By Rex Wockner
International News Reports

More gay news emerged from more corners of the world in 1997 than ever before -- and most of it was good. General explanations are difficult when the topic is the entire planet but here are a few facts: * The increasingly influential courts of the European Union and The Council of Europe inevitably come down on the side of gays and lesbians who file appeals from the 40 nations that belong to one of the two groupings. * The Internet has made the planet a much smaller place. Gay activists in Guatemala City, Hong Kong, Kiev and Santiago now know all about the latest successes in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, San Francisco and Sydney -- and they are demanding the same things. Inspired by what they read when they log on, gays, lesbians and transgendered people in the most far-flung of places are filing lawsuits, marching, and coming out in the local media. The Internet is the most important organizing resource the worldwide gay cause has seen. * Major news services are increasingly carrying routine gay news, and newspapers and broadcast outlets across the planet are increasingly picking up the stories. Visibility is step one on the road to equality and a powerful synergism between visibility and news coverage is underway worldwide. Here, then, are some of the highlights of 1997's global gay news. WE ARE ON A ROLL! * A lesbian activist won election to Mexico's Congress in July. Patria Jimenez took her seat in the Chamber of Deputies Sept. 1 as a representative of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party. She is one of the 200 legislators in the 500-member body who are selected by political parties rather than by direct voting. Each party appoints a number of specially listed candidates to represent a several-state region, based on the percentage of the vote the party received in the region. {photo available} * Ecuador's Constitutional Tribunal unanimously struck down the nation's gay-sex ban in November. The gay groups Andean Triangle Movement and En Directo and the AIDS Education and Prevention Foundation had filed suit against Penal Code Article 516 on Sept. 24. It punished gay sex with four to eight years in prison. Only three other places in Latin America ban homosexuality -- Chile, Nicaragua and the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. * The European Court of Justice Advocate General ruled in September that Britain's South West Trains violated the European Community Treaty by refusing to extend spousal benefits to a lesbian employee's lover. The ruling is expected to be upheld by the full court, which will make employment discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal throughout the 15-nation European Union. * The European Commission on Human Rights said in October that Britain's unequal age of consent violates European law and referred a case brought by gay-youth activist Euan Sutherland to the European Court of Human Rights for a final ruling. Straight sex is legal in Britain at age 16 while gay sex is banned until age 18. The British government responded with an agreement to stop fighting the case and called for a free vote in Parliament on bringing the laws into synch. * The European Court of Human Rights ruled in May that the British government has a case to answer in the challenge to its military gay ban by four homosexuals who where kicked out of the services. Another British military case is pending in the European Court of Justice. That court is expected to decide in 1998 whether Terry Perkins' sacking violated the European Union's Equal Treatment Directive. If Perkins wins, it will become illegal for any employer in the 15-nation European Union to discriminate based on sexual orientation, and gays who were kicked out of the military could demand compensation.

