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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 19, 1999)
march. 19.1999 j Ju s t o u t PTTîTïïïH news AUSTRALIA L ucy Lawless, star of Xeruz: Warrior Princess, was among the 700,000 revelers who turned out for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Grand Parade Feb. 27. “It’s bigger than 1 ever expected,” Lawless said. “We are having a fantastic time. I haven’t yet met anyone who isn’t smart or sassy. I love it.” More than 200 floats rode down Oxford Street in the two-hour procession. Favorite con tingents included the Monica Lewinskies— smoking cigars and wearing stained blue dress- . ^ es— and the characters from the television show South Park. Mardi Gras attract ed a record $800,000 (U .S. $503,000) in corporate sponsorship this year from, among other giants, Coca-Cola, Qantas Airways, Stolichnaya Vodka and the Telstra phone company. Telstra produced a phone card featuring Ms. Candee, the company’s official drag queen spokesperson, while Coke took out full-page ads in gay papers featuring local transvestite Verush- ka Darling. Stoli sold bottles of its Lemon Ruski wrapped in tiny pink feather boas. A ustralia’s Human Rights and Equal Oppor tunity Commission is teaming up with the Australian Youth Foundation to create a net work for rural gay and lesbian youth. “What we want to do is break down the iso lation that young gay men and lesbians face in the country [and] put them in contact with each other [to] make them feel like they are being supported,” says Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti. “They have terrible problems with isolation, with self-esteem, with bullying and harassment in their schools and their towns— and to give them the support of other people who are in the same situation is the first step," he said. “The second step is to put that network in close con tact with community service organizations.” BRITAIN A new dramatic series that contains the most explicit gay sex scenes ever seen on televi sion in the United Kingdom is provoking con troversy. Queer as Folk, which debuted on the Chan nel 4 network Feh. 23 at 10:30 p.m., follows the lives of three 20-something gay men in Man chester’s gay neighborhood. The first episode, which depicts the seduc tion of a 15-year-old gay boy by a promiscuous 29-year-old man, drew fire from the National Viewers and Listeners Association and other “morality” activists, as well as from gay groups. “This is Channel 4 attempting to influence public opinion at a time when there’s a debate in Parliament about the age of consent for homo sexuals,” says N V LA General Secretary John Beyer. The House of Commons has twice voted to lower the age of consent for gay sex from 18 to 16, in line with that for straight sex, but the matter faces continuing opposition in the House of Lords. Angela Mason, head of Stonewall, Britain’s leading gay lobby group, says the program cer tainly didn’t challenge any stereotypes. "All the gay men wanted to have nonstop sex and all the lesbians wanted babies,” she says. “I thought the explicit sex scenes with a youth ful 15-year-old did smack of sensationalism.” A spokesman for the direct-action group OutRage! comments: “They put in a lot that was controversial for the commercial reason that people will want to keep watching it." In response to the brouhaha, Channel 4 spokesman Gub Neal noted: “There are three explicit sex scenes in the entire eight episodes. The program goes out with a clear warning at 10:30 at night when viewers are well aware that Channel 4 sometimes broadcasts stronger mate rial. Would we be having this discussion if the characters were a man and a woman rather than two men?” CANADA A merican Express’ Canadian arm is target ing gay men and lesbians with a toll-free number that connects to gay and lesbian travel specialists, the company announced Feb. 15. “Our research indicates the gay and lesbian community are higher-than-average income earners who tend to travel a lot, with 60 percent taking one or two pleasure trips a year and more than 25 percent taking three or four,” said James Grundy, director of consumer travel for Amex Canada Inc. “There is a market out there and we have found that the gay and lesbian community is looking for this type of service,” said spokes woman Martha McNaim. She added: “There are always going to be people who will be extreme in their opposition to gay and lesbian issues, but I would feel that the number who would feel so strong as to take their business elsewhere would be very few. It is presently not a concern.” O n Feb. 15, Australia’s new ambassador, Stephen Brady, 39, presented his lover, Peter Stevens, to Queen Margrethe II, the Dan ish foreign ministry reported Feb. 25. “It is a first in the history of Danish diploma cy, but it was neither problematic nor a sensa tional event for us,” said Soeren Haslund, the ministry’s chief of protocol. “Homosexual cou ples in Denmark are invited