NewsWrap
for the week ending July 6, 2002
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #745, distributed 7-8-02)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle & Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupré

  As the end of June brought the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising 
in New York City that's recognized as the beginning of the contemporary 
movement for gay and lesbian rights, pride was celebrated in cities around 
the world.
Pride in Europe featured openly gay mayors in two major capitals.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe led his city's march of about a half-million 
gays and lesbians.
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit spoke at a rally as hundreds of thousands of gays 
and lesbians marched with 80 floats under the slogan "We transform Berlin:  
cosmopolitan, tolerant, queer."

  Thousands marched in London's 30th pride observance, while the following 
Mardi Gras festival may have drawn 100,000.
Thousands more marched for pride through downtown Rome.
Pride in Madrid saw about 150,000 people demanding equal recognition for gay 
and lesbian families.
Perhaps 120,000 people marched in Vienna, celebrating the Austrian 
constitutional court's action in striking down an unequal age of consent law.
Some 4,000 people marched in Zurich with the theme "We are family" while 
about 100,000 people watched.

  Dublin's 20th pride march also had about 4,000 participants.
Thousands also marched in Budapest, whose mayor officially opened the 
weeklong pride festival.
Lisbon's third pride parade featured about 1,000 marchers.
Tel Aviv pride participation increased from last year's by about one-eighth 
to 45,000, despite security concerns that led the city to post 500 police to 
protect them.  
Police presence was also heavy at Croatia's first pride parade, but the 
protection they offered wasn't good enough.  Some 200 gays and lesbians 
marched in the capital city of Zagreb, and Croatia's Minister of the Interior 
and several other politicians joined them.  But a number of spectators were 
verbally abusive, someone threw a teargas canister, and at least 15 marchers 
say they were victims of gay-bashings that day.  Police have not yet 
identified suspects in those beatings.

  In the Pacific, Filipino gays and lesbians marched for pride in Manila, 
where a contingent from Amnesty International wore shirts reading, 
"Homophobia leads to torture."
In Australia, Pride Week in Sydney was overshadowed by the news that the 25th 
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras will go on in 2003.  Financial crisis had 
threatened the world-famous event, but the bank holding Mardi Gras' debts 
totaling a quarter-million-Australian-dollars this week agreed to 
arrangements to save the event from bankruptcy.  Community groups and 
individuals had come forward to guarantee payment, and Mardi Gras' sponsoring 
organization is undertaking financial restructuring.

  In Latin America, some 1,200 people took to the streets for the second 
annual pride parade in Caracas, Venezuela, chanting, "come out of the closet 
now!"
Colorful pride parades were also held in Guatemala City and in Bogota, 
Colombia.

  The pride parade in Lima, Peru will go on this coming weekend.  After a 
single resident's letter of protest, the Miraflores district had denied a 
permit for the march, but with the help of international protests, Movimiento 
Homosexual de Lima this week obtained permission to march in the Cercado de 
Lima district instead.

  In North America, thousands marched in Mexico City's 24th pride march, 
where the theme was, "Toward the right to be different, a society of 
coexistence."  
Earlier, pride was celebrated for the first time in the Mexican state of 
Guerrero as 300 people marched through the state's capital city Chilpancingo 
before thousands of spectators.

  In Canada, Toronto's gay and lesbian pride parade may be the biggest in the 
world.  Extreme heat and humidity that actually killed one man and felled 
dozens of others did not stop a record turnout of more than one million 
people.  The parade of more than 90 contingents featured over 100 floats.  
The preceding Dyke March drew a crowd of about 25,000.
Earlier, some 400 gays and lesbians marched for pride in Regina and held a 
rally at the Saskatchewan provincial legislature.

  In the U.S., more than 100,000 -- including Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- 
marched in the 32nd pride parade in New York City, where it all began.  One 
featured associated event was a commitment ceremony for 50 gay and lesbian 
couples.
In Chicago perhaps 370,000 people watched a parade of 234 contingents, 
including gay and lesbian veterans bearing a 100-pound US flag.
Los Angeles' 32nd pride parade drew a crowd of more than a quarter-million 
and featured 134 entries.

