NewsWrap for the week ending August 5, 2000 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #645, distributed 08-07-00) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Chase Schulte and Cindy Friedman The European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously this week that Britain's gay-only "gross indecency" law violates European privacy rights. The 1885 law that jailed Oscar Wilde criminalizes sex between men when any third party is present, even by choice, although often the third party is the arresting police officer. Gross indecency was charged in some 350 cases last year. In the case before the court, police had obtained a home video showing a gay man referred to as "ADT" at a sex party with several men in his home. In 1996 he was given a conditional two-year suspended sentence for what the seven European judges agreed were activities that "were purely and genuinely private." Having found that the law violated the European Convention on Human Rights' guarantee of "respect for a private family life," the court did not go on to consider ADT's claim that the gay-only law represents gender discrimination. The British Government is reviewing the decision, but had already marked the gross indecency law for repeal as part of a proposed major sex crimes law reform published last week. The panel that developed the reform proposals wrote that, "The review can find no justification for retaining an offense that deals solely with same-sex behavior between consenting adults in private." The national gay and lesbian advocacy group Stonewall's executive director Angela Mason said, "I believe the government will now have to issue a directive to police officers telling them not to continue prosecutions under this offense." In one of the world's most famous sodomy cases, the fourteen-month-long trial of Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, there was an unexpected delay this week. High Court Justice Ariffin Jaka had been due to hand down his verdict, but instead advised attorneys there would be a delay, without setting a new date or giving any explanation. Anwar's political supporters had planned a demonstration outside the courthouse, and 300 to 500 of them showed up anyway despite police warning they would break up the crowd. Although there was pushing and shoving by police in riot gear, no one was injured, but four Opposition political leaders were arrested. In one of many side issues to the main trial, Anwar this week abandoned his attempt to force Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed to testify in the sodomy case as his appeal reached Malaysia's highest court, the Federal Court. Anwar believes that Mahathir's testimony could support his claim that all the charges against him are fabrications by a top-level political conspiracy. But when Chief Justice Eusoff Chin refused to disqualify himself from the case at Anwar's request, Anwar dropped his appeal, charging the judge was subservient to and beholden to Mahathir. Anwar was abruptly fired from his Cabinet posts and leadership role in the ruling UMNO party in September 1998. After his calls for reform of corruption and cronyism in Mahathir's government drew unprecedented crowds to rallies, he was arrested under an internal security law later that month and has been imprisoned ever since. Last year he was sentenced to six years on charges relating to an alleged cover-up of sexual misconduct. If convicted on the sodomy charge, he could face another twenty years imprisonment. New sentences were handed down in Australia for two men who killed a gay man in the mistaken belief that he had raped a woman. The Melbourne community was shocked when a trial court let Kristian Dieber and John Whiteside walk free with suspended sentences after they pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Many felt that the life of openly gay Keith Hibbins was devalued by the sentence. This week an appeals court unanimously agreed, laying six-year prison terms on both men of which they must serve at least four years. The court noted the "viciousness" of the assault on the much older Hibbins and said the killers "decided to take the law into their own hands and became without proper justification the judges and punishers of the deceased." In the U.S., a court's decision to try a 17-year-old suspect as an adult ended official secrecy in a West Virginia murder many believe was a hate crime. "JR" Warren, an African-American gay man with mental and physical disabilities, was severely beaten and then run over several times with a car to make his death appear to be an accident. It was only revealed this week that Warren was still alive and conscious when he was run over. The suspects are two white 17-year-olds, one now named as David Parker, and a 15-year-old accessory. All of them confessed to police. The judge's "findings of fact" in ordering Parker be tried as an adult did not really speak to motive in the case, although before the beating there was an argument about $20 that had dis appeared from Warren's wallet. But gay and African-American civil rights groups are convinced there was bias motivation, and were able to win a preliminary investigation by federal authorities into the case. Neither West Virginia nor federal hate crimes laws cover homophobic bias, but both include