1) CONGRATULATIONS TO MICHAEL AND DANNY - PERMANENT RESIDENCE:
Michael is a long time member of LGS and he and his partner Danny have succeeded
in obtaining permanent residence for Danny, thanks to the involvement of many
people and organisations, amongst which the
Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force (GLITF) should be mentioned. If
anyone receiving this newsletter requires assistance with permanent residence
for a partner, or is aware of anyone requiring such assistance, they can contact
GLITF at PO Box 400 Darlinghurst 1300 or phone (02) 9380 5950
2) AUSTRALIAN JUDGE DOES IT AGAIN!:
The report in the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 June 2000 stated that two men
who pleaded guilty to killing a man in a park walked free from the Melbourne
Supreme Court on 23 June 2000 after a judge said they had spent enough time
in custody.
The case concerned the attack on Keith Hibbins in Fitroy Gardens, Melbourne
on 25 April 1999 after a distressed woman they had met by chance told them
she had been raped. The two accused, John Whiteside and Kristian Peter Dieber,
attacked Hibbins, a gay man walking with his partner, after searching for
a suspected rapist.
The woman had just had a falling-out with her boyfriend and was lying, but
Hibbins died in hospital from head injuries 11 days later.
The judge, Justice Cummins, termed their attack "a rush of emotion"
and told the two men: "Yours was the conduct of two young men of good character
not looking for trouble, not looking for a fight, not bent on violence; who
truly and reasonably believed a woman had been raped and who without reflection
and premeditation sought to ensure the perpetrators did not escape before
the summoned police arrived."
The judge also told the community at large that it was ok to bash a gay man
so that he died of his injuries, because gay men could be expected to be
attacked in Fitzroy Gardens if they ran when they suspected they were about
to be gay-bashed, as indeed they were.
Here is yet again, another case of an Australian judge accepting the story
put to him by two homophobic young men that it was not a problem for them
to attack someone so viciously that they died from the attack, if they were
gay. Just imagine the outcry if it had been a heterosexual male so attacked
- the community at large would have been outraged and demanded that the judgement
be overturned on appeal.
The Sydney gay papers didn't think the case of sufficient significance to
even report the judgement at the time.
This judgement has now been overturned because the Victorian Director of Public
Prosecutions appealed the decision and the two men have now been sentenced
to six years each.
3) AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA - THE 13TH INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE IN DURBAN
AND PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI: Johannesburg High Court Justice Edwin
Cameron delivered the keynote address to the conference on 10 July 2000. The
theme of the conference was "Break the Silence". Cameron told the conference
delegates that he survived AIDS in South Africa because he was white, privileged
and, in terms of South African society, rich. He was able to afford the drugs
necessary to enable to keep him alive and comparatively well, and able to
function in a normal manner. He stated, "Lower drug prices are an indispensible
precondition in creating just and practicable access to care and treatment.
International agencies, national governments, the international drug companies
and especially those who have the primary power to rmedy the inequity - the
international drug companies - have failed us in the quest for accessible
treatment." The issue is not that the drugs are expensive to produce, he said.
"They are not. India, Brazil and Thailand have shown that most of the critical
drugs can be Africa-produced at costs that put them realistically within the
reach of the resource-poor world."
Cameron also took South Africa to task, saying, "A government that in its
commitment to human rights and democracy has been a shining example to Africa
and the world has at almost every conceivable turn mismanaged the epidemic."
In particular, the government "shamefully" rejected "an affordable [drug]
programme to limit mother-to-child transmission of HIV. ...The result is
that every month 5 000 babies are born, unnecessarily and avoidably, with
HIV" in South Africa. He said, "So grievous has governmental ineptitude been
that South Africa has since 1998 the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the
world. There has been a cacophany of task groups, workshops, committees,
councils, policies, drafts, proposals, statements, pledges. But all have
thus far signified piteously little," including little to "provide a glimmer
of hope" or to "end the stigma of HIV/AIDS." He found "puzzling" President
Thabo Mbeki's "flirtation" with those who question whether HIV is indeed
the cause of AIDS, and said it "has shaken almost everyone responsible for
engaging the epidemic. It has created an air of unbelief among scientists,
confusion among those at risk of HIV, and consternation amongst AIDS workers."
