“NewsWrap"
for the week ending May 9, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,102, distributed 5-11-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]


Reported this week by Chris Wilson and Pam Marshall


  A Greek court has annulled the country’s first known same-gender civil marriages, which were performed on the small Aegean island of Tilos last year.  Activists had cited a loophole in Greek marriage laws that don’t specify the gender of the partners.
The court on the island of Rhodes, which has jurisdiction over the island, ruled this week that Greek law makes no specific provision for same-gender weddings.
The ceremonies for one male couple and one female couple were conducted by Tilos Mayor Tassos Aliferis, who found himself in hot water for doing so.
The marriages drew strong criticism from the country’s powerful Orthodox Church, which counts 90 percent of the population as members.  
Greece’s Justice Ministry had also condemned the weddings as illegal.  
The married lesbian couple told reporters this week that the country’s Finance Ministry had nevertheless accepted their joint tax return.
The court ruling was not unexpected.  The couples’ lawyer, who said they’d file an appeal, said the case would likely wind up in the European Court of Human Rights.
Gays and lesbians enjoy some legal protections under Greek law - mainly in the are
as of employment and housing.  But a government-proposed civil unions law last year specifically excluded same-gender couples.


  The legal case against the Turkish LGBT group Lambda Istanbul returned to a local court in late April, and the organization was granted permission to continue operating.
The same court ordered the group shut down in May 2008, ruling that its objectives violate the country’s moral and family values.
But Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeal overturned that decision in November and sent the case back to the Third Civil Court of First Instance for a new ruling.
Activists remain concerned, however, about one sentence in the Supreme Court decision, which says, "Dissolution of the defendant association could still be demanded if it should act counter to its constitution, in the ways of encouraging or provoking gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transvestite behavior, or acting with the aim of spreading such sexual orientations."
Lambda Istanbul issued a statement saying that it will only feel truly safe when the Turkish constitution is amended to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, one of its long-standing goals.  "(The) constitutional safeguard is a must,” the group said, “to hinder any homophobic interpretations of those vague concepts in law."


  The group Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana has sued their government over the nation's ban on c
onsensual adult same-gender sex.  
The government has already refused to allow the activists to register as an official organization.
Uyapo Ndadi, an attorney and legal officer for the Botswana Network of Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS, which is supporting the lawsuit, said that "The law that criminalizes homosexuality violates the right to privacy and freedom of association.”  Group members say that the law makes gay and lesbian people criminals in their own country.
Botswana’s appeals court rejected a challenge to the sodomy law in 2003, arguing that the southern African country was not ready to accept homosexuality.


  Moscow is still not ready.  City officials have banned yet another LGBT Pride march � this one scheduled for May 16th, which coincidees with the Eurovision Song Contest, a wildly popular continent-wide talent competition.  The Russian capital is hosting the event this year, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of fans from across Europe.  "It's not a secret that we have a large gay audience,” a Eurovision official acknowledged, “and we respect everyone's backgrounds."
But Sergei Tsoi, a spokesman for notoriously homophobic Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, said of LGBT Pride events that "Not only do they destroy morals within our society, but they consciously provoke disorder which threatens the lives of Muscovites and visitors."  He said that any unsanctioned event would be “tough
ly stopped by law enforcement agencies.”
LGBT activists did manage to elude police and hold a few well planned “snap” public Pride events in 2008.  Organizer Nikolai Alekseyev promised similar actions this year.  He said on his website, gay-russia-dot-r-u, that "This is our right and it is guaranteed by the constitution.  No official, including the Moscow mayor, has the right to violate it."
Moscow Pride has 6 discrimination cases pending against Mayor Luzhkov at the slow-moving European Court of Human Rights for banning the Pride events, and an additional case against Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for refusing to intervene.


  Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers rejected a so-called “gay propaganda” bill this week.  The measure would have made it a criminal offense for anyone who “openly demonstrated a homosexual way of life and a homosexual orientation” to hold jobs in education or in the military.
The legislation mandated a sentence of from 2 to 5 years in prison.  It needed 226 votes to proceed.  Only 90 deputies voted for it.


