LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY NEWSLETTER NUMBER 62

               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 2, 2005                            NUMBER 62                        JUNE-DECEMBER 2005

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The editors apologise for the long break between the first and second issues of the 2005 LGS  Newsletter. Of course there should have been two others in between which would have made this one issue number 4. Put it down to ageing constitutions of both editors. Not that we have been inactive or suffering from the effects of any amazing space odyssey travels, we just think it’s easier to be believed if we lay the blame on ageing issues!

Anyway, we wish you commiserations for the horrendous season ahead.  Now, do please read on.

 

1) WHY WAIT TWELVE MONTHS?  That was the question asked by South African lesbian and gay groups on the first of December when they learned they will have to wait a year before they can get married. According to the South African Mail & Guardian, the Constitutional Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to prevent gay people from enjoying the legal benefits of marriage.

It has given the South African Parliament one year to rework laws allowing same-sex unions. If Parliament does not do this in one year, the Marriage Act will be rewritten to include the words “or spouse” to allow these unions to take place.

Same-sex couples may marry at present in South Africa but the marriage is not recognized in law.

In 2004, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that two women, Marie Fourie and Cecilia Bonthuys, should be allowed to get married. However, the women found they were unable to register their church wedding with the Department of Home Affairs.

The Justice and Home Affairs Departments applied to the Constitutional Court seeking leave to appeal the decision of the Supreme Court on the grounds that only Parliament may amend legislation.

A separate application from the two women and an alliance of lesbian and gay organizations sought to have the marriage formula under the Marriage Act of 1961 changed to include the words “or spouse” instead of “husband” and “wife.”

The Forum for the Empowerment of Women said: “We are not happy … because for a year we don’t have equality.” In parliament the African Christian Democratic Party spokesperson said that in their view “no state or court should seek to alter the traditional and, from time immemorial, universal understanding of ‘God-given’ marriage as heterosexual, and in terms of Christian understanding, also monogamous.”

 

2) ADOPTION OF CHILDREN BY SAME-SEX COUPLES: The Belgian Federal Parliament is to vote in December on the proposed law to allow adoption by same-sex couples. The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) says that if the right of adoption is one of the last battles for local Belgian lesbian and gay associations towards a more just and secular society, it should not be forgotten that to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is illegal in 80 countries of the world, and that homosexuality is still punishable by death in 9 countries.

 

3) GAY NIGERIANS FACE BEING STONED TO DEATH:  In July, two Nigerian gay men were arrested in Katsina charged with committing sodomy. Yusuf Kabir and Usman Sani appeared in Katsina’s Sharia Court 3. They were tied together by the hems of their faded blue and brown kaftans. Both were remanded in prison custody to appear at a later date for hearing.

According to an initial police report, the pair was arrested after local resident, Lawal Umar, said he saw them having sex in a city toilet and alerted police.

 Under the interpretation of Muslim legal texts in force in Nigeria’s Katsina state sexual offences such as adultery, rape and homosexuality are punishable by stoning to death. Islamic sharia law was reintroduced in Katsina state in August 2001, making it one of a dozen, mainly Muslim, northern states to have re-adopted the code since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999. In June just prior to the Katsina arrests, the United Nations senior envoy had called on Nigeria to drop capital punishment for the crime of homosexuality. (SA Mail and Guardian)

 

4) 22 GAY ARABS ARRESTED AND FACE HORMONE TREATMENT:  Early in November police, acting on a tip-off, raided a hotel in Ghantout, a desert region on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway in the United Arab Emirates, and found a mass gay wedding ceremony about to commence. One of those arrested was to perform the ceremony in a party atmosphere of balloons and champagne, and another was the Indian DJ.

Outward homosexual behaviour is banned in the Emirates and the gay group wedding has alarmed the leaders of this once-isolated Muslim country. The Arabian peninsula, nevertheless, has a long tradition of openly homosexual wedding singers and dancers. According to a Dubai psychologist, “people recently have been talking about homosexuality, but it has been here for a long time. It becomes shocking only when it is your own son.” 

Authorities said the men are likely to be tried under Muslim law and face government-ordered hormone treatments, five years in jail and a lashing. The Justice and Islamic Affairs ministry spokesperson said: “It wasn’t just a homosexual act. Now we’re dealing with a kind of marriage. There was ritual involved. Because they put society at risk, they will be given the necessary treatment from male hormone injections to psychological therapies.”

“It’s not about freedom of opinion; it’s about respecting religion which forbids this type of behaviour,” he said. (Mail and Guardian and Khaleej Times Newspapers)

 

5) DONATIONS: Thanks yet again to those of our readers who help us keep the newsletter going with their donations even though we are providing only a reduced showing in 2005.

