NewsWrap
for the week ending November 3, 2001
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #710, distributed 11-05-01)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, 
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Lucia Chappelle and Greg Gordon]

Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupré

  Canada's House of Commons this week held its first-ever debate on equal 
civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.  Openly gay New Democratic 
Party Member of Parliament Svend Robinson's private members bill was debated 
under a procedure which denied it a vote.  The debate failed to change the 
Government's position opposing same-gender marriages, although some members 
of the ruling Liberal Party support it, as does the Bloc Quebecois.  MP Libby 
Davies -- like Robinson a member of the NDP from British Columbia -- appeared 
to literally come out in support of the bill, declaring that she is in a 
same-gender relationship.  That would've made Davies Canada's first-ever 
openly lesbian MP -- but Davies said later that she rejects labels and does 
not consider herself a lesbian, calling her current relationship a matter of 
personal choice.  Robinson has vowed to try again to legalize gay and lesbian 
marriages, while Canadian gay and lesbian activists continue their campaign 
to win marriage rights in the courts.

  Also in Canada, Alberta's provincial Government this week asked a court for 
a 6-month delay in implementing a ruling allowing gay and lesbian domestic 
partners to inherit in the absence of a will.  Alberta is the stronghold of 
Canada's generally anti-gay Conservative Reform Alliance Party.  The 
provincial Government told the court it wanted more time to seek input from 
the public, as well as to assess such legal questions as how long a couple 
must be together and whether they must have a "conjugal relationship" to 
qualify to inherit.  The court had already given the province nine months 
when it ruled in April that Brent Johnson had a right to share in the life 
insurance covering his late partner Larry Sand.

  Inheritance in the absence of a will was also the issue in the U.S. state 
of Washington, where the state Supreme Court in a landmark ruling affirmed a 
man's standing to inherit from his male domestic partner.  A trial court had 
previously recognized Frank Vasquez' right to inherit from the late Robert 
Schwerzler, whose home, assets and business he shared for almost 30 years.  
But then a state appeals court found that the law recognizing common-law 
heterosexual couples did not apply to same-gender couples because they cannot 
legally marry.  This week the Washington Supreme Court said in its decision 
that, "Equitable claims are not dependent on the 'legality' of the 
relationship between the parties, nor are they limited by the gender or 
sexual orientation of the parties."  A new trial was ordered because some 
facts in the matter are disputed.  Schwerzler's siblings deny that he was 
gay, and claim Vasquez was only a housekeeper.

  The highest court of the U.S. United Methodist Church this week affirmed 
that openly non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy can be removed from their 
ministries.  Although the 8-1/2-million-member denomination has been sharply 
divided on the issue for more than a quarter-century, a majority of delegates 
to its General Conference last year reaffirmed the church law that bars 
so-called "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from serving as ministers.  
On the up side, the denomination's Supreme Judicial Council required that gay 
and lesbian ministers be afforded the same due process rights as others, and 
can be removed only by action of their regional conferences or governing 
bodies, not by the unilateral action of their bishops.  Four of the nine 
members of the church's high court joined a supplementary opinion that 
compared the denomination's policy to the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't 
Tell".

  Republican former U.S. President Gerald Ford strongly supports the U.S. 
federal government treating gay and lesbian couples the same way it does 
married heterosexual couples.  His remarks came in a telephone interview with 
openly lesbian syndicated "Detroit News" columnist Deb Price, who called the 
88-year-old ex-President the "highest-ranking Republican ever to endorse 
equal treatment for gay couples."  Ford said, "I think they ought to be 
treated equally.  Period. ... I don't see why they shouldn't.  I think that's 
a proper goal."  Ford also supports passage of a federal law against job 
discrimination based on sexual orientation, and he applauded President George 
W. Bush's three appointments of openly gay men.