In Australia as well, Mbeki's involvements with the AIDS "deniers" smacks
too much of similarities to the David Irving school of Holocaust deniers.
Irving lost his battle in the courts of the United Kingdom. It is to be hoped
that Mbeki will not have to be involved in similar events before he recants
and understands the immense crisis on his hands. Australia was a model for
other countries when the epidemic arrived here in 1983. Surely Mbeki could
ask those involved here with the crisis to help with the South African crisis.
4) GAY AND LESBIAN HATE CRIME MURDERS IN AUSTRALIA:
A report has just been published by the Australian Institute of Criminology
titled "Gay-Hate Related Homicides: An Overview of Major Findings in New South
Wales." (June 2000)
The report, by Jenny Mouzos and Sue Thompson, carries some alarming statistics,
and tends to highlight the problems of homophobia in the communties and the
unwillingness of the authorities to challenge the issue. The fact that the
human rights of lesbians, gays and transgender people are trampled on with
little of the public concern which occurred recently in the USA over the
murders of Matthew Shepard and Billy Jack Gaither, to name but two, is an
indightment of our society.
When Keith Hibbins was brutally attacked and murdered in Melbourne on 25
April 1999, not even the gay press in Sydney managed to give the episode
proper coverage.
It seems that it is necessary to constantly remind gays and lesbians that
until homophobia is reduced, and state and Federal laws are introduced giving
equal rights to sexual minorities in the community, we will be in a continual
state of siege.
5) SECTION 28 IN THE UK:
Britain's House of Commons on 5 July 2000 gave final approval to the Local
Government Bill that contains the repeal of Section 28, the Thatcher-era prohibition
against local governments devoting resources to "promotion of homosexuality"
or to teaching in schools that same-gender couples are a "pretend family relationship."
The Labour Government's bill was given an unopposed third reading after an
opposition Coservative Party motion to remove the repeal clause failed by
a vote of 305 - 133. However, when the bill was again presented to the House
of Lords - that undemocratic unelected upper house of the British Parliament,
it was again rejected.
In contrast to the British Parliament, the new Scottish Parliament, despite
strong opposition from a business man who poured thousands of pounds into
his campaign and, of course, the church, overwhelmingly voted to repeal its
version of the clause in June 2000.
The UK still has a long way to go to meet all the requirements of the European
Community's laws in relation to the human rights and equal opportunities
of its citizens.
6) REPORT FROM NAMIBIA:
Africa News Online reported from the Namibian newspaper (Windhoek) on 11 July
2000 that a fire had gutted the office of the Sister Namibia magazine the
previous day, prompting the editor of the publication to blame gay bashers.
When the fire was discovered, it had already burnt most files and research
material before fire fighters could extinguish it.
Sister Namibia is an organisation that campaigns for women's rights and gender
equality.
Liz Frank, editor of the magazine, said, "I don't think the President [Sam
Nujoma] and those who speak out [against gays and lesbians] realise that other
people turn violent when they make the statements." President Nujoma has said
on numerous occasions that homosexuality is unacceptable and has criticised
gays and lesbians as unAfrican and ungodly (interference by the rabid religious
right once again!!! Editors)
7) IVF, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:
The Prime Minister has moved to amend the Federal Sex Discrimination Act so
it can't be used to override State laws banning fertility treatment for single
women and lesbians. This was in response to a judgement in the Victorian courts
which found in favour of a single woman trying to use the IVF programme to
have a baby.
The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) went to town on the issue and had photos
on the front page and an article in the paper on 3 August 2000 about Roxxy
Bent and Margie Fischer and their IVF baby. The couple has been together
for 17 years and thought about having a child for 10 years and spent 5 years
trying. The baby, six-month-old Ruth Fischer-Bent, and her two mothers were
shown on two large photos in the SMH when the issue broke in Federal Parliament.