 

6) DANGERS OF THE PARTY SYSTEM:  On November 2^nd, 1977, Australia’s famous nuclear scientist, Mark Oliphant, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, made the following comment about political issues of that period: “What is going on upholds my strong feeling that the two-party system holds within itself great dangers for democracy.

“The dangers arise from the strict party discipline exercised in a parliament where, once elected, a member represents not the people and the interests of his electorate, but his party. There have been several recent illustrations of the fatal consequences of deviation from either party line. This makes honesty in politics virtually impossible.

In our two-party political system each is bound to adjust its policies to meet, and if possible surpass in public appeal, the policies of the other. Therefore, no Government can represent appreciably more than half the electors. Yet, a Government in power claims a mandate from the people to follow the policies of its party and ignore those of the almost half the citizens who did not vote for it. Now, 28 years on, the great dangers to democracy are nearing reality with the passing of the 2005 Industrial Relations laws and the 2005 Anti-Terrorism legislation.

In a nutshell, these new laws leave workers open to increased hours of work, reduced pay and no power to call on support from a trade union. The union power to negotiate has been stripped bare. As for the citizen’s right to associate, to protest, to make donations, to express dissatisfaction with the government of the day and tell others to ridicule it could land you incommunicado and imprisoned, picked off the street by secret police, interrogated for hours without charge and your life partner unable to tell anyone what has really happened to you. If they let you go you could be confined to your house with a tracking device attached to you. We kid you not! If you’re suspected of knowing someone or something and they are keen to extract the information, imaginary or not, from you then any or all of these outrageous actions could happen to you. How right was Mark Oliphant in 1977?  And by the way, John Howard was also in the federal parliament in 1977.  

    

7) ACTIVIST CRIES FOUL ON REPORT, DEMANDS ANSWERS: United States political activist SCOTT PARKIN claimed an Australian report by the nation’s spy watchdog into his treatment by ASIO was unfair and called on Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to reveal why he (Scott Parkin) was considered a national security risk.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Ian Carnell, found ASIO had credible information that Mr Parkin’s activities could be classified as politically motivated violence but said he could not reveal details for security reasons.

Mr Parkin, 36, from Houston, Texas, was deported from Australia in September after ASIO issued an adverse security assessment against him.

“If Mr Ruddock is so certain of the truth of ASIO’s allegations, why can’t he tell me what I am supposed to have done so that I can defend myself?” Mr Parkin said.

His Australian supporter and friend, Iain Murray, said the decision to keep the allegations against Mr Parkin was Kafkaesque. (This brief news report by Jewel Topsfield appeared in The AGE in Melbourne on Thursday, 8 December 2005.)

For those of you, who have already forgotten what happened to Scott, allow us to refresh your memory. On Saturday, September 17, four ASIO officers and two immigration officials grabbed Scott Parkin in front of a Brunswick café in Melbourne on his way to speak at a seminar on non-violent protest. They took him to Carlton Police Station and thence to the Melbourne Custody Centre. His visa was immediately cancelled and he was locked up for 5 days before being deported without ever being charged with any offence under Australian law. All this was done before the latest Anti-Terrorism legislation giving ASIO greater powers and the atrocious new seditious intention charges, had even been tabled in parliament. One has to wonder how Bob Dylon would fare now if he came to Australia to sing his Masters of War lyrics –“come you masters of war, you that build all the guns, you that build the death planes, …you that hide behind desks!”

For International Human Rights Day there were demonstrations on Saturday, December 10, around Australia. Some of us attended Melbourne’s rally in front of the State Library –big on Indigenous, workers, refugee and human rights speakers and banners, small on attendance. However, roughly 250 marched through the city and up to the park containing the 8-Hours Working Day Memorial opposite Trades Hall past Old Melbourne Gaol, now one of Melbourne’s tourist attractions. The police told the march organizers they should stay on the footpaths but the organizers refused to obey and we marched on the road. We were asked to chant and make a lot of noise. One of the chants we shouted was “one, two, three, four …We don’t want your terror laws; five, six, seven, eight … We won’t co-operate!” We need to do a lot more such chanting and demonstrating in the coming months --what with “detention orders without charge, powers to detain in secret, 5 years imprisonment for disclosure of interrogation, tracking devices on release, 7 years gaol for seditious intention to urge a change of government, 10-year sunset clauses,” the Federal Opposition joining the Government to pass such terror laws. When the government says “trust us” they mean “there are no safeguards in a police state!”     

 

8) INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN  2006 – COURTESY HOWARD’S GOVERNMENT!:

With grim determination to break union power in Australia once and for all, the Howard government passed legislation with the aid of a compliant senate and building on previous laws from Labor and Coalition governments assisted by the Democrats in the 1990s.

The government spent at least $50 million on media advertisements using smiling, happy workers in various industries to make the television propaganda. Most of the workers involved were not told of the purpose for which the adverts were made and were livid when they found out. When the government series was finished, the Business Council of Australia did their bit for the government with a further series of television advertisements.

