LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY NEWSLETTER NUMBER 67

            LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY

                                   N E W S L E T T E R

PO Box 1675, PRESTON SOUTH, VIC.3072, AUSTRALIA. Phone: (03) 9471 4878.

Formerly: Gay Solidarity Group(GSG), Est. 1978.   Email: josken_at_zipworld_com_au

ISSUE 1, 2008            NUMBER 67                           NOVEMBER 2007- JUNE 2008

         

1) SPAIDS MEMORIAL GROVES 34^th PLANTING SYDNEY PARK, JULY 27:- Sydney City Council has advised that SPAIDS tree planting in Sydney Park is scheduled for Sunday, 27 July, 2008, between 11am and 3pm. This will be SPAIDS 34^th planting to honour those who have died from the effects of AIDS, as well as those lesbians, gay men and transgender people who have perished as the result of violence, or in the Nazi Holocaust. You are invited to plant a native Australian tree, supplied by Council, for a loved one and sign the remembrance book in the dedicated SPAIDS Reflection Area. Also a complete listing of those commemorated in past plantings will be available for viewing there. Council provides free a picnic barbecue around midday to those attending. You should enter Sydney Park from Barwon Park Road, off Princes Hwy, St Peters. There’s car parking or come by train or bus from the city alighting at St Peters Station.

 

2) EXHIBITION AXED AFTER POLICE VISIT: Not the Bill Henson photos, and this one did not cause the same outrage but should have, and probably stemmed from just one prejudiced complaint. This happened in Sydney and was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, May 14 2008 as having happened the previous Thursday.

The decision by a Sydney library to dump an exhibition about Palestinian refugees after a visit by counter-terrorism police the night before it was to be opened, is obviously an issue of Australian civil liberties versus anti-terror laws and police powers and intimidation.

A local community group, Friends of Hebron, had developed a display of photos, poems and articles and the Leichhardt municipal library was to launch The Al-Nakba Pictorial Exhibition on Friday May 9^th. However, on the Thursday evening, after the group had set up the approved exhibition and just before the library closed, officers from the police counter-terrorism operations arrived and introduced themselves to the librarian. One of the officers said that they were from the operation’s Community Contact Unit and had come simply to introduce themselves to the Friends of Hebron. Part of their charter he said was to speak with community groups. As no members of the group were still there they had a quick chat with the librarian. Next day, after the librarian had met with the council’s Director of Corporate Services, the exhibition was cancelled.

A council spokesman, present when the decision to cancel was made, said that the captions on some photos were deemed capable of causing anxiety and “undue angst.” Officially the Council maintained that due to “a breakdown of managerial process” the Al-Nakba had missed out being assessed by a panel of councillors to ensure it was not divisive in any way. The Friends of Hebron group said there was nothing alarming in the exhibition. It merely highlighted the plight of many Palestinian refugees in Hebron, about 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem, and what was going on there. The group would look to hold it at another venue. They would promote it as “the exhibition the Council didn’t want you to see!”

POSTSCRIPT: Was it the officers of counter-terrorism police who visited the Sydney gallery where Bill Henson’s photos were to be exhibited? Police officers have since visited Newcastle’s Regional Gallery, Albury City Council and the National Gallery in Canberra after which all three removed their Henson works. Melbourne’s National Gallery was also visited but no works were removed. However, the Australian Financial Review reported that the magazine, Art World, was forced to pulp 25,000 copies of its next edition which featured some of the seized Henson works (The Age, 28.5.08). The absurd situation created by the police from a couple of complaints is likely to have engendered a stupid climate of moral panic. Latest news(ABC Radio) 6.6.08: The 32 confiscated Henson photographs are to be returned by police to the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery following the Australian Classification Board’s rating of the photograph on the Exhibition Invitation as “mild” and safe for many  children. The prosecution has been dropped.

 

3) FAMILY COURT IS FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES, TOO! Former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson has written to the federal Attorney-General urging him to give gay couples access to the Family Court. Such a shift in family law faces stiff resistance from the Christian lobby. The reform would give same-sex couples access to the cheaper specialist court and its mediators, instead of being forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to resolve their disputes in the Supreme Court. It would ensure more cases would be settled at mediation without trial. Interestingly, under current laws, de facto heterosexual couples are also denied access to the Family Court but Professor Nicholson argues that same-sex couples are different because they have taken a decision to formalise their relationship.  He has also urged the Federal Government to give automatic recognition to same-sex couples listed on state relationships registers. In practical terms, the move would cut paperwork same-sex couples have to provide to federal agencies to prove their relationship (Age, 22.5.08).

