NewsWrap for the week ending March 12, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #885, distributed 3-14-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, Martin Rice, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Cindy Friedman Although Canada's ruling Liberal Party has been working hard to enact national marriage equality legislation this session, this week marked the first time that the party itself has endorsed it. The party's national policy convention overwhelmingly approved a resolution despite having rejected similar proposals at three previous meetings. All those resolutions were proposed by the party's youth group. The Young Liberals played on former U.S. President Bill Clinton's mantra with a slogan referring to Canada's bill of rights, distributing buttons reading, "It's the Charter, stupid." The religious right Defense of Marriage Coalition immediately responded to the Liberals convention with a media campaign highlighting some Cabinet members' past opposition to opening marriage to same-gender couples. But four Israeli gay couples didn't wait for Canadian federal action, traveling to Toronto to marry this week. Court rulings have already established marriage equality there and in most of Canada's regional jurisdictions. Israel restricts marriage to couples who meet the standards of Orthodox Judaism, a requirement that excludes a number of heterosexual couples as well as gays and lesbians. The four couples, led by Tel Aviv's first openly gay City Councilmember Etai Pinkus and his partner of five years, are prepared to wage a long battle in Israel's courts to win legal registration of their Canadian marriages back home. Israeli courts have already extended equality to same-gender couples for a number of specific purposes, and some cases relating to marriage are already in progress. Those Israeli couples could have married closer to home in the Netherlands, which pioneered marriage equality four years ago. This week in the Netherlands, three Parliamentary parties unveiled a bill to remove the last difference between heterosexual and same-gender marriages: the right to adopt a child from outside the country. Very few children in the Netherlands are available for adoption by non-relatives, but most of the nations with many children needing homes object to adoptions by same-gender couples, and the Netherlands hoped to avoid international strife. The coalition bringing the new bill, along with two other parties expected to support it, reportedly represent a parliamentary majority. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said his Government is willing to change the law if even one other nation would cooperate, but said that condition has yet to be met. Some partnered gays and lesbians in the Netherlands have already adopted foreign-born children as individuals. But that approach has created some legal problems, particularly regarding inheritance. And as the Netherlands' first gay couple to marry, Jos and Jarko de Witte van Leeuwen, said at the bill's presentation, "We are a family, and we want to adopt as a family. We want to do this openly as gay parents." The proposed legislation would also make it automatic that lesbians have parental status for children borne by their partners during their marriage. Currently those non-biological co-parents must formally adopt those children. The Netherlands' same-gender marriages have lately been controversial in one of its own dependencies, the Caribbean island of Aruba. After Aruba refused to recognize the marriage of a Netherlands lesbian couple, the Netherlands sent a Parliamentary delegation including the Deputy Prime Minister to discuss the issue. But last week Aruba's own Advisory Council announced that its legal review found no requirement for the island to register the Netherlands' same-gender marriages, and also that no statutory claims could be made for those marriages since they could not be contracted in Aruba itself. On the other hand, the Advisory Council affirmed that gay and lesbian couples married in the Netherlands bear the responsibilities of marriage and its civil consequences regardless of where they live. The Advisory Council recommended a so-called "free noting" of the marriages in the Aruban registry. While that would not give couples such advantages of marriage as tax breaks or benefits from the Aruban government, it would among other things necessitate dissolution of the Netherlands marriage before an Aruban remarriage. Aruban judges could perform those divorces even though they cannot marry same-gender couples. Divorce, though rarely in the foreground of the movement for marriage equality, is an important right. Brazil saw its first legal same-gender divorce late last month, as a family court judge dissolved one of the state of Rio Grande do Sol's registered partnerships. Government attorneys tried to block the move on the grounds that it would imply there had been a legal marriage, but Judge Roberto Arriada Lorea said, "[T]o assign a differential treatment to homosexuals would be dis respectful to the principle of equality." In the Netherlands, same-gender marriages have come to be about 8% of all marriages performed there, and their divorce rate also runs between 7 and 8% in government statistics. Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to open marriage to same-gender couples about a year ago, and some of those couples began applying to divorce about six months later. Due to differences in record-keeping among the state's counties, exact figures are not available. Canadian couples are still awaiting an overhaul of the federal divorce laws, although an Ontario provincial court struck down hetero-exclusive language to approve the first divorce of a same-gender couple in September, 15 months after the couple contracted one of the first legal marriages there. Last month the Ontario legislature approved an omnibus bill to make the language in all provincial statutes inclusive of same-gender couples. The irony of being able to marry but not divorce in most of Canada is heightened by contrast with the U.S. state of California, where this year's upgrade of the state's registered partnerships gave gay and lesbian couples the right to divorce -- or at least the full-scale legal equivalent of it -- even though they cannot marry there. In the U.S. this week, two state legislatures moved to exclude gays and lesbians from marriage. A proposed amendment to Alabama's state constitution will go to the voters in June 2006 after winning final approval this week from 92% of the House of Representatives and 100% of the Senate. A bill to amend New Mexico's marriage law to specifically define the contract as "between a man and a woman" this week won support from two-thirds of the state Senate after more than two hours of emotional debate. While none of the Senate Republicans opposed the measure, 40% of the Democrats approved it. This bill moves next to the state House, but a measure to create registered partnerships is stalled in a Senate committee. However, two civil rights bills have passed floor votes in Hawai'i. This week the state House gave 88% approval to protections from housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while previously the House unanimously approved protections from employment discrimination based on gender identity and expression. Neither has yet reached the Senate floor. In Greece, legal recognition of same-gender partnerships has won an endorsement from a quasi-governmental advisory group. The National Commission for Human Rights called late last month for creation of legal same-gender partnerships with some of the benefits of marriage. The Commission's recommendations carry some weight but are not binding on the Justice Ministry. The powerful Greek Orthodox Church has vigorously opposed legislative advances towards lesbigay equality, but the Commission emphasized it was concerned only with civil matters, not religious ones. There've been a number of widely reported scandals recently within the Greek Orthodox Church, including what's been called "rampant homosexuality" among its senior clergy, who take vows of celibacy. Norway's state church will be effectively headed by an anti-gay conservative following a vote this week by a sharply divided parliament. Ole Christian Kvarme was approved to serve as the Lutheran bishop of Oslo only after a heated debate in which some opponents called for members to quit their church in protest. There was even division within the Government of Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik -- himself a Lutheran minister -- as openly gay Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss was joined by another Cabinet member in opposing Kvarme's appointment. Kvarme was the choice of the church's leading bishops, who have staunchly maintained that anyone in a Norwegian registered partnership cannot serve as a pastor. That's despite the fact that those partnerships are nearly identical to marriage and that employees of the government-funded church are civil servants. Kvarme replaces retiring Bishop Gunnar Saalsett, whose views are much more liberal. Also appointing a new leader this week was the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbigay and trans political group in the U.S. Beginning next month, HRC's new President is Joe Solmonese, who has long worked with EMILY's List, a political action committee raising funds for pro-choice women candidates for public office. HRC has been under interim leadership since the resignation of Cheryl Jacques after less than a year in the wake of U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election in November. And finally... a recent attempt to purchase a team jersey from the U.S. National Football League's Web site was rejected because the buyer wanted it to bear the name of the Super Bowl champion Patriots' defensive back Randall Gay. He's not the first NFL player with that name, but the server refused to take the order, responding with the message, "This field should not contain a naughty word." A gay man whose own last name is also Gay had a similar experience, with the added insult that he was not allowed to enter the word in the online complaint form. Last week an NFL spokesperson announced that the situation would be corrected and the Gay jersey would soon be available. At last report, though, all that had changed was the Web site's message, now reading, "The personalization entered cannot be accepted. "The Outsports Web site obtained a list of 1,100 words banned by the NFL, which also includes "Jesus Christ".