* Same-sex-partner immigration became reality in Britain in October. "Some people, such as gays ... are actually prohibited from marrying by law," said Immigration Minister Mike O'Brien. "I think it's unfair to destroy their relationships." A couple must prove they have lived together for four years and intend to stay together. * The British Columbia legislature changed the definition of "spouse" in the Family Relations Act to include same-sex partners in July. The legislation was aimed at recognizing same-sex unions in matters of child custody, access and support. But the effect may be more wide-ranging, giving gay couples many of the same rights as common-law heterosexual couples. * The Netherlands' special parliamentary committee on gay equality instructed the government to legalize gay marriage and adoption in October. The government is expected to do so by April. It will be real marriage rather than specialized gay partnership like in Scandinavia. Meanwhile, on Jan. 16, a new Dutch partnership law comes into effect. It grants registered gay and straight couples every right of matrimony except access to adoption and artificial insemination. Four other countries offer marriage-like gay partnerships: Denmark (and Greenland), Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The laws grant all rights of matrimony except access to adoption, artificial-conception services and church weddings. In Iceland, though, partners can obtain joint custody of each other's biological children. In Hungary, common-law gay marriage was made legal last year. All matrimonial rights are included except access to adoption. * Openly gay disc jockey Kevin Greening in October snagged the most prestigious job in British radio -- co-host of BBC Radio 1's Breakfast Show. * Britain's junior minister for the environment, Labour MP Angela Eagle, came out of the closet publicly in September. The 36-year- old representative for Wallasey in northwest England is the first openly lesbian cabinet-level official in British history. "I just need to get things sorted so I can just concentrate on my work," she said. * Britain's Labour Party hosted a glittering gay party in the main hotel of its annual conference in Brighton in October. Among those in attendance were three of the four openly gay members of Parliament. * The Costa Rican Supreme Court in September ordered the nation's government-run health-care system to buy anti-HIV "cocktail" drugs for four people with AIDS who had filed suit over the matter. It was expected that the ruling will extend to other HIV-positive Costa Ricans. * Brazil's Medical Council gave the OK in September for free sex- change operations in public and university hospitals. "Techniques are sufficiently developed to demonstrate that the surgery is not mutilation," said council President Waldir Mesquita. * The High Court of South Africa's Western Cape province legalized gay sex in July. Although South Africa is the only nation in the world that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation via its constitution, many older laws still discriminate against gays. In September, the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and the national Human Rights Commission filed a High Court suit against several remaining laws that prohibit gay sex. * Following a nine-year campaign by activists, the Australian state of Tasmania legalized gay sex in May, wiping out the nation's last sodomy ban. The penalty was 25 years in prison. * Gays won Japan's first gay-rights lawsuit in September. The Tokyo High Court ruled that the city Board of Education discriminated against the gay group Occur by refusing to let its members hold an overnight study meeting at a city-run youth hostel. "The city government should have given due consideration to homosexual people, and its indifference and ignorance will not be tolerated," the court said. * The tiny European nation of San Marino legalized gay sex in July. Members of Parliament voted 28-21, with one abstention, to repeal laws that banned "libidinous acts with persons of the same sex" under penalty of one year in jail. * Argentina extended government widow/widower pensions to same- sex partners in June although political pressure has prevented any payments from being made yet. At the same time, the unions for teachers and flight attendants extended health-care benefits to gay employees' lovers. * Britain's MI5 spy agency lifted its ban on homosexuals in May. "For many years it [homosexuality] was not considered in the interests of national security because of the risk of blackmail," said Government Communications Headquarters Staff Federation Chairman Brian Moore. "That has all changed now." * British Scouting officials welcomed homosexuals into their ranks in April but said they would continue to ban atheists. * A gay man won his fight to receive an Israeli Defense Force spousal pension in January. A Tel Aviv District Court Appeals Committee said the military engaged in illegal gender-based discrimination when it withheld benefits from Adir Steiner after his male lover, Col. Doron Meisel, died of cancer in 1991. * The secretariat general of the Council of Europe granted consultative status to the International Lesbian and Gay Association in November. It takes effect Jan. 15 unless objections arise from the Council's Committee of Ministers or Parliamentary Assembly. WHAT PART OF 'EVERYWHERE' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? * Sixty gays, lesbians and transgendered people marched in Lima, Peru's first gay-pride parade in July. "We are no longer invisible," said gay leader Oscar Ugarteche.

