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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2003)
3 0 J m t M l » tune 6.2003 i'iijîH 'in e w s d o u g b e e b e .co m SEARCH EVERY HOME d o u g b eeb e.co m IN YOUR PRICE RANGE d o u g b eeb e.co m WHERE YOU WANT TO LIVE d o u g b eeb e.co m & BELGIUM bout 15,000 people turned out for Brussels’ Gay Pride festival May 3. This month Belgium will become only the second nation in the world to let same-sex couples marry under the same laws as straight people. But the law change did not extend adoption rights or the right to marry a for eigner, so this year’s Pride slogan was “We want more.” Belgium’s first full same-sex marriages will take place at 8:30 a.m. June 16 in Ghent City Hall, activists said. They were having trouble finding couples who wanted to go first and get married amid a media frenzy, but now someone has stepped forward. A SPAIN jf he Basque Parliament extended the legal 1 rights of marriage to unmarried same-sex and opposite-sex couples May 7. All matrimonial rights— including those related to adoption, taxation and health care— were included. A majority of European Union nations now extend most or all marriage rights to same-sex couples, and the Netherlands and Belgium let same-sex couples marry under ordi nary marriage laws. UNITED KINGDOM lanned laws to protect U .K. gays from discrim ination in the workplace will exem pt employers “with an ethos based on religion or belief,” The Independent reported May 10. T h e U nited Kingdom is enacting the measures to comply with a European Union directive on worker rights. The Independent said the decision to limit the legislation might have been made by Prime Minister Tony Blair himself. “The statutory instruments slipped out to Parliament last week were watered down fol lowing direct intervention by Downing Street,” the paper said. “A Whitehall source said the decision was made ‘at the highest level’ and that Barbara R(x:he, the equalities minister, had been overruled.” G ay cam paigners denounced the development. “The government has given in to pressure from religious bodies and created a bigots’ char ter," said Terry Sanderson of the Gay and Les bian Humanist Association. “ It specifically per mits organized religions to deny jobs to, and sack, gay people.... It’s an anti-discrimination law that encourages discrimination. The gov ernment has been weak and cowardly.” P BARBARA SUE SEAL PROPERTIES Direct 503.471.3479 503.224.7325 COLOUieLL BANKERQ EA D IE A D A M S R E A L T Y “For Your Palm Springs Place in the Sun” John W. Butler Bus: (760) 778-5500 Fax: (760) 323-7832 Cell/Pgr: (760) 774-0685 E-mail: ccsvs@aol.com 431 South Palm Canyon Palm Spring«, CA 92262 IdEl A bout $16,400 raised at Brighton, England’s annual Pride festivities is missing. Sussex police are investigating. This year’s Pride celebration will go ahead as planned Aug. 2 to 10. A bout 43 percent of British gay men wouldn’t want to have sex with someone who is HIV-positive. The question was included in the ninth Gay Men’s Sex Survey conducted by the Sigma research group. About 17,000 men were questioned. Three-fourths of the men surveyed expect an HIV-positive individual to reveal his status before sex. Half of the respondents had been tested for HIV, and 14 percent had tested positive. About 20 percent of those questioned said they’d likely had unprotected anal sex with someone whose HIV status was different from their own. Among other findings: 34 percent of respon dents had experienced homophobic verbal abuse in the past year, mostly from strangers in public. About 7 percent had been physically attacked because of their sexuality. The Internet is now the second most popular place to meet sex partners, after bars and clubs. The results were summarized in the June issue of Gay Times. Swinburne, 72, later attempted damage con trol, saying: “My words have been taken out of context. People can do what they like as long as it’s legal. I have no prob lem with gays.” In a second interview he added: “If I came across as homophobic, I can only apologize to people who took that view because it is not my posi tion. What I did say was that I didn’t understand the problem because my generation swept it under the carpet.” CANADA bout 100 people staged a protest May 23 in central Saint John, New Brunswick, against Elsie Wayne, who represents the city in the national Parliament and is deputy leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, the Tories. She said May 8 in the House of Commons: “When it comes to people who wish to live together, whether they are women or men, why do they have E |s ie Wayne to be out here in the pub lic always debating that they want to call it mar -5» riage.7 Why are they in parades7 Why are they member of Scotland’s Parliament has come out dressed up as women on floats.7 after hearing that a newspaper was preparing to “They do not see us getting up on the floats, out her. Margaret Smith, 43, said she is involved for heaven’s sake, to say we are husband and with a woman who just wife. We do not do that. Why do they have to recently left her husband. go around trying to get a whole lot of publicity? “This is first and fore | If they are going to live together, they can go most a personal matter,” live together and shut up about it. There is not said Smith, who represents any need for this nonsense whatsoever, and we Edinburgh West for the should not have to tolerate it in Canada.” Liberal Democrats. “But I The protesters said Wayne’s outburst did not am happy to confirm that I represent the mind-set of her constituents. am in a relationship with a Tory leaders said her opinions are not those of female partner. My family the party. Gay MP Scott Brison, who is running for are aware of the relation Margaret Smith the party leader job, accused Wayne of “rabid prej ship and have been very udice,” according to a Canadian Television report. supportive. My partner is not in the public eye. We would hope that the media would respect the privacy of both families at this time." ontreal police raided the gay stripper club Meanwhile, another Scottish MP is under Taboo and arrested 23 dancers, seven fire for gay-bashing. John Swinburne, who rep other employees and four customers May 10. resents the Central Region for the Scottish Charges included being an inmate or patron of Senior Citizens Unity Party, said: “I really don’t a common bawdy house. Police said they had staked know what’s wrong with these people. There out the bar for several months amid allegations that must be something we can do to help them. it employed underage strippers and that strippers They must be sick or something.” and customers were having sex with each other. Montreal’s last big gay bar raid was in 1977, according to the Toronto-based Web site 365Gay.com. A A M IRAQ raq’s most famous gay blogger, Salam Pax, has returned to cyberspace at dearraed.blogspot.com. “Let me tell you one thing first,” he writes. “War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your ‘imminent liberation’ anymore. “N o matter what the outcome is,” he con tinues, “these things leave a trail of destruction behind them. There were days when the Red Crescent was begging for volunteers to help in taking the bodies of dead people off the city street and bury them properly. The hospital grounds have been turned to burial grounds when the electricity went out and there was no way the bodies can be kept until someone comes and identifies. “I confess to the sin of being an escapist,” Pax says. “When reality hurts I block it out, unless it I D ignified % pet S ervices Cremation A Memorials F o r Your Companion • Unique üueMötion UnnS • Mcmoiiiafc JewelUy • Pensonafcized Caskets • Gnanite Monuments • B o o k s £ LiteJiatu*e 8976 SW Tualatin Sherwood Road Tualatin OR 97062 Phone (503) 885-2211 www.Digni fiedPetScrv ices.com (A Division o f Cascade Funeral Directors. Inc) U .K . Prime Minister Tony Blair (right, with President Bush) has been accused of watering down an anti-discrimination law to exempt religious bigots
