posted 16 March, 2002 /updated 27march

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Human Rights Watch Volume XVIV (27march/02)

in this issue:

also see the Egale newsletter for February 2002

HOW IBM HELPED AUTOMATE THE NAZI DEATH MACHINE IN POLAND

FINAL SOLUTIONS by EDWIN BLACK

ON THE PROWL
The Age, by MICHAEL GORDON

16 March 2002

(SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA)  Picture it. Dusk is falling at the Wall, one of Sydney's more notorious gay pick-up spots. The rent boys, teenagers who sell their bodies for sex, are waiting for customers. Among those cruising by is a high-profile Liberal senator from New South Wales. He's looking for clues. Soliciting stat decs, not sex. And hoping to catch a public figure trawling the streets.

It sounds bizarre, but no more bizarre than a judge arriving at this seedy stretch of Darlinghurst after a long day in court to pick up young male prostitutes in his Commonwealth car and take them to a nearby address that is known to police.

Both images were created this week by Senator Bill Heffernan, anti-sex abuse campaigner, Liberal loose cannon, one of John Howard's closest political allies and now the highest-profile conspiracy theorist in the Federal Parliament.

The first image is based on fact, for Heffernan is the senator in question. The second is a matter of conjecture, either a figment of the imagination of a man totally obsessed with the idea that people in high places are paedophiles, or a damning indictment of Australia's most respected jurist, the last judge to be appointed to the High Court during the prime ministership of Paul Keating, a man who has disagreed more than once with the Howard Government. Heffernan's evidence includes statutory declarations he says he took from former rent boys who worked at the Wall. Justice Michael Kirby dismisses Heffernan's "homophobic accusations" as false and absurd. Either way, as Employment Minister Tony Abbott, another of Howard's strongest supporters, expressed it this week: "The tragedy is that one or other of them is going to have his public career destroyed as a result of this." Quite possibly both will fall.

But the fallout from Heffernan's outburst goes beyond the impact on the respective careers of the two men. It also goes to the concern Governor-General Peter Hollingworth raised in his interview on the ABC's Australian Story last month, the one he hoped (wrongly, as it turned out) would dispel doubts about his own suitability for high office. As the Governor-General said then: "Provided a person's behaviour and conduct is exemplary, their sexual orientation is absolutely irrelevant, and I would object to anybody who tries to draw a connection between homosexuality and paedophilia, and that's what some people are trying to do."

By accusing a High Court judge who has been open about his homosexuality (since Kirby outed himself in his Who's Who entry of 1999) of being a paedophile, Heffernan invites a witch-hunt against others in high places prepared to proclaim their identity. As Peter Condliffe, chief executive of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia, put it yesterday: "Justice Kirby is the one being attacked now, but who will be next?"

If Heffernan's allegations lead to the laying of charges against Kirby, the judge's reputation will be ruined, irrespective of the outcome in court. If he is found guilty of criminal conduct, it would constitute "proved misbehaviour" and grounds for his sacking under section 72 of the constitution.

If, however, police decide there is no case to answer, as they did when Heffernan presented the very same complaints a few years ago, Kirby will still have been damaged and Heffernan would surely be unable to resume his position as cabinet secretary in the Howard Government.

This outcome would hardly be surprising, since the 1997 Wood Royal Commission examined the same allegations and concluded there could not be any "adverse inference" against Kirby.

But the issue will not be settled even if the police decide there are no grounds for laying charges, not least because Heffernan has no intention of backing off, irrespective of the consequences.

As one well-placed source remarked yesterday: "Heffo is on a mission from God as he sees it. He won't let up." Heffernan's allegation that Kirby had put himself "at grave risk of blackmail, entrapment, compromise and hypocrisy" by picking up young male prostitutes and contemptuously misused the Comcar service will not be laid to rest by a finding that he has not committed a crime. Even if police find those who gave Heffernan statements and consider them unreliable witnesses, there is every possibility that Heffernan will table his statutory declarations and Comcar dockets in the Senate.

What happens then? No one knows.

When Howard was asked by John Laws yesterday how the episode would play out, he replied: "I'm not entirely sure. Obviously, the view taken by the New South Wales Police will be relevant, but there may be other things of which I'm not aware. It's not a normal occurrence, this, and I therefore have to handle it in the best way I can, try to be fair to everybody but remembering that I've got a role in it ..."

Some, including Heffernan, see this episode as the peg for a royal commission into child sexual abuse. Several MPs supported some form of inquiry at this week's meeting of Coalition MPs, though the Prime Minister argued against it, saying he was not convinced it would advance the cause of helping victims or preventing abuse.

