NewsWrap for the week ending October 22, 2005 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #917, distributed 10-24-05) [Written this week by Jon BeauprĂ© and Greg Gordon, with thanks to Cindy Friedman, Graham Underhill, Lucia Chappelle, and Rex Wockner] Reported this week by Rick Watts and Sheri Lunn Australia's Defence Force issued a memo on Friday, October 21st announcing that its gay and lesbian servicemembers will have access to couples' benefits previously available only to heterosexuals. Those benefits will include housing assistance and other "family" perks, along with death and injury compensation. "The government has agreed to changes… to include ADFF personnel in interdependent relationships," the memo says. "The new group will include ADF members who are involved in interdependent relationships with a same sex partner." Queer equality groups have been lobbying for this change, which will reportedly go into effect on December 1st, since the ban on gay and lesbian servicemembers was lifted in Australia 13 years ago. "Finally, they've seen sense," celebrated Petty Officer Stuart O'Brien, a spokesperson for the Defence Gay & Lesbian Information Service. O'Brien, who will be shipping out to Iraq in December, said he was comforted by the fact that "Should anything happen, my partner will be looked after." An ADF spokesperson was quoted in one press report that "Defence places great emphasis on ensuring its people work in an environment that is fair and inclusive, recognising that this enhances operational capability and effectiveness." GLBT rights groups have seized on the report to demand more federal rights for same gender couples. Openly gay former Senator Brian Greig isn't so sure the ADF move is a done deal, however. He says the memo may be a planned "leak" by the conservative John Howard Government, "released discreetly as news late on a Friday to minimize media exposure… [and] to see if there is anyy anti-gay backlash," allowing the Government to "scrap it swiftly with some excuse along the lines of, 'Oh, this was only being looked at, it wasn't being mandated.'" Stay tuned? There was a "non-protest" of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland this week. Defying earlier threats of arrest if they staged a protest, about 50 queer rights activists still managed to express opposition on campus to the 12-year old policy that bans "out" gays and lesbians from U.S. military service. The event began with a few anxious moments as members of the group, each wearing a bright pastel T-s hirt printed with the words "Equality Ride", held hands along the brick wall outside the Academy's main gate and, after a brief news conference, walked through single file. First-in-line rally organizer Jacob Reitan was stopped by two Marine guards. One asked if he was there with "the protest." "No, I'm not," Reitan said. "We're here to have a discussion and dialogue and we're here… like any other visitors to the Academy." The group was then allowed in and, while midshipmen were in class, spent time strolling the grounds and visiting the campus bookstore and restaurant like other tourists of the facility. As classes let out, they lined up in the square outside the midshipmen's dormitory, Bancroft Hall, and shook hands with them as they walked by… and thenn left. "Everything ended peacefully," said Reitan. "We shook a lot of hands and introduced ourselves, and I think we left an indelible impression on a lot of people at the Academy." Gay and lesbian students in the California Pacific Coast community of Santa Cruz staged a kiss-in this week to protest "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in front of Army, Navy and Marine Corps recruiters at a job fair at the University of California campus there. The university said it could not bar military recruiters because of the Solomon Amendment, which allows the federal government to withhold funding to universities that deny the military access to campus recruitment. Protests were staged earlier this month as well at Stanford University and at the University of Iowa. And lawmakers in St. Louis, Missouri are also weighing in on "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell". The city's Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a resolution this week "respectfully urg[ing] Congress to pass and the president to sign the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2005" which, among other things, would abolish "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell". Resolutions supporting that bill have also been approved by city councils in New York, Chicago, West Hollywood, San Francisco and Cathedral City, California. In September the California Assembly approved a similar resolution, making it the first and as yet only state legislative body in the country to officially oppose the military's ban. Lesbigay communities in England are on edge after the horrific murder of a young gay man in South London, a killing that has been called an unquestionably homophobic hate crime by authorities there. Jody Dobrowski, the 24-year-old manager of a bar in North London, was beaten and stomped so severely just after midnight on October 15th that he died at a local hospital a few hours later. