BAVARIA CHALLENGES GERMAN LAW
The German state of Bavaria will launch a constitutional-court challenge to overturn a federal partnership law for gay couples. Parliament approved the measure last year and it will come into force in August.
"We consider that this law is an attack on the protection of couples written in the constitution," Bavarian Justice Minster Manfred Weiss said.
The law extends spousal rights to registered gay couples in areas such as inheritance, tenancy, health insurance, immigration, hospital visitation, child custody and alimony.
Meanwhile, a new Emnid Institute poll for Hamburger Media AG has found that 72 percent of straight women and 61 percent of straight men think "gay marriage" is a "good" or "very good" idea.
Pollsters surveyed 15,000 people nationwide at the beginning of the year.
The poll also found that homosexuals are well-educated, wealthy and live in big cities. Two times as many gays as straights went to college, the survey revealed.
SLOVAKS MEET MPs
Members of the Slovak parliament met with gays for the first time March 20. Representatives of several gay groups appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Nationality to ask for a registered-partnership law and a ban on workplace discrimination.
"[Slovakia's] homosexual minority is forced to live with fear and guilt for their emotional and sexual orientation ... resulting in suicidal tendencies, neurosis, and suppressed yearning for human relationships," activist Ivan Pozgai told the committee, according to the Slovak Spectator.
EMINEM DOLL BANNED
Britain's largest toy retailer, Woolworths, has banned an Eminem doll because it doesn't fit the store's image.
"The visual impact didn't fit with our family environment and having it around a Barbie doll, for example, didn't feel right," a spokeswoman told Reuters.
The doll carries a chainsaw and the words "cut here" are written on its neck. The well-known toy store Hamleys is also refusing to stock the doll.
Some U.S. and British gay activists have called Eminem's lyrics homophobic. Lyrics on the rapper's The Marshall Mathers LP include: "You faggots can vanish to volcanic ash and re-appear in hell with a can of gas, and a match. ... I'll knock you fuckin' faggots the fuck out. ... I don't get fucked in mine like you two little flaming faggots. ... Suck my fuckin' dick, you faggot. ... My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That'll stab you in the head whether you're a fag or lez / Or the homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest / Pants or dress — hate fags? The answer's 'yes' / Homophobic? Nah, you're just heterophobic."
AMNESTY HEAD
VISITS GAY CENTER
Amnesty International Secretary General Pierre Sane visited Jerusalem's gay center March 27, marking the first time the group's head has paid a call on a gay AI affiliate.
Leaders of the center asked Sane to reverse AI's policy of not translating reports on anti-gay abuses into Arabic.
Center Executive Director Hagai El-Ad said the policy sends an "alienating message ... to gays and lesbians in the same countries where they need AI's support more than anywhere else."
HIV TRANSMISSION UP IN GERMANY
Germany saw a 33 percent rise in HIV cases last year, the first increase in five years. Seven hundred fifty new infections were recorded, 51 percent of them among gays and bisexuals.
"We fear that AIDS is no longer being taken as seriously as in previous years," Wolfgang Kiehl of Germany's Robert Koch Institute told reporters.
Many developed nations are reporting stepped-up HIV transmission. Health officials have blamed safe-sex fatigue and deliberate "barebacking" among gay men for some of the increase.
N.Z. PARLIAMENT OKs PROPERTY RIGHTS
The New Zealand Parliament passed a law March 29 giving gay and straight de-facto couples who have been together for three years the same property rights as married heterosexual couples.
In the event of a breakup, assets acquired during the relationship will be split 50-50.
Couples who do not want to be covered by the Property Relations Bill can draw up a costly contract to opt out of the law's provisions.
The measure will take effect in February 2002.
ILGA LAUNCHES LATIN AMERICAN MAG
With funding from the European Union, the International Lesbian & Gay Association has launched a Spanish-language "Informative Bulletin" for Latin America. "This bulletin comes into being as a necessity to strengthen the organizations, associations, spaces, groups and collectives of the GLBT community and to contribute to the improvement of the information and communication networks that already exist," said Co-editor Claudia Acevedo of Guatemala.
The first issue of the glossy magazine had 28 pages. Write Boletin Informativo ILGA-LAC, Apartado Postal 1289, Guatemala City, Guatemala; fax 011-502-232-1021; oasisilgalac@intelnet.net .gt.
Copyright © 2001 Lambda Publications Inc. All rights reserved. Lambda publishes Windy City Times, The Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community, Nightlines, Out Resource Guide, Clout! Business Report, Blacklines and En La Vida. 1115 W. Belmont 2D, Chicago, IL 60657; PH (773) 871-7610; FAX (773) 871-7609. Web at outlineschicago.com E-mail feedback to outlines@suba.com!
