NewsWrap
for the week ending September 17, 2005
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #912, distributed 9-19-05)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and 
Greg Gordon]


Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Rick Watts


  Latvia's parliament this week gave preliminary approval to a constitutional 
amendment to prohibit same-gender marriages.  Current Latvian law already 
restricts marriage to heterosexual couples.  But some lawmakers want a stronger 
barrier against the movement among European Union member nations to extend 
legal recognition to same-gender couples including adoption rights.
The proposed amendment was introduced by the religious right Christian First 
party, which is a member of the governing coalition, and found support among 
the opposition People's Accord party.  55 Members of Parliament voted for it 
while the other 44 reportedly either abstained or were absent.  It will need to 
win three more floor votes and approval from a special constitutional 
commission to go into effect.
Juris Lavrikovs of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, 
believes the move is politically motivated.  When Latvia's first-ever pride march 
was staged in Riga in July, it served to unite ethnic Latvians and Russians in 
their opposition to it.  As a result, he told the Associated Press, "The First 
Party has found a convenient enemy to attack to rally support in the run-up 
to next year's elections."


  But in the U.S. state of Massachusetts -- where a court ruling opened civil 
marriage to gay and lesbian couples last year -- the state legislature this 
week voted 157 to 39 to reject a proposed constitutional ban on same-gender 
marriages.  The same proposal -- which would allow for marriage-like civil unions 
-- last year passed with 53% of the vote by a similar joint session of the 
state House and Senate.  The change seems to be due in large part to the fact of 
well over 6,000 same-gender marriages in Massachusetts since May of 2004.
One lawmaker who switched sides, Republican Senator Brian Lees, had actually 
co-sponsored the amendment last year.  But after this week's vote he told 
reporters, "Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of 
the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry."
Another former supporter who changed his vote, Democratic Senator James 
Timilty, credited the lobbying efforts of lesbigay families.  He said, "When I 
looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples, I decided that I 
don't feel at this time that same-sex marriage has hurt the commonwealth in any 
way.  In fact I would say that in my view it has had a good effect for the 
children in these families."


  This week's action by the legislature clears the 2006 ballot of any action 
on marriage.  But another proposed constitutional amendment to deny both 
marriage and civil unions to same-gender couples could go before Massachusetts 
voters in 2008.  While the now-defeated proposal originated in the legislature, 
the full ban proposal is following a different route.  The Massachusetts Family 
Institute and other supporters are currently attempting to gather some 65,000 
voter signatures on a petition.  If they succeed -- and if their proposal 
survives a legal challenge -- it will still require votes in two successive 
legislatures.  But it won't take a legislative majority for the measure to reach the 
ballot.  Because it is an initiative, it would take just 25% support -- 50 
votes -- each time.


  Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives this week gave 53% approval to 
extending federal hate crimes protections to lesbigays and transgenders.  
It's the first time either house has ever recognized transgenders.  And while the 
U.S. Senate has approved similar recognition of hate crimes based on sexual 
orientation on three previous occasions, and the House has indicated its 
support in two past procedural votes, until now the House Republican leadership has 
kept the measure off the floor.  A federal hate crimes measure has been high 
on lesbigay activists' agenda for many years but even continuing advocacy from 
Bill Clinton during his Presidency and the widely-reported bashing death of 
gay Matthew Shepard had failed to advance it in the House.
The move to acknowledge hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender 
identity came as an amendment to the White House-supported Child Safety Act, 
which the House passed by a large margin.  That bill targets sex offenders in a 
variety of ways, some of which have raised serious civil rights questions.  The 
Senate has yet to take action on a companion measure which does not include 
the hate crimes amendment.
While the vote was largely along party lines with Democrats supporting and 
Republicans opposing, 30 Republicans supported the amendment and 5 Democrats 
opposed it.


  Although the amendment would add sexual orientation and gender identity -- 
as well as gender and disability -- as bases for bias crimes leading to 
harsher sentences for federal offenders, that direct application applies primarily 
to the relatively few crimes committed on federal land.  More importantly the 
rider would open the door to federal assistance for state and local authorities 
in their work on those hate crimes, including grants to support states in 
prosecuting offenders.
A bill to the same effect is in process in the U.S. Senate but it does not 
include the gender identity provisions.


