“NewsWrap" for the week ending May 3, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,049, distributed 5-5-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Jon Beaupré Australia's recently elected Labor Party Government announced significant proposals this week to eliminate discrimination against same-gender couples in about a hundred federal laws, mostly addressing monetary inequities. Under the changes, as part of the Government's Budget plan to be issued later this month, gay and lesbian couples in long-term relationships would be treated the same as their heterosexual married peers in several financial areas, though the announcement also stressed that marriage or civil unions were not part of the equation. Attorney General Robert McClelland said during an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interview that [sound] “ removing discriminnation is the issue of significance to be addressed most ce certainly there will be a wide range of reforms in the areas of Social Security, taxation, superannuation it is my belief that the vast majority of members and Senators will agree that the time has long come for these discriminatory provisions to be removed.” Opposition Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson offered his provisional cooperation [sound]: “As a matter of principal we believe that no Australian should pay a dollar more in tax, or receive a dollar less in Social Security support, by virtue of their sexuality. Whilst we will steadfastly oppose gay marriage, gay adoption, and gay IVF, we will carefully scrutinize the proposals that are being put up by the Government, and if they are affordable and reasonable we will certainly be providing support to them.” Most queer activist groups celebrated the Government's announcement, but also complained that the proposals don't go far enough. Rodney Croome of the Australian Coalition for Equality said in a press release that "Gay and lesbian Australians will not be fully equal until we are allowed the right to marry the partner of our choice." Meanwhile, the federal government has been involved in a long-running dispute with the Australian Capital Territory - or ACT - over civil unions. The previous Liberal Party government of John Howard twice overruled a civil unions law passed by the ACT legislature, which the federal government has the power to do. The Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is opposing the most recently-proposed ACT legislation because it includes a ceremony, which it claims makes civil unions too much akin to marriage, and therefore violates the federal Marriage Act. The ACT government continues to assert that civil union ceremonies do not make them equivalent to marriage. Some Australian locales have already enacted civil union laws - such as in the Australian state of Tasmania - or some other form of legal recognition for same-gender couples. The state of New South Wales has reportedly delayed plans to introduce a domestic partner registry for same-gender couples because of the continuing dispute over the ACT proposal. Elsewhere, Uruguay's first civil union finally took place in mid-April, more than three months after the first such law in Latin America creating them came into force. 38-year-old actor Adrián Figuera and 67-year-old theater director Juan Carlos Moretti tied the knot before a judge, family and friends. They've been together 14 years. The law applies to "two people -- whatever their sex, identity, orientation or sexual option may be -- who maintain an emotional relationship of a sexual nature [and] an exclusive, singular, stable and permanent character without being united in matrimony." Couples must have lived together for five years before they can take advantage of the law, which grants spousal rights in areas that include inheritance, property ownership, pensions, parenting and health care. In another first, the Himalayan nation of Nepal this week elected its first-ever openly gay Member of Parliament. Sunil Pant, who leads the country's major queer advocacy group Blue Diamond Society, won a seat representing the capital of Katmandu as a member of CPN-U, one of several small Communist parties. He was one of five openly-LGBT people running for office in nationwide voting that swept the left into power. The election was critical to a pact between Maoists and mainstream parties that ended a decade long civil war in Nepal and dethroned its king. CPN-U leader Ganesh Shah told reporters that "We are honored to send Pant as our representative to the constituent assembly," adding that "We hope it will improve the lives of a people who are the most repressed in Nepal, disowned both by society and their own families." The country's Supreme Court ruled in December that the government must create new laws to protect LGBT rights and change current ones that discriminate. The government has thus far failed to act on the Court's directive. In other elections news this week, Brian Paddick, who as Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police had been the highest-ranking openly gay police officer in the world, lost his bid to become its Mayor. The Liberal Democrat came in third to Tory Boris Johnson, who unseated second place pro-queer Labor incumbent Ken Livingstone. It remains to be seen what impact Johnson's election might have on LGBT people there. The inclusion of LGBT people in