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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1999)
aprii riWnTii new s B E LA R U S n anti-gay conference in Minsk, titled The Pernicious C onsequences o f International Projects o f Sexual Education, was attended by numerous government officials March 11 and A 12 . Organized by the nation’s Russian Orthodox Church and the European Humanitarian U ni versity, the confab attracted, among others, the chairman of the Constitutional Court and the health minister. According to local gay activists: “The partic ipants of the conference condemned the prac tice of using condoms and of making abortions, which were regarded as ‘satanic influences.’ Among the ‘authors’ of the ‘pernicious’ projects of sexual education [are] the World Health Organization, UN ESCO and the UN .” Gay men and lesbians were declared to be ‘‘perverts and criminals,” activists reported, and one priest called for all gay people to be execut ed on the electric chair. BRITA IN March 25 ruling by Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords, opens the door for for eign gay men and lesbians seeking asylum from persecution based on “sexual identity.” The Law Lords’ 4-1 ruling came in the case of two Pakistani women who sought refuge to escape flogging or stoning for adultery. The court said women from Islamic nations and gay people from various countries may seek asylum in the United Kingdom under the "par ticular social group” provisions of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. Anti-gay persecution could be direct, as under anti-sodomy laws, or indirect, as when a government fails to protect gay and lesbian peo ple and heterosexuals equally, the Lords said. A CANADA | ore than a few people were surprised by a new poll which found that 76 percent of Albertans support a ban on anti-gay discrimina tion and 51 percent think same-sex marriage is fine. Alberta is frequently referred to as Canada’s most conservative province. The poll was conducted by the University of Calgary and the Calgary Herald newspaper. Among Conservatives (Tories), 60 percent of women and 55 percent of men support same- sex marriage. Among members of the Reform Party, however, only 37 percent of women and 30 percent of men think same-sex couples should be allowed to tie the knot. ■jw»* T he Kellogg cereal company has ordered the Toronto queer youth cabaret Fruit Loopz to change its name, reports Xtra! The Battle Creek, Mich., company says the kids have infringed on its Fruit Loops copyright. “We’re sympathetic to the festival’s predica ment but.. .we have to do what we have to do to protect our trademark,” says Jacki Nelson, Kel logg Canada’s manager of corporate communi cations. Fruit Loopz spokeswoman Janis Purdy says if the corporation refuses to back down, the group may rename itself Queerios. “Then we can have a fight with General Mills,” she adds. In 1988, Kellogg suffered an extended attack from gay and lesbian activists who said a televi sion commercial for the company’s Nut ’N ’ Honey cereal promoted anti-gay violence. The commercial showed several cowboys drawing their guns on their trail cook after he told one of them there was “nuttin’, honey” for breakfast. Activists said the cowboys drew the guns because one man referred to another as “honey." Kellogg maintained the cowboys were upset at getting “nuttin’ ” for breakfast. The dispute was never settled, but later Nut ’N ’ Honey ads aban doned the play on words. 16 . 1999 • Ju s t o u t ,g group, an anonymous HIV testing center, and a speakers’ bureau. NEW ZEALAND undreds of New Zealanders, including scores of public officials, were outed March 16 when an online gay newsletter was transmitted with their e-mail addresses visible (instead of hidden as blind carbon copy recipi ents). H INDIA exual minorities formed a national net work— called LG BT India— at the Second Indian National Gay Conference recently held in Hyderabad. “This was necessary as networking at the per sonal level leaves a lot to chance and to person al likes and dislikes,” says spokesman Ashok Row Kavi. The group hopes to create a “pink digest of friendly doctors, psychiatrists, hotels, ST D clin ics, HIV testing centers, ayurvedic and Unani practitioners and sympathetic religious leaders in every city where visible gay groups exist,” Kavi explains. S IN TERNATIONAL ay and lesbian Amnesty International Vjr activists held their first international meet ing March 26 to 28 in London and formed a committee to combat human rights abuses based on sexual orientation. QO°J Among the subscribers to the Campaign N ew sReel newsletter— promoted as “New Zealand’s intelligent weekly gay news update"— are members of Parliament, local elected offi cials, diplomats, and executives from the Trea sury, the Reserve Bank and various government departments, the Christchurch Press reported. A small minority of the subscribers may be hetero sexual, the paper noted. Editor Michael Moore blamed the snafu on his Internet provider, Xtra, but an Xtra spokesman pointed out that such a mistake could only originate from within a user’s own e-mail a program. M a g ic a l G i f t s for the | Goddess w i t h i n Open 10 am -7pm Tuesday-Sundav 3125 t Burnside ( 503 ) 235-0000 11 SW EDEN I he Swedish government appointed an ombudsman for sexual orien tation employment discrimi nation. Well-known gay- rights activist Hans Ytterberg is slated to start his new job May 1. At the first international meeting of queer Amnesty Tire announcement was International activists March 2 6 to 28 in London made at the annual confer Delegates from 25 countries on five conti ence of the National Federation for Sexual Equality. nents attended the gathering. “This meeting represents a major step for YUGOSLAVIA ward in the status of [lesbian, gay, bisexual and he Campaign Against Homophobia— a trans] human rights across the world," said one project of the gay group Arcadia, the Euro of the activists, Francisco Olivera of Argentina. pean Youth Association of Serbia and the Humanitarian Law Fund— has denounced both the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and Yugosla he Internet site of the International Les vian leader Slobodan Milosevic. bian and Gay Association offers a new “[We arc] disgusted at the attacks of NATO,” country-by-country survey of the legal situation the activists said in an English-language press of lesbians and gay men around the globe— from release signed by C A H ’s chief executive coordi criminal law to parenting, trans issues to AIDS. nator, Dejan Nebrigic. “NATO has created a sit The project can be accessed at www.ilga.org. uation which only empowers Milosevic’s com munist-fascist regime and directly supports fur IS R A E L ther continuation of his terror against Kith the erusalem’s first gay and lesbian center opened Kosovo Albanians and every genuine, authen downtown March 18. tic... opposition in the Republic of Serbia." Orthodox gays, lesbian feminists, Arabs and The group says that “the coordinators of the secular Jews attended the ceremony, organizers Campaign Against Homophobia are directly said. endangered by these attacks both by the NATO “This is a step out of the closet for Jerusalem’s Kimbs and by the revenge of the local popula gay and lesbian community,” says Jerry Levin tion, as well as of the police, who consider us to son, one of the facility’s founders. be the American ‘agents’ which, in the Repub "We are not intimidated by the city’s intoler lic of Serbia, means people who fight for democ ance; rather, we intend to change this. Every gay ratization of the country.” and lesbian person in the Jerusalem area will It adds: “We resolutely condemn the Serbian find a safe and welcoming haven at the center,” regime, the one indeed responsible for the cur he continues. “It will serve lesbian settlers from rent situation, which refuses to stop the war by the occupied territories, gay teenagers from area signing the accord. We as well condemn NATO, high schools, Haredi Jews from ultra-Orthodox which with its attacks directly undermines our neighborhoods like Me’a She’arim, university activities toward the democratization of the students, Arabs from East Jerusalem and persons Republic of Serbia and endangers our lives.” of every faith.” Among the center’s projects are study and ■ Compiled by R ex W oocner support groups for religious gay people, a youth :£jfr JL has m pà T ■ i T J Vf • CL: K a th e rin e ’s Body Piercing Salon