  Gay-friendly South Beach in Florida has seen an alarming spate of anti-gay 
attacks over the last year, but one such assault this week rated U.S. national 
headlines even though no serious injury resulted.  The crime was witnessed by 
a Miami Beach reserve police trainee, who contacted the department while 
following the suspects in his car until their arrest.  That police trainee was 
popular 7-foot-1 Miami Heat basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal.


  Scotland's Government will soon be introducing a bill to add sexual 
orientation as a hate crime victim category leading to harsher sentencing.  The 
existing law recognizes only race and religion for this purpose.  But police 
statistics have shown an increase in homophobic violence in much of Scotland, so a 
Working Group on Hate Crime recommended making those hate crimes a so-called 
"aggravated offense".  The Scottish Executive is including the change in its new 
Scottish Sentencing Bill.
Some religious conservatives have expressed concern that the move might be a 
first step in the direction of stifling religious condemnation of 
homosexuality.


  In Namibia it's the government that declaims against gays and lesbians.  A 
variety of activist groups are up in arms at recent remarks by Deputy Minister 
of Home Affairs and Immigration Theopolina Mushelenga in a speech on Heroes 
Day.  Warning young people to avoid being mislead by what she called the 
"prophets of same-sex love," she called gays and lesbians "a slap in the face of 
African culture" and "betray[ers] of the fight for Namibian freedom," and accused 
them of causing AIDS, the nation's leading cause of death.  Lesbigay and 
human rights activists believe this can only inflame the already high level of 
hate violence against them, and some believe Mushelenga's speech to violate the 
law and the constitution.


  South African activists, particularly lesbigay Zulus, were incensed this 
week at anti-gay remarks by the Zulu king.  King Goodwill Zwelithini spoke to a 
gathering of about 20,000 Zulus for the Royal Reed Dance ceremony, an occasion 
for teaching youth appropriate social behavior as they are tested for 
virginity.  Indicating that lesbigay orientation is both un-African and un-Zulu, he 
declared, "The Zulu nation would not be this big, with millions of people, if 
there was the problem of gay people that we have today.  This new behavior is 
quickly becoming a threat in our nation because it encourages people not to 
have proper families that have children.  We have a huge responsibility as a 
nation to teach our children to distance themselves from homosexuality."


  Rather than distancing, gay and lesbian pride was a big attraction this 
week in Wales, as more than 40,000 people from across the U.K. turned out for 
Cardiff's annual Mardi Gras.  The pride festival enjoyed 10,000-pounds support 
from the city council and will get 5,000-pounds more for each of the next three 
years from Wales' national Assembly.  Along with street parties and 
star-studded entertainment, Mardi Gras marked the launch of the lesbigay advocacy group 
Stonewall Cymru's latest campaign against discrimination.  Although nicknamed 
the Mystery Shopper campaign, the group is actually soliciting reports of all 
forms of anti-gay discrimination in provision of goods, services, education, 
and housing.


  In Canada this week, one of Quebec's first politicians to publicly identify 
as a gay man announced his retirement after 20 years in the provincial 
legislature.  The Parti Quebecois' Andre Boulerice, now 59 years old, said it's been 
a tough decision, "But it's time to pass the torch to someone else."  He's 
represented an area that includes Montreal's gay enclave and was an active 
proponent of equality legislation.  


  And finally... declared this week the surprise winner of the Venice Film 
Festival's top award, the Golden Lion, is "Brokeback Mountain", set to go into 
wide release in December.  Ang Lee's low-budget indie film, with a script by 
Larry McMurtry based on a story by Annie Proulx, describes a 20-year romance 
between two Wyoming ranch hands, played by hetero-heartthrobs Heath Ledger and 
Jake Gyllenhaal.  The stars insist it's not a "gay Western" but a love story set 
in the West, and Ang Lee has said it's meant in part to undermine the 
stereotypes of the conventional Western.