NewsWrap for the week ending August 28, 2004 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #857, distributed 8-30-04) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Rick Watts As the U.S. geared up for the Republican National Convention this week, there was controversy over same-gender marriage on two fronts. The 110-member national platform committee easily agreed to a paragraph entitled "Protecting Marriage," which supports amending the U.S. Constitution to recognize only heterosexual marriages. It also states that "neither federal nor state judges and bureaucrats should force states to recognize other living arrangements as equivalent to marriage" and that "the legal recognition and accompanying benefits should be preserved" for heterosexual marriages. The same committee rejected a proposal from the gay and lesbian Log Cabin Republicans and other more liberal groups within the party, entitled the "Party Unity Plank," which stated, "We recognize and respect that Republicans of good faith may not agree with all the planks in the party's platform. This is particularly the case with regards to those planks dealing with abortion, family planning, and gay and lesbian issues." The non-binding party platform will be voted on by all the delegates at the convention in the coming week. Republican division on the marriage issue was highlighted more dramatically this week as Vice President Dick Cheney publicly differed from President George W. Bush's position. At an Iowa campaign stop, an audience member asked Cheney to say "from his heart" what he thinks of "homosexual marriages". Cheney responded with a rare public acknowledgement of the lesbian orientation of his long-partnered daughter Mary, who was backstage at the time, saying, "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with." He referred to his remarks in the 2000 campaign that "that's appropriately a matter for the states to decide." He went on to say that "The President makes basic policy for the administration. And he's made it clear that he does, in fact, support a constitutional amendment on this issue. But at this point my own preference is as I stated." The religious right was shocked at Cheney's apparent opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment, and harshly criticized him. Gay and lesbian groups quickly seized on it: the national Human Rights Campaign created a TV spot based on Cheney's remarks: {:30 TV spot audio track plays:} Voiceover: A Father Speaks Vice President Cheney: Lynne and I have a gay daughter. We have two daughters and we have enormous pride in both of them. Voiceover: The vice president spoke out against the Federal Marriage Amendment. Vice President Cheney: That’s appropriately a matter for the states to decide — that’s how it ought to best be handled. Voiceover: He spoke from the heart for millions of parents. Vice President Cheney: My general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relatiionship they want to. Voiceover: Freedom is for everyone. Discrimination is wrong. What if it was your child, Mr. President? Democratic Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards caustically told a campaign forum that, "the Vice President disagrees with the President on this. ... Somebody forgot to tell him what he was supposed to say, I guess." That's despite the fact that neither Edwards nor his running mate John Kerry support equal marriage rights, so their own opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment basically puts them in agreement with Cheney's position. In fact, Kerry has supported the move to amend the constitution in his own state of Massachusetts to end marriage equality there -- although he was also one of a handful of U.S. Senators to vote against the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act. Congressmember from California Mary Bono has decided to skip her party's national convention, partly as a protest of the party's position against marriage equality on behalf of her heavily gay Palm Springs area constituency. Also absent will be openly gay Republican Washington, D.C. City Councilmember David Catania. Although he'd been selected as a delegate in February, he was stripped of his credential by the local party organization in May after publicly declaring his opposition to Bush's re-election. He'd already raised tens of thousands of dollars for Bush's re-election campaign when the President first called for the Federal Marriage Amendment and thereby lost Catania's support. In the 2000 campaign, Catania had been a member of the so-called "Austin 12," a hand-picked group of gay Republicans who met with Bush after the Log Cabin Republicans had begun actively opposing his candidacy. In New Zealand, parliamentary hearings on the Government's Civil Union Bill have sparked large demonstrations. One opposition campaign called "Enough Is Enough," led by the Maori church group Destiny New Zealand, began with a march and rally of nearly 1,000 in Auckland in early August and peaked with a march of 5,000-to-7,500 to the Parliament in Wellington this week. That's one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen on the Parliament grounds. Some 