"NewsWrap" for the week ending September 2, 2006 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #962, distributed 9-4-06) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley, and Graham Underhill] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Tanya Kane-Parry Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski remarkably claimed this week that there is no homophobia in his country, and that gays and lesbians are well treated there. Following a meeting with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Brussels, Kaczynski responded to several reporters' questions on the subject, saying, "Don't believe the myth of a homophobic, xenophobic Poland." He invited journalists to go to Poland "to see for themselves." "You can go to clubs, you can ask around, you will not see anything bad," he said. According to Kaczynski there are gay politicians in "very high political positions" in his country. That might shock Polish LGBT activists. No federally elected representative in Kaczynski's government is out. "For decades it has been known about many prominent people, they are homosexuals," he said, and "it has never been a problem. What we have now in Poland are gay clubs, gay literature, gay press -- this is all functioning normally." Kaczynski's twin brother Lech was elected President last October in a campaign marked by frequent homophobic slurs, prompting the European Union to issue a stern warning to the government not to limit the rights of gays and lesbians. Lech had banned LGBT Pride parades in 2004 and 2005 when he was mayor of Warsaw. A parade permit was issued this year under a new mayor, but more than a thousand skinheads and ultra-nationalists lined the route throwing eggs and bottles. Pride marchers in Krakow were similarly attacked. It was the Polish P.M.'s first visit to Brussels since taking office two months ago, designed in part to ease concerns about the treatment of LGBT people in his country, and to address other issues involving Poland's membership in the European Union. Despite Kaczynski's assurances that Poland's sexual minorities are not being mistreated, LGBT members of the European Parliament say the record shows otherwise. A Pride parade in Jerusalem -- this time planned for September 21st -- is once again being opposed by authorities, who say they will not allow the event to be held so close to the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana. Organizers from the Jerusalem Open House had scheduled the parade during Jerusalem's WorldPride festival in August but were denied a permit, which they didn't contest after hostilities broke out in southern Lebanon. Soon after Open House announced its intention to hold the parade on September 21st, Jerusalem police denied a permit, but said they might consider other dates for it. Pride parades have been held in the city since 2002 and were relatively peaceful until last year, when an ultra-Orthodox man claiming guidance from God stabbed three people and was subsequently charged with attempted murder. Open House director Hagai El-Ad told "Y-net" this week that his group intends to hold the Parade on September 21st as planned. In May the Jerusalem district court ruled that it's illegal for the municipality to discriminate against the LGBT community, and El-Ad warned that "We will not hesitate to petition the court." [*updated below] Gays and lesbians have been organizing in the small African nation of Ghana, but the government has banned what was reportedly an international LGBT conference scheduled there this month. "During some of the small programs we organize [in Accra], we get about 400 to 500 gays attending," Prince McDonald, the president of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana, told a local radio station last week, "and when we have big programs we get thousands of people coming from other regions." Ghana's Information Minister Kwamena Bartels said this week that the Government became aware of an international LGBT conference, reportedly organized by local activists and to have included people from throughout Africa, when clergy brought it to his attention. The BBC reported that it's been difficult to establish precisely who was organizing the conference at the Accra International Conference Centre. But Bartels said it would not be permitted because homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment in his country. "Government does not condone any such activity which violently offends the culture, morality and heritage of the entire people of Ghana," Bartels told the Ghana News Agency, saying that the Government wants to "make it absolutely clear that it shall not permit the proposed conference anywhere in Ghana." Bartels warned that disciplinary action would be taken if anyone was found to have broken the law. Managers of the International Conference Centre have denied that such a conference was due to take place there. The final defendant in the notoriously brutal murder of northern California transgender teen Gwen Araujo heard his sentence this week. 23-year-old Jaron Nabors will spend up to 11 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter early in the case, and showed authorities where the teen's body was buried. 