racist crimes. Activists have used the case in calling on the House of Representatives to vote on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which would add anti-gay attacks to federal law and greatly expand federal authorities' ability to investigate and prosecute suspected hate crimes. A federal judge in Brazil has struck down HIV discrimination in the military. The judge struck down a 1997 executive decree that required periodic medical examinations and treatment for HIV-positive servicemembers and forced their transfer to reserve status after three years even if they were otherwise healthy. The case was filed by the Brazilian Attorney General's Office's district attorney for civil rights. The DA had also hoped to stop mandatory HIV testing of those seeking to enlist, but the court upheld it. Back in the U.S., a federal appeals court ended a potential threat to all the nation's civil rights laws protecting gays and lesbians. The full bench of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit by two Anchorage, Alaska landlords who claimed their Christian beliefs prevented their compliance with city and state civil rights laws that required them to rent to unmarried couples. They said the laws would force them to "facilitate sin." Remarkably, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court last year reached a split decision in favor of the landlords. That ruling was negated when the full court agreed to take up the case. This week the full court threw out the lawsuit, calling it "purely hypothetical" and "a case in search of a controversy" since no complaints had ever been made against the landlords. The 9th Circuit's jurisdiction includes nine Western states. Last week's Federal Court ruling in Australia striking down the state of Victoria's ban on reproductive treatment for women who don't live with men became a major national controversy this week. Prime Minister John Howard announced that his Government would introduce an amendment to the national Sex Discrimination Act to allow the states to institute such restrictions. The Australian Democratic, Labor and Green Parties were quick to announce their opposition, although there are divisions within the Labor Party on the subject among both national and Victorian elected officials. The Opposition parties should be able to block Howard's amendment in the national Senate, but there is and will continue to be fierce debate. There were also at least three demonstrations protesting Howard's proposal. In Sydney, as many as forty students crashed Howard's electorate office, and one was arrested following altercations with a nearly equal number of police officers. In Melbourne, students demonstrated outside the offices of Victoria's Premier Steve Bracks, who supports the restrictions. In Brisbane, students occupied a government office, trapping a half-dozen staff in with them behind their barricade. Police forcibly removed the demonstrators. France's Radical Left Party this week threw out a Senator for making anti-gay remarks. Senator Francois Abadie of the Pyrenees region, a former Minister for Tourism and Mayor of Lourdes, first wrote in a national magazine that homosexuals were abnormal, destroyers of society who cared nothing about the future, and a continuing danger of pedophilia. When a Liberal Democratic Member of Parliament wrote to object, Abadie responded that he should bugger himself. Radical Left Party chair Jean-Pierre Baylet said Abadie's "homophobic views are diametrically opposed to all our values" and that the party is "thoroughly ashamed of such words." Gay and lesbian activists, including the group SOS Homophobia, called for Abadie to be prosecuted for incitement of hatred. Homophobic rhetoric from Britain's Conservative Party in its battle to retain the "no promo homo" law Section 28 finally became too much for the party's gay poster boy, colorful millionaire Ivan Massow. He defected to the Labour Party, saying he should have done so when now-Prime Minister Tony Blair became leader in 1994. He said the party he's cherished since he was fourteen years old now "cannot be trusted to govern Britain" and that, "Under William Hague, the sad truth is that the Tories have become less compassionate, more intolerant and frankly just plain nasty." Opinions differ as to just how significant Massow's exit is; some say an attempt was made to bribe him into staying with the offer of a peerage, others say his defection means nothing, and there's conflicting information as to whether the Conservatives had planned to run him for office next year. An estimated 3,000 Japanese gays and lesbians turned out for a first Gay Day at Tokyo Disneyland. Like their counterparts in the U.S., it was not an official park event, but many of the gays and lesbians wore red T-shirts reading "July Pride 2000" for visibility. And finally... Texas political humorist Molly Ivins remarked on Republican Presidential candidate and Texas Governor George W. Bush's hometown of Midland, a town she says is populated by rich, white-collar Republicans. Once she asked an American Civil Liberties Union board member from Midland if there had been any problems with gay-bashing there. The answer was, "Oh hell, honey, there's not a gay in Midland who will come out of the closet, for fear people will think they're Democrats."