  The move toward marriage equality in the U.S. has gone into high gear.  Maine became the fifth U.S. state to open civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples this week with Democratic Governor John Baldacci’s signature on an equality bill less than an hour after it had received final passage in the legislature.  While he’d publ
icly favored civil unions in the past, Baldacci said that "I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”
Iowa’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled in April that the ban on same-gender marriage violated the state constitution, and Vermont lawmakers overrode Republican Governor Jim Douglas’ veto soon thereafter to make it the first state to legislate marriage equality.  
Same-gender couples have been tying the knot in Massachusetts since 2004, and in Connecticut since 2008.
The New Hampshire legislature also approved a marriage equality bill this week.  But Democratic Governor John Lynch has publicly voiced his reluctance to sign it, saying he favors the state’s two-year-old civil unions law.  As of this report he’s not signed the marriage equality bill, which could become law without his signature if he takes no action.


  Gay and lesbian couples may not be able to marry in Maine anytime soon, however.  The law would normally go into effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns, which is usually in late June.  But, just as they did in California, opponents have vowed to pursue what’s called a "people's veto" in Maine, a public referendum to overturn the law.  
They would need to collect about 55,000 signatures within 90 days after the legislature adjourns to get the quest
ion on the ballot.  If that happens, the law would be suspended until a referendum could be held.  
That would be in November at the earliest, and more likely, in June 2010.


  A move is also underway in Washington to overturn a measure to expand the state’s existing domestic partners law.  The bill giving same-gender couples virtually all the other rights of marriage but the name passed the state legislature in April.  Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire’s signature is expected sometime soon.
According to the “Seattle Times,” Referendum 71 was filed by the Washington Values Alliance.  Supporters need to gather more than 120,000 valid voter signatures by July 25th to put the issue on the ballot.
The filing of the referendum delays implementation of the law until the signatures are counted.  If the referendum qualifies for the ballot, the fate of the law will be decided by the voters in November.


  Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill this week to recognize same-gender civil marriages performed legally in other jurisdictions.
The bill, which was approved 12-to-1 in a final vote by the City Council, now moves to the U.S. Congress, which under “home rule” has oversight on all D.C. legislation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week, however, that Congress would not block the bill's passage.  But a coalition of conservative African-American preachers t
hat has vocally opposed the marriage recognition bill vowed to mount an initiative campaign to overturn it.
The single dissenting vote on the City Council came from former mayor Marion Barry, who has apparently found religion since his 1990 arrest by the FBI after a hidden camera showed him smoking crack cocaine in a District hotel room with a woman who was not his wife.  As mayor he had generally supported LGBT rights issues.
Particularly disappointed in Barry’s vote was his longtime friend David Catania, one of two openly gay D.C. Council members.  “I want to do what Marion Barry has done 4 times,” he told a local public radio station.  “I want to get married.”


  And finally, when then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was forced to leave home during a nasty divorce in 2001 � his second �– he stayed for months with his gay friends Howard Koeppel and Mark Hsaio in the couple’s multi-million dollar Manhattan home.
He eventually invited the men to his wedding to Judith Nathan, the “other woman” who prompted that divorce.  He seemed to enjoy appearing in drag and touting his support for LGBT rights.
But Giuliani has signaled a possible GOP run for governor, and has already voiced opposition to a pending marriage equality bill in the state legislature.  So when Koeppel and Hsaio were married this week in Connecticut, their old roommate wasn’t there.0D
Koeppel told the “New York Post” that “Rudy and Judith were both invited with a beautiful written invitation by mail.”
But Giuliani had an aide call to say he would not be there.
“I danced at his wedding... and it would have been nice if he’d danced at mine,” Koeppel told The “Post.”  But he said he understood the politics-before-pals no-show.  “If he decides to run for governor... he’s a Republican, and he’s taking a Republican stand.”