NewsWrap for the week ending November 20, 2004 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #869, distributed 11-22-04) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Rick Watts [Please note: There will be no "NewsWrap" segment on next week's program.] Legal registered partnerships carrying some marital benefits will be available in about a year for gay and lesbian couples in the U.K., following this week's enactment of the Government's Civil Partnerships Bill. It was quickly granted royal assent after winning final approval in the House of Lords. The turning point was the Lords' rejection by almost two-to-one of an amendment to open civil partnerships to cohabiting adult blood relatives. In June 53% of the Lords had supported a similar so-called "spinster sisters" amendment, but last week the House of Commons turned it down by six-to-one. Britain's gay and lesbian advocacy group Stonewall hailed the enactment as "historic". Its chief executive Ben Summerskill said in a statement, "Finally, the House of Lords has recognized that Britain is a tolerant 21st century nation. We're delighted that the House of Lords has rebuffed those peers who indulged in offensive sneering at Britain's gay and lesbian population. For the first time, the front benches of all three major political parties have backed equality for gay people. That represents a hugely positive change." Britain's first-ever legal recognition of same-gender couples includes standing similar to married couples in areas including property and tenancy; social security, pensions, life insurance, and employment benefits; and hospital visitation. Registered partners will be legally responsible to provide maintenance for their partners and their partner's children, and can become a legal parent to those children. The delay in the implementation of the new law is to allow for related administrative and legislative changes, including the extension of marital tax benefits to registered partnerships that's expected in the next budget bill. Full equality for state pensions won't become effective until 2010, when other reforms to that system become operative. The new law applies in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scotland's Government has indicated it will fast-track adoption of the same legislation there. The European branch of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, expressed a hope that the UK move will be a positive influence on other nations now debating similar partnerships, including Spain, Hungary and Ireland. Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern joined that debate in a television interview this week, and now all five of the nation's parliamentary political parties' responses appear to support some legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples. The issue has been highlighted by an Irish lesbian couple's lawsuit for recognition of their Canadian marriage by tax authorities. Ahern admitted that marriage equality in largely Catholic Ireland is "a long way off," but affirmed his support for fair treatment for same-gender couples. A parliamentary committee has begun a two-year review of Ireland's family law towards major reforms, including possible redefinition of the terms "spouse" and "couple" in the social welfare code. Meanwhile, openly gay independent Senator David Norris is drafting a private members bill to create civil partnerships. Even the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, seems supportive of legal recognition for unmarried couples in caring relationships, telling the "Irish Independent" newspaper that, "I have a wide range of relationships in mind, I do not exclude gay relationships but my main concern is with all relationships where dependencies have come into being." The European Union will finally have its new executive team in office in the coming week, ending a crisis precipitated by Italy's original nominee, a Catholic apologist with extremely conservative views on marriage. By law, the new European Commissioners should have begun their five-year terms on October 1st. But incoming Commission President José Barroso was forced to withdraw the slate as the European Parliament was prepared to reject it. Key to that constitutional crisis was the plan for Rocco Buttiglione to serve as Justice Commissioner, when the parliamentary committee vetting him had found him unqualified for the job. One important concern at the prospect of Buttiglione as Europe's chief defender of human rights was his past attempt to remove "sexual orientation" as a category protected from discrimination under European law. