NewsWrap for the week ending January 13, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #668, distributed 01-15-01) [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 Oklahoma lesbian Wanda Jean Allen was executed by lethal injection this week for the 1988 shooting death of her partner Gloria Leathers. A flurry of last-minute appeals to both Republican Governor Frank Keating and the federal courts failed to win a stay. There is no question that Allen shot Leathers, although her defenders view the killing as an extension of a physical altercation between the couple earlier in the day, the last in a series of violent arguments between them. But the jury in Allen's case never learned of her low IQ and neurological disabilities, and Allen's exaggeration of her academic achievements at her sentencing hearing were repeated by the prosecution at her clemency hearing. There were also a series of protests by opponents of the death penalty, culminating in a demonstration on the eve of the execution by more than 150 people where the Reverend Jesse Jackson and 27 others were arrested for civil disobedience. Allen had met Leathers while serving time on a manslaughter conviction in the shooting death of her previous partner Detra Pettus. One 1998 study found that more than one-third of the women on death row in the U.S. were lesbians, in part because they are viewed as more deviant than other women who kill. In Canada, Calgary lesbian Deborah Point was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for at least twenty years. Point was convicted of the second-degree murder of her roommate and long-time friend Audrey Trudeau. Point said they had established a sexual relationship, but Trudeau's family continue to deny this. Point and her family continue to deny that she committed the axe murder and dismemberment, but evidence strongly connected Point to the storage of the body parts in a garage where they were only discovered five months later. One expert said there had been no case like it in Canada. Kazuko Fukuda is asking Japan's Supreme Court to reduce her life sentence for the 1982 slaying of her estranged lesbian partner Atsuko Yasuoka. Fukuda was a fugitive for almost 15 years before her arrest in 1997. She was found guilty of murder without premeditation but committed in the course of a robbery, and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Matsumyama District Court in 1999. The sentence was upheld by the Takamatsu High Court in December. William "Ian" Beggs, a gay man with a history of violence towards other gay men, was extradited from the Netherlands to Scotland this week to face charges in the December 1999 murder of 18-year-old Barry Wallace. The killing became known as the "Limbs in the Loch" case because of the discovery of the first parts of Wallace's dismembered body in Loch Lomond; it took a month to find the rest. Beggs was the subject of one of the largest manhunts in Scottish history, but he had already fled to the Netherlands, where he turned himself in to authorities and used every possible appeal against extradition. He's believed to be appealing to the European Court of Human Rights as well, claiming he cannot get a fair hearing in Scotland because of media coverage there. He's expected to face trial there within twelve months. Gay London police officers have been the subject of a homophobic hate campaign. Scotland Yard began to investigate the situation after eight officers at the West End Central station received threatening letters this week. Previous incidents have included vandalism of an officer's car while it was parked in a secure police lot, and bottles of gasoline sent to gay officers' homes with instructions to set themselves on fire. Internal inquiries by the Metropolitan Police found no evidence that other police officers were responsible. Bills to increase sentences for crimes motivated by homophobia are being introduced as U.S. state legislatures open their sessions. A new hate crimes bill has been introduced in Texas, where in 1999 incoming President George W. Bush's candidacy led state Senators to kill a similar measure, which was highly controversial primarily for its inclusion of anti-gay crimes. Texas' current hate crimes law has proven impossible to prosecute successfully and may well be unconstitutional. Sponsors are hopeful that this year's bill will pass both houses and that new Republican Governor Rick Perry will let it become law. North Carolina will see a renewed effort to pass the so-called Matthew Shepard Memorial Act, which may add "gender expression" as well as sexual orientation as victim categories for sentencing enhancements. A bill will also be introduced to reform the state's "crimes against nature" law. In Mississippi, House Bill 162 has also been introduced to add homophobic crimes to the state's hate crimes law. But in Arizona, a bill has been introduced to stop counties, cities and school boards from withholding benefits from the Boy Scouts of America because of BSA's policies excluding gays, atheists and agnostics. Reform Jewish congregations in North America have been urged to stop sponsoring Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs because of BSA's policy of discrimination against gays. A non-binding memo was issued last week by the Joint Commission on Social Action of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the leading groups of laypeople and clergy in the Reform sect. The memo said, "If a congregation ... that sponsors or houses a Boy Scout troop [and/or] Cub Scout pack shares our conclusion that working from within the Boy Scouts of America is no longer a viable or productive option, it may wish to sever those ties as incompatible with our consistent belief that every individual -- regardless of his or her sexual orientation -- is created in the image of God and is deserving of equal treatment." Parents were also urged either to pull their children out of Scouting or to undertake one of a number of protest actions. The memo is being hailed as the strongest action any religious group has yet taken against BSA's discriminatory policy. Other religious activists last week protested what they called "spiritual violence" against gays and lesbians by the Vatican. Members of the gay and lesbian Catholic group Dignity USA and the interfaith group Soulforce spent three days demonstrating behind a police barrier dividing the city of Rome from the Vatican. Then they tried to enter Saint Peter's Square itself, where no protest action has been allowed for decades. First two demonstrators were removed from the Square during the Pope's ceremony closing the Jubilee Year, and detained until the ceremony was completed. But later, surrounded by police, the rest were allowed to remain there for three hours singing, praying and celebrating communion. Corresponding demonstrations were held at Roman Catholic cathedrals and churches in several U.S. cities. A Texas church with a mission "to spread God's word to the gay and lesbian community" has not only given its new minister a job, it's given him back the life he says he lost to amnesia after a beating sixteen years ago. When John Simmons last month delivered an audition sermon to Garland's White Rock Community Church, he described how he had awakened from a coma in Tennessee in July 1984 without recollection of his prior life. He described how he had built a new life and gone on to spend the last ten years at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, California, earning two master's degrees and working as Dean of Student Life. When the service was over, a member of the White Rock congregation told Simmons that he believed he was actually Barre Cox, a Church of Christ minister in San Antonio who had disappeared in July 1984 and been declared legally dead. The congregant had worked with Cox at a church camp in New Mexico in 1982. The congregant arranged for Simmons to meet first with friends of Cox's parents and then with Cox's mother and siblings, all of whom agree that Simmons is Cox. Cox's wife, who had dissolved their marriage after his disappearance, has not yet met with Simmons but has identified him as Cox from his photos, handwriting and voice on the telephone. Simmons does not remember the Cox family members but had some scraps of memories of facts about their home. The White Rock member who recognized Simmons as Cox said, "I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a miracle, but [it's] definitely something God had a hand in." The president of Indiana's Purdue University announced this week that he will officially add sexual orientation to the school's non-discrimination policy. Purdue is the last of the "Big Ten" universities to take the step, which campus activists have lobbied for over the last decade. While the school's gays and lesbians celebrated the announcement, University president Martin Jischke downplayed it as a "clarification," saying it was an error to believe that a group's omission from the policy meant that discrimination against them would be condoned. And finally, another school, Australia's prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art, has accepted openly gay former professional rugby star Ian Roberts. Only 25 other students were accepted out of more than 1,300 applications to the alma mater of Mel Gibson and Cate Blanchett. The notoriously tough rugby forward said that acting had shown him that, "I'm not as brave as I thought. Getting up in front of people and exposing your emotions is very, very hard." Roberts decided on an acting career about a year ago and had spent the last six months in intensive study; he also has a bit part in the upcoming film "Star Wars - Episode 2". Roberts mentioned another qualification for his admission to NIDA, saying, "I acted straight for 25 years."