"NewsWrap" for the week ending August 25, 2007 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,013, distributed 8-27-07) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Jon BeauprĂ© and Rick Watts Openly gay Liberal Canadian Member of Parliament Scott Brison and his partner Maxime St. Pierre got married on August 18th in Cheverie, Nova Scotia ­ a town of about 200 people on the province's western shoreline. The event was prominently reported across the country. He’s the first lesbigay federal politician to wed since Canada established marriage equality nationwide in 2005, and after eight provinces and one territory had legalized it on their own. Brison, who came out in 2002, has repeatedly said that he is "not a gay politician, but a politician who happens to be gay." Prior to the ceremony, his spokesman told the "Canadian Press" wire service that the wedding was "a personal matter [that] is meant to be celebrated in private." Prominent Canadians reportedly in attendance included former Prime Ministers Paul Martin and Joe Clark, Liberal Party leader StĂ©phane Dion, former Defense Minister Bill Graham, former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna, and former Ontario Premier Bob Rae. New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, the only openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, discussed plans for a civil union with his partner of 18 years Mark Andrew soon after they become legal in his state on January 1st during an interview this week with the British Broadcasting Corporation. His comments prompted an attack by Anglican conservatives, who called them a publicity stunt. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, the most outspokenly anti-queer voice in the Communion, has repeatedly condemned Robinson’s consecration. He issued a statement this week saying that theological conservatives cannot stand by as the Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S. - and some regions of the Anglican Church of Canada ­ also support the blessing of same-genderr relationships. "We earnestly desire the healing of our beloved Communion," Akinola wrote, "but not at the cost of rewriting the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend." Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the titular leader of the worldwide denomination, has been trying to keep the Church from splintering over lesbigay issues. While Robinson will be allowed to attend the upcoming Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade meeting of the world’s Anglican bishops, Williams won’t allow him to participate or vote. A similar restriction has been placed on bishops from breakaway conservative U.S. Episcopal churches who’ve aligned with and been consecrated by Akinola. The steering committee for the Global South Primates, representing almost half of the denomination's 77-million members and in its most conservative regions -- mainly in Africa, Latin America and Asia -- said last month that its bishops will boycott Lambeth because the Episcopal Church is being allowed to participate. Akinola’s statement also referenced a seemingly inevitable schism in the Anglican Communion by saying that "the moment of decision is almost upon us." A Presbyterian Church U.S.A. court has reversed a lower judicial body and ruled that the Reverend Jane Spahr violated church doctrine when she officiated at the unions of two lesbian couples in 2004 and 2005. The denomination's highest court in 2000 said that Presbyterian ministers can bless same-gender unions as long as they don’t equate the relationships with marriage, and the ceremonies don’t mimic traditional weddings. Spahr had testified to performing hundreds of weddings during her career, saying that she called it "marriage" if that was the term a couple preferred. A lower church court last year decided that Spahr acted within her rights as an ordained minister. But conservatives appealed the ruling to the higher body, which ruled this week that even though Spahr "had acted with conscience and conviction, her actions were contrary to the (Presbyterian Church USA) Constitution as it is authoritatively interpreted." A minister for more than 30 years, Spahr came out as a lesbian in 1978. She’s now retired. In a statement following the ruling, Spahr said that she was "deeply saddened that our Church has chosen not to recognize the loving relationship[s] of members of its own family... this reversal of the Presbytery’s decision promotes a belief that somehow this love is less than valid." She has about a month to appeal the decision to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. Christian groups from the Inter-faith Coalition Against Homosexuality held a protest rally in Kampala this week to condemn last week’s first-ever press conference by LGBT activists in Uganda during which they demanded their civil rights. About a hundred protesters carried dozens of placards saying "Arrest all homos." "Homosexuality and lesbianism break three laws," protest organizer and pastor Martin Sempa told reporters, "the laws in the Bible and the Koran; the laws of nature; and the laws of the land." The African nation