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was ultimately forced to replace Buttiglione, and his new choice was his Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Frattini's testimony this week before the same parliamentary committee strongly supported recognition throughout the European Union for the same-gender couples who marry in two member nations or legally register their relationships in nine others. He promised to take a proactive stance in defending their basic right to freedom of movement, including drafting additional legislation if necessary. The committee had no trouble endorsing his nomination to the Justice portfolio. With the substitution of Frattini and some other changes in the lineup, the full European Parliament went on to confirm the new Commission -- something which had always been rather routine until the Buttiglione controversy. Norway was the second nation in the world to create legal partnerships for gay and lesbian couples, but it seems it's not ready to become the third to open marriage to them. This week the Norwegian parliament declined to amend the existing marriage law to make its language "gender-neutral". That may get some further consideration in the coming year. The greatest difference between marriage and registered partnership in Norway is the ability to adopt children as a couple. A poll reported last week found Norwegians split on the question of equal adoption rights with a little more than 43% on each side. An Israeli appellate court has issued a precedent-setting decision recognizing a gay man's right to inherit from his long-time partner, even though that nation offers no means to formalize same-gender relationships. The 77-year-old plaintiff "A.M." was seeking ownership of the home he'd shared with his late partner "S.R." for most of 40 years. "S.R.," who died in 2000, left no will and had no blood relations, so it was the government that stood to take over their apartment. A lower court had rejected "A.M.'s" application on the grounds that the 1965 Inheritance Law recognizes only "a man and a woman who live a family life in a joint household, yet who are not married to each other." But the Nazareth District Court this week ruled two-to-one that as long as the deceased had not willed the property to anyone else, it rightfully belonged to "A.M.". The majority believed the intent of the Inheritance Law was to help couples who could not marry under religious law, and so should include same-gender couples. The ruling also cited the landmark 1994 decision of the Israeli High Court that gay and lesbian partners should receive the same employment benefits as common-law heterosexual partners. A second Anglican synod in Canada has approved church weddings for gay and lesbian couples -- less than a month after the global Anglican communion called for a moratorium on those ceremonies. A large majority of Anglican bishops worldwide maintain that homosexual acts are sinful and that same-gender relationships should not be blessed by clergy or in churches. Last year's agreement by the Vancouver-area New Westminster diocese and its Bishop Michael Ingham to allow the weddings triggered deep division in the global church -- and that was exacerbated when U.S. Anglicans consecrated openly partnered gay Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire. Last month, an international commission to respond to the split on gay and lesbian issues, appointed by the world church's "first among equals" the Archbishop of Canterbury, criticized New Westminster and urged others not to follow its lead. The Canada-wide Anglican synod also voted this year to delay action on the weddings, while affirming the value of gay and lesbian relationships. Yet this week the synod of the Niagara diocese in the province of Ontario greenlighted church blessings for same-gender couples who marry legally, by a two-thirds majority. The successful motion included a requirement that congregations wishing to hold the ceremonies first apply to their bishop to be approved as a "blessing community". But Bishop of Niagara Ralph Spence won't be giving that approval or even consenting to the motion. He told the synod delegates, "I am inwardly torn. I would have personally voted with those in the majority... I grieve with the gay and lesbian community. I am close to them and understand what my actions mean to them. However, I am the bishop of this entire diocese with a responsibility to the wider church." He overruled the motion, while promising it would be reconsidered next year. Meanwhile, one New Westminster parish -- Saint Hilda's Anglican Church in Sechelt -- voted more than thirteen-to-one to go ahead with blessing same-gender couples. Bishop Ingham confirmed his diocese will continue the practice at least until its next synod, about six months from now. And finally... November 20th marks the Sixth Annual Day of Remembrance of transgender victims of hate murders. Memorial observances are scheduled in more than one hundred cities in at least eight countries -- Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, Scotland, New Zealand, and the U.S. Many sexual minority Web sites are being blacked out in observance. In the past twelve months at least twenty-one transgenders were murdered, a dozen in the U.S. and Puerto Rico alone. In the U.S. only one anti-trans murder is known to have been prosecuted as a hate crime this year -- the very high-profile San Francisco Bay area slaying of Gwen Araujo in 2002. The most recent, beaten to death in Southern California in early November, has yet to be identified. The Remembering Our Dead Project, founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, has documented over three hundred anti-trans murders since 1970 and identifies one, two, or three new killings each month. Still more such deaths never reach news media. Each death represents many other serious hate attacks against transpeople, who often have reason to fear reporting the assaults to legal authorities. For more information, visit www.RememberingOurDead.org.