's a small trade-off" to give up two months of his life "to give someone 30 to 40 years of theirs." Bludworth has started the non-profit Curt Bludworth Organ Donation Awareness Foundation to support others willing to be living donors. Ironically, as an openly-gay man who has had sex with another man in the last twenty years, Bludworth would not be able to donate blood under accepted screening standards because of perceived AIDS risk.