LGS HOME PAGES: http://www.josken.net

ISSN 1446-4896

Come and support ENOLA GAY and LGS in the annual HIROSHIMA protest march against nuclear weapons on SATURDAY 2nd AUGUST. Let the Australian Government also know that we want landmines outlawed globally. Assemble TOWN HALL SQUARE 12.30pm for march with other anti-war groups to circular Quay for a peace fair.

This newly formed lesbian, gay and transgender group aims to improve access by sexual minorities of local government services. Meets bi-monthly at the Local Community Services Assn. (LCSA) 66 Albion St. Surry Hills. Next meeting 3.30pm Thursday 21 August. Input from gay, lesbian, and transgender people.M.p> Information from Roy, (02)9211-3614, or Christine (02)9525-3790.

The next tree plantings for SPAIDS - Sydney Pari; AIDS Tree Planting Project, will take-place on Sunday 24 August 1997 and again on Sunday 12 October 1997. Sydney Park is diagonally opposite St. Peters Station at the bottom end of King Street, Newtown.

Censorship becomes an increasingly serious matter in Australia with the advent of the present government and its connections to the Lyons Forum.

For the gay, lesbian and transgender communities, increasing severity of censorship has more serious implications relating to what we can read, what we can see, what we can listen to, what we can exhibit - the challenges are endless. It is necessary to increase awareness of what may happen to our media if censorship laws become tighter. A situation could be reached when our papers are banned outright, although the Government may not have the courage to go that far.

Make your protest at the lack of action of the committee Watch on Censorship by contacting them on {02)9660-3844, and ask when the next public meeting is due to be held. One meeting does not a revolution make!

An exhibition celebrating the lives and loves of the Hunter gay, lesbian and transgender communities has opened in the Newcastle Regional Museum.

The official launch of the HUNTER PRIDE EXHIBITION, part of Newcastle's Bicentenary (1997), took place on Friday night, July 25.

One of the speakers at the champagne opening, attended by at least 200 people, was a gay man who had been involved in the infamous "yellow sox club" court case in 1952.

Designed and coordinated by Sharron Carroll, the exhibition will continue at the Newcastle Regional Museum until 6 September: Tuesdays to Sundays, 10am-5pm, admission free.

Well worth a day trip to Newcastle by rail or road to see this fascinating and historic exhibition.

The international campaign for the release of Mordechai Vanunu, who has spent 10 1/2 years in an Israeli prison in solitary confinement for publicising Israel's, nuclear arsenal, conti nues.

The Australian Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu can be contacted on (02)9665-6059 - Linda Kaucher and Kel Dommett on (02)9360-6844 - Rev Tom Henderson Brooke, c/o 120 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst NSW 2010.

You can also write to Mordechai Vanunu at the following address: Ashkelon Prison, PO Box 17 Ashkelon, Israel.

AIDS IMPACT, the Third International Conference on biopsychosocial aspects of AIDS, took place in Melbourne from 22-25 June 1997.

The conference was attended by about 500 delegates who came from many countries of the world affected by the AIDS pandemic over the last 16 years.

Discussions took place on what has been achieved and what has not been achieved in that time, and discussions . were held about future directions.

One of the shock speeches at the conference was given by Chris Puplick, President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board in his capacity as President of the Australian National Council on AIDS and Related Diseases (ANCARD).

Puplick stated that AIDS-infected and affected communities must realise there is a new government in Canberra and it is in their best interests to work within that government's programmes or risk losing support.

What Puplick was. in effect saying, was that AIDS was now-going to be in the mainstream of medical treatments and would not be treated as special as it had been in the last 15 years.

What supported this concept was the fact that the Federal Minister for Health, Dr Michael Wooldridge, did .not bother to attend this international conference, but was represented by Liberal Senator Marise Payne, who is on the Board of the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON).

If those of us involved with caring and other aspects of the AIDS epidemic do not resume AIDS activism against the current complacency, we will see a new wave of HIV infections in the near future. ACT UP focussed public attention on the risks in earlier years and that risk education, publicity and action are needed again.

