NewsWrap
for the week ending April 19, 2003
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #786, distributed 4-21-03)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, 
Fenceberry, and Greg Gordon]


Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Dean Elzinga


  Fourteen more Egyptian men this week were given prison sentences ranging 
from one to three years on debauchery charges for homosexuality.  One man's 
phone was bugged for more than a month after someone tipped off police, and 
the resulting evidence was used against the other 13 defendants.  Two more 
men were found not guilty, and some of the convicted men may appeal.


  Egypt's crackdown on gays has already resulted in dozens of convictions and 
possibly hundreds of arrests over the last two years, sparking extensive 
international protest.  The current sentencing came within a week of a 
European Parliament resolution calling for an immediate end to the 
persecution and enactment of civil rights protections for gays and lesbians.
This week Egypt's Speaker of the Parliament Ahmed Fathi Sorour responded with 
an open letter to the EP that was distributed by Egypt's official news agency 
MENA.  He accused the EP of trying to "interfere in Egypt's internal 
affairs," calling the resolution "an arbitrary judgment" that 
"oversimplif[ied] dangerous issues."  He cast the issue as one of "respect 
[for] the people's choice of their legal system and protect[ion of] their 
religious and cultural values."  He noted that "Egypt's penal code does not 
include punitive measures against homosexuals, as the country's law by no 
means interferes in the private affairs of individuals," but only "publicly 
practicing acts that demonstrate a degradation of religions and instigation 
for licentiousness."  While that may technically be true, Egyptian 
authorities have gone far beyond policing public behavior in their pursuit of 
gays, engaging not only in wiretapping but in Internet sting operations.  
One such sting resulted in a 15-month prison sentence for Wassim Tawfiq 
Abyad, who has been adopted as a "prisoner of conscience" by U.K.-based human 
rights watchdog Amnesty International.


  Britain's Labour Government this week revised its proposed legislation 
against public sex.  The Parliament is currently considering the Government's 
Sexual Offences Bill, a sweeping update of the criminal code that includes 
elimination of gay-specific charges: gross indecency, buggery, and 
solicitation by men.  But it also included a proposed ban on "sexual activity 
in a public place," intended primarily to stop sex between men in public 
toilets.  Police told ministers last week it would be difficult to enforce, 
in the face of widely published but misleading claims that suspects could 
escape conviction simply by closing a stall door.  Ministers announced this 
week that they're dropping the public sex proposal and instead will amend the 
long-standing common law offense of "outraging public decency".  That 
reliance on old law raised concerns for Britain's gay and lesbian advocacy 
group Stonewall, whose Director for Parliamentary Affairs Sacha Deshmukh told 
Gay.com, "The Government need* to be clear that the law against outraging 
public decency, which was written in Victorian times, won't be used in a way 
that targets or discriminates against the gay community."
Meanwhile, Stonewall is lobbying in support of a bill introduced by the 
Liberal Democrats to add homophobic bias crimes to Britain's hate crimes law, 
which the House of Commons will debate in late May.


  The admitted assassin of Pim Fortuyn -- the Netherlands politician who 
might well have become the world's first openly gay Prime Minister -- was 
sentenced this week to 18 years in prison for the murder.  Volkert van der 
Graaf is likely to actually serve only 11.  Most had expected a life 
sentence, although that's rare in the Netherlands and usually given only to 
serial killers.  But the three-judge panel said van der Graaf was unlikely to 
repeat his crime and should have a chance to reintegrate in society.  
Fortuyn's supporters reacted to the sentence with rage and tears.  
Someone later enclosed bullets with a letter threatening death to the 
presiding judge and the prosecutor.
The Amsterdam public prosecutor will appeal the sentence, declaring the 
judges had not adequately considered van der Graaf's "intention to seriously 
thwart the democratic process" or his lack of remorse.  In a final statement 
to the court, van der Graaf did say he regretted the grief he had caused, but 
repeated his belief that like Hitler, Fortuyn's rise to power would have 
caused suffering to Muslims and other marginalized groups.  Fortuyn was shot 
shortly before national elections last year.  On the May 6th anniversary of 
his death, a statue of him will be erected in Rotterdam, his birthplace.


