NewsWrap
for the week ending March 4, 2006
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #936, distributed 3-6-06)
[Written this week by Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon, with thanks to Jerry 
Trowbridge, Graham Underhill and Rex Wockner]


Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Charls Hall


  Demonstrations are being held across Europe to protest the ban on a queer 
Pride celebration in Moscow.  Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said late last month that the 
city government would not allow such an event to take place "in any form," and 
that any attempt to hold it will be "resolutely quashed."  He announced the 
ban after several religious leaders in Moscow issued threats of disruption and 
physical violence because they were morally opposed to anything publicly 
queer-positive in the city.  Luzhkov's mayoral counterparts in London, Berlin and 
Paris -- the latter 2 of whom are gay men -- have called on him to lift the ban.
Queer activists gathered this week in front of Russian embassies in London, 
Paris, Warsaw, Stockholm and Vienna to express their displeasure.
In London, and with characteristic verve, Peter Tatchell of the queer human 
rights group OutRage! asked, "Who does Luzhkov think he is -- Joseph Stalin?... 
Russia is [now] a democracy, and in a democracy people have a right to 
protest peacefully."
The Stockholm demonstration was covered live on local and national radio and 
reported in morning newspapers the next day.
More protests in Europe are reportedly in the works.
Moscow Pride organizers said they intend to continue planning the event, and 
are considering legal action, taking their case all the way to the European 
Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if necessary.
The Pride parade is scheduled to take place on May 27th, the anniversary of 
the 1993 abolition of Soviet era laws against male homosexuality.


  Another round of queer bishop bombshells is set to blitz the already wobbly 
Anglican Communion, with the news that a gay man and a lesbian are among five 
nominees to lead the Episcopal Diocese of California. 
Conservatives are calling the nominating committee's selection of the Rev. 
Bonnie Perry of Chicago and the Very Rev. Robert Taylor of Seattle "an act of 
open defiance" against the world-wide Church's call for a moratorium on the 
ordination of openly lesbian and gay bishops.  That request was issued in an 
effort to shore up the schism created by the 2003 consecration of the Rev. V. Gene 
Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.  The diocesan election in the Bay Area is 
May 6th.


  Meanwhile, the Anglican Province of Central Africa's Confirmation Court has 
refused to consecrate gay-supportive West London vicar Nicholas Henderson as 
bishop of the Diocese of Lake Malawi.  Henderson is popular among the people 
because of his previous work in Malawi launching a variety of development 
programs.  His supporters carried him on their shoulders during a "private visit" 
this week, and then blockaded Archbishop Bernard Malango's headquarters in 
protest of the rejection.  Malango said Henderson was deemed "not of sound faith," 
and that the decision was irreversible.


  A new lesbigay organization may be the first to go public in Hanoi.  
According to a report this week by Thanh Nien News, Hai Dang -- or Light House -- 
was created by the Hanoi-based Center for HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted 
Disease Prevention, and is being funded by Family Health International.  The 
group, which currently numbers about 25, wants to raise the public consciousness of 
homosexuality in Vietnam.  "It’s time to change our views on the issue as we 
are in need of both understanding and support from the community," said Pham 
Thi Nga, the group's director.  Aside from overcoming resistance from 
government authorities, Nga said the most difficult obstacles came from the lesbigay 
community itself.  The Center's social workers scouted Hanoi’s well-known 
gay-frequented clubs, but many were reluctant to join, saying they were afraid to 
hurt their families if their membership in Hai Dang became known.
The group's initial plans include educational and social meetings and outings 
for its members, and the creation of a Web site.  Nga said he expects to 
develop similar associations in other metropolitan areas, such as Ho Chi Minh City 
in the country's south.


  Homosexuality was considered a mental disorder in China until 2001.  A 
leading sociologist there this week submitted a measure to the annual session of 
the country's top political advisory body, the National Committee of the 
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, to legalize same gender marriage.
A member of that body's advisory board, Li Yinhe is a well-known expert on 
marriage and sex studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  She was 
to deliver a keynote speech at a queer culture festival last year that was 
raided by police and shut down.  Li said she wants to end discrimination against 
gay men in China, estimated by a government survey in late 2004 to number 
between 5 and 10 million, which some experts have said could be much higher.  The 
number of lesbians in China remains unclear.
The measure introduced by Li this week must gain the support of at least 30 
of the 2,000-member parliamentary body, which it's failed to do on two previous 
occasions.  Li said that same gender marriage creates stable relationships 
and makes safer sex more likely, helping to rein in the spread of HIV/AIDS.  But 
she admits that the "cultural environment in the country is not yet prepared 
for such a proposal."