to official cere monies as are heterosexual couples, even by the royal palace.” In 1989, Denmark became the first country to legalize same-sex civil marriages. Registered same-sex partners have all the rights of matri- £ mony except access to church weddings, adop- insemination technology. Brady, who is based in Stock- n holm, is also ambassador to Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. n T INDIA he lesbian-themed film Fire will return to Indian movie theaters without any cuts, the Censor Board said Feb. 14. The film was recalled in December after rad ical members of the right-wing Shiv Sena polit ical party vandalized at least 15 cinemas where the movie was playing. A party spokesman warned that theaters can look forward to more of the same. "Shiv Sena will launch popular agitation against cinemas which screen vulgar films,” said Jai Bhagwan Goyal, the party’s Delhi leader. “This is a well-planned conspiracy to destroy the Indian culture.” The film focuses on two sisters-in-law who, unhappy in their marriages, fall in love with each other. It has won 14 awards at various international film festivals. IRELAND ay author Robert Drake, 36, remains in critical condition in a Dublin hospital after being beaten by two men Jan. 31 in Sligo, a town of 23,000 on the northwestern shore. Jf Drake was living in the town and writing a novel. Police arrested Ian Monaghan, 21, and Glen Mahon, 22, for the attack, charging them with violating the Non-Fatal Offenses Against the Person Act. The pair told police Drake made a pass at one of them during a night of drinking, smoking cigars and listening to music, provoking them to punch and kick him. Drake wrote the novel The Man: A Hero for Our Time and edited the anthology The Gay Canon: Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read. F or A ll S kin T ypes ROMANIA O rthodox Christians in Bucharest have threatened staff and destroyed posters at the Nottara Theater in protest against the gay- themed play Angels in America, police said Feb. 13. Police have been posted inside and outside the theater to prevent disruptions. “Romania is among the last bastions against homosexuality, but it has to fall in the end,” the play’s director, Theodor-Cristian Popescu, told reporters. The nation’s Chamber of Deputies rejected full legalization of homosexuality last June, cre ating a rift with the Council of Europe and imperiling Romania’s hopes of joining the Euro pean Union and NATO. Current law states: “Same-sex relations tak ing place in public or resulting in a public scan dal shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment. Enticing or seducing a person to practice same-sex relations as well as propaganda, association or other forms of proselytizing with the same aim shall be pun ished by one to five years imprisonment.” T SOUTH AFRICA he government recently distributed thou sands of condoms that had been perforated when they were stapled to safe-sex pamphlets, newspapers reported Feb. 13. The AIDS aware ness drive was part of National Condom Week. Officials blamed a packaging company but did not rule out sabotage by anti-condom activists. SPAIN S panish gay men and lesbians have become a niche market. Nearly 930 businesses have been created in Spain in the past two years by and for the gay and lesbian community, accord ing to a study by Rainbow Consultants. Additional polling shows that most of Spain’s estimated 2 million lesbian and gay adults have higher-than-average incomes and no children to support. In some age groups, gay and lesbian incomes are 40 percent higher than those of the general population. Rainbow Consultants tabulated data from 900 people— 90 percent male— who filled out questionnaires inserted in gay magazines. Typical of the findings: 57 percent of those polled have a computer and 22 percent are online, compared with 26 percent and 7 per cent, respectively, of the population as a whole. A writer for Spain’s respected El Pais news paper says: “Because gays are considered to be on the cutting edge of culture, the rest of the popu lation rapidly picks up on trends that start in the gay community.... Once only gay guys were bleaching their hair and now lots of young men are going blond. Another example, the cfuxhi style of music, which began about three years ago in gay bars, is now heard throughout the country in discotheques.” ■ Compiled by R ex WOCKNER 710 NW 23 rd Ave. • 248-9748 * 3638 SE Hawthorne • £ 36-7976 WHEEL ALIGNMENTS AND ( 503 ) 232-3600 2454 E. BURNSIDE PORTLAND, OR 97214 Family Owned & Operated Since 1952 Your Time is Valuable , Ours Is Affordable. With everything life throws at you, who has time to clean? Call Merry Maids and have time for what you enjoy. 10 OFF Sate Ten O nion 0» Tamr H m ( lr w W | S Z D D | Gift certificates »viitaM e ■ H e* customer» only Not va It d witW other otter» ,6 4 1 1738 in O m la n d 541 7 5 4-0 0 0 3 in C o rv allis m . m e a r r y i d s ^One less thing to i r a m ahoui^ 17