The world's first full same-sex marriages took place at Amsterdam City Hall on April 1, 2001. Photo by Rex Wockner_______
Cameroon jails gay men
Six men were jailed in Cameroon in mid-August after a young man who had been arrested on theft charges was coerced by police into naming his gay friends, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reported.
'The tactics of the Cameroonian government define the term 'witch hunt,'' said Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC's senior program officer for Africa. 'Imagine being forced to denounce your friends. Imagine finding yourself in prison because your name is on a list.'
More than 20 people have been detained in the past two years under Article 347 of Cameroon's penal code, which criminalizes consensual sex between men.
'Hardly a month goes by without reports of the arrests of people because of their sexuality,' said Steave Nemande, director of the gay group Alternatives-Cameroun.
Nemande recently wrote a letter to the Ministry of Justice in an attempt to address the situation.
Dutch gays worried about anti-gay attacks
An increase in gay-bashings on the streets of Amsterdam this year is worrying some Dutch gay people.
A new survey conducted by the EenVandaag television show and the national gay group COC found that 42 percent of gays and lesbians feel less safe in public than they did a year ago, dutchnews.nl reported.
Of that 42 percent, 38 percent said they have encountered anti-gay situations in the streets—64 percent of which were verbal assaults and 12 percent of which were physical attacks.
Pollsters questioned 1,980 gay people as part of a larger survey of 23,000 Dutch residents.
Overall, 61 percent of respondents said the Netherlands is a gay-friendly country and 72 percent support the nation's law that allows same-sex couples to marry.
COC originally stood for Cultuur en Ontspannings-Centrum ( Culture and Leisure Center ) but the organization now is known solely by its former initials.
Hungarian radio station fires anti-gay editors
An increase in gay-bashings on the streets of Budapest's Lánchid Rádió station fired two editors Aug. 29 after they posted a doctored photograph on the station's Web site that showed openly gay government official Gábor Szetey wearing a pink triangle and standing outside the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Szetey, the federal human resources secretary of state, publicly came out July 5 as he opened Budapest's 12th Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Festival of culture and arts.
Responding to the photo incident, Szetey told reporters he 'cannot be intimidated.'
The radio station's management called the picture 'impermissible and offensive' and apologized to Szetey and anyone else who found it upsetting.
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány also denounced the image, calling it 'a scoundrel act.'
'The fascists are gathering,' Gyurcsany said. 'They are not knocking on the door, they are right here among us.'
On July 7, Budapest's gay pride parade was attacked by hundreds of skinheads, neo-Nazis and other thugs. They threw eggs, bottles, smoke bombs, Molotov cocktails and bags of sand at the 2,000 marchers, physically attacked several marchers, and pelted police with beer bottles.
The protesters chanted, 'Faggots into the Danube, followed by the Jews,' 'Soap factory' and 'Filthy faggots.'
Dozens more pride attendees were attacked in the vicinity of the post-parade party at the open-air, riverside Buddha Beach nightclub, the parade's endpoint.
In his pride-week coming-out speech, Szetey said: 'It is not your choice whether you are gay or not, but it is your choice to accept it. ... I believe in truth and I am sick and tired of lies. ... I believe that we can and we have to break the culture of silence. I have to say out loud who am I, so that finally my own decisions direct my destiny. We have to say it out loud so that we take control of our lives. So that we can be what we are meant to be. ... So that we don't have to live two different lives. One public life and one secret life.'
Madeira president
denounces gay equality
The president of Madeira, an autonomous Portuguese archipelago located 360 miles ( 576 km ) off the coast of Morocco, called same-sex marriage 'filth' and 'degradation' at an Aug. 18 political rally on Porto Santo Island, reported PortugalGay.PT.
'Wanting the marriage of homosexuals and all these things that the socialist government is preparing, these are not causes—this is filth, this is degradation,' said Alberto João Jardim. 'This is killing the values that we Portuguese—our national soul—have learned from the cradle and that our parents have taught us.'
Jardim also denounced a new Portuguese law that permits abortion until the 10th week of pregnancy. He has refused to implement the statute in Madeira.
'When you make laws against human life, it is a precedent that we can't accept and then, afterward, they cover other rights or offend other people's rights in the name of the absolute state,' the president said.
Madeira and another group of Portuguese islands, the Azores, have autonomous regional governments but are supposed to enforce Portuguese national laws.
Madeira has some 250,000 residents, of which about 101,000 live in Funchal, the capital city on Madeira Island.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
