“NewsWrap"
for the week ending June 27, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,109, distributed 6-29-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley and Fergal O’Doherty]

Reported this week by Leigh Moore and Michele Pleasant

  Ireland’s Government this week published a civil partnerships bill that would give same-gender couples many of the rights of marriage.  Most LGBT advocates say the measure falls far short of equality, however, and dispute the Government’s claim that the Irish constitution exclusively reserves civil marriage to heterosexual couples.
The proposed legislation in the heavily Roman Catholic country will grant registered gay and lesbian couples legal recognition in areas such as social security, property rights, taxation, pensions, and inheritance.
But Ireland’s LGBT group MarriagEquality said the measure will "force" same-gender couples to accept a second-class status.
Co-chair Grainne Healy called the bill “deficient on so many levels,” saying that it specifically fails to address “the parental role and responsibilities of lesbians and gay men to their children... A same-sex couple will not be eligible... to adopt a child under civil partnership: not even the child of their registered civil partner."
While acknowledging that the bill fails to establish full marriage equality, Green Party Justice spokesman Ciarán Cuffe said it “represents real and substanti al progress” and “provides the best means of recognising and protecting same-sex relationships."
The parties of Ireland’s coalition government hold a majority of seats in parliament, so the bill’s passage may be a foregone conclusion.   Some parties, however, can allow "free votes" on matters of conscience.  The Government is nevertheless promising enactment of the partnerships bill by the end of the year.

  The President of Lithuania has vetoed a new law that bans materials that “promote” homosexuality in schools or where children could be present.
Human Rights Watch said sources in the eastern European country had confirmed that President Valdas Adamkus vetoed the “Law on Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information.”
According to one account, the veto was not because of the homophobic nature of the law, but because Adamkus said there were no real definitions of what would be “detrimental” to young people.
The announcement of the veto in the predominantly Roman Catholic country reportedly came hours after a protest demonstration outside the Presidential Palace by activists from the Lithuanian Gay League and the LGBTQ student advocacy group Tolerant Youth Association.
The country's parliament overwhelmingly approved the measure in both of its 2 readings, but almost half of the deputies skipped the vote each time.  An override requires a simple majority in the 141-seat parliament, after which a presidential s ignature is required within 3 days.  Lawmakers will break soon for the summer recess, however, so it may be months before an override attempt.  Adamkus has less than 2 weeks remaining in office, and there’s speculation that he wants to leave the controversial measure on the doorstep of Lithuania’s next president.

  In heavily Roman Catholic Mexico, thousands marched peacefully through central Mexico City on June 20th in the capital’s 31st Pride March.  Some 1500 police officers monitored the march, but no problems were reported.
The parade began at midday at the Monument of the Angel of Independence and ended at the Plaza de la Constitucion later in the afternoon.
The marchers’ political demands included improvements in security, healthcare, and sexual education, and anti-bias protections to reduce the harassment they continue to face in Mexico.
In a survey released this week, 88 percent of LGBT respondents said they’d experienced discrimination, and many reported being victims of homophobic violence.  The poll was conducted by several organizations, including the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Latin American Center for Sexuality and Human Rights.

  Not to be outdone, Tijuana's June 20th Pride parade � thee city's 14th � was nearly 3 times bigger, and twice as long, as inn any other year.
Gay journalist Rex Wockner said that the turnout was all the more amazing because the city has been hit in the past year by a=2 0serious crime wave, as drug cartels and dealers battle for dominance.  Unlike previous years, few gays and lesbians crossed the border from Southern California - especially from San Diego, which is just 15 miles to the north � because of the violence.
But at least a thousand people marched or rode in the parade, which stretched along 7 blocks of Avenida Revolución, the main drag of the city of 2 million people.  More than ten thousand people jammed the sidewalks to watch the event.
Spectators generally cheered the parade and smiled broadly.  A single protester with a hand-held PA system, stationed at the parade lineup location, repeatedly shouted "The price of sin is death, according to the Bible."  According to Wockner, everyone ignored him.

  We’re happy to report that there was no violence at this year’s Pride march in Jerusalem, the spiritual home of Jews, Muslims, and Christians.  Amid a heavy police presence, thousands of Israelis gathered on June 25th for the city’s eighth Pride celebration, which most leaders of the 3 religious faiths routinely oppose.  More than 1500 police were on the streets to protect the estimated 4 thousand marchers, who gathered in West Jerusalem's central Bell Park, and traveled up the closed-off King David Street to the city's Independence Park for an evening rally.
Unlike the pulsating parade in Israel's secular seaside capital of Tel Aviv, which drew tens of thousands 2 weeks ago, the parade in Jerusalem was=2 0far more restrained.  Few participants wore flamboyant costumes, and “Deutsche Presse Agentur” reported that except for 3 men discreetly dressed as women, there were no outrageous drag queens.
Yearly protests against the parade in the city mushroomed in 2006 when ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students took to the streets for 9 consecutive nights, burning garbage containers and throwing stones and bottles at the police.  An ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed 3 participants at the 2005 march, for which he’s serving 12 years in prison.
Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and several rabbinical leaders had unsuccessfully called for both the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv parades this year to be either cancelled or restricted.  Religious conservatives, however, decided to discourage vocal public protests to avoid giving the event additional publicity, although a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews held a small demonstration of “mourning” in another part of the city.

  U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to hold a reception on June 29th at the White House to mark the 40th anniversary of New York City’s Stonewall Riots, the event in June 1969 that sparked the modern day push for LGBT equality.  The guest list reportedly includes prominent activists and leaders of advocacy group around the country.  While the White House had not released their names, it may be notable that gay U.S. fighter pilot Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who’s fighting his high20profile discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” told TV’s Rachel Maddow Show that he had been invited.  The president was expected to make remarks at the reception, but it’s not certain how extensive they might be.  We’ll follow up on this story next time.
This was week number 3 in Obama’s “Queer Chronicles,” as the president continued “damage control” over a hugely offensive Justice Department brief in early June supporting the equality-banning Defense of Marriage Act in a federal lawsuit.  Candidate Obama had repeatedly promised to seek its repeal.  There had already been rumblings of discontent in the president’s LGBT constituency over his failure to take concrete steps against that odious measure, and to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” another campaign promise.
We’ll have more on the ongoing Obama drama later in this program.

  And finally, ugly homophobia can sometimes actually pay.  According to a report in the “New York Daily News,” the predominantly gay Congregation Beth Simchat Tora was one of the synagogues picketed in New York City this week by the anti-Semitic and anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.  The Kansas cult, headed by fanatic Fred Phelps, is notorious for picketing the funerals of gay men, most notably gay-bashed Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.  More recently, they’ve picketed the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan w ars because, Phelps claims, their deaths are punishment for the acceptance of homosexuality in the U.S.  His group of mostly family members held signs outside the West village synagogue this week saying “Jews stole the land,” and the ever-reliable “God Hates Fags.”
Congregation Beth Simchat Tora asked supporters to pledge one dollar for every minute that the 6 protestors stood near the temple holding those signs and yelling insults.  Synagogue leaders said the money raised would help the congregation, which currently uses rented space, to find a permanent home.
The appeal raised 10,000 dollars in 50 minutes.




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