“NewsWrap"
for the week ending March 8, 2008
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,041, distributed 3-10-08)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by DonnaAnn Ward and Rick Watts 

  Gay and lesbian refugees seeking asylum in countries safer than their homelands have increasingly been in the news.
An Iranian lesbian who fled to Britain after her girlfriend was arrested and sentenced to death faces deportation after losing the latest round this week in her battle to be granted asylum.  40-year-old Pegah Emambakhsh came to the U.K. in 2005 soon after her partner was arrested by Tehran police.  Iranian queer rights groups have reported that she is in custody under sentence of death by stoning.
That case follows growing public outcry over the plight of a gay Iranian teenager who fears execution if he's deported.  19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi came to London to study English in 2004, but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by the Iranian police, charged with sodomy, and hanged - but not before giving Kazemi's name to authorities during what was probably harsh interrogation.  Kazemi fled to the Netherlands after the British Home Office refused him asylum last year.  Dutch judges will decide this month whether, under European Union treaties, he should be returned to Britain.
In rejecting both asylum applications, the British Home Office said that Iranian gays and lesbians aren't persecuted if they're discreet about their homosexuality - a rationale first put forth, and then reversed, by Dutch authorities dealing with Iranian refugee cases.  International protests are calling for a similar moratorium in Britain on the deportation of Iranian gay and lesbian asylum-seekers.

  A gay Malaysian man was to have been deported from Canada this week after being refused refugee status.  At last report he was still asking the federal government to intervene.  Kulenthiran Amirthalingan made a last-ditch appeal to Immigration Minister Diane Finley this week, asking her to stay the March 6th deportation order.
Homosexuality is a crime in Malaysia, punishable by up to 20 years in jail.  Kulen, as he's known to his friends, says that he fears for his life if he's sent back to Kuala Lumpur.  He said Malaysian police detained him for five days, and verbally and sexually abused him.  But he lost his refugee status case because the Canadian immigration judge was not convinced that he's gay.
The Malaysia coordinator for Amnesty International Canada, Margaret John, told reporters that it's not clear whether Kulen's life is at risk, "but certainly his right to freedom of expression is at risk," she said.  "He may be charged with being a homosexual, he may be fined, he may be imprisoned."

  And we've reported in recent weeks on the cases of two gay Jamaican refugees also seeking asylum in Canada.
Homosexual acts are punishable by up to 10 years in prison at hard labor in Jamaica, and political, church and cultural homophobia have made life increasingly dangerous for the island's LGBT people.  International activists have recently suggested a tourist boycott to prod the government of the Caribbean nation into improving conditions for gays and lesbians.
But J-FLAG, the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals and Gays, that country's LGBT rights group, has cautioned against such a boycott.  In a statement released this week, the group said that "In our battle to win hearts and minds, we do not wish to be perceived as taking food off the plate of those who are already impoverished.  In fact, members of our own community could be disproportionately affected by a worsened economic situation brought about by a tourist ban."
The group said it appreciated international support, and sought “constructive interventions that both make our case for human rights protection and minimize risk to our physical and material well being."

  A leading queer activist group in the Ukraine is appealing for international support in the face of new attacks on LGBT rights.  Formerly a part of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine decriminalized homosexuality and established an equal age of consent in 1991.  But the socially conservative country has no specific protections for LGBT minorities, and is politically dominated by an affiliate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
A parliamentary committee this week urged the state to take steps to fight "homosexualism, lesbianism, [and] other sexual perversions, which do not correspond to moral principles of the society.”  MPs from the governing party have charged that "propaganda and expansion of homosexuality in the country form a threat to national security, contradict national interests, and undermine the authority of rights and freedoms of human being[s] and family."  A statement issued this week by Nash Mir, the country's LGBT rights group, said that "In their opinion, freedom of speech and human rights belong only to the heterosexual majority of the population.”
While the Ukraine continues to seek membership in the European Union, critics have questioned its commitment to human rights.

