NewsWrap for the week ending November 5, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #919, distributed 11-7-05) [Written this week by Jon Beaupré, Lucia Chappelle, and Greg Gordon, with thanks to Cindy Friedman, Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner] Reported this week by Jasmyne Cannick and Jon Beaupré   The heat under the Anglican Communion's queer cauldron was turned up another notch this week as openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson sat down with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Communion's titular leader, at London's Lambeth Palace.  Williams' spokespeople described the hour-long conversation as "friendly but candid," Robinson called the Archbishop "cordial and gracious," but Church of England traditionalists found Robinson's very presence in the U.K. provocative and his meeting with Williams disturbing.  In town for the 10th anniversary celebration of the pro-GLBT church group Changing Attitudes, Robinson was permitted to dress as a bishop but could not officiate or preach at any of the services.  He told reporters that, "It was God that changed my heart about coming to accept myself.  It was a very hard-won fight.  I would be crazy to turn my back on that now."   Meanwhile the U.S. Episcopal order that operates the National Cathedral in Washington, DC played host this week to a special GLBT-related event when the Rev. Nancy Wilson was installed as the new leader of the Metropolitan Community Churches.  Wilson succeeds MCC founder the Rev. Troy Perry, who has led what is now an international denomination since 1968.  At the ceremony, Wilson announced the Church's new ministry initiative, "Unfinished World, Unfinished Calling" -- which was to be titled "MCC's Focus on the Human Family" until James Dobson's homophobic Focus on the Family empire threatened a trademark infringement lawsuit.   Also in the U.S., the Rev. Elizabeth Stroud has been defrocked by the United Methodist Church's highest court for being a "self-avowed, practicing homosexual."  A complaint was filed against her after she came out in a 2003 sermon to her Germantown, Pennsylvania congregation, and a Church panel decided in December 2004 to revoke her credentials.  That ruling was overturned on appeal earlier this year, but the original determination was upheld this week by the Church's Judicial Council.  Conservatives hailed the ruling as being true to the denomination's Book of Discipline.  However, two dissenters on the Council issued a statement acknowledging "the hurt, pain and brokenness of the family of God" as Methodists continue to debate the role of lesbians and gays. Church counsel Thomas Hall said that Stroud, who is in a five-year relationship, "could be welcomed back with both arms... but she'd have to be celibate." Stroud plans to continue serving as a lay staff member and to speak out for change, saying, "We can't have any question or any denial about the fact that the United Methodist Church practices discrimination against gay and lesbian people."   Another United Methodist Church Judicial Council ruling handed down the same day as Stroud's may have more far-reaching implications.  The Rev. Edward Johnson had been placed on involuntary leave without pay by his bishop for refusing membership in his South Hill, Virginia church to a gay man.  Johnson was reinstated by the Council, which found that he had correctly exercised his pastoral discretion and that the bishop had exceeded his authority by disciplining Johnson without due process.  That decision drew a strong response from the Church's Council of Bishops in a November 4th letter signed by both liberals and conservatives declaring that "homosexuality is not a barrier" to membership.   Spain's Constitutional Court this week agreed to consider the opposition party's challenge to the Socialist government's marriage equality law enacted in June. In its appeal, the "Partido Popular" - or "PP" - asserts that "marriage", as defined in the federal constitution, means the union of a man and a woman, and charged that the legislation allowing same gender couples to wed "perverts the social and legal institution of marriage." A court spokesperson said the tribunal would now seek the opinion of the government and both houses of parliament before ruling on the issue.  She said a final decision could take months. Both government and lesbigay leaders believe the law will withstand the challenge.  Its passage also angered the country's predominant Roman Catholic Church, but opinion surveys say most Spaniards back it. Following the Netherlands and Belgium, Spain was the world's third country to give full legal recognition to same gender marriages. Canada became the fourth to do so in July.   A lawyer for two gay Israeli men filed suit this week to have their Canadian marriage recognized in the Jewish state.  