“NewsWrap" for the week ending July 4, 2009 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,110, distributed 7-6-09) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Christopher David Trentham The Delhi High Court issued its long-awaited ruling this week on India’s Penal Code Section 377, which punishes consensual adult same-gender sex with up to 10 years in prison. The judges determined that the statute violated 3 separate Articles of the nation’s Constitution those guaranteeing equality, prohibiting unfair and unreassonable treatment, and protecting individual privacy and liberty. In its decision, the Court wrote that “Section 377 targets the homosexual community as a class, and is motivated by an animus towards this vulnerable class of people.” While the Delhi High Court decision applies specifically to that Indian state, its impact is apparently nationwide. As the highest-level court in the country to rule on the issue, and based on an earlier unrelated decision by India’s Supreme Court about such rulings, the Delhi High Court judgment is now the law of the land unless it’ss appealed to the Supreme Court, or parliament passes a law to reinstate Section 377. LGBT activists have been struggling for the past 9 years to have the British colonial-era law banning “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” overturned . The NAZ Foundation, a non-governmental AIDS prevention and LGBT rights organization, has led that fight. Its leader Anjali Gopalan praised the July 2nd ruling, telling reporters that “We have finally entered into the 21st century.” The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which sparked the modern day LGBT liberation movement, was celebrated on the last weekend of the traditional Pride month of June in cities big and small around the world. India’s LGBT people and their supporters anticipated the victorious Delhi High Court ruling in what were first-ever Pride marches on June 28th in many cities around the country. Waving rainbow flags, dancing, chanting queer rights slogans, and in some cases accompanied by marching bands, hundreds gathered in the nation’s capital of New Delhi, while hundreds more joined parades in Kolkata, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, and Chennai. An estimated 12,000 people marched through Dublin's city center on June 27th in the Irish capital’s 26th annual Pride parade. Its “Pride and Prejudice” theme celebrated lesbian and gay literary icons. The parade came in the wake of the contentious Civil Partnership Bill, which had been published by the Government the day before. It’s been criticized as falling short of full equality, and relegating the relationships of gay and lesbian couples to second-class status. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Paris and Berlin on June 28th for thos e cities’ traditionally colorful Pride parades. U.S. diva and gay favorite Liza Minnelli briefly danced in the Paris parade ahead of her performance that night in the French capital. Organizers said about 700,000 people marched or watched, but police put the number at around 200,000. Local media said about 550,000 marched in Berlin’s 31st annual parade, which featured costumed celebrants and at least 50 decorated floats. Gay icon Harvey Milk’s activist nephew Stuart was a special guest at Istanbul’s 6th annual Pride march. According to local reports, he and another international visitor, German M.P. Mechtild Rawert, may have helped mediate an initial problem between organizers and police officers dressed in combat gear who confronted the marchers at the beginning of the parade route. After about an hour of discussion, an estimated 3 thousand LGBT activists and their friends marched peacefully down the Turkish city’s central pedestrian street. A weeklong series of panel discussions, award ceremonies, and film screenings preceded the June 28th parade. The usual hundreds of thousands, in more than 200 diverse contingents, also celebrated Pride on June 28th at San Francisco’s 39th annual parade. Thousands danced in the streets of the Castro neighborhood the day before on “Pink Saturday.” But in the early morning hours prior to the parade, arsonists used road flares to burn the traditional Pink Triangle display, a large ornamental pin k fabric that’s installed each year on a hill at San Francisco’s Twin Peaks. The fire was extinguished about a half-hour after it was reported. Police said the incident was under investigation. And in the place where it all began, the usual mix of political activists, dazzling drag performers, and disco-blasting floats paraded up 5th Avenue in New York City’s 39th annual Pride parade on June 28th exactly 40 years since the original riots began at the Stonewalll Inn. The celebration was tempered by frustrations with recent political shenanigans in the New York state Senate. A marriage equality bill backed by Governor David Paterson, which already passed in the Assembly, seems to have been derailed by an apparent political power play in the Senate that has left the previous Democratic majority in question. But 8 men, dressed all in black, assaulted the participants of a Pride literary event in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana on June 25th. The masked assailants shouted anti-gay slogans during the attack, which took place at a café called Open. They also tried to burn the café by throwing a torch into the room. Prominent journalist and equality activist Mitja Blaić was treated for cuts on his head and burns on his neck from the torch, which his attackers also used to beat him. Amnesty International called on government authorities to conduct a “prompt, independent, impartial and thorough investigation of th e incident, and to bring those responsible to justice.” The literary event was part of a week of activities leading up to the city’s Pride march, which was supported by the Slovenian Foreign Minister and the city’s mayor. And in an ironic and ugly twist on Pride back in the U.S., officers from the Ft. Worth Police Department and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission raided a newly-opened gay bar almost 40 years to the hour after the June 28th, 1969 raid on New York City’s Stonewall Inn erupted into queer activism. Seven customers of the Rainbow Lounge, which had been open for less than 2 weeks, were arrested for allegedly being drunk. Several customers were also roughed up, and one young man, Chad Gibson, was hospitalized with what was said to be a life-threatening blood clot on his brain after being shoved against a wall. Police officials said customers made sexually explicit advances toward the officers, and one claimed that he had been groped. But Rainbow Lounge owner J.R. Schrock was appalled by those allegations. “We’re gay,” he said, “but we’re not dumb.” City and state officials have called for a thorough investigation of the incident. At last report Gibson is said to be recovering, and could be released from the hospital sometime soon. A gay African-American sailor, Navy Seaman August Provost III, was murdered this week at the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, north of San Di ego. The 29-year-old native of Houston, Texas was serving sentry duty when he was shot 3 times. Family members said the Navy told them that his hands and feet were bound, his mouth gagged, and his body had been burned. Military officials said it was a random act of violence, but family members say Provost told them he was being harassed for being gay, and activists are calling the murder a possible hate crime. Provost’s partner in Houston, Kaether Cordero, said that under the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, their relationship had to be kept secret. Cordero only learned about the sailor’s death when reporters contacted him for comment. And a National Guard administrative board recommended this week that Lt. Dan Choi, the Iraq War combat veteran and Arabic language specialist who came out on cable TV’s “The Rachel Maddow Show”, should be discharged for violating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. That process requires further administrative action, which could take anywhere from a few weeks to a year. Choi said the discharge would amount to his being fired “for nothing more than telling the truth about who I am.” But finally, after 52 years, the U.S. government has apologized to groundbreaking gay activist Frank Kameny for firing him from his federal astronomer’s job in 1957 solely because he was gay. His termination prompted Kameny to file the first gay20employment rights case in U.S. history which he eventually lost. President Barack Obama acknowledged Kameny among the guests at his White House Pride reception on June 29th. We’ll have more about that event right after “NewsWrap.” The Office of Personnel Management, now headed by openly gay John Berry, delivered an official letter of apology to Kameny earlier in the week, along with its highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award. Berry asked Kameny in the letter to “Please accept our apology for the consequences of the previous policy of the United States Government, and please accept the gratitude and appreciation of the United States Office of Personnel Management for the work you have done to fight discrimination and protect the merit-based civil service system." Kameny's house is a District of Columbia Historic Landmark because it was the epicenter of many early gay rights efforts. More than 70,000 of his movement-related documents reside at the Library of Congress. Some of Kameny's activist materials are also on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History the same collection thatt houses Jackie Kennedy’s inaugural gown, Thomas Jefferson’s writing desk... and the ruby-red slippers that Dorothy wore on her way to meet the Wizard. Save energy, paper and money -- get the Green Toolbar.