A vote to repeal anti-sodomy law which imposes a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment was postponed by the Cypriot Parliament. Write to the President of the Republic of Cyprus, the Rt Honorable Glafkos Clerided QC, Executive Office of the President, Nicosia, Cyprus, urging repeal of the archaic law to bring Cyprus into compliance with the European Court ruling and to international human rights standards.

Amnesty International, in recent publicity, has stated its support for homosexual prisoners of conscience.

Amnesty now needs to campaign actively in countries where oppression is becoming worse, such as Singapore, Cyprus, Pakistan and countries of Eastern Europe which were supposed to reform their human rights legislations after the collapse of the communist bloc, and have failed to live up to their promises.

Amnesty also needs to campaign in South American countries where human rights abuses continue alarmingly.

Several countries of Southern Africa have recently intensified their attacks on lesbians and gays. Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are amongst the worst offenders.

Zimbabwe has an International Book Fair due soon, and it is necessary that the organisers of the Fair cancel the arrangements in Zimbabwe unless President Mugabe changes his rhetoric in relation to the human rights of lesbians and gays in his country.

Mugabe rightly sees the International Book Fair as a means of bringing much needed tourist money into his increasingly impoverished country. The organisers should themselves cancel the holding of the Book Fair in Zimbabwe unless and until Mugabe shifts ground on the issue.

On 6 June 1997 the Sydney Morning Herald carried a list put out by the NSW Consumer Protection Agency relating to notices of proposed cancellations under the Associations Incorporation Act 1984.

On the cancellation list was: The Gay and Lesbian Memorial Project Incorporated.

It is now 18 months since it was announced that the project would continue and be built, advising those who had so generously donated time and money to the project that its aims would soon be fulfilled.

There have been no further announcements since that time relating to the project. It is necessary for those controlling the funds to either return them to the donors or complete the project.

Unless there is progress one way or the other soon, LGS will publicly agitate for action to be taken.

LGS is selling remainder copies of the ALGA publication, "A History of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" at half price.

Originally $20, we have Graham Carbery's excellent history of this visual spectacle without equal in the world, for only $10. Contact Mannie on (02)9718-1452 for your copy.

The Order of Perpetual Indulgence was represented by some members of the group at a CD launching at the Dendy Cinema recently. Afterwards, when walking up Martin Place, they were accosted by an elderly inebriate who became abusive and aggressive towards them. One of the Sisters took out a whistle to blow it for assistance and was promptly knocked to the ground and assaulted by the thug.

The other two sisters did not blow their whistles because they were not carrying them.!

Fortunately passers-by came to their assistance and helped them to get away from the abusive drunk.

A LESSON TO ALL LESBIANS, GAYS AND TRANSGENDERS - ALWAYS CARRY A WHISTLE WITH YOU AND HAVE IT IN YOUR HAND IN THE EVENT OF A SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH APPEAR THREATENING!!!!!!

The Weekend Australian 21-22 June 1997 reported that South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard evidence that the South African army tried to "reprogramme" gay recruits with pictures of naked men and Playboy centrefolds.

"A submission to the Commission by the Health and Human Rights Project accused the chief psychiatrist at the Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital near Pretoria of trying aversion therapy on gays admitted to the psychiatric ward. It says electrodes were strapped to the arms of subjects and wires leading from these were in turn connected to a machine.

Then the psychiatrist, Dr Aubrey Levine, would show his "patients" the pictures of naked men, encourage them to fantasise and then deliver an electric shock.

When they were screaming with pain he would stop the shock treatment, flash the centrefolds under their eyes "and verbally describe the women portrayed in glowing and positive terms."

The sessions would take place about four times a week, until such time as the patient showed signs of "improvement."

The submission says the men subjected to the aversion therapy had given their permission, but - aged between 18 and 24 - were still coming to terms with their sexuality and were vulnerable to pressure."

