“NewsWrap"
for the week ending September 26, 2009
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,122, distributed 09-28-09)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Pam Marshall and Chris Wilson

  A judge in South Africa issued a mixed verdict this week in the high-profile trial of 3 men accused of brutally raping and murdering soccer star and lesbian activist Eudy Simelane last year.
One was sentenced to life in prison, but 2 were acquitted for lack of evidence.  All 3 were implicated by a fourth man, who pleaded guilty to the murder in February and was sentenced to life in prison.  But he subsequently denied their involvement.
According to the “New York Times,” “The Simelane case has been central to a campaign to bring attention to attacks against lesbians and gay men... But sexual orientation was never established as a motive at the trial.  [The judge] was uncomfortable with the term ‘lesbian’ itself,” asking the prosecutor “‘Is there another word that you can use instead of that one?’”
Simelane, who was 31 years old, was murdered in April 2008 while walking near her home southeast of Johannesburg.  Robbery was the alleged motive.  The men decided to rape the star of the country’s national women’s soccer team when they discovered that she had no money.  They then stabbed Simelane to death when they realized that she recognized one of them.
Cary Johnson of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said of the verdict that "The killer showed no remorse, the police are indifferent, [and] the courts provide no redress for lesbian victims.  How can South Africa end epidemic levels of violence without effectively prosecuting crimes against its LGBT citizens?"

  In other news, the Legislative Assembly in the Australian Capital Territory will once again try to establish civil unions that include legal ceremonies for same-gender couples.  Gays and lesbians can already register their relationships in the semi-autonomous territory, but they’re prohibited from holding legally binding ceremonies.
The territory’s Labor Party voted unanimously in a caucus meeting this week to support the Green Party’s introduction of the Civil Partnerships Amendment Bill.
It’s expected to pass.  But previous attempts by the Legislative Assembly to create civil unions with legally recognized ceremonies were overturned in 2006, and again in 2008, by the federal government, which can veto any Australian Capital Territory law because it’s a territory and not a state.
While the territory’s Labor Party supports the bill, the federal Australian Labor Party, as did the Liberal Party government before it, says the proposed legislation is too similar to marriage, and violates a law that defines marriage as exclusively heterosexual.

  Washington voters will be asked on November 3rd to uphold the “everything but marriage” expansion of the U.S. state’s domestic partnership law by voting “yes” on Referendum 71 – and a poll this week suggests that it’s going to be close.  It’s on the ballot following a successful petition drive by Protect Marriage Washington, which opposes the law approved earlier this year by the legislature and signed by the governor.
According to “The Stranger,” a Seattle alternative weekly, the poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research asked 569 respondents who said they planned to vote in the November election about Referendum 71.  Fifty-one percent said they would approve it, 44 percent said they would vote “no”, and 5 percent were undecided.
Some analysts say that the law could be in trouble because conservatives tend to vote more regularly than LGBT rights supporters in non-presidential elections, and because ads by opponents of Referendum 71 are equating domestic partnerships with same-gender marriage.

  Recent polls show another close race in Maine on Question 1, which will ask that state’s voters on November 3rd to repeal the marriage equality law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year.
Broadcast ads by Yes on 1 feature a schoolteacher and parents expressing concern about the supposed impact of marriage equality on education.  They’re near-duplicates of those that ran in California last year for Proposition 8.  The parents who object to the children’s book “King and King” being read in their child’s class – it’s about a prince who falls in love with another prince – are, in fact, from Massachusetts, and the husband’s father was a leader in the Mormon Church.
David Connerty-Marin of the Maine Department of Education said that nothing currently prevents a teacher from reading "King and King" or any other book to a class “unless they were told not to by their [local] school district," and he’s not aware of any controversy over that book in his state.
The high school English teacher who warns in another ad that “homosexual marriage will be taught” in Maine public schools is the state director of Concerned Women for America, a rightwing religious group.   And she teaches at Calvary Chapel Christian School, which as a private institution is not governed by the Maine Department of Education.
In any case, Professor David Cluchy of the University of Maine School of Law told reporters that "There's nothing in Maine law that mandates that a school district engage in some kind of educational program around marriage."
Meanwhile, the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatricians this week announced its opposition to the ballot measure.  “As physicians who care for children and their families,” the group said in a statement, “we are committed to supporting what is best for children.  And there is no question that when their parents can marry, children are more protected legally and socially.”

  Language was filed this week for a ballot initiative in California to repeal Proposition 8.  The grassroots group Love Honor Cherish submitted proposed language for the November 2010 ballot, which will include midterm congressional elections and the California gubernatorial race.
The ballot measure, if passed, would replace Proposition 8 language in the state constitution -- "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" -- with "Marriage is between only two persons and shall not be restricted on the basis of race, color, creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion."  It also says that "To protect religious freedom, no court shall interpret this measure to require any priest, minister, pastor, rabbi, or other person authorized to perform marriages by any religious denomination, church, or other non-profit religious institution to perform any marriage in violation of his or her religious beliefs," and protects them from discrimination lawsuits.
Submitting wording to the California Attorney General is the first step in qualifying a measure for an election.  Once the language is approved, backers would have until mid-April to gather the 695,000 signatures needed to put the initiative on the November 2010 ballot.
Equality California, the state’s largest LGBT rights oranization, prefers a repeal effort in 2012.  They and several other groups worry that 2010 will be too soon after voters approved the same-gender marriage ban last November.

  Elsewhere, an ordinance adding LGBT city employees to categories covered by Nashville, Tennessee’s anti-discrimination laws passed the Metro Council last week.  It bans bias against city workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Similar efforts have failed in the past.
Twenty-four council members voted in favor of the controversial ordinance, 15 opposed it, and one was absent.

  But protests continued in Atlanta, Georgia this week over the brutal September 10th police raid of the Eagle gay bar.  About 60 demonstrators stood in the pouring rain outside City Hall vowing to keep the issue in the political spotlight.
Eight employees and underwear-clad dancers were arrested during the raid for allegedly providing adult entertainment without having the proper permit.  The police, many reportedly making anti-gay slurs, also forced some 60 people facedown on the floor and kept them there while they were searched and their IDs were checked.  According to a report in the “Atlanta Journal-Constitution” newspaper, "For up to two hours, some customers lay face down in grime and spilled beer waiting their turns.”  Nine complaints have been filed with the Police Department's Office of Professional Standards.
Police said the raid was in response to alleged drug sales and backroom sex at the bar.  The department said undercover officers had observed backroom sex on previous visits.  However, no one was arrested on drug or sex charges during the earlier visits or the September 10th raid.
Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington told reporters that  "It's very unfortunate this incident occurred... I'm sorry for what happened, but I want to get to the bottom of this."

  And finally, it was a pathetically wacky week for some homophobic U.S. politicians.
Pennsylvania Republican state Representative Daryl Metcalfe held up a House resolution making October “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” because he said it referenced men as well as women victims of rape and abuse, and would therefore “advance the homosexual agenda.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Congressman Steve King of Iowa told a conservative radio network that same-gender marriage is a “radical social idea” and a “purely socialist concept.”  Opponents have also called President Obama’s efforts at healthcare reform “socialism”.
But the most jaw-dropping comments came from Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff for rightwing Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.  Condemning pornography at the Family Research Council-sponsored annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. this week during a panel called “The New Masculinity,” Schwartz said that preadolescent boys “have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people.”  And, he said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards... if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy?  I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest.  That’s the last thing he wants.”
Borrowing a phrase from openly gay Congressman Barney Frank in response to an outrageous comment during a town hall meeting on healthcare reform a few weeks ago, one has to wonder “on what planet [Mr. Schwartz] resides.”