NewsWrap for the week ending September 10, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #911, distributed 9-12-05) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Sheri Lunn The California state Assembly this week approved a bill to open civil marriage to same-gender couples. The state Senate had approved the same bill last week, so the Assembly vote made California's legislature the first in the United States to affirm marriage equality. But supporters' celebration was short-lived, as Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesperson announced that he would veto the measure. The legislature will not override that veto since both houses passed the bill on party line votes with the minimum required in favor. The bill's sponsors have acted to delay its transmission to the Governor for two weeks so its supporters can lobby him. But the veto is widely viewed as a political necessity for Schwarzenegger in order to retain his support among conservatives, at a time when his popularity with other groups has been eroding. He needs the votes for a special election he arranged for November for measures that would weaken the legislature's control of state finances. Referring to the ballot initiative Proposition 22 which defined marriage exclusively as between one man and one woman and was approved by more than 60% of California voters in 2000, the Governor's statement said in part, "Five years ago the matter of same-sex marriage was placed before the people of California... We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote. Out of respect for the will of the people, the Governor will veto AB 849." Public opinion has shifted significantly on marriage equality in the 5 years since Proposition 22 was passed, with the latest California polling finding both support and opposition standing at 46%. Marriage equality activists deny that the current bill would unconstitutionally override Proposition 22, which they interpret as having been designed to bar recognition of other states' marriages of same-gender couples rather than prohibiting them in California. While the California marriage debate weighs the relative powers of a voter-passed initiative and a legislative action, the Massachusetts marriage debate weighs a proposed ballot initiative against a judicial decision. This week Massachusetts Attorney-General Tom Reilly, a Democrat, approved a petition for signature-gathering towards asking voters whether to amend the state constitution to prohibit same-gender marriages. Reilly believes the state constitution allows such a public move in response to what he considers to be a public policy decision by the state's highest court, which required the state to marry same-gender couples in a ruling on equality grounds that went into effect last year. But marriage equality activists were joined by two former Massachusetts Attorneys-General, among others, in maintaining that the state constitution prohibits referenda on judicial rulings. They say the section Reilly cites does not apply to the "Goodridge" marriage decision because it did not overturn any existing law. Should the initiative's sponsor, the Massachusetts Family Institute, succeed in gathering the necessary signatures to qualify it for the 2008 ballot, the legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders will challenge it in court on constitutional grounds. California Governor Schwarzenegger already used his veto power this week to block a move against negative political campaigning based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill would have added those two categories to seven others already protected under a pledge in the Code of Fair Campaign Practices, which candidates for elective office adopt voluntarily. The Governor apparently found the move unnecessary. "Lesbo" was among the taunts shouted at New Zealand's non-gay Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark by the crowd at a nationally televised political debate. She accused National Party leader Don Brash of having purposely brought in what she called "a mob of hooligans who chanted abuse every time I opened my mouth." National denied the charge, and it was actually not Brash but a National Party board member who'd handed out their tickets to some of the party's Auckland volunteers. Labour has been particularly targeted by more conservative parties in this campaign for its enactment of civil unions with legal status equal to marriage that are open to gay and lesbian couples. But it was learned this week that two mailers attacking Labour and its partner the Green Party in specifically anti-gay terms did not come from a political party at all, but from members of the Exclusive Brethren Church. That's somewhat surprising since that church has generally been known to avoid politics as part of its isolation from most worldly pursuits. However, some literature campaigning against the move to marriage equality in Canada this year was also traced back to the Exclusive Brethren. The total world membership of this reclusive authoritarian sect is believed to be only about 27,000. It was to protect Malaysia from having a gay Prime Minister that Anwar Ibrahim was fired as Deputy Prime Minister, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters this week. In 1998, Mahathir not only abruptly fired the popular Anwar from the cabinet and booted him from their political party, but saw to it that he was arrested for sodomy and related charges and remained imprisoned until a high court ruling freed him a year ago -- after Mahathir himself had retired. Mahathir and the Malaysian justice system were harshly criticized by the international community for their handling of Anwar, whose health was ruined by his imprisonment and beatings. Mahathir said, "In our society, sodomy is not acceptable. Of course, among some media people even, they are gay. They don't like my taking action against a person for the kind of things that they indulge in. So I became a bad guy because of that. But I cannot have a person who is like that in my cabinet who may succeed and become the prime minister. Imagine having a gay prime minister. Nobody would be safe." Anwar, a devout Muslim who is married with children, has always denied all the charges against him, claiming a political conspiracy led by Mahathir. But it was only after his release that he criticized the law that had been used against him. While admitting that most Malaysians do not accept homosexuality, he said last year, "[T]he question is how do you use the law and intrude on people's privacy and their own private choices? This is the borderline: I think public display may be objectionable, but I think the laws need to be amended. The issue here is the invasion of privacy and we have, therefore, to design and make sure the law does not involve the overzealous groups trying to push their views or values outside the scope of the law. "So I think while I endorse the general law against homosexuality -- I think it is against Islamic tenets and also the cultural practice here by most Malaysians -- I think we have to bear in mind that invasion of privacy is something that we need to look at." In Britain, the Liverpool City Council this week voted unanimously to develop a "gay quarter" modeled on Manchester's district. Councillors believe Liverpool has already been losing revenue as its lesbigay residents socialize in Manchester instead of at home, and they hope the city will be revitalized by new business opportunities that woo the so-called "pink pound". First the city will consult with its lesbigay community and with the bars that now serve them, which have not previously worked together. Liverpool councillors hope for a broad range of shops, services and residential developments in their gay village, and will help to organize a gay business association to support them. They understand that for their project to succeed, lesbigays must feel safe in the gay quarter in a way that many don't in Liverpool now, and the Council is looking for their police to also follow Manchester's model of service and sensitivity to lesbigays. Unlike most U.K. cities of its size, Liverpool has no annual pride event. And finally... one of the most poignant celebrations of lesbigay pride ever occurred this week in hurricane-devastated New Orleans. The city's 33rd annual Southern Decadence parade had been expected to draw a crowd of 125,000 before the entire festival was cancelled due to storm warnings. But the historically gay-friendly French Quarter, although seriously damaged, escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina's winds and flooding, and a small number of its residents rejected evacuation orders to remain through the disaster. Determined to have their pride parade, about two dozen of those survivors found a bar's storm-tattered rainbow flag and marched behind it down Bourbon Street. Some even found the means to put together gaudy costumes and toss traditional Mardi Gras beads and confetti. Instead of blaring amplified music, there were a guitar and a tambourine. One carried a large sign asking, "Life Goes On?" Among the New Orleans refugees, several hundred marched in what they called the "Unofficial Southern Decadence in Exile" parade in Lafayette, Louisiana. One contingent mocked government response to the hurricane by appearing as the "Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency".