LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY
NEWSLETTER
PO BOX 1675 PRESTON SOUTH, VIC 3072 AUSTRALIA PHONE(03)9471 4878
Formerly: GAY SOLIDARITY GROUP Est. 1978 email: josken_at_zipworld_com_au
LGS HOME PAGES: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken
ISSN 1446-4896
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ISSUE 4, 2004 NUMBER 60 OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2004
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THE DEVASTATION CAUSED BY THE TSUNAMI IN THE INDIAN OCEAN COUNTRIES IS A DISASTER OF SUCH MAGNITUDE THAT NO WORDS CAN EXPRESS THE SHOCK TO THE WORLD.
LGS sends condolences to the survivors. We understand from Paul van Reyk and Bronwyn Leece that the Tamil community in Sydney has set up an account for funds that can be directed to agencies working in the Tamil area of Sri Lanka. It's the National Disaster Emergency Relief Fund, 11 Powell Place, Cherrybrook, NSW 2126. You can check the fund's bona fide by phoning Sanchayan on (02) 9484 1716
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1) ANTI-GAY ATTACK ON PLAYWRIGHT ALAN BENNETT! British playwright, Alan Bennett has revealed that he was nearly killed in an anti-gay assault while walking with his partner, journalist Rupert Thomas, in Italy. The two men were accosted by a group of youths in Ladispoli, a small seaside town north of Rome. Bennett was struck on the head with a piece of steel scaffolding. He had to be treated in an emergency clinic and required 12 stitches in the wound.
Bennett told The Independent in November that he had decided to write about the attack in the London Review of Books, even though it had occurred in 1992, because such hate crimes are often ignored by police.
Bennett’s plays include The Madness of King George III, Talking Heads, and Single Spies as well as starring in and co-authoring the 1960 Review, Beyond the Fringe.
2) SOUTH AFRICAN COURT RULING RECOGNISES GAY MARRIAGES: On November 30th the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the South African Marriage Act was unconstitutional due to its discrimination of same sex couples. The legislators were urged to reform the Act to allow for marriages of gay and lesbian couples. The Court ruled in favour of a lesbian couple who challenged the constitutional definition of marriage. According to the Melbourne Age (2.12.04), the ruling must be confirmed by South Africa’s Constitutional Court if gay marriages are to be permitted officially. In Johannesburg the Lesbian & Gay Equality Project said: “Recognition of marriages between two persons of the same sex will eradicate unfair legal restrictions against lesbian and gay people and assist in removing the stigma and prejudice associated with the community.” Conservative groups attacked the decision as “judicial tyranny.”
3) AIDS ISSUES CONFRONTING THE WORLD!
Dr Peter Piot, who heads the United Nations AIDS program, has warned that India, China and Russia are “perilously close to a tipping point” that could turn their localised epidemics into gigantic ones, capable of disrupting the world’s response to the disease. It could, he said, change a series of concentrated outbreaks and hot spots into a generalised explosion across the entire population. In China, India and Russia the HIV epidemic is confined almost entirely to injecting drug users and prostitutes and their customers.
IN SOUTH AFRICA: rising numbers of employers are tricking or pressuring their domestic workers into having HIV tests and firing them if they test positive. An HIV+ domestic worker, dismissed by her employer, recently won an out-of-court settlement. She urged her lawyers to broadcast her story as an encouragement to other domestic workers placed in her position. By law, she should have been told her status by a health worker. Instead, she heard it from her employer who had taken her for an HIV test on the pretext of wanting to help her get medical cover, she alleged in the Labour Court. She was not given any counselling before or after the test and had no idea why her blood was taken. Meanwhile, Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu has spoken out strongly against those in the ANC who failed to openly debate and challenge President Mbeki’s controversial views on HIV/AIDS. Delivering the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, Tutu said the country’s most serious problem was the devastation caused by the HIV and AIDS pandemic and warning that black economic empowerment was benefiting only a small elite while South Africa was “sitting on a powder keg” of poverty.