What will the legislation do?

• Remove conditions in awards such as redundancy pay, penalty rates, long service leave.
• Introduce secret ballots before industrial action.
• Make it easier for employers to impose Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA)[individual contracts] on workers.
• End pattern or industry-wide bargaining.
• Restrict the democratic right of workers to have their unions visit them in their workplaces more than twice a year.
• Remove unfair dismissal protection for workers in small businesses with fewer than 100 employees.
• Remove redundancy payment rights for workers in small businesses.
• Specifically attack construction industry unions and leave construction workers with less rights than other workers.

These are some of the changes ahead. Together with the anti-terrorism and voluntary student union laws passed as well, democracy in Australia has come to an end and we are witnessing the introduction of a police state. Even putting these items into a newsletter could be interpreted as sedition for which there are now draconian punishments available!

• For ongoing up-to-date information, visit the union solidarity website:
• http://www.unionsolidarity.org

 

9) LOMBOK AUSTRALIAN-FUNDED CONCENTRATION CAMP:  There are a largely forgotten group of 92 stateless Iraqi, Vietnamese and Afgan asylum seekers left to rot by the Howard government on Lombok, Indonesia. They were denied any chance of asylum in Australia when their boats entered Ashmore Reef waters in October 2001. The PM ordered the Navy to commandeer their boats during the “Tampa” federal election campaign and return them to Indonesia. Australia funds a “Pacific Solution” detention camp on off-shore Lombok. They have been there now over 4 years and fear they will remain there indefinitely unless Australia agrees to their right to refugee status and offers them asylum. They have made a desperate plea to Australians for help to free them. For more information, contact the Refugee Action Collective (Vic), PO Box 578, Carlton South, Vic.3053. We saw a very pertinent placard outside the Old Melbourne Gaol the other day. Inside a circle bisected by a thick red line were the words: ‘Detention Amandatory!’

 

10) DOCTORS GO HOME TO TACKLE AIDS:  After completing seven years study seven students from Botswana are graduating as doctors from Melbourne University and will return to their own country to tackle its HIV/AIDS epidemic. They are the first to qualify in Australia as part of an ambitious program funded by their government that provides scholarships for prospective doctors to study abroad. Botswana, formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, is a politically stable country that should be reaping the rewards of an economy built on diamond mining. But unemployment is estimated at 24 percent with a population below poverty level of 47 percent. And, almost 38 percent of its 1.8 million citizens are infected with  HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy is a mere 37 years. Only Swaziland has a higher infection rate. One of the students, Dr Noma Raphaka, is realistic about the challenges she faces when she returns home to do her intern year at one of Botswana’s two main hospitals However, she said that she did not have any temptation to stay here in Australia, “I need to go where I’m needed most.” (Melbourne Age, 3 December 2005.)

 

11) BOOK REVIEW: “Being Normal is the Only Way to be: Adolescent Perspectives on Gender and School” –published by UNSW Press May 2005, researched by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli and Wayne Martino. A book for teachers and parents of adolescents, $39.95.

Girl, geek or gay –are the labels that teenage boys most fear being lumbered with, a study of Australian high school students shows. The most feared tags for girls are slut, frigid or dyke. Research showed that striving to fit in and be perceived as ‘normal’ by their peers caused enormous stress for some teenagers. Their happiness and well-being directly affected whether or not they were successful students. 900 students from six Australian government and private high schools were interviewed about gender issues and social status. A common theme among the 14 to 16-year-olds was risk-taking. Many boys used it as a way to conform and some girls viewed it as a cool way to break rules. Drinking alcohol, taking drugs and sex were among the so-called normal weekend activities. One student said: “You’ve got to have a Monday morning story.”

Dr Pallotta-Chiarolli said: “You can’t address issues like learning and literacy unless you address things like harassment, isolation and anxiety. Learning is not divorced from kids’ feelings about coming to school.” She thinks that more schools should follow Melbourne’s Princes Hill Secondary which was not afraid to debate sexuality. It became the first Victorian High School to take part in the 2005 Gay Pride march. (Adapted from Rachel Kleinman’s article in The Age.)

 

12) GAYS & LESBIANS: 7 in 10 HAVE COPPED VERBAL ABUSE in Victoria!  According to the 2005 Same-Sex Relationships Survey conducted by the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, more than 70 percent of gay people in Victoria have been verbally abused. The survey of 650 lesbians and gay men found that + 72% had been verbally abused; + 20% had received explicit threats; + 20% had experienced discrimination when accessing health care or the legal system; + 13% had been assaulted because of their sexuality; + 78% had felt unsafe holding hands in public and a similar percentage had concealed their relationship to avoid discrimination; + and 78% supported legal recognition of their relationships.

