"NewsWrap" for the week ending August 19, 2006 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #960, distributed 8-21-06) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley, and Graham Underhill] Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Christopher Gaal Thousands of demonstrators rallied in towns and cities across Australia on August 13th to demand marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. The National Day of Action commemorated the federal ban on same-gender marriage, which passed with bipartisan support in 2004. About a thousand people attended a rally in Sydney, while hundreds more gathered in the Blue Mountains. Melbourne reported more than 1,500. Perth organizer Rod Swift told the "Australian Associated Press" that about 300 people attended a rally in his city -- "a record turnout despite the rain," he said. "Prime Minister John Howard continually says he does not believe that discrimination should exist for same-sex couples," Swift added, "but his actions in the past two years have only caused... more inequality and discrimination." The protests also called on state governments to make changes to their laws to allow both same gender and heterosexual de facto couples more certainty over their relationships. Among the colorful fashion statements made in Melbourne was a T-shirt that perhaps best summed up the purpose of the nationwide event: "We demand the right to make the same mistake as everyone else". U.S. President George W. Bush this week signed into law the Federal Pension Protection Act that contains two key provisions extending important financial protections to same gender couples and others who leave their retirement savings to non-spousal beneficiaries. The legislation, with strong bipartisan support, received final Congressional approval on August 3rd. The first provision allows the transfer of an individual's retirement plan benefits to a surviving domestic partner, who can then move the funds into an Individual Retirement Account, or I.R.A. The surviving partner will be able to either withdraw the benefits over a 5-year period, or over his or her own life expectancy. Surviving same gender partners in the past were typically forced to withdraw the entire amount as a lump sum and incur immediate tax charges. That frequently also bumped the survivor into a higher tax bracket because the lump sum withdrawal was counted as taxable income. The second provision allows same gender couples to draw on their retirement funds in cases of qualifying medical or financial emergencies. The federal law had previously only allowed the spouses or legal dependents of employees to access retirement funds in such situations. "For gay couples and all Americans with non-spouse beneficiaries," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese, "death and taxes weren't only certain, but also times of great and unequal financial difficulty." He called the law's enactment "an important day for fairness under the law in America." Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested 20 young men this week after raiding a suspected same gender wedding ceremony in the southern town of Jizan, according to "Agence France Presse" and "The Independent Online". The Saudi "Al-Watan" newspaper reported that about 400 men attended "the wedding party of two men," and that some were "emulating women." About 250 people were questioned, and all but the 20 detainees were later released. International human rights groups are trying to get accurate information about the raid and arrests. Accusations of homosexuality are reportedly used quite often to round up opponents of the Saudi government. Islamic law enforced in the country dictates sentences for "deviant sexual behavior" ranging from imprisonment and flogging to execution. There have been a number of mass arrests at what the Saudi media has called "gay weddings" over the past few years in various parts of the country. In 2004 police raided what was described as a gay wedding party for two African men from Chad at a hotel in the city of Medina, where about 50 people were arrested. In April 2005 a court sentenced two Saudis, one Yemeni and a Jordanian to two years in jail and 2,000 lashes after police raided what was also called a "gay wedding." Virtually no official information has been released about the outcomes of most of the other trials, or whether sentences for those convicted were ever carried out. About 30 skinheads attacked marchers at the third LGBT Pride parade in Tallinn, Estonia on August 12th. They beat them with sticks, and threw rocks and eggs as they repeatedly chanted, "faggot!" At least 15 marchers were injured, with 3 transported to hospital emergency rooms. Police made at least 6 arrests. "[The skinheads] attacked the middle of the march -- and first, the women," Pride organizer Lisette Kampus told the Web site GayRussia-dot-R-u. "[Y]oung Estonian men attacking young Estonian woman -- it is completely shocking for us," she said. Tallinn's previous pride marches have been trouble-free, but this year has seen a rash of anti-LGBT actions in