NewsWrap
for the week ending May 28, 2005
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #896, distributed 5-30-05)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and 
Greg Gordon]


Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupré


  Saudi Arabian security forces this week raided what they called a 
"deviants' party" in Riyadh and arrested 92 men, according to the Al-Wifaq news 
service.  Some of the men were reportedly wearing women's clothes.  The detainees 
included both Saudis and foreign nationals from at least five other Arab 
countries.
Saudi Arabia's practice of Islamic law has a history of harsh punishments for 
gay men including public executions.
The latest raid comes in the wake of international protest of the March bust 
of an alleged gay wedding that resulted in 110 arrests.  All of those men were 
sentenced to jail terms and 35 sentenced to flogging.  Most were notified of 
their sentences without any trial being held and none had adequate legal 
representation.  The Saudi government has yet to respond to the ensuing complaints 
of human rights watchdog group Amnesty International.


  Lesbigays' right to assembly was a matter of contention this week in 
Romania.  Their national organization ACCEPT had planned a GayFest in Bucharest 
including a pride march scheduled for May 28th.  First the city government 
requested a route change the group agreed to, but then the city said that since it 
couldn't provide adequate policing, it wouldn't provide any support at all, and 
denied permits.  Mayor Adrieau Videanu issued a statement that this is not the 
time for such a demonstration and some national government officials opposed 
the parade, while the dominant Orthodox Church declared no such march should 
be allowed.  ACCEPT called for an e-mail protest from the international 
community, and thousands responded.  When the flood of e-mails led the mayor to close 
his account, Metropolitan Community Church minister Diane Fisher printed the 
copies she'd received and faxed them to him.  Hundreds of phone calls also 
supported the march.  This brought ACCEPT more media attention than any time in 
its 11-year history.  Then Romanian President Traian Basescu and his Justice 
Minister personally intervened, holding an emergency meeting with the mayor.  
Apparently they forced him to back down -- the permits were issued and the 
police commissioner -- who'd previously said on the radio that he'd use police to 
"punish" the marchers -- promised to provide protection for them.


  There's been no such intervention by Poland's president since the mayor of 
Warsaw declared last week that he'd block the pride march there for the second 
consecutive year.  But this week Polskie Radio quoted Warsaw pride organizers 
Campaign Against Homophobia as saying they'd "found a legal way around the 
ban" and decided they will definitely hold their Equality Parade despite the 
mayor.


  And while it may look like a rainbow flag to you, it's "visual clutter" to 
three Tory members of Britain's Westminster City Council, and a planning 
committee has gone along with their view to nix the flag's use by Soho's numerous 
lesbigay businesses.  Westminster had already enforced its ban last year when 
it removed what it called an "unauthorized rainbow flag and flagpole" from the 
venerable Admiral Duncan pub, once the site of a hate bombing that killed 
three and injured scores more.  But at that time all concerned had been assured 
that as long as the proper applications were filed, permits would be granted.  
Openly gay Labour Councillor David Boothroyd called the Tories' presentation 
"an appalling expression of bigotry" and told UK Gay News that, "The rainbow 
flag is a symbol of freedom and not "visual clutter'."


  Some fifty gay and lesbian couples celebrated weddings in a public square 
in Rome this week.  There were no marriage licenses, just informal "pacts of 
solidarity".  The Piazza San Lorenzo site is just blocks from the Vatican, and 
placards at the event read, "Let's free love from religious phobias."


  Also demonstrating for marriage equality this week were as many as 2,000 
U.S. lesbigays, who walked across New York's Brooklyn Bridge in the second 
annual Wedding March.  Participants wore pink buttons reading, "I Do."


  Also this week in New York state, New Paltz Mayor Jason West will be tried 
for 24 misdemeanors for "solemnizing" same-gender marriages last year.  The 
state's highest court declined to first consider his constitutional challenge to 
New York's same-gender marriage ban, which he violated in the belief he was 
protecting gay and lesbian couples' right to equal protection under the law.


  Coming out in support of civil marriage equality this week was the American 
Psychiatric Association, as delegates attending its annual meeting approved a 
resolution with a voice vote.  If the resolution wins final approval from the 
group's board in July, the association will become the first major medical 
organization in the U.S. to officially endorse same-gender marriage.
The American Psychological Association adopted a similar resolution last 
year.  
The nation's leading group of psychiatrists is declaring, "Heterosexual 
relationships have a legal framework for their existence through civil marriage. 
... Same-sex couples therefore experience several kinds of state-sanctioned 
discrimination that can adversely affect the stability of their relationships and 
mental health."  That's by contrast with the "positive influence of a stable, 
adult partnership on the health of all family members."  The group had already 
endorsed civil unions in 2000.