punishes sodomy with life in prison. But Paul Kagaba, a member of Sexual Minorities Uganda, told the "Reuters" news service that "We did not hold the press conference against churches and government. We were simply telling everyone to leave us alone." The global civil liberties group Human Rights Watch this week issued a letter to rabidly anti-queer Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni asking that his government stop promoting "state homophobia." In a separate statement, the group accused Museveni's government, in power since 1986, of harassing LGBT organizations, promoting discrimination through state media, and raiding the homes of activists. There was no immediate response from the Ugandan government. Politicians on two other continents are in hot water over their homophobic remarks. The most egregious came from Giancarlo Gentilini, the right-wing Deputy Mayor of the northern Italian city of Treviso, who said he’s ordering his police force to carry out "ethnic cleansing of faggots." Gentilini said he’s sick of gays meeting up and having sex in a local parking lot. "The faggots must go to other [cities] where they are welcome," he told a local television station. "Here in Treviso there is no chance for faggots or the like." A video clip of the outburst was posted on YouTube. More than a thousand queer and queer-supportive demonstrators picketed City Hall to demand Gentilini's immediate resignation. Many in the crowd wore pink triangles, the symbol gays were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. Politicians from several parties across the country also denounced the remarks, and prosecutors have said they’ll investigate whether Gentilini's language violated criminal law. And in the U.S., the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has been complaining about what he sees as a problem of gay cruising along the city's beach. Mayor Jim Naugle has charged that gay sex is rampant in public washrooms on the beach, and called for the city to spend a quarter-million dollars on "new tech" replacement toilets that he said would end the problem. Police officials said there is no such problem, but Naugle then claimed that Broward County has the highest rate of new HIV/AIDS cases in the country involving men having sex with men, and suggested that local tourism officials should rethink their ad campaigns that welcome lesbigay people to the area. But the "Sun-Sentinel" newspaper reported this week that the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Board has asked Naugle to stop his "hurtful, mean-spirited rhetoric," while county commissioners have drafted a measure to oust the mayor from his seat on the tourism board. Infuriated locals have also launched a "Flush Naugle" campaign. In other news, about 3,000 people marched in Tokyo's sixth Pride parade on August 11th. The procession through the Shibuya and Harajuku neighborhoods featured floats, a marching band, rainbow balloons and flags, and marchers wearing G-strings and feather boas. Organizers said they hoped to create a climate where fewer LGBT people live in fear of coming out. Events in a park attracted about 5,000 celebrants for seminars, speeches, a flea market, food, live music and dancing. Members of the Bulgarian Gay Organization Gemini gathered the same day in Sofia's Actavis Park to distribute brochures on lesbigay issues and HIV prevention to the general public. The "Pink Point" project aims to correct "misconceptions" about LGBT people, according to Gemini leader Aksinia Gencheva, and to deliver "accurate and fair information." The group has also been handing out condoms and safe-sex information at gay bars. But finally, a group of fundamentalist Christian youth rioted last week in the Swedish city of Jonkoping. Police battled about 30 protestors after they torched a poster promoting a celebrated photo mural exhibit in their city that portrays Jesus as gay. "Ecce Homo," by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, a former photojournalist and out lesbian, portrays Christ's teaching and Passion in the context of late 20th-century gay life. "Ecce homo," or "Behold the man," were Pontius Pilate's words, according to the New Testament, as he presented Jesus to the angry mob before the Crucifixion. The collection premiered in Wallin's native Stockholm in 1998, where she was often given police protection after receiving several death threats. The most controversial image -- a well-endowed nude Jesus being baptized by an appreciative John the Baptist in a back-lit swimming pool -- led the European Parliament to cancel its tour of the series. The renewed interest in "Ecce Homo" was prompted by an American art historian named Cherry, who features the images in her new book, "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More." She told "Gay.com" that Wallin is "now starting to get hate mail from the United States," even though "Ecce Homo" has never been exhibited there. "The violence is showing the need for artwork such as this," Cherry said. "So often it's Christians versus gays, when in fact Jesus taught love toward everybody."


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