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Dutch marriage

AMSTERDAM,Netherla
nds—Th_e Dutch parliament’s
upper house has cleared the
final hurdle to legal marriage
and adoption by same-sex cou-
ples.

Parliament will strike the
words “mother and father” and
“man and woman” from civil
law, amending them to read
“partners” and wiping out the
last references distinguishing
gays from heterosexual cou-
ples.

An overwhelming majority
of parliament members stood
by their desks Tuesday in the
First Chamber to register their
vote in favor of the bills, and
no count was needed. The
lower house passed the bills
Sept. 12 by a vote of 109-33.

The legislation, expected to
take effect next April, will
affect some 20,000 Dutch chil-
dren with parents of the same
sex. But the laws will not allow
nonresident gay couples to
marry in the Netherlands or
register adopted children here.

“As far as possible, homo-
sexual marriage will have the
same consequences as hetero-
sexual marriages,” said the
Justice Ministry in a statement
Wednesday. “The normal rules
on maintenance obligations
will apply to same-sex mar-
riages.”

Mattachine leader
dies
SAN FRANCISCO - Hal

Call, an early leader of the
original Mattachine Society,

_ died on Dec. 18. He was 83.

“As president of the
National Mattachine Society,
(Call) made his mark and
helped to lay the indispensable
foundation,” Frank Kameny, a
long-time gay activist told
GayToday.Com, “providing
the impetus for the astonishing
cultural changes which we are
witnessing today.”

Historian James T. Sears of
Harvard University is writing a
biography of Call to be pub-
lished in 2002. “A champion of
sexual freedom,” said Sears,
“Hal Call refused to downplay
his sexuality, or apologize for
his sexual behavior.”

LIFE Magazine featured
Call in a 1964 article about
homosexuality in America, and
in 1967, Mike Wallace inter-
viewed him for a national CBS
TV documentary, The
Homosexual. Call was one of
the first openly gay individuals
seen nationwide.

Clemency denied
The Oklahoma Pardon and
Parole Board voted 3-1 on Dec.

15 to deny clemency to a les-
bian scheduled to be executed
in January for the death of her
lover.

“Her time is up,” Assistant
Attorney General Sandy
Howard told the board, cau-
tioning them not to see the
impending execution as a mile-
stone. Wanda Jean Allen would

'be the first woman put to death

since Oklahoma ‘gained state-
hood. ,

Eight civil rights, minority,
and anti-violence organizations
have joined the American Civil
Liberties Union to work for
Allen’s clemency. Citing ques-
tionable legal representation
and Allen’s reduced mental
capacity along with general
opposition to the death penalty,
they will focus on Oklahoma
Gov. Frank Keating.

Eric F errero of the ACLU’s
Lesbian and Gay Rights
Project, said the plan is three-
pronged. “We will encourage
public pressure, urging people
to call and write to Gov.
Keating,” he said.

Political pressure may also
factor into the picture. Keating

' is said to be on the shortlist of

candidates for United States
Attorney General, an appoint-
ment that requires Senate
approval. The ACLU believes
action in Allen’s favor by
Keating might help his chances
in that evenly divided chamber.

Finally, Ferrero said,
although the Roman Catholic
governor has publicly dis-
agreed with the church’s posi-
tion on the death penalty, reli-
gious pressure might have
some effect.

Keating could issue a stay of
execution and ask the Pardon
and Parole Board to reconsider
Allen’s case based on specific
issues. Only the board, howev-
er, can ultimately spare Allen’s
life.

“Although Gov. Keating
does not have the outright
power to grant clemency,” said
Ferrero, “he does have the
power to see that Wanda Jean
Allen is not executed on Jan.
11. We will be asking him to
exercise that power.”

Appeal set

A gay man on death row in
Texas will have another chance
to plead his case to a federal
appeals court. “

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals agreed to hear the
case of Calvin Burdine, con-
victed of stabbing his lover, W.
T. Wise, to death with a butch-
er knife, in _spite of the fact that
his attorney, Joe Cannon, slept
through a significant portion of
the trial. The defense also said

the prosecuting attorney used
anti-gay slurs in the original
trial.

A three-judge panel of the
court ruled 2-1 in October that
Burdine’s rights were not vio-
lated, and that he could not
prove Cannon, who has since
died, slept during important
court proceedings.

It is rare, Burdine’s current
attorney told the Associated
Press, for the full court to
review a decision of one of its
panels. “It’s safe to say the
majority of the full court has
serious doubts about the cor-
rectness of the panel opinion in
this case,” he said.

A spokesperson from the
Texas Attorney. General’s
office agreed that it was an
unusual move.

Burdine was sentenced to
death in 1984. His latest appeal
will be heard in New Orleans
on Jan. 22.

Canada customs

OTTAWA——A Canadian
Supreme Court ruling will
force the country’s customs
officials to prove material is
obscene before it can be seized
at the border. Until the Dec. 15
decision, the burden was on
intended recipients to ‘prove
that there was no‘ obscenity.

