"NewsWrap"
for the week ending July 7, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,006, distributed 7-9-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner
with Bill Kelley]
Reported this week by Rick Watts and Greg Gordon
Rights for sexual minorities are part of Thailand's proposed new
constitution. Along with a guarantee of equal rights for men and women, the 100-member
drafting council voted unanimously this week for a constitutional reference to
"those of other sexual identities."
The council had earlier rejected a proposal to more specifically guarantee
LGBT rights, fearing that it would create a legal "third sex," but the country’s
queer advocacy groups say the language as proposed still protects their
constituencies.
The current Thai government was installed by a bloodless military coup in
September 2006. The country has long had the reputation of being very tolerant
of sexual minorities, but societal attitudes remain deeply conservative in the
predominantly Buddhist nation.
Thailand’s voters are expected to consider the new constitution in a
first-ever national referendum in August. If the document as drafted wins approval,
Thailand would join a handful of countries most notably South Afriica to
specifically protect gays and lesbians in its national constitution.
The announced inclusion was followed the next day by calls from equality
advocates for a boycott of a Bangkok nightclub run by European hotel chain Novotel
after bouncers refused entry to a male cross-dresser. The boycott was called
off after the club quickly issued a public apology.
Not getting an apology was Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar
Ibrahim. He’d filed a defamation lawsuit against former Prime Minister Mahathir
bin Mohamad for calling him a homosexual. A High Court judge rejected the
suit this week, ruling that it was "unsustainable" because the Court had
dismissed a similar libel action in 1999.
The former Finance Minister and Mahatir’s then heir apparent was first
accused of being gay in 1998 by the Prime Minister, who fired Anwar from the cabinet
for challenging his authority. The two had a falling out at the time over
policies addressing the financial downturn in Asia. Anwar was subsequently
convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for sodomy and corruption in a trial
that critics accused Mahathir of manufacturing to derail his former deputy’s
political ascent. Anwar was released in September 2004 after the sodomy
conviction was overturned, but the corruption verdict bars him from running for
public office until April 2008.
Mahathir, who has since retired after 22 years in power, continued to defend
his actions. "Imagine having a gay Prime Minister," he told reporters in
September 2005. "Nobody would be safe." That prompted Anwar to file his second
defamation lawsuit. His lawyer said he would appeal this week’s ruling.
Meanwhile, Gabor Szetey has become the first Hungarian cabinet minister to
come out as a gay man. The Socialist Party member and Resources Secretary in
the coalition government used a speech opening an LGBT film festival to make
his announcement, saying that it had taken him 28 years to come to terms with
his homosexuality, and that it was something he couldn’t discuss with his
now-deceased mother. "I believe in God, love, freedom and equality," he said. "I
am Hungarian and European... I am a partner, a friend, sometimes an opponent.
And I am gay."
Szetey is the second politician to come out in Hungary. The first was Klara
Ungar, an M.P. from the Alliance of Free Democrats, one of the partners in the
coalition government. Her party has called for passage of a bill extending
all the rights of marriage to same-gender couples. Socialists heading up the
government, however, are deeply divided on the issue. The bill is similar to
Britain's civil partnerships, but specifically forbids the use of the word
"marriage" to describe those relationships. The opposition Christian Democratic
People's Party opposes the bill.
Szetey's declaration came on the eve of the Budapest Pride parade. The
right-wing Movement for a Free Hungary called the march an offence to public
morality.
But an estimated two-and-a-half million people from across Europe gathered
in Madrid this week for the annual EuroPride festival. The changing locale of
the event, scheduled for Stockholm in 2008, gave LGBT activists the chance
this year to salute Spain's Socialist government for passing marriage equality
legislation, turning the once deeply conservative Roman Catholic nation into a
bastion of equality.
The four-day festival, featuring about 200 cultural and sporting events, was
capped by the EuroPride Parade on June 30th. With 45 festive floats -- some
from as far away as Manchester, Marseilles, Stockholm and Zurich tthe parade
crisscrossed Madrid under the banner "Now Europe, Equality Is Possible."
Several groups carried banners saying "For a European Union free of
discrimination," and "Watch out for the German shepherd" next to a photograph of outspokenly
anti-queer Pope Benedict XVI.
LGBT activists draped in rainbow flags also demonstrated in front of the
Polish Embassy, calling on the conservative government there to reverse its
increasingly repressive policies against the country’s sexual minorities.
