NewsWrap for the week ending November 12, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #920, distributed 11-14-05) [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 Jon Beaupré and Greg Gordon   Signs reading "No gays" will follow those saying "No blacks" and "No Irish" into Britain's dustbin of history if the Government's newly amended Equality Bill passes through Parliament.  The bill approved this week in the House of Lords would outlaw sexual orientation-based discrimination in providing goods and services or organizing public functions.  Originally those protections were only to be offered to religious minorities, but over 100 Members of Parliament signed a motion to press a reluctant Blair Government to add gays and lesbians to the covered groups.  Gay peers Lord Waheed Alli and Lord Chris Smith and the lobby group Stonewall led the charge, warning that the whole Equality Bill might fail if the Prime Minister did not accept the amendment.  The new law would include a broad range of services from National Health Service care and insurance to hotels, restaurants and stores.  Stonewall activists are "cautiously optimistic" about the bill's chances when it goes to the House of Commons in a couple of weeks.   The ballot question in the U.S. state of Maine read, "Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation?" Voters there answered with a resounding "No!" on election day, November 8th, defeating the third effort by religious conservative groups to prevent a state non-discrimination law from going into effect.  Pro-bias groups were successful in repealing similar laws in 1998 and 2000.  In March, the state legislature passed and the governor signed another bill protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination.  The Christian Civic League of Maine and the Maine Grassroots Coalition led the repeal effort this year, but the third time was the "rights" charm as voters, by a margin of about 55 to 45 per cent, "reaffirm[ed] the basic values that are intrinsic in Maine," said Governor John Baldacci, who strongly opposed the repeal effort.  "Mainers don't like discrimination... if it happens to one person it happens to all of us," he said.  This year's law also protects transgendered people from discrimination. The new law's opponents charged that it was the first step toward marriage rights for same gender couples, but the legislation was specifically worded to say that it did not address that issue.  The repeal backers' written materials claimed the nondiscrimination law meant that, "a pedophile cannot be barred from a job as a public school teacher."  Broadcast ads urged voters to repeal the law to keep it from "from forever changing the innocence of our children" and to "protect your right to protect your children."  Executive Director Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force called the campaign tactics "disgusting, reprehensible and immoral." Maine becomes the 17th U.S. state to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the 7th to protect transgenders.   However, not unexpectedly, Texas voters, by a margin of about 3-to-1, overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment banning any legal recognition of same gender couples, defining marriage exclusively as a union of one ma n and one woman. Lauding the efforts of 30,000 activists across the Lone Star state who fought against the measure, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said, "This fight for fairness isn’t over and we won’t give up." Texas becomes the 19th state to add an anti-queer marriage amendment to its constitution.  Equality opponents are gearing up to place initiatives on several other state midterm slates a year from now.   While no queer-related issues were on the California state ballot -- petitions to put a marriage equality ban before voters there are also being circulated, however -- four propositions supported by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dealing with legislative redistricting, spending cuts, teacher tenure and limiting political activism by labor unions were soundly defeated.  Schwarzenegger had vigorously campaigned for all of them up and down the state.  Following his veto of a marriage equality bill earlier this year, Equality California -- a leading queer advocacy group in the state -- worked in coalition with other opponents of the propositions, distributing more than 200,000 mailers featuring a photo of Schwarzenegger on the cover with the headline, "It's Payback Time".  Said the group's Executive Director Geoffrey Kors, "Our goal was not only to defeat each of the Governor's measures, but to defeat the strategy of dividing people to win elections.  We hope these results send a powerful message that the politics of division is unwelcome in the Golden State."   Historic "firsts" for lesbigay candidates included the election of the first openly queer officials to the Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio city councils, as well as the first openly gay city council member in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Gay men or lesbians were also elected to city councils in Lakewood, Ohio; in the Seattle, Washington suburb of Des Moines; in Palm Springs, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City; and to the Town Council in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which works to elect qualified GLBT candidates, announced that of its 55 endorsed candidates this year, 35 won their races or performed well enough to proceed to a runoff.  