"NewsWrap"
for the week ending January 13, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #981, distributed 1-15-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner 
with Bill Kelley]


Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Charls Hall


  The legislature in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila this week, by a 
vote of 20-to-13, approved a law recognizing same-gender unions.  It's only the 
second legislative body in the predominantly Roman Catholic country to do so.
The measure was drafted by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or 
PRI.  Governor Humberto Moreira, who is also in the PRI, is expected to sign 
the bill into law.
Coahuila, known primarily for mining and ranching, is one of Mexico’s 31 
states.  It shares a border with the U.S. state of Texas along the Rio Grande 
River, and has a population of about 2-and-a-half million people.
The Mexico City Assembly passed a similar law in November.  The new 
legislation in Coahuila also covers state social security benefits.  The Roman Catholic 
Church and the conservative National Action Party of Mexican President Felipé 
Calderon have been sharply critical of both measures.
While homosexuality is still an unspoken subject in many rural parts of Latin 
America -- where the Roman Catholic Church has considerable influence -- the 
region's urban areas are becoming more socially progressive.  Mexico City and 
Coahuila join the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires and the southern Brazilian 
state of Rio Grande do Sul in legally recognizing same-gender couples.


  Same-gender couples in the U.K. gained virtually all the rights and 
responsibilities of marriage when the Civil Partnership Act became law in December 
2005.  But bias against gays and lesbians in the provision of goods and services 
is still perfectly legal there.  Taking another step to change that, the 
House of Lords this week rejected a challenge to new laws in the United Kingdom 
that prohibit businesses from discrimination based on sexual orientation.  By a 
vote of 199­to-68, peers upheld the Northern Ireland Sexual Orientattion 
Regulations, which came into force in the province on January 1st.  Because of vocal 
opposition to the measure by religious groups, they aren't set to take effect 
in England and Wales until April.
Proponents note that the new laws are similar to existing measures that ban 
bias on the basis of gender and race.  But opponents argue that the regulations 
require religious organizations to violate the teachings of their faith.  
About a thousand torch-bearing demonstrators from various religions -- including 
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish -- protested outside Parliament on the night of 
the vote.
The Labor Party's Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former cabinet minister and the 
U.K.'s first openly gay MP, said he was puzzled by Christian fundamentalist 
objections to sexual orientation anti-bias laws.  "What they are arguing for," he 
said, "is quite simply the right to discriminate and the right to harass.  
And those arguments are being made in the name of Christianity."
A lawsuit challenging the new laws, brought by the right-wing Christian 
Institute, will be heard by Northern Ireland's High Court in March.


  Also in the U.K., the Royal Air Force has become a member of queer advocacy 
group Stonewall's "Diversity Champions" in an effort to attract more gay and 
lesbian recruits.
The Force also is launching a major advertising campaign in the LGBT press, 
reportedly with a budget of tens of thousands of pounds.
Member organizations of the Stonewall program are expected to do such things 
as sponsor Pride events, create a gay/lesbian/bisexual staff organization, and 
extend pensions to same-gender couples.
An unnamed Ministry of Defence spokesperson told London's "Telegraph" 
newspaper that "The Armed Forces are committed to establishing a culture and climate 
where those who choose to disclose their sexual orientation can do so without 
risk of abuse or intimidation."


  But "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which requires lesbian and gay servicemembers 
to stay in the closet, is still the military law of the land in the United 
States.  Both former Clinton-era Secretary of Defense William Cohen and former 
Joint Chiefs Chair John Shalikashvili have spoken out in recent weeks favoring 
repeal of the policy.  Shalikashvili, who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff when 
the policy was adopted in 1993, wrote an opinion piece in the "New York 
Times" this week saying that conversations he'd had with lesbigay servicemembers 
"showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians 
can be accepted by their peers."  Shalikashvili also cited a December Zogby poll 
commissioned by the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California at 
Santa Barbara of 545 U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It 
reported that three-quarters said they were comfortable around lesbians and gay 
men.  Nearly one in four said they knew "for certain" that a member of his or 
her unit was gay or lesbian.
C. Dixon Osburn of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a lesbigay 
military rights group, called Shalikashvili's article in particular "enormously 
significant."
Polls in the last few years have shown that at least 58 percent to as much as 
70 percent of the general public favors repealing the ban on openly-lesbigay 
servicemembers.
112 members from both parties in the new Congress have signed on as 
co-sponsors of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would end the "Don't Ask, 
Don't Tell" policy.


  Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, however, says that gays should 
never be allowed to govern mostly Muslim Malaysia.  His statement came in a court 
filing challenging a lawsuit by his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim.
Anwar was fired by Mahathir amid allegations of corruption and sodomy in 
1998, soon after Anwar publicly denounced Mahathir's economic policies.  
Mahathir's then-heir apparent was convicted on those charges and sentenced to 15 years 
in prison.  A successful appeal in Malaysia's top court against the sodomy 
conviction set Anwar free in 2004.
Now a key opposition figure, he sued Mahathir for about 28 million U.S. 
dollars the following year after the ex-leader repeated the sodomy allegations at a 
human rights conference.
"I strongly believe we cannot have a prime minister who is homosexual," 
because "Malaysia is officially an Islamic country," Mahathir said in the 48-page 
court statement filed late last week at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur and 
reviewed by the "Associated Press."
The former Prime Minister wrote that he "had no doubt that (Anwar) had been 
proven to be a homosexual."
Mahathir retired in 2003 after 22 years in power.


  Meanwhile, an openly gay police officer in Missoula, Montana is taking a 
one-year leave of absence to help train the National Police Force in 
mostly-Muslim Afghanistan.
Scott Oak told the "Billings Gazette" that the U.S. State Department 
contacted him following press coverage of his appointment as Missoula's first LGBT 
community police liaison.
He says a large part of his role in Afghanistan will be to train officers in 
diversity and human and civil rights.  He told the "Gazette" that he hopes his 
year in Kabul will "enlighten them," and that "it will make for a smoother 
transition and allow America to pull out of there more quickly."
"A lot of people think I'm crazy," he said, "but for me it's just another 
challenge and an opportunity to help people in need."  His only regret is having 
to leave his partner of 12 years and the teenage foster son they're raising.
Missoula Mayor John Engen says Oak's job will be waiting for him when he 
returns.  Another officer, Nicole Pifari, has been named the city's interim LGBT 
police liaison officer.


  A lesbian couple in the Canadian province of Alberta has exchanged wedding 
vows behind bars -- a first for the Edmonton Institution for Women, and 
possibly a first in the country.
The women, who were not named by prison officials, met in the facility.  One 
is serving a nearly 3 year sentence for assault with a weapon, aggravated 
assault, and breaking and entering.  She's scheduled for release in November.  The 
other was incarcerated for manslaughter and assaulting a peace officer, and 
she's scheduled for release in December.
Guards walked the women in handcuffs from their separate cells to a secure 
room.  The cuffs were removed while a minister performed the ceremony, but armed 
guards watched over the proceeding.
There won't be a honeymoon, however.  Following the ceremony, the women were 
returned to their separate cells.  They won't be allowed to consummate the 
union until they're both out of jail.
While the wedding is believed to be the first for lesbians behind bars in 
Canada it's not the first same-gender prison ceremony.  Two gay men were married 
last year in a penitentiary in Ontario.
Same-gender marriage became legal in Canada in 2005.


  And finally, the U.K. "Pink News" Web site reported exclusively this week 
that 3 gay businessmen in Manhattan's West Village are spearheading the 
salvation of what many consider to be the birthplace of the modern LGBT rights 
movement.
"Pink News" reports that Bill Morgan and Tony DeCicco, who own the Duplex bar 
in the West Village, along with Village entrepreneur Kurt Kelly, were alarmed 
when they heard about the imminent closure of the Stonewall Inn.
On a hot summer night in late June 1969, customers there stood up for their 
rights and rioted, fed up with years of routine police harassment.  News of the 
uprising spread rapidly, and within 12 months there were organized lesbigay 
rights groups in major cities across the U.S. and in many other parts of the 
world.
Once a refuge for drag queens and other outcasts, the Stonewall Inn had in 
recent years lapsed into disrepair, and the clientele had fallen off.  Morgan 
told "Pink News" that "We spoke with the landlord and let them know that we were 
interested in keeping the Stonewall, as it has such an important place in 
both the West Village and in gay rights history… The club had been mmismanaged and 
had become a 'bad neighbor' in the community due to excessive noise, underage 
people being served, and [questionable] after-hours business being conducted."
Morgan says he was overwhelmed by the response from New Yorkers when he is
sued an appeal for other investors.  "People came out of the woodwork," he said.  
"Gay and straight.  Everyone recognized the potential loss to the community 
both here and the gay community worldwide."
Pending the approval of a liquor license, the new owners hope to open the 
doors of the newly renovated Stonewall Inn on February 1st.