NewsWrap for the week ending February 3, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #671, distributed 02-05-01) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Matt Alsdorf, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Chase Schulte The long-time leader of an "ex-gay" group in Britain has concluded that sexual orientation cannot be changed. After fourteen years, gay minister Jeremy Marks said, "None of the people we've counseled have 'converted' no matter how much effort and prayer they've put into it." Marks includes himself, for although he has remained faithful to the vows he made to his wife, he admits his orientation has not changed. Deciding that, "There is much more benefit to the honest view," he said his group Courage wants "to be separated from the 'ex-gay' label and be more focused on supporting Christians who are gay." Surprisingly, the umbrella organization Exodus International has granted Marks' group a two-year "sabbatical leave" "to explore its new direction and practice" and then report back. Marks said that Exodus leaders "are facing the possibility that we could have been wrong" about changing homosexual orientation, which he said would represent "a major paradigm shift after 25 years" -- but he held out little hope that would actually happen. In the U.S., "ex-gay" groups have actively lobbied against civil rights and other legislation favorable to gays and lesbians. Two gay-inclusive Southern Baptist churches in Georgia retained their membership in the Atlanta Baptist Association after a vote this week. Both Oakhurst Baptist Church and Virginia-Highland Baptist Church had already been "disfellowshipped" from the Georgia Baptist Association and the national Southern Baptist Convention. Their ordination of gays and lesbians and celebrations of same-gender couples are viewed by many in the United States' largest Protestant denomination as "affirming and approving and endorsing homosexual behavior." The Atlanta Baptist Association said in a statement issued after the vote that it "does not condone or support homosexuality" but "affirms the longstanding Baptist policy of local church autonomy." Shortly after the vote, rumors began that the decision might split the Association. The Pope denounced recognition of gay and lesbian couples once again this week, this time speaking to a Vatican tribunal that reviews requests for marriage annulments. John Paul the Second said, "Marriage is not just any old union between human persons, susceptible to being configured according to a plurality of cultural models. The natural consideration of marriage shows us that a couple unite themselves precisely because they are persons of different sexuality, with all the spiritual richness that this diversity has at a human level." He once again characterized gay and lesbian relationships as "unnatural" because there is no possibility of procreation. But a Swedish parliamentary committee concluded this week that children of gay and lesbian couples are no different from heterosexual ones "when it comes to parents' ability to give their children good care." After studying the issue, the committee found that gay and lesbian couples "have neither more nor less difficulty in growing up socially and psychologically balanced and enjoy the same level of attention as other children." The committee therefore recommended opening adoptions to gay and lesbian couples, one of the few rights they do not currently enjoy with Sweden's registered partnerships. The issue will likely be debated in the parliament next year. And in a remarkable decision this week in the Canadian province of Ontario, a judge found that a change in gender presentation does "not constitute a material change in circumstances" to support a change of child custody. When Howard Forrester and Margaret Saliba separated in 1996, they agreed to shared custody of their daughter. But after Margaret discovered that Howard had begun to live as a woman named Leslie, she sued for full custody. But Justice Theo Wolder saw their six-year-old daughter as "a very well-adjusted, happy, healthy little girl, who in her own way has been able to accept the changes in her father and continues to enjoy a healthy relationship with her father, now a woman psychologically." Forrester, who plans to undergo sex reassignment surgery, hopes this case will encourage other transgender people to believe they can get fair treatment in Canada's courts. Japan's Okayama University Hospital this week became only the second in the nation to perform sex reassignment surgery. Saitama Medical College in the Saitama Prefecture was the first, beginning in 1998. Up until that point, genital surgery was legally prohibited, forcing Japanese transsexuals to leave the country to obtain sex reassignment. But despite a growing demand, there will be no more sex reassignment surgery performed in Zambia, as the head of surgery at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka has declared them too expensive. Professor Lupando Munkonge, who had been performing the operations, said, "It is not reasonable to do such things in a Third World country, because it costs a lot of money which could be wisely spent on other operations." He described the surgery as "purely cosmetic." He added that in Zambia transsexualism is generally perceived as associated with homosexuality, which Munkonge said, "we don't want to be seen to be promoting." Zimbabwe's first post-colonial President Canaan Banana was released from jail this week, where he'd been serving time for convictions on eleven assorted counts relating to attempted coercion of sexual relations with other men. Most of those actions targeted underlings during his 1980s tenure in the State House. Originally sentenced to ten years imprisonment with nine years suspended on various conditions, Banana was released after only eight months for good behavior. Banana had been a distinguished diplomat, theology professor and Methodist minister before his 1998 trial. The case was a great scandal in Zimbabwe. For more than three decades Banana had been a ZANU-PF party colleague of Zimbabwe's current President Robert Mugabe, Africa's most notoriously vocal homophobe. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's struggling election campaign included special outreach to gays and lesbians in January. The targeted campaign was led by Israel's first "out" elected official, lesbian Tel Aviv City Councilor Michal Eden, with the slogan, "Don't compromise on the future. Don't return to the days of the closet." Barak vowed to work for equality for all, calling the gay and lesbian community "an integral part of Israeli society." Even before the outreach, three-fourths of Israeli gays and lesbians were expected to favor Barak's Labor Party and its liberal allies like Eden's Meretz Party, over the conservative Likud Party and its allies including the far right Shas Party. France's openly gay Senator Bertrand Delanoë looked like a winner in his campaign for Mayor of Paris in two surveys this week. Delanoë is believed to be one of only three open gays to win elective office in France. He came out during the heated parliamentary debate that ultimately created the legal domestic partnerships known as PACS, Pacts of Civil Solidarity. No open gay in France has served in as high-profile a position as Paris Mayor, but a Delanoë victory would also mean the city's first Socialist mayor in 130 years. Delanoë has served as a Paris Councilor for nearly two decades. In a jibe at the RPR party which has long ruled Paris, Delanoë's campaign slogan "Pour un changement d'ere" is a pun that calls for both "a change of era" and "a change of air". The votes will be cast in March. Massachusetts' openly lesbian Democratic state Senator Cheryl Jacques this week declared her candidacy for Lieutenant Governor, almost two years before election day. That may seem early, but a number of other Democrats have already begun to express interest in what may be the party's best chance in a decade to take the governorship. There may have been only one open gay ever to win a statewide office in a general election in the U.S. to date. Jacques served four terms in the state Senate before coming out last year while defending state funding for Massachusetts' pioneering Safe School Program for Gay and Lesbian Students. In November, in her first race as an "out" lesbian, she won her Needham district by a margin of nearly 40%. And finally... elections campaigning in the Australian state of Queensland won't be dull. In Brisbane, outspoken drag queen Tamara Tonite has announced she's running as an independent for the state's Legislative Assembly -- against Queensland's Premier Peter Beattie. Tamara Tonite ran a surprising third in last year's race for mayor of Brisbane, but Beattie's victory is believed to be assured. Cable TV host Tamara Tonite will use the campaign as a platform to speak out on human rights, women's rights and transgender rights. She'll have a hard time upstaging Fitzroy City County Alliance Party candidate Di Schuback, who intends to mail out 5,000 condoms with holes in them. That's to symbolize her belief that the major parties are failing to protect their constituencies, or in her words, "You receive no protection with a damaged product."