One narrower option would be to follow the advice the Law Council of Australia gave in the case of Justice Ian Callinan of the High Court in 1998 and set up a committee to examine whether parliament should sack Kirby for "proved misbehaviour".

(This followed a Federal Court decision that Callinan, while a Brisbane barrister, had given advice to a law firm that led to a serious abuse of the legal process. The government opposed an inquiry and, in the end, the Australian Democrats agreed, fearing it would "degenerate into a political witch-hunt".)

Howard yesterday appeared to recognise the probable need for something further when he told Laws "proven misbehaviour" under the constitution, though undefined, could "take many forms and cover a lot of conduct".

The Prime Minister inadvertently gave a working definition of "proven misbehaviour" last month when he vigorously rejected demands that Hollingworth be sacked for his mishandling of sexual abuse cases while archbishop of Brisbane.

"There's no evidence before me that he (Hollingworth) has, in the discharge of those responsibilities, committed any crime and I'm confirmed in that conclusion by the advice of the first law officer of the Commonwealth, the Attorney-General. He's not been guilty of any moral turpitude," Howard said, defining moral turpitude as "behaving in a depraved or base way".

Some conspiracy theorists in Labor ranks (although they can be found on both sides of politics) will suggest these words were deliberately chosen, knowing full well Heffernan was hell-bent on seeking Kirby's removal on these very grounds.

Howard would treat this suggestion with similar contempt to the charge that Heffernan staged his assault on Kirby to divert attention from the government's problems on other fronts, particularly the final confirmation from the commander of HMAS Adelaide that he never said children of asylum seekers were thrown overboard during the election campaign.

The charge of deliberate diversion might have some appeal if the episode did not have the potential to damage the government and the Prime Minister, especially if Heffernan's claims are found again to be baseless.

We know that the Prime Minister was well aware of Heffernan's determination to destroy Kirby and that he counselled the senator last year against the improper use of parliamentary privilege. What we do not know is whether he told his friend to back off and whether he expressed concern for Kirby or the High Court.

If it emerges that Heffernan brazenly defied his leader and proceeded with the assassination without adequate grounds, he should be sacked immediately. Howard's failure to act would damage his leadership as surely as Daryl Williams' failure to defend Kirby will hurt his credibility.

As for Heffernan, he says he aired the allegations in parliament only after failing to have his concerns satisfactorily addressed when he first went to the police. But he also suggests he has new evidence - Comcar records and another statutory declaration - that he has now given to the NSW police.

This doesn't wash.

If he does have new evidence, he should have gone to the police first and used parliament only as a last resort.

And Howard should have made sure he did not make his claims in the Senate until the police had decided whether to re-open their investigation. But giving Kirby any semblance of natural justice is not a concern of Heffernan who first told the Senate of his concerns 12months ago about a judge he considered unfit to sit in judgment on people charged with sex offences against children.

That outburst followed an attack by Labor's Mark Latham, who accused Heffernan of being "personally obsessed" with all things homosexual. "He has turned his office into a star chamber to satisfy his own homophobic and bigoted views," Latham said. Before parliament rose on Thursday night, Latham had another whack, using an adjournment speech to accuse Heffernan of double standards and hypocrisy. He said he first had a debate with Heffernan when the senator attacked one of his constituents, John Marsden, the high-profile Sydney solicitor who last year won a defamation payout from Channel Seven after being accused by NSW Labor MPs of having sex with under-age boys.

"I say: judge Senator Heffernan by his results. What was the result of those serious allegations levelled against my constituent, John Marsden? In fact, nothing has been proven. No action has been taken in an 18-month period simply because there was no action to take," he said. Latham also asked why the man who privately advocated the sacking of Hollingworth had chosen the "coward's course" and not taken this concern to the floor of the Senate, too.

Another Labor man, Leo McLeay, who is among the more socially conservative MPs on either side of parliament, said he knew of little support for Heffernan's attack against Kirby. "He parades himself around as a simple farmer from Junee, but he is just a nasty bastard from William Street."

Within Coalition ranks, opinion is divided between those who follow Howard's lead and say they will suspend judgment until the episode "plays itself out", and those who are dismayed at the abuse of parliamentary privilege and linking of homosexuality and paedophilia.

Among those in the latter category is Marise Payne, who abstained from voting with the Coalition against a demand that Heffernan apologise to Kirby and the Senate. Even some of those who believe Heffernan was entitled to unleash his assault also feel that, as things now stand, he has suffered more damage than Kirby.

