NewsWrap for the week ending June 9, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #689, distributed 06-11-01) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Donald Herman and Cindy Friedman Britain's national elections this week saw Labour repeat its 1997 landslide in another humiliating defeat for the Conservative Party. That bodes well for gays and lesbians, particularly since the gay-supportive Liberal Democrats gained several seats. Labour's six openly gay and lesbian MPs were returned to Parliament, including Peter Mandelson, who was forced to resign his Cabinet post this year in a scandal of which he was later exonerated. Chris Bryant joined the "out" Labour lineup with a win in Rhondda. Almost 30 other openly gay and lesbian challengers from various parties failed in their bids. Conservative Party Leader William Hague followed tradition by resigning in the wake of the party's defeat. Oddsmakers' favorite to replace him is Michael Portillo, who admitted to gay affairs in his youth before returning to politics in 1999. Portillo pleaded for greater tolerance in the anti-gay party at the Tories' convention and afterwards. In Italy this week, a retired brigadier-general called for increased recruitment of gays for the military. General Luigi Caligaris, a noted pundit on defense issues and a Member of the European Parliament, said the problem of Italy's shrinking professional force could easily be solved with active recruitment of immigrants and gay men. He noted gays' successful integration into British and French forces. Yet Caligaris opposed increased recruitment of women, saying they would "always be a minimal component of the armed forces." Elsewhere, legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships dominated the news. Lesbians Kimberly Vance and Samantha Meehan this week became the first couple in Canada to register their domestic partnership, under newly-passed legislation in Nova Scotia. Although gay and lesbian couples throughout the country have gained most of the legal recognition granted to unmarried heterosexual couples, Nova Scotia is the first province to establish a formal partnership registry. It creates a three-tiered system with the status of registered couples falling between those of married heterosexual couples and those of unregistered common-law couples. Compared to common-law status, registration brings expanded benefits in making medical decisions for a disabled partner and in determination of spousal support and property division on dissolution. Establishment of the registry is credited in large part to a successful seven-year legal battle by gay Nova Scotia couple Ross Boutilier and Brian Mombourquette. In Australia, the Upper House of the Victorian state Parliament this week voted 35-to-5 to enact an omnibus bill giving gay and lesbian couples status equal to unmarried heterosexual couples. The bill, which previously passed in the Lower House, amends 43 provincial laws on topics including medical decision-making, pensions, inheritance, tenancy, and taxation. It replaces the term "de facto partner" with "domestic partner," whose definition includes the phrase "irrespective of gender". The Victorian Government plans to introduce a bill to similarly change another 30 state laws soon. Formal ratification of the current measure by Victoria Governor John Landy is expected to be scheduled for June 26, the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City. The Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby called the bill's passage "the most comprehensive legal step toward equality we have yet seen in Australia." But the European Court of Justice has dismissed a long-running bid for spousal benefits by a gay employee of the Council of Europe's Council of Ministers. The plaintiff is from Sweden, where his registered partnership carries essentially all the legal benefits of marriage. But the European Court of Justice followed administrative panels in excluding even Sweden's long-established gay and lesbian partnerships from the Council of Europe's staff policies referring to "marriage" and "spouse". The ruling declared that, "It is not in question that, according to the definition generally accepted by the Member States, the term 'marriage' means a union between two persons of the opposite sex." The International Lesbian and Gay Association, ILGA, called the judgment "wrong and not acceptable" and a Netherlands Green Party Member of the European Parliament called it "astonishing." In the U.S., the California Assembly this week passed a bill to substantially expand the legal standing of the state's registered domestic partners. The vote was 43-to-29, with no Republicans supporting the bill in the wake of an intensive opposition media campaign by religious right groups. The bill was introduced by openly lesbian Assemblymember Carole Migden of San Francisco. Currently, registered domestic partners qualify for hospital visitation and if they are state employees, for health insurance benefits. Migden's bill would give registered partners status similar to married couples for medical decision-making, health insurance benefits from private employers, inheritance in the absence of a will, and wrongful death lawsuits, as well as easing second-parent adoptions. The bill heads next to the state Senate, where there is also a Democratic majority. Democratic Governor Gray Davis told reporters that he would sign a bill to expand domestic partners benefits this year, although he did not specify Migden's. Although he signed the 1999 bill creating the statewide registry, he dictated weaker terms than lawmakers had sought, and last year he vetoed three domestic partnership measures. A U.S. appeals court ruled in May that extending spousal health insurance benefits only to gay and lesbian couples is not discrimination against unmarried heterosexual couples. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit came in a challenge to the employee benefits policy of the Chicago Board of Education by employee Milagros Irizarry. The three-judge panel found the policy violated neither her constitutional right to equal protection under the law nor the city's ordinance against marital status discrimination. The ruling validated the Board's concerns at the greatly increased costs extending the benefits to unmarried heterosexuals would represent. It also affirmed the Board's reasoning that heterosexuals could obtain the benefits by marrying while gays and lesbians could not. While saying the Board could "not be faulted ... for not wishing to encourage heterosexual cohabitation," the ruling also said that, "It is not for a federal court to decide whether a local government agency's policy of tolerating or even endorsing homosexuality is sound." The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund supported Irizarry's challenge, saying that all families need the protection of employment benefits regardless of marital status or sexual orientation. In other U.S. legal news, the Virginia state Supreme Court has declined to take up a challenge to the state's sodomy law. But an Alabama state appeals court has awarded a partnered lesbian custody of her three children, reversing a lower court's decision in favor of her former husband who abused them. The Tennessee Supreme Court in May found unanimously that a lesbian's partner should not be forced to leave their home when her children visited, reversing an appellate ruling supporting her former husband's religious objections. And a California gay male couple have been officially named the guardians of the nephew who's lived with them all 10 years of his life, overcoming the challenge of his homophobic grandfather who kidnapped him last year. In judgments of a different sort, the annual Tony Awards were presented this week, honoring the best of the Broadway stage. British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard's "The Invention of Love" -- about the life and loves of the late gay poet and scholar A.E. Housman -- won dramatic acting awards for both its lead and featured actors. The musical lead and featured performance awards went to two openly gay actors, Nathan Lane and Gary Beach, for their work in Mel Brooks' "The Producers". Beach's character is a queeny director in a show that's been called an equal opportunity offender for its lineup of comic stereotypes. "The Producers" had been nominated in 15 categories and set a new record by winning a dozen Tonys, including Best Musical. Its stars Lane and Matthew Broderick also hosted the Tonys, in recognition that the show is Broadway's biggest hit in a quarter-century. It so dominated the awards show that when Daniel Sullivan accepted Best Director in a Play for "Proof", he said, "There must be some mistake -- I had nothing to do with 'The Producers'." And finally... communities around the world this week observed the 20th anniversary of the first official public report describing what is now known as AIDS. It was a note in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control report that several previously healthy young gay men in Los Angeles had been stricken with opportunistic infections seen only in those with suppressed immune systems. The syndrome was first known as GRID for "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency," renamed "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" more than a year later. Commemorative events included demonstrations, memorial services and fund-raisers. The United Nations AIDS program announced that in the last two decades 58 million people have become infected with HIV and 22 million have died from AIDS-related illness -- and predicted this is only the beginning. While treatments have enabled some of those who can access them to live longer and better than before, AIDS is still far from being a manageable illness. Yet studies in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia all suggest that gay men, especially young gay men, are increasingly failing to take precautions. Using a condom every time can greatly reduce your risk of infection with HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases. Play safely.