Sound familiar? Still going on in Sydney in 1997 because some young people are so intimidated by finding they have different sexual interests to those of many of their contemporaries that they suspect there must be something wrong with them and feel the need to be "cured."

Religious groups have a great deal to answer for as they have conditioned much of our society to believe that homosexuality is evil and wrong - just witness the proceedings of the Uniting church in Perth recently!

The Uniting Church has bowed to pressure from Aboriginal and ethnic congregations and therefore deferred indefinitely a vote on homosexual clergy.

The chairman of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, the Rev Djiniyini Gondorra, warned the assembly that if it decided to ordain homosexuals the Aborigines and Islanders might be forced to withdraw from the Uniting church.

The church's Director of Mission, Rev Dorothy McRae-McMahon, outed herself as a lesbian during the congress in Perth.

But in an open letter to Mr Gondorra, Sydney-based Aboriginal women affirmed their support for Ms McRae-McMahon and other homosexual leaders and members of Australia's third largest church, the Uniting.

Renewing his call for Ms McRae-McMahon's resignation, Rev Dr Gordon Moyes, head of Wesley Mission, said that the 10 church leaders who "outed" themselves during the congress should be disciplined. "They should be dealt with as any heterosexual minister living in adultery," he said.

Uniting Church 72% against; Anglican, 67%; Pentecostal, 88%; Baptist, 87%; Church of Christ, 89%; Salvation Army, 77%. (Compiled from Sydney Morning Herald Reports, 12/14 July 1997)

A media release, headed New Labor Party, provides a political alternative for queer Australians, informed us that Karin Mathison, a 19 year old leader of the Melbourne Branch, had been elected President of the New Labor Party. The party currently has nine branches and nearly 500 members.

The N'LP Conference in Melbourne over the Queen's Birthday weekend in June 1997 adopted a constitution which in its preamble says:

"the NLP's programs will reflect the aim of creating a socialist and democratic society, and will recognise that this can best be achieved by the development of policies that are democratic, egalitarian and sustainable within party structures and practice that promote fairness and equality regarding gender, race, sexual preference, ethnicity and age."

Delegates at conference reaffirmed that the NLP is an activist party, not just an electoral one.

For more information, contact the Secretary, New Labor Party, PO Box 5813, West End, OLD 4101.

Further to the Vic TAFE SACKINGS reported in our previous issue, the campaign to reinstate the three teachers is gaining momentum in Melbourne.Support from NSW is still being sought for this ongoing campaign. Send letters of support to the TAFE THREE themselves at PO Box 366, West Brunswick, Vic 3055.

The Southern Baptist Convention in the USA has voted overwhelmingly to institute a complete boycott of all Disney products and Disney subsidiaries, citing the company's anti-christian, anti-family direction.

The church pointed to "gay days" at Disney theme parks and employee benefits provided to same-sex partners. It also alleged Disney promoted lesbianism by allowing Ellen to come out in her tv show and released films like "Kids" because of its gratuitous sex and violence, and "Priest" -about homosexuality in the clergy. The Convention has applied the boycott, according to the Australian 20.6.97, because Disney was given a year to change its posture on homosexuality, and did not respond to the threat.

Thanks to Peter McGregor for donation received for this newsletter.

Thanks also to the Witches of Enmore for the latest issue of the Enmore Herald and their irreverent approach to established mores, pompous politicians and canardly clergy.

Thanks as well for the Nuns' and Brothers' Trail from the OPI.

SUPPORT FROM SYDNEY LESBIAN AND GAY ORGANISATIONS FOR ABORIGINAL RECONCILIATION Report in next . issue of newsletter.

CURRENT NEWSLETTER AND ARCHIVE OF PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

Mannie has a personal web site: RED JOS: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM

Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:

MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)

Activist Kicks Backs - Blognow archive re-housed - 2005-2009

RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)

This page updated 18 SEPTEMBER 2014 and again on 24 APRIL 2017

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