NewsWrap
for the week ending April 22, 2006
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #943, distributed 4-24-06)
[Written this week Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Stephen 
Hunt, and Rex Wockner]


Reported this week by Rick Watts and Kathy Sanchez


  The Belgian Parliament has passed legislation to grant adoption rights to 
same gender couples equal to their heterosexual counterparts.  The lower house 
approved the measure in December, and with two abstentions, it narrowly passed 
by one vote this week in the Senate.  Gay and lesbian couples won the right 
to legally marry in Belgium in 2003, but only heterosexual couples or single 
people had previously been allowed to adopt.
Mieke Stessens of the Belgian Federation of Gays called it "a memorable day 
for the children of gays.  Finally they earn the right of a worthy legal link 
with both their parents."
Elsewhere in Europe, same gender couples can adopt in the Netherlands, Spain, 
Sweden, and England and Wales.  In Germany and Denmark adoption by lesbigay 
couples is limited to the partners' biological children.


  But in the U.S., Roman Catholic agencies in Massachusetts are being allowed 
to reject gay men and lesbians as adoptive parents, even though that's a 
clear violation of the state's anti-discrimination laws.
The Massachusetts Department of Early Education, which regulates adoption 
agencies, says it won't act on any charges of discrimination because Governor 
Mitt Romney has proposed legislation that would allow agencies to reject gay and 
lesbian applicants on religious grounds.  "We're going to wait and see how the 
legislation plays out," the agency's general counsel told the Boston Globe.
Romney proposed the bill after Catholic Charities of Boston announced last 
month that it was ending its adoption services entirely because it couldn't 
reconcile state law with Church teachings that consider adoption by gays and 
lesbians "gravely immoral."


  But the center-left coalition led by Romano Prodi has been officially 
declared the winner by Italy's Supreme Court in last week's national elections, 
despite charges of voting irregularities by outgoing conservative Prime Minister 
Silvio Berlusconi.  Berlusconi had enjoyed strong support from the Vatican, so 
his defeat is seen by some as a sign of diminishing Papal influence in 
Italian politics.
During the campaign, Prodi promised to introduce civil partnership 
legislation if he became the new Prime Minister.  There'll be at least a few lawmakers 
pushing him to fulfill that campaign promise, as openly gay Gianpaolo Silvestri 
was elected to Parliament from the Green Party, as was bisexual Green Party 
Chair Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.  Gay activist Franco Grillini won election with 
the Democrats of the left, and "out" lesbian Titti De Simone was elected along 
with Europe’s first transgender M.P. Vladimir Luxuria for the Communist 
Refoundation Party.


  Nine men who've spent nearly a year in a Cameroon prison on suspicion of 
homosexuality have been released, the San Francisco-based International Gay and 
Lesbian Human Rights Commission -- or IGLHRC -- reported late this week.
They say the verdict was announced during a quick trial in the capital city 
of Yaoundé, where the defendants were cleared of all charges.  They were part 
of a group of men arrested last May at a nightclub thought to be frequented by 
gays and lesbians.  Eleven men remained in detention, reportedly because they 
were too poor to hire lawyers.  Two of them were released in February for lack 
of evidence.
"While nothing can return to these men the year of their lives spent locked 
in a cell," said IGLHRC senior coordinator for Africa Cary Alan Johnson, "we 
are hopeful that rule of law and respect for human dignity are re-emerging as 
basic principles of human rights in Cameroon."
The African nation has been in the spotlight in recent months after 3 tabloid 
newspapers published sensationalized stories about homosexuality and lists of 
celebrities and government officials alleged to be gay.  Homosexual acts are 
punishable by up to five years in prison there.


  The Iranian government continues to sanction executions of gay and bisexual 
men on trumped up charges of rape and kidnapping, according to a new report 
issued this week by Simon Forbes of the U.K.-based queer human rights group 
OutRage!, which urges other countries not to deport queer Iranian refugees.
The 9-month investigation, OutRage! spokesperson Peter Tatchell said, is 
"based on information from credible, verified sources inside Iran.  It provides 
clear evidence of homophobic honor killings, arrests, torture and executions."  
The report documents lynching by Iran's security forces, secret hangings in 
prison, and Internet entrapment through foreign-based online gay dating agencies.
Stories about such murders in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not new, but 
this may be the first comprehensive report about them.  As we told you last 
week, the Dutch Immigration Minister established a moratorium on her threatened 
deportation of lesbigay Iranians pending a government investigation of 
conditions for gay and lesbian people in Iran.
"The U.K., E.U. and U.S. should permanently halt the deportation of lesbian 
and gay Iranians," Tatchell urged.  "So long as Iran criminalizes same-sex 
relations, it will not be safe for gay people to return to Iran."