 

4) DEFUSING THE FEAR OF TERROR: The risk of being killed in a terror attack is tiny despite the US September 11. According to the RAND-MIPT database, international terrorist incidents world-wide between 1968 and April 2007, amounted to an average annual death toll of 379. The enormity of 9/11 in our consciousness obscures an important trend. From the 1960s until the early 1990s, the number of international terrorist incidents steadily increased, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, so did terrorism. The peak was reached in 1991, when there were 450 incidents recorded. By 2000, that number had plummeted to 100. By 2004 it had reversed but if you take the Middle East and South Asia out of the equation, the decline in international terrorism at the end of the Cold War actually continued, according to the director of the Human Security Centre, University of British Columbia.

Building a nuclear device capable of producing mass destruction presents Herculean challenges for terrorists and even for states with well-funded and sophisticated programs. Saddam Hussein poured Iraq’s vast oil-funded resources into a nuclear program in the 80s but failed to produce a single weapon before the first Gulf war. Apartheid South Africa built a small nuclear arsenal but it took four years with unlimited funds and expertise for them to build their first gun-type system (the crudest form of nuclear bomb) –an edited abridged extract from Dan Gardner’s Risk: the science and politics of fear, (The Age, 3.5.08). So, really a “dirty bomb” made by a terrorist from stolen depleted uranium is probably the only possibility and that is slight provided the terrorist hasn’t already blown up himself trying to make it.

 

5) SPORT AND POLITICS: Gay Solidarity in the past and Lesbian & Gay Solidarity currently have always held the view that sport is a legitimate target area in which to protest against abuse of human rights whether sports people like it or not. Writing about Australia’s shift into the Asian Football Confederation, in the Sports section of The Age (9.4.08), journalist Michael Lynch supported our view. He made the point in his article that benefits of the move were broader than just the sporting arena. “Whether we like it or not,” he wrote, “sport and politics do mix –the current ruckus over the Olympics and China’s human rights record in Tibet is the latest forceful reminder of that.”

 

6) GUANTANAMO CONVICTIONS KNOW NO BOUNDS!  Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of terrorism cases at Guantanamo Bay, has admitted what many had suspected: that the judicial process in relation to the detainees at Cuba was politically motivated, and therefore tainted. He was chief prosecutor when David Hicks was in Guantanamo. He also set out the evidence that would be presented against Hicks. Yet now, taking the stand as a witness in the pre-trial hearings of Salim Hamdan, of Yemen, who was Osama bin Laden’s driver, Colonel Davis said other military officials went around him to negotiate plea deals (which is what happened with Hicks) and that he had been pressured by the White House to prosecute cases on the basis of their political value rather than on the merits of each case.

 

In a Washington Post report of the Hamdan case, Davis recounts a conversation he had with Defence Department lawyer William Haynes: “He said. ‘We can’t have acquittals,’” Davis went on to say, under questioning from navy Lieutenant-Commander Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. “We’ve been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.” Next day Mizer read an affidavit from another prosecutor in which a Pentagon lawyer had related how cases were selected to be prosecuted: “This case is going to seize the imagination of the American public and that case won’t.”

Guantanamo Bay has been a sham from the outset. The posturing of politicians, both in the US and in Australia, towards the process that was established to dispense “justice” has been shameful. Never mind the evidence, the proof is in the conviction. According to the Pentagon lawyer “everything was fair game,” even information obtained under torture, specifically waterboarding –from Warwick McFadyen’s Insight column in The Age (3.5.08). 

 

