“NewsWrap"
for the week ending February 21, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,091, distributed 2-23-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Chris Wilson and Michael LeBeau

  The Senate of the central African nation of Burundi has overwhelmingly defeated a move to make homosexuality a criminal offense.
The lower house approved the measure in November, generating sharp criticism from several international human rights groups and the UN Program on HIV/AIDS.
The Senate deleted the criminalization of homosexuality in major reforms of the country’s legal system.  The new legislation maintains a ban on the death penalty, and protects women and children from all forms of violence - especially sexual violence.
Burundi was wracked by civil war from 1993 until elections in 2005 restored an ostensibly democratic political system.  Several grandstanding politicians and religious leaders have blamed homosexuality for many of the country’s ills.
Michel Sidibe, the Executive Director of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, praised the Senate for not criminalizing homosexuality, noting that it would have driven gay men further underground in an already-disapproving society, making them even harder to reach with HIV/AIDS education and treatment programs.
The penal code reforms now return to the lower house for final approval.

  A 3-day forum in Hong Kong this week addresse d the soaring rate of HIV/AIDS among gay and bisexual men in Asia.  It ended with delegates calling for countries in the region that outlaw homosexual acts to decriminalize them.
Organizers issued a statement saying that “Highly prohibitive legal frameworks" against homosexuality are fueling an AIDS epidemic in Asia among men who have sex with men � which by some estimates number up to 100 million.
Forum participants said the alarming spike in HIV infections is being driven by younger people who aren’t practicing safe sex, and by a lack of awareness among one of the disease’s most vulnerable groups, gay and bisexual men, in countries that continue to stigmatize them.
Edmund Settle, from the United Nations Development Program, noted that a number of Asian countries are former British colonies that have maintained a Victorian-era law against so-called “crimes against nature.”  India’s high court is currently considering an effort to overturn such a law.
Chinese activist Zhen Li praised his government for decriminalizing homosexuality in 2001, and told a post-forum news conference that "As long as these laws are in effect it will push people into dark places.”

  Meanwhile, gays and lesbians came into the light on Valentine’s Day on the streets of Beijing in a rare display of public outreach.
According to a report by the “Reuters” news agency, about 30 people gathered on a street in the Chinese capital near Tiananmen Square to stage mock wedding photo sessions and pass out roses, along with pink-colored hand-outs urging support for marriage equality.  The activists drew smiles, and an occasional scowl, from passers-by.  Organizers said similar events took place in 3 other cities.
One Beijing participant, who used the name “Dana,” told “Reuters” that “Through today's event I want to tell everyone that there are a lot of us around them, they just can't see us, and that we are the same as everyone else.”
While there are fledgling nightspots in Beijing and Shanghai, homosexuality remains a subject that’s rarely addressed publicly in China.

  Elsewhere, Bolivia's new constitution, approved by 61 percent of voters last month, bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  It came into force on February 7th.
New York-based Latino activist Andrés Duque told gay journalist Rex Wockner that an Article titled "Fundamental Rights and Guarantees," reads, "The State prohibits and punishes all forms of discrimination founded on the basis of sex, skin color, gender, age, sexual orientation and gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious beliefs, ideology, political, or philosophical affiliation."
But Duque said the new constitution also defines marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.  And it was unclear if the LGBT anti-bias protections apply within a parallel tribal justice system that was also established by the new constitu tion.  Some 60 percent of Bolivians may fall under that jurisdiction.

  Hungary's government has offered a new registered-partnership bill to replace one that was struck down as unconstitutional just before it was to take effect on January 1st.
The Constitutional Court overturned the previous partnership measure because it would have also given those marriage-like rights to unmarried heterosexual couples, violating the special protection granted to marriage by the constitution.
The new bill proposes registered partnerships only for same-gender couples, and would grant them all the rights of marriage except adoption and the joint use of one spouse's last name.
It’s unclear if Parliament will pass the new bill.  Hungary has had a minority government since the now-Opposition Liberals left the governing coalition early last year.
Activist Tamás Dombos believes that the bill has a high chance of being passed, saying that “Governing parties hardly ever vote against proposals by their own government, and the Liberals fully support the new bill.  It is, however, very hard to predict how delicate negotiations involved in running a minority government will affect voting on the bill."

