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LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY
NEWSLETTER
PO BOX 1675
PRESTON SOUTH, VIC 3072 AUSTRALIA PHONE(03)9471 4878
Formerly:
GAY SOLIDARITY GROUP
Est. 1978 email: josken_at_zipworld_com_au
LGS
HOME PAGES: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken
ISSN
1446-4896
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ISSUE 1,
2004 NUMBER 57a DECEMBER 2003-MARCH 2004
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1)
DEMONSTRATIONS, RALLIES AND PROTESTS: On the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the
”Coalition of the Willing” on 20 March 2004, rallies were held
around the world to protest at the continuing war in Iraq and the ongoing
slaughter of civilians, now numbering in the tens of thousands of Iraqi
citizens. The Melbourne rally was comparatively small, about 2000 people, but
other rallies in other cities in Australia and around the world were much
larger, and people were able to communicate to George W Bush and his allies
that they did not believe all the lies they were told which took their
countries into a war which so many around the world didn't support.
Palm
Sunday brought thousands together for peace and justice: A crowd of nearly 5000 marched from
Melbourne's State Library to Federation Square demanding that asylum seekers be
immediately released from Australia's detention centres. Some of the banners
and placards carried slogans such as “Hope, not fear”, “Citizenship, not
visas”, “Freedom, not detention” and “Close concentration camps - free asylum
seekers”.
A sea of
colourful hearts similar to the sea of hands used for reconciliation with the
Aboriginal community was used as a symbol of hope and people wrote slogans and
messages to asylum seekers on the hearts they carried in the rally.
The rally
was supported by Victorian Peace Network, Trades Hall Council, Refugee Action
Collective, the Council of Social Service and Council of Chruches.
The LGS
banner was carried at both rallies.
2)
FREE RUSLAN SHARIPOV: A REPORT ABOUT UZBEKISTAN: John Aravosis, a US gay activist who
has an online reporting programme sent the following on 1 December 2003:
Ruslan
Sharipov, a journalist in Uzbekistan, is being imprisoned and tortured because
he is gay. His government captors have threatened to rape him with a bottle and
inject him with AIDS. But there is talk that the government may soon amnesty a
few political prisoners.
Sharipov,
an independent human rights activist, was sentenced in August 2003 by an Uzbek
court to five and a half years in prison. Sharipov has been a fearless critic
of police corruption and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.
Email the 3
key US officials below, demanding they tell the Uzbek government to free Ruslan
Sharipov:
Marc Grossman,
Undersecretary for Political Affairs, US Dept. of State
grossmanM2@state.gov
David
Appleton, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy, Uzbekistan
AppletonDE@state.gov
Lorne
Craner, Asst. Secretary, Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, US Dept. of State
cranerix@state.gov
Read about
Ruslan's case at the Human Rights Watch Web site:
also: http://hrw.org/campaigns/uzbekistan/sharipov.htm
3)
GAY AND LESBIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS: Reports emerging in the last two years about gay and lesbian
asylum seekers in Australia have made alarming reading. LGS has now managed to
assemble a fair amount of documentation about asylum seekers, homosexual and
heterosexual, and this is now on our web page: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken/glasylum.htm
If anyone
has any information about other asylum seekers not reported on this web page we
would
be grateful for that information so that we can publish it and help to expose
the disgraceful,
disgusting and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers to Australia by its government and major opposition party. This behaviour is in direct contradiction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Australia is a signatory.
4)
SOUTH AFRICA AND AIDS DRUGS - YET AGAIN!: The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
was in the process of launching litigation against the government, TAC national
chairman Zackie Achmat said on Monday 8 March 2004. “We don't only want to meet
with the minister (of health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang), we want an urgent
resolution on government procurement policy. Achmat said the TAC planned to
meet Tshabalala-Msimang by the end of the week and if government did not
respond favourably to the issue of a procurement policy for medicines, it could
find itself in court in two weeks. “But we are seriously willing to hold
backcourt (proceedings) if government does the right thing,” he said, adding
that there were at least 50 places across the country, such as Johannesburg's
Baragwanath Hospital, where doctors and nurses were hamstrung by a lack of
medicines to treat HIV/AIDS. (Report from gmax.co.za 8 March 2004)
On
Wednesday 17 March 2004 Tshabalala-Msimang responded by saying that a health
ministerial meeting between health ministers of all the provinces agreed there
should be an urgent accreditation of facilities that met the requirements to
provide quality care in line with the Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care
and Treatment of HIV/AIDS. She said funding for all elements of the
Comprehensive Plan would become available through the conditional grants to
provincial health departments from April 2004. (Report from gmax.co.za 19 March
2004.)