7) CIVIL UNIONS AND GAY MARRIAGE:  When the ACT Government attempted to include a ceremonial aspect in its Civil Partnerships Bill again, the Rudd Labor government like its Howard predecessor, vetoed it. A spate of letters to the editor of The Age ensued. Here are some extracts from May 5^th and 6^th and 7^th editions of the newspaper. Kevin Rudd, like John Howard has done the right thing intervening against Jon Stanhope’s proposed changes to effectively redefine marriage. Our society and our children need marriages to be supported and strengthened, not diluted. This is now simply about justifying a lifestyle by forcing society to accept, despite its better judgement and legitimate concerns –Peter Berry.  Replying to him, Brad Desmond wrote: “Peter Berry, I am trying to figure out how my traditional ‘marriage’ needs to be ‘supported and strengthened’ by people such as you. I am not sure what ‘legitimate concerns’ I should hold about gay marriages. Please warn me so I can be appropriately afraid.” Should the homosexual lobby succeed in having its unions labelled as “marriage,” then those of us who are indeed truly married must simply find another naming, to distinguish us from homosexuals –Sid Hayward.  Two short replies appeared for Sid. “I’m guessing that there is more about you and your wife to distinguish you from a gay partnership than simply the name of your union. Is your wife aware how concerned you are about being mistaken for a homosexual couple –Carmel Murphy.” And: “Perhaps Sid Hayward should refer to his marriage as a ‘bigoted union’ to distinguish it from homosexual marriages –Gabriel Dabscheck.

 

8) BOOKS TO SET THE CAT AMONGST THE PIGEONS! 

The ETHNIC CLEANSING of PALESTINE, by Ilan Pappe, published by Oneworld Oxford, $29.95. The author holds the Chair in History at the University of Exeter;

WATCHING BRIEF: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice, by Julian Burnside, from Scribe, $32.95. His argument for a new human rights policy;

RISK: The Science and Politics of Fear, by Dan Gardner, also published by Scribe, $35. The risk of being killed in a terror attack is tiny, so why are we so afraid?

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein, published by Penguin Group, $32.95. “Scary as hell”—John le Carre.

 

9) ARE GOD’S POLICE TO DO THE SNOOPING FOR KEVIN O7? Our local federal member, Martin Ferguson, went to great pains to let same-sex couples in his electorate know what the Rudd Government was doing for us in parliament’s Winter Sittings. Apparently, the recommendations in the Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission 2007 report, which found 58 federal laws discriminate against same-sex couples and their children, didn’t go far enough so the Rudd Government commissioned an audit of Commonwealth laws, which was able to identify other areas of discrimination. According to the Attorney-General about 100 pieces of federal legislation ignore homosexual couples and need to be changed. However, Ferguson’s letter says “the changes will provide for equality of treatment under a wide range of Commonwealth laws between same-sex and opposite-sex de facto couples.” Areas where discrimination will be removed include tax, super, social security, health, aged care, veterans’ entitlements, workers, compensation, employment entitlements, and other areas. All changes are expected to be implemented by mid-2009. But “the changes do not alter marriage laws.”

A partnership in business is covered by a certificate –a contract, same as a marriage. Both may be dissolved by lawful settlement between the parties. If two lesbians or two gay men decide to share a house how is the government to know if they are in a business relationship or a sexual relationship? Will Centrelink want a business partnership contract to prove they are not in a sexual relationship (which probably attracts extra tax anyway) or if they rent or own in both names then they will be automatically assessed as in a sexual relationship? So, if two pensioners simply share a house, will they suddenly find they have been assessed as a couple? On the other hand, will a state-based or a local government-based relationship register be the criterion for pensioners to find their pensions reduced unexpectedly? God’s police will be extremely busy by mid-2009!

 

10) IN MEMORIAM –SOME BRIEF TRIBUTES TO ACTIVIST FRIENDS:-

PETER McGREGOR 1947 - 2008: We mourn his death which occurred on January 11^th  this year in Sydney and we offer our sympathy to his longtime partner, Johanna. A human rights activist, an anti-apartheid/anti-war protester, a strong and energetic supporter of minorities, a fighter against oppression of any kind and a powerful opponent of corruption, he was fearless in his criticism of the capitalist media and its barons both locally and internationally. Peter was the 2007 Eureka Australia Medallist which was presented to him in Ballarat only a few weeks before his death. He came to prominence publicly in 1971 when he helped organise disruptive actions against the Springboks tour of Australia. Perhaps his final public actions occurred last year in his thwarted attempts to make citizen’s arrests of both the then Attorney-General Ruddock and the previous PM John Howard for war crimes. He was arrested both times. He was a popular and controversial lecturer in media studies until he resigned in 2005. His essay, “The Viet Nam/USA War and the Australian Media,” is a classic example of his hard-hitting critical style of writing which was featured in a Viet Nam exhibition in the 1990s. He was a lovely man.

