February 10, 2007
Amsterdam Gay Pride to include boat for under-16s
THE HAGUE (AFP) - Amsterdam's mayor has reportedly changed his mind and allowed the city's upcoming Gay Pride festival to include a canal boat for 11 to 16 year-olds.
According to the ANP news agency, the mayor, Job Cohen, had blocked the plans in late January, saying it was too risky.
A 14-year-old Danny Hoekzema came up with the idea and has conducted an Internet campaign to drum up support for his campaign, and says he has already found around 10 participants for the 30-place boat.
Gay Pride organizers had said that it would be kept well away from more "provocative" boats parading along the Dutch's city's canals and that the youngsters would be joined by their parents on board.
Posted by ronnie at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2006
First 'alternative' gay games kicks off in Montreal
MONTREAL (AFP) - Rowing, hockey, marathon, square dancing and best bondage or leather outfit competitions are all events at the first Out Games, preceded by the opening of a human rights conference.
Organizers of this "alternative" gay games said they expect some 12,000 amateur athletes, thousands of spectators and delegates from 100 countries for the rights conference.
Co-president and swimmer Mark Tewksbury, a gold medalist in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, said he hoped the event would also nurture tolerance in sports.
"Homophobia is rampant in professional sports. The locker room mentality says we can't develop in a virile, masculine world. Showing a feminine side is considered a sign of weakness, and makes us vulnerable to attacks," he told Montreal French-language magazine L'actualite.
Tewksbury and tennis legend Martina Navratilova will open the sports competitions on Saturday after the three-day rights conference with a "Declaration of Montreal" on gay rights.
The games' 35 competition include synchronized swimming, karate, basketball, weight-lifting, golf and wrestling.
Up to 20 percent of athletes at the Montreal games are heterosexual, organizers noted.
Millions of dollars in tourist spending are also at stake as the city tries to foment a reputation as a gay-friendly vacation hot spot, tourism officials said.
"The Right to Be Different" rights conference will bring together 2,000 delegates to discuss human rights and include a keynote speech by UN Human Rights head Louise Arbour.
The conference aims is to promote gay, lesbian and transsexual rights worldwide, particularly in countries which ignore or trample on them, organizers said.
"The goal is to get an official declaration at the United Nations asking for recognition of gay rights. There are rights for children, women, handicapped people, but no gay rights," Out Games director Louise Roy told AFP.
"There are still UN members who oppose gay rights, but we hope to take small steps that will eventually bring us to the recognition of gay rights. In Canada, we're less preoccupied with such because we've already achieved equal rights, but there are many countries where it remains very difficult to be gay," she added.
Closing ceremonies will be held on August 5.
An offshoot of the Federation of Gay Games, which held its seventh meet in Chicago last week, the Montreal event aimed for a more ambitious mission than its predecessor after the city was overlooked to host the original games.
Its goal is to foster tolerance and understanding, and to build bridges between the gay community and broader society, rather than simply celebrate gay pride -- the focus of the Gay Games since its inception in San Francisco in 1982.
Posted by ronnie at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2006
Gay film festival slammed for offering prize trip to anti-gay Fiji
WELLINGTON (AFP) - A New Zealand gay film festival has come under fire for offering a membership prize of a holiday in Fiji -- where homosexuality is illegal.
The prize was inappropriate given discrimination against gays and people with HIV/ AIDS, said Bruce Kilmister, the chairman of Aids/HIV support group Body Positive.
"Why would we encourage people to spend their money in Fiji when they discriminate against people living with HIV and Aids?" he said Monday.
The national gay film festival Out Takes was offering the chance for those who joined as members to go in a draw for a holiday at a resort in the South Pacific country.
Reel Queer, the group behind the film festival said there was a high incidence of homophobia and related persecution in Fiji but gays should stand up to unjustified persecution.
Homosexuality is illegal in Fiji, where the indigenous population is made up mostly of conservative Christians. Those found guilty of homosexual acts can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.