There are now slightly over 300 openly gay or lesbian elected officials in the United States.  About half are city council and county commission members, according to the Victory Fund.   Queer rights activists also cheered the defeat of Virginia state Republican Delegate Richard Black, described by the Human Rights Campaign as "one of the most anti-gay legislators in America."  He co-authored Virginia's Marriage Affirmation Act, which bans same gender marriages, civil unions, and some fear even private contracts entered into by queer couples.  He was defeated by a Democrat who supports civil unions.  Black had also fought to ban adoptions by gays and lesbians, proposing legislation that would have required social workers to determine the sexual orientation of prospective parents. But perhaps the sweetest local electoral victory for equality supporters in the U.S. came in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where City Council member The Rev. Jimmie Hicks Jr., who had earlier campaigned against the country's first voter-approved domestic partner registry there, lost his bid for re-election to Mark Tumeo -- an openly-gay man.   It may be hard to say whether the U.S. Supreme Court's decision this week not to hear the appeal of a transsexual's successful job discrimination lawsuit indicates anything about how new Chief Justice John Roberts may handle LGBT-related cases, but it is nearly certain that a new Associate Justice will not be confirmed by the time another such case reaches the court.  Roberts came to the court late in the process that ended with the justices letting stand a federal appeals court finding that Cincinnati, Ohio police officer Philecia Barnes was illegally discriminated against when she was demoted during her transition.  Barnes' lawsuit cited a 1989 Supreme Court decision on sexual stereotyping in the workplace -- one in which retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a separate opinion offering guidelines to help lower courts determine whether an employer had used "illegitimate criterion (such as sexual stereotyping)" as a "substantial factor" in a personnel decision.  With an important case involving a challenge to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy set to be heard by the high court in early December, concerned activists are breathing a sigh of relief that swing-voter O'Connor will apparently be around for a while. Beleaguered President George W. Bush's second shot at a nominee to fill O'Connor's seat, conservative federal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, is now scheduled to begin his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 9th.   Alito has already received rave reviews from the Republican Party's religious-right constituency that panned the previous nominee, presidential attorney Harriet Miers.  He also has a 15-year track record on the bench for Democratic senators to pour through.  LGBT legal advocates are also carefully studying Alito's past writings and rulings.  One opinion in 2000 struck down a school district's anti-harassment policy found to be in conflict with Christian students' free speech right to criticize homosexuality.  Then in 2004, Alito's appeals panel overturned a lower court's decision that a student bullied for being "effeminate" should be required to continue on to high school with his long-time harassers.  Still, Alito's positions on a woman's right to choose, affirmative action, and privacy issues are troubling to many.   And finally, after years of increasing visibility and acceptance of queer content on U.S. television, Brazil was all set for it’s big moment.  On November 4th, a huge TV audience -- reportedly larger than the one for the last World Cup soccer final -- watched an evening soap opera in anticipation of that country's first televised gay kiss.  The final episode of "America", broadcast by media giant Globo, got enormous attention for the promise of a smooch between the show’s heartthrob Junior, played by Bruno Gagliasso, and hired hand Zeca, played by Erom Cordeiro. "(The director) and I made the scene -- it was recorded," "America" screenwriter Gloria Perez told reporters.  The two actors claimed they performed the kiss with great gusto, and people from all sectors of society were eagerly anticipating the steamy lip lock.  Alas, it was not to be ­ the kiss never made it to the air.  In the finall cut of the episode, Globo's management chose to broadcast a "version it thought most appropriate for an 8 p.m. showing of a soap opera," the network said in a statement this week. The kiss that didn’t happen sparked a passionate protest as hundreds of gays and lesbians staged a "kiss in" in front of Brazil's Congressional building.  Several waved rainbow flags, and one protestor yelled, "Let's show this country how gays can kiss!"  Most of the demonstrators were somewhat quieter, of course  ­ after all, they couldn’t yelll because they were too busy kissing.