1,500-to-2,000 civil union supporters were already demonstrating outside Parliament when the opposition march arrived. Prime Minister Helen Clark had issued a call for calm and no violence was reported. But transsexual Member of Parliament Georgina Beyer and Associate Justice Minister David Benson-Pope were only two of many by-standers who were reminded of Nazi Germany by Destiny's black clothes and impassioned rhetoric. The Justice and Electoral Law Select Committee is in the process of hearing 46 of more than 2,000 submissions on the legislation designed to end discrimination based on marital status and sexual orientation, which has already passed its first vote. Among those testifying this week was openly lesbian former MP Marilyn Waring, who criticized the Government's move for falling short of full marriage equality. A South African lesbian couple's lawsuit to open marriage to same-gender couples reached the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein this week. Marie Fourie and Cecelia Bonthuys were appealing a decision by the Pretoria High Court last year that rejected their bid for legal recognition. Their attorney argued that South Africa's one man-one woman common-law definition of marriage excludes gay and lesbian couples from rights and privileges open to heterosexuals, violating Constitutional guarantees of equal treatment. The court has not yet announced when it will hand down a judgment. Canada will have two new justices with gay-supportive track records when the national Supreme Court reviews the federal Government's questions on marriage equality in October. This week Prime Minister Paul Martin nominated Justices Louise Charron and Rosalie Abella to fill vacancies on the high court. Both currently sit on the Ontario Court of Appeal, the body which was the first in Canada to open legal marriage to same-gender couples. Each is considered a strong advocate for the equality guarantees of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The nominees are the first ever to go through something of a public review process, as an advisory panel was allowed to question the Justice Minister. That panel gave its approval this week, although representatives from the Opposition Conservative Party refused to sign off. However, Canadian law gives the power to install the justices entirely to the Prime Minister, who is expected to take the final step shortly. Legal recognition of a relationship isn't always advantageous, a Brazilian lesbian couple has learned. In mid-August, an election judge denied the partner of the current Mayor of Vizeu the chance to run for the same post in October. The decision was based on a national law prohibiting one spouse from succeeding the other as mayor, and the judge wrote that, "The rejected candidate and the incumbent mayor have been having a year-long relationship based on love, mutual respect and support and comparable to that normally existing between married heterosexual couples. Therefore they are subject to the same election regulations as are heterosexual spouses." What the judge did not discuss was that there is only limited legal recognition of same-gender partners available only in certain locales in Brazil. Vizeu is a town of nearly 50,000 in the state of Para. The law prohibits Mayor Astrid Maria da Cunha from seeking a third term herself despite her popularity, but her partner Eulina Rabelo Fernandes had been leading the polls before the judge ended her candidacy, ANSA reported. The small contingent of openly gay and lesbian competitors at the Athens Olympics added two more medals this week to the three silvers they won last week. Openly lesbian fencer Imke Duplitzer shared silver for the German women's team epee. The U.S. equestrian team that took bronze in dressage included open gays Guenther Seidel and Robert Dover, the team captain. And finally... The Australian Government's bill to deny legal recognition to same-gender marriage is drawing a variety of protests: demonstrations, advertisements, legal action, and calls for the Governor-General to deny royal assent to the bill that both houses of the federal legislature have approved. But one protest is more unusual: a group has claimed a previously uninhabited Australian territory and is trying to secede from the nation to become the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands. They actually sent their declaration of independence to the Prime Minister and the Governor-General in mid-June, as part of Brisbane's pride celebration. The Australian Government has said it won't recognize the secession, but the Kingdom intends to pursue further legal action to establish its independence. Emperor Dale Anderson believes gays and lesbians have a right to "territorial compensation" for the government's "unjust enrichment" through discrimination. The Kingdom essentially consists of the three square kilometers of Cato Island. There's no harbor there at the end of the six-hour boatride from the Queensland coast. But the Kingdom already has its national flag -- the rainbow flag -- and coat-of-arms -- the pink triangle... and plans to print "camp postage stamps" and literal "pink dollars".