4 ▼ January 19, 1996 ▼ just out
G&M
Automotive
briefs
PDX
Automotive
6006 E Burnside, Portland _
231-8486
^
5934 NE Halsey, Portland
282-3315
AFRICA
■Mechanics with a Conscience‘
CERTIFIED MECHANICS
Com plete automotive
service of foreign and
domestic cars and
light trucks
Free ride to MAX
Gerard Lillie
Todd Connelly
AIDS will dramatically reduce life expectancy
in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report
from the U.S. National Academy o f Science’s Na
tional Research Council.
By 2010, the average life span in Zambia will
have dropped from 66 to 33 years, in Zimbabwe
from 70 to 40, in Kenya from 68 to 40, and in
Uganda from 59 to 31, the report said.
Other countries hard hit by the pandemic include
Botswana, Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanza
nia.
O f HIV infections in the region, 80 percent are
due to heterosexual sex and 20 percent to male-male
sex, the researchers said.
COSTA RICA
ARGENTINA
The activist group Lesbianas a la Vista staged
three outdoor lesbian puppet shows in Buenos Aires’
historic San Telmo neighborhood on Dec. 3.
“The public reacted mostly with surprise, inter
est and respect,” the women reported. “A few people
were indifferent, but nobody was aggressive.
TW ENTY THIRD AVENUE
BOOKS
Buying! a, home
or iip ^ |g up
is financially the right
thins to do.
Call me today at 225-1115
Costa Rica’s Radioperiodico Reloj news net
work bashed gays on World AIDS Day.
“Hardly any government, institution or group
has condemned the spread o f homosexuality as the
main cause of [AIDS] contagion,” the network said
in an editorial. “The truth is that homosexuality is
against human nature. The only way to prevent this
evil is to promote a higher morality.... The cam
paign for the use o f condoms, so widely promoted
across all social layers worldwide, is a solution that
seeks to justify deviant behavior in human relation
ships.”
Costa Rica’s Asociacidn de Lucha por el Respeto
a la Diversidad Sexual (Association for the Fight for
Respect for Sexual Diversity) urges gays in other
countries to protest the editorial and demand that
gays be given radio time to respond.
CYBERSPACE
1015 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97210, (503) 224-5097
Monday-Friday 9 :3 0 - 8 pm □ Saturday 10 am - 8 pm □ Sunday 11 am - 4 pm
Homophobia” to the door of Westminster Abbey in
early December during the Anglican Church Gen
eral Synod.
The action recalled a similar one in 1517, when
Martin Luther nailed “Ninety-Five Theses” to the
door of a Catholic cathedral in Wittenberg, Ger
many, launching the Protestant Reformation.
“W hat’s needed is a new Reformation to eradi
cate homophobia from the Church of England,”
Tatchell said. “Anglican endorsement of anti-gay
discrimination is a corruption of morality and a
violation o f the dignity o f lesbian and gay people.”
There was no immediate response to the action
from the Church of England.
“Our two objectives— to bring lesbian-created
lesbian images to the streets for everyone to see and
to raise the public’s awareness about the rights we
do not enjoy as couples— were widely reached,” the
group said.
Meanwhile, the group marched in the annual
Resistance March in mid-December, which honors
the citizens who “disappeared” under the military
dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to
1983.
Members carried a portable jail “with a dozen
dolls portraying all the murderers and torturers that
are freely walking through Buenos Aires’ streets,”
the group said in a press release.
AUSTRALIA
Tourism Victoria, a state agency in Melbourne,
has become the first governmental body to join the
Australian Gay and Lesbian Tourism Authority,
reported the Melbourne Star Observer.
▼ ▼ ▼
Organizers staged a mid-December news con
ference to launch the 1996 Sydney Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras, a monthlong festival that includes a
parade, theater, literary readings, music and com
munity events.
The activities run Feb. 2 to March 2. The parade,
which was inaugurated in 1978, is believed to be the
second largest in the world, after that o f the Rio de
Janeiro Mardi Gras.
Sydney Mardi Gras attracts thousands o f inter
national gay visitors and pumped $8.7 million (U .S.)
into the city’s economy last year.
The Hong Kong gay group Horizons, which
runs a telephone hot line, has joined the Internet and
is seeking assistance from abroad.
The group is headed up by Daniel Kong, co
author of the recently published book The Coming
Out o f Queers in Hong Kong.
Write to Horizons, GPO Box 6837, Hong Kong;
e-mail: danl5844@ vol.net.
▼ ▼ ▼
Transgendered people have a new place to gather
on the Internet— a U senet new sgroup called
alt.personals.transgendered.
Usenet is available on all Internet systems and on
America Online.
If your Internet provider does not carry a particu
lar group, you can send a message to the news
administrator requesting that it be added.
Many Internet services carry only a portion of
the more than 15,500 Usenet groups.
▼ ▼ ▼
A new Internet World Wide Web site devoted to
gay and lesbian Southeast Asia offers information
on travel, AIDS and women’s issues. Other features
include a message center and an art gallery. The
address is http://www.best.com/-utopia.
CZECH REPUBLIC
The government has deleted a proposed same-
sex partnership law from the latest draft of family-
law legislation, calling same-sex couplings “an in
ferior form of marriage” and noting that “only three
European countries recognize this right demanded
by the homosexual minority.”
PORTUGAL
BELGIUM
David
Anderson
Windermere
The Catholic University o f Leuven has sparked
controversy by installing condom dispensers on
campus.
Student Relations spokesman Professor Dirk
van Gerven called the move a responsible approach
to AIDS, but others have noted that Catholic doc
trine forbids any sex act that is not open to the
possibility of pregnancy.
BRITAIN
5 S 5
Windermere Cronin & Caplan Realty Group, Inc. «SSs
225 - 1115 • VM 497 - 5211 • 2078 NW Everett St. ♦ Portland, OR 97209
Gay activist Peter Tatchell o f the London gay-
and lesbian-rights activist group OutRage! nailed a
document entitled “Four Theses Against Church
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, a
Socialist, recently told reporters that he has no
problem with the concept of same-sex marriage and
that legalizing it “is not out of the question.”
In other news, Portugal’s first gay newspaper is
scheduled to appear in January, independent of any
gay organization.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese Quilt Movement
has been launched— headed up by Jorge Almeida,
whose lover died of AIDS. To contact the group,
phone 011-351-1-291 -0265 between 2200 and 2400
hours Greenwich Mean Time.
Compiled by Rex Wockner