NewsWrap for the week ending April 9, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #889, distributed 4-11-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, Martin Rice, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Christopher Gaal and Cindy Friedman Death ended John Paul II's 26-year reign as the Roman Catholic Pope this week. Some have not hesitated to label his the most homophobic papacy in history, although no other pope had to contend with a global movement for lesbigay and trans equality of the same magnitude. He took the throne in the wake of the momentous Second Vatican Council, which had raised hopes for a Church that was more democratic, more open to discussion on a range of issues including homosexuality, and more ready to join the modern world. But John Paul viewed all of that as part of what he called a "culture of death" and resisted it by reinstituting a strongly centralized Church structure that enforced traditional doctrinaire positions. He repeatedly denounced homosexual orientation as "objectively disordered and intrinsically evil" and called the politics of equality an "ideology of evil", contrary to what he viewed as "natural law" and "universal truths". Under his leadership, programs of Church outreach to lesbigay Catholics were dropped; lesbigay Catholic groups were denied meeting space in churches; gay-supportive clergy, educators and congregations were threatened and punished; church employees were dismissed solely for lesbigay orientation; and those who chose to identify themselves as gay-supportive by wearing the rainbow sash were denied communion. Some say these actions returned the Church to its stances of the 1960s. But John Paul's Church was also actively engaged in opposing lesbigay interests in the political realm, fighting any mention of them at the United Nations, and in countries around the world not only urging the faithful to lobby against civil rights legislation, but directly threatening Catholics elected to public office in opposition to any legal recognition for same-gender relationships. That opposition actually led his Vatican agenda for his final year. Some believe John Paul sought to scapegoat gay priests in the recent exposure of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. John Paul also strived against equality for women. And in a papacy that extended across the entire history of the AIDS pandemic, he vocally opposed the use of condoms for prevention to the very end. His passing raises hopes for many seeking changes in the Church, but given that he appointed almost all of the cardinals who'll pick his successor, there's little reason to expect any major turnaround on lesbigay issues in the near future. The modern Church's treatment of lesbigays pales beside Islamic Sharia law. As practiced in Saudi Arabia, it's resulted in jail sentences and floggings on charges of "deviant sexual behavior" for about 100 men arrested at what's been described as a gay wedding in Jeddah in March. The international group Human Rights Watch reported this week that 35 of the men were tried without legal representation behind closed doors in late March. Most of them received sentences of six months to two years behind bars plus 200 lashes, but four were sentenced to two years and 2,000 lashes. Unless administered in installments, 2,000 lashes are apt to prove fatal. The 70 others who were released following arrest were later summoned by police and simply advised that without representation of any kind they'd been sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Human Rights Watch was also told by one detainee's friend that the alleged wedding at a rented hall was actually a birthday party. Police raided the event following a phone tip that the men were "behaving like women". HRW spokesperson Scott Long said, "Prosecuting and imprisoning people for homosexual conduct are flagrant human rights violations. Subjecting the victims to floggings is torture, pure and simple." HRW charges Saudi Arabia with violating not only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the Convention Against Torture, to which it is a signatory. The International Commission of Jurists also condemned the convictions and sentencing. Activists in the Pacific are up in arms at the two-year jail sentence imposed this week by a court in Fiji on an Australian tourist and his Fijian sex partner. Both Thomas McCoskar and Dhirendra Nadan pleaded guilty to violating Fiji's "unnatural act" and "indecent practice" laws. They asked for leniency, and while the magistrate declared their act to be "something so disgusting that it would make any person vomit," he could have sentenced them to as much as 14 years' imprisonment. Although Nadan is 23 years old and the sex was consensual, the magistrate described McCoskar's part in the act as bordering on pedophilia and told him, "If you wanted to have fun, you should have stayed in Australia instead of trying to come to Fiji and exploit our young boys." McCoskar claimed he was unaware of the Fijian laws he broke, and Australian government travel advisories do not specify them. Australian activists are calling on their Government to intervene. A gay group in Fiji has already been working for repeal of the two penal code statutes, which some Fijian legal experts believe are discriminatory in violation of the national constitution since they apply exclusively to sex between men. In the U.S., voters this week made Kansas the 18th state to amend its constitution to deny marriage to same-gender couples by a landslide margin of about seven-to-three. The Kansas amendment also states that, "No relationship other than a marriage shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage," a clause critics say could deny a number of benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples as well as same-gender domestic partnerships. Proponents of the amendment had more than four times as much campaign money to work with as opponents according to the latest figures available. More than 80% of the amendment's funds came from out of state, with almost two thirds of it from the national Catholic group Knights of Columbus and almost one sixth of it from the Colorado-based Focus on the Family Christian media empire. The campaign against the amendment was largely supported by small contributions but about 14% came from the national lesbigay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Thirteen other states have similar amendments against same-gender marriage now in process, but this week two state legislatures were actually advancing the legal standing of gay and lesbian couples. Connecticut's state Senate this week approved the creation of Vermont-style civil unions for same-gender couples, to give them most of the state-level benefits of marriage. The margin of victory was a veto-proof three-to-one, with half the Republican Senators joining almost 90% of the majority Democrats. Other Republican Senators attempted without success to attach a prohibition against same-gender marriage and a statewide referendum on the bill. The Connecticut House is also expected to pass the bill, but the Republican minority leader is hoping to delay it and other opponents have vowed to put up a fight. Meanwhile, both houses of the Maryland state legislature have given the greenlight to creation of registered partnerships open to all unmarried couples, although limited in scope to medical issues. Those would include medical decision-making in event of incapacity, visiting at the hospital or riding along in an ambulance, sharing a room at a nursing home, and authority to determine the handling of remains after death. The Maryland Senate gave nearly two-to-one approval last month and this week more than 60% of the state House agreed. Also this week, more than 70% of the Maryland Senate followed the state House in approving the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity as categories protected under the state's hate crimes law. Hawaii's Senate this week approved two civil rights measures, one to protect transgenders from employment discrimination and the other to protect both transgenders and lesbigays from discrimination in housing and real estate transactions. Both passed by four-to-one margins strictly along party lines with Republicans opposing the majority Democrats. The House had previously approved both bills, although a conference committee will have to work out language differences with Senate versions. The U.K. Appeal Court has supported the parental rights of a non-biological lesbian mother in its first-ever ruling on a case of this kind. The three-judge panel unanimously reversed a county trial court's ruling and ordered joint custody of two girls for their biological mother's former partner of eight years. The three- and six-year-old girls were both conceived by artificial insemination during that relationship, and the women shared responsibility for them before the breakup. The joint residence order was the only legal tool available to ensure the girls' contact with their non-biological mother, a contact the appeals panel called "a vital side" of the girls' family life. The justices made clear that they were extending the same treatment to the co-parent as they would to a father in similar circumstances. That status will be secured for couples who contract the civil partnerships the UK will begin to offer late this year. And finally... when New Jersey's James McGreevey in August became the first governor of a U.S. state ever to publicly identify himself as a "gay American" it was hardly a triumph for equality. He announced his pending resignation at the same time because of the scandal of having cheated on his wife with a man he'd previously appointed to a high-paid state job despite a lack of qualifications. That man, Israeli national Golan Cipel, alleged that McGreevey had sexually harassed him although his threatened lawsuit never materialized. But the nonetheless historic episode has now gained some glory ... for the "Newark Star-Ledger" newspaper. For the work of fifty of its staff on the story, the Pulitzer Committee has awarded the paper journalism's most distinguished award in the "Breaking News Coverage" category, praising "its comprehensive, clear-headed coverage."