The story has another poignancy because Margie Fischer is the niece of Kitty
Fischer, a child Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz, whose life was saved
in the death camp by a homosexual man who brought her and her sister food
which kept them alive.
The Catholic church has supported the Prime Minister over the issue.
8) ABC TV COMPASS
PROGRAMME:
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has a religious programme on
TV on Sunday nights called
Compass.
It recently ran a story about the first Jewish float to take part in the Sydney
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras' 2000 parade. Because the story was about gay and
lesbian and Jewish identification, it included a segment with Kitty Fischer,
mentioned in the previous article, becasue of her Jewish identity and involvement
with a homosexual man in Auschwitz. The programme was, of course completely
ruined by the views of the rabbis interviewed during the main body of the
story, and by the subsequent discussion of the film by two christian ministers,
one gay and one straight. Their role in the segment was irrelevant and the
ABC film was spoilt by showing one minute of the interview with Kitty when
they were with her and filming for well over an hour. The programme would
have been much more powerful if the cut segments had remained in the film.
9) SOUTH AFRICANS WRANGLE OVER GAY BLOOD DONATIONS:
The Data Lounge gay web site reported on 13 June 2000 that the long-standing
prohibition against blood donations from gay and bisexual men had been successfully
challenged in South Africa recently, with that country's Human Rights Commission
ruling that disqualifying gay men from donating blood was discriminatory.
But, as the New York Times subsequently reported, blood banks in South Africa
are refusing to abide by the commission's recommendations. Prohibitions against
gay blood donations are something of a long-standing tradition in Western
countries, especially the USA, where gay prohibitions persist despite comprehensive
testing procedures designed to screen HIV-contaminated blood products.
Australian blood banks follow this same Western tradition, despite the screening
procedures in position since the mid 1980s. Despite calls for blood donations
in Australia when supplies run low, as they do every time there is a long
weekend and there have been some terrible traffic accidents, donations from
gay men are still not accepted.
The South African Human Rights Commission stated that gay men as a group are
no more a risk to the country's (South Africa's) safe blood supply than any
number of other groups for whom there are no such restrictions.
10) SOUTH AFRICA AGAIN IN THE NEWS - ARMY PSYCHIATRIST DR AUBREY LEVIN
PERPETRATED NAZI DOCTOR-STYLE EXPERIMENTS ON GAY AND LESBIAN TROOPS IN THE
APARTHEID ERA'S DEFENCE FORCE:
Another ghastly episode has started to emerge about human rights abuses in
South Africa between the years 1960 and 1994.
A special medical unit was formed to process lesbians and gays in the army
to "straighten" them out or force them to have gender change surgery by medical
or chemical means. The operations were often not completed, leaving transgender
people stranded and, outside the army, with insufficient funds to complete
the process.
Suicides, ruined lives, psychologically damaged people - these were some
of the outcomes of the process, and the senior psychiatrist involved, Dr
Aubrey Levin, fled to Canada when the apartheid
years came to an end in 1994, and he is now a professor of psychiatry at
Calgary University. Some of the experiments performed by Levin and his cohorts
would have made the Nazi doctors proud, and, in fact, they may have learned
a few extra techniques from his work.
Reading the stories emerging from the exposure recently of these abuses is
like something out of science fiction and horror stories and films combined.
The savagery with which these experiments were applied were such that the
reader of these abuses is left feeling sick over what was done to human beings
in the name of homophobia and apartheid.
For more information on this topic, look for the web site of one of South
Africa's leading gay and lesbian on-line newspapers, q online:
http://www.q.co.za
11) THE AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RESEARCH (ACLGR) NEWSLETTER
- ALARM ABOUT ACON LIBRARY:
The ACLGR reported in its Vol.7 No.2 August 2000 Newsletter on the
AIDS
Council of New South Wales (ACON) Library.
This is a most alarming report becuase the current management of
ACON
is planning to downgrade the library which is, to quote a previous ACON presidential
incumbent, "-----an unparalled repository of the epidemic history of
New South Wales and Australia."
So far there has been no public outcry, and the present management has shown
itself to be a law unto itself in relation to the communities it is supposed
to serve.
