“NewsWrap"
for the week ending September 5, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,119, distributed 09-7-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Chris Coleman and Michele Pleasant

  Rome’s predominantly gay neighborhood has suffered a series of homophobic attacks in the past few weeks, and more than a thousand people hit the streets in protest on September 4th.  Demonstrators carrying rainbow flags marched from the venerable Colosseum to Rome’s City Hall to demand action against the increasing violence.
An assault on a young gay couple 2 weeks ago sent one man to the hospital with a serious knife wound.  The other was hit on the head with a glass bottle.  In a separate incident, a lesbian was reportedly threatened in the same area.
Arsonists targeted the Qube nightclub last week.  It was fortunately closed for renovations, so no one was in the building at the time.  Firefighters extinguished the blaze before it caused major damage.
Large firecrackers were thrown into another gay bar this week.  One report said several people were injured, and that at least one man was hospitalized.
Rome’s rightwing Mayor Gianni Alemanno called the recent attacks "extremely worrying".   He promised to install more security cameras in the area and to increase police presence there.
Italy's major LGBT rights organization Arcigay has lobbied parliament for years to pass anti-bias protections.  It also said that a gay couple was beaten by some 30 assailants in central Naples last week, and that a shop owner in the southern Apulia region had threatened gay customers.  The group renewed its call for an expansion of the country’s existing hate crime laws to include sexual minorities.

  More than a hundred gay men in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou protested police efforts this week to push them out of a local park.  People’s Park, not far from the Guangzhou municipal government building, is a popular cruising area for gay men.  HIV/AIDS educators also regularly visit the park to promote safe sex.  A police official told the “China Daily” that "An increasing number of local citizens have told us they have been harassed by gay people in the park."  But one local activist said thugs were robbing and assaulting gay men there, and called for more police protection.
Protesters verbally clashed with police officers after park guards told a large group of gay men to leave the area.  A few men were reportedly detained for several hours by security forces before being released.
Activists attributed the police crackdown to the fact that Guangzhou is hosting next year’s Asian Games.

  This week’s national elections may boost LGBT civil rights in Japan.  In a historic vote, the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan ousted the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party, whose conservative policies have guided Japan for all but 11 months since the end of World War 2.
The platform of the Democratic Party of Japan said it would "aim at creating a society in which human rights are respected, and take effective measures when such rights are infringed upon."  The statement didn’t specifically name sexual minorities, however.
The Democratic Party of Japan sponsored a sexual orientation anti-discrimination bill in a recent session of the parliament, but it failed to pass.  Those protections have been a key goal of equality activists for the past 10 years.  The now-majority party is expected to dominate the powerful House of Representatives, and have allies in the Social Democratic Party, which strongly supports lesbigay rights.  As in most parts of the world, however, the country’s ailing economy is sure to be the primary focus of the new government.

  Several media sources reported this week that India’s Government will not oppose July’s Delhi High Court ruling that the country’s law against same-gender sex was unconstitutional.  Unless parliament passes contrary legislation, or the country’s Supreme Court overturns the ruling, it will become the law of the land.  According to a cabinet note obtained by 2 major news networks, the Government believes that “there does not appear to be any legal error in the judgment," and it won’t support an attempt to overturn it.
India’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to the ruling, filed by several religious groups and individuals, on September 14th.  One, a popular television yoga guru, claims that homosexuality can be “cured”.  Manvendra Singh Gohil, prince of the state of Rajpipla, who was famously disowned by his family after coming out in 2006, told reporters that “Such absurd claims do a disservice to society... I have been doing yoga for the last 10 years, but I haven't turned straight.”
Gay sex has been illegal in India since 1860 under a British colonial-era law that banned "carnal intercourse against the order of nature."  While prosecutions have been rare, LGBT activists said that the law opens the door to the extortion of closeted gays and lesbians, and that police use it to harass and intimidate sexual minorities.
If the Supreme Court upholds the Delhi High Court ruling, Section 377 of the country’s penal code outlawing sodomy will be amended to exempt all consenting adults in private.

  In other news, same-gender couples began to marry in the U.S. state of Vermont on September 1st.  The first pairs to legally wed just after midnight held ceremonies at the Moose Meadow Lodge in Duxbury and in a couple’s home in South Burlington.
Vermont became the first state to open civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples through legislation.  High court rulings have sent same-gender couples down the aisle in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa.  New Hampshire’s marriage equality law takes effect on January 1st.
Socially progressive Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream is celebrating the new same-gender marriages this month by renaming their “Chubby Hubby” flavor “Hubby Hubby.”

  Legal equality for gay and lesbian couples will be tested at the ballot box in November in the northeastern and northwestern United States.
Maine’s marriage equality bill was signed into law in May, and was supposed to take effect on September 12th.  But religious right opponents have successfully qualified a measure to overturn it.  Election officials announced this week that enough valid signatures have been submitted to put the issue before the voters on November 3rd.

  Voters in Washington will also decide if an expansion of the state’s domestic partnership law will be upheld.
Officials announced this week that there were enough valid signatures turned in by its opponents to qualify the referendum for the ballot.  This year’s “everything but marriage” expansion of the domestic partnership law, which built on a measure originally enacted 2 years ago, was supposed to take effect on July 26th.  But it’s also on hold pending the verdict of state voters on November 3rd.
As of this week, more than 5,800 domestic partnership registrations had been filed in Washington since the original partnership law took effect in July 2007.

  A Republican candidate who was supported by the rightwing National Organization for Marriage in a special election for an Iowa state House seat lost by about a hundred votes this week.  County Supervisor Stephen Burgmeier, a leading proponent of a constitutional amendment to overturn this year’s unanimous Iowa Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, was defeated by Democrat Curt Hanson, a retired schoolteacher.  The Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage, which has led efforts across the country against the legal recognition of same-gender couples, reportedly spent about 86 thousand dollars in broadcast ads supporting Burgmeier.
A complaint was filed earlier in the week against the group alleging violations of Iowa election and campaign disclosure laws.  Similar complaints have been filed against the organization in California and Maine.

  The 2 Minneapolis, Minnesota-area schoolteachers we told you about last week who had bullied a student because they thought he was gay – he’s not – weren’t in the classroom when school started this week.  Anoka-Hennepin School District officials said teachers Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson are on leave.
The Minnesota Department of Human Rights found probable cause that the teachers had harassed and belittled the former student in their classrooms.  The school district paid a 25,000-dollar out-of-court settlement to his family.
Officials did not say how long the 2 teachers would be on leave, but Cleveland’s attorney told reporters that “she’s not going to resign, and they’re not going to terminate her.”  He said his client hopes to return to the classroom “once [the controversy] dies down.”  Critics have demanded that the teachers be fired.

  And finally, openly lesbian commentator Rachel Maddow reported some interesting statistics on her MSNBC cable news show this week:
“... five years ago, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. And despite all the dire warnings, the sky did not fall down on the day a man was allowed to marry a man and woman was allowed to marry a woman in the Bay State.
“In fact, the institution of marriage is alive and well and thriving in Massachusetts. New provisional government statistics show that in 2008, Massachusetts had the lowest divorce rate in the country. Ta-da! The rate of divorces in Massachusetts was 2.2 per 1,000 when gay people started getting married in Massachusetts.
“The rate of divorces per thousand is now down furtherer to 2.0 per thousand. That‘s the lowest divorce rate in the country.  In fact, Massachusetts divorce rates are now down to pre-World War II levels - 1940. So awkwardly, it turns out gay marriage is a defense of marriage act.”