“NewsWrap” for the week ending August 1, 2009 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,114, distributed 8-3-09) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Christopher David Trentham and Chris Coleman Australia’s lesbians, gays and their supporters held a National Day of Action for marriage equality in cities across the continent on August 1st, even as the National Conference of the ruling center-left Labor Party in Sydney defeated efforts to change its policies on matrimonial equality. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, an avowedly church-going Christian, has said that same-gender couples deserve rights, but he’s also steadfastly repeated his Party’s election pledge to support a 5-year-old federal law defining marriage as exclusively heterosexual. The Labor Party reaffirmed that position at its National Conference. Attorney General Robert McLelland thanked Australia’s “faith communities” for their support of his Government during a speech to Conference delegates, saying that Labor “will not support any form of recognition of relationships that undermine marriage." As Aretha Franklin’s pop classic “Respect” blasted from loudspeakers in at least one locale, thousands “witnessed” mock same-gender wedding ceremonies as part of the National Day of Action in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and other Australian cities. Activists called them the larges t mass illegal weddings ever held. They vowed to continue pushing for full marriage rights. Spokesman Alex Greenwich of the advocacy group Australian Marriage Equality told reporters that "There's no room to negotiate on equality. Our rights are not an enterprise bargaining agreement." Meanwhile, Albania’s government announced on its official website this week a proposal to open civil marriage to same-gender couples. The announcement said such legislation is necessary to stop discrimination against same-gender couples in the southeast European nation, although it acknowledged that the proposal “may spark debate.” Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who was recently reelected, said the action was prompted by requests from LGBT rights groups, and told legislators this week that discrimination against gays and lesbians was “unacceptable”. His Democrats control more than half of the 140 seats in parliament. Albania is a predominantly Muslim country, but it’s more secular than most similar nations. Strong objections to the proposal, however, have already been voiced by religious leaders and opposition lawmakers. Some critics also believe the move is intended to curry favor with the European Union, which Albania seeks to join. Homosexual acts were punishable there by up to 10 years in prison until 1995. A lesbian activist who identified herself only as “Ira” told “Reuters” that the proposal took her group by surprise, because they had lob bied only for anti-discrimination laws. "If you look at our society, [the proposal] looks a bit surreal,” she said, “but we welcome it.” If the legislation succeeds, it would make the former Communist Balkan state the first in the region to recognize same-gender civil marriage. But Portugal’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the country’s marriage laws are exclusively heterosexual. In a 3-to-2 vote, the judges upheld lower court rulings that denied a marriage license to a lesbian couple. The plaintiffs had cited a provision in Portugal’s constitution that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. The court said the question before it was not whether the constitution allows same-gender marriages, but whether the constitution compels them to be accepted, which it does not. Activists were encouraged by the split decision, however, saying that progress towards equality was being made in their predominantly Roman Catholic country. Prime Minister José Sócrates and his ruling center-left Socialist Party have included marriage equality in their manifesto in the run-up to national elections on September 27th. Polls indicate that they’re facing a strong challenge from the opposition center-right Social Democrats, which opposes such a move. A 64-year-old lesbian in Israel has been granted a widow's government pension following the death of her longtime partner. The “Advocate” reported last week that the action followed a law suit brought by the widow, Ella Bar-lian, who was represented by New Family, a national advocacy group that works for family rights. After her partner Roberta Saltonick died in September, Bar-lian applied for a national insurance widow's pension. Her request was rejected on the grounds that she and Saltonick were not spouses even thoughh they had been together for 22 years. Israeli law only recognizes Jewish marriages performed by the rabbinate, and none will marry same-gender couples. New Family Executive Director Irit Rosenblum said that "We will not rest until legislation is enacted giving the rights of all types of families in Israel equal status." Quakers in the United Kingdom voted this week to rewrite their prayer book to include marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples, and called on the government to provide equal marriage rights to such couples. The Quakers, known formally as the Society of Friends, becomes the first mainstream religious group to