Jonathan Herland and Ayal Walerauch have been together for two years, and were married in a civil ceremony in Toronto in July, but when they returned to Israel the Interior Ministry declined to recognize the marriage. "By refusing to register the petitioners as a married couple, the Population Registry deviates from its authority," the lawsuit says, "behaving with unlawful discrimination against the petitioners and same-sex couples in general." Three of the four Israeli couples wed in Canada have ended up in Israeli courts, and all three cases are expected to be heard within two weeks. The couples argue that even though same gender marriage is not permitted in Israel legal marriages performed outside the country should be recognized there.   The latest chapter in a complicated seesaw battle over domestic partner benefits in the U.S. state of Michigan took place this week.  Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Joyce Draganchuk ruled in late September that governments and public universities should be allowed to provide health insurance to the partners of their gay and lesbian employees, saying those benefits do not conflict with a constitutional amendment passed by Michigan voters almost a year ago.  That measure made the union between a man and a woman the only agreement recognized as a marriage "or similar union for any purpose." Republican state Attorney General Mike Cox challenged Draganchuk's edict this week in the Michigan Appeals Court, which agreed to delay implementation of domestic partner benefits until it can rule on the lower court’s decision. Health benefits that cover domestic partners were also included in recent labor contracts negotiated with state employees.  Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm had put those benefits on hold pending the lower court ruling, but is now asking the state Civil Service Commission to approve them.  A spokeswoman for Granholm said the Governor was "deeply disappointed" with this newest delay.   Briefly in other U.S. news this week, a county judge in Oregon upheld that state's voter-approved constitutional amendment banning recognition of same gender marriage, rejecting queer advocates' claim that the measure overwhelmingly passed in November unconstitutionally dealt with more than one issue.  Both equality activists and opponents were expected to appeal the ruling whichever way it went, and most agree that the marriage issue will ultimately be decided by the state's Supreme Court.   The state of Washington's Supreme Court ruled this week that the estranged partner of a lesbian mother has the right to sue for equal custody rights of the daughter she helped nurture during their relationship, even though she has no biological connection to the child.  The Court majority held that Washington's common law "recognizes the status of de facto parents and places them in parity with biological and adoptive parents in our state."  The plaintiff will now have the opportunity to ask a lower court to rule that she does indeed meet the definition of a de facto parent and should be awarded equal custody of the child.   And Kansas juvenile offender Matthew Limon, who already served 5 years of a 17-year prison sentence for consensual gay sex with a younger boy, has been conditionally released.  Last month the state Supreme Court struck down the law that punished Limon for under-age gay sexual activity far more harshly than similar heterosexual acts, for which the maximum sentence was 15 months.  A cou nty district judge freed Limon this week, but ordered him to stay with an aunt and uncle, to work on their farm, and to attend church on Sundays.  The state Attorney General now has 30 days to decide whether or not to appeal the Kansas high court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court or to file new charges against Limon.   And finally, open gays and lesbians have been serving in the Australian Defence Force for the past 13 years, and late last month the A.D.F. announced that it will recognize its partnered lesbian and gay service members as being in "interdependent relationships", granting them benefits equal to those enjoyed by heterosexually married personnel.  However, those benefits do not extend to veterans' pensions, as 47-year-old Jiro Takamisawa has discovered.  He nursed his partner of 20 years Jack George through a lengthy service-related illness before the World War II veteran died last October at the age of 83.  Earlier this year Takamisawa received a letter from the Veterans' Affairs Department addressed to "Ms. Jiro Takamisawa" approving George's military pension -- but when he phoned them to advise that he is a man they were immediately revoked.  Takamisawa's predicament was bemoaned in Parliament this week, but Veterans' Affairs Minister De-Anne Kelly defended the laws regarding same-gender relationships in the A.D.F., saying that one set of regulations -- the recently enacted partner benefits -- concerned "internal conditions", while the other -- in this case veterans' pensions -- concerned compensation, which she said is unaffected by the new rules. Australia's conservative Howard Administration has resisted any legal recognition of same gender relationships, but it did recognize them this week in a less-than-flattering way.  In the Government's Anti-Terrorism Bill approved by Parliament, a suspected terrorist's same gender partner is specifically listed as a "family member" he or she will be allowed to contact.