In the 6-3 decision, the
Court said officials can now
hold material for up to 30 days,
after which it must be released
if no obscenity is proven. The
three dissentingjudges favored
completely -striking down the
legislation barring the import
of obscene material.

The Court also found that
Vancouver gay and lesbian
bookstore Little Sisters suf-
fered “excessive and unneces-
sary prejudice” in dealings
with Canada Customs. Nearly
300 packages intended for the
store have been destroyed in its
16-year battle with the customs
agency.

“When Customs officials
prohibit and thereby censor
lawful gay and lesbian erotica,
they are making a statement
about gay and lesbian culture,
and the statement was reason-
ably interpreted (by Little
Sisters) as demeaning gay and
lesbian values,” wrote Justice
Ian Binnie in the opinion. “The
message was that their con-
cerns were ‘less worthy of
attention and respect than those
of their heterosexual counter-
parts.”

The decision is hailed as a
major‘ step forward in the fight
for lesbian and gay rights in
Canada.

 

January 2001 I Out in the Mountains |3
  = news =

Toronto banns

TORONTO—A church with
a predominantly gay and les-
bian congregation plans to
make Canada the first country
to legally marry a same-sex
couple.

The Metropolitan
Community Church is using a
centuries-old Christian practice
of publishing marriage banns
to circumvent laws prohibiting
issuing marriage licenses to
same-sex couples. The Ontario
Marriage Act accepts banns as
common law, but contains no
reference to the gender of the
individuals being married.

Any church that has been in
existence for 25 years or more
may legally marry a couple
after publishing intent to do so
for three weeks.

If no legal reasons are raised
as to why the two people can-
not marry, a ceremony is per-
formed and documentation is
sent to the registrar general,
who would then issue a mar-
riage certificate.

Opponents maintain
Canadian federal common law
prohibits issuing a marriage
certificate to couples of_ the
same gender. ‘‘In order to con-
tract a legally valid marriage,”
Lisa Hitch, senior counsel with
the federal Justice Department,
told the Vancouver Sun, “you
must comply with provincial
law and comply with federal
law.”

Doug Elliott, an attorney for
the MCC, said Hitch is wrong.
He said the common law to
which she points has been
superceded
recent cases. Also, he told the
Sun, “There is nothing in the
marriage act that says the mar-
riage isn’t valid unless it’s reg-
istered by the registrar gener-
al.”

MCC pastor Brent Hawkes
announced the church’s plans
from the pulpit on Dec. 3.
“Until now, we have felt
restricted from acting on our
beliefs by what we thought was
a legitimate
regarding same-sex weddings,”
he said. “Being called by God
to many same-sex couples, we
recently sought legal advice
and as a result we have
changed out position on the
legality of same-sex mar-
riages.” The congregation, 85
percent of which is gay and les-
bian, according to the National
Post, responded with cheers
and applause.

Hawkes said he isn’t wor-
ried about the “any objections”

repeatedly in _

impediment ‘

portion of the -banns require-
ment. ‘‘I don’t expect to get any
objections,” he said. “The
objections must be based on
legal grounds.” According to
the legal advice he has
received, there are none.

Radio suit

Ajury in Cobb County, Ga.
has ordered Todd Wolff to pay
a former co-worker, Anthony
Middlebrooks, $280,000 in
damages for supposedly outing
him on a local radio show.

Middlebrooks is not gay
said he was “deeply offended”
when Wolff, the man who had
fired him the day before, called
radio station 99X to tell host
Jimmy Baron-——on the air——
that Middlebrooks had claimed
to have had an affair with
Baron.

“Basically, he was accusing
me of promiscuous adultery,”
Middlebrooks, a married
father, told the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution.

There’s more to the story,
though, said Kevin McClellan
of the Atlanta office of Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation. Jimmy Baron is
notorious, McClellan said, for
his anti-gay commentary. “We
get at least a call a week from
people complaining about
things he says about gays on
the air,” he said. “That anyone
would believe it [Wolff ’s story]
is shocking because of Baron’s
history.”

More likely, McClellan said,
is that Middlebrooks saw a way
to get back at the man who had
fired him.

Middlebrooks’ attorney,
Christopher J. Moorman,
focused on the insinuated adul-
tery in claim rather than the
homosexuality. — “I was not
there to label homosexuality as
wrong,” he told Law.com.

There’s a strong likelihood,
said GLAAD’s McClellan,
though, that the gay issue
played into the jury’s decision.
“There are still many bastions
of that kind of thinking here,”
he said. He said Middlebrook
made it clear in early press
coverage that being accused of
being gay angered him as much
as anything else.

According to Kent
Middleton, a professor of jour-
nalism and communications
law at the University of
Georgia, slander is defined by
the community in which it
takes place. “Anything that
causes a person to be shunned
or humiliated” can pass that
test, he told Law.com. Being

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