IN AUSTRALIA good and bad news! Cholesterol gel ‘may halt AIDS for women’ is the good news. Researchers at the Burnet Institute, led by virologist, Johnson Mak, said a topical gel that blocks cholesterol could help women worldwide protect themselves from HIV. Briefly, according to Dr Mak, “we found cholesterol is critical for HIV replication and is found on the surface of viral particles. We have identified that a certain type of cholesterol analogue {cholesterol-like substance} can suppress viral activity. Replacement or substitution can be achieved using a type of cholesterol- removing agent,” he said. The Burnet is using focus groups to test the acceptability of gel formulations. AND THE BAD NEWS: former federal health minister, Michael Wooldridge, has warned against complacency in tackling Australia’s HIV infection rate, while acknowledging the lag in formulating a new national strategy. He is the recently appointed chair of the ministerial advisory group on AIDS, sexual health and hepatitis. He told the Melbourne Age {28.11.04) the number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia had increased from 650 in 1998 to about 800 in 2002, according to the United Nations 2004 report on AIDS.
4) UGANDA FINES RADIO STATION FOR INTERVIEWING GAY ACTIVISTS: Uganda’s broadcast regulatory body fined Radio Simba over $1000 and ordered it to air a public apology for permitting the activists to tell listeners that homosexuality was “an acceptable way of life.” The Information Minister defended the fine saying Ugandans wanted to uphold “God’s moral values.” The Broadcasting Council accused the station of defying the country’s Electronic Media Act which prohibits any broadcast that is contrary to public morality. It said Radio Simba also contravened the Penal Code Act because homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. (365Gay.com News)
5) RECOGNITION FOR SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS: The Parliament of New Zealand has voted 65 to 55 to give lesbian and gay couples legal recognition through civil unions. Same-sex and defacto couples will be able to register their relationships from April 2005. Marriage remains a separate entity.
In Sydney, following the lead of South Sydney Council, the City of Sydney Council has formally recognised lesbian and gay relationships. While its Program will confer no legal rights, it will offer same-sex couples across NSW the chance to declare their partnership. Declarations may be terminated via a written request if relationships later failed. Access to the register would be limited to the project officer only.
Tasmania’s commitment to GLBTI issues is publicly evident over the Summer holiday season with the three major daily newspapers running full page advertisements for government services that include a section for GLBTI services.
South Australia is conducting a Parliamentary Inquiry into the tabled Same Sex Relationships Bill. Submissions close on 18 February 2005 and the letsgetequal campaign website in Adelaide is encouraging the state’s queer population to support equal rights for same-sex couples by making a submission to the Inquiry by email. You may be sure it gives conservatives and fundamentalists loads of time to mobilise their numbers to the Inquiry.
The gay marriage debate is not going away despite the Howard Government’s defining of marriage as between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, supported by Labor (the alternative liberal party). Legal affairs spokeswoman for Labor, Nicola Roxon, told Radio National before Howard’s bill got passed in the federal parliament, that Labor supported the institution of marriage as an important social, and for many, a religious union between a man and a woman. It seemed never to have occurred to her as a legal person that what same-sex couples are on about are the rights conferred on marriage licence holders regardless of their religion or social standing. The marriage licence discriminates against all other couplings. Give the rest of us equal rights in a certificate by any other name and the church and society can keep marriage.
6) A “CIRCLE OF FRIENDS” for a Baxter Detention Centre Asylum Seeker: If you are appalled with the Howard Government’s treatment of the Bakhtiyari family, here is another situation (also appalling) in which you may be able to help by joining a Circle of Friends to support a gay Iranian man who is being held in Baxter.
He came to Australia by boat in 2000 and applied for refugee status on the grounds of his homosexuality and the persecution of homosexuals in Iran. He was assessed and denied refugee status. He was asked questions about his contact with a gay subculture within Iran. The questions made analogies to western gay cultural icons like Oscar Wilde and Madonna. When he told the assessors that he didn’t understand the questions they seemed to interpret this as meaning that he had no knowledge of a gay cultural life in Iran. Hence, he could not be truly gay. The assessors also questioned the statement that gay men in Iran are at risk, despite the fact that Iranian law allows for homosexual men to be executed.
