NewsWrap for the week ending June 18, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #899, distributed 6-20-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Cindy Friedman The Taiwan High Court this week ruled in favor of the free speech rights of a women's radio station that the government had fined for indecency for lesbian content. "Lez Talk" is a regular feature on Sister Radio and it's Taiwan's only radio show considering lesbian issues. But last year's Valentine's Day edition included two minutes of host "Wei Wei" playing with the vocal sounds women make during sex, comparing them between countries by imitating film performances. To the Government Information Office, that "adversely affected good social customs," and the station was fined NT$9,000. The GIO stood firm on that judgment although it withdrew a warning against another segment of the same show explaining how to use traditional condoms for safer lesbian sex. Sister Radio appealed to the court, and its decision has now overruled the GIO and strongly endorsed freedom of expression. The station called that a win for everyone in the country. At a celebratory press conference, Wei Wei said her segment was meant to ridicule the myth that lesbian sex must be silent. But the outcome was very different for Taiwan's sole gay bookstore, whose owner was convicted last week of selling indecent materials. Lai Jeng-jer, the owner of Gin Gin's Bookstore in Taipei, was sentenced to fifty days in jail. His troubles began in 2003 when Keelung customs officials confiscated more than two hundred magazines the store was importing. Keelung prosecutors later came and seized more than five hundred magazines, including the Taipei local journal "His" and several periodicals published legally in Hong Kong. Lai doesn't deny the erotic nature of the materials, but insists they're no more criminal than heterosexual pornography and calls them "important resources for sexual minorities." He intends to appeal his conviction and a number of civil rights experts are speaking up on his behalf. Last year he'd said that his case should be heard by a gay judge, or alternatively that a panel of a hundred gay men should review the materials and determine if they're indecent. Canada's Government bill to open marriage to same-gender couples may not be passed this session after all. The Opposition Conservatives have given the minority Liberal Government an ultimatum, threatening to stall the 2006 budget bill unless the marriage vote is delayed until the next session begins in September. Although the Liberals' leadership in the Senate had agreed to extend their sitting if necessary to complete work on the marriage bill, the House of Commons is still scheduled to adjourn in the coming week. Prime Minister Paul Martin is now saying "there is no guarantee" of a marriage vote there, saying it's "in the hands of the opposition". The smaller left-wing New Democratic Party as well as some gay and lesbian activists insist the Government could push the marriage bill through if Martin wanted to. Yet aside from the national bill, marriage equality is a reality in most of Canada, thanks to court rulings. This week saw what's believed to be the nation's first military wedding of a gay couple, held in the chapel at the Greenwood airbase in Nova Scotia for a sergeant and a warrant officer whose names have not been published. This week also marked the first dissolution of a same-gender marriage in British Columbia since those marriages were legalized there two years ago. For the unnamed lesbian couple from Nanaimo to be divorced, provincial judge Laura Gerow had to first declare unconstitutional the specifically heterosexual definition of marriage appearing in British Columbia's Divorce Act. A U.S. federal court has upheld the national law denying legal recognition to same-gender couples, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Without the support of lesbigay legal groups, Southern California couple Christopher Hammer and Arthur Smelt posed a constitutional challenge in hopes of marrying, and they plan to appeal the latest ruling. U.S. District Judge Gary Taylor declined to consider their constitutional challenge to California's state statute restricting marriage to one man and one woman, saying the state's own court system should address it first. But while acknowledging what he called "a disproportionate effect on homosexual individuals," he upheld the federal law, writing that, "The Court finds it is a legitimate interest to encourage the stability and legitimacy of what may reasonably be viewed as the optimal union for procreating and rearing children by both biological parents." Previously a federal court had upheld DOMA in affirming Florida's right to deny recognition to a Massachusetts marriage, and a federal bankruptcy court had upheld it in denying recognition to a Canadian marriage. Meanwhile, the main lawsuit seeking marriage equality in New Jersey lost a two-to-one decision in a state appeals court this week. The majority opinion declared, "[T]here is no basis for construing the New Jersey Constitution to compel the state to authorize marriages between members of the same sex." The court maintained it's up to the state legislature