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AUSTRALIA
Following a nine-year campaign by activists,
the state of Tasmania has Finally legalized gay
sex, wiping out the nation’s last sodomy ban.
In an unrecorded voice vote May 1, the island’s
Legislative Council repealed Criminal Code sec
tions 122 and 123, which outlawed consenting
sexual intercourse “against the order of nature”
and "indecent practice between male persons.”
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The punishment was up to 25 years in prison.
The lower chamber of parliament, the House
of Assembly, passed the repeal measure March
27.
Pro-repeal forces in the 19-member upper
chamber fought off proposed amendments that
would have banned “promotion” or "encourage
ment” of homosexuality and would have set the
age-of-consent for gay sex higher than 17, which
is the legal age for straight sex. They also dis
lodged a preamble that would have blamed homo
sexuals for AIDS.
‘This marks the end of a 25-year campaign for
gay law reform across the country,” said Rodney
Croome, spokesman for the Tasmanian Gay and
Lesbian Rights Group, which waged the long
battle to legalize homosexuality. "What we have
got today is an uncompromised and unqualified
victory for justice and equality for gay and lesbian
people in this state, for all Tasmanians and all
Australians.”
TGLRG plans to move forward with a cam
paign for an anti-discrimination law.
(Feona Studdert contributed to this report.)
BRITAIN
Three openly gay candidates were elected to
Britain’s HouseofCommonson May 1 inLabor’s
landslide over the Conservatives.
MP Chris Smith was re-elected in central
London’s Islington South and Finsbury with 62.5
percent of the vote. Prime Minister Tony Blair
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An equal opjxHtunltv iftïmiarive action institution
quickly appointed him secretary for national heri
tage, a post that oversees the arts, broadcasting,
sports, tourism and the lottery.
That makes Smith Britain’s first openly gay
Cabinet member.
“I think that the fact that someone who is
openly gay can be appointed to the Cabinet and
can go into Buckingham Palace to kiss hands with
the Queen as I did yesterday, without the slightest
tremor of significance really being attached to it
by the great majority of the press, shows that we
have come a very considerable way in gaining
acceptance from the British people,” Smith said.
“Being open, being honest about your sexuality
actually wins you support, it doesn’t deny it to
you.”
In Exeter, in England’s West Country, BBC
radio journalist Ben Bradshaw trounced oppo
nent Dr. Adrian Roger, president of the Conserva
tive Family Institute. Roger had called homo
sexuality "a sterile, disease-ridden occupation”
and urged voters not to “let the pink flag fly over
Exeter.”
In Enfield Southgate (far northeastern Lon
don suburbs), Fabian Society Secretary Stephen
Twigg, 30, upset former Secretary of Defense
Michael Portillo. The Fabian Society is an old-
style Labor Party think tank.
Twigg had not expected to win.
“It wasn’t remotely a possibility for me,” he
said. “I was standing in a seat where we had a
Cabinet minister with a majority of 15-and-a-half
thousand. As far as I was concerned I was putting
myself forward for the experience, standing in the
area that I was born and brought up in. It was a
great possibility just to get some experience, and
it was only during the campaign that I realized
that there was a real possibility that we could win
it.
‘This is a very exciting period in our history,
and I anticipate major legislative reforms—not
only around gay and lesbian rights, but also sig
nificant reforms to the constitution and the demo
cratic process itself.”
Labor actively courted the sexual minority
vote with promises to lower the age-of-consent
for male-male sex to equal that for lesbians and
heterosexuals, ban discrimination based on sexual
orientation, repeal Clause 28 (which prohibits
local governments from promoting homosexual
ity), lift the military gay ban, and treat same-sex
couples equally under immigration law.
‘This whole country seems transformed by
the election results,” said activist and former
International Lesbian and Gay Association Co-
Secretary General Lisa Power. "People are going
round grinning, all the cab drivers claim to be
Labor supporters, there’s a real air of optimism.
Everybody loves the new government and can’t
understand why we put up with the Tories for so
long. Chris has been made heritage secretary—a
homo in charge of the arts, yet.”
(David Cook, John Hein, David Smith and
Philip Reay-Smith contributed to this report.)
CANADA
Folio wi ng months of campaign! ng and scream-
ing by gay and AIDS activists, Canadian Prime
Minister Jean Chrétien has announced renewed
funding of the National AIDS Strategy.
"We have decided that the National AIDS
Strategy will be carried on at the same level for
years to come,” Chrétien said in Vancouver in
May.
Funding for the programs was set to expire
next year. The delay in re-allocating the money
was a huge source of contention at the 1996
International Conference on AIDS in Vancouver,
which Chrétien refused to attend—breaking a
tradition set by heads of state of other nations
where the conference has been held.
▼ ▼ ▼
British Columbia’s Confederation of Parent
Advisory Councils voted 165-158 on April 28 to
ban from schools all material related to homo
sexuality.
“When homosexuality is taught [in schools] it
becomes an advocacy for homosexuals and thus
teaches that homosexuality is acceptable as a
healthy lifestyle,” the group’s nonbinding resolu
tion states.
The Ministry of Education does not have to
heed the association’s wishes.
The vote was likely related to a March 19 vote
by the British Columbia Teachers Federation to
fund an anti-homophobia and anti-heterosexism
program.
BCTF members will use their dues to provide
staff, office space and resources to develop work-