"NewsWrap"
for the week ending August 4, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,010, distributed 8-6-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner
with Bill Kelley]
Reported this week by Jon Beaupre and Rick Watts
Authorities in Singapore have refused to allow an LGBT book reading, a
human rights forum, and a photo exhibit as part of Pride events this week in the
conservative Asian city/state.
The Media Development Authority rejected the inclusion at the book reading of
Ng Yi-Sheng, whose characters in a novel about a young man's sexual
adventures with older men include military officers and government officials. The
Authority said that the book was indecent, in bad taste, and disparaged people in
public service.
Police also ordered the cancellation of a human rights forum that was to have
featured Canadian legal expert Douglas Sanders, a professor emeritus in law
at the University of British Columbia. The forum, entitled "Sexual Orientation
in International Law: The Case of Asia," was deemed contrary to the public
interest. The Home Affairs Ministry issued a statement saying that such
discussion "should be reserved for Singaporeans... foreigners should refrain from
interfering."
No doubt much to their chagrin, the weeklong Pride celebration was officially
kicked off by a video message from openly gay British actor Sir Ian McKellen,
who’s on an Asian tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
"It's very important," he said, "that gay people, wherever they are, should
identify themselves, stick up for themselves, represent themselves, modestly
and positively, so the rest of the world knows that we're here and we're not
going to go away."
Police also closed a photo exhibit called "Kissing" earlier in the week
before its official opening because, they said, it promoted "a homosexual
lifestyle". The exhibit featured a series of 80 posed shots of fully clothed
same-gender couples kissing.
Alex Au, founder of the Singaporean rights group People Like Us, told the
"Associated Press" that it was "absurd to think that gay people do not also kiss,
and that representation of such a reality would be subversive."
Homosexual acts, or "gross indecency" between two men in Singapore, can be
punished by up to two years in jail, although the law has generally not been
enforced.
A float was dynamited right before the third annual LGBT Pride Parade was
scheduled to begin on June 30th in La Paz, Bolivia, according to a
late-arriving report by gay journalist Rex Wockner. Six marchers were injured in the
blast that took place during the pre-parade lineup.
Pride events in three other Bolivian cities - Cochabamba, Tarija and Santa
Cruz each took place without incident.
Protesters threw tomatoes and rotten eggs at marchers in previous years in
Santa Cruz and La Paz.
This year's events in Cochabamba and Tarija were firsts for those cities.
In Canada, Montreal's first daytime Pride parade since 2004 entertained a
festive downtown crowd on July 29th. Bright afternoon sunshine and spectators
as many as 15 people deep under canopies of rainbow flags lined the 16-block
downtown route. They greeted more than 70 contingents and some 1,500 marchers,
according to a report in the "Montreal Gazette".
Organizers said the estimated 50,000 revelers far exceeded their predicted
turnout of 30,000.
Also in Canada, the Quebec Human Rights Commission has awarded 10,000
dollars to a gay couple for being harassed by young people in their Montreal West
Island neighborhood.
Theo Wouters and Roger Thibault said four teenagers badgered them repeatedly
in recent years because of their sexual orientation. This week’s ruling
ordered the parents of one of them to pay the two men. The three other teens named
in the case now each live in Calgary, where the ruling can’t be enforced.
Wouters told the "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation" that it was a victory
for him and his partner of more than 30 years, who are determined to live in
their suburban middle-class neighborhood despite being harassed. "We love our
place," he said.
New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, like his predecessor Tony Blair,
expressed support for lesbigay people as he answered a series of questions from
readers on the "PinkNews" Web site.
"I am proud of this Government's record on gay rights," Brown wrote, adding
that it has "an international strategy to promote rights overseas, which
includes Britain's commitment to the universal decriminalization of homosexuality."
Brown also promised to do more "to tackle homophobic bullying in schools
[and] discrimination in the workplace."
A new social support center for the LGBT community has opened in Hong Kong.
It’s the first of its kind in China.
A grant of 430,000 dollars from the AIDS Trust Fund will pay the rent for the
Rainbow of Hong Kong center and support one full time staff member for a year.
A recent survey showed that the majority of gay men in Hong Kong seeking HIV
tests and advice are more comfortable approaching organizations that will be
supportive of their sexuality. The survey also revealed, however, that more
than one in three gay men were not entirely comfortable disclosing their
orientation to those organizations.
