NewsWrap for the week ending April 5, 2003 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #784, distributed 4-7-03) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Fenceberry, Graham Underhill, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Dean Elzinga Asia was rocked this week by the death of the man who pioneered its film portrayals of gays, openly gay pop music and film star Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing. Cheung died in Hong Kong at age 46, apparently a suicide, leaving a note citing depression. TV and radio stations devoted hours to his work, newspapers made his death their top headline, and impromptu tributes of flowers and photos soon filled half the block outside the hotel where he'd been staying. Cheung was supportive of Chinese gay and lesbian activists, including helping to inaugurate an awards ceremony honoring media presentations of lesbigay and trans issues. He's survived by his long-time partner Daffy Tong. Cheung's music career began with a second-place finish in ATV's 1976 Asian Mus ic Contest. By 1981 he was a star with his international hit album "The Wind Blows On". In 2000, he was honored with a Gold Needle Award from Radio Television Hong Kong, for what it called his "enormous contribution to Hong Kong's music industry." The news of his death led to a rush of sales of his recordings. Cheung was better known in the West for his film career, which began in 1978. His 60 films span all the genres and include work with all of Hong Kong's top directors. His breakout role came in John Woo's 1986 "A Better Tomorrow". The first of his major gay film roles was in Chen Kaige's 1993 historical drama "Farewell, My Concubine", which won him top honors at the Cannes Film Festival. It was when Wong Kar-wai's 1997 gay relationship drama "Happy Together" proved controversial that Cheung first publicly discussed his own sexual orientation. He also played a man who unwittingly falls in love with a cross-dressing woman in the comedy "He's a Woman, She's a Man". Another Wong Kar-wai film, "Days of Being Wild", brought Cheung Best Actor honors at the 1990 Hong Kong Film Awards. This weekend's Hong Kong Film Awards were quickly reorganized to include a major tribute to Cheung. His final role in Lo Chi-leung's ghost story "Inner Senses" had earned him another Best Actor nomination there. Nor was Cheung the only significant loss of an openly gay man for the dramatic arts this week. The U.S. mourned openly HIV-positive AIDS activist and character actor Michael Jeter, who died at age 50 apparently of natural causes although he had been in good health. Jeter is best known for his television work, including his Emmy-winning supporting part in the 1990s sitcom "Evening Shade" and his role as The Other Mr. Noodle on the children's show "Sesame Street". But over a career spanning nearly 25 years, Jeter also appeared in a number of major films, including "The Fisher King", "The Green Mile", and most recently the upcoming "The Polar Express" -- and on the stage, where he won a Tony Award in 1990. He's survived by his life partner Sean Blue. Australia mourned prolific playwright and screenwriter Nick Enright, who died of melanoma at age 52. His stage script "Blackrock" was chosen Best Play of 1996 by the Australian Writers Guild, and the original screenplay for "Lorenzo's Oil" earned a 1993 Oscar nomination for Enright with director George Miller. His biggest stage financial success was his musical about Peter Allen "The Boy from Oz", which toured the world. He scored hits on Australian television with the award winning "Come In Spinner" and the comedy "Daylight Saving". Enright also performed as an actor and director, and touched many lives as a teacher at Australia's top acting school NIDA, the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and at the Australian Theatre for Young People. There was a great leap forward against Internet censorship in South Korea, as the government's Youth Protection Committee officially dropped homosexuality from its obscenity standards in response to a ruling by Korea's National Human Rights Protection Commission. The 1997 Juvenile Protection Act included statements that "homosexuality is harmful and obscene," "distribution of homosexual love is illegal" and "homosexuality is harmful to youth," all of which the human rights body found to violate constitutional guarantees of equality, freedom of expression and the pursuit of happiness. The Commission cited international trends and its spokesperson said that, "There is a growing awareness of the need to regard homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation and to protect the human rights of gays and lesbians." The advocacy groups Kirikiri and the Lesbian-Gay Human Rights Federation had petitioned the Commission for the ruling, which will open Internet access for young people to sites with lesbigay content. But the film of gay Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Hours", despite its numerous