However, in a landmark case last year, Fiji's Supreme Court ruled the law was invalid and freed an Australian and an Fijian man jailed for homosexuality. The court cited a provision in the constitution forbidding discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Fiji's largest church, the Methodist church, has been campaigning to have the provision protecting gays removed from the constitution.
Posted by ronnie at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2006
Chinese salesman jailed for organising gay orgies
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese salesman has been jailed for a year for organising homosexual orgies through the Internet, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.
The 33-year-old man, surnamed Zou, set up a Web site in 2005 and advertised sex parties for gays in Beijing, Xinhua said, quoting a local court.
It said Zou charged those who took part 30-50 yuan each for the venue, pornographic videos and other "service items".
"Thanks to reporting from the masses, Zou was caught on the spot last November and this 'licentious nest' was cracked," Xinhua said.
Chinese scholars estimate that there are as many as 30 million homosexuals in the country, where discrimination remains strong despite increasing public tolerance.
China, ruled by the puritanical Communist Party, also categorises group sex in general as a crime, although lifestyles have become ever more diverse in the three decades since China began its opening-up reforms.
Posted by ronnie at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
Lithuanian website bars same-sex Valentine's Day kisses
VILNIUS (AFP) - A Lithuanian ombudsman is to probe an Internet site for discrimination after users complained that they could not send a virtual Valentine's Day kiss to a friend of the same sex.
"We received two complaints that an Internet site, in its 'friends' section, offers to send a virtual Valentine's Day kiss to the friend, but only if the they are of the opposite sex," Valentinas Dambrava of the ombudsman's office told AFP.
"We are going to launch an investigation for sexual discrimination, although some Lithuanians may find this unusual," Dambrava added.
If the site -- www.one.lt -- is found to have discriminated, it could be fined up to 2,000 litas (579 euros, 690 dollars).
About 66 percent of Lithuanians celebrate Valentine's Day, according to a poll conducted by the TNS Gallup company.
Among 15- to 29-year-olds who responded to the survey, 90 percent said the holiday was "important" or "very important."
The day was celebrated mainly by city dwellers, the poll showed, with about 40 percent of people who live in Lithuania's rural areas saying they never mark Valentine's Day, or were not even aware that it existed.
Posted by ronnie at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
Gay civil partnerships may improve health - study
LONDON (Reuters) - Gay and lesbian civil partnerships -- better known as "gay marriage" -- could bring lasting health benefits to same-sex couples, researchers said on Tuesday.
Doctors already know that marriage benefits the health of both sexes in a variety of ways. Scientists said civil partnerships for gay couples were likely to offer similar advantages.
"Marriage confers health benefits on men and women and similar benefits could arise from same-sex civil unions," said Professor Michael King, of London's Royal Free and University College Medical School, in a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Australia and Canada already give same-sex couples the rights traditionally offered to married couples.
Britain introduced civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples late last year.
Elton John and his partner David Furnish made use of the new legislation, which creates partnerships which are not technically marriages but confer similar benefits.
"It looks like both men and women benefit from (traditional) marriage," King said in an interview.
"These are not effects just on happiness or well-being. They seem to be important in terms of cardiovascular disease and other issues."
Civil unions probably reduce discrimination against gay and lesbian couples and make their relationships more stable.
"It may be that recognition and support of relationships like that through taxation ... lead to people's lifestyle being different," he said.
"If it leads to gay peoples' relationships being more stable because families recognised them and there was a social framework of recognition, that might mean less exchange of partners, less sexual risk, less drinking, less of the sorts of problems that gay men and lesbians sometimes get into."
Civil unions probably also increase support for gay and lesbian partnerships among families and in society at large, allowing couples to resolve any problems that arise in their relationships more easily.
"Social inclusion is a very big thing because if partnerships lead to recognition ... then that stops a lot of unhealthy habits that occur and it also stops a lot of psychological issues," King said.
"There is very good evidence now that gay men and lesbians are much more vulnerable to deliberate self-harm, to suicide attempts or to depression and other psychiatric problems."
Access to health care would also improve, according to the report which was co-written by Annie Bartlett from St George's Hospital Medical School in London.
Posted by ronnie at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)