Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said measures approved in lower parliament
last week, which prevent gay couples from marrying and adopting children from
overseas, help protect the institution of marriage. (Photo by Rick Rycroft/AP)
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Friday, June 25, 2004
MELBOURNE, Australia — A plan by the federal government to prevent gay
couples from marrying and adopting children from overseas was approved by parliament’s
lower house last week, the Age reported. The government used its numbers to turn
away several amendments proposed by the Labor Party and, after a heated debate,
the measure passed, according to the Age. It now moves for debate in the Senate,
the newspaper noted. The Labor Party did approve changes to the Marriage Act
to reinforce marriage between a man and a woman only, but opposed the ban on
gay couples adopting children, the Age reported. Australian Attorney-General
Philip Ruddock said the measure helps protect marriage, according to the newspaper. “This
is not a question of suitability of people to adopt,” Ruddock told Parliament,
the Age reported. “This is a question of judging amongst those who are
suitable when you have a limited pool who ought to be given priority.”
NEW DELHI (AP) — Hindu hard-liners smashed glass panes and ripped posters
in cinemas, then said they’d pressure the government to censor or ban
a film about a lesbian couple. “We are going to push the government to
order the deletion of objectionable scenes in the film. Shots which are against
Indian culture should be removed,” Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, vice president
of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, told the Associated Press.
A day earlier, Hindu protesters had attacked cinemas in several Indian towns,
tearing down posters for the film “Girlfriend,” which deals with
a lesbian relationship — a rare theme for India’s prolific film
industry. In the northern city of Varanasi, 12 protesters from the hardline
Shiv Sena group were arrested for damaging public property after they broke
windows at a movie theater and disrupted the screening of the film. “The
film should be withdrawn,” Jai Bhagwan Goel, a Shiv Sena leader told
the AP. “The film shows one woman in a relationship with another woman.
We strongly object to this portrayal of Indian society.”
MADRID — The new ombudsman for Spain’s Basque region is the first
openly gay person in a political post of that significance, Reuters reported.
Gay rights activist Inigo Lamarka, leader of the Basque Association of Gays & Lesbians,
said his appointment is a breakthrough, the news agency reported. “After
an excessively long historical period, the historic moment has now come for
homosexual people in the Basque Country and in democratic countries to put
an end to exclusion, to almost flagrant discrimination,” Lamarka told
Reuters. The Roman Catholic Church holds the majority following in Spain and
speaks out against same-sex unions, but it co-exists with a new socialist government
that plans to legalize gay marriage, Reuters reported. Homosexuality was illegal
in Spain until 1975, when General Francisco Franco died after 36 years as the
nation’s dictator, the news agency noted.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Activists were up in arms last week after a
Bangkok hotel hosting an AIDS workshop moved all the participants — half
of them HIV positive — to one floor, asked them to eat in a separate
area, and told cleaning staff to take precautions. The incident, which took
place earlier in the week, happened just a month before the Thai capital is
to host the 15th International AIDS Conference that is expected to be attended
by more than 10,000 participants. Some 70 Thai government officials, voluntary
agency workers and people with HIV/AIDS in the workshop were initially given
rooms on various floors when they checked into the Prince Palace Hotel, said
Nimit Tienudom, head of AIDS Access, an advocacy group. But when hotel officials
realized that some of the people had AIDS because of skin lesions, they moved
everyone to one floor the next day, he told the Associated Press.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Snubbed by both men and women, transvestite
students at the Chiang Mai Technology School just wanted a restroom to call
their own — and were granted their wish. Dubbed the Pink Lotus Bathroom,
the facility is exclusively for the school’s 15 transvestite students
and features four stalls, but no urinals. On the door hangs a sign with intertwined
male and female symbols. “They would come in the morning and use the
women’s bathrooms, but the women were annoyed, didn’t like it or
played pranks on them,” said Posaporn Promprakai, registrar of the school
in Chiang Mai province, about 360 miles north of Bangkok. The transvestites — who
must wear male attire at school but are allowed to sport feminine hairstyles — switched
to the men’s bathrooms, only to run into more trouble. “The men
teased them, chased them, and they came screaming and in tears again,” Posaporn
told the Associated Press. So Posaporn designated a lavatory just for them.
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