Britain has become the first nation on Earth to give GLBT people total equality under the law with the enacting of that country’s Equality Act, which amongst other things, bans all discrimination against non-heterosexuals in the provision of goods and services.

The legislation, passed earlier this month, bans discrimination on the grounds of “religion or belief or sexual orientation” in the provision of “goods, facilities and services, the management of premises, education and the exercise of public functions” and establishes a “Commission for Equality and Human Rights” to replace previous commissions covering issues of race, disability and equal opportunity.

It also bans discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment whether transition to a new gender is underway or fully completed.

It will also be illegal to ban heterosexuals from entry to gay businesses and establishments such as gay bars.

The Act comes after nearly a decade of reforms by the Blair Labour Government, beginning with the end of the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the British armed forces in 1999, the equalising of age of consent laws at 16 in 2001, the legalisation of gay and lesbian adoption in 2002, the repeal of the controversial Section 28 law that banned discussion of gay issues in schools in 2003 and the introduction of civil partnerships for same sex couples in 2005.

Civil partnerships gave British GLBT people equality to marriage in relationship matters in all but name, and such partnerships are being blessed as marriages by gay friendly denominations and are already referred to as “marriages” colloquially in the British press.

The gay provisions in the Equality Act were vigorously opposed by the Catholic Church, conservative Protestants and British Muslims, with the Catholic Church threatening to shut down its entire adoption system if they were to be forced to treat gay and lesbian couples like any other applicants.

Faith based agencies will be given till then end of 2008 to either comply with the new regulations or carry out this threat.

The Act was voted into law by 310 to 100 with 29 members of the British Conservative Party voting in favour of the legislation including party leader David Cameron, though a block of his MP’s tried unsuccessfully to delay the legislation further and one of it’s Lords tried to have it quashed altogether.

British GLBT rights groups will now concentrate on pushing for the inevitable change in terminology from “civil partnerships” to “marriage”, and in strengthening anti-hate speech legislation, as well as working to assist groups in other countries to achieve the same equality, with Stonewall co-founder and actor Michael Cashman telling the BBC, “Just because we have achieved equality doesn’t mean we pack up and go home.”

The introduction of the Equality Act will also solidify outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair’s legacy as the greatest political champion of GLBT rights in British history, despite his term in office being otherwise marred by the Iraq War and a recent Labour Party fundraising corruption scandal.

By Andrew M. Potts - Editor

The 30th of April should go down in history as one of the most important civil rights landmarks of the 21st Century and the most important of its first decade.

For the first time in human history a country has granted its GLBT people true equality under the law in every category.

GLBT Britons can look on their nation with new eyes today- with the pride of knowing that they are now, finally, full citizens of that country.

Whatever else Tony Blair is remembered for, none can fault him for his bravery and commitment on this particular issue.

Rather than treating ignorance and prejudice as if it deserved respect, he met the bigoted head on and argued the facts- he was prepared to lead his nation to greater things while others would have meekly followed opinion polls and reached for the lowest common denominator.

In doing so, he not only won the debate and rallied his own party but forced the British Conservative Party to drop homophobia as an election strategy as well, and the Tories now have more sitting gay MP’s than the Australian Liberal Party has had in its entire history.

Now only the fringe Fascist British National Party sees any mileage in electoral gay bashing in Briton.

Meanwhile back in Australia we are facing another Labor Party which is far from brave, and all too shaky in its commitments to true equality for GLBT people.

Reforms that were passed in the UK nearly half a decade ago (such as adoption rights) still seem far from reach here, and a golden opportunity to show some backbone at this years ALP’s national convention has been thrown aside to placate the Party’s bigoted hard right Catholic faction.

Four years since a registration system was set up in Tasmania, the ALP is not prepared to introduce anything greater at a national level- and even then not federally where it counts.

The Federal ALP is planning to have its cake and eat it too- by telling gay Australia to expect symbolic reform, while laying the blame on the states when it comes to polling day to keep religious voters on side.

Even the long promised federal reforms, falling short of real respect, will be delayed with a Rudd Labor government planning to repeat the work of the Human Rights Commission and many years of hard work by activists by doing its own legislative audit before lifting a finger to make changes…

It will be a long and expensive process. The Liberals, Nationals and Family First will want to debate every single change to every single Act.

It will take weeks and months and years- and even then we cannot be guaranteed that the work will be completed in the four years allotted to the next federal government.

That means the ALP will most likely need to win two, not one, federal elections before we see the current promises fulfilled and maybe another four after that before the courage is found to grant full adoption, real equality in the form of same sex marriage, and the removal of the right to sack and expel GLBT people that remains the unique privilege of the religious.

