“NewsWrap"
for the week ending August 15, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,116, distributed 8-17-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Chris Coleman and Michael LeBeau

  Romanian President Traian Basescu has signed a new Civil Code that offers some anti-bias protections for lesbians and gay men, but outlaws their relationships.
Article 30 of the new code bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.  But Article 277 bans same-gender marriage and the recognition of foreign same-gender marriages, or recognition of civil partnerships, regardless of sexual orientation.  Article 462 prohibits 2 unmarried persons from adopting a child together.  Other articles define "family" as based on marriage between a man and a woman.
The Romanian LGBT group ACCEPT, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association published a critical letter to Basescu. It said that the anti-gay provisions “deny the existence of LGBT and non-traditional heterosexual families, increasing social stigma and discrimination against them."
The organizations urged the president to support any efforts to repeal the offensive Articles.

  Up to 5 thousand people marched from Dublin City Hall to the Department of Justice on August 9th to protest the lack of marriage equality in their country.  The “Pink Paper” called it the largest single-issue LGBT demonstration in Irish history.  Participants heard speakers condemn the Government’s Civil Partnerships Bill, which was officially proposed in June.  Activists say it offers only second-class status for gay and lesbian couples, denies them some of the rights of heterosexual marriage � including parental rights � and will perpetuatuate inequality.  Several same-gender couples and family members shared their personal stories at the rally.
Amnesty International and the Union of Students in Ireland were among the participating organizations.
The Government has insisted that the Irish Constitution defines marriage as exclusively heterosexual.
Event coordinator Mark McCarron told the crowd that “... we are not going to be satisfied with a few crumbs.  We want the whole cake, the wedding cake.”
The Government’s Civil Partnerships Bill is scheduled for debate in Ireland’s parliament in September.

  Two young Australian gay activists were called “faggots” and forcibly ejected this week from a National Marriage Day Breakfast in Canberra.  John Davey and John Kloprogge told “nine-m-s-n” that they climbed onto the stage in the Great Hall of the Federal Parliament Building during a speech by the Secretary for Social Inclusion, Senator Ursula Stephens, when they were "attacked by thugs". "We went up on the stage,” Davey said, “stood next to the senator and held out a20cardboard banner that read 'Inclusion equals equality'."  He said an unidentified man jumped on the stage, yanked his neck, and said “you've made your point, now get out of here, faggot."  Others joined in the 2 men’s rough escort out of the building.
The National Marriage Day Web site said the breakfast � supportedd by the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby � was a celebration to renew "the culture of marriage within ourr nation".  Equality activists say it was no coincidence that the event was held on the fifth anniversary of the passage of a federal law limiting marriage to one man and one woman.  That measure was shepherded through parliament by Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard on August 13th, 2004.  The current Labor-led government of Kevin Rudd has rejected any legislation that would grant marriage-like recognition to same-gender couples.
The 2 men said it was particularly galling that the Rudd Government’s Secretary for Social Inclusion spoke at the event.  They’re considering filing assault charges against conference organizers and parliamentary security staff.

  The Employment Non-Discrimination Act � or ENDA �– which bans workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, was introduced in the U.S. Senate on August 5th.  The law would make it illegal to fire or refuse to hire or promote an employee based on his or her being gay or lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, or=2 0transgender.
Similar legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives in June.
A controversial version of ENDA covering only sexual orientation was considered in Congress during the administration of George W. Bush, but he would almost certainly have vetoed the measure if it had reached his desk.
President Barack Obama has voiced his support for the current bill.  The Human Rights Campaign has established a Web resource to help people lobby for the measure’s passage: no-excuses-dot-h-r-c-dot-o-r-g.

