Zimbabwe laws could protect gays
Gay-rights activists in Zimbabwe believe they have a 50-50 chance of having gay, lesbian and bisexual people protected under the country’s new constitution.
The constitution is being drafted and there is hope that if gay rights are included, it will overturn laws criminalizing sex between men. Sex between women is not mentioned in the law.
Keith Goddard, director of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, said the best chance of success was to argue on the grounds of health and HIV prevention.
“The National AIDS Council has moved forward enormously from its original policy, and in its strategic plan for 2006-10, it specifically calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality because punitive measures have simply driven the community underground and make this hidden population difficult to reach. So I think we can use it on the grounds of health and HIV/AIDS interventions to try and argue the issue. Arguing it on religious or moral grounds is not going to get it anywhere. We live in hope.”
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has previously described gay people as worse than “dogs and pigs,” claiming homosexuality is “un-African” and a “white man’s disease.”
He has warned against the dangers of homosexuality and threatened pro-gay clergy with prison sentences.
‘World’s smallest gay Pride’
An Irish village has hosted what is thought to be the world’s smallest Pride festival.
Easkey, a coastal hamlet in County on Sligo, has a population of just 250. Organizers hoped around 80 people would join the Aug. 9 festival and handed out “gay for a day” badges.
Denise Clarke, an openly gay interior designer who has lived in the village for 10 years, said there was a trend of gay people moving back to their rural roots.
She also said that things had changed since she first arrived.
“People were afraid of the new lesbian in town,” she said. “One woman even rang around the local farmers to warn them that their wives could be in danger. It was just a lot of fear and some ignorance, but an event like this today helps dispel those myths and brings the townsfolk together.”
The Pride celebrations in Easkey are part of a wider festival called North West Pride, which incorporates a number of western Irish counties.
Tel Aviv protest draws 70,000
More than 70,000 people assembled in Tel Aviv on Aug. 8 to express solidarity with the LGBT community after a deadly attack on a gay club a week ago, organizers claimed.
President Shimon Peres was among speakers at the meeting on Yitzhak Rabin Square outside the city hall.
“The shots which struck this proud community affected us all as human beings, as Jews and as Israelis. The man who targeted the two victims targeted all of us,” Peres said.
Two people died when a masked, black-clad gunman opened fire on the group of young gays and lesbians at the community center in the heart of Israel’s commercial capital on Aug. 1.
“Everyone has the right to be different and proud. No one has the right to interfere in other people’s lives so long as everyone respects law and order,” Peres said. “I came to share your tears after the death of two young innocents. Be strong and courageous.”
There was a strong police presence following threats made over the Internet and by telephone. Police said an ultra-Orthodox soldier suspected of being behind some of the threats has been arrested in Jerusalem.
Leading up to the event, residents of an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem attacked a group of young people who visited the area on Aug. 6 to hang posters condemning the shooting. Members of the ultra-Orthodox haredim chased the protesters down alleyways, prompted by the feeling that the youths were blaming them for the shootings, but the young people managed to escape.
Investigators, who are still looking for the gunmen, are working on the theory that the attack was personal vengeance rather than motivated by antigay views.
Woman fined for antigay abuse
In a decision gay-rights advocates call groundbreaking for Poland, a judge in the northwest of the country fined a woman for using homophobic slurs to describe her gay male neighbor.
The 44-year-old woman, identified as only Anna S., was ordered to pay the equivalent of more than $5,000 for infringing upon the dignity of Ryszard Giersz by repeatedly hurling verbal assaults at him and his partner, Tomasz, in public.
Lawyers for Giersz, 25, argued successfully that he endured constant hatred in the town of Wolin after Ms. S. began calling him a “pedal,” a derogatory Polish term for a gay person equivalent to “fag” or “queer.”
Polish LGBT-rights activists hailed the decision and the case, which represented the first time a gay person pursued his or her rights so openly in the country’s court system.
Coffee shop backs off antigay group
A Canadian coffee-shop chain has been forced to pull out of a sponsorship deal with an antigay-marriage organization after an online outcry.
Tim Hortons, which sells coffee and doughnuts, offered to provide 250 cups of coffee for the Rhode Island Marriage and Family Day, hosted by the National Organization for Marriage on Aug. 16.
NOM, a religious organization, is a staunch opponent of gay marriage. Earlier this year, it released a video claiming that a “storm is gathering” over equal rights.
The Tim Hortons logo appeared on the event’s brochure, next to the words: “To take a stand for marriage as it was created to be.”
After a blaze of online negative publicity, the coffee chain on Aug. 10 distanced itself from the event and apologized for any “misunderstanding” and “inconvenience.” Company officials added it would no longer be a sponsor due to a policy stating the chain will not sponsor events “representing religious groups, political affiliates or lobby groups.”
Chris Plante, executive director of NOM’s Rhode Island chapter, said the chain had been “bullied by a vocal minority” and claimed the event was open to all, including gay couples.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].