NewsWrap
for the week ending January 7, 2006
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #928, distributed 1-9-06)
[Written this week by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill and Rex 
Wockner]


Reported this week by Josy Catoggio and Rick Watts


  Same-gender couples began formalizing their relationships on Dec. 19th 
under the United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act, which grants registered 
couples all the rights and obligations of marriage.
A gay male couple where one partner was gravely ill was allowed to hold their 
ceremony before the new law officially took effect, but Grainne Close and 
Shannon Sickels were the first to tie the knot under the regular registration 
guidelines.  As fundamentalist Christians and queer rights supporters yelled at 
each other outside, Close and Sickels were "civilly united" at City Hall in 
Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The ceremonies began in Scotland the next day and in England and Wales the 
day after.  Sir Elton John and longtime partner David Furnish were among the 
first to hold their ceremony on December 21st, in the royal town hall of Windsor 
where Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were married.  A star-studded 
reception followed the ceremony.  Celebrants reportedly included Rod Stewart, 
Sharon Stone, Liz Hurley, Sting, Hugh Grant, and Victoria Beckham.  Former U.S. 
President Bill Clinton offered his congratulations via satellite.
Nearly 700 other U.K. same-gender couples formalized their relationships 
during the last 10 days of 2005.


  The United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act has inspired Australian GLBT 
activists to demand that their government create a national civil-union 
scheme for lesbigay and unmarried hetero couples.
"Certification is important," said Australian Coalition for Equality 
spokesperson Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne, "in areas as diverse as child custody... death 
benefits, passport applications, or during a medical emergency."
However, Prime Minister John Howard quickly objected.  "I think marriage is 
for men and women," he said.  "That's the common understanding of marriage in 
the Judeo-Christian tradition, and I would be opposed to the recognition of 
civil unions."


  According to gay journalist Rex Wockner, same gender couples currently 
enjoy marriage equality in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.S. 
state of Massachusetts.  South Africa's highest court last month legalized 
same-gender marriage but gave legislators one year to make the necessary legal 
adjustments.  Partnership or civil-union laws that grant registered same-gender 
couples some, most or all the rights and obligations of marriage are now in 
force in Andorra, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, 
Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the 
Australian state of Tasmania, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, and 
the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey and 
Vermont.


  The top court of the Cherokee Nation this week refused to strike down the 
marriage of a lesbian couple in what is seen as a landmark case in American 
Indian country.
Cherokee tribal members Kathy Reynolds and Dawn McKinley married in May 2004 
on Cherokee land in Oklahoma -- a state that bans same gender marriage.  
Because tribal law at the time did not explicitly exclude same gender marriages, a 
tribal clerk gave them a wedding certificate.  But Tribal Council members sued 
to have the marriage overturned, saying it would damage the reputation of the 
Cherokee Nation.  The Tribal Council also amended the Cherokee marriage law 
to make it hetero-specific.
The Judicial Appeals Tribunal of the Cherokee Nation, the tribe's highest 
court, rejected the request for an injunction against the marriage.  "Members of 
the Tribal Council, like private Cherokee citizens, must demonstrate a 
specific particularized harm," the court ruled.  "In the present case, the Council 
members fail to demonstrate the requisite harm."
A lawyer for the Tribal Council said the tribe would no longer fight the 
marriage, but he noted that the U.S. federal government might have to recognize 
the marriage because of the sovereign status of Indian tribes, which could, in 
theory at least, make them eligible for federal tax benefits now denied to same 
gender couples.  But an attorney who represented Reynolds and McKinley called 
the federal obligation to recognize sovereign tribal marriage "a very 
complicated area of the law."


  As the new year began in the rest of the United States, Maine's 
anti-discrimination law took effect, banning bias based on sexual orientation in housing, 
employment, and public services.  55% of the state's voters in November 
rejected a ballot initiative sponsored by the Christian Civic League of Maine to 
repeal the measure.   The new law gives the state Human Rights Commission the 
power to investigate complaints of discrimination against gays and lesbians.


  A similar law also went into effect in Illinois, with additional 
protections for transgenders.  Activist there had been lobbying for the measure's 
passage for more than 30 years.  Rick Garcia of the queer advocacy group Equality 
Illinois celebrated the law finally becoming a reality, but wondered aloud, 
"What in the hell took so long?"