In a BBC
report from South Africa of 28 February 2004, their health correspondent wrote:
“Gay men in
South Africa are being neglected in safe sex campaigns and are at great risk of
contracting HIV, according to research presented at the first African Congress
on Sexual Health and Rights. Official government projects target heterosexuals
only, so health care workers at the conference are looking at how to get the
safe sex message to the homosexual community. There are only three
organisations in South Africa that provide health care services specifically
for gay and lesbian people. There are also no government HIV campaigns aimed at
homosexuals so doctors are looking at the best way to get the safe sex message
across with such limited resources. “Total Denial” a new safe sex project aimed
at gay men is running in a township on the outskirts of Pretoria. Five hundred
thousand people live in Mamelodi and although exact figures aren't known, it is
estimated that up to 50,000 could be gay or lesbian. The project is called the
HIV school and it is run by a group called OUT.
5)
ANTI-GAY MONUMENT HALTED: The city of Casper, Wyoming has thwarted virulent homophobe
Reverend (sic) Fred Phelps' plan to erect a monument condemning gay people. The
Council decided to remove a Ten Commandments statue from a major park rather
than risk Phelps being able to erect his anti-Matthew Shepard memorial. It was
trying to pre-empt Phelps, after a decision last year that said any city
displaying religious monuments on public property must allow other religious
groups their chance to display too. Phelps told the Casper Council he wanted to
erect a memorial bearing a plaque with the words “Matthew Shepard, Entered
Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with
mankind as with womankind; it is abomination - Leviticus 18:22'” (MCV 21
November 2003)
6) UK
SECTION 28 REPEAL - JULY 2003: The repeal of the notorious Margaret Thatcher- introduced
Section 28 in the UK by the House of Commons and ultimately the House of Lords
in July 2003 had special significance for one member of LGS. In 1988 Margaret
Thatcher introduced Section 28 - described by Ben Summerskill, Stonewall chief
executive, as “a pernicious piece of legislation deliberately framed in order
to stigmatise a minority group.”
When the
bill was being introduced in the UK in March/April 1988, gay and lesbian groups
held protest rallies outside British consulates in Australia. Gay Solidarity
Group, as LGS was known then, held a rally at Circular Quay in Sydney outside
the building which housed the UK Consular offices in Sydney. This member was
attending his first gay rally in a very public coming-out process, and he has
been a gay activist ever since. He has been fighting for equal rights for
sexual minorities since that date and continues to do so in 2004.
7)
NORTHERN TERRITORY REACHES “AGE OF CONSENT”: B.NEWS reported in
December 2003 that the Northern Territory had become the
last state or territory to reform its
discriminatory age of consent laws, equalising the ages of consent between
heterosexual and homosexual citizens. Under the old laws the age of consent for
heterosexual and lesbian sex was 16 while for gay male sex it was 18. The new
law makes 16 the age of consent for all citizens.
8)
DONATIONS: Our
thanks to readers who have sent donations to help with the production and
mailing of the newsletter.
9)
SPAIDS UPDATE: Despite
the amalgamation of South Sydney and Sydney City Councils, we have been advised
that the tree planting at Sydney Park on National Tree Day, Sunday 25 July
2004, will go ahead as planned. People should consult our Activities page
nearer the date for further details. These will be on: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken/actions.htm
10)
FAIRFIELD AIDS MEMORIAL GARDENS AND JOHN HUNTER AIDS GARDEN:
A student
at a Melbourne university is doing his final year assignment for his landscape
architecture degree on memorials, and has chosen to do a model layout for the
Fairfield AIDS Memorial Garden. He has consulted LGS because of our involvement
with ensuring the Garden remains accessible to the public at all times, as
shown on our web page: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken/fairfiel.htm
The John
Hunter Hospital AIDS Memorial Garden was moved from its original position
during 2003 because of extensions to the hospital building and the new Garden
was dedicated on World AIDS Day 1 December 2003. Photos and details are on our
web page: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken/jhaids.htm
11)
ZACKIE ACHMAT NOMINATED FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Gay.com/PlanetOut.com reported in
December 2003 that Zackie Achmat and the organization he founded, Treatment
Action Campaign (TAC) have been nominated by a US Quaker humanitarian group,
the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Zackie, who is a gay, HIV positive activist, refused to take AIDS drugs until
they were widely available to millions of fellow South Africans. (See item 4
above for latest on AIDS drugs and South Africa).