  But Argentina's new President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, supports the legalization of same-gender marriage - at least according to the president of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism.
Noting the passage of a divorce law under the previous administration, the Buenos Aires newspaper “Clarín” asked María José Lubertino in a February 24th interview, "Will Cristina's accomplishment be gay marriage?"
Lubertino responded, "I have no doubt... If they didn't want me to advance this issue, they wouldn't have put me in charge of [the Institute]."

  In U.S. queer couples news, the California Supreme Court held a more than three hour hearing on March 4th in a challenge to the state's ban on same-gender marriage.  Several consolidated cases involve almost two-dozen couples from various parts of the state.  They were represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.  Their attorneys argued that denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry violates equal protection provisions of the state constitution.  Deputy Attorney General Christopher Krueger, representing the state of California, said that the definition of marriage is so deeply engrained in tradition and law that only the legislature or voters have the power to change it.  And attorneys for two conservative groups also opposed to marriage equality addressed the high court, arguing that keeping marriage exclusively heterosexual furthers the state's interest in procreation.  They also claimed that California's domestic partnership laws prove that same-gender couples don't face discrimination.
Some analysts said that comments and questions by three of the court's seven justices during the hearing suggested that they would uphold the state law defining marriage as exclusively heterosexual, while only one's indicated that lesbigay couples should be granted marriage equality.  The other three justices asked questions critical of both sides, so the vote could be close.  The Court has ninety days from the March 4th hearing to issue a ruling.

  The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, that state's highest court, struck down laws banning same-gender marriage in 2003, and in 2004 the first gay and lesbian couples began to wed.  Since then more than 10,000 queer couples have married there.  And as the only U.S. state to enact marriage equality, Massachusetts is reaping huge financial rewards, according to a report this week in the “Boston Business Journal”.  The state, it said, has become "a powerful lure for same-sex couples who want to live in a place where they can get married, gain legal rights and have access to spousal health benefits."

  Washington's Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire is expected to sign new legislation expanding the state's domestic partnership law.  It would provide more than 170 additional rights and responsibilities that married couples already have.  The legislation had passed in the House, and passed the Senate this week on a 29-to-20 vote.
The 200-page bill was sponsored by Senator Ed Murray and Representative Jamie Pedersen, both Democrats, and two of five openly gay members of the legislature.
The original domestic partner law was enacted after the state Supreme Court in 2006 upheld Washington's so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” that limits marriage to heterosexual couples.  But it said that the legislature could overturn that law, or amend it to include same-gender couples.
The new legislation makes domestic partnerships equal to marriage in areas of community property, guardianship and powers of attorney.  It would allow people the right to refuse to testify against their same-gender partner in state court.  And it provides the same remedies as married couples in ending a relationship, including the division of property.
More than 3,200 domestic partnerships have been registered with the state since the law took effect last July.  Only three have been dissolved, according to the Secretary of State's office.

  And finally, the “Associated Press's” David Bauder reported this week that the love affair between two young men on the venerable CBS-TV soap opera "As the World Turns" has triggered a protest campaign by angry viewers.  But it's not the sort of protest you might expect.  Gay fans of the fictional romance between Luke and Noah are upset because the two characters haven't kissed on-screen since September.
"As the World Turns" had the first gay male character in daytime drama in 1988.  Last August it featured what is believed to be the first time two gay men kissed on a soap - when Luke surprised Noah with a smooch.  They kissed again in September, as Noah was still coming to grips with being gay.
Fans first sensed a pullback around Christmas, during a tender scene where the two men proclaimed their love for one another.  It seemed clear that they were about to kiss, but the camera instead panned up to focus on some mistletoe - reminiscent of an infamous never-seen gay male kiss several years ago on the primetime soap opera “Melrose Place.”
Valentine's Day featured fantasy sequences involving several “As the World Turns” couples.  All the stories ended in a kiss, except for Luke and Noah's.  They hugged.
That's when fans started complaining in a letter-writing campaign and an online petition.  There's even a Web site that counts the days, hours, minutes and seconds since Luke and Noah last locked lips.


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