"NewsWrap"
for the week ending February 17, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #986, distributed 2-19-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Lucia Chappelle, Graham Underhill, 
and Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]


Reported this week by Rick Watts and Don Lupo


  A committee of the Nigerian House of Representatives held a public hearing 
this week to consider one of the most draconian, homophobic measures ever 
proposed anywhere in the world.  The legislation would imprison people for up to 
five years for being gay or lesbian, or even for associating with lesbians or 
gay men.  It would outlaw membership in a lesbigay group, and punish anyone who 
advocates for lesbigay civil rights, donates money to a lesbigay 
organization, hosts or visits a gay or lesbian Web site, distributes gay safer sex 
information, or rents or sells property to a same-gender couple.  Expressions of 
homosexual love in letters or emails would also be banned.  Participation in or 
attendance at a same-gender marriage or blessing ceremony, and publishing, 
selling or loaning a lesbigay-themed book or video would be illegal.
However, over 100 petitions from human rights organizations objecting to the 
proposed new law were presented at the House committee hearing this week.  
"The bill is going to seriously violate the rights of people," Alimi Ademola of 
the lesbigay rights organization Independent Project Nigeria told the BBC.  
"This bill is evil and should not be allowed to see the light of day," he said.
With elections for the Presidency and National Assembly coming in April, 
queer activists fear that politicians are using the popular measure to rally 
voters.


  Nigerian society is divided between Christians and Muslims, but this issue 
has united them.  The Christian Association of Nigeria called for speedy 
passage of the law, describing same-gender unions as "barbaric and shameful".
The National Muslim Centre also condemned lesbian and gay relationships as 
"immoral," saying they "run contrary to our cultural and religious values."  
Homosexual sex is already illegal in Nigeria, punishable by imprisonment in the 
predominantly Christian south and by death in the Muslim north.
The new legislation must get two-thirds majorities in both the House of 
Representatives and the Senate, which together constitute the National Assembly.   
Senan Murray, the BBC's correspondent in the capital, Abuja, has reported that 
Assembly insiders have told him the bill is likely to pass both chambers by 
the end of March.  Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose government is 
sponsoring the bill, would sign it into law.


  Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his first public remarks about 
gays and lesbians.  In response to a reporter’s question about Moscow Mayor Yuri 
Luzhkov's denunciation of LGBT Pride parades as "satanic," Putin said that: 
"I respect -- and will respect -- freedom of people in all their 
manifestations.  [But I will not be drawn into] statements made by leaders of the regions.  
My attitude to sexual minorities is simple," he added.  "It is connected with 
my fulfilling of my official obligations."  But he alluded, perhaps as a joke, 
to the possibility that growing acceptance of homosexuality was responsible 
for his country’s declining birth rate.  Moscow Pride organizer Nikolai 
Alekseev nevertheless called Putin's remarks "a great breakthrough ... Because of the 
mere idea of gay pride, [the] Russian president started to talk about sexual 
minorities."
Last year's Pride ban, supported by the courts, led organizers to replace the 
planned parade with attempts to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Sold
ier, and then to hold a rally across from City Hall.  Participants in both small 
events were violently attacked by neo-fascists, skinheads, fundamentalist 
Christians, and riot police.
Mayor Luzhkov has already said he won’t allow another Pride parade this year, 
but organizers have vowed to march anyway, and on the same date: May 27th, 
the anniversary of the repeal in Russia of Soviet-era laws against consensual 
homosexual sex.
They’ve also filed suit in the European Court of Human Rights over last 
year's ban.  They seek the right to march and the equivalent of 26,000 U.S. dollars 
in compensation.  Alekseev told reporters that "Not a single European legal 
expert we have spoken with doubts in the success of our application to the 
court."


  Same-gender couples sought marriage licenses in clerks’ offices from one 
end of the U.S. to the other on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, in observance of 
the 10th annual Freedom to Marry Day.  As in the past nine years, they were 
refused in every state except Massachusetts, the only U.S. state with full 
marriage equality.
Marriage advocates were also out in force in the three states that allow 
civil unions - Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey ­ demanding that  their laws be 
upgraded to marriage.
Legislation to that effect has already been proposed in Vermont and 
Connecticut.  New Jersey’s civil unions go into effect this week.


  In New York state, where the top court last year ruled that granting 
marriage to gay and lesbian couples is up to the legislature, Democratic Governor 
Elliott Spitzer has pledged to introduce such a bill.  Lesbigay couples 
demonstrated for equality in a number of cities across the state.


