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Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
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Rex Wockner |
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| International News | |
| URUGUAY CIVIL-UNION BILL
SIGNED INTO LAW President Tabaré Vázquez signed a bill December 27 making Uruguay the first Latin American country to grant same-sex couples access to civil unions on the national level. The legislation, which passed the Senate in September and the House of Representatives in November, took effect January1. Couples must live together for five years before they can take advantage of the law, which grants spousal rights in areas that include inheritance, property ownership, pensions, parenting and health care. The law applies to "two people - whatever their sex, identity, orientation or sexual option may be - who maintain an emotional relationship of a sexual nature [and] an exclusive, singular, stable and permanent character without being united in matrimony." Other Latin American localities with civil-union laws include the city of Buenos Aires, the Argentine province of Río Negro, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Mexico City, and the Mexican state of Coahuila, which borders Texas. BOLIVIA TO PROTECT GAYS IN CONSTITUTION Bolivia is set to become the sixth nation to ban anti-Gay discrimination in its constitution. Article 14 of the finalized text of the planned new constitution states: "The State prohibits and punishes any form of discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious creed, ideology, political affiliation or philosophical beliefs, marital status, economic or social status, type of occupation, level of education, disability, pregnancy, or other factors that have the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of the rights of everyone." Once ratified, the constitution will become the first in the world to protect Transgender people. The other nations that protect Gays constitutionally are Canada, Ecuador, Fiji, South Africa and Switzerland. Sweden's constitution, in a section on press freedom, prohibits agitation and threats against Gay people as a group. NEPAL SUPREME COURT MANDATES GAY PROTECTIONS Nepal's Supreme Court on December 21 ordered the government to pass new laws and rewrite old ones to extend equal rights and anti-discrimination protections to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual and intersex people. The ruling came in a public-interest case filed by four Gay organizations. Current Nepalese law prohibits "unnatural" sex under penalty of up to two years in prison. "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and intersex are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society," the court said. The court also ordered the government to form a committee to study same-sex marriage in other nations with a view to changing Nepalese law in that area, as well. CUBAN LESBIANS MARRY IN GOVERNMENT AGENCY COURTYARD Two Havana Lesbians were symbolically married December 23 in the courtyard of the state National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), Inter Press Service reported. Mónica, 19, and Elizabeth, 28, tied the knot before 60 friends and supporters in the first-ever same-sex union to receive support from a government agency. The ceremony was filmed by students from the Cuban Higher Institute of Art. "We are trying to raise awareness of this issue based on that which makes us most human, our feelings - in this case, love," the director of the film, Hanny Marín, told IPS. CENESEX is pushing legislation to create legal same-sex civil unions, and the measure could see parliamentary action this year. The agency and the Federation of Cuban Women submitted the bill to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party Central Committee in June. IPS said the Communist Party has instructed CENESEX to "prepare" the public for Gay civil unions via a media campaign, but agency director Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of acting President Raúl Castro, has acknowledged that the bill faces "a great deal of resistance." It would extend spousal rights in areas such as inheritance, housing and adoption. The Roman Catholic vicar general of Havana, Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Céspedes García-Menocal, supports "stable same-sex relationships" being "protected by civil laws," he said in the July/August 2007 issue of the archdiocese's magazine. "Contemporary Western society is no longer the same as that which arrived at present clarifications concerning marriage," Céspedes wrote. Although the church "is not going to renounce criteria established by revelation and set by tradition," he said, "neither can it ignore contemporary personal and family reality." BULGARIANS DON'T LIKE GAYS Eighty percent of Bulgarians have a negative or extremely negative attitude toward Gays, according to a Skala poll published December 20. Seventy percent would prevent their child from attending a school with an openly Gay teacher, half don't want to work with a known homosexual and only 17% said they feel they could communicate freely with a Gay person. About half also said they could not accept it if one of their children were Gay. The study found that negative attitudes are strongest toward cross-dressers and weakest toward Lesbians. SPAIN INVESTIGATES MINISTER'S GAY-CURE PROGRAM The government of Spain's Galicia region is investigating Protestant minister Marcos Zapata for running a seminar called "How to Raise Heterosexual Children," Britain's Guardian newspaper reported December 28. The paper said that at one recent event, Zapata called homosexuality an illness that can be cured via family therapy, said he promotes masculinity in his own family by making his sons watch professional wrestling, and urged attendees to "hug your sons as much as you can, because if you don't, perhaps another man will." A government spokesman suggested it is illegal to proselytize minors with "homophobic attitudes." The head of the National Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals, Toni Poveda, said his group also will pursue legal action against Zapata. "After so many legal victories in this country & we have to deal with fundamentalist groups which take us back to the Franco dictatorship," Poveda told The Guardian. "We are going to try to stop this from happening. Sexual orientation is innate and there's no way to change it." With assistance from Bill Kelley |
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| pictures - Tabere Vazquez |
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| Quote/Unquote | |