* Three hundred lesbians and a few drag queens marched through Tokyo's Shibuya area in October in the nation's first dyke march. They banged drums and blew whistles as k.d. lang songs blasted from a sound system. * Two hundred gays and transvestites marched through San Salvador, El Salvador, in June. "Homosexuals are ... productive beings who don't want to cause harm to anyone," said William Hernandez of the gay group Entre Amigos. * About 400 people staged Hungary's first gay-pride parade in September in Budapest's busiest shopping district. They carried pink triangles, rainbow flags and signs reading, "Proud To Be Gay" and "Equal Rights For Homosexuals." * One hundred seventy marchers turned out for the first gay-pride parade in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, in September. The city, pop. 67,621, is 12 hours by car north of Vancouver. * Over 30 gay organizations staged Taiwan's first gay/lesbian pride festival in June. Organizers of "Rainbows, Homosexuals and Dreams in the Park" said they hoped "to encourage recognition and friendship from the general public." * About 3,000 people showed up at Lisbon, Portugal's first Pride Festival in Principe Real Park. The events, which included a variety show and a fireworks display, were heavily covered by the media. * About 225 gays and lesbians, half from Mexico and half from the U.S., walked the length of Tijuana's glitzy and rowdy Revolution Avenue in June to loud cheers from both supporters and hundreds of surprised shoppers and partiers. It was Tijuana's third annual pride march down the city's busiest street. Another 200 people walked the entire route on the sidewalk to stay out of the view of TV cameras. * About 10,000 gays and lesbians marched from Madrid's Puerta de Alcala to the Puerta del Sol in February demanding legal recognition of gay partnerships. It was Spain's largest gay demonstration since the 1970s. * More than 5,000 protesters descended on the New South Wales Parliament House in Sydney, Australia, in October demanding that the age of consent for gay sex be reduced to 16, which is the legal age for straight sex. When Stevie Clayton of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby called on closeted gay MPs to "pay your dues," the crowd chanted "Out them, out them." * Ignoring pressure from the Catholic Church, Carnival organizers in Barranquilla, Colombia, allowed a contingent of gays and transvestites to march in the Grand Parade and elect their own Carnival Queen in February. "This is about art and culture. We're not at all immoral like the archbishop is saying," one transvestite told local TV news. * Fifty delegates from across Brazil converged on Salvador in Bahia state in September for the Second National Lesbian Conference. * Gay and transgendered members of Rosario, Argentina's Rainbow Collective picketed the Provincial Tribunal in September "to present to the public and the media the situation of transvestites in our city and denounce the police and judges who violate our rights with total impunity." * Attacks from President Sam Nujoma spurred gay organizing in Namibia. "The response from the wider society has been very positive and supportive and even the [governing] Swapo [party] politicians have softened their tone," said Rainbow Project spokesman Niko Kisting. Among Nujoma's remarks: "Homosexuals must be condemned and rejected in our society." * The formation of Swaziland's first gay group caused an uproar. Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini called homosexuality an "abnormality and sickness" and former Prime Minister Prince Bhekimpi, who is also a chief, threatened to evict gays and lesbians from his region of the country because "homosexuality is regarded as satanic in Swaziland."

FIVE NAUGHTY AUTHORITIES * Authorities smashed South Korea's "1st Seoul Queer Film & Video Festival" in September hours before it was to open at Yonsei University. They threatened to seize the equipment and films and fine organizers $22,000 if they went ahead with the program. * The homosexual-assault trial of former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana began in September in Harare's High Court but was quickly suspended to await a ruling on whether he can receive a fair trial. Banana is charged with 11 counts of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault on seven aides, a cook, a gardener and a bodyguard. * Several hundred people were detained in an August raid on Havana's most popular gay discotheque, El Periquiton. Police said they targeted the club because prostitutes, pimps and minors were present. But sources in Havana and Miami said the raid was the latest move in a widescale crackdown on all things gay. Several other private gay clubs also have been raided, along with government nightclubs whose customers were predominantly homosexual. And the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, which formed in 1994, has been squashed and its members taken into custody from their places of employment. * The Singapore gay group People Like Us exhausted all appeals in its effort to be registered in August and the government ordered the group to cease operations. Participating in an "unlawful society" in Singapore can lead to three years in jail. * Denmark's parliament banned lesbians from obtaining artificial insemination in state-run or private clinics in May. The procedure is now available only to women who are married or in a marriage-like heterosexual partnership. © Rex Wockner