NewsWrap
for the week ending August 30, 2003
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #805, distributed 9-1-03)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Fenceberry, Rex 
Wockner, and Greg Gordon]


Anchored by Jon Beaupré and Cindy Friedman


  "Tasmania today leads the world in the recognition of people in same-sex 
and other significant relationships," the Australian state's Government 
proclaimed this week after its Relationships Bills narrowly won approval from the 
state's Upper House.  Political compromises that weakened some parenting rights 
may make that a bit of an overstatement.  But the sweeping reforms do offer the 
option to gain legal status equivalent to marriage in well over 100 state laws 
for what's believed to be the world's widest range of personal relationships, 
including non-sexual ones.  They also create Australia's first state-level 
partnership registry, which will likely open in January.


  Five of Australia's 7 other states and territories have extended legal 
recognition in a variety of areas to gay and lesbian couples who have lived 
together for some time, and similar reforms are under consideration in the other 
two, but Tasmania will be the first to offer those couples a means to establish a 
legal relationship without cohabiting first.


  However, Australian national law still discriminates against same-gender 
couples in many key areas, including social security, pensions and taxation, and 
the ruling Coalition has consistently opposed reform bills.  In fact a recent 
rewrite of the Australian Defence Force's Entitlements Manual actually made 
more explicit that gay and lesbian servicemembers' partners are excluded from 
benefits, defying a finding by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity 
Commission.


  Tasmania's Relationships Bills were the subject of heavy lobbying from both 
sides, with religious conservatives particularly targeting the prospect of 
equal parental rights for non-traditional couples.  The state's Australian Labor 
Party Government dropped its effort to win full equal adoption rights for 
registered partners even before the Relationships Bills were passed by the state 
parliament in mid-July.  The new laws will allow one partner to co-adopt the 
other's biological children.  But to pass the bills in the Upper House, the ALP 
needed the support of several independents, and they made their support 
contingent on deleting automatic parental status for the partners of lesbians 
impregnated by artificial insemination.  However, those partners can go through the 
co-adoption process, and a parliamentary inquiry will continue to review the 
issue.


  Tasmania's leading gay activist Rodney Croome attributed the hard-won 
victory in the Upper House to the personal lobbying efforts of gay and lesbian 
parents and their children, saying, "They put themselves on the line and told 
their personal stories and that was crucial in getting the legislation through.  
This is a good example of where the quietest voices have spoken the loudest."


  Colombia's national Senate this week rejected a bill to extend both legal 
recognition to same-gender couples and civil rights protections to lesbians, 
gays and transgenders.  Couples would have gained equal status in areas 
including health care decisions, employment benefits, insurance, pensions, social 
security, inheritance, and support payments on dissolution.  There had been high 
hopes for the bill's passage, particularly given its endorsement by 3 of 
Colombia's former Presidents -- Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, Julio Cesar Turbay and 
Cesar Gaviria Trujillo.
Gaviria, now Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, said 
last week, "If we want it to be true, as our Constitution promises, that 
Colombians are free and equal before the law, then it is necessary to guarantee 
equal rights for unions between homosexuals."
But after lengthy debate, more than 60% of the Senators voted against the 
bill.  One leading opponent said it would put "an unpayable burden" on the social 
security system.
But Britain's Gay and Lesbian Humanist Society fears the vote in largely 
Roman Catholic Colombia reflects the Vatican's recent publication demanding that 
politicians of their faith work actively to block any legal recognition of 
same-gender couples.
Supporters say they'll reintroduce the measure next year.


  California's state Senate this week passed a bill to further expand the 
rights and responsibilities of the statewide domestic partners registry.  If 
enacted, it will make the California registry second in the U.S. only to Vermont's 
civil unions in legal power.  It would extend perhaps 90% of the state-level 
benefits of marriage according to its sponsor, openly lesbian Democratic 
Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg of Los Angeles.  The other 10% of benefits would 
require a two-thirds vote of the legislature.  The current measure passed the 
Senate on a party-line vote with only a couple of votes more than the required 
minimum.  The California Assembly had already passed the bill in June -- by the 
bare minimum required -- but must now consider the Senate's amendments, which 
include dropping the right to file state income taxes jointly.