the region directed at Pride events, with marches being banned, attacked, or both in Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and most recently in Riga, Latvia. "I think that we are seeing what kind of impact such situations... can have on neighboring countries," Kampus said. "Things in Riga were an encouragement for stupid people in Estonia." About 500 LGBT activists and allies took part in the Tallinn march, which included supporters from Bulgaria and Spain. It started 20 minutes late because of a bomb threat. Estonian prosecutors have ordered a criminal investigation into the attacks. Turkish gays have had their problems in recent weeks, too. On August 6th in Bursa, the country's 4th-largest city, hundreds of homophobic fans of the city's Bursaspor soccer team stopped an LGBT march from taking place. About 100 members of the transgender and gay group Gökkusagi --or Rainbow -- were trapped inside their headquarters by the soccer fans, who threw rocks and threatened to kill them. They escaped only when their attackers' numbers dwindled as the day's soccer match began. According to local Rainbow members, the march was planned to protest attempts by the provincial governor to shut down their newly formed group under laws supposedly designed to "protect morality." And in late July the full press run of the latest issue of Turkey's only lesbigay magazine, "Kaos GL", was confiscated by police. The summer issue of the 12-year-old publication critically analyzed the relationship between homosexuality and pornography, and contained articles by several well-known Turkish writers. A judge in Ankara's 12th Justice Court approved the seizure at the urging of the Public Prosecutor's Press Crimes Investigation Bureau. Authorities said "protection of general morality" prompted the action. "What is attempted to be buried with a siege of 'general morality'," "Kaos GL" editors said in a press release, "is the freedom of expression of Turkish national gays and lesbians." Gay men in China are not rushing to log on to two new government-sponsored Web sites created just for them. The "official" posting forums went online in June to disseminate information on HIV/AIDS, and to ostensibly allow Chinese gay men to communicate with one another. But after two months in service there have been less than 50 postings, mostly by the Web masters. The reason, the government concedes, is over fears that it will use the sites to monitor what the gay men are saying. A man who used the Internet to organize gay parties was arrested in May. At the same time the "official" government Web sites were going online, Chinese authorities were closing down non-governmental gay sites. One of them, used mostly by people to discuss coming out, got about a hundred thousand hits each day. Another site that opened in February specialized in information about safe sex, and had about 400,000 hits until it was blocked. In a 2005 survey, only 15 percent of 482 Beijing men who had sex with men understood that they were at risk of contracting HIV, according to a report by the United Nations. Homosexuality was listed by the Chinese government as a "disorder" until only a few years ago, and last year authorities raided and closed Beijing's first gay film and cultural festival, so the country's estimated 30-to-50 million gay men have many reasons to be wary. China's lesbians are not even acknowledged by the government and remain all but publicly invisible. But finally, two U.S. lesbian tennis greats will be honored in the next couple of weeks. Billie Jean King's name will be added to the National Tennis Center during an opening night ceremony on August 28th at the U.S. Open in Flushing, New York. The United States Tennis Association named its stadium after the late Arthur Ashe nine years ago. King says she's honored to have her name added to Ashe's, the first African-American to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. He died in 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia after contracting the disease through a blood transfusion during heart surgery. King told the "New York Times" that she and Ashe "will now [be] side by side, and we're both public-park kids." The 62-year-old King added that "We were born the same year, and we fought for human rights." Billie Jean King won a record 20 Wimbledon titles and 4 U.S. Open championships during her storied professional career. And 49-year-old Martina Navratilova's second and presumably final retirement will include entry into the U.S. Open Court of Champions. She'll be inducted on September 10th before the U.S. Open men's final, and join previous Court of Champion members that include Billie Jean King. Navratilova originally retired in 1994 with a record 167 singles and 58 Grand Slam titles. In addition to working with an LGBT charitable group, she's focused on doubles competition since her return to the courts in 2000. "I love to play, but it's time to get on with my life," she told reporters. Navratilova, who lives with her "one and only" in Sarasota, Florida, says she'd like to have her own tennis academy someday.