just out ▼ January 1002 ▼ 5
w orld b rie fs
ARGENTINA: The Supreme Court o f Ar
gentina, in a 7-2 ruling, refused to legalize the
country’s only gay-rights group, Comunidad
Homosexual Argentina, leaving the group unable
to rent an office, open a bank account, accept
donations or conduct other routine business.
AUSTRALIA: The lower house of the Tas
manian parliament, the House of Assembly, passed
a measure last month to ban discrimination against
gays in employment, accommodations and the
provision of goods and services.
AUSTRIA: Following government promises
to repeal laws that ban gay organizations and the
promotion of homosexuality, activists have tar
geted the nation’s final anti-gay law, which sets a
higher age of sexual consent for gay men.
BELGIUM : The groundbreaking Interna
tional Lesbian and Gay Association will lay off its
only employee Dec. 31. The group is $13,000 in
debt and appeals for contributions and new
members have failed.
V ▼ V
A European Community document has ad
dressed gays and lesbians for the first time. New
EC guidelines entitled “Protecting the Dignity of
Women and Men at Work: A Code of Practice on
Measures to Combat Sexual Harassment” note
that “lesbians....are disproportionately at risk. Gay
men and young men are also vulnerable to ha
rassm ent” The pro-gay swing follows a meeting
between EC Social Affairs Commissioner and
representatives of the International Lesbian and
Gay Association.
CA N A D A : G ay-ghetto voters elected
Toronto’s first openly gay city councilor. Kyle
Rae joins the three-man Canadian club of Gordon
Price in Vancouver, Raymond Blain in Montreal
and Grant Murray in Winnipeg.
Xtra!
▼ ▼ ▼
New Brunswick is expected to add “sexual
orientation” to its human rights act.
Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and
the Yukon Territory already protect gays and
lesbians from discrimination.
▼ ▼ ▼
Calgary, Alberta. Mayor A1 Du err and the
City Council will not declare Gay Rights Week
this year because last year’s proclamation caused
Duerr “the most difficult time I’ve ever gone
through.” FundamentalistChristians opposed the
proclamation. Duerr said he “still strongly
supports) rights for the gay community-equal
rights before law, which they do not presently
enjoy.”
?▼ ?
After a year o f controversy, members of the
Gay and Lesbian Association of Nova Scotia
voted that no one may dance shirtless at its club.
Rumours, Halifax’s leading gay establishment.
Lesbians had argued the club discriminated against
them by letting men but not women dance shirtless.
During Pride Week, a large number o f lesbians
illegally danced topless in protest
GALA also formed a Shirtlessness Lobbying
Committee to urge the Liquor License Board and
the provincial government to allow women to go
topless in public.
CHINA: The way to control AIDS is “to
eliminate deviant behavior,” the official Xinhau
News Agency quoted Guangdong Province offi
cials saying last month.
COLOM BIA: “Socialclean-updeathsquads”
have murdered hundreds of gay men in the past
seven years, the International Lesbian and Gay
Association reported last month.
Amnesty International has implicated the Co
lombian government in the death-squad killings.
And ILG A charges that the murders are not inves
tigated because of “police and military complic
ity.”
ENGLAND: Gay and Lesbian Motorcyclists
of Europe is a new federation of biker clubs from
Britain, Holland and Switzerland. It has 500
members. Write GMBCC, c/o Gay Switchboard,
31a Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG1 3FF, En
gland.
FRANCE: ACT UP/Paris staged France’s
largest AIDS demonstration to date on World
AIDS Day, Dec. 1. About 2,000 demonstrators
marched through the Marais gay district, chanting
for gays in bars to come out and join the fight
against the disease.
The activists hung a 50-square-meter banner
from the second floor of the Beaubourg Museum
proclaiming,“SIDA: Decretezl’etatd ’urgence!”
(“AIDS— Declare a State of Emergency!”). Pro
testors also collapsed in a large “die-in.”
G R EEC E: The lesbian editor of Greece’s
oldest gay magazine was sentenced to five months
in prison and a $300 fine last month for publishing
material that is “indecent and offensive to public
feeling.”
The magazine had received requests from
heterosexual men looking to meet lesbians, so
Petropoulou published an announcement re
minding straight men they “have nothing in
common to share in bed” with lesbians.
JA PA N : OCCUR, the leading gay group,
continues its groundbreaking campaign against
the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which will
not rent overnight rooms at Tokyo Youth Centers
to gay groups. A lawsuit-Japan’s first gay rights
suit-is pending.
V ▼ V
Under pressure from OCCUR, the publisher
of Japan ’ s most authoritative dictionary has revised
its inaccurate definition of “homosexuality.” The
“Kojien” dictionary had defined homosexuality
as a “perversion of being attracted to members of
the same sex.” Homosexuality was also an ex
ample under the entry for “perversion.”
NETHERLANDS: The Ministry of Defense
announced that gay soldiers sent to foreign
countries may take their lovers with them.
▼ T V
The Second European Conference on Homo
sexuality and HIV is Feb. 14-16 in Amsterdam.
N IG ER IA : A previously unknown gay group
has contacted the International Lesbian and Gay
Association-making Nigeria the fifth African
nation known to have developed a gay movement.
Nigerian Gentlemen Alliance parties havebrought
together as many as 1,500 gay men.
NORW AY: Gay activists last month de
nounced new immigration rules for unmarried
partners. For a foreign lover to be granted resi
dency, a couple now must prove they have lived
together for two years. It is impossible for a
mixed-citizenship gay couple to live together for
two years anywhere in the world without violat
ing immigration laws.
Previously, Norway only required couples to
prove they had known each other for 12 months.
Blikk.
RUSSIA: The NAMES Project AIDS Memo
rial Quilt visited Moscow in October. Hundreds
of Muscovites viewed the indoor exhibit of 128
panels, according to AP. Quilt officials and
Moscow employees of the International Gay &
Lesbian Human Rights Commission distributed
condoms, buttons and safe-sex material.
▼ V V
The first Russian gay biker club has formed,
reports Out of Pittsburgh. The eight members of
Cossacks MC wear studded leather jackets, tight
jeans and high-top biker boots. But there’s a
problem: the group only has one motorcycle, a
vintage World War II Harley Davidson, for whiefy
they have no battery.
SOUTH AFRICA: ACT UP has arrived.
The group is fast becoming as universal as gay
bars and cniisy parks.
New Year's
Resolutions
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3. VUelgt ffO/mfintA fo <fM% faowUtt c/uvüttf
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Thanks to everyone
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0
Sue Davis
Janyce Bender
W atch this Space!
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