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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1999)
news ATM 0PEN>24 HOURS INSIDE AUSTRALIA FRANCE ^he Satellite Group, which owns several gay bars and newspapers, believes it is the first gay company to he listed on a stock exchange. The company went public Sept. 24 on the Australian Stock Exchange. The group has plans to expand into e-com merce and gay resorts and retirement homes, a spokeswoman said. he N ational Assembly passed a partnership law O ct. 13 that grants registered cou ples— gay or straight, romantic or not— many of the rights o f matrimony. T he vote was 315-249. T he law is slated to take effect at the beginning of the year. Justice M inister Elisabeth Guigou says the measure “offers a solution to 5 million people who live as couples without being married.” T he law will apply in areas such as income tax, inheritance, housing, immigration, health benefits, job transfers, synchronized vacation time, responsibility for debts, and social welfare. It does not grant equality in the areas of parental rights, adoption or medically assisted procre ation. Unlike heterosexual couples who get mar ried, registered partners will tie the knot before a court rather than at the town hall. They also will not be allowed to file a joint tax return until they’ve been together three years. Married peo ple can do so immediately. O pponents plan to challenge the law before the Constitutional Council. T he registration measure had passed the Assembly three times in the last 12 months but was rejected each time by the Senate. This time, the bill will become law without Senate consid eration. T V ID 60 BRAZIL S ta te o f t h e f l rt V ideo A rcade ■ V & 8 Preview B o o t h s V H N6UÜ T H P € S F R O M CREDIT CARDS d iscre e t p a rkin g in the back hree of the nations top soccer stars have posed nude in recent issues of the gay mag azine G. A n article in The Boston Globe calls it a U »» craze. G spokes woman Nanete Neves said the players “are not gay, [they just] have good bod ies and are proud of them selves.” But a few soccer honchos are not amused. Goalkeeper Roger Jose de Noronto Silva was banned from his Sào Paulo team’s next game by coach Paulo Carpegiani after the magazine appeared. Silva said he didn’t understand why. “ 1 told the team about the photos beforehand,” he said. “There’s no way I would have done something like this without permission. I don’t see what their problem is.... My wife was quite happy for me to appear naked.” T CHINA T I (¡P The Research . & Education Group nr . n 1 ■ MM HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials in Oregon and SW Washington • Multiple Site Locations • Currently Enrolling in Multiple Studies • Call Today and Find Out How You Can Participate The Research & Education Group, Oregon's only research organization dedicated solely to HIV treatment. he author of the 1995 book Homosexuals in China, Fang Gang, was fined $845 on Sept. 30 for outing the manager of a dance hall where a gay party was held. Fang’s publishing house was fined an additional $241. Although the book does not name plaintiff Xu Yanguang, it names the dance hall and says its manager is gay. In handing down the verdict, Beijing’s Xuan- wu District Court said homosexuality is “abnor mal sexual behavior and is not acceptable to the public,” and, as a result, Xu suffered “depression and psychological pain” as well as economic losses and damage to his reputation. Xu further claimed that his fiancée refused to marry him and he couldn’t find a job after the book was published. Fang, 31, may appeal. “I feel the judgment is unfair,” he told the South China Morning Post. “ It is for doctors, not judges, to say if homosexuality is abnormal. The court says that it is considered abnormal, but by whom— all 1.2 billion Chinese? T he most authoritative definition is by the World Health Organization, which has removed it from its list of illnesses.” Fang and his publisher also were ordered to pay $217 of the $289 in legal expenses associat ed with the case, and to publish an apology in the Justice Ministry’s Legal Daily newspaper. T KENYA P resident Daniel arap Moi called homosexu ality a “scourge" Sept. 28, saying, “ It is not right that a man should go with another man or a woman with another woman. It is against African tradi tion and Bibli cal teachings." Speaking at a Nairobi agri culture show, the 75-year-old M oi added: “Now we are seeing men wearing ear rings to make it easy for them to be identified by other men." O ne day earlier, U gan dan President Yoweri Museveni announced that he had ordered the arrest o f all that nation’s gay people. He said they are guilty of “abominable acts.” U ganda’s penal code considers sex between people o f the same gender “carnal knowledge of another against the order o f nature.” LATVIA A s the government considers a registered- partnership law for same-sex couples, a new Baltic Data House poll found 53 percent of the adult population supports the proposal. Thirty-five percent of those questioned do not, and 11 percent have no opinion. Sixty-three percent of those polled said gays and lesbians “are an equal part of society.” Thir ty-one percent said they’re not, and 6 percent had no opinion. rORTLAND 5 URLI IHDEPENDENT • NOIKOMNERflAl L istener -S ponsored C ommuhitt R adio S tation The R&E Group is a public non-profit organization. 503.229.8428 • 800.875.8428 SW* U fa ** <|0.7 FM PORTLAHD • 9 Ì .7 (OIUHIIA 6OA6E « IO O .7 WlLUHETTf VALUT
