‘World’ Archives
First Europride in Eastern Europe
Europride, which has roamed from country to country since 1992, was staged in Eastern Europe for the first time this year, culminating with the July 17 parade through the streets of Warsaw. Around 8,000 people took part in the march despite temperatures near 40 C (above 100 F). Some previous Europrides in Western Europe have attracted up to [...]
EU plans to fight for LGBT rights worldwide
The Council of the European Union on June 30 adopted a "Toolkit to Promote and Protect the Enjoyment of All Human Rights by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People." The kit details what the EU should be doing to defend LGBT human rights in other nations. It calls on diplomats, the new European External Action Service, and [...]
Argentina legalizes same-sex marriage
Argentina legalized same-sex marriage July 15. The vote in the Senate at 4:05 a.m. was 33-27 with 3 abstentions. The lower house already passed the bill and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner strongly supports it. "The bill has passed. It is law. The executive power will be notified," the Senate president said as the vote was [...]
1 million at London Pride
One million people turned out for Pride in London on July 3. While marching, London Mayor Boris Johnson told gay leader Peter Tatchell that he supports legalizing same-sex marriage. "Why not?" Tatchell quoted Johnson as saying. "The ban should go. ... If the Conservatives and Liberals can get together in a national coalition and settle [...]
Finland to legalize same-sex marriage
Finland's Justice Ministry has begun work on legalizing same-sex marriage as well as adoption by married same-sex couples. Justice Minister Tuija Brax said Finland's constitution bans discrimination based on gender and that public opinion supports letting gay couples marry. The law should be in place by 2012. That will leave Denmark as [...]
Lesbian Icelandic prime minister gets married
Openly lesbian Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir got married to her partner, writer JónÃna Leósdóttir, on June 27, when the nation's law legalizing same-sex marriage took effect. Since the couple already were registered partners under an existing civil-union law, they simply filed paperwork to convert their eight-year-old [...]
Marchers arrested at banned St. Petersburg, Russia, pride parade
Twenty-five gays and lesbians staged a pride parade in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 26 although the city government had banned the march. Police broke up the gathering and arrested five participants. The march began in the courtyard of the famed State Hermitage Museum and made it as far as the entrance to Winter Palace Square before police [...]
LGBTs take over downtown Tijuana for 2 days
The border city of Tijuana, Mexico, saw its 15th gay pride parade June 19 and, for the first time, the march was accompanied by a festival, which ran for two days on three intersecting streets in the center of downtown. Several hundred people joined the parade down Avenida Revolución, the main drag of the city center that once was a [...]
Belarusian activists file UN complaint
Two gay activists in Belarus filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Secretariat in Geneva June 20, charging that Belarusian authorities breached their right to freedom of assembly last December. Sergey Androsenko, chief organizer of Minsk Gay Pride, and Sergey Praded, editor of the Belarusian magazine "Gay: Good As You," [...]
Euro Court refuses to legalize same-sex marriage
In a case from Austria, the European Court of Human Rights refused June 24 to effectively force 40 member nations of the Council of Europe to legalize same-sex marriage. The other seven member nations already allow same-sex marriage. Plaintiffs Horst Michael Schalk and Johann Franz Kopf had argued that Austria violated their rights to [...]
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