“NewsWrap" for the week ending August 23, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,065, distributed 8-25-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Lucia Chappelle, and Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Leigh Moore In the first national-level LGBT rights action in Argentina, the government this week granted same gender couples the right to claim their deceased partners' pension. The survivor must prove that they’d been living with the deceased for at least five years. Prior to the new decree, the deceased partners' pensions went directly to the government. Pedro Paradiso Sottile of the Argentine Homosexual Community in Buenos Aires called it “historic,” and told the “Associated Press” that it marks a "step forward" for human rights. Buenos Aires was the first Latin American capital to legalize lesbigay civil unions in 2002. Four other municipalities have since followed suit. Activists say they’ll continue to lobby for further legal recognition of same-gender couples at the national level including marrriage equality. A bill that would have granted adoption rights to Brazil’s same-gender couples was withdrawn this week in the country’s lower legislative house. Its opponents in the Congress of Deputies said the proposal was inappropriate because federal law doesn’t recognize lesbigay unions. A marriage equality measure has been stalled in Brazil’s Congress for more than 10 years. The state of Southern Rio Grande do Sul established civil unions for same-gender couples in 2004. A Sao Paulo state court approved a gay couple’s adoption of a 5-year-old girl in late 2006. The failure of the current adoption bill comes less than two months after President Luiz Inazio Lula da Silva's precedent-setting national summit to discuss battling homophobia and passing LGBT rights legislation. Three months after its historic marriage equality edict, the California Supreme Court this week ruled for lesbigay rights again. In a unanimous decision, the justices found that LGBT people's right to equality in medical treatment trumped a doctor’s religious beliefs. The case involved Guadalupe T. Benitez, a lesbian who was refused insemination services by doctors at the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group near San Diego. Doctors said their religious views prohibited them from performing an intrauterine insemination on a lesbian. The high court justices said such action was not protected by free speech or religious rights because it violated a state law that bans businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Benitez, who was represented by the LGBT advocacy group Lambda Legal, told reporters that "It's a win for everyone, because anyone could be the next target if doctors are allowed to pick and choose their patients based on religious views about other groups of people." 0AOne of the doctors testified that they would not provide insemination services to any unmarried woman, regardless of sexual orientation. But when asked by reporters if they would have done the procedure for a married lesbian couple, clinic lawyer Kenneth R. Pedroza, said “I don’t know.” Attorney Robert Tyler of the rightwing Advocates for Faith and Freedom claimed that the ruling will spur voters "to recognize the radical agenda of our opposition" and support Proposition 8. That's the November ballot initiative that would eliminate the right of same-gender couples to marry in the state. Oregon voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2004 that restricts marriage to heterosexual couples, but a Native American tribe located along the state’s southern coast legalized marriages for same-gender couples this week. Coquilles tribe member Kitzen Branting has announced that she’ll marry her non-tribal lesbian partner Jeni Branting next May at the Plankhouse in Coos Bay, a traditional Coquille gathering place. The tribe says that it’s exempt from Oregon statutes and has legal autonomy as a sovereign nation under U.S. law. But federal recognition of same-gender marriage is forbidden by the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. One legal expert believes that a challenge of the tribal marriage law in federal court could test that sovereignty. Chief Ken Tanner told the “Oregonian” newspaper that Native Americans are "sensitive to discrimination of any20kind." He said that "For our tribe, we want people to walk in the shoes of other people and learn to respect differences. Through that, we think we build a stronger community." Coquille same-gender marriages will only be recognized within tribal borders, however... in the states of Massachusetts and California, where lesbigay marriage is legal... and presumably in New York, where court rulings and a subsequent gubernatorial edict require all state agencies to recognize same-gender marriages legally performed elsewhere. Six years after the “New York Times” accepted its first announcement of a same-gender couple’s union, more than a thousand newspapers across the United States now publish announcements of weddings or commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples. According to a press release by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation this week, only 69 publications did so in 2002. And while most U.S. states still don’t recognize same-gender unions, the nation’s largest greeting card company now does. Hallmark