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| by Rex Wockner -
SGN Contributing Writer "I actually quit my job to do the show because they wouldn't let me take a leave. I honestly don't know what to do now. I don't know. We'll see." -Gay Mormon Todd Herzog, winner of this season's Survivor, to AfterElton.com, December 17 "Absolutely. Why not? People are competent because - not with anything to do with their sexual orientation. I had people who are homosexual who worked for me in the governor's office." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee when asked on CNN December 17, "Could a Gay be in your administration?" "[I] probably would let the military make that decision [on whether to keep Don't Ask, Don't Tell]. One thing I don't think you need is a president who's trying to tell the military how to run the military, other than set broad policy agenda." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to CNN, December 17 "It's not because I don't like them [that I oppose same-sex marriage]. It's because I like even more the idea that the heart and soul, the essence of our civilization is in the family. It's not in the government. It's not even in some institution, not even the church. Before there was the church, and before there was government, there was family. When you mess with the design, you end up messing with results. We can't afford to do that. That's why you will never hear me waver." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaking to voters in Iowa, December 22 "I don't know whether people are born that way. People who are Gay say that they're born that way. But one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice. We may have certain tendencies, but how we behave and how we carry out our behavior [is the issue]." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on NBC-TV's Meet the Press, December 30 "Poor Mitt Romney just can't flip without flopping. In a cynical ploy to win over social conservatives, Romney has beat a well-documented retreat from a whole host of moderate positions, including a number of Gay rights issues. ... How ironic that a man who wears his faith - albeit in generic Christian form - on his sleeve turns out to be the biggest moral relativist in the race from either political party." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Chris Crain on his blog, citizenchris.typepad.com, December 27 "Let me ask you something. As mayor of New York, would you live in an apartment with three Gay guys? I'm not Gay. I don't hate Gays. But I don't want to live in an apartment full of them. They'll bitch and cry and all. That doesn't bother Giuliani. It doesn't bother Giuliani to put a dress on to do Saturday Night Live. I don't trust him. I don't think he's electable. ... Why do you break up with your wife and move in with Gay guys?" -Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt to Vanity Fair, December 20 "[W]e can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't." Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan on John Edwards, December 28 "It's just as well I'm Gay. If I was straight, I'd be a hopeless mad movie star who fucks everything that moves. That's what I'd be like - married to every single girl that I'd worked with, on wife number 10 by now, always being sued for divorce because I'd been caught with two chicks somewhere. ... Or I'd be like a rapper - three girls at the same time, coke, orgies, yachts. I would be a monster, actually. I'd have to be competitive on a lad level with all those other male movie stars. I'd probably be an alcoholic, too. Mind you, I'd have made a lot more money - 20 times more money, probably." -Actor Rupert Everett to London's Telegraph, December 9 "I was always a girl that dated guys and then I shot Two Girls in Love and was dating a guy and then I had a relationship with a woman. I thought, I can't say I'm straight anymore, that would just be a lie. I looked for other relationships with women and they didn't happen. I don't know if that's because I'm shyer with women. And then ultimately I met my husband and got married. I wish I had met more women. I guess people can define my sexuality however they see fit, but I mostly just don't define it." -Actress Laurel Holloman, Tina on Showtime's The L Word, to the national Lesbian magazine Curve, January/February issue "Coming out, coming out, coming out. That's the only thing I've ever done, really. That's what it can say on the gravestone. That will be the obituary." -Actor Sir Ian McKellen to the BBC, December 29 "Let's be clear: we have lost this war. We have lost because the initial, central goals of the invasion have all failed: we have not secured WMDs from terrorists because those WMDs did not exist. We have not stymied Islamist terror - at best we have finally stymied some of the terror we helped create. We have not constructed a democratic model for the Middle East - we have instead destroyed a totalitarian government and a phony country, only to create a permanently unstable, fractious, chaotic failed state, where the mere avoidance of genocide is a cause for celebration. We have, moreover, helped solder a new truth in the Arab mind: that democracy means chaos, anarchy, mass-murder, national disintegration and sectarian warfare. And we have also empowered the Iranian regime and made a wider Sunni-Shiite regional war more likely than it was in 2003. Apart from that, Mr. Bush, how did you enjoy your presidency?" -Gay writer Andrew Sullivan on his blog, December 17 "Who is the most annoying celebrity? Rosie O'Donnell - 44%. Paris Hilton - 24%. Ann Coulter - 16%. Heather Mills McCartney - 12%. Perez Hilton - 4%." -From the results of Parade magazine's 2007 Year-End Pop Culture Poll, which quizzed 2,000 readers of the magazine's website. "There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. ... We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America." -From The New York Times' New Year's Eve editorial. "The State prohibits and punishes any form of discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious creed, ideology, political affiliation or philosophical beliefs, marital status, economic or social status, type of occupation, level of education, disability, pregnancy, or other factors that have the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of the rights of everyone." -From Article 14 of the finalized text of Bolivia's planned new constitution, the first in the world to protect Transgender people and only the seventh to protect Gay people. With assistance from Bill Kelley |
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| pictures top: Todd Herzog center: Rosie O'Donnell bottom: Ian McKellen | |
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