The report
stated that Achmat and TAC have been instrumental in getting South Africa to
respond to its staggering AIDS crisis. More than 5 million people are living
with HIV/AIDS in the country - the highest count for any nation. President
Thabo Mbeki had for years denied the magnitude of the epidemic, but the
government has recently been taking steps to produce and distribute expensive
AIDS drugs at a steep discount.
12)
EGYPTIAN GAYS LIVE IN A TIME OF TORTURE: A report in the South African Mail and Guardian of 1
March 2004 states: “Egyptian authorities have entrapped, arrested and tortured
hundreds of gay men suspected of engaging in consensual homosexual sex, a New
York-based human rights group claimed in a report released on 1 March that
demands an end to such action.
Human
Rights Watch urged Egypt to repeal legislation allowing the prosecution of
consensual homosexual relations - covered under the country's debauchery laws -
and permitting police surveillance and entrapment. It also urged punishment for
those who torture suspects.”
The report
is called In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's crackdown
on Homosexual Conduct.
LGS urges
our readers to write to the Egyptian ambassador in Australia and/or the
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanding an end to these human rights abuses.
The addresses are as follows:
Egyptian
Ambassador, Egyptian Embassy, 1 Darwin Avenue, Yarralumla, Canberra, ACT 2600
Tel: (02)6273-4437/8
His
Excellency Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt
‘Abedine Palace, Cairo, Egypt
13) NEWS BRIEFS: Over a year ago Germany gave a
formal pardon to the 50,000 gays convicted under the Nazi regime and seen as
the first recognition of the level of persecution. Now a memorial for gay men
killed by the Nazis has been given the green light in Berlin. The memorial
funded by the German government is to be placed near the planned Holocaust
memorial in the city. –Gay.com.UK.
ANTI-GAY VIOLENCE INCREASE: According to data released in the USA by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, which tracks anti-gay hate violence, incidence of attacks rose 24% in the last six months of 2003 following the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down sodomy laws together with the struggle for same-sex marriage rights. –PlanetOut News Front.
HITCH TO COURT’S GAY MARRIAGE PLANS: The Massachusetts legislature has approved a state constitutional amendment that will ban gay marriage and create same-sex civil unions instead. The state has been ordered by a court to allow same-sex couples to marry from May 17, making it the first US state to do so. However, the Governor, a Republican who opposes gay marriage and civil unions, has asked the state’s highest court to issue a stay which would bar same-sex couples from marrying until after the proposed amendment could go before the voters in two years. –The Melbourne Age, 31/3/04.
HARVIE KRUMPET & HIS CREATOR: Adam Elliot did not go to the Oscars expecting to win and he certainly did not expect to make one of the more controversial speeches at the presentation of an Oscar for his short animation film featuring a weird little guy made of plasticine. He was just so excited he couldn’t stop thanking his “beautiful boyfriend Dan.” He said he met his lover Dan Doherty, in St Kilda. –The Melbourne Age, 2/3/04.
TASMANIAN WOODCHIPPING AN ELECTION ISSUE: A rally on the streets of Hobart on Saturday, March 13, drew a crowd of 15,000 people calling for federal intervention to end clearfelling of old-growth forests. Conservationists said Tasmanian woodchipping was shaping up to become an election issue that politicians could not afford to ignore. –The Australian, 15/3/04.
RANGER MINE’S HISTORY OF URANIUM LEAKS & SPILLS: The Northern Territory Government is set to prosecute the Ranger Uranium Mine over the spill of uranium-contaminated water into a creek flowing into the Kakadu National Park as well as contaminating its workers’ drinking water. Environment groups are demanding that the mine be closed indefintely, saying Energy Resources Australia (ERA) breached its operating licence by failing to ensure contaminated water stays in a closed system. ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said the leak was the “latest in a history of spills, leaks and breakdowns at Ranger.” –The Melbourne Age, 29/3/04.
ANTI-GAY ABUSES IN AUSTRALIA: According to Gay.Com UK that despite its image of being a liberal country, homophobia is rife in Australia. A government-backed study revealed that 85% of gay and lesbian residents in Sydney have faced some form of abuse based on their sexuality. View the study on the following link:- http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/cpd.nsf/pages/hide2bsafe
CULTURE OF GROUP SEX IN SPORT: A letter in The Age recently claimed that team training, whether in sport or in the military, deliberately exploits the homosexual component of fit young men’s nature. But sports trainers simultaneously maintain a strenuously anti-gay culture to achieve the desired result of confusion, frustration and consequent aggression –to be channelled against sporting opponents. Hence the taunts of homophobic epithets like poofters, girls etc. suggesting their opponents are weak. He ended by writing that in his view homoeroticism of sport must be encouraged and celebrated rather than being repressed. Less destructive and dangerous mechanisms must be employed in the training process. Only then will the culture of group sex begin to disappear and both gays and women will be the beneficiaries.
