BRAZIL EMBRACES GAY COUPLES
The government of Brazil issued a decree June 8 granting same-sex couples spousal rights in the areas of pensions, social-security benefits and income taxation.
"This decision is historic and unprecedented [ in ] all of Latin America," said Toni Reis, director of the gay group Dignidade.
The move came as a gay "civil partnership" bill remains stalled in Congress. The bill's sponsor, Congresswoman Marta Suplicy, said the decree "increases the chances that my bill can be approved after the [ October ] elections."
Brazil is both more and less gay-friendly than other nations in the region. On the one hand, 77 municipalities ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and 54 percent of the population supports the idea of a gay partnership law. But the nation also has the highest recorded rate of anti-gay murders in Latin America.
NO EQUALITY IN AUSSIE MILITARY
Partners of gays in the Australian Defence Forces have only one spousal right, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Defence confirmed in late May.
The partner will be notified if the gay soldier is killed.
Activists have been pushing for equal recognition of same-sex couples in the Defence Forces in areas such as pensions, relocation expenses and on-base housing.
"The military will say, 'We want you to travel from one end of the country to the other,'" said Rodney Croome of the Australian Council of Lesbian and Gay Rights. "Gay and lesbian personnel will have to go to extraordinary lengths to move their partners and sometimes it causes great stress and even breakdown of relationships."
Australia's ban on gays in the military was lifted in 1992.
NAMIBIAN GAYS OPEN OFFICE
The gay and lesbian community of Namibia has opened an office in Windhoek, the Panafrican News Agency reported June 1.
The National Society for Human Rights will attempt to persuade anti-gays to be more "tolerant," a spokeswoman said.
"We have to start in schools," said the group's Rianne Selle.
Activist Sam Nakata added: "Top government officials who are lashing out against the gay and lesbian community should not forget their promise to uphold the constitution because human rights do not divide gays and lesbians from other people who are regarded as straight. As long as you do it in privacy, why should someone worry?"
In May 1999, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Jeremiah Nambinga said: "Homosexuality is evil. Homosexuality is anti-social and should not only be condemned but should also be legislated against. Homosexuals are patients of psychological and biological deviations."
In November 1998, Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo told parliament: "Gay rights can never qualify as human rights. ... They should be classified as human wrongs which must rank as sin against society and God. I earnestly call upon homosexuals in Namibia to repent their wrongs."
President Sam Nujoma has said, "Homosexuals must be condemned and rejected in our society."
ITALIAN AGRIC.
MINISTER COMES
OUT AS BISEXUAL
Italy's agriculture minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, said June 3 that he is bisexual.
Asked by the newsmagazine Panorama if he is gay, Pecoraro Scanio said: "I'm against both a choice of homosexuality alone or a rigid, old-style heterosexuality. As far as I'm concerned, I choose total sexual freedom."
Pecoraro Scanio, 41, is a Green Party member from the southern city of Salerno.
COUNCIL SAYS
ATTACK ON
LESBIANS WAS OK
Sri Lanka's Press Council ruled June 2 that a letter published in a daily newspaper that called for convicted rapists to be unleashed on lesbians did not breach media ethics.
Gay activist Sherman de Rose of the organization Companions on a Journey had filed a complaint against the paper for publishing the letter. The council rejected the case and ordered de Rose to pay 2,100 rupes ( $28 ) in costs.
The council said: "Lesbianism itself is an act of sadism and salacious publication of any opinion against such activities does not amount to a promotion of sadism or salacity. Therefore the complainant is the one who is eager to promote salacity and sadism and not The Island newspaper."
De Rose called the ruling "a clear indication of the strength of discrimination against gays and lesbians in this country."
HONG KONG
GAYS SUE
The Hong Kong gay group Horizons is suing the Inland Revenue Department, the tax agency, over its refusal to grant the group tax-exempt-charity status.
The department said it doubted Horizons' activities meet such requirements as promoting the mental and moral improvement of the community, training the mind, raising the artistic taste of the city, and improving the sum of communicable knowledge.
Horizons runs a phone line which gets more than 1,000 calls a year, publishes a newsletter, and promotes gay equality through various public functions.
COP FIRED FOR POSING NUDE
Marcelo Clua, a policeman in Brasilia, Brazil, was fired June 9 for posing nude in the gay magazine Homen.
Clua, 28, hopes to file a discrimination suit with help from human-rights groups.
"Why can't I pose naked and be a police officer?" he asked reporters. "The truth is they think I'm gay because I posed in a gay magazine. That's why they fired me."
TRANNIES
UPSET MALAYSIAN
MUSEUM
The Malacca Museums in Malacca, Malaysia, has asked police to arrest transvestites who use the museums' outdoor historical sites to meet and sometimes service customers.
The largest concentration of tranny hookers can be found in the St. Paul's Hill area around the ruins of the nation's oldest Christian church and cemetery. The girls also have been seen servicing customers in an antique train, a fire engine and an airplane that are part of the museum exhibits.
Malacca Museums Corp. General Manager Jamil Mukmin said the transvestites are turning the sites into a vice den.
ISRAEL GAY
GROUP OPENS CENTRAL OFFICE
Agudah, the Association of Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgender People in Israel, is opening a new community center in the heart of Tel Aviv's Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian mall.
The group said the thousands of people who frequent the popular arts and crafts street each day will see a three-story building decorated with rainbow flags.
The mall is also the epicenter of the city's evolving gay scene, Agudah said.
Assistance is needed with the project. Phone Ra'anan at 011-972- ( 0 ) 54-455684, Itay at 011-972- ( 0 ) 52-452988 or Luba at 011-972- ( 0 ) 51-681882; or e-mail sppr@netvision. net.il.
Agudah was formerly called the Society for the Protection of Personal Rights.