Radio Netherlands reported that about 50,000 people attended the annual
Pride celebration this week in the southern Dutch city of Bergen op Zoom. Deputy
Defense Minister Cees van der Knaap and two generals accompanied 15 openly
gay soldiers in the parade, the first time members of the military have marched
in that event in uniform.
Four people from a conservative evangelical group from Georgia were
arrested on June 30th at the Pride celebration in St. Petersburg, Florida after they
violated a city order restricting their protest demonstrations to a "free
speech" zone a block from the festival.
According to a report on the "365gay.com" Web site, they held signs reading
"Sodomy, It's To Die For" and "Adam & Eve, NOT Adam & Steve," while others used
a bullhorn to denounce Pride participants. The loud music from the festival
virtually drowned out the protestors.
Police said about 40,000 people attended the celebration, although organizers
said it was closer to 60,000.
People attending the festival largely ignored the demonstrators, though some
blew kisses at them.
In other news this week, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has
removed Atlanta, Georgia Pastor Bradley Schmeling from the church's pastoral
roles because he’s an out and partnered gay man.
The denomination allows openly gay clergy as long as they're celibate. Last
year, when Schmeling announced that he had a gay partner, his bishop asked the
pastor to resign. When Schmeling refused, the bishop started the
disciplinary proceedings.
But Schmeling says he won't leave the pulpit of St. John's Lutheran Church,
and his congregation supports him. That could open the 350-member congregation
to disciplinary action by the Church.
But Toronto-area Metropolitan Community Church Reverend Brent Hawkes, who
led the charge to marriage equality in the country, was named this week to the
Order of Canada. It’s the highest civilian honor there, awarded in the name
of The Queen by the Governor General, her representative in the country.
Hawkes sparked the eventual move to marriage equality in the country in 2001 by
suing the Ontario government after the province refused to register the marriages
he’d performed at the predominantly-LGBT church for two same-gender couples.
Hawkes said he was surprised by the honor, telling the "Globe and Mail"
newspaper, "I'm used to picketing governments."
And two weeks after the Anglican Church of Canada voted to maintain its ban
on same-gender blessings, a pair of renegade parishes are publicly vowing to
bless and even marry gay and lesbian couples.
Clergy at Holy Trinity Church in downtown Toronto, Ontario and at St.
Saviour's Church in Victoria, British Columbia have each declared their intention to
conduct blessing ceremonies. "And we're not the only ones," Jim Ferry, one of
the priests at Holy Trinity, told the "CanWest" news service this week.
"There are [similar parishes] in the major urban centres," he said, "wherever
there's a significant population of gay and lesbian people."
Bishops have the authority to fire priests if they defy rules of the national
church. "The thing to remember is that in Canada same-sex marriage is now
the law of the land," said Ferry. "We have that reality to deal with here."
At stake for Anglicans is the unity of one of Canada's largest churches, and
also the survival of the 77-million member global Anglican Communion. The
loose affiliation of national churches has been at the brink of schism for months
because of serious differences over sexual morality and biblical
interpretation between progressive North American Anglicans and more traditional adherents
in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Meanwhile, Anglican spiritual leader and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams may be reconsidering his refusal to invite controversial openly gay New
Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson to the Lambeth Conference, a
once-a-decade global gathering of Anglican bishops. According to a story in
London’s "Times," Robinson would reportedly attend but not be able to vote at the
Conference, scheduled for next July in Canterbury, England.
Williams has also been under fire by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola for
not inviting the leader of a group of conservative Episcopal congregations that
have defected to the African prelate’s governance because of the U.S. Anglican
wing’s consecration of Robinson and support for same-gender blessings. In
yet another sign that a schism seems inevitable, the outspokenly homophobic head
of Anglicanism's fastest-growing regional branch, with about 20 million
members, announced this week that he and his Nigerian bishops plan to boycott the
Lambeth Conference.
But finally, Turkish equality activists are defiantly speaking out
following mid-June raids on two gay bars in Istanbul. According to the Commission for
Monitoring Human Rights of LGBTT Persons and Law, a coalition of several
Turkish queer organizations, police threatened to use pepper spray and billy clubs
as they herded patrons into the streets. When some of the patrons ignored
orders to disperse and instead began clapping, they were clubbed. The same
officers, the Commission said, then went "hunting" for gay and transgender people
nearby and assaulted several.
The Commission demanded that the city's public prosecutor and mayor, and
Turkey’s Parliament and prime minister "investigate, search and monitor the human
rights violations against LGBTT persons," saying that "We will not be quiet
against being prevented from our basic rights of being... human."
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