We may have to wait as long as Howard has been in power again before we become the full citizens of this nation that we deserve to be.

However, in going so far to placate the right the Labor machine may have set itself up to be shackled.

The registry cop out, combined with the party’s change of tune on Uranium mining will see many Labor left voters looking seriously at the Greens, a party that is unwavering in its commitment to full legal equality and the respect of full marriage.

As Greens leader Bob Brown has noted, Rudd can win Government but he cannot win the Senate alone.

It will either be a Liberal and Family First controlled Senate, or a Greens controlled Senate, and that is where many disgruntled Labor and GLBT voters will be making their dissatisfaction heard.

It seems that little could happen before the next Federal election to keep Rudd out of office in Canberra but there is every chance that the Greens will be there too to keep him honest.

Tasmanian activist Rodney Croome has accused the Australian Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission of failing the principles it was set up to uphold after it refused to investigate a complaint over the Red Cross’ blood donation policy that bars gay men as donors no matter how responsibly they act.

The policy does not bar heterosexuals who have unsafe sex with non-committed partners, but all gay and bisexual men are banned from donating even if they act responsibly by always engaging in safe sex.

The complaint against the Australian Red Cross was brought by blood donation campaigner Michael Cain but was dismissed despite Tasmania’s state Anti-Discrimination Commission finding the complaint had merit and launching their own inquiry.

In making his complaint Cain cited evidence from medical authorities in Spain and Italy that showed that accidental HIV infection caused by contaminated blood from transfusions had dropped substantially since both those countries switched their guidelines to focus on sexual behaviour rather than sexual orientation when screening out risky donors.

Instead, Croome writes, HREOC “[fell] back on the Red Cross’ outdated and irrelevant rationale that higher than average rates of HVI amongst men who have sex with other men means all such men should be barred from blood donation”, before going on to point out that, “A higher proportion of Aboriginal people have blood borne diseases too, but HREOC wouldn't dare endorse the view that all Aborigines should be banned from blood donation.”

Croome says the HREOC’s thinking on this matter reminds him of the Tasmanian Government’s arguments in resisting international pressure to decriminalise gay sex, writing “when the Tasmanian Government defended itself before the UN Human Rights Committee in the early 1990s its case was almost exactly the same as those who defend the gay blood donor today- it said that gay sex should be criminalised because it puts people at higher risk of HIV infection.”

“It said that its laws were "about acts, not people", so human rights guarantees didn’t apply [and] these are exactly the arguments HREOC uses to dismiss Michael Cain’s complaint.”

The Tasmanian Commission was due to confirm dates for a formal hearing into gay blood donation earlier this month.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has announced that his state will be the first on the mainland to offer formal recognition to same sex couples since the Federal Government vetoed the ACT’s second attempt at introducing civil unions there.

The State Government has indicated it will move to introduce a registration scheme similar to that which has been operating in Tasmania, and that it should be introduced before the end of the year.

The move may be an attempt to placate gay and lesbian voters since the rise of the Victorian Greens at the state election, and to head off any attempt by that party to use its share of the balance of power to force the government into passing more controversial civil unions legislation at a later stage.

The bill has received tentative support from the Victorian Opposition, and even from the Australian Christian Lobby, on the condition that no adoption rights are granted and that the proposal does not “mimic” marriage.

It is believed that the enacting legislation would have no provision for ceremonies, and that a simple certificate would be issued on proof of a committed relationship.

The move by the Victorian government follows hot on the heals of a similar scheme enacted by Melbourne City Council, with the first couple to be recognised, Melbourne men David Elliott and Ka Chun Tse receiving their certificate only last week.

The move has prompted Independent MP and Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore to call on the NSW Government to follow suit with similar reforms in NSW.

City of Sydney has been operating its own relationship register or Relationships Declaration Program for three years following on from a program introduced by the now defunct South Sydney Council.

Neither the Sydney or Melbourne registries carried any legal weight in themselves.

The proposed Victorian state based registry would not grant any additional rights to couples but could potentially simplify many procedures under state law by providing a single piece of evidence proving the existence of a committed relationship.

Western Australian lobby group Gay & Lesbian Equality has also called on the Labor government there to implement similar changes.

The national conference of the Australian Labor Party has approved a motion declaring the party’s stance on same sex relationship recognition for the next federal election.

The Labor Party will offer gay and lesbian couples a nation wide registration system, similar to that introduced in Tasmania, but will not countenance marriage rights for same sex couples or civil unions.

