“NewsWrap"
for the week ending August 29, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,118, distributed 8-31-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Christopher David Trentham and Jenn Mahoney

  Uruguay’s Chamber of Deputies this week approved a measure to open adoption to gay and lesbian couples.  The vote was 40-to-13, with 46 members absent in the 99-seat chamber.  The Senate approved a similar version of the bill in July, so it’s expected to pass there in mid-September with minor amendments inserted by the lower house.  The law is supported by Socialist President Tabare Vazquez's Broad Front coalition government, which has already established same-gender civil unions, and ended a ban on gays and lesbians in the armed forces.  Lawmakers also approved a bill last year allowing people aged 12 and older to change their names, a legal advance for transgender youth.
Uruguay’s Roman Catholic Church and rightwing politicians vigorously opposed the government’s latest move.  Archbishop of Montevideo Nicolas Cotugno told the “Catholic News Agency” that "The adoption of children by homosexual couples is not a question of religion, philosophy or sociology... To accept the adoption of children by homosexual couples is to go against human nature itself.”
The small country of about 3-and-a-half million people in southeastern South America leads the region in sexual minority rights.  Opening adoptions to same-gender couples would be another Uruguayan first.
Gays and lesbians have in the past decade won the right to adopt in South Africa, and in some areas of Europe, North America, and Australia.  Those rights vary greatly, however.  Some laws permit lesbian and gay couples to adopt children who are not related to them, and others only allow the same-gender partner of a biological parent to adopt that person's offspring.

  Germany’s highest court this week ruled that gays and lesbians can adopt their partner’s children.  The justices of the Federal Constitutional Court overruled a lower court ruling, which concluded that allowing the female partner to adopt the child would undermine the rights of the other biological parent.  "The earlier decision,” the high court judgment said, “failed to consider the fact that the role of a child's parent is not only determined by his or her biological progenitor, but based on the social-familial community caring for the child."
Gay and lesbian people or couples in Germany still cannot adopt children they’re not related to.

  Florida is the only U.S. state with a law excluding all gays and lesbians from adopting, although they are allowed to be foster parents.  The measure was enacted in 1977 during the height of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign against the gay rights ordinance in Dade County.
A Florida appeals court heard a challenge to the law this week.  At issue is whether or not it serves a “rational purpose.”  A lower court ruled that it does not.
Defending the ban was Timothy D. Osterhaus, deputy solicitor general for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum.  In response to a justice’s question about the parental fitness of gays and lesbians, Osterhaus said that “There is evidence that homosexuals have higher rates of mental disorders, suicide rates and domestic violence... This is a plausible rationale [for the ban].”
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman concluded in the lower court case last November that there was little credible evidence to support such claims.  In fact, she said, her review of 30 years of scientific research showed that gays and lesbians can be equally effective parents, and that their children suffer no harm.
One of the state’s 2 expert witnesses acknowledged that parental fitness should be made on a case-by-case basis, and the other cited his religious beliefs in opposing adoption equality.
The American Civil Liberties Union is representing Martin Gill of North Miami, who wants to adopt the 2 young half-brothers he and his partner have been fostering for the past 4 years.
The Florida Supreme Court is eventually expected to rule on the issue.

  Same-gender couples began registering their relationships in Nevada this week in advance of a new state domestic partners law that takes effect in October.
The statute creates a civil contract that allows qualifying couples – both same-gender and heterosexual – to receive "the same rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations and duties" as married heterosexual couples in all but name.  Applicants pay a 50-dollar fee when submitting notarized documents to the Secretary of State’s office.
The law is unclear about domestic partner healthcare benefits, however.  It doesn’t require businesses to offer them, but it also prohibits employers from discriminating against gay and lesbian workers.

  Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Jim Doyle appointed a veteran civil rights lawyer this week to defend a challenge to his state’s domestic partnership law after Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to do so.  Madison attorney Lester Pines is already involved in a court challenge to the state’s 2006 constitutional ban on same-gender marriages or civil unions.  He said that there is an “overwhelmingly strong case for the constitutionality” of the domestic partner registry.
The rightwing group Wisconsin Family Action filed suit against the law, which took effect in August, charging that it violated the 2006 voter-approved ban.  The partnership law, however, grants only about a fourth of the benefits marriage provides, but does include hospital visitation and inheritance rights.

  The El Paso, Texas City Council voted 7-to-1 this week to extend healthcare benefits to the domestic partners of city employees, including same-gender partners.
The vote followed hours of public comment about whether to include domestic partner health benefits in next year’s city budget.  It’s expected to cover around 45 employees at a cost of up to $390,000.  The city already has an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Heated debate in the third hearing in 3 weeks that the Council held on the partnership benefits touched on justice and morality.  The only Councilmember to vote against the measure cited economic concerns and his religious beliefs.
The vote came on the heels of a highly publicized incident at an El Paso restaurant in July, when a small group of gay friends was ejected when two of them began kissing.

  The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced this week that 2 of its agents and their immediate supervisor have been fired for their actions in the controversial raid on Fort Worth’s Rainbow Lounge gay bar on June 28th.  A higher-up supervisor received a 3-day suspension without pay and 6 months probation, while another got a written reprimand.
Two TABC agents had accompanied Fort Worth police officers to the Rainbow Lounge for what they claimed was a routine inspection of the newly licensed bar.  Several customers said that they were roughed up during the raid, 6 were arrested for public intoxication, and one patron, Chad Gibson, suffered serious head injuries. The TABC investigation concluded that its agents participated in the raid without approval and in “unapproved” attire, that they disrupted business by failing to follow inspection procedures, failed to report using force against patrons, and failed to report the injury to Gibson, who spent a week in the hospital and still has a blood clot behind his right eye.
A group formed after the raid, Fairness Fort Worth, said that the disciplinary actions were appropriate, as are policy changes the liquor board is reportedly developing.
Officials at the Fort Worth Police Department are still conducting their own internal investigation.

  There have been new arrests and convictions for same-gender relations in Senegal, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, or IGLHRC.  The advocacy group reported that 2 men were convicted in mid-August of illegal sexual acts "against nature" and jailed for 2 and 5 years, respectively.  A 17-year-old, arrested at the same time, was at last report still being tried.  The situation of a fourth man is unknown.  IGLHRC said "denunciations from neighbors were the only evidence against the men."
There has been a series of arrests in the predominantly Muslim western African nation since early 2008, the rights group said, for "incitement to debauchery," "corruption of good behavior," "acts against the order of nature," "indecent conduct" and "homosexual marriage."
IGLHRC also reported recent incidents of desecration of gay men's graves and exhumation of their bodies.
Senegal's sexual minorities have no legal protections.  The country’s penal code punishes private consensual adult gay sex with up to 5 years in prison and a fine equivalent to 3 thousand U.S. dollars.

  But finally, facing a lawsuit, a school district in central New York has agreed to take immediate action to protect its openly-LGBT students.  A federal judge approved steps to be taken by the district in Herkimer that were suggested by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented a 14-year-old student identified only as Jacob.  The specifics of the settlement were not disclosed.
According to the lawsuit, Jacob suffered constant verbal abuse for 2 years, and regularly had things thrown at him.  Some of his personal property was also vandalized.  One student threatened him with a knife, and another pushed him down a flight of stairs.
Even though district officials that included the superintendent and the school principal were notified of the incidents, they took no disciplinary action against any of Jacob’s attackers.
Vowing to monitor the policy changes promised in the settlement, NYCLU lead attorney Corey Stoughton said that
"It shouldn’t take a lawsuit to motivate school district officials to protect a student from vicious harassment.”