“NewsWrap" for the week ending May 31, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,053, distributed 6-2-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Sheri Lunn What’s believed to be the world's largest LGBT Pride parade electrified Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 25th. Up to five million people are estimated to have filled the city’s skyscraper-lined main avenue at the 12th annual event in South America’s largest city. Participants wearing a wide range of festively colorful outfits waved rainbow flags on the hot, sunny day, marching and dancing to music blasted by more than 20 sound trucks. Brazil’s Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy told a Pride rally that "We still don't have a law making homophobia a crime, and that needs to change. Congress has to approve this law." And from aboard one of the trucks in the parade, she told the “Reuters” news agency that "This is the diversity the country wants, the diversity that we have to foster as a country seeking a tourist niche among the gay community." Indeed, her ministry said it expected 330,000 people to visit Sao Paulo for the weeklong Pride festivities 20 percent more than last year – bringing the equivalent of about 115 million U.S. dollars to the city, in addition to creating more than 13,000 direct a nd indirect jobs. About 300-to-400 LGBT people and their supporters held a Pride march through the downtown Latvian capital of Riga on May 31st, accompanied by a strong police presence. Pride marchers were outnumbered by anti-queer protestors chanting insults and waving banners. One of them read "Homosexuality is a national catastrophe." The head of the Catholic Church in the former Soviet state had condemned the march, but Latvian President Valdis Zatlers issued a statement the day before calling for tolerance toward sexual minorities, and in support of peoples’ freedoms of association and expression. No government officials took part, however. Linda Freimane of Mozaika, the Pride organizing group, told a post-march rally that "We are all different, but we only have one country." There had been fears of violence, but the event was generally peaceful. Police had sealed off both ends of the march route, as well as all nearby streets. An estimated 200 activists, guarded by a 1,200-member police contingent, marched through Bucharest, Romania on May 24th in that city’s fifth annual Pride parade. Thousands of people gathered along the two-mile route, some to cheer and others to jeer. Several marchers were assaulted at last year’s event, leading to about 140 arrests, but there were no reports of violence this year. Anti-queer groups had unsuccessfully tried to get a court to ban the march earlier in the week. Two counter-demonstrations were held before the parade began, with far-right nationalists chanting “Romania does not want you.” Consensual adult homosexual acts were decriminalized in 2001, but the powerful Romanian Orthodox Church still views homosexuality as a sin and an illness. Elsewhere, in an exclusive interview with the “Sydney Morning Herald,” Olympics hopeful Matthew Mitcham has become the first Australian athlete to come out as a gay man before competing in the world sporting event. The 20-year-old 10-metre platform diver says he’s applied for a grant to the Johnson & Johnson Athlete Family Support Program to bring his boyfriend with him to Beijing in August because they can’t otherwise afford it. In a recent precursor to the Olympic Games, Mitcham scored four perfect 10s, besting two top Chinese divers whom analysts say will be challenging him for the gold medal. American Greg Louganis, who won gold on the 3-metre springboard and 10-metre platform at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, came out as gay and HIV-positive shortly after winning double gold in the same events at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. In other news, a monument honoring the thousands of gay victims of the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945 was unveiled by openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit this week in Berlin. It’s located near the Brandenburg Gate and close to the main Holocaust memorial, and consists of an imposing, grey concrete slab with text detailing the suffering of gays und er Hitler. Visitors peer through a gap to view video footage of two men affectionately kissing. It’s estimated that the Nazis sent between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men to concentration camps, together with Jews, political opponents, gypsies, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others considered undesirable. Lesbians were more able to conceal their sexuality and most remained under the radar. Gay men were forced to wear pink triangles in the camps, used by some today as a liberation symbol. Most died of hunger, disease, or as victims of so-called “medical experiments”. Very few survived, and those who did still suffered under Nazi-era anti-gay laws until 1969. Consensual adult homosexual acts were only formally decriminalized in Germany in 1994. Hundreds of people filled the Rotunda at San Francisco City Hall on May 22nd for the official unveiling of a bronze bust honoring Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to hold a high-profile elected office in the United States - more than 28 years after he was assassinated. The unveiling came on what would have been Milk’s 78th birthday. The maverick progressive always preached coalition politics with people of color and labor groups, which helped him win election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was brutally shot to death a year later, along with liberal Mayor George Moscone, by former rightwing supervisor Dan White. White’s lawyers claimed that his over-consumption of 0junk food” led to his “diminished capacity.” He was convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter, which prompted the historic LGBT “White Night Riots.” He served a little more than three years in prison before being released, and committed suicide soon thereafter. The bronze sculpture of Milk sits atop a stone base inscribed with a quote from one of his most famous speeches about hope. The New York-born Milk has been immortalized in the Randy Shilts book “The Mayor of Castro Street,” in an award-winning documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk", and at a plaza near Castro and Market Streets. Filming recently wrapped on a dramatic bio-pic about Milk starring Sean Penn and directed by openly gay Gus Van Sant. New York Governor David Paterson issued a directive through his legal counsel in mid-May ordering the state to recognize legal same-gender marriages performed elsewhere an order that only came to reporters’, and politicians’ notice, this week. The directive, which Paterson said simply reflected New York court rulings recognizing such out-of-state unions, was issued around the same time as the marriage equality ruling by the California Supreme Court. There are no residency requirements in that state’s marriage laws, so opponents have concerns that gay and lesbian New York couples will wed in California and thereby gain recognition of their legal marriages back home. Joseph Bruno leads the Republican-controlled N ew York state Senate, which has refused to bring up a marriage equality bill that was passed by the Assembly last year and has a promised gubernatorial signature. The GOP leader told reporters that all avenues are being explored to fight Paterson’s recognition directive, but most analysts are saying that opponents have very few legal options. Meanwhile, the attorneys general of ten U.S. states have joined rightwing opponents who are urging the California Supreme Court to stay its ruling until after the November elections, when voters likely will decide whether to overrule the high court and amend the state constitution to ban eqayk marriage rights for same-gender couples. Officials in the states involved Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshhire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah worry about how they wiill deal with same-gender couples who legally marry in California and demand recognition of those unions in their home states. Both California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown oppose a stay, and legal analysts say it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court will delay implementation of its decision. Schwarzenegger has also told reporters that the high court ruling will benefit the state financially. California officials have now settled on June 17th as the first day county clerks will be able to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. And a new poll this week showed a sma ll but significant majority of Californians now support marriage equality. The results mark the first time in over three decades of surveys by the Field Poll that more California voters have approved of extending marriage to same-gender couples than have disapproved. Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said that 51 percent of the 1,052 registered voters they surveyed during about 10 days following the high court ruling supported marriage equality, while 42 percent opposed it. Likely voters also opposed a constitutional ban on same-gender marriage by a similar margin. In 1977, the first year Field posed the marriage equality question, 28 percent approved and 59 percent were opposed. The current Field survey had a margin of error of four percentage points on the amendment question, and five percentage points on the general marriage equality question. And finally, in perhaps the best indicator of growing acceptance of same-gender marriage in the Golden State, the giant Macy's Department Store ran a full-page ad promoting its weddings registry this week in the “Los Angeles Times” showing two mingling wedding rings with the message: "First comes love. Then comes marriage. And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate." As Evan Wolfson, who leads the organization Freedom to Marry, told the “Washington Blade” LGBT newspaper, "That Macy's feels comfortable doing this on such a big scale says a lot. (Of course they want to sell wedding pre sents, but such a prominent full-page ad from a mainstream company shows just how far we've come.)" Get instant access to the latest & most popular FREE games while you browse with the Games Toolbar - Download Now!