put same-gender couples on a par with their heterosexual counterparts in Britain, where civil partnership for gays and lesbians, but not marriage, is the law of the land. More than 1,600 Quakers voted at their annual meeting in York "to treat same-sex committed relationships in the same way as opposite-sex marriages.” However, the Quakers also called the question of legal recognition by the British government “secondary,” and won’t require Quaker registrars to disobey the law by marrying same-gender=2 0couples. The inclusion of open gays and lesbians in religious life has divided the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest Christian denomination, after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested this week that the seemingly-impossible-to-surmount split between the more lesbigay-welcoming U.S. Episcopal and Canadian Anglican regions and traditionalists who support Biblical condemnation of homosexuality primarilyy in Africa, Asia and Latin America may require a "two-tiered" Chhurch. On his website this week the ecclesiastical leader of the Church described “two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out, but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion.” The sailor accused of brutally murdering gay African-American U.S. Navy Seaman August Provost as he served sentry duty on June 30th at Southern California’s Camp Pendleton has killed himself while in custody in the base brig. Officials said that Jonathan Campos apparently asphyxiated himself with toilet paper during the afternoon of July 31st, even though he had been on suicide watch and had been checked late that morning. The Navy had charged Campos with murder, drug possession, burglary and several other crimes. Campos allegedly shot Provost several times while attempting to enter the base to destroy property and attack other sailors. Some o f Provost’s family members said that he had told them he was being harassed for being gay. But military officials said the 2 sailors didn’t know each other, that there was no evidence that the killing was a hate crime, and that Provost had never filed any complaints. He would have been reluctant to do so, however, under the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And finally, Salt Lake City Prosecutor Sim Gill announced this week that his office won’t pursue a case against Derek Jones and Matt Aune, the couple arrested for “kissing while gay” as they strolled on a Mormon Church-owned but publicly-used walkway outside Temple grounds in early July. Gill said he dropped the trespassing charges because signs on the downtown Main Street Plaza failed to properly notify visitors that they were entering private property "at will," meaning they could be ejected at any time for any reason. Grainy surveillance video released this week doesn’t show what precipitated the confrontation, but does show 4 burly security guards arguing with the couple, finally yanking them apart and putting them in handcuffs. The guards, Aune said this week, told them their display of affection was "disgusting," "gross" and "wrong." Supporters of the couple have staged two "kiss-in" demonstrations at the plaza since the arrests, and a similar protest was held outside the Mormon Church Temple in San Diego, California. Citing the Salt Lak e City incident, and a similar confrontation in El Paso, Texas, bloggers are calling for country-wide protests. The Great Nationwide Kiss-In is scheduled for Saturday, August 15th. Organizing is reportedly already underway in Boston, New York, Houston, Portland, Oregon, and 3 California cities Irvine, San Diego and San Francisco. A Facebook page promoting the demonstrations says people should be allowed to freely express their affection. The Great Nationwide Kiss-In Web site is at h-t-t-p-colon-double forward slash-sit-in-(the number)4-equality-dot-net. That’s h-t-t-p-colon-double forward slash-sit-in-4-equality-dot-net. - - - - Tel Aviv killings bulletin - - - - We have tragic late-breaking news: a weekly support group for queer youth was being held in the basement of the local LGBT center in downtown Tel Aviv, Israel on the night of August 1st when a masked man dressed in black walked in and randomly sprayed the room with machine gun fire. At least 2 were killed a young adult counselor and a 16- or 17-yeaar-old girl and more than a dozen, some in serious condition, werre rushed to area hospitals. The unknown gunman fled on foot, and in this still-developing story, police are conducting a door-to-door manhunt for him. There’s only speculation about his motive at this point, but local activists said inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric by ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders could have spurred the assault. Tel Aviv has long been considered the most queer friendly city in20Israel, so news of the shooting has literally shocked the nation. Condemnations have ranged from local Tel Aviv officials and national religious leaders to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hundreds of LGBT people and their friends held a vigil and protest against homophobia less than a block from the crime scene on August 2nd, and more demonstrations are planned in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. We’ll have much more about all this next time on “This Way Out.”