  As we've also reported, lesbians and gay men in Iraq are increasingly being 
targeted with violent attacks, kidnappings and murder by religious 
fundamentalists in that war-torn country, and the International Gay and Lesbian Human 
Rights Commission this week called on the United States government to do 
something about it.
Executive Director Paula Ettelbrick, who's written to the U.S. State 
Department about the situation, issued a statement saying, "We believe it is the 
responsibility and obligation of the United States, considering its present 
involvement in Iraq, to protect and support the most vulnerable and marginalized 
populations being targeted for this violence... We expect that the U.S. State 
Department will condemn these acts as it recently has condemned homophobic acts in 
Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates," she says, because "... leaders who 
condemn such brutality have the power to stop it."


  South Africa's Cape Argus newspaper reported this week on the 
execution-style murders of two well-known gay men -- 28-year old Brett Goldin, who starred 
in the MTV comedy Crazy Monkey, and 27-year-old Richard Bloom, a designer for 
the Cape Town-based men's label Maze Clothing.
The 2 men were reportedly found naked except for their socks with single 
gunshots to the head.
While it's not yet clear if homophobia played a role in their killings, Glen 
de Swardt of the Triangle Project said the Cape Town queer community has been 
traumatized by the brutal murders, which for some have evoked memories of the 
similar execution-style Sizzlers massacre of 9 gay men in 2003.


  Police probing the vicious assault on two CBS-TV network news producers 
visiting the Caribbean island of St. Maarten earlier this month have taken a 
suspect into custody.  Americans Dick Jefferson and Ryan Smith were attacked 
outside a bar by several men shouting anti-gay slurs who viciously beat them with 
tire irons.  Jefferson was hospitalized with head and back injuries but has 
since returned to work, while Smith is still hospitalized with possible brain 
trauma and is being treated for aphasia, a disorder which makes speaking 
difficult.
St. Maarten Chief Prosecutor Taco Stein told reporters this week that 2 men 
had been picked up by police -­ one who has since been released, andd another 
who is still in custody.  "This guy is talking," Stein told reporters, "and 
according to the information he's giving us, we expect to arrest at least 3 other 
men."  He has thus far refused to say anything more about the suspect, 
however, or to provide further details of the investigation.
"One witness does not make a case," Jefferson told CBSNews.com this week.  
"There are many people who saw this happen," he said, adding that at least 25 
people watched the attack but did nothing to intervene.
It began in the early morning hours of April 6th when Jefferson and Smith 
were standing outside a bar with several friends.  Shortly after Smith got a hug 
from a friend while comforting him over the recent death of a relative, 
Jefferson said, "A white car came screaming out of nowhere and attempted to run us 
down.  One came towards me with a tire wrench [and] the next thing I know, I'm 
waiting for the ambulance."


  And finally, also expressing concern about ongoing violence against LGBT 
people in the Caribbean -- and in Latin America -- is Dr. Mirta Roses, Director 
of the Pan American Health Organization.  Recounting last year's anti-gay 
murders in Jamaica of that nation's leading AIDS activist Steve Harvey and of 
Octavio Acuña Rubio, a psychologist and well-known human rights and gay activist 
in Queretaro, Mexico, Dr. Roses also cited a recent NGO report issued by the 
government of Brazil documenting the murders of 2,092 gay men and lesbians in 
that country between 1963 and 2001.
"Why should the Pan American Health Organization care about these crimes?" 
she rhetorically asked in a statement released this week.  Because "hatred 
against homosexual men is not only a threat to human rights (the right to the 
sexual orientation of one’s choice), but to life itself," she wrote.  "We know that 
homophobia contributes to the spread of HIV.  Fear of being stigmatized often 
prevents homosexual men from seeking HIV testing, counseling, and 
treatment... This situation was precisely what [those] murdered activists were trying to 
change."
"There is, however, some good news," she continued.  "The governments of 
Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia recently launched mass media campaigns against 
homophobia.  In Argentina and Chilé, this theme has been featured in poster 
campaigns and on television.  The messages were well received," Dr. Roses concluded, 
"suggesting that Latin machismo may now be more a stereotype than an 
irreversible mindset."