NewsWrap
for the week ending October 13, 2001
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #707, distributed 10-15-01)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Christopher Gaal and Cindy Friedman 

  Coming Out Day, an occasion for individuals to "take the next step" in 
acknowledging their sexual orientations, was observed this week in the U.S. 
and some 7 other countries.  October 11th has been National Coming Out Day in 
the U.S. beginning with the first anniversary of the 1987 National March on 
Washington, DC for Lesbian and Gay Rights.  For most of those years, the 
national group the Human Rights Campaign has spearheaded the observance, but 
this year it backed off from any national event because the date fell exactly 
one month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  
However, local events went on across the U.S., particularly on numerous 
college and university campuses, some of which celebrate for a week or a 
month.  Observances included lectures and discussions, rallies, leafleting, 
performances, and films, including special programming on U.S. cable TV's 
Sundance Channel.  At Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, campus 
housing staff gave students Skittles, a multicolored candy with the 
advertising slogan "Taste the rainbow".

  Utah State University at Logan chose National Coming Out Day to officially 
open its first-ever gay and lesbian student services center.  Organizing for 
the center began 3 years ago following the notorious bashing death of openly 
gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.  The October 12th 
anniversary of Shepard's death was marked with several memorials, including a 
ballet performance in New York City.  In heavily gay West Hollywood, 
California, a wooden fence like the one Shepard was tied to in Laramie was 
erected at an event to promote tolerance.  
Professional homophobe Fred Phelps of Kansas, who protested at Shepard's 
funeral, held a series of demonstrations in Salt Lake City, Utah denouncing 
Shepard as a sinner.  Phelps' visit was transformed into a fund-raiser for 
local gay and AIDS charities.

  The Human Rights Campaign did stage its big annual benefit dinner, 
earmarking a portion of the proceeds to assist family members of gay and 
lesbian victims of the September 11th attacks.  Main speaker U.S. Senator 
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York called for equal treatment of same-gender 
couples, including the victim assistance that some religious conservatives 
have said they should be denied.  This week New York's Republican Governor 
George Pataki issued an executive order extending to gay and lesbian domestic 
partners the same state victim assistance received by heterosexual spouses in 
the wake of the attacks.

  But the U.S. military mobilization in response to the attacks may be 
mobilizing homophobia as well.  This week the Associated Press distributed a 
photo of a Naval officer on the USS Enterprise signing a bomb earmarked for 
Afghanistan.  Although it was not mentioned in the caption, the photo clearly 
showed chalked on the bomb the phrase "High jack {sic} this fags".  The 
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network responded with a statement that the Navy 
would not allow similar racist, sexist or anti-religious graffiti on 
"American property," and warned that such messages "only reinforce the ideas 
of hatred and division that our nation seeks to defend against."  Media 
watchdog GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, complained 
that the photo had been distributed without any warning as to its offensive 
content.  The AP later sent out an advisory recommending the photo be deleted 
from files because it contained an "offensive slur" -- but then a GLAAD 
spokesperson called "hiding the picture ... a disservice to the issue" of 
homophobia in the military.
The photo was most widely viewed in the U.S. on the Internet.  One newspaper 
known to have published the photo is London's "Metro", and Britain's Armed 
Forces Gay and Lesbian Association issued a statement in protest.

  Scotland's gruesome so-called "limbs in the Loch" case ended this week with 
a conviction and life sentence for Irish-born gay William Beggs in the 1999 
murder and dismemberment of young non-gay Barry Wallace.  Beggs had actually 
been convicted of murdering a gay man in Newcastle a number of years before, 
but was released on a technicality before completing his sentence.  He had 
also been convicted of slashing a gay man with a razor, and may have been 
responsible for more than a dozen other razor attacks on gay men.  Parts of 
Wallace's body were discovered over a period of weeks at various sites in 
Loch Lomond, while Beggs fled to the Netherlands and had to be extradited to 
stand trial.

