5.2003
r i U il * ' l T i e W S
R U S S IA
he Russian Orthodox Church cut ties
Nov. 17 with the U.S. Episcopal Church
because ot the Diocese' of New Hampshire’s
recent consecration ot an openly gay man. Gene
Robinson, as bishop.
"We will not he able to cooperate with these
people in the realm ot theological dialogue or in
humanitarian, religious and public spheres," said
the Moscow Patriarchy’s foreign church rela
tions department. “We have no right to allow
even a particle ot agreement with their position,
which we consider to be* profoundly anti-
Christian and blasphemous.
“Homosexualism is a sin, which separates
man from God," the statement continued. "The
church does not deny help to those unfortunate
people who are possessed with this ailment....
However, the church cannot approve ot the per
version of human nature created by the creator
himself. The church cannot bless the distortion
of the image ot God.”
Anglican churches in several African
nations also have cut or reduced ties with the
U.S. church or the New Hampshire diocese.
tore, those individuals are not eligible for mar
ried quarters. The [Ministry ot Defense! is look
ing at this tor the future, but at the moment that
is the situation."
The United Kingdom lifted its military gay
ban in early 2000.
FR AN CE
he man who stabbed and seriously
wounded openly gay .Paris Mayor
Bertrand Delanoe last year probably will not
face trial because psychiatrists repeatedly
have deemed him mentally unstable and not
responsible for his actions, The Advocate
reported.
The charges against Azedine Berkane likely
will he dismissed, and he will lx* committed to a
mental institution. However, Delanoe still could
insist that Berkane undergo a fourth round of
psychiatric testing.
Berkane stabbed Delanoe during a party
Oct. 6, 2002, at City Hall because he dislikes
homosexuals and politicians, he said. Delanoe
spent two weeks in the hospital and underwent
surgery to repair internal organs.
BA R B A D O S
ccording to a phone-in poll con
ducted by Barbados’ Daily
Nation newspaper, 616 of 667 callers
rejected the government’s desire to
decriminalize homosexuality to help
slow HIV transmission. “Buggery” is
punishable with up to life in prison.
The majority of those opposed to
the change, 295 callers, said they
were Pentecostal Christians. Another
123 callers identified as “Christian.”
~V X
ZOO
A
ZIMBABW E
Canaan Banana, the former
^ leader of Zimbabwe who was
outed and imprisoned for sodomy,
died Nov. 10 at age 67 after a long
illness. He was president from 1980
to 1987.
Banana was jailed on 11 charges of
sodomy, attempted sodomy and
unnatural acts with men in 1997. He
Greek activists demonstrate Nov. 14 in Athens against
was accused of sexually assaulting uni
a $1 17,000 fine imposed on a television station for
versity students he taught, members of
screening a show featuring two men kissing
the State House fixitball team, police
men, military officers, ctxiks, garden
GR EE CE
ers, aides, a job interviewee and a hitchhiker. He
reece’s Mega Channel has been fined served only eight months of a 10-year sentence.
$117,000 by the National Radio and
The ruling ZANU-PF party’s Politburo
Television Council for showing a male-male declared Nov. 17 that
kiss on the weekly drama Close Your Eyes. Banana’s txxJy would not
The council said the scene “could damage be interred in the nation’s
young people by making them too familiar Heroes’ Acre cemetery
because he had set a “bad
with vulgarity.”
Mega plans to challenge the fine in court. example to youth.” Instead,
About 35 gays and transvestites staged a kiss-in he will be laid to rest at his
Nov. 14 on the steps of the council’s Athens birthplace near the provin
cial capital of Bulawayo Canaan Banana
headquarters to protest the fine.
after a “state-assisted funer
UNITED KINGDOM
al,” said Nathan Shamuyarira, Politburo secre
female member of the Royal Air Force who I tary for information and publicity.
married a woman last month in the Cana- !
GERMANY
dian province of Ontario, where same-sex mar
committee of Germany’s Federal Assembly
riage is allowed, has been denied access to mar
ried military quarters in Oxfordshire, England,
approved Nov. 13 coastmction of a nation
because such unions are not recognized in the al memorial to the approximately 15,OCX) homo
sexuals sent to concentration camps by the Nazis.
United Kingdom.
Senior Aircraftwoman Samantha Wyatt, 26,
The move was supported by the Social
met her wife, massage therapist Christa McKay, Demixrrats and the Greens and opposed by the
25, during a Royal Air Force posting in Canada. Christian Demixxats. It faces a final vote in the
“1 think the [Ministry of «Defense) are being full Assembly, where the two supportive parties
totally unfair," Wyatt told the Rritish Broad have a majority. JH
casting Corp. “Gays are allowed to be in the
military now—why can’t they recognize same- Compiled by R ex Wcx.KNER, who has reported
sex marriages?”
for the gay press since 1985. He has a bachelor's
A ministry spokesman explained: “Gay mar degree m journalism from Drake University and
riages are not recognized within the U.K.; there- started his career as a radio reporter
C
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