[reminder: There'll be no "NewsWrap" the next 2 weeks for special TWO year-ending programming: "Audiofile Year In Review" on next week's wk of 12/24 show, and "Pride On Screen 2007" on the wk of 12/31 show.  "NewsWrap" will return on the TWO wk of 1/7/08 program.]

“NewsWrap"
for the week ending December 15, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,029, distributed 12-17-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Rick Watts

  The court of first instance in Ksar el-Kbir, a small Moroccan city south of Tangiers, convicted six men this week of violating Article 489 of the country's penal code, which criminalizes "lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex," an offense punishable by between six months and three years in prison.
The men all pleaded innocent to the charges.  They've been in jail since their late November arrests after a video circulated online, including on “YouTube,” showed the defendants participating in what the local press called a “gay marriage” party.  There was no sexual activity on the video.
According to their lawyers, the prosecution failed to present any evidence that the men had actually engaged in the illegal conduct.  The court nevertheless sentenced the defendants, who range in age from 20 to 61 years old, to from four to ten months in prison.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, charged that "These men are behind bars for private acts between consenting adults that no government has any business criminalizing in the first place," and called for their immediate release.
Morocco has ratified several international treaties that define arrests based on consensual adult homosexual conduct as human rights violations.
The judge has refused to release the men pending their appeals.

  The European Union could become the first multinational body to have a treaty with explicit language prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  Representatives from 25 of the 27 E.U. member states signed the Charter of Fundamental Rights at a ceremony this week in Strasbourg.
Britain and Poland, for different reasons, had demanded a public referendum on the accord, and refused to sign on.
The Charter codifies all of the individual E.U. laws and regulations covering human rights into a single document.  But it will only take effect after the parliaments of all 27 member nations ratify a concord called the Lisbon Treaty that reforms the way the E.U. operates.  The ratification process for that Treaty, to which the Charter is attached, is expected to take until the end of 2008.
Patricia Prendiville, Executive Director of the European branch of ILGA - the International Lesbian and Gay Association - urged member states to ratify that Treaty, but about the Charter worried that “the lack of unanimity among the E.U. member states weakens the strength and authority of this significant document.“

  Meanwhile, the Spanish government has for the first time recognized a gay couple who registered their civil partnership in Britain.
Spain legalized same-gender marriage in 2005, and recognizes similar marriages in other countries where they're legal - the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and South Africa.  But Spain had not previously treated U.K. civil partnerships as equivalent to marriage.
Paul and Martin Ward registered their civil partnership in Britain on Valentines Day this year.  Paul was working in Spain and Martin was planning to move there, but they told reporters that discovering that their civil partnership wouldn't be recognized “[left] us in a situation of now you're [united], now your not, with no legal rights."
With help from British government officials and queer advocacy groups, the couple launched a campaign to publicize their plight.  The Foreign Office in London and the Spanish Ministry of Justice began negotiations, and the Spanish government this week agreed to recognize U.K. civil partnerships.  Paul and Martin say they're the first British same-gender couple living in Spain to have their civil partnership acknowledged in law, and in the “observations” section of their passports.

  And a study released to coincide with the second anniversary last week of civil partnerships in the U.K. found significant indications that they're not equivalent to marriage.
The financial public service organization Citizens Advice concluded that the term "civil partnership" has created a second-class status that also “outs” same-gender couples because of the generic nature of corporate and bank forms.
It also found that because of the difference in terms, even though both marriage and civil partnership are supposed to have the same legal status, many people still don't know how to refer to their circumstance in social situations.
"Some individuals still find it difficult to discuss their same-sex relationship with friends and family,” the study reported, “so confusion in communication compounds what is already, for some, quite a delicate situation."
Citizens Advice called for all banks and businesses to have a single category of “married/civil partner,” leaving the sexual orientation of the respondents unspecified.

