“NewsWrap" for the week ending January 26, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,035, distributed 1-28-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Greg Gordon and Rick Watts The European Court of Human Rights ruled this week that not allowing otherwise-qualified lesbian and gay adults to adopt children is discriminatory and a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. A woman identified only as E.B. was rejected by French officials in 1998 when she applied to adopt a child. She was described in court documents as a nursery school teacher who had been living with another woman since 1990. The highest administrative court in France upheld the rejection of her application in June 2002, and E.B. appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In its 10-to-7 ruling, the judges said that there was nothing to suggest that E.B. would be an unfit parent, and that she was rejected solely because of her sexual orientation. They also noted that France, like a number of other European countries, allows single people to adopt. The European Branch of ILGA - the International Lesbian and Gay Association - which with 3 other European LGBT rights groups had been allowed to file briefs in support of E.B. - issued a statement saying in part that "No one has an automatic right to adopt a child. But... European countries can no longer justify exclusion of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals from applying for a child adoption.” But a leading member of the governing political party in Poland, a member state of the European Union, has said his country will defy the ruling. The deputy speaker of the Parliament, Stefan Niesiolowski, warned that "We will defend ourselves because it's unthinkable that homosexuals would adopt children." Legal scholars in the country have supported his position, claiming that the EuroCourt cannot override rulings by Polish courts. But Robert Biedron, president of the Polish LGBT rights group Campaign Against Homophobia, called the ruling “a milestone,” and said that he was “shocked by the statements of some politicians who are trying to deny the power of the European Court." Two leaders of the major queer rights organization in Argentina, where same-gender marriage is illegal, were married this week in Spain, where it is legal. César Cigliutti and Marcelo Suntheim of the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina said they would sue for legal recognition of their marriage in their home country. The Madrid wedding was made possible by Suntheim's dual citizenship in Argentina and Germany - allowing him to marry in any European Union country where it's legal. The couple said they chose Spain because of its cultural similarities to Argentina. Previous attempts by same-gender couples to marry in Argentina have been rejected by the judicial system in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. An assistant to an outspokenly homophobic Latvian M.P. has been found guilty of gross public disorderliness for throwing what was probably a bag of feces at people attending 2006 LGBT Pride events in Riga. Janis Dzelme was sentenced to 100 hours of compulsory labor for what the court called an obvious lack of respect toward the public by ignoring universally accepted norms of behavior. Kristine Garina, chair of the Pride-organizing group Mozaika, called the conviction “an enormously important precedent which will send very strong signals to those people in Latvia who believe that freedom of assembly and freedom of speech should be limited with violence." In 2005, about 150 activists attempted a first-ever Pride march in Riga, but were heavily outnumbered by more than 1,000 protesters, who hurled bottles and rotten eggs, blocked the streets, and forced the parade to be rerouted. The City Council banned the parade in 2006, but organizers responded by holding a religious service at a church and meetings at a hotel. Dzelme was among fundamentalist Christian, ultranationalist and neo-Nazi protesters pelting attendees at both events with eggs, rotten food and feces. Last year, armed with a court ruling that the 2006 ban was unconstitutional, more than 500 LGBT people marched around a fenced-in park under heavy police protection, dodging only a paint-bomb, an ice-cream cone and a few firecrackers. The Scottish Executive has pledged to support the expansion of hate-crime laws to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said in a news release that "Our clear aim is to prevent and deter crimes. But where crime does happen it will not be tolerated." According to the queer advocacy Equality Network, a quarter of Scottish LGBT people have been victims of homophobic violence and two-thirds have been threatened or harassed. The Scottish Conservative Party opposes the change. LGBT-inclusive hate-crime laws are already in force in the rest of the United Kingdom. But after only 20 months at the helm of an often bickering center-left coalition of parties ranging from pro-Vatican to Communists and Greens, Italian Premier Romano Prodi submitted his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano this week after losing a confidence vote in Parliament. Plagued by corruption charges, Prodi's downfall was all but sealed when the small but key Vatican-aligned Christian Democrats pulled out of his coalition government - in part due to Prodi's efforts to fulfill a campaign promise to legislate equality for same-gender couples. A bill to create civil partnerships was abandoned late last year in a last ditch effort to keep the support of the Christian Democrats, but some coalition members had vowed to introduce the measure anyway. Those efforts have died with the fall of Prodi's government. Napolitano could call a quick election or name a caretaker government. An election could bring back a right-of-center government headed by former Prime Minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, the man Prodi defeated in the 2006 elections. He's been a frequent guest of the Vatican and currently leads in public opinion polls. Meanwhile, the first nursing home in Europe for lesbigay people opened this month in Berlin. The state-of-the-art facility will house 28 patients, who will be allowed to bring their own furniture and sundries. A “Deutsche Presse-Agentur” news agency report said that the home is the first piece of a planned complex that will include apartments, a café, meeting rooms, a gym, and a health-care center with doctors and therapists. The man behind the facility, activist and architect Christian Hamm, said that gays and lesbians often feel ostracized in ordinary nursing homes, and "When you are old, the last thing that you want to do is to have to hide." Briefly in other news, legislators in the U.S. state of Maryland this week announced the introduction of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would provide equal access to civil marriage for same-gender couples, while ensuring that religious institutions can perform and recognize only the marriages of their choosing. A divided 4-to-3 state high court last year ruled that Maryland was not constitutionally-compelled to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples. The civil marriage equality measure has almost 50 co-sponsors, but its fate is uncertain. The New Mexico House of Representatives has approved a bill that offers unmarried couples - both same-gender and heterosexual - the same rights and benefits granted to married couples under state law. The Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act passed by a margin of 33 to 31. The bill now moves to the state Senate, where similar legislation failed by one vote last year. In Louisiana, a district court has ruled that the city of New Orleans was within its authority when it granted health benefits to domestic partners of city employees and established a domestic partner registry for its residents. The city extended health insurance benefits to same-gender partners of municipal employees in 1997, and in 1999 the City Council created a domestic partner registry that allows couples to make a public declaration to care for and support each other. Those policies came under attack in 2002 from the rightwing Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of a group of city taxpayers claiming a right to challenge the laws. Chief District Court Judge Nadine Ramsey ruled that the New Orleans benefits and registry did not violate the state's ban on same-gender marriage, and that "The City's decision to extend health care benefits to the domestic partners of city employees simply provides health insurance to a greater number of persons, without regard to marital status." And finally, new research shows that gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. are just as devoted in their relationships as heterosexuals. In two new studies published in the January issue of the journal “Developmental Psychology,” scientists compared same-gender and heterosexual couples and assessed their happiness. One study focused on whether the legal status of a relationship affected its quality. Researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Vermont and San Diego State University concluded that same-gender couples actually found their relationships more fulfilling than heterosexually married couples. It also revealed, not surprisingly, that being denied marriage or civil unions does diminish same-gender couples' likelihood of staying together. Glenn I. Roisman, one of the researchers in the other study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told the “Reuters” news agency that "Among the committed couples [we studied], there were very few differences that we were able to identify, either in terms of how satisfied these couples were, how effectively they interacted with one another, or how their bodies responded physiologically while they were interacting with one another... although some evidence emerged [that] the lesbian couples were especially effective at resolving conflict." The new research adds to existing literature contradicting the stereotype that couples in same-gender relationships are not as committed as their heterosexual counterparts, and are therefore not as psychologically healthy. In other words, when it comes to romance and happiness, love is love. ************** Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489