  In a rare bit of lesbigay-positive news from a GOP-controlled U.S. state legislature, Indiana’s Senate Republican Caucus voted this week not to consider a proposal that would have constitutionally defined marriage as exclusively heterosexual.  The resolution required approval by the Senate and House in 2 consecutive legislative sessions, and, if approved, would then have gone before the voters.  House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer said a similar measure introduced there will also not be considered.
Indiana already has a so-called Defense of Marriage law that bans same-gender marriage and civil unions, but supporters of a constitutional amendment worry that it could be overturned by the courts.
Two previous attempts to advance a heterosexual-only marriage amendment in the Indiana legislature died.  On both occasions it had passed the Senate only to fail in the House.

  But 5 pieces of legislation to advance lesbigay civil rights in the state of Utah have failed.  The group of bills, under the umbrella title of the Common Ground Initiative, would have repealed a section of the state’s constitutional ban on same-gender marriage, granted limited marriage-like rights to same gender couples in areas such as medical decision-making and inheritance, and provided employment and housing anti-bias protections.
The measures had the support of Republican Governor Jon Huntsman, but were apparently derailed, at least in part, because of full-page ads in the state’s major newspapers by a conservative group called America Forever that compared lesbians and gay men to “druggies and hookers,” condemned “public displays” of homosexuality, and called it “anti-species behavior.”

  And finally, 2 gay-related sexual harassment lawsuits thousands of miles apart had decidedly=2 0different outcomes this week.
A British labor tribunal awarded 62,500 pounds � about 90 thousand UU.S. dollars � to a gay man who was ridiculed for 2 years by a femalee co-worker.  She repeatedly made sexual advances and jiggled her breasts at him.
Allwyn Rondeau, a 46-year-old security guard at London’s Heathrow Airport, told the tribunal that the harassment didn’t stop after 42-year-old co-worker Lucy Chilton was told that he is gay.  He said on one occasion she put his hand on her breast and said “[you] wouldn’t know what to do with a woman anyway.”  After several spurned advances, Chilton then accused Rondeau of inappropriate sexual behavior, which led to his suspension.  Even after her claims were determined to be false, no action was taken against Chilton.  Rondeau said that she was, in fact, eventually promoted.
Dr. Neil Brener, a consultant psychiatrist at north London’s Priory Hospital, testified that Rondeau “clearly... has been through a very traumatic experience.  He feels he has been treated like a criminal, even though he has been exonerated.”
Rondeau, who’s taking medication for severe depression and had to move, told reporters that he was pleased with the outcome, but that “it wasn’t the money that was important... It was justice that I wanted, against her and management, for what I have been through every day for the past 2 years.”

  But a San Diego, California jury de cided that 4 firefighters were sexually harassed because they were ordered to participate in the local LGBT Pride parade, and ordered the city to pay them a combined total of 34,300 dollars.  The plaintiffs had originally each sought a million dollars in damages.
They claimed that they were the victims of vulgar sexual gestures and lewd comments, and forced to watch what their attorney called “barely clothed men and women simulate sex acts and touch themselves and one another” while riding in a fire engine at the July 2007 parade, which drew about 150,000 spectators.  A crew that had volunteered to ride in the parade pulled out after the captain’s mother died.  The Fire Department then ordered the crew in the city’s Hillcrest area, home to the large LGBT population where the parade is held, to fill in.  Days later, Fire-Rescue Chief Tracy Jarman apologized to the firefighters, and the department changed its policy to make participation in future parades strictly voluntary.
San Diego Pride Parade organizers issued a statement saying that "The mini-sized payout the jury awarded for emotional distress to the firefighters speaks volumes about the so-called notion that they endured severe or pervasive trauma while wearing earphones, sitting six feet off the ground inside a fire truck with the windows rolled up and a roaring diesel engine powering them along a one-mile parade route.  This is the same parade route followed by hundreds of public safety and law enforcement officers20annually who are unconditionally welcomed with applause by cheering crowds.”
The City of San Diego is considering an appeal of the verdict.




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