  The death of a New York gay man by alleged medical negligence has led to 
what's believed to be the first recognition of a Vermont civil union as 
conferring spousal status by a court in another U.S. state.
The late Neal Spicehandler died of heart disease at St. Vincent's Manhattan 
Hospital more than a year ago, three days after suffering leg injuries from a 
hit-and-run driver.  He contracted a civil union with John Langan shortly 
after the pioneering Vermont partnership law went into effect in 2000.  
Langan is suing the hospital with the help of the Lambda Legal Defense and 
Education Fund.
This week Nassau County state Justice John Dunne rejected the hospital's 
argument that Langan lacked legal standing to file a wrongful death lawsuit.  
He emphasized that his ruling applied only to wrongful death filings, not to 
other purposes.  But he wrote that, "[I]t is impossible to justify, under 
equal protection principles, withholding the same recognition from a union 
which meets all the requirements of a marriage in New York but for the sexual 
orientation of its partners."  He noted that state law does not specifically 
define "spouses" as being of different sexes.


  But the Texas state Senate this week approved by a more than 3-to-1 margin 
a bill to specifically prevent legal recognition of other U.S. states' gay 
and lesbian civil unions or marriages.  Same-gender marriages are not 
currently legal in any state, and Texas is one of many that already 
explicitly refuse to perform them.  Only Vermont currently offers civil 
unions, although similar proposals are in process in five other states.  
Republican state Senator for San Antonio Jeff Wentworth's bill, which in the 
Senate was opposed solely by Democrats, moves next to the state House.  It 
includes provision for some insurance and property rights for same-gender 
partners, in its words "without the existence of any legally recognized 
familial relationship."


  Same-gender couples lost in two other U.S. legislative actions last week.
Connecticut's Senate Judiciary Committee by more than 60% rejected a bill to 
establish registered domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples 
carrying many of the legal benefits of marriage.  That could well mean the 
end of the controversial bill for this session, but supporters have vowed to 
bring it back.


  And Commissioners of the Port of Seattle, Washington last week voted 3-to-1 
against developing an equal benefits ordinance like the City of Seattle's.  
That ordinance requires the city's contractors to extend the same benefits to 
their unmarried employees' domestic partners as they do to their legally 
married workers' spouses.


  Even in Canada there seem to be limits as to how far the legal notion of 
family can be stretched.  Last week a judge in London, Ontario rejected a 
lesbian's bid to be recognized as a parent to her partner's son -- because 
the boy already has two legal parents, his biological mother and father.  All 
3 share the parenting, and Family Court Justice David Aston wrote that, "The 
child is a bright, healthy, happy individual who is obviously thriving in a 
loving family that meets his every need...  I am prepared to make the 
declaration sought if there is jurisdiction to do so."  But he went on to 
rule that current law denies him the power to confer parental status on more 
than 2 people.  He wrote, "If a child can have 3 parents, why not 4 or 6 or a 
dozen?  What about all the adults in a commune or a religious organization or 
a sect?"
Well, some might say, "It takes a village to raise a child."  
The case drew national attention.  Four religious right groups had sought 
intervener status in the case to oppose the parents.  Their motion was denied 
since the decision went their way, but they could get their chance if the 
parents decide to appeal.


  But back in the U.S., there was a legal victory last week for members of 
the Gay-Straight Alliance at Boyd County High School in Kentucky.  A 
long-running controversy over the GSA in this conservative area climaxed in 
December when the county school board voted to suspend meetings of all 
"non-curricular" clubs, even though the local school council supported the 
GSA.  Seven GSA members responded with a federal lawsuit with the help of the 
American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.  That was an act of bravery in 
the face of threats and harassment against the group -- in fact the county 
school board claimed that it had to stop the GSA to prevent violence and 
disruption, and admitted it wasn't GSA members who created those problems.  
As has happened in previous cases in other states, U.S. District Judge David 
Bunning said that the federal Equal Access Act gives the GSA the same rights 
as other campus groups.  He noted that despite the supposed ban on club 
meetings, some had in fact continued, including the Bible club.  The case is 
far from over, but Bunning issued an injunction requiring the GSA be allowed 
to meet, and he expected that as a result the ban on other clubs meeting 
would soon be lifted.


  And finally... Jews around the world celebrated Passover this week, but 
some updated its traditional opening dinner ceremony, the seder.  A group of 
women at New Orleans' Tulane University used a feminist liturgy that makes 
the Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt a metaphor for breaking free of 
sexual stereotyping and prejudice today.  Added to the ritual food items on 
their seder plate was one to represent marginalized groups, especially women, 
gay men and lesbians -- an orange.