“NewsWrap" for the week ending November 22, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,078, distributed 11-24-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by John Torres and Michael LeBeau Nepal’s highest court this week ordered the government to repeal all laws that discriminate against sexual minorities, and to enact legislation guaranteeing their full rights, including legal recognition of same-gender couples. The court said that the government should form a seven-member committee to study same gender unions in other countries and recommend a similar law for Nepal. The Maoist-led government took power with the visible participatioon of LGBT people following the overthrow of an oppressive king in the tiny Himalayan country. The judges criticized the government for dragging its feet on reforms since their summary ruling last December, which became official with this week’s publication. Sunil Pant, the founder of the LGBT rights group Blue Diamond Society and the country’s only openly gay member of Parliament, celebrated the ruling, telling reporters that “My eyes were filled with tears when I read the Supreme Court[‘s]... landmark decision.” LGBT people in Nepal have until recently been routinely arrested, held without hearings, and beaten and tortured by prison guards. Blue Diamond also said, however, that HIV prevention workers are=2 0still regularly harassed by police. The government has yet to respond to the ruling. Several government officials at the recent annual meeting of the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS called for the repeal of laws that criminalize gay sex in order to slow the spread of the virus, according to a report by the Caribbean Media Corporation. Dr. Peter Figueroa, head of the Jamaican Ministry of Health's AIDS program, said that "When people see themselves as excluded or discriminated against and stigmatized, it promotes risky behavior." But his country has been identified by global human rights groups as one of the most LGBT-oppressive in the world. The health minister of the island nation of Dominica, John Fabien, said about men who have sex with men that “we can't bow our heads in the sand and say it does not happen.” According to Amnesty International, 11 Caribbean-area nations continue to ban gay sex -- Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Thousands of people around the world observed the 10th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance on or close to November 20th. Candlelight vigils and other memorial events mourn the deaths of people who’ve been murdered often brutally because of their gender identityity or expression. The annual event began on November 20th, 1998 to honor Rita Hester, who was murdered in her Boston apartment. About 250 people marched through the streets to protest her killing. Transgender Day of Remembrance observances were announced this year in Austria, Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey, and the U.S. In other news, 104 retired U.S. generals and admirals, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili, are calling for an end to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the policy banning military service by open gays and lesbians. Only 28 former admirals and generals signed on to a similar statement last year. "As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly,” the officers wrote, “our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality.” Available data suggests that there are about a million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States, and that about 65,000 lesbians and gay men currently serve in the military. More than 12,000 enlisted personnel were discharged between 1994 and 2007 for violating "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a lesbigay military advocacy group. The number of discharges peaked in 2001, but began dropping off sharply after the September 11th attacks. President-elect Barack Obama, who’s said he supports repeal, will likely move cautiously on the matter, especially in light of more pressing economic issues. He’ll need to work with Congress, and surely remembers Bill Clinton’s bungled effort to repeal the then-outright ban on lesbigay military service at the beginning of his presidency in 1992. That led to the so-called “compromise” “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which allows service only by gays and lesbians who stay in the closet. But the government of South Korea has asked its Constitutional Court to confirm the ban on gay men serving in that country's armed forces. A military court requested a review of the constitutionality of the ban in August. A Defense Ministry spokesman told “Agence France Presse” that "The military has... to maintain good combat capability... It works for the public interest rather than personal happiness." All young men in South Korea are required to serve in the military or in the riot police for up to two years, and have to take a test at the time of enlistment that includes various questions about sexual orientation. Those identified as having “abnormal” sexual identities are rejected. There’s no mention of homosexuality in the South Korean Constitution or Civil Penal Code. Discrimination against sexual minorities is widespread in the country, however, supported by its conservative Confucian traditions and the growing influence of the Roman Catholic Church. California’s Supreme Court agreed this week to hear the legal challenges to=2 0Proposition 8, approved by 52 percent of the state’s voters on November 4th. The constitutional amendment overturned the same Court’s May marriage equality ruling and revoked the right of same-gender couples to marry. But the justices denied the request by LGBT advocates that Proposition 8 not be enforced until they rule on its constitutionality. Some 18,000 couples who wed in the state between mid-June, when the Court ruling took effect, and November 4th, when the ballot measure passed, will also remain in legal limbo until the Court rules on the validity of their marriages, as well as on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 itself. The lawsuits against the measure argue that eliminating the established rights of a minority group violates the state constitution’s equal protection provisions. They also say that such a significant constitutional change requires a two-thirds vote by the legislature before it can even go to the voters. Prop 8 supporters say that restricting marriage in the state to one man and one woman was not the sweeping constitutional revision that opponents say it was. Court spokeswoman Lynn Holton told reporters that oral arguments will probably not be scheduled until March at the earliest. Ron Prentice, Chairman of the Yes on 8 campaign, said this week that his group is already gearing up to fight a ballot measure that LGBT rights groups promise to get on the 2010 California ballot to reinstate marriage equality if the state high court=2 0upholds the constitutionality of Proposition 8. In Florida, voters also approved Amendment 2 on November 4th. The language of that constitutional amendment appeared to ban not only same-gender marriage, but domestic partnerships as well. That could affect not only gay and lesbian couples, but thousands of co-habiting non-gay couples who choose not to marry but have been given domestic partner benefits in some locales. LGBT activists are working on defending an anticipated legal challenge to those benefits with a new website, w-w-w-dot-undo-2-dot-org. And finally, gays and lesbians have won a small victory in the so-called “culture war”. Popular heterosexual matchmaking Web site e-Harmony-dot-com which claims to match compatible singles through a comprehensive set of psychological measurements will havve a companion site for gays and lesbians next year. Its spokesman and founder, evangelical Christian psychologist Neil Clark Warren, once worked with the notoriously anti-gay Focus on the Family. His site first targeted Christian singles, but soon expanded its outreach to a more secular audience. The move to open eHarmony services to gays and lesbians came in the settlement this week of a discrimination lawsuit filed in New Jersey. The Division on Civil Rights of the state Attorney General’s office determined last year that eHarmony was violating New Jersey’s anti-bias laws, concluding that gay man Eric McKinley’s lawsuit had merit and coul d proceed. eHarmony attorney Theodore Olson said in a statement that “[W]e ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the Attorney General since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable.” Under the settlement, eHarmony will start a new service by March 31st called “Compatible Partners” for men seeking matches with men and women with women. A company statement said that it “also agrees to ensure that same-sex users are matched via the same or equivalent technology as that used for heterosexual match-seekers.” Tony Perkins, president of the rightwing Family Research Council, told the “Baptist Press” that "the surest way to lose the culture war is refusing to fight." He called eHarmony’s settlement a "shocking concession" that was "distressing and damaging" and "sending tremors through the faith community." The settlement also requires the company to provide a free one-year membership to McKinley, pay him 5,000 dollars, and pay the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights 50,000 dollars to cover investigation-related administrative costs. eHarmony operates not only in the U.S., but also in Australia, Britain and Canada. Traveling over the river or through the woods this holiday season? Get the MapQuest Toolbar. Directions, Traffic, Gas Prices & More!