NewsWrap for the week ending March 26, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #887, distributed 3-28-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Cindy Friedman Religious struggles over the status of gays and lesbians made headlines this week for two of Scotland's major churches. Roman Catholic schools in Scotland are everyone's business because they receive government funds. So a bishop's claim that gays and lesbians could not teach in them drew a firestorm of criticism from both inside and outside the Church this week. Bishop Joseph Devine, the president of Scotland's Catholic Education Service, told the "Herald" newspaper that for open gays or lesbians to serve as teachers would be incompatible with the Charter for Catholic Schools, the Service's 10-point mission statement. He said openly gay teachers "would cut across the whole moral vision enshrined in the charter and it would be offering a lifestyle that is incompatible with Catholic social teaching." He said he could appreciate the fears of parents who didn't want their children to have gay teachers, while admitting that some gays and lesbians may have already been hired as teachers due to inadequate background checks. He said the Charter would "tighten up" that process, and would limit the promotion opportunities for those teachers. Actually that Charter does not include such specifics, saying only that all staff are "expected to support and promote the aims, missions, values and ethos of the schools." And in fact one of those to contest Bishop Devine's claims was the Catholic Education Service's director, Michael McGrath. He told the "Times" newspaper that he is comfortable with gays and lesbians teaching in Catholic schools, and said the Church "has no interest in the sexual orientation of any teacher and it is not an issue of relevance to the Church." Politicians of all stripes and at all levels also rejected Bishop Devine's claims, all the way up to Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell. Scotland's Equal Opportunities Commission, Disability Rights Commission and Commission for Racial Equality wrote jointly to the "Herald" that the bishop's plan to discriminate is not only illegal but would reinforce "stereotypes and attitudes that are the driving force for continued discrimination and prejudice." And just when leaders of the global Anglican communion thought they'd achieved a cease-fire in its growing schism over ordination of openly partnered gays and lesbians and church blessings for same-gender couples, the College of Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church has taken a public stand supporting both. Although their statement has been on their Web site for at least three weeks -- having been posted in response to a meeting of the world's Anglican archbishops to discuss the crisis -- it somehow escaped media notice until this week. In what the Scottish primate Bishop Bruce Aberdeen, described as a statement of the bishops' "present position" rather than any new or formal policy, Scotland's seven Anglican bishops said they had "never regarded the fact that someone was in a close relationship with a member of the same sex as in itself constituting a bar to the exercise of an ordained ministry." They believe that a stable, long-term homosexual relationship is not a barrier to service as a priest. They added that Scotland's clergy had sometimes blessed same-gender couples. And they ended with a statement that they "rejoice in both" the presence in the church of "persons of homosexual orientation" and "those whose theology and stance would be critical of attitudes to sexuality other than abstinence outside of marriage." The February archbishops' meeting had concluded with their unanimously requesting withdrawal from an important global council by both the Episcopal Church USA for its consecration of openly partnered gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and by the Anglican Church of Canada for church weddings of gay and lesbian couples by the New Westminster diocese. The Scottish bishops' statement said they regretted the archbishops' decision. As Hungary's Government develops its plan to create registered partnerships for same-gender couples, two interesting developments have arisen. The Christian Democratic People's Party claimed this week it had gathered more than 600 signatures on its petition to amend the constitution to state that, "marriage [is] the lasting matrimony of a man and a woman and to deny gays and lesbians the right of adoption and artificial insemination." That so-called Charter on Family Protection also says, "We demand that the state should confine public homosexuality within limits. It should not expose society to dangers and set a bad example for young people." Signatories are said to include a number of Members of Parliament. But earlier in March a high-profile former MP, who's now a manager and spokesperson for the Free Democratic Party, Klara Ungár, identified herself as a lesbian on a TV talk show. Ungár said, "It is simpler for me to say that I am homosexual rather than having others saying this to me." The gay civil rights group Háttér says she had already publicly come out in 2001, one of only two Hungarian notables ever to have done so. Ungár may have been responding in part to an "outing" threat on another TV talk show a couple of days earlier. Drag artist Terry Black claimed to have a list of 15 current and 16 former Hungarian MPs and one Member of the European Parliament who are gays and lesbians. He threatened to publish it unless Christian Democrats leader Zsolt Semjén stood down as deputy chair of the parliament's committee on human rights. Semjén himself had also made insulting remarks about homosexuality and the Free Democrats. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin this week appointed lesbian feminist activist Nancy Roth to the national Senate. She's identified there as a Progressive Conservative, although in the House of Commons that party merged with the right-wing Alliance to form a different Conservative Party. And it's that party that's endorsed a resolution to define marriage exclusively as between one man and one woman by a three-to-one margin at its national convention. The minority included a number of the former Progressive Conservatives who strenuously defended equality. Despite that Tory opposition, the ruling Liberal Party's federal bill to open marriage to same-gender couples is expected to be enacted this session, and the courts have already made that a reality in most provinces. Last week one of the staunchest opponents of marriage equality, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, admitted defeat. He told the "Edmonton Sun" that having tried every legal tactic to stop it, once the federal law is in place, Alberta "will have to abide by the law of the land." The Netherlands Parliament this week approved a Government bill to require most prospective immigrants to pass a test on Dutch language and culture. But the video the Immigration Department had put together to help those would-be immigrants prepare for the test has undergone a few edits, including a scene of gay men kissing. Although the deleted scenes were considered to represent some of the realities of public life in the Netherlands, the Foreign Ministry warned that showing them would be a criminal act in at least seven Islamic nations -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. The unedited version will still be available for viewing inside the Netherlands' embassies, and the test itself will still include a question about the nation's legal same-gender marriages. A planned benefit concert in Singapore by a gay male couple was believed by its planners to promote AIDS prevention through fidelity, but the government Media Development Authority rejected their permit request on the grounds it would promote homosexuality instead. The MDA's denial said of Los Angeles-based gay Christian rock act Jason and deMarco, "Based on the duo's Web site and reports of their performances in the United States, it is assessed that their performance will promote a gay lifestyle which would be against the public interest." Concert organizer Safehaven insists the event was not "pitched" as a gay concert, but as a means to both raise public awareness of HIV transmission and raise funds for AIDS research. Safehaven has appealed the MDA's decision to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, and continues preparations in hopes of a reversal. About one third of the record number of new infections identified in Singapore last year were among gay men, and some health officials have blamed that on big parties. Safehaven believes that seeing a couple who'd been sexually exclusive for five years would encourage gay men at the concert to take a "responsible attitude" towards sex and so have an "important public health impact". And finally... once again a gay cruise has been denied entry to a Caribbean nation. The Windjammer Barefoot Cruise with more than 100 mostly U.S. passengers on the "S.V. Polynesia" was barred from the two-island nation of Saint Kitts & Nevis this week. The schooner had stopped earlier at Saint Maarten and Anguilla with no problems. The Saint Kitts Tourism Authority said gay cruises had visited in the past without incident despite the nation's sodomy laws. So why did police intercept the "Polynesia" before it reached the Nevis port of Charleston? The national government insists that it's not because the passengers were gay -- it's because they're nudists, or as they often prefer to be labeled, naturists. When police boarded, they found most of the men naked, and while the captain offered some assurances, he could not guarantee that the tourists would stay clothed once ashore. While authorities say there was no issue on the boat, public nudity is illegal in these islands. Nevis Tourism Minister Malcolm Guishard declared, "If this ship had been chartered by a heterosexual clothing-optional group, our decision would have been exactly the same." The government buttresses its decision with the claim that customs officials found naked men not just on the decks but on the gangway.