introduced a line of cards this week that include the depiction of two tuxedos, overlapping hearts, and intertwined flowers. The message inside one of them reads “Two hearts. One promise.” There’s no specific reference to marriage, so they’re suitable for any form of commitment ceremony. The rightwing Concerned Women for America immediately denounced the move as a threat to children. CWA spokeswoman Janice Crouse's s tatement charged that, "Instead of bolstering campaigns by special interest groups like the homosexual activists, corporations like Hallmark should be protecting American culture from those forces that would destroy the family and create a public environment that is... especially [detrimental to] children's well-being." But Hallmark spokeswoman Sarah Gronberg Kolell countered that the company was responding to consumer demand, not politics. As she told reporters, "It's our goal to be as relevant as possible to as many people as we can.” Hallmark began offering “coming out” cards last year. In other news, India’s Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss this week reiterated his support for repeal of the country’s Penal Code Section 377, which outlaws consensual adult gay sex. He repeated his statement at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City earlier this month that “it must go” in order to facilitate the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. His comments came on the heels of another demonstration of the LGBT community’s increasingly high-profile activism against Section 377. Waving rainbow-colored flags and carrying banners demanding equal rights, at least 600 people gathered in a park in Mumbai this week to demand repeal of the law. They also want an apology from the British government for introducing it during colonial rule. Several prominent non-gay Indian artists, entertainers and academics joined the demonstration. It was held the day after India’s Independence Day, and at the same park 66 years ago where Mahatma Gandhi called for the British to leave India. Record-breaking LGBT Pride marches have been held in other cities in the past few months. The Naz Foundation has challenged the legality of Section 377. A petition by the non-governmental organization is currently being considered by the Delhi High Court. Though Ramadoss’ Health Ministry supports repeal, the police-controlling Home Ministry has opposed it. Calling the issue “serious,” the Court has asked the two ministries to resolve their differences. The case is scheduled to be heard again on September 18th. Gays and lesbians are also increasing their public profile in the southern African nation of Malawi. The Malawi Gay Rights Movement, or Magrim, announced its formation this week. Magrim's interim chairperson, who asked that his full name not be included in press reports, told local media that "What people must know is that Malawi has always had an active gay population, and these people have been meeting for a long time... now we have decided to come forth because we want our views heard; we are Malawian citizens who should be protected like anyone else.” The former British colony is like most other nations in the region. Homosexuality is socially condemned, and convictions for consensual adult same-gender sex are punishable by imprisonment at hard labor. Magrim has scheduled its official launch for September 13t h, and plans to begin public outreach work in November. But the recently dedicated Berlin memorial to the thousands of gay and lesbian victims of the Nazi Holocaust was vandalized late last week. A window in the large gray cube building, through which viewers could see a brief video of two men affectionately kissing, was smashed. Some fencing was also torn down. Openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowerweit had helped unveil the monument on May 27th, and joined several politicians at a vigil to denounce the attack. He said, “We must show our condemnation of this act of intolerance and homophobia." Gay Buchenwald concentration camp survivor Rudolf Brazda issued a statement saying that he “had feared something like this would happen... People don't learn,” he said. “They don't want to accept that there are people who are naturally different from them." More than 50,000 gays and lesbians are believed to have been convicted under sexual perversion laws during Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime. Up to 10,000 of them died in concentration camps. Far from being liberated when the Allies won World War II, many gay survivors were transferred to German prisons. Laws against consensual adult same-gender sex remained on the nation’s statute books until 1969. But finally, the only openly gay male athlete at the Olympic Games in Beijing has won Gold. 20-year-old Australian Matthew Mitcham, who publicly came out earlier this year, won the Men0s 10-meter platform diving competition with a final near-perfect back two-and-a-half somersault with two-and-a-half twists. Four judges gave him perfect tens, enabling him to surpass China’s Zhou Luxin, who had led during most of the competition. British diver Tom Daley, who finished in seventh place, told reporters that "It was an unbelievable finish from Mitcham. To get all those tens, that is probably the highest score I have ever seen in one dive." Get the MapQuest Toolbar. Directions, Traffic, Gas Prices & More!