to change the law. The lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal on behalf of seven gay and lesbian couples who were denied marriage licenses had previously lost in trial court. They're preparing to appeal as soon as possible to the state's highest court, where all sides knew the case was headed all along. West Virginia's Supreme Court this week awarded custody of a five-year-old boy to the lesbian partner of his deceased biological mother. Tina Burch's successful appeal was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, which said it's the first time that court has recognized a same-gender co-parent as a so-called "psychological parent". Authorities had initially given the boy to his grandparents in the wake of his mother's death in a car accid ent. Burch won custody from Family Court, but then a county Circuit Court refused her standing as a "psychological parent" even though she'd lived with the boy all his life. Swedish lesbian partners will be able to obtain fertility treatments beginning in July. Previously only women married to or living with men could obtain artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization in Sweden, while lesbians commonly went to Finland or Denmark to obtain them. Although the registered partnerships for gays and lesbians Sweden enacted more than a decade ago carry most of the benefits of marriage, they explicitly excluded assisted insemination. The Government moved to repeal that ban and only one parliamentary party opposed the change. One advantage of the new policy is that both partners will be legally recognized as the parents of the child, which is not the case where the insemination occurred outside the country or without medical assistance. Women without partners of either gender are still barred from assisted insemination in Sweden. As the pride season heats up, there've been more than a dozen events across the U.S. over the past 2 weeks. The biggest and longest-running marches were in Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; and Washington, DC. The 35th annual Boston parade had some 8,000 marching under the theme "Pride in Progress...What's your fight?" before some 200,000 spectators, according to organizers, despite high heat and humidity. Just how big the 34th annual L.A. parade crowd was is hard to say -- police pegged it at 90,000 and organizers at 350,000. Police in the nation's capital have long since given up issuing crowd estimates, but organizers believe participation in the 30th annual parade and festival to be the biggest ever, totaling more than 200,000 for the day. A 30th parade and festival were also celebrated in San Jose, California, drawing some 10,000 people. Another parade and festival believed to be the biggest yet despite an absence of an actual headcount was the celebration in Salt Lake City, Utah. Iowa's largest pride parade, in the state's capital Des Moines, had 87 entries. Thousands of lesbigays turned out for Indiana Pride in Indianapolis. In Idaho, hundreds rallied on the steps of the State House in Boise. In Texas, the fourth annual pride parade in Austin was themed, "Equal rights, no more -- no less." Two observances in Florida proved controversial. Pride organizers in Saint Augustine had tried for three years to get permission to fly rainbow flags from the landmark Bridge of the Lions only to have the city turn them down, but this year they went to federal court and won. So the rainbow was there for the pride parade, but two city commissioners have vowed to change the rules to restrict any display of flags on the bridge exclusively to government bodies. Meanwhile in Central Florida, the Hillsborough County Commission voted five-to-one this week to prohibit the county government from -- in the words of Commissioner Ronda Storms -- "acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride recognition and events, little g, little p." The National Center for Lesbian Rights started work immediately on a legal challenge to that ban. The Commission's move was sparked by a Gay and Lesbian Pride Month book display at a regional library, which Storms had described as "introducing issues of sexuality to people's children without their consent." New York state had several events. In Buffalo, there were about 800 marchers in fifty groups. The pride march in Queens drew mostly non-gay spectators who enjoyed the great ethnic diversity represented there. And first-ever pride parades were held in Staten Island and New Paltz. The latter featured Mayor Jason West, who reaffirmed his intention to fight for marriage equality, despite the criminal charges he faces for "solemnizing" marriages for same-gender couples last year. A first-ever pride march and festival were also celebrated by British lesbigays in Canterbury. 2,500 Canadian lesbigays marched in the 19th pride parade in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Organizers there estimated total participation in twelve days of pride events at nearly 10,000. And finally... German lesbigays marched before a crowd of 22,000 at Hamburg's Christopher Street Day parade -- but they were standing still when they set a new world record. For ten seconds, 16,000 of them joined in the biggest-ever group hug.