  Wisconsin's same-gender domestic-partnership law took effect on August 3rd.  It grants 43 of the more than 200 state-level rights and obligations of marriage, in areas such as family medical leave, hospital visitation, inheritance in the absence of a will, and real estate transfers.  The LGBT lobby group Fair Wisconsin noted that a second measure, taking effect in January, will extend health insurance coverage to same- and opposite-gender domestic partners of state employees.
Opponents have sued to overturn the new laws, claiming they violate a state constitutional amendment that bans same-gender marriage � as welll as unions “identical or substantially similar to that of marriage”.  LGBT activists say the new laws don’t fit that definition.

  The group fighting to keep Maine's marriage equality law on the books opened its third campaign headquarters this week.
The NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality office in Lewiston joins those already up and running in=2 0Portland and Brewer.  Under a bill passed by the legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year, legal same-gender weddings were scheduled to begin in Maine next month.  But it looks like opponents have forced a statewide referendum on the issue.  If the petition signatures of at least 55,087 registered voters against the measure are verified, the question of marriage equality in Maine goes on the November ballot.  Opponents say they collected more than 100,000 signatures.
Signatures on petitions to repeal marriage-like domestic partner rights for same-gender couples in the state of Washington are also being tabulated.

  California’s major LGBT rights organizations are at odds over when to ask voters to repeal Proposition 8, which overturned a state Supreme Court marriage equality ruling last November.  Equality California, probably the Golden State’s largest advocacy group, announced this week that its members and donors prefer the November 2012 ballot, while the Courage Campaign and a group called Love, Honor, Cherish say their members and donors will continue working toward a repeal measure in November 2010.
Some activists are concerned that interest will dissipate by 2012, while others worry that next year is too soon for another costly campaign.  A coalition of Black, Asian and Latino activists recently announced its support for 2012, saying that next year would be "rushed and risky," and that persuading minority communities "requires time to build trust and relationships. "

  Meanwhile, the high-profile attorneys behind a federal lawsuit against Proposition 8 have rejected efforts to become a formal part of their action by Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.  Attorneys for those 3 groups originally helped convince the state Supreme Court to open marriage to same-gender couples before Proposition 8 overturned that ruling, but initially opposed this year’s federal lawsuit.  It was filed on behalf of 2 same-gender couples who were denied marriage licenses by Ted Olson and David Boies, who opposed each other in the historic Bush v. Gore Supreme Court election case in 2000.  Attorneys for the City of San Francisco were similarly rebuffed.  Olson and Boies said intervention by other parties would unnecessarily complicate and delay their efforts.

  LGBT activists have also been less than united over a proposed National Equality March announced for October 11th, spearheaded by Cleve Jones, an aide to slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, and David Mixner, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton.  This year’s event comes 30 years after the first such march in the nation’s capital.  The new generation of online activists, along with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches are on board.  Other activists have expressed concerns that the costs of the event will divert support from local and statewide rights efforts. The Huma n Rights Campaign, which reaped the publicity and financial rewards as organizers of the last national action, the so-called Millennium March in 2000, has not officially endorsed this year’s event, but says it will help March participants lobby their legislators for passage of LGBT-supportive measures.
For more information about the event, log on to w-w-w-dot-National-Equality-March-dot-com.

  And finally, the late openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama this week.  It’s the nation’s highest civilian honor.  Tennis legend Billie Jean King was also among the 16 honorees, which included Native American historian and activist Joe Medicine Crow-High Bird, Senator Ted Kennedy, African-American civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, and leading anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu.
Meanwhile, a petition is circulating in the United Kingdom urging the British government to issue a formal apology to Alan Turing, one of the creators of the modern computer, who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for homosexuality.  He famously invented the Turing machine, which cracked the German Enigma code during World War 2, and was awarded an O.B.E. in 1945 for his service.  But he was subsequently convicted under anti-gay laws of the time of having a sexual relationship with another man, and chose chemical castration instead of a prison term.  According to biographers, the despondent Turing ate a cyanide-laced apple soon after20watching the Disney film “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves”.
The computing world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, given each year by the Association for Computing Machinery, has been called the Turing Award since 1966.