----REMINDER-----
There won't be a "NewsWrap" on the next two programs, TWO weeks of 12/24 and 
12/31.
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NewsWrap
for the week ending December 15, 2001
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #716, distributed 12-17-01)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Jon Beaupré and Cindy Friedman

  The state of West Australia's lower House, the Legislative Assembly, this 
week passed the state Government's omnibus bill for equal rights for gays and 
lesbians.  The Acts Amendment (Lesbian and Gay Law Reform) Bill represents 
sweeping reforms for both individuals and same-gender couples.  Currently 
West Australia is seen as lagging behind all other Australian states in its 
discriminatory treatment of gays and lesbians.
In a marathon session, the Opposition Liberal Party debated vigorously 
against the bill, particularly its provisions for adoption, fertility 
treatment, and an equal age of consent, which Liberals equated with 
pedophilia.  The Australian Family Association also vigorously opposed the 
bill, including placing print advertisements on the pedophilia theme which 
the Advertising Standards Board found to vilify gays.  Both groups intend to 
use reform against the ruling Australian Labor Party in the next election.
The bill also had its first reading this week in West Australia’s upper 
House, the Legislative Council.  The Opposition there forced a division in 
the initial vote, an unusual move at this early stage in the bill's progress. 
 Although the state Government had hoped to enact the bill before the end of 
the year, the Council will not complete its work on the bill until February, 
when it will reconvene after the traditional summer recess.
The controversial legislation appears to be taking a toll on West Australia's 
gay and lesbian youth, with a Perth area counseling center reporting a 
four-fold increase in requests for services over the last two months.

  ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, this week 
settled its civil action against Greg Fisher, former head of the Satellite 
Group, which had been the world's first gay-identified company to go public.  
Satellite stock sank steadily after its September 1999 issue until trading 
was finally suspended in July 2000.  The corporation was dissolved amidst 
allegations of misfeasance by Fisher and former Board member Jonathan 
Broster.  ASIC settled its lawsuit against Broster earlier this year.  The 
terms of ASIC's settlement with Fisher were not made public.  He will still 
face three criminal charges in the coming year.

  Spain's parliament this week vowed to expunge the criminal records of gays 
arrested under the regime of General Francisco Franco, and established a 
committee to begin to consider compensation for them.  There are no clear 
records of how many gay men were incarcerated and tortured in prisons, camps 
and mental institutions during Franco's 40-year dictatorship, but at least 
1,000 were jailed in just the last ten years before his death in 1975.  While 
many other political detainees were pardoned in 1976, gay men continued to be 
convicted under a law on "social dangers and rehabilitation" through 1979, 
and the convictions have remained on record until now.  Spain's Federation of 
Gays and Lesbians president Pedro Zerolo said his group was pleased by the 
parliamentary action, but added, "What we want is a declaration of moral 
rehabilitation for those people who had part of their lives stolen by the 
state."

  Britain's Government this week took a first step towards banning employment 
discrimination based on sexual orientation, publishing a proposal for public 
consultation.  Current UK law prohibits only discrimination based on race, 
disability, and sex, and while the sex provisions have protected 
transsexuals, the courts have refused to apply them to gays and lesbians.  
The proposed legislation would make age and religion protected categories as 
well as sexual orientation, bringing UK law more into line with European 
Union directives.  The process will be a lengthy one, with the public 
consultation alone continuing through March 2002.  The Gay and Lesbian 
Humanist Association has already taken issue with a proposed exemption for 
all employment by religious groups, which would allow them to refuse to hire 
gays and lesbians and to require those they may already employ to remain 
celibate.

  A Swedish administrative court has made the unusual decision that a sperm 
donor who fathered 3 children for a lesbian couple must pay child support now 
that the women have split up.  Until now, sperm donors have not been 
recognized as legal fathers in Sweden, but in this case there was no question 
of the man's biological parenthood and he had maintained regular contact with 
the family as well.  Sweden's Sexual Equality League has opposed the county 
ruling in the town of Orebro on the grounds that it would deter gay men from 
donating sperm.  The donor has appealed the decision to a district court.

  Tiny Liechtenstein is the latest European country to move towards legal 
recognition of same-gender couples.  Its parliament has approved a bill to 
extend to gay and lesbian couples the same status as legally married couples 
in areas including taxation and insurance.  A further proposal for equal 
adoption rights and equal access to fertility treatment failed.  The 
partnership measure must still be ratified by the government.

  In the U.S., Atlanta, Georgia's exiting Mayor Bill Campbell this week 
vetoed a bill to require the city's contractors to extend the same healthcare 
benefits to their unmarried workers' domestic partners that they offer 
married workers' spouses.  Although Campbell has been a gay-supportive mayor 
and calls himself a strong supporter of domestic partner benefits, his 
spokesperson said the bill was "too uncompromising."  Even its sponsor City 
Councilmember Michael Bond had admitted there were problems with it, as the 
bill he pushed through at the end of the Council's legislative session 
included none of the waivers he'd planned, and would have served to 
disqualify most city contractors in January.

  But some gay and lesbian employees of the state of Minnesota will gain 
domestic partner health benefits for the first time, although they may not 
last long.  After the state legislature's subcommittee on employee relations 
deadlocked in a 5-to-5 tie this week, state contracts will become effective 
December 21st with two unions representing a total of some 30,000 employees, 
the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees and the state branch of 
the AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. 
 The contracts could still be revoked in the new year when the Minnesota 
legislature reconvenes. Some Republican state lawmakers are strongly opposed 
on both moral and financial grounds.

  And finally... the latest specie to be added to the very long list of 
animals in which homosexual behavior has been observed is the orangutan, the 
only great ape native to Asia.  In the "American Journal of Primatology," Dr. 
Elizabeth Fox of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society reported 
seeing two male pairs in the jungles of Sumatra.  She noted that orangutans 
are an endangered specie which is fast disappearing.  That's not due to 
homosexuality, but to their capture for pets and the loss of their jungle 
habitat.  She wrote that this demonstrated "that homosexual behavior is not 
an artifact of captivity or contact with humans" and served to "add 
orangutans to the list of primates in which homosexual behavior forms part of 
the natural repertoire of sexual or sociosexual behavior."