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola said Dobrowski had suffered critical head, neck and facial injuries. "This was a brutal attack," he said, "which left Jody's face so badly injured that he could not be identified visually, even by those who knew and loved him the most." Dobrowski's fingerprints had to be used to make a formal identification. London Mayor Ken Livingstone labeled the attack "shockingly vicious." Authorities have arrested two men in c onnection with the murder. Dobrowski was visiting friends in the blue collar neighborhood of Clapham in South London and was on his way home when the attackers, shouting anti-gay slurs, chased him through the park at Clapham Common and assaulted him. Police say the attack was both "abhorrent and frenzied." There are reportedly well over a hundred bashings and a half-dozen gay hate murders in London every year, but few have caught the attention of the public that the brutal killing of the popular Dobrowski has. Friends and family members visited the murder site and left flowers and other remembrances. Dobrowski's brother Jake read a statement that said, in part, "A beautiful and fine young man has been taken from us, and the people who did this will never understand the horror they have inflicted on his family and hundreds of friends." In a case closely watched by both U.S. queer advocates and their opponents, the Kansas Supreme Court this week unanimously overturned a state law that punished under-age gay sexual activity much more severely than similar heterosexual conduct. Matthew R. Limon has been serving a 17-year prison sentence since his conviction in 2000 of having what was never disputed to be consensual sex one week after his 18th birthday with a boy who was almost 15 -- in fact, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, "three years, one month and a few days younger." Had one of them been female, the state's "Romeo and Juliet" law would have proscribed a maximum sentence for Limon of 15 months. Kansas law makes any sexual activity involving a person under the age of 16 illegal. The "Romeo and Juliet" law, however, enacted in 1999, dictates brief jail terms, or even probation for sexual activity when the defendant is under 19 and the age difference between participants is less than four years -- but only for heterosexual activity. The 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all adult consensual sodomy laws, influenced the Kansas Supreme Court ruling. Justice Marla Luckert, writing for the state's high court, said the much harsher sentence given to Limon also "suggests animus toward teenagers who engage in homosexual sex… Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimaate state interest… The statute inflicts immediate, continuing and real injuriies that outrun and belie any legitimate justification that may be claimed for it." "We are very happy that Matthew will soon be getting out of prison," said Limon's attorney James Esseks of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "We are sorry there is no way to make up for the extra four years he spent in prison simply because he is gay." What is billed as Europe's largest lesbigay festival, "GlasGay", has kicked off a month-long series of events that will bring a fifth of its audience from outside Scotland to Glasgow. The four-week festival has grown dramatically from its beginnings as a political protest to its current offering of over 200 performances in 16 venues. Among the headliners this year are singers Marc Almond and Rufus Wainright. Festival producer Steven Thomson told reporters, "We have gone from a celebration of queer culture into the mainstream." City officials have said "GlasGay" not only promotes a positive image for the gay and lesbian community but pours much-needed "pink pounds" into the economy there. At least one Scots businessman is having none of the festivities, however. Tom Forrest runs a three-star bed and breakfast in the city of Wester Ross, and is Scotland’s most vocal opponent of a national law requiring guesthouses and hotels to accept same gender couples. Forrest hit the headlines several weeks ago when he refused a gay couple who had requested a double room, claiming that he would rather be jailed than have someone tell him who is allowed under his roof. Forrest is clearly at odds with the national tourist authority, VisitBritain, which -- while reporting a steady rise in complaints of hotel homophobia -- has promoted Scotland as a queer holiday destination. And finally, the American high school tradition of electing a homecoming king and queen has been a staunchly heterosexual ritual. The young man elected king is often the most popular, unquestionably hetero sports star, and the queen the prettiest and most popular cheerleader. But the students at Buffalo Grove High School in Chicago apparently decided to challenge tradition by electing Jen Wohlner and Ryan Cooperman to those positions of honorary royalty this week. Yes, it’s true that both Wohlner and Cooperman are popular, and it’s true that one is a jock and one is a cheerleader. But not only are both students openly queer ­ in fact Jen went to her prom with another giirl last year ­ it’s Jen who's the jock, and Ryan who's the cheerleader.