  Embattled Democratic Governor Grey Davis had announced last week that he'd 
sign the bill, a message he repeated following the Senate vote.  The question 
is whether he'll be in a position to do so, with a recall vote looming on 
October 7th.  The leading Democrat in the huge field hoping to replace Davis is 
Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamente, who's also endorsed the bill.  The leading 
Republican is film star Arnold Schwartzenegger, who hasn't yet formally stated 
a position on this bill but said in an interview this week that while he 
believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, he supports domestic 
partnerships.


  Davis signed the original California partnerships law after his Republican 
predecessors had repeatedly blocked similar moves.  He later signed its 
expansion to carry its current benefits, which include hospital visitation, medical 
decision-making, co-adoption, inheritance, and standing to sue for a partner's 
wrongful death.  The current measure would add spousal rights over a 
partner's funeral arrangements; the ability to withhold legal testimony against a 
partner; property rights; health insurance and pension benefits; joint 
consideration in qualifying for state assistance payments; responsibility for a partner's 
debts to third parties; and the option for divorce proceedings in court with 
rights to community property, support payments and child support.


  Another bill currently pending Governor Davis' action after passage by the 
California Assembly last week is intended to improve the situation of lesbigay 
and transgender children in foster care.  It would prohibit discrimination or 
harassment in foster care based on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity," 
train foster parents to meet that requirement, and bar them from pressuring 
children to change their orientation.


  One of Davis' aides is taking the heat for a military memorial formally 
unveiled this week.  The footlong paving stone at the California Veterans 
Memorial near the state Capitol reads "In honor of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and 
Transgender Veterans Killed in Action."  The activists and dignitaries at the 
ceremony called it long overdue.  Though the marker was paid for with private funds, 
it was billed as the first state-sanctioned landmark honoring the memory of 
those servicemembers.  But some non-gay veterans objected to it as 
inappropriate, political or insulting, and it emerged that some procedural steps in 
actually obtaining state sanctions had been skipped.  The Governor's office has 
promised to sort things out.


  The annual EuroPride festival was held this week in Manchester, England, 
site of the original "Queer As Folk".  Over 300,000 people participated in the 
11-day festival.  It took 200 people to carry the half-ton, quarter-mile-long 
rainbow flag that led the climactic parade through the Gay Village to the 
tooting of thousands of pink whistles.  One of the more than 60 groups marching 
were some of Manchester's own police officers, in uniform.  With jugglers, 
stilt-walkers and fire-eaters as well as an array of impersonators, openly gay actor 
Ian McKellen declared, "The most stylish theatre in the U.K. is here on the 
streets of Manchester."  
After the parade McKellen bemoaned Hollywood closets, saying the hidden gay 
and lesbian film stars "cannot be happy with themselves" and "are sending a 
dreadful message to their fans."


  And finally... there was no hiding the kisses at this week's MTV Video 
Music Awards, where superstars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera opened the 
show with an homage to Madonna's performance of "Like A Virgin" at the same 
ceremony 20 years before.  Not only were millions watching the live TV coverage as 
Madonna herself and Spears shared an open-mouthed smooch, but it was replayed 
ad infinitum and recounted in other media all over the world.  Aguilera also 
got a smooch from Madonna, but somehow, amazingly, the live cameras were 
elsewhere.
It's worth mentioning that Aguilera received an award this year from GLAAD, 
the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, for the empowering portrayals 
of a gay male couple and a transgender in her video "Beautiful" ... that 
Spears has gay male "girlfriends," prefers the music at gay clubs and is grateful 
for her gay male audience ... and that way back when the always gay-supportive 
Madonna was herself involved with Sandra Bernhardt.


  Being the MTV Video Music Awards, you wouldn't expect quite so much shock 
at women kissing, despite a certain breathlessness in the debate as to whether 
or not tongues were involved, yet it seemed to overshadow the bestowing of the 
awards themselves.  Many pundits took the occasion to recount the history of 
kisses between women on U.S. television.  Many worked the thesaurus to the 
bone to come up with synonyms for osculation.  Most took the occasion to jab both 
at so-called "lesbo chic" and at Madonna, presuming she was acting primarily 
to connect with the youth audience and promote her latest album -- not that 
there's anything wrong with that.
One of the more gracious versions was the "New York Times'": "It was an 
impressive spectacle.  But it was hard not to be reminded that 19 years ago Madonna 
could cause this much fuss all by herself."