  But the psychiatrists' view differs sharply from that of most U.S. 
politicians.
This week the Texas state Senate gave 72% approval to a constitutional 
amendment to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman -- and to 
deny civil unions or any marriage-like legal arrangement to same-gender 
couples.  The Texas House had already passed it last month, so it next goes to the 
voters at November's elections.


  The similar constitutional amendment Kentucky voters passed last November 
by a three-to-one margin cleared its first legal challenge this week.  A county 
judge rejected arguments that its clause denying same-gender couples "legal 
status identical to or similar to" marriage did not constitute a separate issue 
from the marriage definition, and found that voters had been adequately 
informed.


  Last week Maryland's Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich vetoed a bill that 
would have extended eleven rights to designated partners relating to health 
care issues, declaring that its registration of "life partner[s] will open the 
door to undermine the sanctity of traditional marriage."  While Ehrlich 
expressed "sympathy" and indicated he might even put forward his own bill to similar 
effect, he made clear that he'd never sign anything involving a partners 
registry.  The bill's proponents say Ehrlich repeatedly refused to meet with them 
regarding the bill earlier, when such differences might have been negotiated. 


  This week, though, Ehrlich did sign into a law a bill making "sexual 
orientation and gender identity" victim categories in Maryland's hate crimes law.  
According to the Human Rights Campaign, that makes Maryland the 22nd state to 
recognize lesbigay victims of hate crimes and the 9th to explicitly recognize 
transgender victims.


  And Maryland was quickly followed by Colorado as the addition of "sexual 
orientation and gender identity" to the state's hate crimes law became law 
without the signature of Republican Governor Bill Owens this week.


  But Owens also vetoed a bill to prohibit employment discrimination based on 
sexual orientation or gender identity, calling it "unnecessary" and 
potentially expensive in legal fees for businesses.  According to the Human Rights 
Campaign, he's only the second U.S. governor ever to veto a lesbigay civil rights 
measure.


  And it seems that lesbigay employees of the U.S. federal government have no 
more protection from discrimination than workers in Colorado.  This week 
Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel -- the relatively obscure 
federal agency charged with protecting federal workers from discrimination or 
retaliation for whistle-blowing -- testified before a Senate committee that there's 
nothing in federal law to allow his office to help should a worker suffer a 
negative job action based solely on lesbigay orientation.  A year ago when 
Bloch had removed sexual orientation discrimination information from the OSC Web 
site, the White House affirmed that "longstanding federal policy prohibits" 
such discrimination and that the president expected federal agencies to enforce 
that policy.  The committee reminded Bloch of that edict, but he said the 
statutes defining his enforcement powers did not cover sexual orientation.  Before 
Bloch's appointment, OSC had defended lesbigay workers for more than twenty 
years.


  Film producer Ismail Merchant died this week at the age of 68 in the wake 
of surgery for abdominal ulcers.  Born in India, Merchant went to the U.S. for 
college and met James Ivory, beginning 44 years of both personal and artistic 
partnership.  According to the "Guinness Book of World Records", that's the 
longest creative partnership in the history of film.  Merchant-Ivory Productions 
made some forty films, of which they're best known for lavishly staged 
adaptations of English-language literary classics.  Gay themes were significant in 
at least two, "Maurice" and "The Bostonians".  Two more films are still in 
production.  Merchant's work won him high honors in Britain, France and his native 
India.


  And finally... U.S. TV's Daytime Emmys were a triumph for open lesbian 
Ellen DeGeneres, who'd previously won a Prime Time writing Emmy for the famed 1997 
episode of her former sitcom "Ellen" in which her title character came out.  
"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" won five trophies including her first as best talk 
show host and a repeat of the top talk show honor it took last year in its 
first year on the air.
The talk show gig will continue at least another six years according to her 
new contract, and she thinks she could keep doing it much longer.  But 
eventually that might require some changes -- as she told "People" magazine, "At some 
point the dancing isn't going to be cute anymore -- like, when I have a 
walker."