NewsWrap for the week ending May 27, 2000 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #635, distributed 05-29-00) [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 Cindy Friedman and Leo Garcia July's World Pride 2000 celebration took a blow this week when authorities decided it must be moved out of the center of Rome, citing concerns for "public order". In fact the decision resulted from a private agreement between Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and the Vatican, which along with right-wing politicians has insisted that World Pride is an affront to the Vatican's celebration of the Jubilee year. Planning for World Pride began in December 1996, before the Vatican had begun its own planning for the Jubilee observance, and World Pride events had already been located well away from the Vatican itself. To add insult to injury, the permits that were refused to World Pride were quickly granted for some of the same venues to some right-wing groups' counter-protests. Gays and lesbians responded with a demonstration outside the Parliament, while inside Prime Minister Amato pleased right-wingers by sounding as if he regretted the necessity of allowing gays and lesbians their constitutional right to assembly. World Pride has had consistent support from Rome's mayor, and some left-wing political parties are joining in. But at this time, just where its ten days of activities and big march can be held is unclear. A permit was also denied this week for what would have been Singapore's first major public gay and lesbian event. The group People Like Us had billed the meeting as an opportunity to consider how gays and lesbians fit in to the government's Singapore 21 program to increase participation in society -- a program whose slogan is "Everyone counts." People Like Us even performed a survey of almost 500 Singaporeans, finding a high level of opposition to employment discrimination and a high level of acceptance for gay and lesbian family members. But police wrote that they could not "allow the holding of this forum which will advance and legitimize the cause of homosexuals in Singapore. The mainstream moral values of Singaporeans are conservative, and the Penal Code has provisions against certain homosexual practices. It will therefore be contrary to the public interest to grant a public entertainment license." There was some happier news for gays and lesbians in some U.S. Protestant denominations this week. The highest church court of the 2.6-million-member Presbyterian Church U.S.A. upheld two rulings favorable to gays and lesbians. The Permanent Judicial Council of the General Assembly affirmed that the denomination's 1997 ban against ordaining sexually active gays and lesbians as ministers, deacons or elders applies strictly to ordination. New Jersey gay Graham Van Keuren had advanced along the road to ordination from "inquirer" to "candidate" status, but because he has declared his intention to someday have a partnership with another man, conservatives felt he should not be even a candidate. The court said candidates' "manner of life" should be evaluated just before ordination. The Permanent Judicial Council also affirmed that congregations and ministers can choose to bless same-gender couples, as long as it's very clear that those ceremonies are not marriages. After a New York church celebrated the holy union of a gay male couple in 1998, conservatives complained that it was no different from marriage. They also maintained that it was wrong to bless relationships which violated traditional standards for sexual conduct. The court said no law had been violated, although it gave instructions for further clarifying the distinction between holy unions and marriages. The Presbyterian Church does not have a law prohibiting holy unions and does have a policy granting "wide latitude" for "services of blessing... including those that might involve two persons of the same gender." But that could all change in late June when the denomination's highest legislative body, the General Assembly, meets. A proposal to explicitly ban holy unions has already been put forward by three regional bodies, called synods. Holy unions are also now permitted in two synods of the 5.2-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, following votes held in May. Wisconsin's Greater Milwaukee Synod was the first of the 65 ELCA regional bodies to greenlight the ceremonies, and the Detroit area Southeast Michigan Synod announced this week that it had followed suit. The ELCA does not have a law against blessing same-gender couples, but a 1993 advisory from its bishops denounced them. Washington will become only the fifth US state to extend health insurance coverage to the same-gender partners of its own government workers, following a 6-to-1 vote of the Public Employees Benefits Board this week. The larger of the two unions of state workers had been preparing to sue the state to win domestic partner benefits. But the state is short of funds right now, so the additional cost will have to be shared by all the state's workers. That's the only reason for the single "nay" vote on the Board and opposition by the smaller state workers' union. Democratic Governor Gary Locke, who appoints all but one of the Board members, had asked them to approve the benefit to take effect January 1st. That enraged the state's Republican legislators, who felt Locke had assured them he would oppose the benefit when they were developing the state budget. They are determined to make it an election issue, and so is a new coalition of religious right groups, which is also planning a court challenge. There was an unpleasant surprise for California gays and lesbians, though, as Democratic Governor Gray Davis vetoed a bill to extend to domestic partners the right for one to take extended leave from work when the other is seriously ill. Currently workers can only do this for an ailing parent, minor child or legally married spouse. The vetoed bill wold have added several other relationships. Davis said in his veto message that the bill was too broadly written but that in the future he would work with lawmakers to enact parts of it. Davis will probably have to decide on several bills this year that would add substance to the largely symbolic statewide domestic partners registry he signed into law last year. Some Canadian gay and lesbian couples are applying for marriage licenses towards a lawsuit to win full equal marriage rights. They've already won in the courts and some provinces legal status equal to unmarried heterosexual couples, and a bill to give them that same status nationally is now before the Senate. This week, Judy Lightwater and Cynthia Callahan applied in Victoria, British Columbia, fully expecting to be rejected. But at the end of last week, Toronto activist couple Michael Leshner and Michael Stark were surprised when their application was not rejected, but was put on hold while the city seeks an opinion from an Ontario court. Attorney Martha McCarthy, victor in the landmark "M v. H" Supreme Court case, called this "the first time ever government has taken a proactive stand." Toronto director of legal services Paul Jones was more modest, saying that in light of "M v. H" and other recent rulings, the city's "simple public servants" just don't know any more how to proceed. Activists were pleased that the cost of coming up with that answer will for once come out of public coffers instead of their own pockets. Party politics took an unusual turn in Canada this week. The anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition's Web site strongly criticized Tom Long, one of four candidates hoping to lead the new Alliance Party, saying his staff included two "self-proclaimed homosexuals" and a "strongly pro-gay" campaign manager. Flyers were distributed with the same message, driving one of the gay Long staffers to go visit and come out to his parents. But even though the Alliance is the most socially conservative of Canada's major political parties, it's eager to overcome the reputation for bigotry that tarred its predecessor, the Reform Party. So the immediate result of the homophobic attack against the Long campaign was that he and all three of the other candidates for Alliance leader promptly denounced its intolerance, affirmed the rights of gays and lesbians to full participation in the political process, and welcomed them into the party. Even Stockwell Day, a minister who has reached out to the religious right for support more than the other candidates and has an anti-gay track record from his years as an Alberta legislator, made a joke that, "I don't care what they do in the bedroom -- as long as they don't take too long, because there's a lot of work to do in this campaign." The legendary Sir John Gielgud died this week at the age of 96. In some 80 years as a working actor, he took only four weeks off, performing countless times on stage, radio, recordings, television, and more than fifty films, winning top honors in every medium. The last forty years of his life were shared with his devoted partner Martin Hensler. Before Hensler came into his life and shortly after he was knighted in 1953, Gielgud was arrested in a public restroom on charges of gross indecency, which made his sexual orientation very public indeed. There was an outcry in the U.K. from conservatives now embarrassed by his knighthood, he faced some problems with obtaining visas to travel to the U.S., and the situation was very painful for Gielgud, but generally it turned out to win more sympathy for gay and lesbian civil rights. And finally, there was a sale at Christie's East auction house in New York City this week of the ultimate piece of movie memorabilia: a pair of the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in the filming of "The Wizard of Oz". A half-dozen of the size-six sparklers were made for the film, of which only four are known to exist today. The current pair were last sold in 1988 for $165,000. But this time Los Angeles dealer David Elkouby went way over the rainbow with his winning bid of $666,000.