NewsWrap for the week ending March 6, 2004 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #832, distributed 3-8-04) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Fenceberry, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Anchored this week by Rick Watts and Cindy Friedman A panel of state judges in Brazil this week ordered that nation's first legal marriage equivalency for gays and lesbians. The Civil and Criminal Courts System of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, declared, "Despite ethical, philosophical, anthropological and religious debate on this issue, the fact is that homosexual relationships exist and, as a matter of legal rectitude, they deserve to be regulated [by law]." The order allows couples to seek the equivalent of a marriage license -- though not using that name -- that will carry marital status in areas including inheritance, child custody, pensions, and insurance benefits. All judges and notaries public in the state are bound to authorize civil unions, as the order says, "between persons of sound mind and independent of sexual orientation." The opinion was issued at the request of the state's Human Rights Commission at the behest of the state's gay and lesbian groups. A year ago Brazil's Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Rio Grande do Sul that granted spousal social security and pension rights to gays and lesbians who outlive their partners. Brazil's national legislature has stalled on legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples for nearly a decade. Same-gender couples in Israel have won a new spousal tax exemption. As the Supreme Court heard an appeal from a Tel Aviv gay couple, the State Attorney's Office issued a statement declaring that same-gender couples qualify for exemption from property transfer and betterment taxes on their home. Unmarried heterosexual couples, described in the law as "a man and a woman living as a family," had already enjoyed those spousal exemptions after living together for at least one year. Previously tax officials including an appeals panel with judicial authority had denied the exemptions to gay couple Adir Steiner and Tzach Granit, who've lived together since 1996 and shared title to their apartment since mid-2000. One activist counts this as the 7th of some 200 spousal rights that same-gender couples have gained in Israel. Three bills are now before Sweden's Parliament that would open legal marriage to gay and lesbian couples, who have long enjoyed powerful registered partnerships there. A recent poll found more than 60% public support for the move. But two young men in India who held a traditional marriage ceremony this week were attacked by their own relatives. The relatives beat them, stripped them, turned them over to police, and disowned them. Police declined to take action since India's law prohibits homosexual acts, not marriages -- and the relatives burst in on the men before they went to bed. In Saudi Arabia, though, police in Medina reportedly arrested some 50 men for simply attending a purported gay wedding. Indications are that one groom, a man from Chad, was only rehearsing for his upcoming heterosexual marriage. Many of those arrested were foreign nationals. City police had raided the event on a tip from the Islamic police, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, based on invitations to the event. Marriage mania continues to grow in the U.S., with more actions around the country than we can report here. Marriage licenses continue to be issued to gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco. The California state Supreme Court heard some oral arguments this week on legal moves to stop the city's marriages, but took no immediate action. California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had spoken in inflated terms about the dangers posed by San Francisco flaunting state law, surprised many by telling a national TV audience that he personally had no problem with marriage for gay and lesbian couples and would not block legislation to grant it to them. But New Paltz, New York Mayor Jason West was indicted this week on 19 misdemeanor charges of violating the state's domestic relations law for what he has called "solemnizing" gay and lesbian marriages, about 25 of them. West pleaded not guilty and vowed to continue his action. Then a state judge issued a temporary restraining order against him that was sought by a local resident with the help of the Florida-based right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel. Meanwhile Ithaca, New York began accepting applications for marriage licenses from gay and lesbian couples, while a series of sizable demonstrations in search of those licenses took place at New York City Hall and elsewhere in the state. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not allow licenses to be issued but he also called for changing the law so they could be. Nyack, New York Mayor John Shields told a state Senate committee that he felt compelled to follow West in marrying gays and lesbians. New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said that personally he supported changing state law to allow same-gender couples to marry, but officially his office declared that as the law now stands, those marriages are not permitted and should not be performed until the courts have decided. Legal actions are proliferating that will offer ample opportunity for courts to decide the status of marriage in New York, including a new lawsuit seeking marriage equality brought by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on behalf of a gay male couple. And Multnomah County, Oregon -- where the city of Portland is located -- began marrying gays and lesbians this week, issuing well over 400 licenses to same-gender couples. Democratic Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski begged other counties not to follow suit, and called on the state Attorney-General to issue an opinion. Meanwhile Oregon conservatives scrambled to take legal action to stop the marrying. A U.S. Senate subcommittee led by Republican Senator from Texas John Cornyn held a hearing whose title says it all: "Judicial Activism versus Democracy: What are the National Implications of the Massachusetts Goodridge Decision and the Judicial Invalidation of Traditional Marriage Laws". Committee members generally considered how to proceed with amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-gender marriages. Among other campaigns being mounted by gay and lesbian advocacy groups, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is now working specifically to counter the "activist judges" rhetoric that's become standard among conservatives. A House committee plans hearings of its own on a federal marriage amendment, to begin this month and run through July. While state constitutional amendments against same-gender marriage are in process in a number of state legislatures, Utah lawmakers have completed their approval of a proposal that will now be decided by voters in November. This week Utah state Senators supported the amendment by almost 3-to-1 before the House gave its final approval by 4-to-1 -- both much stronger than the 2-to-1 margin required to endorse the proposal and send it to the ballot. Another U.S. development this week related not to marriage but to other civil rights. A federal judge in Texas rejected a student Gay-Straight Alliance group's bid to meet on a Lubbock high school campus. Six other federal court rulings in four other states have upheld such groups' equal access rights, but Judge Sam Cummings declared the local school board and parents "are in the best position to determine what subject matter is reasonable and will be allowed on ... campuses." And finally... it did rain on this week's Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, but nonetheless there may have been 300,000 spectators for some 6,000 marchers and their 130 floats. Some floats represented an anti-war protest seeking to replace fascism with what their creators called "Fashionism" -- offering suggestions to the political leaders of the U.S., Britain and Australia for "Botox for Bush, new hair for Blair, and liposuction for [Howard]". The lesbian cousin of Australia's hard-line Catholic leader Archbishop George Pell, Monica Hingston, served as chief-of-parade with her long-time partner Peg Moran. But while reports differed widely on just how many people braved the downpour for the event, there were professional actuaries carefully tracking progress on another parade goal: breaking the world record for mass dance performance to the Village People classic "YMCA". To help more than double the existing record of 13,588 to a hoped-for 35,000, the parade even provided "YMCA marshals" to teach wannabes how to properly perform the time-honored gestures.