Polish president
says he's not an
enemy of gays
Polish President Lech Kaczynski said Sept. 18 that he is 'not an enemy' of gay people.
'I do not support the turning back of the wheel of history,' he told the Associated Press. 'I only think that we cannot say that there are two equal cultures. If we said so, that would mean we are saying that our fate is extinction.
'I have a certain fear here, but that does not mean that I intend to persecute anyone, that I intend to prevent him from living, from making a career, from working, from being a soldier.'
Poland's gay community has reported increased hostility from government officials since Kaczynski's conservative Law and Justice Party came to power last year. In February, Human Rights Watch stated that the party 'brings to power officials with long records of opposing gay and lesbian rights.'
As mayor of Warsaw, Kaczynski banned the gay pride parade in 2004 and 2005, reportedly calling gays 'perverts.' In March, he said if homosexuality 'were common, the human race would have to die out.'
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Lech's twin brother, has complained that Polish 'gay people are allowed to conduct perverse demonstrations in the streets, but it is forbidden to discuss the issue of moral censorship.'
But Jaroslaw, too, is attempting to rehabilitate his image. To the surprise of activists, he told European Union officials Aug. 30 that Poland is gay-friendly.
'I ask you not to believe in the myth of Poland as an anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophobic country,' he said. 'People with such [ homosexual ] preferences have full rights in Poland; there is no tradition in Poland of persecuting such people.'
He added that Poland has many gay bars and magazines as well as 'people of such a persuasion holding high public positions, on the right and not just on the left.'
Civil-union bill
presented to Costa
Rican legislature
Costa Rica's Diversity Movement has drafted a civil-union bill that will be introduced in the Legislative Assembly by supportive deputies.
It would extend some of the rights of marriage to registered same-sex couples.
In May, Costa Rica's Constitutional Court ruled 5-2 that same-sex couples do not have a right to marriage. But the court also urged legislators to grant gay couples justice and legal security by creating a way to regulate stable, loyal same-sex unions.
Plaintiff Yashín Castrillo, a gay lawyer, had sought to have the Family Code's heterosexual definition of marriage declared unconstitutional. He said at the time that he would appeal to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
A recent University of Costa Rica poll found that 71 percent of Costa Ricans oppose same-sex civil unions. About 16 percent support them and nearly 12 percent have no opinion. Pollsters questioned 1,000 adults with an error margin of 3 percent.
Hong Kong court upholds equal
age of consent
On Sept. 20, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal rejected a government appeal of a ruling that equalized the legal age for straight and gay sex at 16.
The decision renders unenforceable a law that punishes male-male sodomy with up to life in prison if either participant is under age 21.
Chief Judge Geoffrey Ma said 'values have changed in Hong Kong' and 'buggery' is no longer considered an 'unnatural act.'
'I cannot see any justification for either the age limit of 21, or, in particular, for the different treatment of male homosexuals compared with heterosexuals,' he said.
Latvia passes
antidiscrimination bill
Latvia's Parliament banned anti-gay discrimination in employment Sept. 21—becoming the last of the 25 nations of the European Union to do so.
The vote was 46-35 with 3 abstentions and 9 MPs not voting.
It is a requirement of EU membership to protect gays from discrimination on the job.
Latvia is among the EU's more homophobic member states. This year's gay pride parade in Riga, the capital, was banned by the city council and a court.
When gays responded by holding a religious service and meetings at a hotel, they were confronted by Christian-fundamentalist, ultranationalist and neo-Nazi protesters who pelted them with eggs, rotten food and human feces.
Gay man becomes deputy premier of Ontario
A hockey-loving gay man with a political reputation as a feisty player has been appointed deputy premier of the Canadian province of Ontario.
George Smitherman, a Liberal legislator since 1999 and the province's health minister since 2003, represents Toronto's gayest neighborhoods.
In May, he acknowledged that in the 1990s he was addicted for five years to illegal stimulant 'party drugs' that are popular on the gay scene.
Brits protest
Ugandan homophobia
About 30 protesters from the queer direct-action group OutRage! and the National Union of Students picketed Uganda's High Commission in London Sept. 22, protesting against the African nation's 'latest homophobic outrage'—a tabloid newspaper's recent outing of 58 ordinary citizens.
'Uganda is the new Zimbabwe,' said OutRage!'s Peter Tatchell. 'President Yoweri Museveni is the Robert Mugabe of Uganda—a homophobic tyrant who tramples on democracy and human rights.'
Ugandan law punishes sex between males with up to life in prison, and gays and lesbians are known to be targeted by vigilante mobs.
In 1999, according to the daily newspaper New Vision, Museveni told a meeting on reproductive health: 'I have told the CID [ Criminal Investigations Department ] to look for homosexuals, lock them up and charge them. Even the Holy Bible spells it out clearly that God created Adam and Eve as wife and husband, but not men to marry fellow men.'
The London protesters urged activists to send protest letters to info@ugandahighcommission.co.uk.
Assistance: Bill Kelley
