"NewsWrap" for the week ending October 7, 2006 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #967, distributed 10-9-06) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Kareem Ferguson and Tanya Kane-Parry   Brazil's national anti-homophobia campaign may be adopted by as many as nine other South American countries.  That was the major result of a discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination during a meeting held recently in Brasilia.  Representatives from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and ChilĂ© attended. The Brazilian Government also proposed a future seminar to address each country's laws on sexual orientation and gender identity. Minister for Human Rights Paulo Vannuchi, who chaired the event, said that a change in political culture must be promoted in the region.  A Spanish-language version of the "Brazil Without Homophobia" program was also introduced at the meeting.  Claudio Nascimento, representing the National Council for the Combat of Discrimination, said that the campaign can be reproduced across Latin America and the Caribbean.   Members of the European Parliament's Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights have launched a project to combat homophobic behavior in schools by releasing a report on social exclusion of LGBT youth.  It's based on a survey by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Youth and Student Organization and the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. The report included results from a poll of 700 LGBT youth in 37 European countries, and found that 61 percent have experienced prejudice and discrimination at school, 51 percent at home, and 30 percent among their friends.   Meanwhile, the Polish government has rejected an application by the national LGBT organization Campaign Against Homophobia to participate in a European Union youth program, saying it "does not support actions that aim to propagate homosexual behavior and such attitude among young people." The Polish group had applied for the European Voluntary Service program, run by the European Commission to facilitate cooperation across the continent.  It gives young people aged 18 to 25 the chance to spend up to 12 months in another country working as volunteers.  Decisions on who can participate are made by national agencies in every E.U. member state. In rejecting the application of the Campaign Against Homophobia, the Polish National Agency said that the group's aims are "against the policy of raising children and youth, which is implemented by the Ministry." The decision would appear to contravene a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in the European Union, and to contradict Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynki's assertion during a recent E.U. meeting in Brussels that there is no homophobia in his country.   And while California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed several pro-LGBT bills into law in late September, he vetoed measures to defend students against homophobic bullying and to bar discriminatory portrayals of LGBT people in teaching materials used in the state's public schools. The "Safe Place to Learn Act" would have provided specific guidelines to California school districts to protect students from harassment and discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.  In his veto message, Schwarzenegger called the measure an irresponsible unfunded state mandate.  But Carolyn Laub of the GSA Network, which supports over 550 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in the state's high schools and middle schools, said that "What's irresponsible is that the Governor is ignoring… over 200,000 students in Califoornia who are bullied based on actual or perceived sexual orie ntation every year.  He's decided that the state of California should do nothing further to protect [these] students."   The other bill, the "Bias Free Curriculum Act," would have barred school textbooks and instructional materials from negatively portraying gays and lesbians, but Schwarzenegger claimed that the state's education laws already prevent such discrimination. An original version of the measure by "out" state Senator Sheila Kuehl would have required social science textbooks to include the historical contributions of LGBT people, but after Schwarzenegger preemptively announced that he would veto it before the bill had even been voted on in the legislature, Kuehl revised it to what she believed to be a simple anti-bias bill.  She called Schwarzenegger's veto "inexplicable," charging that the Governor, who's seeking reelection in November, had bowed to "a small, shrill group of right-wing extremists." Schwarzenegger has signed bills strengthening domestic partnership laws, adding sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories in California's fair housing laws, requiring state agencies for the aging to include programs for lesbigay seniors, and banning the use of the so-called "panic defense" in criminal queer-bashing trials.   Equality advocates have vowed to ask the California Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling this week upholding the state's ban on same-gender marriage.  The 2-to-1 First District Court of Appeal decision reversed a March 2005 decision by a San Francisco trial judge, who had ruled that banning same gender couples from legal marriage is unconstitutional. The appeals court agreed with the state's lawyers, who argued that it's up to the legislature, not the courts, to change the definition of marriage.  California lawmakers did just that last year, only to have the bill vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. The justices also pointed to the state's strong domestic partner laws, which give registered gay and lesbian couples most of the same rights as married heterosexual spouses, rejecting arguments from lesbigay advocates that such a "separate but equal" system is discriminatory. Both sides of the marriage equality issue have predicted all along that the California Supreme Court will be the final arbiter.   A feeding frenzy by U.S. media outlets continued this week as more revelations surfaced about Republican Congressman from Florida Mark Foley's online dalliances with teenage male congressional pages and his subsequent resignation.  Through his lawyer, the former lawmaker finally confirmed the less-than-secret fact that he is indeed a gay man.  He tried to explain Foley's actions by invoking a sadly familiar story that the 6-term Congressman suffered from alcohol abuse and had checked into an unidentified rehab facility.  The lawyer also said Foley had been sexually abused by a clergyman during his early teens, though he offered no details. The fact that Foley is a practicing Roman Catholic fueled comparisons with the Church's child abuse scandal and cover-up.  There have been calls from within his own party for Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign, even as he insisted that Foley's follies had only come to his attention last week.  Several reports have challenged that assertion, claiming that the Republican leadership team suppressed or ignored warnings from staffers about Foley during the past few years in order to protect his Congressional seat.  Foley had been expected to be easily reelected in the November 7th midterm elections. Some right-wing pundits charged GOP leaders with being afraid of being perceived as "gay bashers" for not reining Foley in -- almost laughable considering the Republican record of defeating queer-inclusive hate crimes legislation, forcing into law the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy and the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," and the party's current push to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-gender marriage.   Tony Perkins of the rabidly anti-queer Family Research Council issued a statement claiming that "the real issue" in the Foley scandal was a "link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse."  Other conservative pundits flooded TV and radio talk shows this week, many falsely claiming that gays are far more likely to be sexual predators than heterosexual men. Some Republican operatives are calling for a purge of gay GOP staffmembers, saying that a clandestine network of top-level queer congressional aides had shielded Foley from scrutiny.  One of many bloggers chiming in on the brouhaha wrote that what's being called "The List" "includes nine chiefs of staff, two press secretaries, and two directors of communications." The lesbigay Log Cabin Republicans issued a statement saying that the Foley affair "should not be used to denigrate gay and lesbian Americans.  The anti-gay groups appear more interested in using this situation to score political points than in figuring out exactly what happened in this terrible situation." The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Matt Foreman was among several leaders of national queer advocacy groups to condemn such tactics, calling them "appalling" and that they "smack of McCarthyism." A Congressional investigation asking "Who knew what, and when did they know it?" has, of course, been launched, and the FBI is reportedly conducting its own probe.   And finally, the first same-gender civil partnership was contracted this week in the central European nation of Slovenia, as Mitja Blazic and Viki Kern registered their union in the capital city of Ljubljana. It was anything but a celebration, however.  The current law, passed in July, was watered down from an earlier more comprehensive proposal.  While it allows gay and lesbian couples to register their unions, it only covers property and inheritance issues, and doesn't grant any other rights associated with marriage, including social security or adoption rights.  It also bars family and friends from being present during the signing of the registration documents. "It looked more like a car registration, not a wedding ceremony," Blazic told reporters, adding that the entire process was "awful" and "humiliating." The couple plans to enter a discrimination complaint with Slovenia's Constitutional Court, vowing to delay their honeymoon until they prevail.