“NewsWrap" for the week ending May 24, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,052, distributed 5-26-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Greg Gordon The third annual International Day Against Homophobia - known by its acronym IDAHO - was observed on May 17th. That's the date in 1990 when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its International Classifications of Disease. IDAHO is observed in more than 60 countries worldwide. France's minister of human rights, Rama Yade, convened a meeting with queer activists on May 17th to announce that the government would submit a proposal to the United Nations for "a European initiative calling for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.” France takes over the rotating six-month European Union presidency in July - during which time France will speak for all E.U. member states at the U.N. General Assembly. The unprecedented action by the government of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy followed a year-long push led by IDAHO founder Louis-Georges Tin, a Black Caribbean-born 33-year-old French university professor. The meeting with the human rights minister ironically came just hours after a "die-in" at the Elysée Palace, the presidential headquarters and residence, during which Tin and a dozen other LGBT activists were arrested and briefly detained. They all wore T-shirts with the names of some of the 86 countries in which, according to an International Lesbian and Gay Association study released earlier this year, homosexuality remains a criminal offense. As we previously reported, the Costa Rican government had earlier issued a formal endorsement of IDAHO calling for civil equality and an end to homophobia. And in Cuba on May 17th, the day following a national primetime television broadcast of the landmark film “Brokeback Mountain,” hundreds gathered in support of IDAHO at an outdoor cultural center in Havana, capping a week-long festival of LGBT events that included film screenings, lectures, debates, and book fairs. The gathering may have been the largest ever of openly queer activists on the island nation. The government-sanctioned IDAHO events were organized by President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education. She told reporters that "The freedom of sexual choice and gender identity [are] exercises in equality and social justice." The most extensive IDAHO observances this year may have been held in the UK. The Trades Union Congress, Communications Workers, and other large British unions participated. IDAHO was even endorsed by the UK Football Association, which included an article about homophobia in its program for the F.A. Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. British Member of the European Parliament Michael Cashman joined local activists in an IDAHO-related march for LGBT equality in Ankara, Turkey on May 16th. The first-ever such event began at the Human Rights Monument in the capital city and ended at the National Assembly. Government officials have initiated several legal actions in recent years to shut down KAOS GL, the country's leading LGBT rights group, but court rulings have thus far thwarted those efforts. KAOS-GL reported that over a hundred LGBT people took part in the unprecedented march in Ankara. Police, who outnumbered the demonstrators, demanded that rainbow flags and banners be abandoned before they allowed the march to proceed, but there were no other reported problems. Turkey wants to join the European Union, but critics have demanded improvement in the country's LGBT rights record as at least one condition for membership. The New York City-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission noted that this year's IDAHO observances came on the 60th anniversary year of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States, however, apparently continued to be one of the world's few democracies where not a single public IDAHO event had been organized by a major LGBT rights group. Human Rights Watch included President Lech Kaczynski of Poland among the inductees to its annual IDAHO “Hall of Shame.” The far-right Polish government is responsible for several public pronouncements condemning homosexuality as a threat to the traditional family - most recently in a nationally-televised Kaczynski speech during which he used film clips of a gay Canadian couple's wedding to rail against same-gender marriage. LGBT activists and human rights groups around the world have condemned Kaczynski and his government for inciting anti-queer violence in the country. In an ironic but probably unplanned “counter-IDAHO” event on May 17th in Poland, a so-called “rehabilitation center” to “cure” homosexuality, funded by a Roman Catholic Church group, opened its doors to the media. President Yahya Jammeh of the West African nation of Gambia doesn't want to cure homosexuals - he wants them killed. Saying during a political rally last week that his was “a country of believers... sinful and immoral practices [such] as homosexuality will not be tolerated,” he gave gays and lesbians 24 hours to leave the predominantly Muslim nation, threatening to “cut off the head” of any homosexual found in Gambia. Like other African despots such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Jammeh has been attacking lesbians and gays in an effort to divert attention from the country's economic problems. Private consensual adult homosexual acts in the former British colony are punishable by up to seven years in prison. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who was in London on an official visit, condemned Britain and other Commonwealth nations during a BBC interview this week for criticizing his country's treatment of LGBT people. He insisted that “Jamaica is not going to allow values to be imposed on it from outside.” Golding has staunchly supported Jamaica's sodomy law, which punishes private consensual adult same-gender sex with ten years in prison at hard labor. Jason McFarlane, a spokesperson for J-FLAG, the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals and Gays, said Golding's remarks were likely to fuel already-escalating anti-queer mob violence and murderous assaults against LGBT people in the Caribbean nation. Jamaica has been described by international human rights groups as having one of the worst records of any country in the world in its treatment of gays and lesbians. In other news, gay Iranian refugee Mehdi Kazemi has been granted asylum in the UK. He feared being killed if forced to return to Iran because his former boyfriend, before reportedly being hanged for sodomy, named Kazemi as a gay man. The 19-year-old had fled to the Netherlands to avoid being deported by the UK back to Iran. Under E.U. treaties the Netherlands' high court reluctantly returned him to the UK. A campaign in support of Kazemi's asylum plea included more than 60 members of the House of Lords urging British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to “show compassion,” which she did this week. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Syrian refugee Jojo Jako Jacob is awaiting word about the status of his UK deportation order. He also fears for his life if he's forced to return to his home country, where he was originally arrested for distributing anti-government leaflets. When prison guards discovered that he's gay, they beat him so badly that he was for a time in a coma. He was eventually able to escape from the Syrian prison hospital and make his way to Scotland, where he was arrested and has been in detention for a year for carrying a fake Belgian passport. Jacob's lawyers say his original request for asylum in the UK was badly mishandled. And finally, June will bring more than traditional queer Pride celebrations following last week's California Supreme Court-ordered civil marriage equality. The Arizona-based rightwing Alliance Defense Fund filed papers this week asking the Court to stay its ruling until after the November elections. That's when a proposed ballot initiative to nullify the ruling and constitutionally ban same-gender marriage could go before the voters. The California Secretary of State's office has until June 18th to announce whether or not there are enough valid signatures on petitions circulated by its proponents to place the measure on the ballot. Most observers believe it will qualify. Jennifer Pizer of the queer advocacy group Lambda Legal told the “Associated Press” that Justices coincidentally also have until June 18th to consider the Alliance Defense Fund's petition. Court experts say it's unlikely that the justices would agree to such a lengthy delay in implementing their ruling, however. The majority decision didn't set a deadline for county clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-gender couples, but it ordered state officials "to take all actions necessary to effectuate our ruling... in a manner consistent with the decision of this court." By most accounts, clerks across the state are planning to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-gender couples on June 16th. Some reports have predicted that each side will spend more than 25 million dollars on the looming ballot battle. A poll conducted this week by the “Los Angeles Times” and KTLA television found that likely voters support a constitutional amendment to define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, by a margin of 54 to 35 percent, with 11 percent undecided. But perhaps curiously, according to the “Times” report, a little more than half said that same-gender relationships were not morally wrong, that they don't somehow degrade heterosexual marriages, and that all that mattered was that a relationship be loving and committed, regardless of gender. There was also a sharp generational divide, with those under 45 more likely to vote against the amendment. And if more evidence is necessary that coming out is key to the lesbigay community's struggle for equality, while 70% of likely California voters who said they didn't know a gay or lesbian person said they'd vote for the amendment, 51% who said they know a gay or lesbian person said they'd vote against it. ************** Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with Tyler Florence" on AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4&?NCID=aolfod00030000000002)