[OutVoice] Penny Wong's marriage rights+Alec Mapa on "The View"+global LGBT news

[tworadio at aol.com]

 "THIS WAY OUT: the international lesbian & gay radio magazine"
Program #1,166 - distributed 8/2/10
Airs on more than 200 local stations around the world... or
Listen now via our free podcasts at
http://www.thiswayout.org
(hosted by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle)
Loyalties collide for lesbian Aussie Cabinet Minister Penny Wong;
Comic actor Alec Mapa schmoozes with "The View" crew;
Jerusalem Pride marches from mourning to commitment, a busted Zimbabwe
activist goes free despite the latest presidential anti-gay diatribe,
Argentina's first equal knots are tied, couples court rights in New
Jersey, Arizona, Montana, and Hawai'i, and more global LGBT news
  
- In "NewsWrap": Thousands march in a subdued Pride procession in Jerusalem that remembers the bloody massacre at Tel Aviv's LGBT community center almost exactly a year ago... Ignatius Muhambi, one of the staffmembers of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe arrested during a raid on the group's office in May, is acquitted of pornography charges... two gay couples wed under Argentina's new marriage equality law, while six lesbigay couples file suit against the U.S. state of New Jersey demanding full marriage rights to replace inferior civil unions, a federal judge issues a temporary injunction to prevent the removal of domestic partner benefits for same-gender-partnered Arizona state government workers, seven gay and lesbian couples sue the state of Montana for some form of legal recognition of their relationships, and six same-gender couples sue the state of Hawai'i for rights equivalent to marriage... a "One Man, One Woman" bus tour targeting key political U.S. battleground states sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage prompts questions about the anti-gay group's motives, and notes a particularly vile bible-based incident in Indianapolis, Indiana that recalls an online posting a few years ago satirically asking a few questions about the literal interpretation of other scriptural passages (written by GREG GORDON, and reported this week by JOHN TORRES and JON BEAUPRE).
  
- AUSTRALIA's lesbian cabinet minister and Senator PENNY WONG heads the government's Department of Climate Change, but the elevated temperatures around her this week had nothing to do with the weather. Wong has played a major role in passing legislation giving rights in several areas to Australian same-gender couples. However, the country's first out and first Asian cabinet-level official said during a July 25th Channel Ten political discussion that she supports her Labor Party's heterosexuals-only definition of marriage. Those statements launched a firestorm that confronted Wong a few days later on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program "Q & A". An audience questioner pinned Wong down on her position, then Greens Senator CHRISTINE MILNE launched an attack that included Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the entire Labor Party. Wong was defended by conservative Labor powerbroker and pundit GRAHAM RICHARDSON.
  
- His credits include "M. Butterfly" on Brodway and Hollywood's "You Don't Mess with The Zohan", but comic-actor ALEC MAPA is probably best known for his memorable recurring roles on TV's "Desperate Housewives" and "Ugly Betty". Mapa has been called "America's Gaysian Sweetheart" because of his fundraising efforts for LGBT causes, and he certainly charmed the hosts of ABC-TV's daytime talkfest "THE VIEW" this week. He sat in the center of the show's extra-large sofa, flanked by its co-hosts WHOOPI GOLDBERG, JOY BEHAR, SHERRI SHEPHERD, and ELISABETH HASSELBECK (with intro/outro music from "I Love To Laugh" from the "Mary Poppins" soundtrack).
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On the air since April 1988, "This Way Out" is the multi-award-winning internationally distributed weekly gay and lesbian radio newsmagazine.
The program currently airs on more than 200 local community radio stations around the world, globally distributed at www.radio4all.net, www.indymedia.org, to Pacifica Radio station affiliates in North America, and "Down Under" through distribution by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia's ComRadSat.  Listeners can also hear "This Way Out"  on short wave via Costa Rica-based global station RFPI (Radio For Peace International/www.rfpi.org), across Europe, Africa/the Middle East, and Asia/Pacific regions on the World Radio Network (www.wrn.org), and on audio CD by individual subscription.
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