NewsWrap for the week ending June 2, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #688, distributed 06-04-01) [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 Donald Herman Japan has officially recognized the civil rights of gays and lesbians for the first time. An advisory panel explicitly recognized widespread anti-gay discrimination in its final report to the Ministry of Justice, and named it as a target for "positive action" by a national Human Rights Commission that will be established in about two years. Although gays and lesbians consulted with the panel as well as testifying at its public hearings, their inclusion in the report was controversial. They were dropped from some drafts as Justice Ministry officials declared the Japanese public wasn't ready to see their rights protected. The international community joined Japanese activists in demanding inclusion, and the final report is viewed as a victory for their action. The creation of the Japanese Human Rights Commission still requires passage by the national parliament, the Diet, where the Government will introduce a bill in a few months. There are no national laws in Japan to protect gay and lesbian civil rights, but gay and lesbian activists say the Human Rights Commission could serve as a good substitute. In India, a Hindu priest used a traditional ceremony to marry a lesbian couple in the newly-formed central state of Chattisgarh. One woman now wears the "magalstura" traditional for married Hindu women, while the other wears the macho "taviz". Local residents of their town of Ambikapur were shocked and concerned. The priest submitted documents to the local registrar to legalize the marriage, but the registrar refused to accept them. The couple, Jaya Verma and Tanuja Chauhan, have vowed to fight for legislation for equal marriage rights for lesbians and gays. In Canada, both the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Governments this week introduced omnibus bills to amend a number of provincial laws to give gay and lesbian couples legal status equal to their unmarried heterosexual counterparts. The bills are intended to bring the provinces into compliance with a landmark 1999 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, something Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have already done. Unlike other provinces', the Manitoba bill would not empower gays and lesbians to co-adopt their partners' children. Manitoba's Attorney-General said that right had not been part of the Supreme Court ruling, which dealt primarily with financial issues, especially alimony. In Quebec, the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire was thronged with marchers protesting the homophobic harassment of a gay male couple. Estimates of the crowd ranged from 2-to-5,000 as Montrealers arrived by the busload. Theo Wouters and Roger Thibault lived peacefully in Pointe Claire for more than twenty years until Robert Walker moved in next door to them in 1997. Walker's continuing homophobic harassment of the couple has at times escalated to physical violence. He'll be tried for assault later this year for attacking them with golf balls and with his car. Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie further irritated gay and lesbian activists when he tried to impose a dress code on the protest, and asked that a rally on a football field replace the march. But a line of people more than a kilometer long followed a banner saying "No to intolerance, no to homophobia," falling completely silent as they passed the homes of the couple and their harasser. Wouters said, "I'm just floored, I didn't know that I have so many friends." With the help of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a suspect was charged in New Jersey this week for two in a series of grisly murders of gay men in the early 1990s. Richard Rogers, Junior was charged with the murders of Thomas Mulcahy and Anthony Marrero. They were among at least five victims whose dismembered remains were discovered in trashbags near New Jersey highw ays. At the time the killings were referred to as the work of the "last call" killer, so called because the perpetrator was believed to have picked up the victims at New York City gay bars. Rogers' arrest came when the Mounties were able to lift fingerprints from the trashbags and computer matching connected them with his 1973 arrest in Maine. He had been charged there with manslaughter in the hammer slaying of Frederic Spencer, but claimed he had acted in self-defense and was found not guilty. Rogers is now being investigated in connection with trashbag murders from Connecticut to Pennsylvania. The U.S. observance of Memorial Day this week featured the dedication of the nation's first gay-inclusive monument in a military cemetery. More than 100 people came to Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California for the ceremony, which included a color guard carrying the rainbow flag along with the banners of the four branches of the armed forces. The monument marks two years of work by local lesbigay veterans who formed AMVETS Post 66 for the purpose. It's a rainbow granite block whose plaque bears triangles and the message, "This memorial is dedicated in honor of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender veterans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the cherished freedom we hold dear and enjoy today." There were other significant developments regarding the U.S. military this week as well. The Department of Defense announced that gay-related discharges reached a new high in the year ending September 30, 2000. A total of 1,212 servicemembers were discharged, almost all for stating their sexual orientation. That's a 17% increase over the previous year, which had been down slightly after a steady increase since the adoption of the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Of the four service branches, only the Air Force showed a decrease in gay and lesbian discharges this year in the latest figures. A gay psychiatrist will have to repay the U.S. Air Force for the cost of his education. The Air Force sought to recover $71,000 from former captain Dr. John Hensala, who was discharged after telling superiors he is gay. Hensala insisted that he was perfectly willing to fulfill the service obligation he contracted for in exchange for his education. But a federal judge said Hensala should pay up because he came out voluntarily and "presumably understood ... what the likely consequences ... would be." A legal panel charged with reviewing the 50-year-old Uniform Code of Military Justice recommended repealing its sodomy statute. The commission's report railed against criminal prosecution of consensual sex acts including homosexual acts and adultery, and noted that sodomy suspects "are treated in an arbitrary, even vindictive manner." Changes to the military code require an act of Congress. In the corporate sphere, ExxonMobil shareholders issued a resounding defeat to a proposal to add sexual orientation to its equal employment policy. Before the 1999 merger that created the world's largest oil company, Mobil had such a policy, as well as domestic partner benefits. The ExxonMobil board opposed explicitly prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, claiming its current policy is adequate. This is the third year the proposal has been put to a vote, initiated by activist shareholders including Trillium Asset Management. Support has increased each time, reaching a high of 13% this year. Under Securities and Exchange Commission rules, that's enough to allow the proposal to be reintroduced next year, unlike the nine other shareholder-initiated proposals considered at the same meeting. Three women celebrities made headlines this week with something less than lesbian pride. Australian Olympic champion swimmer Dawn Fraser launched her new autobiography, admitting to two significant relationships with other women but still rejecting the label "gay". A four-time gold medallist in the 1950s and '60s, Fraser was the first woman to win gold in three consecutive Olympics. After the breakup of her troubled marriage, she was involved with the late scriptwriter Joy Cavill, but was ashamed and confused by the sexual part of their relationship. Her second female partner remains unnamed, but they opened and ran a cheese shop together. Although she described both relationships as "incredibly supportive," she told reporters, "I see myself as a woman who had a couple of relationships with other women and then found it wasn't for her." U.S. film actress Anne Heche's manager confirmed this week that she is engaged to be married to a man, camera operator Coley Laffoon. The couple met while filming a documentary about open lesbian Ellen DeGeneres, Heche's very public partner for 3-1/2 years until their breakup in August. Heche was a speaker at the gay and lesbian Millennium March on Washington, DC. And as Rosie O'Donnell accepted her fourth Daytime Emmy Award for her daily talkshow, she said "I love you!" to "Kelli," the woman tabloids have described as her lover. Reports in New York publications in March had also led some to think that her plans to end the talkshow -- which she has always intended to be accessible to children -- might also end her silence on the subject. When DeGeneres' very public coming out had been telegraphed but not yet made official, she and O'Donnell had exchanged a series of humorous hints on O'Donnell's show. And finally, as for actor Tom Cruise's continuing legal battles against being identified as gay, diva Bette Midler may have the last word. She told Salon.com last week, "All these rumors about him being gay -- I don't believe it. I don't believe it for one minute. He hasn't been to one of my shows."