Island Adventure Continues
The Cayman Islands' refusal to
allow an upcoming gay cruise
to dock for seven hours was not the first instance of homophobia experienced by travellers there. The story has found extensive mainstream coverage, and although the Caymans government has released only a brief statement to journalists, some further information has been reported which may shed some light on the "prior experience" cited by Caymans Minister of Tourism, Commerce & Transport Thomas Jefferson in determining that, "we cannot count on this [gay] group to uphold the standards of appropriate behavior expected of visitors to the Cayman Islands."
On Jan. 7, in the face of repeated calls from numerous media, the Caymans government issued a short statement that, while it regrets any offense caused by the rejection of the cruise, the nation's capital, George Town, can't handle large numbers of tourists, so the government limits passengers and "can be selective over which cruise calls are approved." It regularly turns down requests for more visits from a number of cruise lines. " However, the Norwegian Cruise Line ship that regularly docks at Grand Cayman Island is larger than the one chartered from them by Atlantis Events for the gay cruise, and is never the only cruise ship present.
An executive of a Dallas, Texas-based public relations firm representing the Caymans told the Los Angeles Times that the islands are "an ultraconservative, deeply religious country" and that there have been problems - which she would not detail - with gay tourists in the past. An unnamed Caymans Department of Tourism spokesperson told Reuters that when a gay cruise stopped at Grand Cayman Island a decade ago, the residents were so shocked to see male pairs holding hands and kissing that church groups determined to never admit a similar group again.
That may have been a 1987 cruise by the Minneapolis-based RSVP Travel Production, which docked in the Caymans with 850 passengers and received "a hostile reception from port authorities," according to RSVP's marketing director.
Olivia Cruises and Resorts, the leading producer of lesbian cruises, had a different experience. Olivia President Judy Dlugacz told the L.A. Times that they had had an 800-woman cruise dock in the Caymans for a day last spring without a problem, although they heard of opposition from a church group. Dlugacz added that she would not book a cruise to the Caymans now.
An unnamed hotel owner in George Town told Reuters that, "Anyone who says that the Cayman Islands does not welcome gay people is absolutely correct. Let them go to other places." The place the Atlantis Events cruise on a Norwegian Line ship will go instead is Belize, which issued a statement of welcome to the cruise.
The British Embassy to the U.S. in Washington, DC was contacted by Reuters, and claimed the decision was entirely up to the Caymans, although other sources have suggested that some international treaties signed by Britain may be binding on the Caymans as a British territory.[Newsplanet]
FBI's 1996 Hate Crime Stats
U.S. Attorney General Janet
Reno on Jan. 8 presented the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's new annual report "Hate Crime Statistics 1996," which counted 1,016 homophobic assaults in the U.S. in 1996. Among those incidents, 757 were known to be attacks on gay men and 150 were attacks on lesbians.
Reno took the occasion to call for enactment of legislation to extend federal laws to empower the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute crimes motivated by homophobia, and by bias against women and people with disabilities, as it does for those motivated by bias against a race, color, religion, or nationality. Senators Ted Kennedy (D-@) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced in November the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to that end. The 1993 Hate Crime Statistics Act, under which the annual report's data has been collected, was the first federal law to use the term "sexual orientation;" the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act also has sexual orientation as a motive for acts to be punished with longer sentences. However, few bias crimes are prosecuted under federal law, and according to the Human Rights Campaign only 19 of the states (and the District of Columbia) have hate crimes laws covering homophobic assaults. Reno also announced progress on some of the initiatives against bias crimes which had been discussed at the White House Conference on Hate Crimes in November, in particular noting that the Department of Justice would soon be distributing materials to aid schools in anti-bias education. Hate crimes coordinators appointed by the U.S. attorneys offices will hold a national meeting next month.
The good news about the new FBI report is that more law enforcement agencies participated in the data collection than ever before: 1 1,3 54 police agencies in the District of Columbia and every state except Hawaii, serving 84% of the U.S. population. (The Hate Crimes Statistics Act mandates the FBI to collect the data, but local agencies' participation is voluntary.) That's about 18% more agencies from four more states and covering 9% more of the population than data for the 1995 statistics. Although participation has increased each year, the changing database makes any comparison between years problematic. That's on top of other data collection issues, such as gays' and lesbians' hesitancy to report to some police authorities and inconsistent recognition of bias motivation by police, which lead to such findings as absolutely no homophobic assaults in 1996 in the state of Alabama (where in 1997 even showing the "Ellen" coming out episode was too much for the ABC affiliate in the relatively large city of Birmingham, and where just this week Montgomery's mayor took great pride in his own derogatory use of the word "queer" on television).
The 1996 report includes 8,759 incidents involving 10,706 offenses against 11,039 victims. Of those incidents, 61% (5,396) were race-based (most against Afiican-Americans), 16% (1,401) were religion-based (most against Jews), 12% (1,016) were sexual orientation-based, II% (940) were nationality-based, and six were motivated by more than one bias. The percentage of total incidents that were homophobic was slightly higher in 1995 (12.8% compared to II. 6% in 1996).
The national averages wash out what are often large differences between local bias crime profiles. For example, in San Francisco homophobic assaults made up 35% of reported hate crimes (90 of 260), reflecting not only a large and visible gay and lesbian population but also active efforts to encourage reporting. [Newsplanet]
Salt Lake
Repeals Job Rights
On Dec. 9, Salt Lake City became the first municipality in
Utah to enact protections from job discrimination for its own gay and lesbian employees; on Jan. 13, it became the first to repeal them. The job protections had passed the City Council by a vote of 5 to 2 and were repealed by a vote of 4 to 3. The vote followed hours of testimony from an emotional overflow crowd which overwhelmingly supported the workers' civil rights and created security concerns for the Council.