  There were hints this week that Britain's Labour Government is giving 
thought to legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples.  Baroness Sally 
Morgan, head of the Cabinet Office's Equality Unit, said in an interview that 
she believed the Government is "watching with interest" the growing debate on 
the issue, although she added there would be no action soon and that there 
"is no suggestion whatsoever that the Government would move on the issue of 
marriage" for gay and lesbian couples.  When reporters followed up with Prime 
Minister Tony Blair's official spokesperson, they were told that "The 
Government has not formed a settled view but is watching the debate closely". 
 The spokesperson added that there will be a formal response as a private 
members bill for registered partnerships makes its way through Parliament, 
and noted that the Government is looking at London's new domestic partnership 
registry.  The London registry that opened in September is the UK's first, 
and while it confers no legal status, it's intended to support partners in 
areas such as tenancy, pensions, inheritance, and immigration.

  Uruguay's Chamber of Deputies has unanimously approved a hate crimes bill 
including sex, sexual orientation and gender identity among other protected 
categories.  The bill provides for sentences of six months to two years in 
prison for "acts of moral or physical violence" and of three to 18 months for 
incitement of "hate, contempt or any other form of moral or physical 
violence".  The bill now moves to Uruguay's Senate.  IGLHRC, the 
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, has called for letters 
in support of the bill., noting that Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, 
Israel, and South Africa have similar laws.

  The GayEgypt.com Web site is reporting what it says are "dozens" of arrests 
of gay men in a Cairo suburb and near the Pyramids.  The site says the 
Egyptian government is striving to keep the arrests secret to avoid the 
international outcry that came in response to the May arrests of 52 men in a 
police raid on a gay-friendly Nile riverboat club.  Those men, allegedly 
abused by police while in detention, will be sentenced in mid-November by a 
national security court with no possibility of appeal.  Hearings began this 
week for the lone minor arrested in that raid as he appeals the three-year 
sentence he received in juvenile court. 

  There are no civil rights protections for most of the world's people with 
HIV, according to a survey of World Health Organization member nations.  Only 
about 16% of people with HIV in the world live in the 21 countries where 
their legal rights are protected.  In addition, only about a third of the 72 
countries requiring reporting of HIV protect the identities of the 
individuals.  Another 11 countries, with a total of about one fourth of the 
world population, quarantine people with HIV.

  HIV has drawn a rare official reference to homosexuality by the government 
of China, although gay men make up only a tiny fraction of the epidemic's 
victims there.  The latest official report on HIV/AIDS attributed one fifth 
of 1% of new HIV infections to sex between men and offered an estimate that 
100-to-600,000 gay Chinese have the virus.  To date Chinese prevention 
campaigns have ignored men who have sex with men, but the Ministry of Health 
is expressing a new concern to provide education for them.  China's first 
national conference on HIV/AIDS, to be held in Beijing in mid-November, will 
feature sessions on creating programs and materials to reach gay men.

  Hallowe’en continued to be the gayest holiday in the U.S., although fears 
of terrorist activity led to increased police presence at major celebrations. 
 In New York City, which bore the brunt of the September 11th attacks, the 
big annual parade in heavily-gay Greenwich Village went ahead with attendance 
of perhaps 250,000, only slightly depressed from previous years.  The 
so-called "gay city" of West Hollywood, California attracted over 200,000 
costumed partiers.  And in San Francisco, despite several years of city 
government efforts to move the party elsewhere, tens of thousands jammed the 
Castro district.

  And finally... this Hallowe’en season, two costumes were not donned by 
choice.  Coshocton County, Ohio Judge David Hostetler has had to do some 
creative sentencing with the local jail severely overcrowded.  When he found 
two young men guilty of criminal damage for throwing bottles at a car, he was 
indignant at their rude behavior towards the woman driving it.  So to teach 
them a lesson in sexism, instead of 60 days in jail he offered them the 
option of paying a $250 fine and walking through downtown Columbus for an h
our in drag.  He specified a dress, a wig, and a little makeup, requiring 
that their appearance be "respectful" and demure, not a "bikini top and 
thong."  With the help of their sisters, Jason Householder and John Stockum 
made their forced parade late last week, and people turned out in force to 
watch and tease them.  Although local residents support the judge's move, 
some civil rights advocates reportedly complained it was demeaning to 
transgenders.