NewsWrap
for the week ending May 19, 2001
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #686, distributed 05-21-01)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Greg Gordon 

  The Canadian Supreme Court ruled this week that a private Christian 
university that prohibits "homosexual behavior" can qualify its students as 
public school teachers.  Trinity Western University's rules against what the 
Evangelical Free Church views as "Biblically condemned" behaviors constituted 
anti-gay discrimination in the eyes of the British Columbia College of 
Teachers.  That provincial licensing body has denied accreditation to 
Trinity's teaching program since 1985, requiring its graduates to spend their 
last year at an accredited program at another school.  Two lower courts 
upheld the denial of accreditation.  But the Supreme Court ruled 8-to-1 that 
no evidence supported the notion that Trinity graduates were more likely than 
others to discriminate against gay and lesbian students.  The decision said 
that, "In considering the religious precepts of [Trinity] instead of the 
actual impact of these beliefs on the school environment, the College of 
Teachers acted on the basis of irrelevant considerations.  It therefore acted 
unfairly. ... The freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act 
on them... The diversity of Canadian society is partly reflected in the 
multiple religious organizations that mark the societal landscape and this 
diversity of views should be respected."
John Fisher, executive director of Canada's national lobby group EGALE, 
Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, called the decision a serious 
setback, one which would encourage more private religious schools to train 
students for public sector jobs.  

  Romania's state Orthodox Church has led the opposition in the long-running 
struggle to decriminalize homosexual acts there, but now it will back off.  
Prime Minister Adrian Nastase this week announced having reached what he 
called "a reasonable compromise" after consultation with church leaders.  The 
ministries of Justice and the Interior are working on an amended Government 
bill to repeal Article 200 of the Penal Code that will more explicitly define 
that only consensual relations between adults will be legal.  The amended 
bill is expected to resemble those of several other former Soviet states 
which have been deemed to meet the standards for membership in the European 
Union.  EU membership has been Romania's motivation for decriminalization.

  The Vatican this week reaffirmed its anti-gay sexual ethics with a 
statement from its Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a 
disciplinary action against a liberal Spanish theologian.  Roman 
Catholicism's doctrinal enforcer Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote that, "The 
Church considers masturbation and homosexual behavior as objectively bad 
acts" and urged theologians to hold strictly to that standard.  The statement 
came in conjunction with the announcement that Spanish priest Marciano Vidal, 
a professor at the Higher Institute for Moral Sciences and the Pontifical 
University, had signed a pledge to revise his writings.  Vidal had previously 
suggested that homosexual acts, masturbation, birth control methods which 
prevent conception, and in vitro fertilization are not necessarily morally 
wrong.  Following an investigation that began in 1997, Ratzinger's panel 
declared that those writings cannot be used for "theological formation."

  Some Australian Catholics fear a "witch-hunt" of gay clergy in the wake of 
George Pell's appointment as Archbishop of Sydney.  Interviewers this week 
confronted Pell with rumors that his associates while Bishop of Melbourne had 
included some campy young priests known as "the Spice Girls," an appellation 
he found profoundly insulting.  Asked about the possibility of gay men among 
the Sydney clergy, Pell responded, "Please God, no."  He considers both 
heterosexual and homosexual acts by clergy to be "incompatible with remaining 
a priest" and said individuals would have "to choose one way or the other," 
although he said counseling would be available for them.  The international 
gay and lesbian Catholic movement Rainbow Sash called on gay priests 
everywhere to come out and on Pell to acknowledge their existence and 
contributions.

  But Australia's leading Anglican triggered national debate this week with a 
call to support legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships, and to 
bless them as committed friendships if not as marriages.  Primate of 
Australia and Archbishop of Perth Peter Carnley noted that it's been more 
than 40 years since Anglican bishops rejected the notion that all 
non-procreative acts are sinful, and said that recognition of gay and lesbian 
relationships could prevent promiscuity.  Carnley heads the Anglican Church 
of Australia's Doctrine Panel, which has released a book of discussion papers 
on homosexuality in preparation for the General Synod to be held in July.  
While that panel itself does not agree on what position the church should 
take, its members said that in the process of their studies they had "become 
acutely aware of the social tragedy of homophobic reactions to homosexual 
people" and become "aware of the burden of [their] own misapprehensions and 
unchallenged prejudice."  While gays and lesbians and the Australian 
Democratic Party welcomed Carnley's open-mindedness, there was immediate 
backlash from within the ranks of Anglican clergy, from the national Catholic 
Church, and from the right-wing One Nation political party.