  In Maryland, where the Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on a 
lawsuit by same-gender couples seeking the right to marry, couples rallied at the 
state capitol in Annapolis.


  In California the marriage issue is before both the state Supreme Court and 
the legislature.  Assemblyman Mark Leno was among those at a rally in San 
Francisco commemorating the third anniversary of the short-lived licensing of 
lesbigay couples there, whose marriages were later overturned by the state 
Supreme Court.  Leno said he also wanted to promote legislation he’s reintroduced in 
the Assembly that would establish marriage equality in the state.  A similar 
bill was passed by the California legislature in 2005, but Governor Arnold 
Schwarzenegger vetoed it.  Schwarzenegger said this week that he would veto such 
legislation again this year.


  And in North-Central California’s Yolo County, clerk Freddie Oakley 
presented lesbian and gay couples with "certificates of inequality" when they applied 
for marriage licenses.  Oakley said she supports their efforts, and sees no 
valid reason why same-gender couples should not be able to marry.


  A Republican-sponsored Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
to outlaw same-gender marriage has failed twice in Congress.  However, the 
Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, prevents the federal government 
from recognizing any legally contracted union of a gay or lesbian couple.  That 
includes marriages from Massachusetts or other countries where they’re legal, 
or civil unions or civil or domestic partnerships in a handful of other U.S. 
states and a few other countries.


  A lesbian couple in Argentina was denied a marriage license on Valentine’s 
Day, and they’ve vowed to take their case to court.
Buenos Aires became the first Latin American city to legalize same-gender 
unions in 2003, but Maria Rachid and Claudia Castro, a couple for seven years and 
already in a civil union, want full marriage equality.
"We'll go to the Supreme Court if necessary," said Rachid, who is president 
of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals.
"We want the same rights, with the same names, as any heterosexual couple," 
said Castro.  She told the "Reuters" news agency that the Buenos Aires 
same-gender unions law is very limited, and does not provide for shared parental 
rights, inheritance, or pension rights.
Maria Jose Lubertino, the head of the Argentine government's National 
Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, said her office would 
support the two women in their legal battle.


  More than 100 gay and lesbian couples celebrated their registrations for 
civil unions on Valentine’s Day in Mexico City’s central plaza, wearing suits 
and wedding dresses and throwing rice in what some observers called a mass 
engagement party.
The couples noted their intent with the non-governmental Citizens Civil Union 
Network ahead of a law allowing gay and lesbian couples to register their 
relationships and gain many of the rights of married couples.
Mexico City is a semi-independent capital zone with some of the same powers 
as state legislatures.  The law was approved there in November, and takes 
effect on March 16th.
Couples have already civilly united in Mexico's northern state of Coahuila, 
where similar legislation was recently enacted.


  And in what may have been the world’s most unexpected demonstration in 
support of legal rights for queer couples this week, about a half-dozen gay men 
and lesbians in Beijing used Valentine's Day to make the first public appeal for 
the legalization of same-gender marriage in China.
They handed out flyers wrapped around red carnations during a busy lunch hour 
in the capital's central business district.
"Love has no boundaries; it [has] nothing to do with gender," the flyers 
read.  "We are homosexuals.  We also want a life together with our loved one... p
lease support all kinds of partnerships and all kinds of love.  Please support 
same-sex marriage."
Such unauthorized protests are rare in China.  "We were concerned about 
security," Xian, one of the lesbian protesters, told reporters.  "Our action can be 
considered kind of political," she said.
The demonstration lasted about 20 minutes, with no intervention by 
authorities.
Police shut down a gay and lesbian cultural festival in 2005, saying that the 
organizers had not sought official permission to hold the event.


  Brilliant sunshine and a party atmosphere drew an estimated 12,000 people 
to the seventh annual Big Gay Out on February 11th in Auckland, New Zealand.  
There were a variety of commercial stalls and lots of safer sex information, 
along with food and beverage, dancing, and entertainment.  Special guests 
included Prime Minister Helen Clark, Opposition Leader John Key, several Members of 
Parliament, and Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard, who officially opened the event.
In a pre-festival ceremony the day before, New Zealand Conservation Minister 
Chris Carter and his partner of 33 years Peter Kaiser were presented with a 
cake celebrating their civil union.


  But finally, the world's first openly transsexual member of a national 
parliament, New Zealand's Georgina Beyer, is quitting this month.
She’s served for seven years and always intended to leave office by the time 
she turns 50, which will be in November.
After leaving office, Beyer will appear onstage in the Dunedin Fortune 
Theatre's production of "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks."  But she’s also 
considering a run for mayor of Wellington in the next election.