200,000 march in Brazil
Two hundred thousand people turned out for the gay-pride parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 17, making it the largest gay-pride march anywhere in the Third World.
Sao Paulo's first parade, six years ago, attracted only 2,000 people.
Mayor Marta Suplicy addressed the celebrants at a rally in the gay-bar district in the city center.
500,000 PARTY
IN BERLIN
Half a million people turned out for Berlin's Christopher Street Day gay-pride parade June 23, despite rain and chilly weather.
The five-kilometer ( three-mile ) march from the Kurfeurstendamm shopping street to the government district to city hall featured 80 floats.
Openly gay Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit told a post-march rally, "We won't give the right-wing extremists a finger's width."
The rainbow flag flew over City Hall as he spoke. Wowereit came out June 10, six days before he was elected to the post by city councilors.
500,000 PARTY
IN PARIS
Half a million people turned out for Paris' gay-pride parade June 23, including openly gay Mayor Bertrand Delanoe who led the procession behind a banner reading "All together against discrimination."
The parade began at Porte Doree in the southeast of the city, passed by the Bastille jail, and ended at the Place de la Republique.
Among the marchers' demands: Equal access to adoption and artificial insemination, and recognition of the Nazis' anti-gay atrocities. Registered French gay couples receive most other rights of matrimony.
In Italy, 30,000 people marched in Milan. Vice-Mayor Riccardo De Corato told the ANSA wire service that the city did "not share the sentiments of this rally."
by Rex Wockner
Two hundred thousand people turned out for the gay-pride parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 17, making it the largest gay-pride march anywhere in the Third World.
Sao Paulo's first parade, six years ago, attracted only 2,000 people.
Mayor Marta Suplicy addressed the celebrants at a rally in the gay-bar district in the city center.
500,000 PARTY
IN BERLIN
Half a million people turned out for Berlin's Christopher Street Day gay-pride parade June 23, despite rain and chilly weather.
The five-kilometer ( three-mile ) march from the Kurfeurstendamm shopping street to the government district to city hall featured 80 floats.
Openly gay Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit told a post-march rally, "We won't give the right-wing extremists a finger's width."
The rainbow flag flew over City Hall as he spoke. Wowereit came out June 10, six days before he was elected to the post by city councilors.
500,000 PARTY
IN PARIS
Half a million people turned out for Paris' gay-pride parade June 23, including openly gay Mayor Bertrand Delanoe who led the procession behind a banner reading "All together against discrimination."
The parade began at Porte Doree in the southeast of the city, passed by the Bastille jail, and ended at the Place de la Republique.
Among the marchers' demands: Equal access to adoption and artificial insemination, and recognition of the Nazis' anti-gay atrocities. Registered French gay couples receive most other rights of matrimony.
In Italy, 30,000 people marched in Milan. Vice-Mayor Riccardo De Corato told the ANSA wire service that the city did "not share the sentiments of this rally."
GERMAN STATES
SUE TO BLOCK
PARTNERSHIP LAW
The German states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia have filed suit in the Constitutional Court to block implementation of Germany's gay partnership law, which takes effect in August.
They say the law is an attack on heterosexual couples.
The measure extends spousal rights to registered same-sex couples in areas such as inheritance, tenancy, health insurance, immigration, hospital visitation, child custody and alimony.
Registered gay couples have nearly all rights of marriage in Denmark, France, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S. state of Vermont. The Netherlands lets gays marry under the same laws as heterosexual couples. Court rulings have given gay couples many marriage rights in Canada and Hungary.
SLOVENIAN GAYS PROTEST AT CAFE
About 40 gays and lesbians demonstrated at Ljubljana, Slovenia's Galerija Cafe June 15 to protest the venue's reported refusal to serve gay customers a week earlier.
They occupied most of the cafe's patio, hoisted rainbow flags, and sipped bottled water very slowly.
On June 8, Slovenian gay poet and activist Brane Mozetic and Canadian gay poet Jean-Paul Daoust allegedly were denied entry to the cafe by a bouncer who reportedly told them, "You just have to get used to the fact that this pub isn't for that sort of people."
In other news, Slovenian voters June 17 overturned a two-month-old law that allowed single women to access artificial-insemination technology. Seventy-two percent of voters said the procedure should only be available to married women.
ICELANDIC GAYS INTEGRATE
The gay and lesbian scene has all but disappeared in Iceland, reports London's The Pink Paper—"not through underuse, but because Icelanders have embraced inclusivity."
"Every bar is now a mixed bar," the magazine said. "The one gay-identified nightclub, Spotlight, sports the ubiquitous rainbow flag outside, but the crowd inside is as mixed as the straight club next door."
Iceland is one of several nations where registered gay couples receive more that 99 percent of the rights and obligations of marriage. Others include Denmark, France, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and, in the U.S., the state of Vermont. The Netherlands lets gays marry under the same laws as heterosexual couples.
PARTY LEADER: GAY POLS SHOULD COME OUT
Gay politicians should come out of the closet like the new mayor of Berlin did, says Franz Muentefering, secretary general of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrat party.
Speaking June 20 to Stern magazine, Muentefering, whose daughter is gay, said: "Homosexuals and lesbians in politics can help their party, themselves and public opinion if they do not disguise [ their sexuality ] . You create confidence and the thing [ homosexuality ] is not whispered about. Someone who tells the truth about this is someone who will tell the truth about other things. That is how people see this issue."
Klaus Wowereit, 47, came out June 10 and was elected mayor by Berlin lawmakers on June 16.
