NewsWrap for the week ending July 21, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #695, distributed 07-23-01) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Greg Gordon and Cindy Friedman Germany's new registered partnerships for gay and lesbian couples will go into effect August 1, as the Federal Constitutional Court this week rejected a move to block them by the states of Bavaria and Saxony. In a 5-to-3 ruli ng, the justices refused to issue an emergency order against the new law, but they won't decide until later this year whether partnerships violate the special status of marriage under Germany's constitution, as those states have contended. The so-called "life partnerships" confer a number of spousal benefits in areas including immigration, inheritance, health insurance, medical decision-making, alimony, and the right to use a shared surname, but they don’t qualify couples to adopt children or receive some tax advantages. Despite the court ruling, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia have indicated they may not register partnerships as the law requires, and gay and lesbian activists have promised legal action to force them to do so if necessary. Registry offices have already reportedly been deluged with requests for applications for life partnerships, including one from openly gay Member of Parliament Volker Beck. But in Canada, British Columbia's new provincial government has dropped its predecessor's landmark lawsuit seeking marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. That lawsuit claiming that Canada's heterosexual definition of marriage is unconstitutional had been filed last year by the New Democratic Party's Attorney General Andrew Petter. But BC's Liberal Party swamped the NDP in May elections, and this week new Attorney General Geoff Plant said there is no reason for the province to be involved in the case. A newly-released national poll found that more than 65% of Canadians support gay and lesbian marriage rights. Canada's gay and lesbian couples already enjoy most of the legal benefits and obligations of marriage. Britain's Court of Appeal this week refused legal recognition to a male-to-female transsexual's marriage of 20 years. Transwoman Elizabeth Bellinger had married her husband Michael before a clerk who did not question that they were a heterosexual couple. But under British law the marriage is not legal because those who undergo sex reassignment surgery are not issued new birth certificates. Bellinger's attorney argued that the law's 30-year-old definitions of gender are outdated, and that Elizabeth Bellinger has in fact always been female. But like the trial court before them, 2 of the 3 appellate justices held that any change in the law must come from the Parliament. The court did express sympathy for Bellinger and other transsexuals and concern that British law appears to conflict with findings of European courts. The Bellingers are expected to appeal to the House of Lords. The race for leadership of Britain's Conservative Party has driven Michael Portillo off the party's front bench. Before mounting his political comeback from defeat in the Labour landslide of 1997, Portillo told the "London Times" in 1999 that he had gay affairs before his marriage. This year Portillo had called for the party to moderate its stance on social issues and become more tolerant of gays and lesbians. This week he was knocked out of the Tories' leadership race by Kenneth Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith, both right-wing opponents of gay and lesbian civil rights. Portillo responded by saying, "I don't intend ever to be on the front bench again and for the avoidance of doubt I'm not interested in the leadership. ... I think the time has come for me to seek other things to do." Those "other things" include work in business, the arts and media. At least four other moderate Conservatives have followed Portillo in leaving the party's frontline, as have at least a couple of right-wingers. Republican U.S. President George Bush's plan to fund religious groups to provide social services passed the House of Representatives this week, with its clause to exempt those groups from state and local employment anti-discrimination laws intact. The exemption is intended to allow religious groups objecting to homosexuality to refuse to hire gays and lesbians with their proposed government funds. A Democratic amendment to remove that exemption was defeated 234-to-195 before the so-called "Community Solutions" bill itself was passed 223-to-198 in a vote largely along party lines. While Republicans are urging a quick vote in the Senate, the new Democratic majority there is in no hurry. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has so far refused to set a date, objecting specifically to the civil rights exemption saying, "I can't imagine that we could pass any bill that would tolerate slipping back into a level of tolerance that would be unacceptable in today's society." Rhode Island last week became the second U.S. state to explicitly protect transgendered people under its civil rights laws. Republican Governor Lincoln Almond allowed the bill to become law without his signature, having said he would not veto it lest he be viewed as an enemy of civil rights. The new law adds "gender identity or expression" to categories protected from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations. A similar clause had been dropped from the bill that added "sexual orientation" to the Rhode Island civil rights law in 1995. Minnesota enacted the first U.S. state transgender rights bill in 1993. But Maryland's new state law against discrimination based on sexual orientation will be challenged at the polls in November 2002. This week state officials certified that the group Take Back Maryland had collected enough valid signatures to place a repeal initiative on the next statewide ballot. Democratic Governor Parris Glendening, whose personal efforts helped push through the civil rights bill after a decade of lobbying, believes that the repeal measure will fail. Maryland has been only the 12th state to ban sexual orientation discrimination. In West Virginia, one suspect has pleaded guilty and been sentenced in a high-profile murder many believe to have been bias-motivated. The victim in the very brutal bashing a year ago was "JR" Warren, a 26-year-old African-American gay man with mental and physical disabilities. His murder triggered a series of demonstrations and was mentioned in unsuccessful lobbying for a federal hate crimes law including homophobic attacks. David Parker pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 15 years. A second suspect, Jared Wilson, is scheduled for trial in August. Parker, who was 17 when he attacked Warren, claimed that the two had some 30 sexual encounters since he was 12 years old, and that he was enraged at learning that Warren had told others of their relationship. A somewhat similar story is part of the reported confession of a suspect in the brutal stabbing death of a notable gay couple in Fiji. Victim John Scott was head of Fiji's Red Cross and became a national hero as the one man allowed to bring supplies to hostages during a political coup attempt last year. He and his partner of 22 years Greg Scrivener were murdered in early July. Suspect Apete Kaisau this week was found psychologically competent to stand trial. The notably homophobic Fiji police say Kaisau told them he was avenging his sexual exploitation by the couple. The victims' families vehemently deny Kaisau's allegations that they were involved in sexual exploitation, pedophilia and drugs. Trial began this week in Egypt for 52 men arrested in a May police raid on a Nile party boat catering to gays. Although homosexual acts per se are not illegal in Egypt, most of the men face morals charges that could result in up to five years' imprisonment at hard labor -- and there is no possibility of appeal from the state security court where they are being tried. Police barred the men's families from the courtroom, resulting in some scuffles. The families believe the men have been tortured while in custody, where they've been held since their arrest May 11. All the men entered "not guilty" pleas. The case was adjourned until mid-August to give the defense more time to prepare. But in Hungary, a Budapest district mayor has failed to bar gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender and feminist groups from participating in Pepsi Island, Europe's biggest music festival. Mayor István Tarlós had inserted a clause in the festival's contract with the city to prohibit any "homosexual education programs," ostensibly for "the protection of young visitors". But protests from Hungarian and international gay and lesbian activists forced Tarlós to back down from a position violating the national constitution, although he did so regretfully. A spokesperson for the Hungarian group Habeas Corpus said, "It really feels like the Hungarian movement of sexual minorities has won its first victory." He added that the group would call for Tarlós’ resignation and might take legal action against him. Although festival organizers supported the gay protest, none of its major sponsors took a position. And finally... the world's largest arts festival may have taken gay chic advertising to a new height. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe commissioned a 19-second film of two women kissing passionately in a park and distributed it by e-mail in the hope recipients would forward it widely. The caption plugged the Festival's already very successful promotion deal for its performances, saying, "2 for the price of 1 on all your favorite thespians".