One claim is that the library is underutilised, "yet the published 'facts'
belie the assertion, constructed upon selective details intended to garnish
a particular argument" according to the ACLGR report.
For those of us who have been involved with the HIV/AIDS epidemic for 10
years and more, and who have made use of the library as a first class reference
organisation during the period that the library has been functioning, the
news is shattering, to say the least. The archival material probably has
no equal in the country, and is a resource which can be used for researchers,
both nationally and internationally, who want to study the epidemic in Australia
and the way it has been handled here from 1983 onwards.
What ACON is, in effect, saying, is that the AIDS crisis as we knew it in
the days of Dr Neal Blewitt as Federal Health Minister when the crisis began
are now over and a new era has begun.
It is so easy to be glib, but evidence suggests that the crisis is by no
means over, and rates of infection, which are alarmingly high in many countries
and increasing, could well manifest themselves in Australia and we would
be back to square one with all the carefully built-up infrastructures brutally
dismantled by people who have no idea of what they are doing!
The ACLGR report concludes: "In comparison with international responses
to the documentation and the preservation of the 'hard' stuff of the epidemic,
and putting rhetoric about the 'historical' value of the library to one side,
it is clear that ACON favours the easier solution (proposed renovation of
the library into an Internet cafe). Consigning the print materials to languish
in the basement is no solution at all: once forgotten, the dumpsters will
arrive. Concerns about the future of the ACON library should - sooner rather
than later - be addressed to Adrian Lovney, President, ACON, PO Box 350, Darlinghurst
NSW 1300. Facsimile:(02) 9206 2069. Email:
president@acon.org.au
"
12) INTERSECTION SOCIAL PLANNERS' KIT:
InterSection, the group that formed to monitor the provision of services under
access and equity in local government areas in New South Wales, is finalising
a kit for local goverment social planners - and other service providers. The
kit is to enable them to respond to requests for services from the sexual
minorities in their areas - most local government areas not even being aware
that these groups live in their areas at all! It is anticipated that the kit
will be completed by the end of 2000 and will then be made available on request
to InterSection.
13) ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS:
President Robert Mugabe was returned to power after the recent elections with
a much reduced majority and a greatly increased opposition which has been
strengthened by support from the international community. Mugabe is still
proceeding with his illegal land grabs from mostly white farmers who receive
no compensation for the theft by the governemnt of their properties. He is
now also being supported by Mbeki, South Africa's president, and Nujoma, Namibia's
president. Mbeki is showing more and more that he has lost the plot on human
rights in Southern Africa, becuase of his obstinate stand over the issue of
the drug AZT to pregnant women with HIV in South Africa. Mugabe, for his part,
has continued his homophobic rhetoric by accusing the UK government of being
run by a "gay mafia".
14) AUSTRALIAN
GAY AND LESBIAN GERONTOLOGY PROJECT:
This project is being undertaken as a doctoral project in Health Sciences
(gerontology) at the University of South Australia. Two members of LGS who
are "geriatrically challenged" are assisting with the project, the results
of which will be of great interest to those in the lesbian and gay communities
who are no longer "in the first bloom of youth" to put it as kindly as possible.
If any of you are interested in the project, you could contact Jo Harrison
at the University of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia
5000.
15) DONATIONS:
We would again like to thank those who have sent donations to assist with
the production of our newsletter. We hope those donors continue to find that
the newsletter meets their "great expectations."
16) SPAIDS PLANTINGS IN 2000:
SPAIDS had three plantings at Sydney Park during the year - on 28 May, 2 July
and 6 August. Over 1000 trees were planted, and about 50 names were added
to the list of people being commemorated in the AIDS Memorial Groves. Dates
for 2001 plantings will be announced as soon as they come to hand - probably
early in the new year.
COMING EVENTS: 2 STARS EXHIBITION IN NEWCASTLE: LIBRARY 16 NOVEMBER - 16 DECEMBER
2000: TWO STARS: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
ALGA HISTORY CONFERENCE IN MELBOURNE 24-26 NOVEMBER 2000
If you require further information about either of these events, please contact
us by phone, letter or
email.