Oscar nominations and Best Actress win for Nicole Kidman, has had its kisses between women censored in both Malaysia and Singapore. In response to a public outcry, the chair of Singapore's Board of Film Censors Ng Eng Ping said in a letter in the "Straits Times" this week, "Our censorship guidelines are a reflection of community standards. Homosexuality is a sensitive subject in Singapore and hence has to be treated cautiously." He added that the guidelines "do not discriminate between male and female gender intimacy." But he promised that, "As society matures in sophistication, the classification standards will be revised to keep pace with social acceptance levels." Gay and lesbian kisses this week celebrated the signing into law of sweeping new anti-discrimination and anti-vilification protections in the Australian state of Queensland. Local couples gathered on the steps of the state parliament building to hug and smooch in what student activist Khrys Robb called "a peaceful action and demonstration and celebration showing that what the ... government has delivered to us here is actually the God-given right for us to be able to show our affection." The new law also protects transgenders, and extends legal recognition equal to married couples' under more than 50 state laws to cohabitants of at least two years' standing. In the U.S. this week, the Hawai'i state House of Representatives approved by a nearly 5-to-1 margin the addition of "actual or perceived gender identity" to the categories protected under the state's hate crimes law, which already included "sexual orientation". The Senate had already passed the bill, so it moves now to Governor Linda Lingle, who is expected to sign it into law. But both houses of Minnesota's state legislature this week approved union contracts with the state's civil servants only after specifically deleting spousal health benefits for same-gender partners. Moves in each house to reinstate those benefits failed, despite emotional pleas from supporters including openly lesbian state Senator Karen Clark and openly gay state Representative Scott Dibble. And in a dramatic tie vote broken by Vice Mayor Howard Gentry, Nashville, Tennessee's Metro Council this week rejected a bill to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in the city's own employment practices. Previously the Council had given landslide preliminary approval to a stronger measure against job discrimination by all local employers, but that bill was withdrawn by its sponsor in the face of powerful religious opposition. That included a threat by the nation's largest denomination, the Southern Baptists, to move its scheduled 2005 national meeting out of Nashville. A committee appointed by the archbishop of South Africa's 10-million-member Anglican Church this week issued a preliminary report intended to spur discussion of gay and lesbian marriages, including dialog with groups outside the church. The committee has been meeting for about six months, following a synod vote calling for clarification on the issue and a series of South African legal rulings favorable to gay and lesbian couples. The global Angli can Church has a strong position against recognition of gay and lesbian couples. While some African leaders have claimed that homosexuality is a European phenomenon with no place in Africa, the South African Anglican report acknowledges a history of same-gender marriages on the continent, specifically citing the tradition of the Rain Queen of the Lovedu. South Africa's Lesbian and Gay Equality Project welcomed the report. But there was no such welcome from Italy's national group Arcigay for the glossary published this week by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family. The 900-page tome is officially titled "Lexicon On Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms About Family Life and Ethical Questions". Its section on "Homosexuality and Homophobia" describes homosexual orientation as rooted in "unresolved psychological conflict" and labels it a condition "without any social value." It calls condom use for HIV prevention "an exercise in self-justification." It denounces those who proclaim homosexuality normal, says their allies "deny a psychological problem which makes homosexuality against the social fabric," says those who seek recognition of same-gender relationships have "profoundly disordered minds," and deplores the "stigmatizing" of non-gays with allegations of homophobia. In short, as Arcigay's honorary chair Member of Parliament Franco Grillini put it, "The Vatican has gone from invective to insults." And finally... the BBC's award winning openly gay TV talk show host Graham Norton has been named the U.K.'s worst dressed man by "British GQ". But he also became more quickly accessible to U.S. viewers this week, and as part of the promotion taped a week of shows in New York City. In anticipation, Norton exclaimed, "I can't wait to get to the Big Apple -- I've always been partial to a large fruit!"