  The Indianapolis, Indiana City Council in late December narrowly passed 
legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity 
in the workplace and in housing.  Business leaders there said they supported 
the protections in order to attract top talent to the city.


  Also in late December, a state appeals court rejected a second attempt by a 
right wing religious group to revoke domestic partner benefits in the 
beleaguered city of New Orleans, still recovering from the devastating physical and 
financial effects of August's Hurricane Katrina.  The court of appeal for the 
fourth circuit of Louisiana upheld a 2004 lower court ruling that validated the 
legality of the city's domestic-partnership registry and health insurance 
benefits for the partners of city employees.  "This ruling is not only good for 
our clients but good for the city of New Orleans," said Brian Chase, lead 
attorney for Lambda Legal, the gay advocacy group that worked on the case.  "It 
helps the city remain competitive in attracting and keeping gay and lesbian 
employees during these difficult times."


  Activists in Taiwan are tired of waiting for the partnership rights their 
government promised them almost 5 years ago, so they've taken another tack.  
According to a late December report from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, they plan to 
set up a country for lesbians and gay men called the Rainbow Republic.
"We refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the Taiwan government and will found 
our own country and government to protect our rights," Chan Ming-chou, 
director-general of the Taiwan Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Association, told 
reporters.  "The Rainbow Republic will have a parliament, a foreign ministry, and 
court to register gay marriages... The republic will issue identity cards to 
Taiwan homosexuals and work toward promoting gay rights in Taiwan," said Chan.  
And the new country's logo?  A rainbow flag, of course.


  But authorities shut down the first Beijing Gay and Lesbian Culture 
Festival as it opened in mid-December, saying organizers had failed to secure 
permission to hold the events.
The festival initially was scheduled for an arts complex in the Dashanzi area 
of Beijing.  But the Public Security Bureau banned the event at that site, 
citing alleged safety standards violations.  The organizing committee, some of 
whose members reported police surveillance, then moved the festival to the 
private On/Off bar, which police raided as the festival kicked off.  The officers 
reportedly ripped down signs and decorations, videotaped attendees, and closed 
the bar for a week.  According to one of the organizers, "The attitude 
towards homosexuality in China is to keep one eye open and another closed on the 
issue.  You can do something related to the topic if the eye is closed to give 
you an acquiescent pass, and, of course, the same is true vice-versa."
The festival was to feature three days of exhibitions, seminars, plays and 
movies.  Organizers vowed to stage a second event this year.


  A wall painting in an ancient Egyptian tomb, showing an intimate embrace 
between two male manicurists to the Pharaoh, could be the first recorded 
depiction of an openly gay couple.
That theory has emerged from an international conference at the University of 
Wales, which debated the significance of the unusual tomb.  Archeologists, 
who say it is extremely rare to find two men of equal status buried together, 
have been puzzled by the two men's relationship since the 4,000-year-old tomb 
was uncovered in 1964 on the west bank of the Nile.  The couple is repeatedly 
depicted together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes with their arms around 
each other.  In two instances they're shown with their noses touching — the most 
intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time — and seen ass a form of 
kissing.  The suggestion that the two men, called Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, 
may have won social acceptance for their relationship raises the prospect 
that the tomb, restored by German archeologists in the late 1970s and opened to 
the public in the 1990s, will become a gay honeymoon destination.  However, it 
will have to literally be an "underground" destination because Egypt outlaws 
homosexual activity, and authorities notoriously targeted gay men for arrest 
there last year.


  And finally, queer couples who plan to honeymoon at the Hotel Presidente 
InterContinental in the Mexican beach resort of Los Cabos may want to think 
twice about staying there.  Gerardo Eliud and Samir Habdu told police that 
security guards beat them up and threw them into the street with their luggage after 
spotting them kissing in the hotel pool in December.  But when leftist 
deputies demanded an investigation into the incident in Congress this week, they were 
angrily shouted down by legislators from other parties who argued that the 
subject was unfit for discussion in the chamber.  The couple has filed a 
criminal complaint against the hotel for assault and for stealing some of their 
belongings, and said they may file a complaint with Mexico's human rights 
commission.


  These last two stories disprove the lyrics of a popular song made famous in 
the movie "Casablanca".  Sometimes a kiss isn't just a kiss.