NewsWrap for the week ending July 9, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #902, distributed 7-11-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupré The U.S. United Church of Christ this week endorsed marriage equality for same-gender couples. With some 1.3 million members, it's considered to be the first "mainline" Christian denomination to do so. After less than an hour's debate, its biannual General Synod of nearly 900 representatives voted about four-to-one for a resolution "affirm[ing] equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender". The resolution also calls on church members "to work against legislation, including constitutional amendments, which denies rights to couples based on gender." In addition, it "calls for an end to rhetoric that fuels hostility, misunderstanding, fear and hatred expressed toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons." However, the resolution is non-binding -- the more than 5,700 congregations of the United Church of Christ are autonomous, and the General Synod is described as "speaking to, not for" them. Conservatives had called for the resignation of the denomination's president John H. Thomas because of his vocal support for marriage equality, but the General Synod elected him to a fourth term instead. Methodist Church members in Fiji marched two hundred strong in hopes of preventing legal marriage for gays and lesbians. Ministers leading that march last week called homosexuality "a spiritual sickness" "caused by the Devil" that "can be healed," and claimed that "thousands of people have been healed from homosexuality." Legal same-gender marriage is not even on the political horizon in Fiji, where homosexual acts lead to criminal prosecution. Some civil rights groups in Fiji were critical of the march, with one group's leader maintaining officials should never have issued a permit for it. But Britain's Methodist Church last week became the first major Christian denomination to agree to perform blessing ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples contracting the UK's new legal civil partnerships. The move was almost unanimously approved at their annual conference. The ceremonies won't quite be weddings, and a committee was established to develop guidelines for their content. The Methodists are Britain's third-largest denomination with some 300,000 members. Canada's Senate gave 78% preliminary approval to the marriage equality bill the national parliament passed last week. The Liberal Party Government acted to close the debate on its bill after two very emotional hours. The vote moved the bill to the Senate's committee on constitutional and legal affairs for five days of public hearings, but is expected to reach its final floor vote in the coming week. The Opposition Conservative Party continues to work against the measure and has proposed an amendment to give special recognition to het erosexual marriage. The Government has already promised the committee will reject that proposal, prompting more Tory accusations of dictatorial tactics. At the provincial level, two of the few Canadian regional jurisdictions not already marrying same-gender couples are ready to follow the federal mandate. In New Brunswick -- where a provincial trial court had already struck down the hetero-exclusive definition of marriage 2 weeks ago -- the government began making revised marriage application forms available to same-gender couples this week. And Prince Edward Island's provincial Attorney-General this week reaffirmed her Government's readiness to comply with a federal change in the definition of marriage, noting there wasn't really much choice. However PEI will have to change the language in some four dozen provincial statutes, which will require either an omnibus bill or a lengthy legislative process. Back in the U.S., Oregon's state Senate this week gave almost two-to-one approval to the creation of legal registered partnerships for same-gender couples and to civil rights protections for lesbigay and transgender individuals. The bill's lead sponsor is openly bisexual Democratic Senate Majority Leader from Portland Kate Brown, and it has the vocal support of Governor Ted Kulongoski and of athletic shoe manufacturer Nike. But it now moves to the Oregon House, where leaders of the Republican majority have promised to block it from reaching a floor vote. Uganda's parliament this week gave 87% approval to a proposed constitutional amendment to not just ban but criminalize same-gender marriage. Despite that overwhelming margin, its opponents included four cabinet members. A final vote on this and a package of other major constitutional revisions is expected within two weeks. The precise penalties for violating the law are not specified in the amendment but will be among future revisions of Uganda's penal code. That penal code already punishes homosexual acts, and its enforcement has led a number of Ugandan gays to flee the country. Spanish gay and lesbian couples lined up to receive marriage license