NewsWrap for the week ending April 2, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #888, distributed 4-4-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Rick Watts The U.S. state of Maine has added "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as categories protected from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education, and public accommodations under the state's Human Rights Act. Governor John Baldacci signed the bill into law this week following its final approval by a five-to-two margin in the state Senate. With that vote the Senate accepted a House language change specifying that the bill did not establish equal marriage rights for same-gender couples. More than 60% of the House approved the bill. Yet it may be premature for supporters to applaud Maine as the 16th U.S. state to protect the civil rights of lesbigays and the sixth to protect transgenders, because voters there repealed a similar law in 1997. That was one of three statewide ballot measures Maine voters have decided -- in 1995, they rejected an initiative to block the addition of any new categories to the civil rights law, but in 2000 they also rejected Equality Maine's initiative to enact civil rights protections for lesbigays. The group that led the opposition to lesbigay interests in those campaigns -- the Christian Civic League of Maine -- is gearing up now to collect signatures for an initiative to repeal the new civil rights law. The group needs to submit more than 50,000 signatures by late June for the so-called "people's veto" measure to appear on November ballots. Should they miss their deadline, the new law will go into effect at the end of June, but a successful petition would delay the law's effect pending the outcome of the public vote. Even in the current legislature an amendment was proposed to hold a referendum on the civil rights measure, but it was defeated by 63% of the Senate and a scant two vote margin in the House. The next U.S. state to bar sexual orientation discrimination might be Delaware, where the state House last week approved a bill with a 55% majority. Similar measures were passed by the Delaware House in 2001 and 2003 but never reached the Senate floor. While there's no guarantee it will fare any better in the Senate, the current bill has been tailored to meet past Senate objections by its sponsor, Republican Representative William Oberle. For instance, it features a clause affirming the state's ban on same-gender marriages. Proposed state constitutional amendments to deny marriage to gay and lesbian couples continue to occupy numerous state legislatures across the U.S. In mid-March 93% of the Tennessee House gave the last legislative greenlight to one such amendment. Having already passed the state Senate this session and both houses last session, it will go before the voters in November 2006. This week the Minnesota House gave 57% approval to a similar measure after a heated three-hour debate. If the state Senate follows suit, voters will decide on the amendment next year. Last week it was more than three fourths of the Indiana House approving a constitutional amendment against same-gender marriage that the state Senate had already approved. Both houses of the legislature will have to approve it again in 2007 or 2008 for it to reach voters in November 2008. And in mid-March the Iowa House gave 55% approval to a similar amendment but that measure's prospects in the state Senate are dim. Also in mid-March another version of a proposed amendment to the U.S. national constitution to restrict marriage to "one man and one woman" was introduced in the Congress despite its predecessor's failure last July. This one explicitly denies any state or federal court the jurisdiction to determine if either the national or any state constitution might require "the legal incidents of marriage" to be conferred on any unmarried couple. Honduras' National Assembly this week unanimously approved a constitutional amendment denying both marriage and adoptions to gay and lesbian couples. The amendment also denies legal recognition to marriages or similar unions they may contract in other countries. But that's not enough for the 180 churches comprising Honduras' Evangelical Federation, which vowed to lobby the government to withdraw the official recognition it finally extended to some lesbigay civil rights groups a few months ago. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel this week filed a petition to have two gay male couples' Canadian marriages legally recognized at home. Although the Israeli Consul in Toronto approved their marriage certificates -- as did the Canadian embassy in Israel and the Canadian Foreign Ministry -- Israel's Interior Ministry has refused to register their unions. Their brief argues that the religious considerations that prohibit same-gender couples from marrying in Israel cannot be used by the state to deny recognition to foreign marriages. That action was filed in Jerusalem, where thousands of lesbigays are expected to gather for the ten-day World Pride celebration beginning in mi d-August. But united Jewish, Christian and Islamic clerical opposition to the event has been growing since January, when they began to publicly pressure the mayor to deny a permit to the event. Local religious leaders have been encouraged by U.S. radio preacher Leo Giovinetti and a group of U.S. Orthodox rabbis, who are circulating a petition claiming that the pride event will debase the sanctity of Jerusalem. This week a joint press conference was held in Jerusalem by both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi chief rabbis, three of Jerusalem's senior Muslim clergy, the Vatican's ambassador to Israel, and the patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches. World media were attracted by that rare agreement among faiths, but World Pride's host Jerusalem Open House's director Hagai El-Ad called it "an attempt to globalize bigotry." That's not exactly what was intended by the World Pride theme of "Love Without Borders". There's political opposition as well, with more than thirty Members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, having reportedly agreed to sign the petition to stop the World Pride march. The parade permit decision is up to Jerusalem police, who had suggested in February that they might not have staff to secure the parade because the withdrawal of Jewish settlers from Gaza is slated to begin just four weeks before it. Police protection may be more important than ever before as many pride opponents are referring to the march as a "provocation", and Jerusalem has already been uneasy with its own three annual pride parades. But World Pride organizers are determined to go forward, just as they were for the equally controversial and ultimately successful World Pride in Rome in 2000. India's Supreme Court has taken the first steps in proceeding with a constitutional challenge to the national sodomy law, which provides for punishing homosexual acts with up to ten years imprisonment. Declaring that the petition filed by the Naz Foundation will not be dismissed as "an academic question," a two-judge panel this week notified both the national and Delhi governments that they have 4 weeks to respond to it. The Naz Foundation is appealing a previous dismissal of its case by the Delhi High Court on the grounds that the organization per se is not directly affected by the law. As part of this week's action the Supreme Court indicated it might still send the case back to the High Court to be heard. Although part of the Naz Foundation's own mandate is AIDS prevention, some AIDS groups have joined government health bodies in defending the sodomy law as a means of preventing HIV transmission. An appeal by a Singapore AIDS awareness group has failed, as the Minister for Information this week upheld the Media Development Authority's refusal to license a charity concert by a gay male couple. The group Safehaven believed the appearance by Los Angeles-based Christian duo Jason and deMarco would serve as a beneficial model of sexual fidelity. But Minister Lee Boon Yang upheld the MDA's position that "performances that promote alternative lifestyles are against the public interest." Safehaven is now admitting defeat and refunding advance tickets to the event, but also vows to "attempt to engage the Government through constructive dialogue at every given opportunity." But Australian Democrats are arguing that a general public health risk is being posed by their nation's refusal to recognize same-gender partnerships. Australia's public medical services have an overall shortage of physicians, particularly in rural areas and in some specialties including psychiatry. Even in Sydney the system has been falling short by half of the new psychiatric trainees it needs. Two of those officially designated "area of need" positions were slated to be filled by doctors from overseas who were lost to the program when immigration refused to issue family visas to their same-gender partners. While unmarried heterosexual partners could have obtained four-year family residency permits, the same-gender partners could only apply for twelve month visitor visas which barred them from working in Australia and would require leaving the country to obtain a renewal. This situation also applies to other professional skills, but health officials in the state of New South Wales are joining the Democrats in proclaiming their particular loss to be the result of inappropriate discrimination by the federal government. And finally... once again there's a fairy Down Under. In 2003, New Zealand-based outdoors equipment firm Fairydown Clothing threw out 75 years of history to change its brand name to Zone. That move was based on market research that found Australian men were put off by the perceived "homosexual connotations" of Fairydown. But this week the company announced it's reverting to the name Mount Everest climber Sir Edmund Hillary made famous. It's also mounting a new ad campaign a spokesperson said will make it "a lot more comfortable for those who were concerned about having a fairy on their garment." The ads will feature another noted mountain climber in action declaring, "Come here and call me a fairy!"