He appealed the decision to the Federal Court and won his appeal. The Minister for Immigration then appealed the Court’s decision, and unfortunately the Minister was successful. Nevertheless, the Iranian was granted leave to appeal to the High Court but the case is unlikely to be heard for perhaps 12 months. He is applying for a Bridging Visa that would allow him to remain until his case is heard. It does not permit him to work and he would receive no government benefits. Such a visa is only issued if a group of citizens commit to supporting him financially. A Circle of Friends is in the process of being established for him. If you would like to help or for more information contact Paul Hyam on 0421376857 or email paulhyam@internode.on.net
7) MOVES IN A FEW MORE COUNTRIES TO DECRIMINALISE GAY SEX: In a rare move for the Arab world, a gay rights group in LEBANON is attempting to overturn the country’s ban on homosexuality. The group began its campaign to end Article 534 of Lebanon’s penal code with a screening of the 1960 movie, “Victim,” at a Beirut university because the group says the film helped change the law in Britain.
A TURKISH parliamentary review has agreed to an amendment to its draft penal code that specifies discrimination based on sexual orientation to be a crime. TURKEY could become the first predominantly Muslim country to ban discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals. IN NEPAL the Supreme Court is to make a landmark ruling on the legal status of homosexuality on 18 January 2005. IN UZBEKISTAN the journalist, Ruslan Sharipov, imprisoned for homosexuality has been granted asylum in the United States. Sharipov’s arrest, under laws dating back to Soviet rule, had received international media attention, with civil and human rights organisations as well as international lesbian and gay groups calling for his release.
8) GAY HATE CRIMES: A REMINDER PREJUDICE IS STILL RAMPANT! Courageous lesbian and SIERRA LEONE gay activist, Fanny Ann Viola Eddy, has been brutally murdered. She was working late in the Lesbian & Gay Association office when she was attacked, raped and knifed. She was recently elected to the interim steering committee at the All Africa Symposium on Human Rights in Johannesburg. In LONDON a spate of violent homophobic attacks has left 5 injured and one gay man dead. All the attacks took place around London’s South Bank within a 15 minute period. A gang of youths apparently targeted patrons leaving gay clubs. The dead man was David Morley who survived the 1999 nail bombing of the Soho gay pub. Six people have been charged with his murder. Meanwhile, police are still searching for a man who stabbed a gay man on a London night bus. SCOTLAND has seen a sharp increase in the reporting of anti-gay hate crime due, police say, to improved reporting strategies and better liaison with the LGBT communities. Human Rights Watch has released its report on JAMAICA’s homophobia, violence and HIV/ AIDS. The document is the result of a study following the mutilation and knife murder of Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading gay rights activist, in June 2004. The report found that violent acts against a ‘battyman’ (homosexual) are commonplace because HIV/AIDS and homosexuality are thought to be synonymous. As well consensual sex between adult men is criminalised in JAMAICA. The report considers that while ever the government chooses to allow popular prejudices to proliferate, attempts to establish rights-based HIV/AIDS policies will continue to be undermined.
9) AUSTRALIA’S LESBIAN & GAY HISTORY ARCHIVES: As an initiative of the 1978 Fourth National Homosexual Conference in Sydney, it’s twenty six (26) years since the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives (ALGA) was set up in Melbourne. Now, interestingly, in 2004 the PRIDE HISTORY GROUP has been incorporated in Sydney. The group aims to collect, preserve and store information about GLBTQ lives, politics and communities primarily in Sydney. It also plans public education programs, exhibits and publications. ALGA, on the other hand, is well established and is providing support for the Sydney group. Researchers use ALGA’s resources regularly and it conducts several annual Melbourne public events. One of these is the Midsumma History Walk on Sunday, 6 Februay 2005, at 4pm –this year through what was once Queer St Kilda. For bookings and information: gwillett@unimelb.edu.au
In Sydney, the Pride History Group is planning its first public events during 2005 Mardi Gras Festival. For information: jwitte@chilli.net.au
10) HOW SAFE IS DEMOCRACY IN AUSTRALIA? A new law allowing prosecutors to withhold from legal teams (of suspected terrorists) information the government deems to be a threat to national security, came into force midway through December 2004. The federal government already has the power to ban organisations. It is now an offence to be a member or to meet or talk to a member of a banned organisation. ASIO has the power to detain and question people for up to a week’s detention, no right to silence with very limited rights to have a lawyer present during interrogation. It is also illegal to talk about ASIO’s action for the next 2 years after release. When Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany, its laws were not as sweepingly powerful as Australia’s raft of anti-terror laws.
Is it any wonder some people view these new anti-terror laws with alarm? They may ultimately create a threat to “our way of life” which may turn out to be greater than the current threat of terrorism itself.
