NewsWrap for the week ending March 19, 2005
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #886, distributed 3-21-05)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon]
 
Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupr
 
New Zealand's new "civil unions" for same-gender couples cleared their last legislative hurdle this week.  Although those unions were created by a bill passed late last year, it was a companion measure that actually changed a host of existing laws to give them legal standing equivalent to marriage.  The Parliament gave final approval to that Relationships (Statutory References) Bill by a majority of about two-thirds, representing cross-party support by Members free to vote their consciences.  That bill also provides for similar status for most purposes for cohabiting partners who have not registered a marriage or civil union, but their situation is muddied by the absence of a clear definition of those so-called "de facto" relationships. Speaking for the Labour Government, Associate Justice Minister David Benson-Pope declared, "There is no place in New Zealand society for this kind of discrimination.  These bills were always about justice and fairness and Parliament was right to back them." Openly gay Labour MP Tim Barnett, who shepherded the bill, said, "Finally we are following the rules we set a generation ago.  In passing the Civil Union Act and now this Relationships Bill, we are playing catch-up with the rest of society."   Britain's Labor Government also acted this week to put some teeth into its own newly enacted "civil partnerships".  The budget presented this week includes an assortment of changes to the tax rules to put civil partnerships on the same footing as marriages.  These include marital breaks from capital gains and inheritance taxes for asset transfers, gifts, and bequests from one partner to the other, for pensions, and for division of property on dissolution.  For some couples the change could mean an added tax burden, if they maintain more than one residence or have substantial assets outside the country.  And while the national lesbigay advocacy group Stonewall hailed the move toward equal treatment, it comes at a time when marriage has already been stripped of most of its tax benefits.   Remarkably, the Roman Catholic Church in South Australia voiced support this week for a state Government bill to legally recognize same-gender couples in areas including property, inheritance, pensions, and healthcare.  Archbishop Philip Wilson testified before a state Parliamentary committee in favor of that Statute Amendment (Relationships) Bill, in order "that people can be properly protected in their rights."  He said, "We clearly regard marriage as being a unique type of relationship... but at the same time we recognize the fact that there are people in society who live in other kinds of relationships... It seems to me that it's possible to [give same-sex couples rights] by defining the terms clearly and making sure ... we don't use ambiguous terms in the legislation."  Towards that end, he proposed replacing the bill's "domestic partner" terminology with "spouse" for married partners and "de facto" for other couples.  That language change is agreeable to the state lesbigay group Let's Get Equal, which hopes it will clear the way for rapid passage. Archbishop Wilson later told ABC Radio: {sound} "… they have to recognize the realty of relaationships, that we're saying that the categories that we're suggesting are better ways of doing that rather than using the category of domestic partner, which is the one which is being presented in the bill… Thee Catholic Church believes that people who are in these other sorts of relationships, whether gay or lesbian couples, or people who are in domestic partnerships, or partners living in a de facto relationship, have to be protected by the law of the State." Archbishop Wilson's move is surprising since the Vatican has taken very strong positions opposing not only marriage equality but any marriage-like standing for non-marital relationships.   Anglican bishops of the Episcopal Church USA agreed unanimously this week to hold off until at least mid-2006 from authorizing any public blessings for same-gender couples or consecrating new bishops.  They said that moratorium will continue "until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges".  This was the U.S. branch's strongest gesture yet toward healing its relations with the global communion, since it made openly partnered gay Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire.  They were following a recommendation of the world church's so-called Windsor Report and of a meeting of its primates, which had chastised the Americans for violating generally accepted church rules.  Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the church's "first among equals", welcomed the U.S. move.  But Williams this week opted out of a visit to Canada, whose Anglicans have been criticized along with the Episcopalians for one diocese's decision to bless gay and lesbian couples.  The Canadian church has not yet held a meeting that could respond to the primates, but it's believed that Williams does not wish to be seen as taking sides in the growing schism.   In Israel there was another great leap forward in the civil status of same-gender couples this week as Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz ordered payment of government survivor benefits to a gay widower.  The National Insurance Institute had previously denied Giora Raz' claim for the retirement pension of his late partner of 23 years Ya'acov Lisboder.  Raz had quit his own job in 2002 to care for Lisboder, a terminal cancer victim.  The Institute went by the letter of the law, which uses gender-specific language.  As Raz appealed its ruling to a labor court in Tel Aviv, Mazuz intervened with his official opinion that, "The purpose of the law is to protect against economic want, not to strengthen marital bonds.  That is the reason the benefits are also paid to the survivors of common-law relationships.  Therefore, the difference between same-sex and common-law couples is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned, since the survivor of a same-sex couple may also find himself [or herself]** in a situation of significant economic want, compared to the situation he or she was in when his [or her] partner was alive."  The national lesbigay group Association for Civil Rights in Israel believes Mazuz' opinion also serves to open a range of other social benefits to same-gender couples, including work accident insurance, disability pensions and child birth allowances.   In Saudi Arabia this week, what authorities believe was a gay wedding resulted in mass arrests.  A tipster called the security forces to report that at a Jeddah venue used for weddings an all-male party was dancing and "behaving like women".  110 men were arrested, and while most were later released, 30 were formally charged in court.  Homosexual acts are criminal under Saudi Arabia's Islamic Sharia law, and can result in the death penalty.  The men arrested this week were all Saudis, unlike the widely reported raid last year in Medina in which some of the 50 men arrested at what authorities believed was a gay wedding were from Chad. Also in Saudi Arabia this week, a gay male couple were publicly beheaded in Arar for murdering a Pakistani man who they feared would expose their relationship.   A California judge this week ruled that denying marriage to same-gender couples violates equality guarantees in the state constitution.  The decision will be appealed, but it sparked celebrations around the state and reactions across the U.S.   The case before the court, known as Woo et al versus Lockyer, is a consolidation of several lawsuits challenging the state's restriction of marriage to "a man and a woman" in the wake of San Francisco's licensing of some 4,000 gay and lesbian marriages a year ago.  It was brought by Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a number of couples denied marriage licenses and two lesbigay groups, the Our Families Coalition and Equality California.   San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer concluded that, "No rational basis exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," striking down the current family law.    To the state's argument on grounds of tradition, Kramer responded, "Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before."    To the argument that marriage is primarily for producing children, Kramer called it an "obvious natural and social reality that one does not have to be married to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married."   And for those who fear that marriage equality for same-gender couples would open the door to legal standing for any conceivable relationship, Kramer wrote that the state could still legitimately regulate marriage and so "[T]he parade of horrible social ills envisioned by the opponents of same-sex marriage is not a necessary result from recognizing that there is a fundamental right to choose who one wants to marry."   To the argument that the state's registered domestic partnerships already bring same-gender couples most of the legal status of marriage, Kramer responded, "The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal."  It seemed to him that in fact the state's willingness to go so far in recognizing same-gender couples actually "cuts against the existence of a rational government interest for denying marriage to same-gender couples."   And finally... the lawsuit for equal marriage rights in California made reference to past racial segregation.  That analogy was carried a step further by one plaintiff in a similar California case -- lesbian comic, producer and veteran activist Robin Tyler.  In a recent interview with the "Washington Blade" she said, "We want marriage.  That's the front of the bus.  The Democrats want to give us civil unions.  That's the back of the bus.  The Republicans want to give us nothing.  That's off the bus.  And the far right wants us under the bus."