But this will neither deter the senator nor console the judge. Both know this tawdry episode has a long way to run.

O'DONNELL SPEAKS OUT FOR GAY PARENTS (USA)

'I'm the kind of parent Florida ... thinks is unworthy' CNN

March 15, 2002

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, publicly discussing her homosexuality for the first time, says her own experience as a gay parent proves that the state of Florida and President Bush are "wrong" in their opposition to gay adoption.

"I don't think America knows what a gay parent looks like," O'Donnell, the mother of three adopted children, tells correspondent Diane Sawyer in a televised interview to air on the ABC News program "Primetime Thursday."

"I am the gay parent."

O'Donnell, who turns 40 this month, says she was moved to openly discuss her sexuality and motherhood after reading about the case of Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau, a gay couple suing the state of Florida to overturn its ban on gay adoption.

The American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Lesbian and Gay Rights Project is leading the lawsuit with Lofton, Croteau, and Wayne Smith and Dan Skahen -- two other Florida gay foster parents who want to adopt -- as plaintiffs

 

"I'm saying it now because I want people to know that I'm the kind of parent the state of Florida ... thinks is unworthy, and it's wrong," she says, in excerpts of the interview provided by ABC News.

Asked by Sawyer what she thinks about President Bush's statement that children ought to be adopted in families with a woman and a man who are married, O'Donnell replied, "Well, he's wrong. President Bush is wrong about that.

"If ... he and his wife are invited to come spend a weekend at my house with my children ... I'm sure his mind would change."

Her interview comes just weeks before the former stand-up comic and actress plans to end her six-year, Emmy-winning and renominated stint as host of "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" in order to spend more time with her adopted children -- two boys and a girl -- Parker, 6; Chelsea, 4; and Blake, 2.

'Well-adjusted' kids

She describes her children as "well-adjusted" and "happy," although she acknowledges they'll likely be teased for having a gay mom and that it probably "would be easier for them if I were married to a man."

O'Donnell says that if she had to choose between having her children "go through the struggles of being gay in America, or being heterosexual? I would say heterosexual."

She adds, "If I could take a pill to make myself straight, I wouldn't do it, because I am who I am, and I've come to this point in my life, and I'm very happy, you know. But it's a lot easier in the world to be heterosexual than it is to be gay."

O'Donnell says bias against gay adoption exists because of the widely held perception that "the gay lifestyle is a lot of party, pretty boys and South Beach dancing."

"But those are generally not the people who are applying to adopt," she said. "It's people who are settled who know that the priority in their life is to have a family."

While the interview marks her first public acknowledgment that she's a lesbian, O'Donnell says she never sought to keep her sexuality a secret. The star says she waited this long to go public, in part, because she wanted to be "in a committed, long-term relationship." O'Donnell and her current companion have been together about four years, she says.

Asked about past comments that she found actor Tom Cruise attractive, O'Donnell said there was nothing wrong with gay people being able to "appreciate the aesthetic beauty of somebody of the other gender."

"He makes my heart beat, and I adore him, gay, straight, or somewhere in-between," she says of Cruise. "He is the (most) perfect man that ever walked the face of the Earth."

more on this subject:

2002 INTERNATIONAL ESSAY CONTEST FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

posted 16 March/02

Sponsored by The Goi Peace Foundation and The World Peace Prayer Society (UNESCO's Partners for the International Decade of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World) and supported by the Ministry of Education of Japan.

The United Nations has designated 2001-2010 as the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World." Not only should every child benefit from this global movement, but they should be encouraged to play a leading role in the creation of a culture of peace. The theme of this year's International Essay Contest is "Harmony." Young people from around the world are invited to submit their creative ideas on this theme.

Theme: What is harmony? How can we achieve a world in which every individual and every nation can freely express their individual qualities, while living in harmony with one another and with all life on earth? What are some things you can do to promote harmony?

Guidelines: 1. Essays may be submitted by anyone up to 25 years old in one of the following two age categories: Children (ages up to 15), and Youth (ages 16 - 25); essays must be 800 words or less, typed or printed in English, Spanish, German or French(.)  Entries must be received by July 25, 2002. For receiving complete guidelines, as well as forwarding entries:

International Essay Contest
c/o The Goi Peace Foundation
1-4-5 Hirakawacho
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 102-0093
Japan
F+81-332390919
essay@goipeace.or.jp

NORTHWEST HATE GROUPS LOSE PROMINENCE

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
The Associated Press posted March 15

HAYDEN LAKE, Idaho (AP) - For more than 20 years, this scenic corner of northern Idaho was synonymous with hate groups, and the Northwest in general was considered a haven for assorted extremists. Names like Theodore Kaczynski, Randy Weaver, the Aryan Nations, the Phineas Priesthood and the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger dominated the national image of the region from Spokane, Wash., to Lincoln, Mont.

