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ARGENTINA
rans activist Vanesa Lorena Ledesma died
Feb. 16 in police custody in Cordoba’s 18th
precinct of an alleged heart attack.
She had been arrested five days earlier for
allegedly damaging the premises during a fight
at a bar.
Local activists charge that Ledesma died not
of cardiac arrest but as a result of “physical pun
ishment and torture,” which, they said, was doc
umented by an autopsy.
The autopsy reportedly found broken bones
and signs that she had been beaten all over her
body, including while handcuffed.
T
“I cannot support their lifestyle through a
proclamation,” he said.
Tribunal member Carol Roberts called
Gray’s edit “tantamount to a political insult"
and said it unlawfully discriminated against gay
men and lesbians because of their sexual orien
tation.
P
opular Tele-Quebec food
host and sex symbol
Daniel Pinard, 57, came out of
the closet in March.
Legions of lusty
female viewers
were appar
AUSTRIA
ently
flung
org Haider, the de facto leader of the far-right
into the
Freedom Party, is a closeted gay man, accord
ing to recent reports in Britain’s The Guardian, abyss of
Germany’s Berlin Tageszeitung and Austria’s Der existential
despair
Standard.
upon
Haider, 49, also has sex with boys below the
learning
Austrian age of consent, which is 18, the reports
said, and he often has sex in neighboring Slova of Pinard’s
sexual ori
kia, where the age of consent for gay sex is 15.
entation.
The papers said Haider’s current partner is a
youthful member of the Freedom Party who has
Said
Toronto’s
worked as his personal secretary.
“We’ve known about Haider’s homosexuali Globe and
ty for about 10 years,” the national gay group
Mail: “With his seductive blue
Homosexual Initia
eyes, silver-grey hair, handsome features and
tive Vienna said in
athletic build, Mr. Pinard is a younger Paul
a statement. “On
Newman. He is bright, cultured, funny. He talks
the one hand, we
about food in such a sensuous way that you want
think it’s positive
to eat his dishes right away, preferably with him
that the rumors are
facing you across the table in soft candle light.”
no longer capable of
In his coming out interview, Pinard told
ruining a political
reporters: “I wouldn’t be here tonight if it had
career; on the other
not been for [the late actor] Jean-Louis Millette.
hand, an earlier
He saved me from suicide. He told me: ‘You’ll be
outing of Haider
happy some day, hut keep your mouth shut. Peo
would have been
ple are not as tolerant as you think.’ ”
justified.”
Pinard added: "It’s terrible for teenagers,
Haider
threw
because they’re surrounded by kids who are
Europe into turmoil
frightened by their own sexuality and their own
early this year when Jörg Haider
ambivalence and are searching for an image to
the Freedom Party
destroy."
entered the Austri
Haider's opponents
an government in
coalition with the
im Stevenson, a gay member of British
consider him
conservative Peo
Colum bia’s Legislative Assembly, was
a xenophobic,
ple’s Party. Amid
elected deputy speaker of the body March 14.
growing protests, he
He is the first openly gay deputy speaker in
racist extremist who,
resigned as the
Canadian his
party’s official chair
as the U.S. Anti-
tory.
man while main
“The
gay
Defamation League
taining a leadership
and
lesbian
role.
put it, has made
community has
Haider’s oppo
come a long
nents consider him "numerous statements
way,” Steven
a xenophobic, racist
utilizing Holocaust
son said. "This
extremist who, as
appointment
terminology or
the U .S. Anti-
helps illustrate
Defamation League
legitimizing Nazi
the advances
put it, has made
being made at
“numerous state policy and activities"
all levels of
ments
utilizing
society.”
Holocaust terminology or legitimizing Nazi pol
He added:
icy and activities.”
“We now have the first ethnic minority person
The Freedom Party’s parliamentary leader,
as [provincial] premier, nine women in [the]
Peter Westenthaler, called the reports of cabinet and an out gay person as deputy speak
Haider’s homosexuality “absurd...sleaze-mon-
er. These are important steps toward full equali
gering and refused further comment.
ty in British Columbia. I would never have
dreamed just 10 or 15 years ago we would see the
CANADA
advances we have made.”
Stevenson lives in Vancouver’s gay West End
W o T 9 ray’ mayor
Kelowna, British
Columbia, says he will no longer sign any
with his partner of 19 years, Gary Paterson. The
city proclamations in response to a March 23
couple raised three daughters.
ruling by a provincial Human Rights Tribunal
that he discriminated against gay men and les
HONG KONG
bians.
'5 ay and lesbian activists staged public dis-
Gray refused to include the word pride in his
^ plays of affection during a March 2
proc amation of ‘G ay and Lesbian Pride Day”
screening of the Canadian lesbian-themed film
proclaiming instead‘G ay and Lesbian Day.” ’
Better Than Chocolate to protest the Television
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