february 1 8. 2000 • J u s t o u t 17
A U S T R A L IA
here’s a gonorrhea epidemic among gays in
the nation’s most populous city, 77\e Sydney
Morning Herald reported Jan. 27.
The number of cases reported to the state
health department last year— 1,260—is about
double the 1998 figure.
Australians are also using fewer condoms.
Forty million were imported last year, compared
with 55 million in 1991. (Condoms are not pro
duced domestically.)
In recent surveys, 20 to 25 percent of gay
men have acknowledged having unprotected
casual sex.
The nation sees about 400 to 500 new HIV
diagnoses yearly.
T
CANADA
he all-news network CTV fired anchor
Avery Haines on Jan. 17 after
she flubbed a line and then,
A
thinking she was off
^
the air, said: “I
kind of like
the stutter
ing
thing.
It’s like equal
opportunity,
right? We’ve got
a stuttering news
caster. We’ve got
___ __
the black, we’ve got
the Asian, we’ve got
the woman. I could he a
lesbian, folk-dancing, black woman stutterer.”
Henry Kowalski, a CTV vice president, said:
“The nature of her comments did not leave
CTV News with any alternative [hut to fire her].
Her remarks were disrespectful and unprofes
sional and cannot he excused.”
T
C H IN A
"’1 ay life is opening up in the People’s Repub-
7 lie of China, The Washington Post reported
Jan. 24.
Beijing has a burgeoning gay bar scene, and
gay men and lesbians are getting hitched in
“semi-open” wedding ceremonies, the paper
said.
Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, and
there is no law against homosexual prostitution.
The nation has several gay magazines,
according to the Post, and gay men and lesbians
have also taken quickly to the nation’s Internet
explosion.
(
EL SALVAD O R
embers and supporters of the Internation
al Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Com
mission picketed the Consulate of El Salvador
in San Francisco on Jan. 26 in support of the
gay group Entre Amigos.
El Salvador’s National Civil Police has
declined to assign officers to protect Entre Ami
gos leader William Hernandez, his family and
other members of the group, all of whom have
reportedly received death threats.
Police Chief Mauricio Sandoval has
acknowledged that the individuals qualify for
police assistance under the nation’s Protection
for Important People program, but he said he
would not actually assign any officers to the case
because the officers do not share Hernandez’s
“sexual tastes” and thus would be uncomfort
able.
Sandoval suggested that Entre Amigos
instead hire private security officers, whom
police could train, or that the group provide a
list of names of gay and lesbian officers who
could he considered for the assignment.
M
KENYA
ix of 43 Kenyan prostitutes thought to be
immune to HIV have tested positive for the
S
virus after quitting the trade and no longer being
exposed to HIV on a constant basis.
The news is a setback for a vaccine effort
that was constructed around the fact that the
prostitutes had large numbers of cytotoxic T
lymphocytes, which kill cells that harbor HIV.
Oxford University scientists have been test
ing a vaccine that mimics the lymphocytes’
action, delivering HIV fragments via a disabled
cowpox virus.
In trials the vaccine protected monkeys from
infection, but now researchers fear that individ
uals would have to he vaccinated over and over
and over, just as the prostitutes were exposed to
HIV on a near-daily basis.
“This implies that to maintain immunity you
need to have continual exposure,” said Oxford
researcher Sarah Rowland-Jones.
U N ITE D K IN G D O M
cottish Roman Catholic Cardinal Thomas
Winning said Jan. 22 that gays are as dan
gerous as Nazis, British newspapers reported.
“All over Europe, an active and militant
homosexual lobby is pushing for greater power,
and the threat to the Christian family is very
real,” Winning said. “Cast your minds back to
the dark days of World War II. The parallels
with today are striking. In place of the bombs of
50 years ago, you find yourselves bombarded
with images, values and ideas which are utterly
alien.”
Gay leaders were outraged by the remarks.
“Cardinal Winning’s claims of an interna
tional conspiracy are reminiscent of the kinds of
claims being made against the Jews 100 years
ago—the very kind of claims that led to the
Holocaust,” said Tim Hopkins of the Equality
Network.
A day later, Winning accused journalists of
maliciously misinterpreting his comments.
“The suggestion that I compared homosexu
al activists to Nazis is utterly false,” he said. “The
word ‘Nazi’ does not appear at any point in my
address, and I believe it would be inappropriate,
offensive and fatuous to compare the current
debate to what happened in Germany in the
war years.”
S
he British activist group OutRage has
called a boycott of Stagecoach buses and
trains owned by Scottish millionaire Brian
Souter.
Souter has donated $1.6 million to a cam
paign to derail Scottish plans to repeal locally
_
_
the anti-gay British law
Section
28,
which
pro
hibits cities
from “inten
tionally pro-
m ot [ingl
homosexuali
ty” and bans
teaching “the
acceptability
of homosexuality
as a pretended family relationship” in schools.
“Brian Souter wants to buy political influ
ence and sustain discrimination,” said Out-
Rage’s Peter Tatchell. “Using money from his
bus and train operations, he is committed to
funding a high-profile campaign to pressure the
Scottish Parliament to ditch its promise to
repeal Section 28. It is apparently Mr. Souter’s
intention to use his immense wealth to subvert
the public and parliamentary majorities in favor
of equality.”
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■ Compiled by R ex WOCKNER, u T io lias reported
for the gay press since 1985. He has a bachelor’s
degree in journalism from Drake University and
started his career as a radio reporter.
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