Calls to legalise gay marriages
By Nobesuthu Mofokeng (SA)


The Durban Gay Centre has called on the government to recognise homosexual marriages.

The call was made at one of a series of workshops held around the country to address the issue of same sex marriages, under the slogan: "Same sex marriages - anything less is not equal." The workshops aimed to empower the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities to claim their rights to equality, dignity and freedom.

Prof Ronald Louw, Director of the Durban Gay Centre, said: "Marriage should be available to all. The constitution pronounces that gay and lesbian relationships are equal in every respect to heterosexual relationships. But the government refuses to acknowledge this."

Under the constitution, gay and lesbian relationships constitute family relationships. "But for all state departments and South Africans to not respect the rule of law is undermining our recently developed equality and jurisprudence and practice," said Louw.


~

A different kind of normal: MSU professor leads a change for children with physical abnormalities(sic)
BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER


Every few months, the media reports the birth or surgery of conjoined twins. But the public often does not hear how they farebeyond if they live or die after separation surgery.

That made Alice Domurat Dreger, Ph.D., a medical historian and ethicist at Michigan State University, curious.

A specialist in abnormal anatomy, she's drawn to the prickly questions faced by families of children born looking different.

Her research has made her a key resource within medicine to forge new policies toward people with a variety of congenital, or birth, conditions.

Along the way, she's become a media resource, an activist for people born with anatomical differences and an author.

Her newest book, "One of Us, Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal," (Harvard University Press, $22.95), released this spring, concludes that most conjoined twins cope well with the condition and prefer to remain conjoined.


~

Feminists discuss sexism, racism and war
Kay Moore, Lismore
Three-hundred women attended the 16th Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference on July 12-16. The conference discussed the impact of sexism, racism, homophobia and war on women.


Guest speakers at the conference included two women campaigners from East Timor, three women Balgoa elders from central Australia and Aleyshia Manning, who spoke on the issue of intersex and transgender women.

Palestinian activist and Socialist Alliance member Rihab Charida addressed the conference on the devastating impact the apartheid wall and Israeli militarism is having on women in Palestine. Charida told the conference that the fight for equality was at the heart of the Palestinian resistance and that until the Palestinians received it there would be no peace in the Middle East.

Rachel Evans from Community Action Against Homophobia outlined the homophobic attacks by the Coalition government on the queer, gay and lesbian community. The conference unanimously voted to oppose the attacks and to support CAAH’s “Equal rights for same-sex couples” rally in Sydney on July 25.