applications for the first time this week, following the official publication of the nation's new law creating marriage equality. But those who have foreign partners learned they may not qualify. In a statement to the media -- not a formal legal ruling -- Catalonia's top state court cited a Spanish law that binational couples may not be joined in a marriage that violates the law of the other nation. This apparently rules out for now Spaniard Enric Baucells plan to marry his Indian partner Vipul Dutt, although they can appeal to the Justice Ministry. While those Spanish gays and lesbians are registering, others are seeking to de-list themselves -- from the membership roles of the nation's Roman Catholic Church. The group Madrid Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals this week presented formal requests for apostasy from 3,300 Spaniards renouncing their faith. They're protesting the Church's vigorous opposition to equality legislation, which the group described as "homophobia, machismo, snobbishness, misogyny and rancid conservatism." And the Roman Catholic Church struck back this week at both Spain and Canada for their moves to open marriage to same-gender couples. The head of the church hierarchy in Spain, Madrid's Cardinal Antonio Maria Rauco Varela, this week gave a formal address to Pope Benedict and a group of 1,500 Spanish faithful at the Vatican, declaring, "Not only is faith negated but also human reason itself, as one can see in the recent legislation on matrimony and the family." He described Spanish society as "strongly tempted by a relativistic culture and radically secular lifestyles proposed as if God did not exist and that go against history." A Roman Catholic diocese in Canada this week acted to "discipline" a Member of Parliament for supporting marriage equality. In the London, Ontario diocese, New Democratic Party MP Joe Comartin was advised in a letter from his bishop that, "a person who does not accept Catholic teaching on fundamental matters is disqualified from acting on behalf of the church in a public capacity." This means he's barred from all church activities until he's changed his position on marriage for gays and lesbians, which Comartin spoke for in parliamentary debate. Comartin and his family had been extremely active in their church, including giving marriage preparation classes. He said he was "deeply hurt and saddened" but expressed his "sincere hope that someday the leadership of the Catholic Church would embrace a fuller sense of inclusion." Another NDP MP from Ontario, Charlie Angus, had already been denied communion even before the final parliamentary vote. There are some 13 million Canadian Catholics, making it the nation's largest church. Returning to Spain, the enactment of marriage equality made pride in Madrid a celebration as never before. While the Interior Ministry's official figure for the crowd was 100,000, reporters agreed there were several times that many. While signs carried by the tens of thousands of marchers supported the Socialist Government for its marriage action and denounced the Catholic Church for its opposition, the lead banner gave warning of the next political battle, reading, "We Go Forward, Now for Transsexuals." Last week saw Panama's first pride parade, with some seventy people marching down the street while at least another seventy marched on the sidewalks to avoid the heavy media coverage of the event. The culmination was the release of six hundred balloons in the colors of the rainbow flag. An estimated four thousand people marched for pride this week in Edinburgh, Scotland. London's pride parade had 25-to-30,000 marchers ranging from Live 8 concert producer Sir Bob Geldorf and actor Sir Ian McKellen to a lesbigay-and-trans Muslim group dressed in rainbow burquas. Pop legend Sir Elton John published an op-ed in the "Observer" newspaper calling on the Blair Government "to ensure that ending violations of gay people's fundamental human rights around the world becomes an explicit issue in ... diplomatic relations with other countries." Of course all that preceded the tragic bombings in London this week. A number of events at lesbigay venues were cancelled in their wake. And finally... This week saw the first International Conference on Asian Queer Studies, with 24 countries represented at the gathering in Bangkok. The three-day meeting was themed, "Sexualities, Genders and Rights in Asia". "The size and diversity of this conference clearly demonstrates that Asian queer cultures and Asian queer studies have genuinely arrived," declared the opening remarks by Peter Jackson of the Australia-based AsiaPacificQueer Network. That group organized the event in conjunction with Thailand's Mahidol University. They originally expected something like fifty to a hundred people to turn up. As it turned out, just the formal presentations of scholarly papers on Asian lesbigays and transgenders totaled 165. The actual participation, including activists and artists as well as academics, was more like five hundred.