14) ONE CONTRACT FOR ALL: In “Queer eye for the
straight tie” Melbourne Age, 4/3/04), Helen Razer quotes the PM’s
ludicrous statement in Brisbane that legalising same-sex unions could
jeopardise the survival of the species, which just goes to show that the
present Federal Government is not just living in the 50s but is a throwback to
the 19th century. Governments really have to come to terms with
current thinking and current life situations.
Mary Tanner (Sydney Morning Herald Letters, 27/2/04) argues for a change to the terminology of the government marriage licence. She wants sexuality removed from the present discussion and to call it officially a Life Partners Licence. Registered this way, people could still have the same rights and obligations as the Marriage Licence confers now. She certainly has a point.
It’s up to the government to give all of us, regardless of gender, the option to be licensed to live together legally with the same conferred benefits. For instance, if one party dies the survivor would have the same rights to the estate, life insurance and superannuation of the partner as those currently in holy wedlock. It would license heteros who marry in churches, mosques or wherever, as well as defacto and same-sex unions like us gays and lesbians, and even those who buy a house and live together as friends. All of them could terminate the licence in the same legal form as a heterosexual divorce. Remember though, you’d be treated as a couple in pensionable retirement. –Kendall Lovett
15) NEW BOOKS: “THE EXHIBITION” by Marg Girdwood
–launched 29 February at the National Library. A fast moving story of women’s
relationships that explores the nuances of work, relationships and influence in
Canberra’s political hothouse. $26.95 paperback order on the internet at
http://www.girdwood.com.au
“DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN” by Liz Ross –launch 30 April 6pm at Melbourne Trades Hall. Sub-titled “Builders Labourers Fight Deregistration 1981-1994,” this is not a story of defeat and despair. It’s a story of resistance, much of it told in the words of the most important actors in the drama –rank and file workers, builders labourers and their supporters in other unions. Liz Ross pulls together all the threads in this complex story. She provides a left wing analysis of the role of employers, the ALP, union leaders and the historic ALP-ACTU Accord. $35 Vulgar Press. Contact at: red_sites@alphalink.com.au
“RADICAL MELBOURNE II: UP FROM UNDER” by Jill and Jeff Sparrow –launch 7 May 6.30 pm at Melbourne Trades Hall. Take a tour through sixty years that shook Melbourne, through the lanes and alleys to uncover a story of secret police and secret armies, guerrilla artists and underground cells, militant unionists and intransigent peaceniks. From the Cold War to hot jazz, from teenage rioters to Maoist revolutionaries. $50.—Check at good bookshops.
16) UN WITHDRAWS GAY RIGHTS RESOLUTION: A move to
add sexuality to the list of categories protected by the United Nations has
been dropped despite an unprecedented global campaign to support the passage of
the Resolution.
It is the second year in a row that the motion has been withdrawn. The proposal had been put forward by Brazil and, despite unprecedented global activists support, Brazil dropped the motion when it became clear the Vatican and Arab countries led by Egypt would not let it pass. One member of the European Parliament was outraged: “Millions of people across the globe face imprisonment, torture, violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation. Both the Vatican and the Conference of Islamic States should hang their heads in shame for having reduced their beliefs to the gutter of bigotry and discrimination,”said MEP Michael Cashman, who is gay. The same intense pressure from the Vatican and the Muslim nations is being exerted in New York to revoke an executive order by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that would provide the same-sex partners of UN workers the same benefits as married couples if their countries approve. –365Gay.com.Newscenter.
Rodney Croome, spokesperson for Australia’s newly formed national LGBT human rights coalition, the Equal Rights Network (ERN), said that theVatican and the Conference of Islamic States were effectively endorsing the harassment, jailing, torture and execution of lesbian, gay, bi and transgender people in many countries.
17) GAY MAN SCORES VICTORY IN SOUTH AFRICAN APPEAL COURT:
A report from the Mail and Guardian late last year (2003) stated that a
gay man claiming compensation from the Road Accident Fund scored a legal
victory for homosexuals in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. The
Appeal judge found in favour of Antonie Michael du Plessis whose long-term
partner Albert Ernest Clack died in 1999 in a vehicle collision.