Dr IVAN TOMS 1953 – 2008: Apartheid war resister, gay activist, and public health official in South Africa, died suddenly in March this year in Cape Town. He was the founder of the Progressive Primary Healthcare Network and a pioneer of HIV prevention work in the Cape. He is remembered here and in his own country as a gay activist and a conscientious objector during the apartheid years who served time in jail for refusing to serve in the army. In those days, too, he resisted forced removals of blacks and coloureds, military incursions and the infamous pass-law enforcement in the black townships.

 

11) UNCRITICAL USE OF WORDS –‘VICTIM’-‘SUFFERER’—BY  MEDIA: The following letter appeared in the Sydney Star Observer (SSO) 27.2.08 which we think deserves greater exposure than just in one gay newspaper. Here’s the letter:

“Can SSO please change the language you use to refer to people with HIV? We are neither sufferers nor victims. At different points in our life with HIV, we may experience pain, distress, fear or grief.

Living with HIV can bring with it chronic pain, poverty and sadness. Trying to limit the impact of these is the work of organisations like ours –because that’s not all we experience and that’s not just who we are. We are active and valued contributors to this and other communities, families and relationships.

To some people this may seem picky. However, since the first days of HIV in Australia how we were described has been critical in setting the tone of how we are included in responding to HIV.

That is why we fought to be called living with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. We’ve tried to simplify that to people with HIV.

The need for this language has not changed. Australia is recognised for the way our response to HIV centrally includes people with HIV and other affected populations.” 

Signed: Rob Lake, CEO, Positive Life NSW.

 

12) CONDOMS NOT MADE AVAILABLE TO INMATES OF MOST PRISONS!  In the US most jails will not permit the distribution of condoms to prisoners to stop the transmission of HIV and other STDs. In Australia the same situation applies. One US politician recently drew attention to the situation: “I realise this is not a popular topic for many people, but it’s one we simply cannot afford to ignore,” she said, “When more than 90 percent of incarcerated people return to our communities, taking a head-in-the-sand approach to the fact that our prisons have become a breeding ground for HIV/AIDS, poses a serious public health risk.”

To activists concerned about prisoners’ rights, it’s an urgent, commonsense step that should be nationwide policy. In Los Angeles, condoms are distributed by an activist group, Centre for Health Justice, but only in a special unit reserved for gay men who ask to be assigned there. In San Francisco, a condom-dispensing machine has been placed in a jail recreation hall even though sexual activity remains officially prohibited. As someone said, people (being the authorities) don’t like to think about prisoners having sex, yet everybody knows it goes on. A recent US report suggested that lawmakers consider the condom policy. –AP and PlanetOut extracts.

 

13) LESBIAN/GAY BASHINGS STILL ON THE INCREASE IN THE USA!  The FBI issued a report late last year stating that hate crimes based on sexual orientation were now the third most common type behind those based on race and religion. The gay US news magazine, The Advocate, said that the FBI report confirms what the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has known for over a decade –hate-crimes protections for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community are long overdue. It quoted the HRC president as urging Congress to send legislation to the US president’s desk, and for President Bush to sign it into law.

In May 2007, the US House of Representatives passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act –known as the Matthew Shepard Act—in a bipartisan vote, and Senate approved as well. If enacted, the proposed law would give the US federal government expanded jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute violent crimes based on a person’s race, colour, religion, or national origin as well as their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability. It also provides assistance to local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence, according to an HRC press release. Apparently, it still hasn’t received a signature.—PlanetOut News.

 

14) BREAKING OVERSEAS NEWS:- 

The Sexual Minorities Uganda Group (SMUG) and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) have condemned arrests of 3 Ugandan LGBT activists by the Uganda Police Force on June 4. The activists were protesting outside the International HIV/AIDS Implementers’ meeting in Kampala. The gay protest was against the Uganda AIDS Commission’s director general who had stated that the government did not intend to waste meagre resources on men who have sex with other men. The co-chair of  SMUG said that he realised now how dangerous it is to express constitutional rights in Uganda and that he was worried about the safety of the three in police custody.

Military Police in Brazil on June 4 arrested an army sergeant who revealed he was gay in a national news magazine. He had been in a stable relationship with another soldier for 10 years. He was being interviewed about the magazine article on television when military police surrounded the TV station arresting him as he came out. Between 1963 and 2007, according to activists, more than 2,800 people were killed in Brazil because of their sexual orientation –BBC’s San Paulo correspondent.

 

15) THANK YOU to our kind friends who have yet again helped with donations to ensure we don’t give up producing the newsletter. We apologise for its lamentable infrequency. Gay time is like that!