  And in San Francisco, known as the gayest city of all, the 32nd Lesbian, 
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade, with 184 contingents and the theme 
"Be Yourself, Change the World," drew a crowd that police estimated at 
300,000 and organizers at 1 million.  The celebrity grand marshals were 
openly gay Oscar nominee Sir Ian McKellen and non-gay TV actress Sharon 
Gless, now a regular in the US edition of TV's "Queer As Folk" and formerly 
the co-star of "Cagney and Lacey".  One associated event was an international 
gay rugby tournament whose trophy was named the Bingham Cup in memory of gay 
Mark Bingham, believed to be a leader among the passengers who stopped one of 
the planes hijacked on September 11th from hitting a target.  Bingham's own 
San Francisco rugby team won the cup, and his mother Alice Hoglan marched in 
the pride parade.

  In other U.S. news, homosexual acts are now legal in Arkansas, as the 
state's Supreme Court this week struck down a 25-year-old law against them.  
The law provided for up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for consensual 
sex acts between adults of the same gender.  The Lambda Legal Defense and 
Education Fund challenged it on behalf of seven Arkansas gay and lesbian 
plaintiffs, and prevailed in a trial court last year.  The state high court 
upheld that ruling, calling the law a violation of privacy rights implicit in 
the state's constitution.  
The court's main ruling said, "We agree that the police power may not be used 
to enforce a majority morality on persons whose conduct does not harm others. 
  The Arkansas Equal Rights Amendment serves to protect minorities at the 
hands of majorities."  A concurring opinion by two judges agreed with respect 
to private non-commercial sex acts, but said the state "has a legitimate 
interest in criminalizing public acts of sexual indecency."
Two judges dissented on the grounds that the court was overreaching its 
authority by overruling the legislature on a law that had not actually been 
enforced.
Sodomy laws applying only to gays and lesbians still stand in Kansas, 
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah.

  New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey this week signed into law new protections 
for sexual minority students.  The new law, which had passed unanimously in 
both houses of the state legislature, requires every New Jersey school 
district to establish and enforce a policy against harassment, including 
harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.  
New Jersey already protected students from discrimination based on sexual 
orientation, as do 6 other states.  But until now, only California and 
Minnesota had explicitly protected transgender students.  They were not 
included in the original New Jersey bill, but energetic lobbying won their 
addition in both Senate and Assembly committees.

  Hawai’i's Civil Rights Commission this week announced that it will take up 
sex discrimination complaints filed by transgenders.  Five biological males 
had claimed to be victims of adverse employment actions based on what the 
Commission described as "the employer's stereotyped views of how a man or 
woman should look or behave."  Attorneys for the employers had argued 
vigorously that transgenders and transsexuals are not protected by state or 
federal civil rights laws, so the Commission had no authority in such cases.  
The employers are expected to appeal the Commission's decision in the state 
Circuit Court -- but until that appeal is decided, the Commission will 
investigate and hear transgender discrimination complaints.

  And a court in South Korea has legally recognized a transsexual's change of 
gender for the first time.  The Pusan District Court declared that the 
transwoman known as Yoon met legal and medical requirements for changing the 
gender on her citizen identification card, and cited constitutional values of 
respect for human dignity and individuals' right to the pursuit of happiness.
Although an estimated 3 - 400 Koreans undergo sex reassignment surgery each 
year, none of them had been granted a legal gender change.
Since the 1980s, South Korean courts had changed gender identity for only 
four individuals, based on genetic findings.

  And finally... a song says that a kiss is just a kiss, but a lesbian's 
smooch with her partner has led to the first sexual orientation employment 
discrimination case ever heard by a labor court in Sweden.  The partner had 
dropped by the company's lunchroom to visit, and when the couple kissed, the 
employee's boss called it "disgusting".  After that, the employee felt 
ostracized at work, to the point where she finally quit without getting her 
paycheck.  The ombudsman against sexual discrimination brought the case to 
the labor court, on the grounds that no employer would've made such a comment 
about a heterosexual kiss.  Although the company denied the charge of 
discrimination, it agreed this week to an out-of-court settlement in which it 
will pay its former employee 35,000 kronor, or about US$3,800.