NewsWrap for the week ending June 11, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #898, distributed 6-13-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Christopher Gaal Swiss voters this week heartily endorsed legal registered partnerships for same-gender couples in the world's first national referendum on that subject. The margin of victory was 58% to 42% from a turnout of 56%, considered strong in a nation where citizens vote frequently on issues. Swiss lawmakers approved the Government's partnerships bill a year ago with support from most political parties, but a small religious right party, the Federal Democratic Union, collected more than 50,000 signatures to force the plebiscite. The partnerships law will not come into effect before 2007 according to Swiss President Samuel Schmid, although some had expected it as early as the end of this year. Swiss partnerships will carry legal status equivalent to marriage for purposes including taxation, pensions, inheritance, hospital visitation, and financial responsibilities to the partner, and they can only be dissolved by a court. Foreign partners of Swiss citizens will gain residency but their naturalization will not be expedited like a spouse's. The law specifically denies partners adoption rights and fertility treatments, and also denies one partner the right to assume the other's surname. Although the Federation of Protestant Churches in Switzerland supported the law, the Swiss Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference opposed it, and the strongest opposition among voters came in three heavily Catholic regions. Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI made his first declaration against legal recognition of same-gender couples since his consecration on the day after the Swiss vote. Speaking at Saint John's Cathedral to a Roman diocesan conference on families, while repeatedly referring to marriage as a union between a man and a woman, he said, "Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man." He denied that the institutions of heterosexual marriage and family were social constructions of particular historic and economic conditions, placing their origins instead in the essence of man. Pope Benedict's remarks were condemned by lesbigay activists in Europe and the U.S. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was the scene of a lesbian couple's wedding this week in a demonstration of protest against Pope Benedict and his Church. Agence France Presse reported that some twenty members of ACT UP -- one dressed as a priest to perform the wedding -- staged the action on the first anniversary of the marriage of a gay couple by the mayor of Begles. The French Government and courts intervened to punish the mayor and invalidate that marriage, creating a test case for marriage equality that's working its way through the legal system. The Notre Dame protest may also wind up in court, as a priest was slightly injured in a scuffle with the demonstrators and may press charges. Before security guards chased them out of the cathedral and tried to tear up their banner, the activists were chanting, "Pope Benedict XVI, homophobe, AIDS accomplice." Earlier the same day, the group also demonstrated outside Paris City Hall. To the dismay of the religious right in Israel, the Knesset this week narrowly approved on its first reading a bill to grant inheritance rights to same-gender domestic partners if one dies without leaving a will, the "Ha'aretz" newspaper reported. A recent Family Court ruling had already interpreted the existing inheritance rules for so-called "common law spouses" to include same-gender domestic partners, but the new bill would make that explicit. The 26-to-24 vote divided some parliamentary parties but the religious right was solidly against it. Shas Party chair Eli Yishai accused the Shinui Party, which introduced and supported the bill, of "trying to introduce norms that even animals abhor." Those views aren't much farther to the right than those of a man confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the federal appeals bench by the U.S. Senate this week. William Pryor won his judgeship for the 11th Circuit only after a three-year battle by a host of civil rights groups and the Opposition Democratic Party. He's the third of President George W. Bush's religious right nominees for federal judicial posts to be confirmed since the Democrats struck a deal with the ruling Republicans. The Democrats had previously tried to stop those nominations from coming to the floor, where their confirmation was assured by the Republican majority in the Senate. But the Republicans had seriously threatened to gut that venerable tool of minority dissent, the filibuster, and the Democrats agreed to let these nominations through in hopes of saving the filibuster for future nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court. So Pryor has won his post despite characterization by his opponents as a blatantly prejudiced extremist who has demonstrated hostility to lesbigay equality. While serving as Alabama's Attorney General, he wrote an amicus brief supporting Texas' sodomy law in the Supreme Court case that struck it down. He was the only state attorney-general to do that, and the brief he wrote claimed a state interest in punishments exclusive to homosexual acts, which he compared to pedophilia, bestiality and necrophilia. During the year he already served on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals with a temporary appointment by the President while Congress was in recess, he cast the deciding vote as that divided bench upheld Florida's unique ban on adoptions by gays and lesbians. Singapore officials have denied a permit for the fourth edition of the annual Nation party, a gay event that reportedly drew 8,000 people last year and has generated tourist revenues worth millions of dollars. It's the third time in six months that Singapore has denied permits for major events of interest to gays, ostensibly out of concern to prevent the spread of HIV. But Nation organizers Fridae.com and Jungle Media have now arranged to move the party from the Singaporean island of Sentosa to gay-friendly Phuket in Thailand in November. Phuket is grateful for the opportunity, with its main industry of tourism still severely depressed since the December tsunami. Elsewhere this week, lesbigay pride marches on. In South Korea, the 6th Queer Culture Rainbow Festival climaxed with the annual parade through central Seoul, with some 400 marchers organized by the Korean Sexual Minority Culture & Rights Center. In New Zealand, the first Christchurch Pride Week claimed a total of more than a thousand participants for its various events despite getting no attention from mainstream media. The event is expected to be annual. In Italy, Milan's pride march was watched by about 100,000 people. Marchers included several Members of Parliament and two provincial governors Milan's own Filippo Penati and Puglia's openly gay governor Nichi Vendola. Along with a poster calling on the Pope to stop attacking gays there was a little street theater: two marchers in the uniforms of the Vatican's Swiss Guards escorting a chained woman wearing a banner reading "Secular Republic". In Israel, Tel Aviv's pride march attracted a crowd of nearly 90,000 people. Speakers at the rally included Tel Aviv's Mayor Ron Huldai and Shinui Party leader Tommy Lapid. And finally... in Poland, Warsaw notoriously denied permission for the pride march that's the centerpiece of the lesbigay Equality Days events, apparently at the behest of Mayor Lech Kaczynski. Especially since this was the second consecutive year the city moved to block the event, the community was more avid than ever to have its Equality Parade. Pride organizers had previously hinted at a secret plan to legally evade the need for permits. It turned out that plan was to hold "gatherings" at eight sites along what would have been the march route -- and participants would just happen to walk from one to the next. And march they did, with police estimating participation at 2,500. The lesbigays were joined by Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Tomasz Nalecz, who spoke at the opening rally outside the Parliament Building. Those dignitaries dissented from the mayor's position, denounced homophobia, apologized to the community for the offensive style of the public discourse, and affirmed lesbigay civil rights including freedom of assembly. The march was not without its dangers. Police counted some 300 counter-demonstrators who attempted to barricade the route. At least some of those were identified as right-wing nationalists, and they clashed with marchers at several points. Some threw eggs and stones at the marchers, injuring a police officer and two others. The mayor reportedly complained that the police were unfairly intervening in one kind of illegal demonstration to protect another -- favoring the pride contingent over their opponents. And he may have more to complain about as pride organizers intend to sue him.