NewsWrap
for the week ending August 24, 2002
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #752, distributed 8-26-02)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle & Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Dean Elzinga & Cindy Friedman

  Two of Australia's six parliamentary parties now have openly gay men as 
their leaders.  This week the Australian Democrats' national executive 
elected Senator from West Australia Brian Greig interim party leader by a 
vote of 11-to-3 with 3 abstentions.  The Green Party is headed by Senator 
from Tasmania Dr. Bob Brown.
Greig's ascension was anything but glorious.  He became the Democrats 3rd 
leader in 24 hours as a compromise candidate in party infighting, after 
deputy party leader Senator Aden Ridgeway with the support of 3 of the 
party's 7 Senators deposed more liberal Senator Natasha Stott Despoja.  
Greig's fellow West Australian Democratic Senator Andrew Murray, a Ridgeway 
supporter, said that in response to Greig's appointment voters "are either 
lying on the floor with their legs and arms in the air screeching with 
laughter or they're just shaking their heads in amazement."
Among those apparently amused is Prime Minister John Howard, whose ruling 
coalition has often seen the fate of its legislation determined by the 
Democrats' stance, and can only benefit from their disunity.  
Greig himself remarked that, "One of the things that has struck me about the 
Democrats over the years is that the most unlikely people seem to become 
deputies and leaders."  He began his first day in his new role with the 
words, "Can I say to Democrat members who might be listening, or Democrat 
voters or potential voters, sorry the party has behaved appallingly."
But then, he'd recently told "This Way Out"’s John Frame:
Brian Greig: "Parliament is not a very welcoming place to anybody.  There are 
76 Senators, and most of them are out to get you.  But there are 
opportunities for progressive members of Parliament, Democrats in particular, 
to contine to try and prosecute a Democrat’s agenda – and that includes 
GLBTI issues."
Greig's appointment will last about 6 weeks while a full party balloting for 
the leadership is carried out, although he is likely to be a candidate in 
that vote.
A federal Senator for only 3 years, Greig is not well known to the Australian 
public, despite serving as the Democrats' spokesperson for justice issues, 
fisheries and several other areas.  A long-time activist, he has been a vocal 
advocate in the Senate for equal treatment of gays and lesbians and legal 
recognition of their relationships, beginning with his very passionate and 
personal maiden speech.

  Delivering her maiden speech this week was Australian Labor Party Senator 
from South Australia Penny Wong, who allowed the "Adelaide Advertiser" 
newspaper to identify her last week as "gay".  Best known as Australia's 
first federal legislator of Asian descent, Wong is determined to avoid public 
discussion of her private life and has not declared any intention of 
specifically pursuing gay and lesbian law reforms.  But in her first 
opportunity to address the Senate, she made a powerful call for tolerance, 
without dwelling on any specific excluded group.  

Reclaiming the phrase "one nation," the name of the party founded by racist 
right-winger Pauline Hanson, Wong declared, "I seek a nation that is truly 
one nation.  One in which all Australians can share regardless of race, 
gender or other attribute, regardless of where they live, and where 
difference is not a basis for exclusion.  We do not live in such a country.  
We are not yet truly one nation.  But it is the task of political leaders to 
build one."
She denounced Prime Minister Howard's rejection of "political correctness," 
saying it had led to an atmosphere in which it was "politically correct" to 
be racist but wrong to defend tolerance.

  But the biggest mainstream story in Australia this week concerned one of 
nation's leading opponents of gay and lesbian equality.  Australia's top 
Roman Catholic, Dr. George Pell, stepped down from his post as Archbishop of 
Sydney for the duration of the investigation of allegations that he molested 
a 12-year-old boy as a priest in training 40 years ago -- allegations he 
vehemently denies.  
Pell only ascended to the Sydney archbishopric a little more than a year ago, 
after many years leading the Church in Melbourne.  Pell has long been a 
target of protest for his anti-gay positions both within the Church and in 
society at large.  A theological conservative, he repeatedly refused 
communion to the gay and lesbian Catholic Rainbow Sash movement, and he 
opposes gays and women in the priesthood and single women's access to 
fertility treatments.  He's lobbied Australia's federal and state governments 
against gay and lesbian civil rights legislation with comments such as 
"[homosexuality is] a greater health hazard than smoking."  In July, he urged 
a gathering of Catholic youth in Toronto to actively oppose all moves towards 
recognition of same-gender couples.
Prime Minister Howard's immediate vocal support of Pell contrasted sharply 
with his willingness to allow one of his Cabinet members to drag openly gay 
Supreme Court Justice Michael Kirby's name through the mud earlier this year 
with baseless allegations of paying for sex with an older teen more than 20 
years ago.