Co-author, Dr Ruth McNair, a GP and lecturer at Melbourne University, said that verbal abuse had increased since the last survey in 2000. “One possibility (for the rise),” she said, “is that people are more open about their relationships and, therefore, they’re more at risk of negative opinions.” Dr McNair said that not being able to disclose one’s sexuality, hiding part of oneself, could do psychological harm. Most of those surveyed said they had received a positive reaction from friends when they disclosed their sexuality. 10% had a negative reaction from one or both parents. Dr McNair also said that many believed legal recognition for same-sex relationships might help change attitudes. The Lobby’s Pete Dillon added that the proportion of those favouring marriage as their preferred form of legal recognition had risen markedly to 80% since the 2000 survey, (from The Age, 4 August 2005).

 

13) WIDE-SPREAD HOMOPHOBIA IN AUSTRALIA: According to the 2005 National Study “Mapping Homophobia in Australia” for the Australia Institute, one in three Australians believed homosexuality to be immoral. 25,000 people over the age of 14 were interviewed for the national survey. It found that those who said they were Catholics were the most tolerant of homosexuality. Those claiming to be Baptists were the least tolerant. Jen Van-Achteren from the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group told the ABC News Online that “based on the Pope’s comments and also (Sydney Catholic Archbishop) George Pell’s, I actually found it a little surprising.” The States least accepting of homosexual behaviour were found to be Tasmania and Queensland. Most tolerant areas were Inner City Melbourne and central Perth.

 

 

14) BOOKS BY BRENNA AND VICKI HARDING: There was an outcry during the last year or two when Vicki Harding, who is a lesbian with a partner and child, appeared on the ABC children’s TV programme – PlaySchool. Vicki and her daughter Brenna had written some children’s books about boys and girls at school who have two mums or two dads, and politicians, egged on by the religious right, objected to this “desecration” of family values! We decided that if the politicians made such a fuss then our local library ought to have copies of the books so that the stories could be widely disseminated, and so we asked our local Darebin Library in Preston to order them – and they did! There are four delightful stories for young children who can already read, and we heartily recommend them to a wider audience. The books are:

The Rainbow Cubby House
Koalas on Parade
My House
Going to Fair Day

The books have been beautifully illustrated by Chris Bray-Cotton and published by Learn to Include, Sydney in 2002 and 2005.

 

15) 2005 SPAIDS 31^st TREE PLANTING:  The 31^st July was a bright and sunny day and over 60 people came to plant trees to honour loved ones who had died from HIV/AIDS. Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore arrived at midday as one of her official visits that day and out of friendship for those she had known over the years. The AIDS Memorial Groves, after 11 years are now reaching maturity, and the Reflection Area on high ground overlooking the Groves in the extensive and beautiful Sydney Park with its walks and lakes, are a joy to behold. Tentatively, the 2006 planting is being planned for the last Sunday in July.

 

16) IRAN AND HOMOSEXUALITY:  Iran enforces Islamic Sharia Law which dictates the death penalty for gay sex. According to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. Altogether, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to death over the last 26 years of clerical rule. The victims include women who have sex outside of marriage, and political opponents of the Islamist government. Islamic rule is sustained by detention without trial (shades of the Howard government’s anti-terror laws), torture and state-sanctioned murder. 

PlanetOut Network  (16 November 2005) says reports of more executions of gay men in Iran prompted a call from the United Nations to investigate and hold Iran accountable for possible human rights violations. There was an outcry in July 2005 on the hanging of two teenagers accused of all sorts of homosexual crimes, then  two young men were publicly hanged on 13 November and another young man was hanged earlier in November in a town square in Northern Iran. There were reported hangings in March and no doubt there are many others that have not yet come to light. Iran is guilty of many crimes, but those against gays and lesbians are amongst the most horrific and there is no end in sight.

 

17) CONFERENCES, FORUMS AND PROTESTS: LGS was present at the Hiroshima Day Rally on 7 August 2005 and were joined by other lesbians and gay men for the march.

LGS was also represented at the “Equal Love” Rally on 13 August 2005.

LGS attended a forum on Elder Abuse Prevention to discuss a Consultation Paper by the Office of Senior Victorians, Department for Victorian Communities. The forum was organized in partnership with the ALSO Foundation and Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria on 26 September  2005. It was obvious during the presentation that there was little consideration for the voices of ageing gays and lesbians to be heard during the session.

The Australian Homosexual Histories 7 Conference, hosted by the Australia Lesbian and Gay Archives, and held at Melbourne University on 5 and 6 November 2005 was a great success and about 100 people attended locally and from interstate.

LGS continues to “show the banner” at political rallies and demos.

 

By the way, are you an ALGA member? If you recognize the value of retaining material that is the collective history of gays and lesbians in this country, perhaps you should be. Full membership of the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives (ALGA) is only $20 (unwaged $5), renewable each year in October. Brochure from PO Box 124 Parkville, Vic 3052.