But many of those people are gone - to jail or to other states - and the number of militia and hate groups in the region is static even as it grows nationally. That has area human-rights activists breathing a cautious sigh of relief.

``We can't assume they are all gone,'' said Mary Lou Reed of the Human Rights Education Foundation in nearby Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. ``Certainly the vast majority of people are relieved and happy to see the scenario changed.'' While hard statistics are difficult to obtain, a new Southern Poverty Law Center report indicates that hate groups have plateaued in the Northwest.

In 2000, Montana had four identified hate groups, Idaho had nine and Washington 12, the center found. Those numbers were identical in 2001, the human rights group said. Nationally, the number of hate groups grew 12 percent in the year. Still, anti-government feelings die hard in the Northwest.

In late February, officials in Montana broke up a militia group that authorities said was planning to assassinate judges, prosecutors and police officers. The group, which called itself ``Project Seven,'' hoped to kill enough officials to force the state to call in the National Guard, triggering what they hoped would be open warfare.

Racist, anti-Semitic and technophobic extremists began appearing in the region in the 1970s, drawn by the overwhelmingly white population and a general to-each-his-own attitude that brought minimal opposition to the groups.

The ascendancy of the Aryan Nations in northern Idaho began when Richard Butler moved here in the early 1970s, looking to establish a white homeland. Eventually, the group began staging neo-Nazi gatherings and exporting violence from its compound about 10 miles north of Hayden Lake. Over time, the region was tainted by hate groups.

The 1992 shootout at Ruby Ridge that killed a deputy U.S. marshal and the wife and son of Weaver, a white separatist, focused national attention on members of the radical fringe living in the Northwest.

The 1996 arrest of Kaczynski near Lincoln, Mont., for the Unabomber attacks helped cement the image. Drawing a somewhat lower national profile were a series of bombings and bank robberies in 1996 by members of the Phineas Priesthood, a shadowy sect that holds religious beliefs against banking, abortion and a strong central government. The four men, all from the Sandpoint, Idaho, area, bombed a newspaper office and Planned Parenthood clinic and robbed two banks in the Spokane area before they were captured and sent to prison.

The 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, founded by two wealthy Californians after they moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, for a time sent unsolicited mass mailings of anti-Semitic and racist brochures and videos to every home in Bonner County, and to others around the nation. Both men - R. Vincent Bertollini and Carl E. Story - have reportedly left the Northwest.

Bertollini, 62, has not been seen since disappearing last summer after being charged with drunken driving and resisting arrest. Story's house is up for sale, and the 68-year-old businessman has reportedly moved back to California.

The most high-profile group, Aryan Nations, went bankrupt in 2000 by a civil rights lawsuit argued by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That forced Butler to sell his 20-acre compound, and new leaders subsequently deposed Butler and moved the group's headquarters to Pennsylvania. Butler remains in Idaho, but keeps a low profile.

Although many of the hate groups are gone, the image persists. A few years ago on the television show ``Chicago Hope,'' a black doctor accused a white colleague of prejudice and told her: ``Maybe you should move to Idaho.''

On a recent episode of ``ER,'' a character said she was from Idaho: ``Not the white supremacist part, the potato part.'' Business and government leaders have fought back, declaring Idaho ``the human rights state'' and casting hate group members as misfits from other regions.

Last year, the Hayden Lake Chamber of Commerce complained to television host Geraldo Rivera after he said there was ``racism and fascism'' and a ``kind of perverse militarism run rampant'' in Hayden Lake. ``I think the sad reality is the Northwest still struggles as some kind of supremacist enclave. It's unfair,'' said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Montgomery, Ala., law center.

associated link: Southern Poverty Law Center

EGALE LAUNCHES NATIONAL "ADOPT-AN-MP" PROGRAM

March 6, 2002

Egale (the national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered equality rights organization) announced today the launch of its Canada-wide Adopt-an-MP program.

"MPs, like children, need to be educated, with patience, care, understanding and discipline," explained John Fisher, Executive Director of Egale. "That's why we're inviting our members across Canada to adopt their Member of Parliament, thus becoming the proud parent of their very own MP. Egale hopes to provide extended family support to work with our adoptive parents and ensure these MPs learn to behave responsibly, and develop a firm commitment to advancing human rights."