  More than 1,000 queer couples have wed in Spain since legal marriage 
equality came into force there last year.  The figure was provided at a press 
conference this week by Pedro Zerolo, an openly gay member of the national board of 
the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, one of the main backers of the law.  He 
said 800 same-gender marriages had officially been performed, but the figure 
came from only about half of the country's civil registries ­ those  fully 
computerized.  "As of today," he said, "there should be more than 1,000 same-sex 
couples married and about the same number of applications going through."  Zerolo 
married his partner, Jesus Santos, in October.   Despite vocal and ongoing 
opposition from the once more dominant Roman Catholic Church, some 57 percent of 
Spaniards support marriage equality.


  Scotland has seen at least three gay or lesbian unions a day since the 
United Kingdom's Civil Partnership Act took effect on December 21st, according to 
a mid-February report in The Scotsman newspaper, which called the figure 
"astonishing."  The largest numbers of ceremonies have taken place in Edinburgh and 
Glasgow.


  And figures released last week by the Office for National Statistics 
counted 3,648 registered same gender partnerships in England and Wales as of January 
31st.
Brighton and Hove was the most popular registration site.  According to 
several reports, gay men in the U.K. have tied the knot at a rate more than double 
that of lesbians during the first few weeks since they became legal.


  A U.S. lesbian minister's conscience and sense of calling absolved her of 
any guilt for officiating at two same-gender weddings, according to a 6-to-1 
ruling by a regional tribunal of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The Rev. Jane Spahr of San Rafael, California had been charged with 
misconduct for violating the denomination's constitutional definition of marriage as a 
covenant between a man and a woman.  A national-level church court decision in 
2000 found that gay and lesbian unions could be blessed as long as the 
ceremonies did not mimic -- and the relationships were not equated to -- 
heterosexual marriage.  However Spahr said at her trial that her personal vocation as an 
equal rights advocate aside, the couples' wishes were of prime importance to 
her.  "They said 'marriage'," she testified, "and I was honored to do their 
'marriage,' so they would not be seen as second-class in any way."  In his 
summation, defense attorney Timothy Cahn said, "If it's an offense to believe or to 
determine in our hearts that these two young couples are married, charge me, 
because I believe it and I will pronounce it."  The majority of the judicial 
panel wrote that the section of the constitution in question was "a definition, 
not a directive," and found that Spahr "was acting within her right of 
conscience."  They also noted that Spahr's views were consistent with the "normative 
standards" of their northern California presbytery, and affirmed the Bible's 
message of "inclusiveness, reconciliation, and the breaking down of barriers 
that separate humans from each other."  Some presbytery leaders had indicated 
that the costly proceeding had been essentially forced by the complaint of a 
minister from outside the area, so it is not known whether they will appeal the 
ruling.


  Wisconsin has become the seventh U.S. state to place a constitutional 
amendment on the ballot banning legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples.  The 
proposal, overwhelmingly approved in the state legislature this week, outlaws 
"any legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for 
unmarried individuals."
Alabama voters will decide on a constitutional marriage ban in June, while 
November referendums will take place in Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, 
Virginia, Idaho and now Wisconsin.  Petition drives are underway in Arizona 
and Colorado, while equality opponents in several other states are targeting 
2007 or 2008.  Voters in 19 U.S. states have thus far approved constitutional 
bans on same gender unions, most recently in November by a 76 per cent margin in 
Texas.  


  And finally, in response to yet another attack on lesbians and gay men in a 
U.S. state legislature -- and the specifics of the anti-queer legislation in 
this case aren't important -- Utah's only openly-gay lawmaker, Scott McCoy, 
this week eloquently defined the real "Gay Agenda" on the floor of the state 
Senate:
[McCoy:] "Whether or not this passes, gay and lesbian people are going to 
live in the state of Utah.  We’re gonna be in the high schools.  And we’re gonna 
have families.  And we’re gonna be raising them here.  And I would simply ask 
that you allow us to do that, and leave us ­ alone."