11) DONATIONS: Readers of the newsletter who receive their copies by post have continued to assist us with donations which help with production costs and postage. Our thanks, as ever, to all our helpers.
12) HEALTH IN DIFFERENCE 5 CONFERENCE AND INTERSECTION: The fifth Health in Difference Conference for gay, lesbian and transgender people will be held in Melbourne from 20 - 22 January 2005. InterSection will be part of a session with Dr Jo Harrison which addresses activism around gay, lesbian and transgender ageing issues.
13) CENSORSHIP: Rachel Williams served on the classification board from 2000 to2003. Her report in the Sydney Morning Herald, 26 November 2004, on the banning in Australia of Michael Winterbottom's film 9 Songs, makes for depressing reading. Here is part of what Rachel Willims had to say: “The controversial Baise-Moi juxtaposes violence with X-rated movie conventions; by contrast, 9 Songs does not make use of the conventional X cinematic vocabulary and does not include any violence. Nevertheless, Australians may not view this movie on the big screen. Effectively, the film has been banned. The Classification Board has classified the film X: 'a special and legally restricted category which contains only sexually explicit material.' Cinemas cannot show the film legally in our country.”
Williams concludes her report with a statement which, given the growing apathy in the country over the last 8 years of the Howard government over issues such as censorship, leads one to ponder the future of the arts in 21st century Australia.
“In contrast to the Australian decision, the British Board of Film Classification released 9 Songs uncut. It considered the explicit sex to be 'exceptionally justified by context' and ruled that the film was 'wholly different in appearance, tone, intention and treatment from the sex works' which may be supplied only in licensed shops. Preventing cinemas here from screening the movie will anger many, but we can hope it will also spark further discussion about how we want to experience our culture.”
Garry Maddox writing in The Age, Melbourne, on 27 November 2004 on the same topic, reports: “9 Songs is just the latest of many provocative releases to stir a censorship debate. Lolita, Intimacy, Irreversible and Anatomy of Hell were controversial and Ken Park and Baise Moi were banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.The 9 Songs rating, applauded by the Australian Family Association and the Reverend Fred Nile, and deplored by critic Margaret Pomeranz and other anti-censorship campaigners, raises the question of whether standards of acceptability really have changed.” At the end of Maddox's article, director Ana Kokkinos, who made the film Head On, says, “On the one hand, we seem to be frightened of sex, and yet there's no questioning of the rampant violence that is depicted on screen.”
Sex is taboo for the religious right - you do have to wonder how they make new “religious right” babies! - and homosex is just the bottom of the barrel! An Alabama lawmaker has been invited by George W Bush to the White House to discuss a proposal to ban “gay” books, plays and other “gay” lifestyle-related issues. Bush wants “pro-homosexual” drama banned! Gerald Allen is the politician to make it happen! When asked what we should do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple, Allen recommends “Dig a hole and dump them in it.”
A report from the “stop-censorship” Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) email group states “Conservative Christian party Family First has emerged as a new bogeyman for the IT industry, which is worried a reinvigorated Howard government will trade the full sale of Telstra for a package of measures including mandatory internet filtering.”
And if you have been following the censorship debate in Australia since 1996, you will be shocked at how far we have sunk under the mass of books, films, artworks and other related materials which ahve been banned and/or decimated. In South Africa, during the height of the apartheid years and that country's repressive censorship regime, Black Beauty was banned! Don't laugh! It could happen here if it hasn't already! Penguin has asked an author of a popular children's book to change a sentence for the next edition of the book because it could lead to child abuse - the sentence was about a daddy hippopotamus giving his child a smack!
14) SUICIDE: “Bullying at school followed by bastardisation in the army”, such accusations levelled at the Australian army are nothing new. People being trained to kill other people do not hold lives as being precious. Training courses are strenuous and brutal, and not everybody is able to get through the types of courses demanded by the trainers. As a consequence of what some in control push on others being trained, some break under the strains imposed. There seems no way out other than suicide. When this occurs, the army goes into damage control and denies liability, denying it is responsible for what has happened. This sort of brutality exists outside the army as well, don't forget bullying at school! Young people living in communities where their sexuality would be questioned if they displayed signs of homosexuality have nowhere to turn, much as those in the army, and then resort to suicide or ideation of suicide. A major problem for young people, not addressed by those who are able to assist such as psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, parents, relatives, friends. Very often they are the ones least able to understand the problems and least sympathetic to them, particularly in regional and rural areas, as well as in army training schools. So, suicide is at high levels amongst young males between 15 and 25, more so than young females, where the rates of suicide are not as high. Research workers in this area seldom include homosexuality as a reason for suicide. It is an area needing ongoing investigation.
15) AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTIONS OUTCOME AND AFTERMATH - HOMOPHOBIA RAMPANT AGAIN?: The Australian government is closely aligned with the religious right in this country, and the religious right has a homophobic agenda which bodes ill for our communities for the next three years of this government, particularly in light of their success in gaining a majority in the upper house, the Senate. With the help of the Alternative Liberal Party, also known as the ALP, the last Senate seat in Victoria was handed to the Family First Party, a religious right group whose anti-gay agenda will help the government's agenda in relation to the human rights of the gay, lesbian and transgender (glt) communities. Those members of glt groups who advocated voting for the ALP in the last elections should by now be seeing the error of their ways with the ALP becoming as right-wing as the government it is supposed to be opposing. The ALP acted to ensure the defeat of the Greens who would have had the sixth senate seat in Victoria.
Those in our communities who thought we had all the human rights we needed other than marriage rights had now better start organising activist groups to fight the attempts to push us all back into our closets.
16) NEW ZIMBABWE GAY GROUP: LGS received an email from a new group in Zimbabwe who had received one of our newsletters from a member of GALZ, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe. The group contacted us and we will now be sending them the newsletter. The group is looking for international support from organisations to network with and share ideas on various aspects of gaylife especially on issues of HIV and AIDS. They will be very happy to hear from people around the world making contact with them. Their details are as follows: Morgan Nguluve, Group Co-ordinator, Rainbow Affinity Group, PO Box ZG190, Zengeza, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. email: rainbowzim@yahoo.com
17) SPAIDS: Now that Sydney City Council has only one community tree planting day a year, on National Tree Day at the end of July each year, SPAIDS planting will also occur on the same day, once again. The date is usually the last Sunday in July, but in 2005 it may be either 24 or 31 July. Watch this space for the latest information!
18) INTERNATION LESBIAN AND GAY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ACTION ALERTS DURING 2004:
Argentina - transgender activist jailed; Brazil - state funding for conversion therapies;
Iran - arrest of Mahboobeh Abbasgholizadeh, a member of Women Living Under Muslim Laws; Uzbekistan - gay journalist Saripov released - given asylum in USA; Sierra Leone - murder of lesbian activist Fannyann Eddy; Ecuador - man fired from security firm for being gay; Panama - Catholic Church launched vicious campaign against conjugal rights for same-sex couples; Honduras - government granted recognition to three glt associations;
Mexico - arbitrary arrests of young gay men in Zona Rosa; Nepal - police brutality against cross-dressing males and others; Guatemala - violence against human rights defenders;
India - High Court dismisses Sodomy Law challenge, rape and police abuse of transgenders in Bangalore; Turkey - considering prison terms for sexual orientation discrimination;
Philippines - passes anti-discrimination bill; Jamaica - murder of gay activist Brian Williamson; UK - ongoing murders and homophobic attacks in England and Scotland;
USA - ongoing murders and homophobic attacks against gay, lesbian and transgender people - case against murderers of transgender Gwen Araujo continues due to jury problem.
19) JOHN LAWS, STEVE PRICE, SAM NEWMAN - HOMOPHOBIA ON AIR: There have been a few arguments about these three people in the gay media. It is being suggested that they are entertainers and they say what they do in order to create controversy for their programmes, sponsors, radio and/or television stations in order to draw in listeners/viewers. These sorts of discussions are flawed because there are anti-vilification laws in many states in Australia. The homophobic attacks by Laws, Price and Newman result in abuse, violence and often worse because the people perpetrating these assaults believe they have community support for what they have done which is why there are anti-vilification laws. Often this has proved to be the case when some assaults and murders have gone to trial, only to have cases dismissed or treated lightly due to “panic defence” and similar arguments being put forward. Members of the glt communities must protest and continue protesting, to stop these attacks on our human rights, attacks which, if carried out on heterosexuals, would lead to immediate outcries from the community at large!
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