The judge ordered the Fund to compensate du Plessis for 75% of the damages he suffered for loss of Clack's financial support. The judge also ruled the Fund liable to pay Clack's funeral costs. The two men had been in a stable relationship similar to marriage for 11 years when Clack was killed. Because du Plessis had been medically boarded, Clack had been maintaining him to a large extent financially. Du Plessis is currently living off an inadequate disability pension. The judgement reflects the changes in the new Constitution which empower the court in this instance to confer an equal right on same-sex partners.
18) VALE MARCUS COHEN: We were saddened to hear
of the death in Sydney recently of Marcus Cohen. Marcus came from South Africa
many years ago and had made a life for himself in Sydney. He was well known and
well liked by all who knew him, and we are the poorer for his death. We extend
our sympathy to his family and many friends in Sydney, elsewhere in Australia,
and South Africa.
19) RECOGNITION FOR VICTORIA’S LESBIAN AND GAY SENIORS: The 2004 Seniors Festival Week (14-21 March) official state government programme contained a number of events specifically for gay, lesbian and transgender seniors. These events included a twilight concert by the MELBOURNE GAY AND LESBIAN CHORUS, an afternoon RAINBOW TEA DANCE in the Melbourne Town Hall, the movie “FAR FROM HEAVEN”—a co-presentation with the 14th Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a LESBIAN PICNIC in the Botanical Gardens arranged by the Matrix Guild by and for older lesbians, and a morning LESBIAN & GAY MELBOURNE HISTORY WALK conducted by Graham Willett, president of Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives.
It was a long awaited genuine breakthrough that needs to be emulated by Seniors Weeks in other Australian states.
20)COST OF MARRIAGE INEQUALITY TO GAY AND LESBIAN SENIORS: The results of a study in the USA, released on the
29th January 2004, has found that more than one in ten same-sex couples include
a partner over 65 and one in four with a partner over 55.
Entitled “The cost of Marriage
Inequality to Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Seniors,” the study which was conducted
by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, highlighted the fact that lack of a
Marriage Licence may cost tens of thousands of dollars when a partner has to
enter a nursing home or dies because the surviving same-sex partner risks
losing the home they have lived in –a risk they would not face if they had been
permitted to marry. You can find the study on http://www.hrc.org
21) SPOTLIGHT ON GAY MARRIAGE: According
to the Sydney Morning Herald (5/3/04) Stockholm’s Aftonbladet said
Sweden’s partnership law was a step in the right direction when it was
introduced in 1995, not least because it helped to combat negative attitudes to
homosexual love. However, it added that it was absurd that some people’s love
is called partnership while others is called marriage. Another newspaper, Expressen,
said that for many religious people, same-sex marriage was impossible to
accept. But two codes were untenable. We should all be equal under the law and
it went on to say that a single gender-neutral, or to speak in legal terms,
gender-blind marriage code is all that we need.
22) SENIOR CITIZENS AND ADVOCACY: LGS members wrote to Fifty~Plus News in February 2004
deploring the lack of protests from seniors' advocacy groups complaining to
governments, both state and federal, regarding the plight of pensioners on
reduced incomes when benefits are reduced, fares are increased on public transport
and health benefits are changed such as the propsed Medicare changes and the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which has been sold out to the USA-Australia
Free Trade Agreement. Council on the Ageing(COTA)National Seniors responded in
the April Fifty~Plus News stating they had made pre-budget submissions to the
government and that copies of the submission were available from the
organisation. LGS contends that, despite this response from COTA National
Seniors, there are still no loud outcries from seniors groups about issues such
as tax relief for taxpayers on wages, but none for pensioners without wages but
paying gst - which everyone pays! - and all the other issues raised.
23) 14th MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL: There were some brilliant and colourful documentaries
as well as a great array of comedies and feature films from around the world
which most of us would not have seen but for the Festival. Perhaps the
highlight was “Imagining Queer” comprising queer excerpts from Australian films
and TV shows from the past, curated by Barry McKay and presented by Marilyn
Dooley. Barry spent several months unearthing hours of footage to select images
in the National Screen and Sound Archive that made these two fabulous historical
films –1910 to 1950 and 1950 to 1980. Also, apart from the co-presentation with
the Victorian Seniors Festival, MQFF offered a special Seniors concession to
see a Dutch doco, “Late Wedding,” about two gays who decided to marry after 48
years together. Lisa Daniel, the Festival director, has indicated that they
will definitely and likely extend the seniors discounts in 2005.
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This page updated 16 MAY 2011 and again on 23 APRIL 2017
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