THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Argentina legalized same-sex marriage July 15.

The vote in the Senate at 4:05 a.m. was 33-27 with 3 abstentions.

The lower house previously passed the bill and, at press time, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was planning to sign it in a July 21 ceremony at the Casa Rosada.

"The bill has passed. It is law. The executive power will be notified," the Senate president said as the vote was displayed on an electronic board in the chamber.

The debate lasted nearly 15 hours.

"The result sparked euphoria among the ( LGBT ) activists who, despite the polar wave that grips the city, held a vigil in the Plaza of the Two Congresses," said Buenos Aires' Clarín newspaper.

The Web site of Argentina's main political gay group, la FederaciÃ"n Argentina LGBT, was booted from the Internet and replaced with a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" notice.

"Today's historic vote shows how far Catholic Argentina has come, from dictatorship to true democratic values, and how far the freedom-to-marry movement has come as 12 countries on four continents now embrace marriage equality," said Evan Wolfson, head of the U.S. group Freedom to Marry.

"Key to Argentina's human rights achievement was strong leadership from legislators and the president. It is time we see more of our own elected officials standing up for the Constitution and all families here in the United States," Wolfson said. "America should lead, not lag, when it comes to treating everyone equally under the law."

The International Lesbian and Gay Association called the bill's passage a "triumph."

"Today, there is definitely more freedom and equality in the world thanks to Argentina: an example for the many countries in Southern and Northern hemispheres which still consider lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people as second-class citizens," said ILGA Co-Secretary General Renato Sabbadini.

City officials said the first wedding will take place Aug. 13 in Buenos Aires' trendy Palermo area. A longtime gay couple in their 60s will tie the knot at the office where they were turned away when they tried to marry three years ago.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Mexico City, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C.

First Europride

in eastern Europe

Europride, which has roamed from country to country since 1992, was staged in Eastern Europe for the first time this year, culminating with the July 17 parade through the streets of Warsaw.

Around 8,000 people took part in the march despite temperatures near 40 C ( above 100 F ) . Some previous Europrides in Western Europe have attracted up to 1 million celebrants.

The Warsaw parade's main demand was that Poland pass a civil-partnership law for same-sex couples.

Around 2,000 police officers protected the marchers from more than 200 anti-gay protesters, who threw bottles of water, rocks, eggs and Bibles at the parade, participants said. At least eight counterdemonstrators were arrested for throwing things, damaging flags or, in at least one case, assaulting a cop.

"The protesters were numerous and incredibly violent," said American gay activist and "Milk" screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, in an e-mail to California gay leader Rick Jacobs. "The worst was when a mob threw two large, homemade percussion-style bombs over the police line and onto our float. When the second exploded, pieces of it struck both ( my boyfriend ) Frank and I and left me deaf in one ear for about an hour."

Black said police charged into the group from which the explosives emerged and restrained and beat the counterprotesters.

Other participants praised the event's policing, said they did not feel threatened, and hailed the parade's arrival behind the former Iron Curtain.

"It's incredibly positive that this pan-European event is now taking place in a former Communist country," said Ulrike Lunacek, co-president of the European Parliament's Intergroup on LGBT Rights. "Not only does it constitute a very important signal for Eastern Europe that mentalities do slowly change, but it also shows how membership of the European Union can facilitate this change."

Moscow Pride founder Nikolai Alekseev said: "The police did an incredible job. ... We felt very safe at all times, even when we left the parade at the end."

Other events included ILGA-Europe's "LGBT Family Exhibition - Different Families, Same Love" at the National Library from July 8 to 18 and an LGBT film festival, "Celluloid Ars Homo Erotica."

The EP Intergroup said that although Poland joined the EU in 2004, it "still fails to provide LGBT people with adequate legal protection or address omnipresent homophobia."

"Polish authorities also refuse to recognize same-sex unions registered abroad, and prevent their citizens from entering a same-sex union abroad," the group said. "Polish authorities have illegally banned LGBT human rights campaigners from marching publicly."

The late Polish President Lech Kaczynski, as then-mayor of Warsaw, banned gay pride in 2005, leading to a 2007 ruling against the nation by the European Court of Human Rights.

Next year's Europride will be in Rome.

Court OKs Moscow

mayor's calling

gays 'faggots'

A libel suit filed by Moscow Pride against Mayor Yuri Luzhkov over his having called gays "faggots" ( "gomiki" ) was dismissed by the Moscow City Court on July 2. It previously had been rejected by the Tverskoi District Court.

Pride leader Nikolai Alekseev said the group will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

The group had wanted Luzhkov to apologize for using the slur and pay 1 kopeck in damages ( about three-hundredths of a cent ) .

The mayor made the remark on television in June 2009 while vowing that he would never authorize a gay parade in the city.

"Public morality does not accept those faggots," Luzhkov reportedly said. "Other people will simply kill them."

Luzhkov has banned the pride parade for five years and has sent riot police to aggressively arrest small groups of activists who have defied the bans.

He also has called gay pride parades "satanic" and, reportedly, "weapons of mass destruction."

LGBT people managed to stage two small, brief pride marches in Moscow this year despite another ban.

For the main event, organizers misled hundreds of riot police and undercover officers to a fake location.

"The march was relatively short, around five minutes, but we managed to fool the police and the anti-pride protesters," Alekseev said.

British gay activist Peter Tatchell, who joined the march, said: "Pride organizers fed the police a steady stream of false information, via blogs and websites, concerning the location of the parade. They suggested that it would take place outside the EU ( European Union ) Commission's offices. As a result, the police put the whole area in total lockdown."

Earlier in the day, another group of some 25 activists staged an unannounced gay march for 10 minutes on a downtown pedestrian street. It ended when police blocked their path and the marchers ran away.

Moscow Pride organizers have sued over Luzhkov's bans in a series of cases that have been merged at the European Court of Human Rights. A ruling is expected within months.

—Assistance: Bill Kelley