  A British Columbia-based Web site that equates homosexuality with 
pedophilia, bestiality and sexual predation was ordered to shut down this 
week by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for violating federal anti-hate 
laws.  The ruling named creator John Micka, Machiavelli and Associates 
Emprize Incorporated owner Joanne Vesvik, and Web master Ken Fast.  Their 
ostensibly anti-pedophile site, according to the complaint filed by Mark 
Schnell, was less that than "anti-homosexual," "persistently equat[ing]" "the 
homosexual lifestyle" "with sexual predation," and "attribut[ing] to gay men 
uncontrollable sexual passion and aggression."  The tribunal's ruling 
referred to an earlier Supreme Court ruling to limit use of phones to spread 
hate, saying, "If the telephone is ideally suited to spread prejudicial 
ideas, the Internet is even better positioned... The reasons of the court 
apply with even greater force to the Internet."  However, the site is still 
currently operating, as Micka declares he will ignore the Tribunal.  He 
called it a kangaroo court and said authorities will have to go to a "real" 
court for an order to shut him down.

  What may be the first gay-themed novel to be published in Vietnam has won a 
top award in a competition jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Police and 
the Vietnam Writers Association.  The prize, equivalent to one thousand U.S. 
dollars, is called "For the National Security and Peaceful Life".  It 
surprised Bui Anh Tan, author of the gay mystery "A World Without Women".  
Homosexuality is rarely even mentioned in Vietnam.  Tan told reporters, "I 
chose this topic because it is considered a social problem.  As a writer, I 
believe I have a responsibility to talk about it, to bring it into the open 
and help people understand it.  In an oriental society like Vietnam, it is 
quite a sensitive problem that people avoid discussing, however whether you 
like it or not, gay people exist in our society."
Tan himself encountered the gay underground in his many years as a reporter 
for the police newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City, where he now does public 
relations for the police department.  He said, "I discovered there was more 
than the clichés about gay men, that there is a whole colorful world with 
tragic and humorous angles."
His book, he hopes, "will raise the people's awareness of homosexuals and let 
them know that the gay people are human beings like the rest of us, that they 
don't want to be different from ordinary people and that it is not evil to be 
gay."  And he believes that "people are gradually accepting that being gay is 
not a crime.  In today's society people are becoming more open-minded."
"The prize is recognition that gay men are part of society... for me, the 
glory or the money the prize brings is not as important as what the book 
brings to the readers' minds and hearts."

  And finally... in what's being hailed as a landmark in U.S. acceptance of 
gays and lesbians, the distinguished "New York Times" announced this week 
that beginning in September its Sunday Styles section "will publish reports 
of same-sex commitment ceremonies and of some types of formal registration of 
gay and lesbian partnerships" -- and even that, "On occasion, the 'Vows' 
column will be devoted to a same-sex couple."  To accommodate this expansion 
of reporting, the "Times" is renaming what are now the "Weddings" pages to 
become "Weddings/Celebrations".  Only about one in 16 U.S. dailies now 
publish gay and lesbian unions, bu with the "Times" setting the standard, 
that’s already beginning to change. Executive editor Howell Raines promised 
to use the same kind of articles and pictures as for traditional weddings and 
that the selection criteria used will be the same as well.  He said that 
while the paper "recognize[s] that the society remains divided about the 
legal and religious definition of marriage, and our news columns will remain 
impartial in that debate," "In making this change, we acknowledge the 
newsworthiness of a growing and visible trend in society toward public 
celebrations of commitment by gay and lesbian couples -- celebrations 
important to many of our readers, their families and their friends."