The center’s founder Kenneth Cheung Kam-hung told the "Associated Press" that
there was a need for counseling, special interest classes and training
workshops for volunteers, as well as a peer support hotline. "We found that the
existing social services groups were unable to reach [this] minority group," he
said. "Merely distributing condoms and carrying out blood tests is not enough
to help them."
Japan’s first openly- lesbian or gay mainstream candidate for parliament,
Kanako Otsuji, failed to win enough votes this week to win a seat in the
country’s upper house, but declared her campaign a success anyway. She was
supported by the Democratic Party of Japan, the country’s main opposition party, and
said her openness about her sexuality will make it easier for gay and lesbian
candidates in the future. Prior to running for parliament, the 32-year-old
Otsuji was a local legislator in Osaka.
She lost her quest for parliament by a narrow margin in an election that was
tightly contested across the country. Voters responded to a series of
political scandals by stripping Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party
of its majority in the 242-seat upper house, although his party still holds a
majority in the lower house.
Rainbow flags were prominent during Otsuji’s campaign, during which she
frequently used a sound truck declaring through a loudspeaker that she is a proud
lesbian. She also exchanged vows with her longtime partner in a public wedding
ceremony, although same-gender couples have no legal rights in Japan.
The government of Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced this week
that it would introduce legislation to deny legal recognition to foreign
children adopted by same-gender couples. Any such child adopted legally overseas
would not be granted a visa to enter Australia.
Gay and lesbian couples have frequently gone abroad - mainly to Asian
countries - to adopt. Rodney Croome of the Australian Coalition for Equality told
the "Australian Associated Press" that "The government clearly believes children
are better off in a Chinese orphanage or on the streets of Manila than in the
care of a loving same-sex couple in Australia."
A spokesperson for the Attorney General said that the bill, if passed by Parli
ament, would overturn laws in some Australian states and territories that
currently recognize adoptions by gay and lesbian couples.
Some LGBT activists claim that the move would specifically contravene the
country’s visa laws, and breach the U.N. Covenant on the Rights of the Child, to
which Australia is a signatory.
The national Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission released a report
last month detailing the discrimination and inequities faced by Australia’s
same-gender couples, and called for legislation to protect them.
The adoptions ban would be the second direct assault on gay and lesbian
couples in Australia by the Howard government. It has consistently opposed any
legislation granting what it calls "marriage-like rights" to same-gender couples,
and pushed through federal legislation in 2004 to specifically limit marriage
to heterosexual couples.
Bowing to pressure from New Jersey's governor and attorney general, not to
mention bad press, global shipping giant United Parcel Service announced a
reversal of policy this week, saying that it would extend health insurance
benefits in the U.S. state to the partners of its civil unioned lesbigay employees
covered by union labor contracts.
The company had previously said that those couples were not legally married,
and were therefore not entitled to the same benefits that spouses of U.P.S.
hourly workers receive.
"Over the past week, however, we have received clear guidance that at least
in New Jersey, the state truly views civil union partners as married," said
Allen Hill, the company’s Senior Vice President for Human Resources. "We've
heard that loud and clear from state officials and we're happy to make this
change."
U.P.S. spokesman Norman Black said the company is reviewing its policies in
Connecticut and Vermont, which also offer civil unions. The company does
provide spousal benefits to its legally married lesbigay couples in Massachusetts.
LGBT advocates note that many other employers in New Jersey still deny
spousal benefits to civil unioned couples because they’re not legally married, and
say that the disparity can only be rectified by full marriage equality in the
state.
And finally, hundreds of gays and lesbians staged a mass kiss-in at Rome's
famed Colosseum on August 2nd to protest the recent arrest of two men who
shared a kiss in front of the well-known tourist attraction.
Police insist that they won’t drop the charges of "lewd conduct" against the
two men, despite widespread condemnation by queer activists and some
government officials. The pair could be sentenced to up to two years in prison.
They’d just left one of a number of gay clubs near the Colosseum on July 28th
when they exchanged a kiss on Via San Giovani in front of the ruins. A
police officer noticed the smooch and arrested them.
Lesbigay advocates, who are still waiting for some form of civil partnership
legislation promised by the ruling coalition government of Prime Minister
Romano Prodi, hoisted rainbow flags along that Colosseum roadway and mockingly
renamed it "Gay Street." Organizers said they wanted to give the city "a point
of reference for the gay and lesbian community."
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