"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 Beaupré 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 Stéphane 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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