NewsWrap for the week ending August 13, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #907, distributed 8-15-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Cindy Friedman In a rare move for a Japanese elected official, a member of Osaka's prefectural assembly publicly identified herself as a lesbian this week. Three factors contributed to the timing of Kanako Otsuji's announcement: she's halfway through her 4-year term; Tokyo lesbigays are celebrating pride this weekend; and her autobiography is about to be published. That book's entitled, "Coming Out -- A Journey for Finding Your True Self". Although Otsuji had not revealed her orientation during her election campaign, she ran for office in part because she hoped to do something about anti-gay prejudice and discrimination. She told reporters, "Homosexual people have often kept silent for fear of discrimination and prejudice... I don't want children troubled by being homosexual to experience the same [hardships I did]. ... I believe that coming out as a homosexual is the best thing I can do to encourage numerous people. " Otsuji is a political independent but belongs to a group of independents in the assembly known as Shuken Osaka. For a Member of South Australia's state Parliament and former state Cabinet member who has actively supported equality legislation, revelation this week of a gay affair of his own ended a 16-year political career. Mark Brindal intends to serve out the final six months of his current term as Member for Unley, but dropped plans to run as the Liberal Party's candidate to represent Adelaide. Brindal's three-month affair with a much younger man was scandalous for a least three reasons: he's married to a woman with four now-adult children; the sex took place in his electorate office on three occasions; and the young man is mentally disabled enough that he's supported by the state and legally under the protection of the Guardianship Board, although Brindal insists he was capable of consent. Brindal has charged that the young man's former foster father attempted to extort money from him in exchange for keeping the affair secret, an allegation that police have been investigating. That investigation more or less forced Brindal to publicly identify himself as a bisexual, and although he admits to bad judgment and deep remorse for the pain he's caused his family and others, he seems to denounce the pressure to remain closeted rather than his orientation itself. Brindal had sponsored a bill for legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples in South Australia, but activists throughout Australia demonstrated this week for full marriage equality. A National Day of Action was held on the first anniversary of the enactment of an amendment to the federal Marriage Act which specifically restricted marriage to one man and one woman. Rallies were staged in Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. The Sydney rally in Hyde Park drew a crowd of more than 1,000, and 600 marched to it en masse. Another Sydney action was planting a mass of pink hearts in Victoria Park. About 400 people gathered for a rally at Melbourne's Town Hall. Many of them wore heart-shaped rainbow stickers and waved heart-shaped flags while some ceremonially exchanged vows. Non-legal weddings were also held at the other three rallies, with more than one hundred in the crowd in Hobart. Sometimes being a high-profile activist can be costly. Last week, the president of the Polish group Campaign Against Homophobia, Robert Biedron, was fined the equivalent of US$180 plus court costs by a district court in what he says was an unusually speedy closed session in which he had no chance to defend himself. The penalty was for insulting Roman Catholics, when he responded at a public forum to an anti-gay activist's comments, saying they "mirror in full the fascist-nationalistic-Catholic character of the witchhunt against homosexuals." What Polish Family Association spokesperson Dorota Ekes had said, as reported in the "Nasz Dziennik" newspaper, was, "Homosexuality is an inversion of ideas and a threat to a healthy family. If somebody bears this illness, they should be aware in advance that they will be forbidden to perform certain activities, which particularly concerns a function of a teacher who educates our children and shapes their consciences, and in a sense also [their] social ideas." Biedron is appealing the judgment. Much scarier was a late-July national police raid in Uganda on the home of the leader of the nation's only lesbigay and trans advocacy group, Sexual Minorities Uganda. Victor Juliet Mukasa wasn't in her Kampala home at the time, but police arbitrarily arrested a visiting Kenyan activist who was. The Kenyan was later released, but only after being subjected to what human rights watchdog Amnesty International describes as "humiliating and degrading treatment," including being forced to strip naked to prove to police that she is female. Without showing a warrant on request, the police confiscated everything that appeared to have any homosexual content and appeared to be looking for something that might be used as incriminating