By Rex Wockner
International News
Report
 Gays and lesbians are on-a-roll across the
globe, aided in no small part by the growth of the Internet. In 1999,
small groups of gay activists in the most isolated and poorest of nations
knew what was happening worldwide and used this information to organize
and fight locally.
The Internet also comes to the rescue when gay movements in even
the most off-the-beaten-path countries face a sudden emergency and need
international aid.
Cyberspace, is also crucial, of course, to keeping activists in
developed nations on top of each other's advances and setbacks. This gay
information explosion, this queer superhighway, is unquestionably at the
heart of the increasingly internationalized gay and lesbian movement.
Now, more than ever, it's possible to say, "They did this in
Holland four years ago and the sky didn't fall," and to back up your
assertions with facts, figures and original documentation. The value of
this kind of ammunition cannot be underestimated. Here, then, the
highlights of 1999 across the gay globe.
Open Closets
 Tennis pro
Amelie Mauresmo came out of the closet in 1999 |
French
tennis pro Amelie Mauresmo came out after beating top- rated Lindsay
Davenport at the Australian Open.
The world's first transsexual member of parliament, Georgina
Beyer, was elected in New Zealand.
The chairman of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs
Committee, Conservative Euro MP Tom Spencer, was outed when British
Customs agents found gay erotica in his luggage as he returned from
visiting his American porn-star boyfriend, Cole Tucker.
|
Former British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo acknowledged he
had gay relationships in college.
British Member of Parliament Ron Davies said he is bisexual.
Teen heartthrob singer Stephen Gately of the Irish band Boyzone
said he is gay.
BBC Breakfast News TV co-anchorman John Nicolson came out.
| Robin
Hood was outed by British scholars.
Australia's new ambassador to Denmark, Stephen Brady,
presented his lover, Peter Stevens, to Danish Queen Margrethe.
Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby came out.
Gay Australian Senator Brian Greig used his maiden speech in
the Senate to call for gay equality. |
 Robin Hood
cruising Sherwood Forest |
Openly gay John Hyde was elected mayor of the Perth, Australia,
inner-city municipality Town of Vincent.
Open transsexual Leigh Varis-Beswick was elected to the town
council of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, West Australia.
A member of the Canadian province of Manitoba's legislature, New
Democrat Jim Tondeau, said he's gay.
 Mark Tewksbury
|
Gay
Canadian Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury became an activist for
gay immigration rights.
The deputy mayor of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Janey Mabley,
acknowledged she is gay.
Spanish Socialist Member of Parliament Miguel Iceta came out.
Dutch national television news' NOS-Journaal reported that
the king of Morocco, Sidi Moulay Mohammed (Mohammed VI), is gay.
|
Laws
Five nations now ban discrimination based on sexual orientation via
their constitutions: Canada, Ecuador, Fiji, South Africa and Switzerland.
Chile repealed its ban on gay sex.
Sweden's parliament banned discrimination based on sexual
orientation in the job market.
| Frank
Wolff Hinrichs won Denmark's first anti-gay job discrimination case.
A ruling by Britain's House of Lords opened the door for
foreign gays seeking asylum from persecution based on sexual
identity.
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said he would lift the
ban on gays in the military after the European Court of Human Rights
ruled it was illegal.
Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that the
armed forces cannot bar homosexuals. |
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|
The Canadian province of Alberta OK'd gay adoption.
Mexico City's Legislative Assembly banned discrimination against
gays.
Partnership
France enacted a registered-partnership law that gives same-sex
couples nearly every right of matrimony. There are similar laws in
Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
 The Legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario amended 67
laws to give gay and lesbian couples every right accorded common- law
opposite-sex couples.
The National Assembly of Quebec gave gay/lesbian couples the same
rights as common-law heterosexual couples.
The Australian state of New South Wales gave gay/lesbian couples
spousal rights in matters of property, inheritance, alimony and medical
decisions.
Namibia's high court ruled that gay couples have the same rights as
heterosexual couples.
Hamburg, Germany, set up a registry for gay and lesbian couples.
Former Danish health minister Torben Lund married his boyfriend at
Copenhagen city hall.
In an apparent first, two Japanese men got "married" at a Shinto
shrine.
Several dozen Bulgarian gays published an ad in the daily newspaper
"24 Tchassa" demanding legalization of same-sex marriage.
The Chelyabinsk, Russia, gay group Freedom of Conscience demanded
the government legalize gay marriage.
Crime and Nastiness
| Three
people were killed and 70 were injured when a nail-bomb ripped
through a gay bar in the heart of London's gay Soho district.
Nine people were injured in Cape Town, South Africa, when a
pipe bomb exploded at the gay Blah Bar. |
 London police
look over the scene of a bomb blast at a gay bar in Soho
|
A British Shari'ah Court sentenced Corpus Christi author Terrence
McNally to death via an Islamic fatwa.
Former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana was sentenced to prison
on 11 counts of forcing himself sexually on his male aides, bodyguards,
cook and gardener.
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, ordered the arrest of all
the nation's homosexuals.
Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi called homosexuality a "scourge."
Orthodox Christians threatened staff and destroyed posters at
Bucharest, Romania's Nottara Theater in protest against the gay- themed
play Angels In America.
Protesters threw rocks and tomatoes at Swedish photographer
Elisabeth Ohlson because her "Ecce Homo" exhibit depicts Jesus and the
apostles in drag and as leathermen, and shows a nude, largely endowed
Jesus being baptized.
Hundreds of New Zealanders, including scores of public officials,
were outed when an online gay newsletter was transmitted with their e-mail
addresses visible instead of hidden by blind- carbon-copy.
Organizing
 Indian lesbians formed an organization to respond to the
ransacking of theaters showing the lesbian-themed film Fire.
Gays in India formed a national network called LGBT India.
Jerusalem's first gay/lesbian center opened.
Mongolia's first gay organization, Talivan, formed.
Fiji's first gay group, the Sexual Minorities Project, opened for
business.
Murmansk, Russia's first gay organization, The Circle, was
officially registered with the government.
Gays and lesbians in Belarus staged their first pride celebrations.
The Bank of Scotland ended a partnership with U.S. televangelist
Pat Robertson following gay protests.
Cambodia's first gay bar opened.
AIDS
Venezuela's Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Health to provide
all AIDS-related drugs to all HIV-positive Venezuelans and foreign
residents of the country.
About 300 demonstrators picketed the U.S. Consulate in
Johannesburg, South Africa, in protest against Vice President Al Gore's
efforts to restrict the nation's access to cheaper AIDS drugs.
Gay South African High Court Judge Edwin Cameron revealed that he
has AIDS.
|