17-year-old Gwen Araujo was viciously beaten, tied up, and strangled in October 2002 after men she'd had sexual encounters with learned she was biologically male. Two men were sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder, while another pleaded no contest to manslaughter and received a six-year prison sentence. The Arizona Supreme Court this week upheld a proposed constitutional amendment set for the November 7th ballot that would not only ban same gender marriage but also domestic partnerships in the state. The justices, upholding a lower court ruling, rejected arguments that the measure violates Arizona's single-subject rule for ballot initiatives. The advocacy group Arizona Together and five heterosexual couples, most of them elderly, had sued to keep the measure off the ballot. Several Arizona localities, including Phoenix, Tucson, Tempe and Pima County, offer domestic partnerships. Same gender couples have not been the only ones signing up. They've become popular among seniors who want to keep health benefits that would be jeopardized by remarriage. The ballot measure has been endorsed by all three of Arizona's Catholic bishops, as well as Republican Senator and possible 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, who defended his stance last year by saying that the measure "would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage." A poll of the state's registered voters released this week by a TV station in Tempe indicated growing opposition to the measure, but it's too soon to predict the November outcome. Openly lesbian candidate Patricia Todd has been reinstated as the Democratic Party's candidate to represent Birmingham's District 54 in the Alabama legislature. The Party executive committee voted 95-to-87 this week to reject an earlier subcommittee ruling that disqualified Todd, as well as her run-off election opponent Gaynell Hendricks, because both had violated a party rule requiring candidates to file a campaign finance disclosure report with the party chairperson. Party chairperson Joe Turnham noted that no candidate has filed one since 1988. The conflict appeared to turn more on the race of the candidates than on sexual orientation. Alabama Democratic Party Executive Committee vice chairperson Joe Reed, a powerful Black politician, had written a letter to African-American leaders in Jefferson County before the July 18th run-off election asking them to support Hendricks, who is Black, so that a Black person would be elected from the majority Black district. Todd, who is white, defeated Hendricks by 59 votes. There's no Republican candidate in the district race, which means that Todd will likely become Alabama's first openly gay or lesbian state legislator. The Uniformed Services University, a U.S. Department of Defense medical, nursing and graduate school, has its first openly gay man as Student Council President. Patrick M. High was elected by a student body that includes uniformed personnel in the armed forces. Most who graduate there take public health jobs with the government. High served nine years in the Illinois Army National Guard and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University. His election, says C. Dixon Osburn of the queer advocacy group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network "is just the latest in a series of signs that those serving in our armed forces are ready to welcome openly gay colleagues." A study conducted last year for his group concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits if gays and lesbians were able to be open about their sexual orientation. And a recent poll by the Annenberg Fou ndation found that fifty percent of junior enlisted personnel now favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. Meanwhile, a heterosexual West Point graduate received a prestigious academic award last month for his thesis opposing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," the U.S. ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members. And young gay and lesbian college students have been trying to enlist at military recruitment centers across the country as part of a national protest by the nondenominational group Soulforce, which organized demonstrations earlier this year at college campuses that reject lesbigay students. But the top two veterans' organizations in the U.S., the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, this week passed motions supporting a continuation of the policy. A bi-partisan coalition of about 120 Congressmembers supports legislation to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." That measure is going nowhere fast, however. But finally, it appears that Argentina will be repealing a law that makes it a crime for members of the military to engage in homosexual acts. The national government intends to abolish the entire Military Justice Code and create a new armed forces justice system. Among scores of changes, the new laws will allow service by openly lesbian or gay personnel. Colonel Judge Advocate Manuel Lozano, a member of the legal commission designing the new system, told reporters that "It's a matter of people's private lives... [The ban] was nonsense." [*over "NewsWrap" outro music:] Here's an update to the Jerusalem Pride story. The police had denied a permit for the September 21st march because it's the day before Rosh Hashona. Organizers are now proposing several earlier dates before the Jewish high holidays. We'll have further developments next time on "This Way Out."