the churches of two Christian denominations also made news this week. Delegates to the 2008 United Methodist Church General Conference meeting in Fort Worth, Texas adopted a resolution offered by its legislative committee's minority that retains language in the denomination's Book of Discipline describing homosexual acts as “incompatible with Christian teaching.” They rejected the majority proposal to strike the “incompatibility” sentence, and to acknowledge in the United Methodist Social Principles that Church members disagree on homosexuality. Delegates also voted to retain language in the Book of Discipline that prohibits United Methodist ministers from conducting ceremonies that celebrate same-gender unions. Following the votes, a coalition of queer religious advocacy groups - including Soulforce, Affirmation, Reconciling Ministries Network and Methodist Federation for Social Action held a disappointed silent vigil as delegates were returning from a dinner break to the Fort Worth Convention Center. Delegates did, however, approve a resolution condemning homophobia and heterosexism, saying the Church opposes “all forms of violence or discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sexual practice or sexual orientation.” And in a decision that openly lesbian minister Jane Spahr called "separate but unequal," the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. this week overturned the censure she had received for performing same-gender marriages because, the ruling said, "A same-sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage." It stressed that Church officials who are “authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply or represent a same-sex ceremony is a marriage." Spahr told reporters that "The reason I'm not censured is because it's not being considered a marriage. It says again that we are less than. It goes against God. It is painful. It is still part of a system of oppression that labels people and promotes stereotyping and violence." Spahr recently retired after more than 30 years of performing hundreds of marriages, both same-gender and heterosexual, as a Presbyterian minister in Northern California's Marin County. In other news, three residents of the island of Lesbos are suing a queer advocacy group over its name, the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece. They want a court to ban anyone except islanders and their descendants from using the word “lesbian”. Plaintiff Dimitris Lambrou told the “Associated Press” that "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos" and “insults [our] identity.” The plaintiffs say they targeted the LGBT group because it's the only officially registered group in the country to use the word “lesbian” in its name. They're arguing that iconic poet Sappho, who called the island home in the 6th century B.C. and thus lent its name to the term “lesbian,” never practiced same-gender love, and that such assertions over the centuries have been an affront. Sappho extensively celebrated female/female love with such verses as: "Her tongue will not move, a subtle fire burns under her skin, her eyes see no longer, her ears ring, she breaks into a sweat, she trembles..." Andrea Gilbert, a member of the queer group being sued, told the British Web site “PinkNews.com” that "The term 'lesbian' to define women who love women exists in every dictionary of just about all U.N. member nations. The term is recognized universally... This would be hilariously funny,” she said, “if it wasn't so pathetic - and so scary.” The level of acceptance of same-gender love in Greece is among the lowest of European Union nations, comparable to that in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Cyprus. The “lesbian” lawsuit is scheduled to be heard in an Athens court in June. And finally, according to a report in India's “Hindustan Times,” the first telephone hotline in China for lesbians began taking calls this week. The Shanghai-based helpline offers advice and counseling between 2 and 4 p.m. each Saturday, with about 10 female volunteers taking the calls. It expands a service for both gay men and lesbians that opened about six months ago, but previously had only male volunteers, which discouraged lesbians from calling. Rager Shen, a volunteer with the Hong Kong-based Chi Heng Foundation, which is funding the project, told the newspaper that the lack of such a resource for lesbians reflected how Chinese society largely ignores their concerns. It's not surprising that the hotline is based in Shanghai. While acceptance of homosexuality remains generally low in China - the China Psychiatric Association only stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness in 2001 - Shanghai's relatively wealthy, cosmopolitan population includes an increasingly open queer community. A major Shanghai university this year even began offering the country's first class on homosexuality and gay culture - mostly because of student demand. = Updating the Australia's feds vs. the ACT story = This just in as this program goes out: The Australian Capital Territory, yielding for the third time to the federal government, has abandoned its plan to introduce civil unions legislation. The territory instead plans a relationships registry, specifying that any attendant ceremony will carry no legal weight. ************** Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)