There was a rally outside City Hall even before the latest meeting began, as civil rights supporters put out the message that, "It's not about special rights, it's about equal rights." Eight police officers were posted around the building, which is more typically deserted for City Council meetings, and Councilmembers used a private entrance to the chambers. The crowd packed the room and overflowed into the hallways. Close to 80 people gave testimony in support of workplace protections from discrimination; only 16 spoke in favor of repeal, even though local churches had reportedly called on their congregations to attend the meeting. When the vote had been taken, Councilmember and 1997 Council chair Deeda Seed, who spent two years working towards the passage of the job fights measure, told the crowd, "Don't give up this fight. This is a struggle for justice. We can't give up. The fight goes on." That brought about I 00 citizens to their feet in a standing ovation -which prompted Council chair Bryce Jolley to call on police to clear the room. The rights supporters then chanted "Shame! Shame!" at Jolley until he withdrew his order.
Despite the apparently overwhelming support for civil rights at the Council meeting, a poll of 500 Salt Lake City residents by ABC affiliate KTVX-TV came up with a dead heat on the question, with 47% supporting an ordinance to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, 47% opposing, and 7% undecided. The same poll found that a 53% to 40% majority of women supported job protections while a 53% to 40% majority of men opposed them-a fairly common finding on gay and lesbian issues.
The stage was set for repeal a week before. Terms ended on Jan. 5 for three of the Councilmembers who'd supported the anti-discrimination ordinance. At the new Council's first meeting on Jan. 6, the rights measure's most vocal opponent, Bryce Jolley, was elected the Council's chair. Also at that first meeting, new Councilmember Roger Thompson, who'd previously been cagey on the issue, finally showed his hand by voting to put repeal on the Jan. 13 agenda. That was not a foregone conclusion, because Thompson had previously voted against the homophobia-motivated measure to ban all extracurricular school clubs when he served on the school board.
Jolley and the other repeal supporters have repeatedly denied any bias in their actions, claiming instead that the rights ordinance was a "bad law" and objecting to its being "railroaded" through a lame duck Council. Many have been skeptical of those protestations, believing instead that basic moral and religious motivations have been cloaked in rationales more consistent with separation of church and state. Some legal experts have seen no problem with the now-repealed ordinance, and likely most would agree that there are many "worse" laws on the books. Then there is Jolley's haste in the matter, as he rejected rights supporters' pleas to simply leave the ordinance in place until his promised "generic"-i.e., category-free-alternative has been prepared, which he's promised will take less than two months.
Repeal supporters have also claimed that there is no problem with anti-gay discrimination since there have been no complaints filed, ignoring the fact that in the absence of civil rights protections, city workers had neither grounds for making such a complaint nor the safety to file it without repercussions.
Vatican Denies
Fiery Protest
The Vatican and the Italian national gay and lesbian rights
group ArciG/ArciLesbica are debating in the media the meaning of a Sicilian man's self-immolation outside St. Peter's Basilica the morning of Jan. 13. Police found papers in a jacket Alfredo Ormando doffed before dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself afire, in which Ormando reportedly said that his family and society did not understand the problems he faced as a gay man. Although Ormando attempted to enter the Basilica while he was burning-collapsing before he reached the doorway-Vatican deputy spokesperson Father Ciro Benedettini told Reuters that, "The letter found on this person in no way affirms that his gesture was prompted by his presumed homosexuality or as a protest against the Church."
ArciG/ArciLesbica, which had been holding its own anti-violence candlelight protest the previous evening, has no doubt that Ormando chose St. Peter's to send a message to the Vatican. In a statement to the press, the group said that, "Alfredo Ormando set himself alight under the colonnade of St. Peter's Square to protest against traditional family values which discriminate against homosexuals, and against Catholic homophobia." In its continuing efforts to obtain greater government attention to continuing murderous violence against Italian gays and lesbians, ArciGay/ArciLesbica included a remark that, "The Roman Catholic Church is in large part responsible for feeding the prejudices against gays and lesbians."
Another gay spokesperson, Mario Mieli, said in a statement that, "We are stunned by this tragedy...caused in large measure, as can be seen by the place chosen for the attempted suicide, by the cultural oppression of the Catholic Church."
At last report, Ormando remained hospitalized in serious condition from his burns, which cover 90% of his body.[Newsplanet]
LEGAL to
Celebrate
Groundhog Day at Rubyfruit
Once again, the time of year has
come when we're offered the
chance to see if that popular local groundhog, Puxtapawney Phyllis, will crawl out of her hole and gaze upon her long, black, fuzzy shadow.
On Fri., Jan. 30 at Rubyfruit Jungle the affable brown mammal will help to raise funds for her favorite lesbian and gay charity, the Louisiana Electorate of Gays And Lesbians, Inc. (LEGAL), by giving a peek performance and coming out three full days ahead of schedule.
"That's gonna really freak them out at Groundhog Central," said Phyllis, "but do I care? No. It's for a very good cause."
Phyllis belongs to a very extended family of notable groundhogs, the most famous of whom is her great-grandfather, Puxtapawney Phil, who's been coming out in Pennsylvania for many, many years.
"Of all places. Pennsylvania," she said of her migration south. "I had to get out of there."
So, eventually, we had to put the question to Phyllis: are we going to have six more weeks of cold drizzle or will we be clad in our flowery Hawaiians togs before very long?
"Well, I'm not talking until January 30," said the famous groundhog in an interview yesterday. "Good things come to those who wait. See me at Rubyfruit, darling."
"I've never been understood," she said. "At Rubyfruit they understand me. They accept me. I'm not just another gay groundhog there. And if I can help to raise money for what LEGAL's doing, then, let me tell you, folks - I am there!"
You be there, too. Friday, January 30 at Rubyfruit Jungle.
