NewsWrap for the week ending September 22, 2001 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #704, distributed 09-24-01) [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 Christopher Gaal U.S. Republican officials made 3 significant gay-friendly moves this week, at a time when some gay and lesbian groups have joined in calling for care to preserve civil rights in the face of anti-terrorist sentiment. As the U.S. mobilizes for a military response to terrorism, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld this week authorized a so-called "stop loss" policy for the military, designed to keep as many servicemembers as possible available for combat. That policy allows commanders more latitude to suspend discharge actions, including those for violations of the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rules for gay and lesbian servicemembers. "Stop loss" policies were instituted during U.S. military actions in the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Korea, and late in World War II, with discharges for homosexuality dropping sharply during those conflicts, only to rise abruptly when they ended. SLDN, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, has warned gays and lesbians in uniform that there has been no repeal or suspension of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and that even the "stop loss" policy is not yet actually in effect. The administration's move this week empowers the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps to establish "stop loss" policies, which they're expected to do within the next two weeks. Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, said that "stop loss" "draws into question the military's argument that gay and lesbian servicemembers compromise the morale, cohesiveness and operational effectiveness of their units, since it is during periods of conflict that morale, cohesiveness and operational effectiveness are most vital." Even military sociologist Charles Moskos, who played a key role in drafting the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, called "stop loss" "kind of hypocritical." Bush administration nominee Michael Guest was sworn in to become only the second openly gay U.S. ambassador. He'll serve in Romania, which has yet to fully decriminalize homosexuality. That's been the subject of 8 years of strenuous debate between Romanian governments seeking to qualify for European Union membership and Romanian parliaments influenced by religious and nationalist concerns. But Guest is reportedly already in Romania, so apparently that government did not object to his appointment. Career diplomat Guest's selection represents something of an honor for Romania, as he's the highest-ranking U.S. Foreign Service official ever to serve in the Bucharest embassy. His most recent post in the Foreign Service has been Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs. Previously he was Deputy Chief at the embassy in Prague, participated in arms control negotiations with the USSR, and served in embassies in Moscow, Paris and Hong Kong. Although Guest's sexual orientation was known to the Bush administration and was widely known within the State Department, he did not choose to make it public until this week. It was not discussed during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July. The Senate confirmed his appointment by voice vote without debate. At Guest's swearing-in, Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly acknowledged Guest's partner of 6 years, Alex Nevarez, who was on the podium for the occasion. A committee of the Republican-controlled U.S. House this week agreed to drop its prohibition against Washington, DC implementing the domestic partners legislation the city enacted in 1992. Because the city cannot tax its sole industry, the federal government, it relies on Congressional appropriations for the bulk of its budget. Until now, the House has made its funds for the city contingent on complete suspension of the domestic partners ordinance. That measure would have established a partners registry open to all unmarried cohabitants, including non-residents, giving them hospital visitation privileges. City employees would have been able to purchase health insurance coverage for their registered partners, entirely at their own expense. But thanks to openly gay Republican Congressmember Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the House Appropriations Committee voted to amend its appropriations bill. If the full House approves the amendment, Washington, DC's domestic partners ordinance can finally go into effect -- although none of the federal funds can be used for this purpose. The city says it can implement the ordinance with its own funds. Both the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee are expected to vote on funds for Washington in the coming week. Religious right groups are lobbying against the change. An Australian gay man's quest to collect his deceased partner's military pension has been taken up by the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee. Edward Young's relationship lasted 38 years, ending only with the death of his war veteran partner 3 years ago, yet Australia's Department of Veteran's Affairs refused to recognize it. Young says he's pursuing the case not for money but for the principle of equality and to honor his late partner's military service. The Australian Defence Force officially opened military service to gays and lesbians in 1992. Both Young and the Australian government have made written submissions to the UN Human Rights Committee, but a ruling is not expected for at least a year-and-a-half. A bill for legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples in the Czech Republic won approval from the nation's Cabinet this week and advanced to the Parliament. No former Communist Bloc country has yet extended legal status to same-gender couples. The Government's proposed registered partnerships would carry many of the legal rights of marriage, with equal recognition in areas including inheritance, pensions and health insurance, but would exclude adoption rights. Twice before the Czech Parliament has rejected similar proposals. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops and Catholic-affiliated National Center for the Family are actively lobbying against the current bill. The Czech national group Gay Initiative assisted in the development of the bill and fully supports it. Spokesperson Jiri Hromada called opposition to the bill "hysterical envy". A conservative Christian group in Canada has hand-delivered 5,000 anti-gay letters to residents of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Recently a report recommended addition of information about sexual orientation to the city's teacher training, school libraries and school curricula. The group Christian Truth Activists said in its letter, "Now the homosexuals want to share their filth and propaganda with Saskatchewan's children." In Egypt, the lone minor netted in the notorious May police raid on a gay-inclusive Cairo riverboat club this week was given the maximum sentence for debauchery, 3 years imprisonment in a youth facility followed by 3 years of police supervision. Mahmud Abdel-Fatah confessed to having had sex with another male and to belonging to a gay organization, but that confession may have been extracted by torture. Because of his age, variously reported as 15 and 17 years, Abdel-Fatah was tried in a different court from the other 52 men arrested, and so unlike them he has the option to appeal, although it's not yet known if he will. The mass trial of the other defendants continues. Berlin's mayoral election campaign is the ugliest in years. Openly gay inte rim Mayor Klaus Wowereit was described by his opponent Frank Steffel as having a "deformed character". While Steffel has apparently not been any more explicit than that in attacking Wowereit's sexual orientation, Steffel has gone out of his way to display his wife as a reminder of his own heterosexuality. Ironically, Wowereit's Social Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the Berlin Assembly, for years formed a coalition with Steffel's Christian Democratic Party -- but now each group blames the other for the city's financial problems. And while U.S. Republicans may appear to be kinder to gays and lesbians this week, the same is not expected of Britain's Opposition Conservative Party. The Tories elected Iain Duncan Smith as their national leader, and he promptly named a very conservative leadership team and fired gay-supportive Steven Norris from the party post he held for the national elections campaign. This largely dashed hopes raised by Smith's briefly questioning the party's hard-line support for Section 28, the Thatcher-era prohibition against local governments devoting resources to "promotion of homosexuality". The party's gay and lesbian group TORCHE -- Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality -- welcomed Smith's election. But openly lesbian former TORCHE head Karen Gillard, a member of the Plymouth City Council, called Smith a "bigot" and defected to the gay-supportive Liberal Democrats, saying she "had become embarrassed to be a Conservative." Openly lesbian author Ali Smith's novel "Hotel World" is one of 6 finalists for the UK's Booker Prize, one of the richest and most distinguished awards in world literature. Another of the finalists announced this week, Andrew Miller's "Oxygen", features a gay character. And finally... Norway's "Verdens Gang" newspaper reports that women there are kissing other women in public as never before. A sociologist attributed what's been labeled a "craze" to a new openness among women for sexual experimentation. A nightclub owner agreed that "it's totally part of the zeitgeist to show that you're open for new things," adding that it's been going on for years so no one reacts any more. A spokesperson for Norway's National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation praised the new freedom that allows public displays of same-gender affection, but noted that "there's a big difference between kissing a female friend and being a lesbian." If women are kissing other women due to social "pressure" or as part of a "trend," she said, "that's wrong."