  That report echoes complaints by lesbigay couples in the U.S., who say civil unions in the three states where they're legal are not the same as marriage, particularly in partner healthcare coverage, joint property ownership, and co-parenting issues.
Same-gender marriage is legal only in the state of Massachusetts.  Separate but supposedly “equal” civil unions are available in Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut.  Same-gender couples will be able to contract civil unions in New Hampshire beginning in 2008.  Special ceremonies on the Statehouse steps are, in fact, scheduled for one minute after midnight on January 1st.
But a blue ribbon panel created by the Vermont legislature has repeatedly been told about inequities in the treatment of civilly united couples.  And a similar committee has heard comparable horror stories in New Jersey from same-gender couples, all of whom insist that only marriage equality will resolve the problems they've encountered in having their civil unions universally recognized.  Both state legislatures are expected to consider the issue next year.

  Elsewhere, a Rhode Island woman who legally married her lesbian partner in Massachusetts three years ago has filed for divorce in Rhode Island Superior Court, following a ruling last week by her state's Supreme Court that the couple's divorce can't be considered in Family Court.  In that ruling, the state's top judges decided that the creation of Rhode Island's Family Court in 1961 never included the power to dissolve same-gender unions.
Louis Pulner, an attorney for one of the women, said he then decided to file for divorce on her behalf in Superior Court because it has broader powers than Family Court. Massachusetts restricts same-gender marriages to residents of other states where the marriage would be legally recognized.  The Rhode Island women's marriage was recognized in Massachusetts because no law specifically bans same-gender marriages in their home state, although Rhode Island has not acted to recognize such marriages, either.
Pulner told reporters that "I cannot fathom that there is not a forum in the state of Rhode Island for a legally married couple to dissolve their marriage."  Attorneys for the other woman in the marriage are supporting the Superior Court divorce filing.
Unless the case is won there, at least one of the women may be forced to establish residency in Massachusetts, and then seek a divorce from that state's courts.

  Oral arguments in the California Supreme Court marriage equality lawsuit are not on the January docket, as had widely been expected.  Chief Justice Ronald George said this week that more “friend of the court” briefs have been filed for that case than any other in recent memory.  He said the Court has received 45 such briefs from 145 different organizations supporting all sides of the issue, and that it's “a vast amount of literature to read.”  Justices must review all written material before they hear oral arguments.
The court will concurrently be considering six related lawsuits that challenge the constitutionality of California's “one man, one woman” marriage laws.  George said that all the required written legal arguments were filed by the November 15th deadline, and that the case would be heard sometime next year, but he declined to predict precisely when.  The Court is required to rule within 90 days after hearing oral arguments.

  But finally, it appears that yet another constitutional amendment to ban same-gender marriage will be on the ballot - this time in Florida.  The Secretary of State said this week that the group supporting the ban, called Florida4Marriage, collected more than a thousand more signatures than required to qualify the measure for the 2008 ballot.  State law already prohibits same-gender marriage, but proponents say a constitutional amendment will prevent judges from overturning that law.
An investigation by the “St. Petersburg Times” into funding for a similar measure that failed to garner enough signatures in 2006 found that more than 75% of the money the group raised for that effort came from a single donor - the Florida Republican Party.  Putting marriage on the ballot has been a much-used GOP strategy to drive social conservatives to the polls.
The amendment reads, "Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."  LGBT rights groups say that the broad language of the measure could strip away all rights provided by domestic partnerships that are offered in some Floridian locales.
A similarly broad measure was narrowly defeated in Arizona in November 2006 with strong support from that state's senior citizens.  Organizations representing Florida's large seniors population are expected to be strong allies in the fight against the amendment in their state.  Because remarriage can negatively impact pensions, Social Security survivor benefits, and other financial considerations, senior couples often prefer domestic partnerships to legalize their later-in-life relationships.
And unlike simple majorities in most other states, a constitutional amendment in Florida must be approved by 60 percent of the voters.


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