NewsWrap
for the week ending September 15, 2001
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #703, distributed 09-17-01)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Brian Nunes and Cindy Friedman

  Reporters worldwide this week focused almost exclusively on the disastrous 
crashes of 4 hijacked U.S. passenger planes, 2 of them toppling the World 
Trade Center in New York City and a third cutting a swath through the 
Pentagon near Washington, DC.
The fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania without injuring anyone on the 
ground, apparently because some passengers fought back and prevented the 
hijackers from reaching their intended target, which may have been the White 
House or the U.S. Capitol building.  Public relations executive Mark Bingham, 
who was very active in gay rugby and basketball leagues in San Francisco, may 
have been part of that heroic resistance.  His mother is convinced that he 
was, and she spoke movingly on national television of his life and his final 
phone call to her from the plane.  Pennsylvania's U.S. Senators are looking 
into a possible posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's 
highest civilian honor -- for those passengers and crew members whose actions 
may have saved many lives.

  All aboard all 4 planes perished, and their names have been released.  Open 
gays among them include first officer David Charlebois of Washington, DC, a 
member of the National Gay Pilots Association; couple Ronald Gamboa and Dan 
Brandhorst of Los Angeles and their adopted 3-year-old son; "National 
Geographic" staffer Joe Ferguson of Washington, DC; and Briton Graham 
Berkeley.
While thousands may have died at the World Trade Center and hundreds at the 
Pentagon, so far only a few names have been published of those confirmed dead 
at those sites.  Among them was openly gay New York Fire Department chaplain 
Mychal Judge.
Many notable gays and lesbians in New York City have been confirmed alive and 
physically unharmed.  A number of gay and lesbian organizations with offices 
near the World Trade Center also went largely unscathed, although the Gay 
Financial Network Web site gfn.com was knocked offline.
Travel problems resulting from the disaster led to the cancellation of 
several national gay and lesbian conferences, as well as the United States 
Conference on AIDS planned for Miami, Florida.

  Gays and lesbians nationwide have joined relief efforts in the wake of the 
disaster, but gay men are barred from answering the many calls for blood 
donations.  Despite widespread blood shortages even before this week's 
events, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to prohibit donations 
from any man who's had sex with another man since 1977.  This 1985 standard 
has increasingly been criticized as methods for testing blood for HIV have 
improved.
The same standard is recommended globally by the World Health Organization, 
although at least in Canada gay men can make posthumous organ donations.

  Although primary elections in New York City were rescheduled, voters went 
to the polls in Massachusetts and Arizona.
Openly lesbian Massachusetts state Senator Cheryl Jacques was easily defeated 
in her bid for the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Congress.  
Despite endorsements from the powerful "Boston Globe" newspaper and gay and 
lesbian political organizations, she came in second in a field of four, 
trailing more conservative state Senator Stephen Lynch by more than 10%.

  Although sexual orientation was not a significant issue in Jacques' race, 
it was in the effort to recall Tempe, Arizona's openly gay Republican 
four-term Mayor Neil Giuliano.  The recall move was sparked by Giuliano's 
opposition to city workers' payroll deductions supporting the Boy Scouts of 
America, which has a policy of excluding gays.  The recall attempt moved 
ahead even after Giuliano bowed to the Tempe City Council's unanimous support 
for the Scouts fund drive.  Giuliano's opponents criticized his expenditures 
on a number of large local projects, but his supporters insisted the recall 
campaign was driven by homophobia.  Voters retained Giuliano by a margin of 
more than 2-to-1.

  Some other open gays in the U.S. are campaigning for high offices.
Openly gay North Carolina Superior Court Judge Ray Warren has declared his 
candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat archhomophobe Jesse Helms will vacate 
after 2002.  Warren, once one of the state's leading Republicans, moved to 
the Democratic Party not long after publicly coming out as a gay man in 1998.

  Openly gay Democrat Carlton Cornett has declared his candidacy to represent 
a Tennessee district in the U.S. Congress.

  Florida's Republican Governor Jeb Bush has an unlikely challenger in 
long-time gay activist Bob Kunst, who's seeking the Democratic nomination 
with a focus on the governor's role in the election machinations that gave 
his brother George W. Bush the U.S. Presidency.

  Meanwhile President Bush has made his administration's second appointment 
of an openly gay Republican.  Donald Capoccia has been named to a seat on the 
U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, an unpaid position on a body which advises the 
government on architectural issues.

  One possible Democratic opponent for President Bush in 2002 could be 
non-gay Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who's said he will not seek another 
term as governor.  Dean signed into law the controversial "civil unions" 
extending the state-level benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples, 
and continued his support for those unions in the face of intense political 
opposition.

  California's Democratic Governor Gray Davis must now decide the future of 
his state's gay and lesbian couples.  A bill to give some real legal weight 
to the state's now largely ceremonial registered domestic partnerships passed 
the California Senate this week by 23-to-11.  The state Assembly had already 
passed the bill introduced by openly lesbian San Francisco Democratic 
Assemblymember Carole Migden, and this week concurred with the Senate on a 
final version to send to the Governor.
The bill would confer legal standing to partners in areas including health 
care decisions, health insurance coverage, health care tax exemptions, family 
leave, disability and unemployment benefits, conservatorship, inheritance, 
and wrongful death lawsuits.
Although it was Davis who signed the domestic partners registry into law and 
is said to "favor" the current bill, he vetoed domestic partners bills the 
state legislature approved last year -- the year that voters gave landslide 
approval to a constitutional amendment restricting legal marriage to "one man 
and one woman".  And although this month he signed a bill requiring insurers 
to pay benefits to victims of hate crimes, he's currently opposing two 
measures supported by AIDS activists.  The religious right is lobbying hard 
against the domestic partners bill.

  A growing number of U.S. gay and lesbian couples are applying to emigrate 
to Canada, where they have most of the legal rights and responsibilities of 
married couples.  The "Toronto Sun" has labeled this phenomenon "gay drain," 
to parallel the so-called "brain drain" of talented Canadians to 
better-paying jobs in the U.S.  Canada is welcoming most of the U.S. 
same-gender couples, whose applications have come to outnumber unmarried 
heterosexual couples' by nearly 7-to-1.

  In Britain, the City Council of Brighton & Hove has agreed to establish 
partnership registries.  Last week London officially registered gay and 
lesbian couples for the first time in the UK, and Manchester has already 
moved to follow suit.  The Brighton & Hove Council was unanimous in agreeing 
to the Liberal Democrats' proposal and in October will begin to discuss how 
to implement its registry.

  The executive body of the European Union this week considered asylum for 
gays and lesbians fleeing homophobic violence in their homelands.  A proposal 
before the European Commission would amend the EU's formal definition of 
refugees to include those persecuted on the basis of their sexual orientation 
or gender.  The Commission has found that most of the 15 EU member nations 
are already granting asylum to those who are denied protection by their 
governments from persecution at the hands of their fellow citizens.

  And finally... one open lesbian who's experienced past difficulties in 
crossing borders is Canadian singer Lucie Blue Tremblay.  She's been raising 
funds to help some young gays and lesbians rejected by their families stay 
where they are -- in college.  This week Bridgewater State College near 
Boston, Massachusetts announced the Frank-Tremblay Safe Colleges 
Scholarships, the first of which will be awarded next year.  Tremblay's 
scholarship co-star is openly gay Democratic U.S. Congressmember Barney 
Frank, who represents Bridgewater's district.  The pioneering program will 
specifically help with tuition for those Bridgewater students whose parents 
cut them off financially after learning they are gay or lesbian.  The College 
hopes to bring the fund up to $10,000, with $8,200 already in hand.