"Some MPs are already at the top of their class in their understanding of equality issues; others definitely need special attention," added Fisher. "We need look no further than the upcoming Canadian Alliance leadership race to see how desperately some MPs need education and a guiding hand. Young Stockwell, for example, had not been leader of the Canadian Alliance for more than a day before he told the Globe & Mail 'I define the family heterosexually'. Such behaviour is simply disruptive, and a bad influence on his peers. As for young Mr. Harper, I'm sorry to say that he's been keeping some very unsavoury company - one of his first acts was to hire as campaign spokesperson Winnipeg radio host John Collison, who was fired for anti-gay remarks and for denouncing gay Mayor Glen Murray as an 'abomination in the Mayor's chair'. Meanwhile, Grant Hill, who enjoys playing doctor, persists in calling homosexuality an 'unhealthy lifestyle'. His adoptive parents will need to explain to him that you can't simply go around making things up."

Egale also released its booklet, "Caring for your MP", with information about the education, nurturing and supervision of MPs, tips on how to clean up after your MP when he or she makes a mess, and the importance of maintaining discipline in order to raise MPs who are happy, healthy and free from homophobia. Issues that will be addressed through the campaign include equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, equal access to immigration laws, adequate measures to combat discriminatory censorship practices and protection under hate crimes laws.

For more information : John Fisher, Executive Director, Egale - 613-230-1043

the following is from John Aravosis at wired stategies :

9/11 FUND UNFAIR TO GAYS

In recent interviews, the head of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund (a fund created by Congress to help the families of those who died on September 11) has made clear that the partners of gay and lesbian heroes of September 11 will not necessarily receive the same benefits as the spouses of heterosexual victims of the horrible terror attacks. 

EVEN FETUSES AND ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE COVERED

Even fetuses and illegal aliens will be receiving benefits under this problem - heck, they've even promised to overlook federal law and NOT arrest and kick out the families of illegal aliens, nor will they punish American companies that hired illegals in violation of federal labor laws. 

But when  it comes to gay and lesbian heroes of the day - Mark Bingham who helped bring down the flight in Pennsylvania, NY Fire Dept. Chaplain Father Mychal Judge who died in the line of duty when the first tower fell, and David Charlebois who was co-pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon (there are many more) - we are told the law is the law and no exceptions can be made.

[Read this article for complete details about how the Fund is discriminating against gays: http://uspolitics.about.com/library/weekly/aa031102a.htm ]

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

If September 11 has taught us anything, it's that our patriotism and love of country transcend our differences and unite us all.  We were told that September 11 was the day that "hyphenated-Americans" were no more, and rather than being Italian-Americans, African-Americans or gay-Americans, we were now simply Americans, all of us together as one American family.  Apparently, that family just got a divorce.

The hyphens seem not to matter when our government wants to use our heroism to inspire others, but when it comes time to actually aid the families of those heroes, the hyphens come back with a vengeance, and it seems that some American heroes are now more equal than others.

TAKE ACTION NOW!!!

Please help send a message to the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund that discrimination is un-American.

Submit a public comment to the fund and tell them, politely, that you are outraged that gay and lesbian partners of those who died on September 11 are not automatically going to receive the same benefits as heterosexual spouses.  Any comments you send are public records and will be posted on the Victim Compensation Fund Web site.  You have only until Thursday March 21, 2002 to post your comments, so DO IT NOW!

SEND YOUR COMMENTS TO:

Email - victimcomp.comments@usdoj.gov Fax- 301-519-5956 (faxes should be limited to 15 pages)

Snail Mail
Kenneth L. Zwick, Director
Office of Management Programs
Civil Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Main Building, Room 3140
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20530

FOR THE MEMORY OF:
Mark Bingham, Father Mychal Judge, David Charlebois And so many more... Don't let their deaths be in vain.  Contact the Sept. 11 fund to express your outrage, and send this message to all of your friends. 

Thanks so much.
John
-----------

MORE INFORMATION
9/11 Fund Discriminates Against Gays: http://uspolitics.about.com/library/weekly/aa031102a.htm
More About Mark Bingham: http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/854_5/854_5_bingham.asp
More About Father Mychal Judge: http://www.nymag.com/page.cfm?page_id=5372
More About Pilot David Charlebois: http://www.gazettenet.com/americantragedy/09132001/6378.htm
More About Other Gay Heroes of 9/11: http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/uraniamanuscripts/sept11.html

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