However, a closer reading of the text reveals that the registration schemes would be carried out under state laws, meaning that they would have no direct impact on issues of federal inequality.

This means that all issues of federal discrimination would still need to be dealt with separately on a law by law basis, rather than the “one stroke of the pen” effect of a federally recognised marriage or civil unions scheme.

The Labor Party had already committed to removing discrimination under federal law short of marriage or civil unions, but this will still be an expensive and time consuming process, as over 60 separate pieces of legislation need to be changed, possibly taking years.

That too could be delayed as the Labor Party has indicated that it wants to carry out its own audit to identify all such pieces of legislation despite the Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission doing exactly that earlier this year.

The full text of the motion read-

“Labor will ensure that all couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life do not suffer discrimination because they are not married.”

“Labor will take action to ensure the development of nationally consistent, state-based relationship recognition legislation that will include the opportunity for couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life to have those relationships registered and certified.”

“This legislation will be based on the scheme that has existed in Tasmania since 2004 and that the Victorian Government has announced its intention to introduce [and will] not create schemes that mimic marriage or undermine existing laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman.”

The proposed registry would not expand any access to adoption rights and has no provision for ceremonies.

The motion was passed despite Joe De Bruyn from the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association speaking out against it, claiming even this gesture would undermine marriage.

The bill was seconded by Senator Joe Ludwig, an important figure in the Queensland Labor right faction, implying that the offer of state registries may be a tactic to console the left of the party in the lead up the federal election.

In principle, the registry scheme would not prevent the ACT from attempting to pass its more wide ranging Civil Unions Bill if Labor are elected to government at the next federal election.

In response to the motion, Tanya Plibersek, Labor Member for Sydney said, “This is a great step in the right direction. I believe we need to give formal recognition to all loving and committed relationships. While it is not marriage, such a scheme will ensure that same sex couples will be able to easily prove the existence of a relationship to state and commonwealth government agencies.”

The ALP’s decision leaves the Greens and Australian Democrats as the only major parties taking civil unions and same sex marriage as policies to the next federal election.

The shootings today in the US should highlight the need to stop guns from getting into the hands of the general public here in Australia. So many young lives lost. How do families recover from something like this?

Americans are adament about their civil rights and the ability to carry firearms, but what about the rights of the kids who just wanted to go to Uni and study, safely.

Does Australia really need a Shooters Party? If there are no guns then no one can get hurt. Please, someone show some common sense!
Della

I am a student from America currently getting work experience here at the Pink Directory in Australia. I was going about my usual tasks this morning when a friend alerted me to the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred earlier today. To say I was horrified is an understatement. In a matter of hours, 32 students and faculty were killed for no reason. What makes me sick is that many of these deaths could have been prevented! Authorities knew at 7am that a shooter was on the campus grounds. Instead of alerting people immediately to stay in their rooms and away from windows, authorities waited until around 9:30am to send an email telling students to be CAREFUL while making their way around campus that day. Several minutes before this email was sent out, the gunman had opened fire in one of the classroom buildings killing 29 more people before turning the gun on himself. What were they waiting for? If students and faculty had been properly alerted, lives could have been saved today!
There is no way to make sense of this heinous crime. It can only be described as a complete and utter tragedy. Sadly, there will probably be another school shooting one day. I just hope that officials learn from today. Violent acts CAN be prevented. My heart and sympathy goes out to all people involved with the Virginia Tech shootings today.
I’m just at a loss for words. It’s hard to explain one’s feelings so quickly after something so terrible happens. I’m drained emotionally. What do you think about the tragedy that took place today?

Sydney’s Daily Telegraph hit a new low last week when it published a comment on one of its moderated readers’ forums suggesting that homosexuals deserved to be killed.

“Why do gays have a chip on their shoulder... Maybe we should buy them an island and put all the gays on there and pray for a Tsunami!” wrote Telegraph reader Hussein Saab.
And what was it that drove Mr Saab’s call for the mass drowning of Australia’s GLBT population?
David Graham had complained to a Telegraph journalist that judges on Channel 7’s Dancing With The Stars were treating him worse than he deserved.
He didn’t say it had anything to do with his sexuality (indeed the host who the bulk of the complaints centered around is gay himself), he didn’t even suggest he deserved no criticism.
But as happens all too often when the Telegraph runs a story on its website relating to gay issues, the homophobes were quick to chime in.

To finish reading this Editorial and read other articles affecting the Gay and Lesbian community, visit www.thepinkbroad.com.au today!