"NewsWrap"
for the week ending January 27, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #983, distributed 1-29-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner 
with Bill Kelley]


Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Jon Beaupre


  The Blair Government this week resisted appeals from U.K. Roman Catholic 
leaders to exempt the Church from new Sexual Orientation Regulations, which ban 
discrimination based on sexual orientation in the provision of goods and 
services.  The new laws were to have taken effect on January 1st in Northern 
Ireland, but are being challenged in a High Court case filed by a Christian 
fundamentalist group that’s scheduled to be heard in March.  The regulations are 
supposed go into effect in England and Wales in April.  Similar U.K. anti-bias laws 
already cover such categories as race and gender.
The Roman Catholic Church is specifically worried that adoption agencies it 
operates will be forced to open their doors to potential gay and lesbian 
parents.  But the Government’s Education Secretary Alan Johnson told "BBC Radio 4" 
this week that "I cannot see a case for introducing legislation that protects 
gays and lesbians from discrimination on grounds of their sexual orientation 
and then allowing in terms, as part of public policy, that discrimination to 
continue."
Roman Catholic Bishops have threatened to shut down the Church’s 12 adoption 
agencies, which process about a third of all voluntary sector adoptions in 
England and Wales, if they’re not allowed to reject prospective lesbigay parents.
The Church says it now refers same gender couples to other agencies that are 
willing to accept their application.
Catholic leaders in Scotland are also warning senior Cabinet ministers that 
they’ll campaign against Labour candidates in the national elections this May 
over the issue.  They call not allowing Catholic agencies to discriminate a 
"betrayal". [35]


  The leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury 
Rowan Williams, is supporting the Church’s request to have Roman Catholic 
adoption agencies exempted from the new law.  In a letter to Prime Minister Tony 
Blair this week, Williams said "The rights of conscience cannot be made subject 
to legislation, however well-meaning."  Williams has been under fire for being 
unable to stem the growing rift within the Communion over homosexuality, which 
will very likely re-ignite at a global Anglican meeting in Tanzania in 
February.


  The country’s major Islamic group, the Muslim Council of Britain, also 
announced it’s backing the Catholic Church’s request for exemption.  The group 
issued a statement this week that it "fully supports the principled stand taken 
by the leaders of the Catholic and Anglican Churches."
Secretary-General Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari said that, "Homosexuality is 
forbidden in Islam... As Muslims, we are obliged to uphold the moral standards and 
codes of conduct dictated by our faith."


  But England’s only registered Jewish adoption agency told the U.K.’s 
online "Pink News" this week that they won’t seek an exemption from the Sexual 
Orientation Regulations.  Norma Brier, chief executive of Norwood, said her agency 
isn’t affiliated with any particular Jewish denomination, but that "The needs 
of the child seeking adoption is our primary concern, and we would consider 
applicants from any part of the Jewish community."


  For U.S. gays and lesbians and their supporters, President George W. Bush’s 
State of the Union address this week was most notable for what he didn’t say. 
 In his last two State of the Union speeches, and on several other occasions, 
Bush had called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting legal 
recognition of same gender couples.  "[But] perhaps the [November] election 
results served to check the president's use of dangerous wedge politics," 
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman said in a press 
release.
While proponents continue to organize around marriage ban ballot measures in 
several U.S. states, the Republican sponsors of the so-called Federal Marriage 
Amendment told reporters this week that they wouldn’t re-introduce the 
measure during the current Congressional session.  They admit that the Democratic 
majority in both houses would make passage impossible.
"While this is positive news," the Task Force’s Foreman wrote, "it hardly 
erases the last six years of legislative and policy attacks our community has 
suffered under this administration. We look forward to working with the new, more 
fair-minded Congress to repair the hurt created by President Bush's 
disastrous domestic and international policies, and to restore our nation's reputation 
as a society in which dignity, equality, and justice are available for all."


  According to a press release issued by Poland’s Helsinki Foundation for 
Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear a 
discrimination case challenging Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski’s ban of a scheduled June 
2005 LGBT Pride march.  Organizers filed an application for a city permit in May 
of that year to hold an Equality Parade, but the mayor denied the permit, 
citing traffic and security concerns.  An illegal Pride march took place anyway on 
June 11th as an act of civil disobedience.  The Local Government Appeals 
Board subsequently overturned the ban, but didn’t rule on whether there had been 
civil rights violations.  That led Pride organizers to aim their case in the 
EuroCourt’s direction.
The complaint says that, "no citizen in a democratic country should be made 
to resort to acts of civil disobedience as the result of a politician’s 
activity."
A ruling is not expected for several months.


