“NewsWrap" for the week ending November 15, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,077, distributed 11-17-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by RickWatts and Greg Gordon After nine years in power, New Zealand’s Labor Party lost its majority in national elections on November 8th. The right-leaning National Party won 59 seats in the 121-member Parliament, Labor won 43, the Greens won 8, the Progressives took one, and two minor parties won five seats each. There will still be six “out” gay or lesbian MPs in the new Parliament the same number as were elected in 2005. With the leadership of supportive Prime Minister Helen Clark, Labor steered a national Civil Unions Act into law in 2004, and abolished discrimination against same-gender couples with additional legislation in 2005. National Party leader John Key will become New Zealand's 38th Prime Minister. Retiring openly gay M.P. Tim Barnett told “Gay N-Z-dot-com” that the incoming government worries him, and that he hopes the Nationals won’t attempt to roll back the progress achieved under the Labor Party. "There will be a number of MPs in the governing Party who do not have a great deal of tolerance for lesbian and gay New Zealanders andd some of them used homophobic themes in their campaigns,” he said. “So there's good reason to be nervous." He said that Parliament’s equality agenda is not now so much about changing laws as changing practices in government departments, the province of individual ministers. He said he doubts that there will be many National Party leaders “who’ll be prepared to stick their neck out to be friends to our community.” But two measures extending hate crime protections to gays and lesbians have been adopted by the Hungarian parliament, according to a report this week by the British-based “Pink-News-dot-com”. A hate crime will be defined in a more general way as a "violent act against a member of a social group," which is believed to include sexual orientation. The second piece of legislation makes it possible to initiate civil proceedings against a person who engages in degrading or intimidating behavior towards groups based on nationality, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. LGBT activists in Hungary have clashed with police in recent years, and Pride events in the country have been violently attacked by rightwing and religious fundamentalist groups. The hate crimes provisions are part of a wider bill on the protection of public order. Government officials reportedly shied away from mentioning LGBT people and the hate crime elements in the explanation of the bill or in the parliamentary debate. Hungary’s Socialist government has adopted several bills in recent years to sanction less severe forms of hate speech, but all attempts have been struck down by the Constitutional Court as violations of free speech. It’s therefore uncertain if the new laws will pass judicial muster. Some 230 activists from 40 nations gathered in Vienna in early November for the 12th annual conference of the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association or ILGA. Attendees included thhe Council of Europe's human-rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg. Austrian President Heinz Fischer served as an honorary patron of the gathering, and Austrian Minister of Justice Maria Berger attended the opening session. Vienna Mayor Michael Häupl hosted a reception for delegates at City Hall. ILGA-Europe's 2009 conference will be in generally less-welcoming Malta, and the 2010 meeting will be in the Dutch capital of The Hague. The long battle to overturn India’s colonial-era ban on “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” Penaal Code Section 377 may finally soon be resolved. The Delhi HHigh Court has been hearing arguments and reviewing legal briefs since the case was first filed by the NGO HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual minorities advocate Naz Foundation seven years ago. The Court ordered the petitioners and the government to file transcripts of their final oral arguments by November 17th. Section 377, which punishes offenders with up to life in prison, has rarely been enforced in modern times. But LGBT advocates say it’s been used by police and extort ionists to target sexual minorities for abuse. The judges have not said when they’ll announce their verdict. Connecticut became the third U.S. state this week to open civil marriage to same-gender couples, just 8 days after California voters repealed that right. Connecticut and Massachusetts are now the only two states where gay and lesbian couples can legally tie the knot. The Connecticut high court ruled 4-to-3 in October that the state constitution’s equal protection guarantees demand marriage equality. One of the plaintiff couples in the 4-year legal battle was among the first to get a marriage license on November 12th. Reporter Melinda Tuhus was on the scene for “Free Speech Radio News”... [1:05 sound story] A partial tally from 130 of Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns counted 66 same-gender couples who’d applied for marriage licenses during the first two days they were legal. The battle over California’s Proposition 8 continues even after Election Day. Demonstrations in cities and small towns across the state in some places where LGBT rights demonstrations have rarely bbeen seen have literally been held every day and night since Califoornia voters on November 4th approved the measure to eliminate the right of same-gender couples to civilly marry. An unprecedented national day of protests in as many as 300 cities are taking place across the U.S. as we record this newscast. In what gay journalist Rex Wockner has dubbed “Stonewall 2.0,” thousands of younger lesbigay people in particular are becoming activists for the first time, and they’re organizing protests using Facebook and other social networking sites online. Meanwhile, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has become a specific target of LGBT anger as thousands have demonstrated at Mormon temples in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, and at LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mormons in several western states in addition to California provided massive financial and organizational support for Proposition 8 – as they were urged to do by Church leaders. Depending on who’s doing the estimating, from 7500 to 15 thousand New Yorkers jammed the streets outside the Mormon temple in Manhattan to protest on November 12th... [crowd chanting sounds, fade down and out under next story:] Some LGBT leaders have questioned the targeting of Mormon Church facilities, while others have justified those demonstrations by arguing that the LDS Church can’t use religion to claim immunity from protests over their political intervention in what critics call a civil rights issue. They’re free to believe what they wish, but the well-documented Church advocacy of Proposition 8 stepped over the line, protest defenders say, when Mormons wanted to impose their religious views about marriage on the entire state. There have been reports of a few minor incidents of vandalism at some Church buildings, and the20No on 8 campaign issued a press release this week condemning any actions that aren’t entirely peaceful. But they also pointed out that up to half of all the money raised to pass Proposition 8 came as a direct result of Mormon Church actions. In fact, a report surfaced this week documenting an internal Church memo in 1997 that urged the defeat of marriage equality efforts across the country. Then-LDS president Gordon B. Hinkley was quoted as saying that Mormons needed to “move ahead” with the Church’s opposition to legal same-gender marriage. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was on record as being opposed to Proposition 8, although he didn’t actively campaign against it at all. He nevertheless said during a CNN interview this week that he hoped lawsuits that have been filed challenging the constitutionality of the voter-approved marriage ban would be successful, and encouraged gays and lesbians who’ve been protesting its passage to “never give up.” But in an email to supporters this week, Tony Perkins of the rightwing Family Research Council condemned the Governor for “condoning street protests and supporting judicial activist scams to overturn a popularly approved state constitutional amendment,” and said Schwarzenegger was “approach[ing] advocacy of anarchy.” 43 members of the California legislature, including the leaders of both the Assembly and the state Senate, have filed a friend of the court b rief in support of the legal challenges to Proposition 8. And finally, openly lesbian rock star Melissa Etheridge has also spoken out against Proposition 8. In a blog posting to “The Daily Beast” this week, she announced that passage of the marriage ban means “I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen.” Etheridge also questioned attempts to legislate morality. "Gay people are born every day," she wrote. "You will never legislate that away." Instant access to the latest & most popular FREE games while you browse with the Games Toolbar - Download Now!