  Capturing the spotlight at Germany's Frankfurt International Book Fair this 
month was a new work claiming Adolf Hitler may have been a closet gay.  
Bremen University history professor Lothar Machtan presents this theory in 
"Hitler's Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator".  Machtan believes Hitler 
had a number of gay friends in the 1920s and had earlier had homosexual 
relationships of his own, although the writer admits he lacks irrefutable 
proof.  Machtan says Hitler exploited what he calls his "homoerotic charisma" 
to gain the support of the Freikorps and the "brown shirts" early in his 
career.  The murder of numerous gay men in the SA on the notorious "Night of 
the Long Knives" in 1934 Machtan attributes to Hitler's fear of being "outed" 
and extorted.  Machtan describes Hitler as a man who "could never fully deny 
his homosexuality but could also never fully live with it."  Machtan says it 
would be "absurd to explain the Holocaust on the basis of repressed 
homosexuality" and denies that his book is in any way hostile to gays, but he 
believes the fear of extortion played a major role in some of Hitler's 
political decisions.  Hitler's regime was uniquely harsh to gay men.

  As Britain's Opposition Conservative Party held its annual conference this 
week, there were signs of a thaw in its hitherto staunch resistance to equal 
treatment of gays and lesbians.  
Iain Duncan Smith used his first major address since becoming the Tory leader 
to call for tolerance.  He said, "We know that women, ethnic minorities and 
people of different lifestyles must have greater opportunity within our 
party, and I shall do everything I can to give this effect."  He said this 
position was not about being "politically correct" but about being 
"politically effective".  
In association with the conference a member of Smith's leadership team, 
Member of Parliament John Bercow, told the UK national gay and lesbian 
advocacy group Stonewall that, "We must end once and for all, if we are 
serious about our politics, the cold war between the Conservative Party and 
the gay and lesbian community."  He called some regulations that discriminate 
against gay and lesbian couples "hurtful and insulting," and even suggested 
that Britain could one day have an openly gay Prime Minister.  But bachelor 
Bercow did feel compelled to preface his remarks by stressing that he is not 
gay himself.

  Two cases involving the Organization of American States' InterAmerican 
Commission on Human Rights have now reached happy endings for gays and 
lesbians.
The first gay-related case ever heard by the Commission concluded this week 
as Colombia's Supreme Court ordered conjugal visits for gay and lesbian 
prisoners.  Lesbian inmate Marta Lucia Alvarez Giraldo, serving a lengthy 
sentence for murder, had sued for her conjugal rights.  Her case reached the 
OAS human rights commission two years ago, where the Colombian government 
contended that "homosexuality is incompatible with Latin culture."  Giraldo's 
petition was supported by both Colombian and international civil rights 
groups.

  And A three-year struggle has ended with Panama's first official 
registration of a gay and lesbian group.  The New Men and Women Association 
of Panama had been denied official status by the Ministry of Justice, which 
claimed the group would undermine morality.  But when the OAS Commission 
supported the group, the Panamanian government changed its position. 

  In Slovakia, a left-wing party has submitted a draft bill to parliament to 
create legal registered partnerships for gay and lesbian couples.  The bill 
would recognize same-gender couples for purposes of inheritance, taxation, 
and step-parent adoptions.  It's expected to be debated in November.  Passage 
seems unlikely since sexual orientation discrimination was not prohibited in 
a new Labor Code the Slovakian Parliament adopted earlier this year, but 
activists believe the bill will help to educate lawmakers and the public on 
the issues involved.

  In Canada, an openly lesbian Winnipeg school trustee has won a settlement 
and an apology in her defamation lawsuit against a major broadcaster.  Two 
years ago when Kristine Barr was working to combat homophobia in Winnipeg's 
schools, a pair of local TV talk show hosts alleged that she was pushing a 
"gay agenda" and trying to "recruit" children.  In the face of that criticism 
the school board decided not to establish a special committee to deal with 
homophobia, although it has since taken a number of steps including 
establishing mandatory anti-homophobia training for all school personnel.  
This week the CHUM broadcasting group sent Barr a letter apologizing "without 
reservation for several incorrect allegations or imputations that were made 
about her."  The talk show hosts are no longer with CHUM's station in 
Winnipeg.

  And finally... if you're tired of your workout tapes, now there's an 
exercise video featuring drag queens.  "Dragercise", a low-impact aerobics 
routine, is believed to be the first tape of its kind.  Its four stars sought 
to present a positive image of transgenders.  But its creator, non-gay U.S. 
screenwriter Scott Kasdin, likens the tape to the orgiastic Fellini film 
"Satyricon", calling it "a huge party scene... that you can get in shape to."