  The "MosNews" Web site is reporting that Russian organizers are planning to 
take the Moscow city government to the EuroCourt over its refusal to allow a 
May 27th Pride Parade last year.  The city government denied a permit, but 
LGBT people and their supporters marched anyway, only to be harassed and 
assaulted by religious fundamentalists and skinheads, which left at least one gay man 
beaten unconscious.  Police arrested several anti-queer protesters, along with 
nearly 200 Pride marchers.
The Moscow City Court dismissed the case late last year.  Before heading to 
the EuroCourt, however, organizer Nikolai Alekseev said that there would be an 
appeal to the Russian Supreme Court.  But "an application to the European 
Court of Human Rights is now ready," he said, "and is currently being assessed by 
legal experts."


  A U.S. federal judge dismissed a freedom-of-speech lawsuit this week filed 
by members of a fundamentalist Christian group who were arrested while 
picketing a street festival during Philadelphia’s Pride event last year.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel noted that Outfest had received proper 
city permits for the street festival, and that the evangelists had failed to 
apply for a permit to hold a counter protest.  The anti-queer demonstrators were 
nevertheless allowed to enter the downtown festival, using bullhorns to 
preach their condemnation of homosexuality.  Police officials tried moving them to 
several different locations within the area, but LGBT activists blowing 
whistles surrounded them each time.  Eleven demonstrators affiliated with a group 
called Repent America were arrested after they refused a police directive to 
move to yet another spot.
Referring to the bullhorn-using protestors, Stengel wrote that, "There is no 
constitutional right to drown out the speech of another person."  He granted 
summary judgment in favor of the city and co-defendant Philly Pride Presents 
Inc.
Repent America members told the "Philadelphia Inquirer" that they would 
appeal the ruling.


  LGBT people are increasingly coming out to demand their rights in Kenya, 
leading some religious leaders to conclude that there’s a "surge of 
homosexuality" in the country.  According to a report in Nairobi’s "The Nation" newspaper, 
lesbians and gay men "stole the show" at this week’s World Social Forum, held 
at the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani.  The gathering attracted 
about 50,000 delegates from all over the world.  The paper called their booth 
at the Forum "a crowd puller."  The Gay and Lesbian Coalition offered free tea 
and cookies and to provide visitors with "lessons on lesbianism, gay 
relationships and transsexuals."


  But Muslim clerics in Mombasa held a press conference this week to condemn 
homosexuality, according to a report in Nairobi’s "East African Standard," and 
to urge Kenya’s Government not to legalize same-gender marriages ­- 
something that’s not even on the legislative agenda in the country.
Sheikh Mohamed Dor, Secretary General of the Council of Imams and Preachers 
of Kenya ­ or C.I.P.K. -- said that the lesbian and gay contingent sshouldn’t 
have been allowed to attend the World Social Forum, especially because they 
were promoting marriage rights there.
Dor asked why police had not arrested the group, considering that 
homosexuality is illegal in Kenya.  "The Muslim community is against homosexuality 
because the vice is ungodly," he said.  "Both [the] Koran and the Bible condemn the 
vice."
He blamed homosexuality for the spread of HIV/AIDS, while another C.I.P.K. 
official, Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, blamed the Government, saying that although 
the law against homosexuality is clear, it’s not being enforced.  As a result, 
he charged, "homosexuality has penetrated secondary schools, especially 
boarding ones."  He condemned "adults who influence youth to indulge in the vice."


  Meanwhile, TransGender Europe, a new coalition of 66 transgender and 
transsexual organizations in 21 countries, was officially registered by Austrian 
authorities earlier this month.
Chairperson Justus Eisfeld said, "This is a major milestone towards the 
recognition of the rights of transgender people.  Now TransGender Europe can apply 
for funding and make our voices heard on an international level."
The group plans to fight for "legal recognition of the gender of trans people 
in the gender they live in, as well as nondiscrimination in all aspects of 
life, equal access to health care, and social acceptance."  For more information 
online, log on to t-g-e-u-dot-net.


  And finally, the "metrosexual" mayor of Buenos Aires, Jorge Telerman, has 
again told the city he's not gay.
"I feel that homophobia is aberrant," he said in a recent interview with "La 
Nacion" newspaper. "Even so, for those thinking about a dirty campaign 
[against me], I'm sorry to say that I'm not homosexual."  But, he added, "every time 
I hear about anti-gay discrimination, I have the urge to say that I'm 
homosexual."
Telerman had earlier labeled himself "afrancesado," which translates as 
"Frenchified" or "foofy."
"[The word 'afrancesado'] just came out of me," he told "La Nacion".  "And I 
never thought it would have the repercussions that it did.  But it doesn't 
bother me.  Even when my friends ask me if I'm gay, I laugh."