"NewsWrap"
for the week ending September 15, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,016, distributed 9-17-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner
with Bill Kelley]
Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Rick Watts
Canada’s gay men and lesbians are getting married much more often than
their heterosexual counterparts, according to a national 2006 census that for the
first time tried to track the country’s same-gender couples. Statistics
Canada reported this week that the number of same-gender couples, both married and
unmarried, increased 32.6 percent between 2001 and 2006, five times the rate
of heterosexual couples. Half of all Canadian lesbigay couples reported living
in the country’s three largest metro areas, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Nearly 54 percent of the couples were male, but by more than 8-to-1, female
couples were more likely to have children. About 9 percent of all same-gender
couples reported children 24 years or younger living with them.
The official figures may need a footnote, however. After prolonged
discussion, Statistics Canada decided to ask same-gender couples to check the "other"
box rather than "husband" or "wife." Egale Canada, a leading national LGBT
advocacy group, strenuously objected when the forms were released last year. It
urged couples to list their relationship as husband or wife rather than
filling in the "other" box, and said many of its members had chosen not to complete
the census at all in protest. ``I don't think we should be a segregated group
just because we're same-sex married," Egale executive director Helen Kennedy
said in a recent interview. "Marriage is marriage.''
Anne Milan, a senior analyst at Statistics Canada, said it's "difficult to
say" what effect Egale's dissent had on the numbers.
In a case that arose from an inquiry by a gay New York state employee
asking if his retirement benefits would cover his family if he went to Canada to
legally marry his partner, Albany trial court judge Thomas J. McNamara has
answered affirmatively. He dismissed a challenge this week by a rightwing group to
the decision by the New York State Comptroller to treat same-gender couples
who marry in jurisdictions where they’re legal the same as any other
legally-married couples when it comes to benefits given to state employees under the New
York State Retirement System. The Comptroller is its sole trustee, and it’s
the biggest state plan in the U.S., covering some 334,000 retirees and 648,000
current employees.
The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based organization that regularly
fights LGBT equality, filed the suit. They cited the July 2006 ruling by the Court
of Appeals - the state's highest court - which upheld New York's ban on
same-gender marriage. But in dismissing the suit, McNamara said that case didn’t
address whether legal same-gender marriages performed outside the state should
be recognized in New York. Following this week’s ruling, current state
Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli clarified the policy of his predecessor Alan Hevesi,
whose interpretation of the law echoed that of then Attorney General, now
Governor Eliot Spitzer. DiNapoli announced that the retirement system would
recognize all legal out-of-state same-gender marriages, not just from Canada, but
those performed in Massachusetts, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and South
Africa. Most observers believe that an appeal of McNamara’s supportive court
ruling is likely.
But Northern Ireland's highest court this week overturned significant h
arassment provisions of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which ban
discrimination based on sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services. The
regulations went into effect there in January. A similar measure took effect in
Great Britain in April, but they’re not affected by this week's ruling.
Northern Ireland Justice Weatherup ruled that what he called "voicing
opposition" to gay men and lesbians was not illegal. The dismissal of harassment
protections will also apply to schools in Northern Ireland, many of which are run
by religious groups.
A coalition of denominations led by the Christian Institute applied for a
judicial review in June, calling the regulations a "blatant infringement" of
religious liberty, and asking that they be overturned entirely. But the justice
wrote that, aside from the harassment provisions, he was "satisfied that the
regulations do not treat evangelical Christians less favourably than others."
Theoretically at least, the ruling means that a conservative Christian in
Northern Ireland who owns a bed and breakfast can’t refuse to rent a room to a
queer couple, but would be allowed to tell them how unwelcome they are.
Along with the Christian Institute, churches and Christian charities that
took the legal action include the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the
Congregational Union of Ireland, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ireland,
the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland and the Fellowship of
Independent Methodist Churches.
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld the full rights of a
transgender person in Lithuania to get gender reassignment surgery. The Court said
that while Lithuanian law recognizes transsexuals’ rights to change their gender
and civil status, there was a gap in the law regulating full gender
reassignment surgery, creating an impediment for a transsexual person to complete the
process.
The Court cited Article 8 the right to respect of private and famiily life
-- of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Patricia Prendiville, Executive Director of the European wing of ILGA, the
International Lesbian and Gay Association, called it "a very positive
judgement," saying that the case "highlights the complexity and the need for better
understanding of the issues that transgender people experience because of the
legal and bureaucratic barriers they face."
The human rights committee of the Southern Common Market issued a
declaration in late August urging an end to discrimination against sexual and gender
minorities in its member nations. Created in 1985, the Southern Common Market
is a regional trade and integration agreement among member states Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and associate member states Bolivia, Chilé,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
The declaration calls for repeal of all anti-gay laws, queer-inclusive
education in schools, an end to police harassment and persecution, passage of laws
to protect lesbigay couples and families, allowing transgender people to
officially change their names and gender designations, the creation of government
agencies to serve and protect LGBT people, and a regional authority to monitor
nations' compliance with the declaration's goals.
The measure now moves to the full Southern Common Market for consideration.
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Executive Director Paula
Ettelbrick said it’s expected to pass, and if that happens it will be ""the
first significant step in promoting region-wide sexual and gender rights in
Latin America."
The Roman Catholic vicar general of Havana, Monsignor Carlos Manuel de
Céspedes GarcÃa-Menocal, supports "stable same-sex relationships" that should be
"protected by civil laws."
The Cuban Catholic leader expressed that rather remarkable view in an article
published in the July/August issue of the Archdiocese of Havana's "New Word"
magazine.
Céspedes wrote that "Contemporary Western society is no longer the same as
that which arrived at present clarifications concerning marriage." Although the
church "is not going to renounce criteria established by revelation and set
by tradition," he said, "neither can it ignore contemporary personal and family
reality."
U.S. middle and high schools that have Gay-Straight Alliances not
surprisingly have lower incidents of homophobic acts on campus, according to a study
released this week by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.
Fifty-two percent of students in schools with a Gay-Straight Alliance
reported that the faculty, staff and administrators are LGBT-supportive. The study
also found that LGBT students in schools with GSAs feel safer and miss fewer
classes.
GLSEN leaders say that a lot more needs to be done. Social and population
research in the study showed that youth in the South and in rural areas are less
likely to have access to an LGBT-positive resource in school, while
African-American students were seen to have the least access.
And finally, they may not all have been "pretty," but a lot of students in
Halifax, Nova Scotia were sure "in pink," according to a report this week in
the "Chronicle-Herald" newspaper. After a ninth-grader showed up wearing a
pink polo shirt on the first day of class at Central Kings Rural High School,
several older teens surrounded him, called him gay, and threatened to beat him
up, the paper reported. A school official said the bullies had been identified
and would be dealt with "appropriately."
Seniors David Shepherd and Travis Price condemned the incident online that
evening in messages to several classmates, and arrived at school two days later
with 75 pink tank tops for male students, and yards of pink fabric for
headbands and armbands. They even convinced a local retailer to open early to get as
much pink fabric as they could.
Shepherd and Price handed out the pink shirts and fabric in the lobby before
class. Even the bullied student got a shirt. "He was all smiles," Shepherd
said. "It was like a big weight had been lifted off his shoulder[s]."
Shepherd said that about half of the school's 830 students wore pink that day. One
of the bullies asked him why he didn’t realize that pink on a male was a symbol
of homosexuality. "Something like the color of your shirt or pants?" he
said. "That's ridiculous."
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