'mews
L is t e n e r
N e g o tiato r
he the gay and lesbian community’s answer to
the Olympics, generating more than $100 mil
lion for the economy,” the paper said.
But only 10,000 of 120,000 tickets have been
sold so far. “The event will he struggling to break
even,” the report said.
Mardi Gras, meanwhile, escaped bankruptcy
in early July via an infusion of $222,400 from a
mystery donor and a promise to its hank that the
parade and festival will he profitable, according
to the Australian.
he state of Victoria, where Melbourne is
located, has seen a nearly 50 percent
increase in annual HIV diagnoses since 1999.
Up until then, the rate was decreasing.
“These figures in Victoria are a clear warning
sign," Bill Whitaker, Australian Federation of
AIDS Organizations president, told the Sunday
Age. “We have got a window of opportunity to
fix up Australia’s A ID S response.”
Officials and activists hlame the assumed
increase in unprotected sex on “safe-sex fatigue”
and optimism about treatments. “The fear of
AIDS has lost some of its hite,” said Nick Crofts
of Melbourne’s Burnet Institute.
R U S S IA
R
ussian cult writer Vladimir Sorokin was
charged with distributing pornography
July 11 because his 3-year-old novel Blue Lard
depicts Josef Stalin and N ikita Khrushchev
having gay sex. “We received a complaint
from a man who bought Sorokin’s hook, [and]
we launched an expert investigation,” S v et
lana Petrenko o f the Moscow Prosecutor’s
Office told Reuters.
Some officials de
nounced the arrest.
“Persistent attempts
by
law enforce
ment. . .to break writ
ers of their incorrect
writing hahits never
achieved anything,
either for literature or
the citizens of this
country as a whole,”
said Alexei Volin,
Vladimir Sorokin
deputy head of ad
ministration for President Vladimir Putin.
Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi said: “I
am not a fan of Sorokin, hut I will defend his
right to speak.... This is a highly dangerous
precedent.”
CANADA
A
breaking and historic, although the government
might well appeal the case all the way to the
national Supreme Court.
E d u ca to r
H om eow ner
Call the Law Office
of James D. McVittie
503-224-6611
f
orget Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Elton John’s upcoming Canadian tour is
heading to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and
Kelowna, British Columbia.
“Some artists are of such a high caliber that they
don’t need to play by the ‘stay in the major markets’
rule,” ChartAttack.com explained. “While we’re
overjoyed for Elton fans in Saskatoon and Kelowna,
you gotta admit, it’s a little hit weird.”
Saskatoon boasts a population of 209,000.
Kelowna, located 237 miles northeast of Van
couver, has a population of 96,000.
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C H IN A
eijing’s AIDS Action Project was evicted
from its office at a private university after
officials told the school to stop cooperating with
the organization, the South China Morning Post
reported July 4. “ It will he very difficult for us to
apply for funding without being connected to an
institution,” founder Wan Yan Hai said.
He believes authorities targeted the project
because its Web site published the names of 170
farmers who died from AIDS in the Henan
province after selling their blood to unsanitary,
government-sanctioned collectors between the
late 1980s and mid-1990s. Wan told the Post that
up to 2 million residents might have been infected.
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M ALTA
I
" or the first time, a political party in Malta
has come out in support of gay equality, the
Independent newspaper reported. The Alterna
tive Democrats called July 6 for state recogni
tion of partnerships, fairness for couples in hous
ing and social welfare, a constitutional amend
ment banning discrimination based on sexual
orientation and criminalization of harassment.
“We would like other parties and institutions
to follow us, as they did with regards to the envi
ronment,” chairman Harry Vassallo said. “I just
hope they won’t take another 10 years to get to
agree with us on this issue.”
Representatives of the year-old Malta Gay
Rights Movement appeared with party officials
as the proposals were announced. The organiza
tion staged a week of Pride celebrations in early
July, including an art exhibit and a festival.
“There must be around 40,000 gays and les
bians in Malta, but people ask, ‘Where are
they?’ ” coordinator Sandro Mangion said. “We
all know that social stigma forces a lot of gays to
remain in the closet, but we also know there are
politicians, people in the media, in show busi
ness, teachers and public figures who are gay and
who could serve as positive role models to elim
inate stereotypes.’
three-judge panel of the Superior Court of
Ontario ruled July 12 that it is unconstitu
tional not to recognize marriages between peo
ple of the same gender.
The two couples who instigated the case, Joe
Vamell and Kevin Bourassa and Anne and Elaine Compiled by R ex WOCKNER, who has reported
Vautour, were married at the gay Metropolitan for the gay press since 1 985 . He has a bachelor’s
Community Church via the process of reading degree in journalism from Drake Unniersity and
hanns— asking in church on three Sundays if started his career as a radio reporter.
anyone objects to the
marriage, which is a
legal way to marry in
Ontario. They were
given marriage certifi
cates by pastor Brent
Hawkes, hut provincial
officials later refused to
register the documents.
The court’s decision
will not become law for
two years to give the
federal Parliament the
option of changing the
law itself. Activists
called the decision un Joe Vamell and Kevin Bourassa respond to the crowd June 30 during
precedented, ground- the Toronto Pride Parade
’jn
D avid W. O wens
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A tto rn eys
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