S. 2002
HONDURAS
Christmas
Shipping
f p o lic e in San Pedro Sula are arresting cross-
1 dressing sex workers on Morazán Boulevard
and relocating them to another part of town,
according to a Nov. 18 report from the U.S.-
hased National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Organization. The street is
being developed as a tourist area.
“It goes without saying...that this news caus
es great alarm to the members of the LG BT com
munity as well as human rights organizations
around the world,” LLEGÓ executive director
Martín Ornelas-Quintero said in letters sent to
Honduran President Ricardo Maduro and San
Pedro Sula Mayor Oscar Eduardo Kilgore López.
net company Yahoo! after gay activists and
celebrities denounced it as homophobic. In the
commercial, a man who is left tied to a tree
naked after his bachelor party is stalked by a
predatory homosexual in a raincoat.
ARGENTINA
A
civil unions hill was introduced in the Par
liament of the Buenos Aires province last
month. Hebe Febles’ proposal sets up a registry
and extends all provincial marriage rights to reg
istered same-sex and opposite-sex couples in
areas such as sick and bereavement leave, hous
ing and social security.
The proposal defines “family” as “the loving
union of two individuals who, as a cou
ple, commit before stxriety to create a
functional and mutually responsible
union, a union that must he horn of two
adults’ mutual, loving and free choice.”
Civil union bills also are under consider
ation by the Buenos Aires City Council,
the Mendoza Parliament and the
national Congress.
TNAILAND
20% OFF
UPS NEXT DAY AIR
15% OFF
UPS 2nd DAY AIR
10% OFF
UPS GROUND
THESE SPECIAL RATES EFFECTIVE
DEC 1ST THRU DEC 23RD
CHRISTMAS HOURS
D ec 1 to D ec 9
M-F 8am to 6pm, Sat 10am to 4pm, Closed Sunday
D ec IO to D ec 18
M-F 8am to 8pm, Sat 10am to 4pm, Sunday noon to 4pm
D ec 1 9 to D ec 31
M-F 8am to 6pm, Sat 10am to 4pm, Closed Sunday
D ec 2 4 & D ec 31
8am to noon
503 236 5587
4110 SE H aw thorne Blvd
fa x 503 236 4293
C orner o f 4 1 st A H aw thorne
ore than 300 cops from Bangkok’s
Crime Suppression Division raided
the gay bar Pharaoh in the city’s Sapan
Kwai neighborhood Nov. 22.
Owner Boonthanu Suppaphan was
This is the scene that greeted Central Station founder
charged with illegally operating a night
Ilya Abaturov when he finally was let into his club
club and providing lewd shows and serv
ices for commercial purposes, according to the
RUSSIA
Bangkok Post. Police also arrested several employ
he Moscow gay club Central Station was
ees and about 100 underwear-clad customers.
looted and trashed during or just after the
October hostage crisis at the Dubrovka Theater,
which is in the same building, the Moscow Times
reported Nov. 19.
Central Station founder Ilya Abaturov said
tens of thousands of dollars of cash, liquor and
sound equipment were stolen, either by special
security forces who used the club as a staging
area to storm the theater or by builders and
police who had access to the venue after the spe
cial agents left. He also found the words
“Wretched Faggots” scrawled on a wall, and
some furniture was busted up.
i;
T
UNITED KINGDOM
B
ritain will abolish several anti-gay sex
laws— including ones concerned with bug
gery, gross indecency and soliciting by men—
Home Secretary David Blunkett said Nov, 19.
“The law on sex offenses is widely recognized
as archaic, incoherent and discriminatory,” he
said. “Much of it belongs in an age before the
light bulb or motor.”
The laws targeting gay sex, Blunkett said,
“criminalize consensual sexual activity in pri
vate between men, which would not be illegal
between heterosexuals or between women.”
Some news reports said the changes effectively
legalize what the British call “cottaging”— seek
ing out and having sexual encounters in public
toilets, wooded areas and such— as long as the
encounters are not visible to passersby; however,
a new law will punish sexual acts that take place
in public view with up to six months in jail.
L
egislation permitting unmarried and same-
sex couples to adopt children passed Nov. 4
and 5 through Britain’s House of Commons and
House of Lords.
The vote was 344-145 in the Commons and
215-184 in the Lords, which rejected the measure
Oct. 16 and sent it hack to the Commons. About
5,000 children are awaiting adoption in the Unit
ed Kingdom.
B
ritain's Independent Television Commis
sion has suspended airing of an ad for Inter-
Hadrian
Antinous
ITALY
A
lost temple that Roman emperor Hadrian
built to honor his male lover has been dis
covered during new excavations 18 miles east of
Rome, Reuters reported Nov. 15.
“We are convinced that we have found the
missing monument to Antinous," said Anna
Maria Reggiani, superintendent of archaeology
for the Lazio region. Hadrian, who lived from
A.D. 76 to A.D. 138 and ruled from A.D. 117 to
A.D. 138, erected the huge semicircular struc
ture to assuage his grief after Antinous, a teen
ager, drowned in the Nile in A.D. 130.
SOUTH KOREA
N
asty definitions of homosexuality are set to
disappear from South Korean dictionaries
following a Nov. 15 settlement arranged hy the
National Human Rights Commission. Gay
groups had filed a complaint with the agency
objecting to phrases such as “sexual perversion.”
SOUTH AFRICA
F
ive gay nightclubs in a one-block area of
Johannesburg have been ordered closed
because of zoning violations.
They are located at Henri and Juta streets in the
Braamfontein neighborhood, the city’s only district
with a cluster of gay bars. The establishments are
owned hy Shane Grant, who is fighting mad.
“Just because it’s a gay club, they’re going for
me,” he told the Sunday Times. "Now the fight
will only start. Since Day One (three years ago]