  In Egypt, a purported "gay wedding" last week resulted in 55 arrests in 
Cairo.  Ten plainclothes state and city police raided the "Queen Boat" disco, 
held weekly on a boat moored in the Nile and reportedly popular among gay 
men.  Five foreigners may have been briefly detained, while 55 Egyptian men 
were arrested for "violating the teachings of religion and propagating 
depraved ideas and moral depravity," a charge punishable by up to five years 
imprisonment.  Reports received by the International Gay and Lesbian Human 
Rights Commission suggest that at least one man was repeatedly slapped and 
subjected to anti-gay slurs by an officer in the course of his arrest.  The 
Commission fears that the men, who at last report remain in jail, may have 
been tortured in the course of their detention.  The men were questioned for 
at least two days and have been held incommunicado.  The Commission believes 
there was in fact no gay wedding on the boat, but that that claim represented 
part of a campaign of defamatory reporting in a nation where homosexuality is 
not explicitly criminal but "offenses against public morals and 
sensitivities" are.  In fact the State Security Prosecution Office told 
reporters the defendants are members of a Satanic cult.  The men may be tried 
before a security court that leaves no possibility of appeal.  Egyptian human 
rights groups have stood aside from the case.

  Elections in Italy saw an open lesbian elected to the national legislature 
for the first time, along with two openly gay men.  The far-left Communist 
Refoundation's Titti De Simone, head of the national group ArciLesbica, won a 
seat in the Senate even though the number of women dropped in both houses of 
parliament.  She plans to introduce bills for legal recognition of gay and 
lesbian couples along with full parental and fertility rights.  Franco 
Grillini of ArciGay, also a Communist, and Nichi Vendola of the left-wing 
Democrats were also elected.
But overall, the solid majorities won in both houses by Silvio Berlusconi's 
Forza Italia party of the center-right Casa delle Liberta coalition suggest 
little legislative progress for gay and lesbian rights in the days to come.  
Although the far-right Northern League failed to win representation in 
parliament, neo-fascists physically attacked gays and lesbians in Verona at a 
dinner in support of failed gay candidate Roberto Aere.

  Canada's first openly gay provincial cabinet member Tim Stevenson lost his 
post as British Columbia's gay-supportive New Democratic Party crashed and 
burned in elections this week.  The scandal-ridden BC NDP was reduced from a 
majority to a mere 3 seats while the centrist Liberal Party took over.  
Stevenson lost his heavily gay Vancouver-Burrard riding to another open gay, 
Liberal Lorne Mayencourt.

  Chile's parliamentary elections in December will feature an openly gay 
candidate.  Rolando Jimenez, founder and president of the national group 
Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, declared his candidacy 
this week, saying it represented more than a decade of work by the national 
gay movement.

  In the U.S., the Bush administration is losing one of its two open gays.  
Stephen Herbits is leaving his consultant post with the Department of 
Defense, reportedly in response to objections by leading Republicans.

  Maryland became the 12th U.S. state to prohibit discrimination based on 
sexual orientation with Democratic Governor Parris Glendening's signature 
this week.  Glendening himself lobbied hard for the new law, partly in 
remembrance of his brother's suffering as a closeted gay man in the military 
who died of AIDS.

  The Rochester, New York City Council this week also added "sexual 
orientation" as a category protected from discrimination under its human 
rights ordinance.

  But in Royal Oak, Michigan, voters rejected by a nearly 2-to-1 margin a 
Human Rights Ordinance that included sexual orientation among a number of 
protected categories.  Opposition organized by the Mississippi-based American 
Family Association lied throughout the campaign, according to their own 
admission and the City Attorney as well as gay and lesbian activists.

  In Britain, open gay Graham Norton was a double winner at the British 
Academy of Film & Television Awards, the UK equivalent of the U.S. Emmys.  He 
took "Best Entertainment Program" for his talkshow "So Graham Norton" along 
with his second consecutive "Best Entertainment Performance" BAFTA.  Last 
week it was reported that Norton had turned down an offer of 5-million-pounds 
from the BBC after a year-long attempt to woo him away from Channel 4.  
Rather than take the big bucks to host the game show "Blankety Blank" for the 
Beeb, Norton reportedly accepted almost 3-million-pounds less to continue at 
Channel 4 through April 2004.

  And finally... an e-mail correspondent says the U.S. government has an 
official definition for "faggots".  According to the Department of 
Agriculture's "Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book", they're a "cooked 
smoked sausage" comprised of "a combination of beef, veal, and pork cured 
with salt, nitrates and sugar" inside "sheep or hog casings".  The book adds 
that the "sausage is linked in pairs, each about six inches long."