evidence. Amnesty announced that it's "concerned about the ongoing intimidation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists in Uganda" and a persistent "climate of hostility and prejudice against members of the LGBT community" there, in a statement that reminded the nation's government of its international human rights treaty agreements. Amnesty supporters were ubiquitous at this week's 15th annual pride parade through Belfast in Northern Ireland. There were a record 4,500 marchers in what organizers and national police agreed was the most successful pride parade there yet. But the coalition of Christian protesters who failed in their bid to get the national Parades Commission to stop the parade from taking place at all were still complaining afterwards. They said some marchers had violated Commission guidelines by shouting abusive remarks at their counter-demonstration, including calling them "bigots" and "religious fundamentalist murderers," and they'll use that in their efforts to block next year's parade. Most reports indicate that whatever those counter-demonstrators tried to say to the marchers was drowned out by crowd applause. But the Christian group had also hired an advertising truck they displayed outside major gay venues, intending as they said to "assist in conveying God's message of repentance to Belfast's sodomite community." Stockholm, Sweden's 8th annual pride parade this week was a trouble-free affair with a party atmosphere, enjoyed by a reported 5,300 marchers. Still farther north in Iceland, Reykjavik's pride parade and festival this week drew a crowd of 40 - 50,000. The lead speaker at the rally was the Government's Minister for Social Affairs Arni Magnusson, who declared his support for marriage equality and adoption rights for gays and lesbians and for equal access to fertility treatments for lesbians. Vancouver, Canada's big pride parade the previous weekend featured a South Asian lesbigay group for the first time. Trikon represented its emphasis on culture with a float depicting "Bollywood" and playing music from its Indian films, while the contingent wore more traditional saris and Punjabi suits. That same day a crowd of about 144,000 turned out to watch the 31st pride parade in San Diego, California. But while quite a few politicians were on hand, Chula Vista Mayor Steve Padilla stole the show when he used the occasion to publicly identify himself as a gay man. Although he hasn't hidden anything for more than five years and introduced his partner as such at some events for three, pride seemed the time to lay any remaining questions to rest. He's confident this won't affect his chances for reelection next year. Although Chula Vista is thought of as a suburb of San Diego, Padilla's coming-out actually makes it the second-largest city in the U.S. to have an openly gay or lesbian mayor -- second only to San Diego itself. Since Hillsborough County, Florida's commissioners notoriously passed a resolution stopping any recognition of lesbigay pride by any county government facility, gay-friendly Key West felt moved to offer the Hillsborough community an alternative. By proclamation of the Key West City Commission and the Monroe County Commission, this weekend has been declared Hillsborough County Pride In Exile Days. The five-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America this week rejected moves to establish ceremonies for same-gender couples and to allow partnered gays and lesbians to serve as clergy. The denomination's National Assembly held a vote to maintain unity despite their divisions on lesbigay issues, affirming unity by an almost 8-to-1 margin. But the move to allow non-celibate gays and lesbians to serve as ministers divided the more than a thousand delegates almost evenly, while a two-thirds majority was needed for the policy to change. The position adopted by the Assembly on the ceremonies for same-gender couples is viewed as ambiguous, for while it affirms the current ban, it also appears to allow individual ministers and congregations to act as they see fit in their efforts to provide pastoral care to all. And finally... in the U.S. marriage state of Massachusetts, the swans who summer in Boston's Public Garden have been a popular and celebrated attraction for sixteen years. The romance was heightened last year when a clutch of eggs was produced by a pair of swans who soon became known as "Romeo and Juliet". But despite the couple's parental behavior and supportive efforts by park rangers, the Public Garden did not get its first-ever hatchling. When the last of the eggs was tested and found infertile, the Franklin Park Zoo's aviculturalist performed a detailed examination of the birds. That established with certainty what their breeder had told park officials when they first acquired the pair a few years ago but had never been made public until now: the correct answer to the question asked by so many children, "Which one is Romeo?" is, neither -- both swans are female. Marty Rouse of the lesbigay group MassEquality told the "Boston Globe" "We should still cherish and love our swans, no matter whom they choose to swim with."