New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley became the first head of state to attend the large annual gay HERO parade February 21.

"I welcome the diversity of our New Zealand community today," she said. "All New Zealanders have a right to celebrate their own culture in their own way."

The parade attracted extra attention this year after Auckland City Council refused to provide its customary funding for the event.

Auckland Deputy Mayor David Hay said Shipley's appearance "sends out very negative signals to the young people of New Zealand. ... It's obvious she's doing it to endorse their [gays'] lifestyle and their behavior." state authorities to resolve the problems which lesbians and gay men face and to prohibit and tackle discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

City Councillor Phil Raffills said he was "absolutely disgusted" at Shipley's action. "On the one hand she talks about family, on the other she [attends] the parade. I think it's a complete contradiction, so I'm very, very angry about it."

But HERO Project head Mike McSweeny said Shipley's move was "a very visible gesture of support for what the HERO parade stands for."

And the prime minister's spokesperson called her attendance "no big deal ... given that the HERO parade is promoting HIV and AIDS awareness, which is an issue that she has been actively involved in, particularly during her time as health minister."

Even though it rained, about 100,000 people attended this year's festivities.

LESBIAN LOSES BENEFITS CASE AT EUROPEAN COURT

The European Court of Justice ruled February 17 that Britain's South West Trains did not violate European law when it refused to provide spousal travel benefits to the same-sex partner of employee Lisa Grant.

The court said the benefits would not have been granted to a male couple either and, therefore, European Union law banning employment discrimination based on gender was not breached. European law does not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The decision reversed a preliminary ruling by one of the court's advocate generals.

"Concessions are refused to a male worker if he is living with a person of the same sex, just as they are refused to a female worker living with a person of the same sex," the court said. "Stable relationships between two persons of the same sex are not regarded [under current European law] as equivalent to marriages or stable relationships outside marriage between persons of opposite sex."

South West Trains does grant spousal benefits to unmarried opposite-sex couples.

Grant's partner, Jill Percey, told reporters: "It is scandalous that Lisa's employers can discriminate against her just because she is a lesbian. ... We are bitterly disappointed."

Angela Mason, head of the British gay lobby group Stonewall, called the judgement "a blow to lesbians and gay men everywhere in the EC [European Community, now re-named the European Union] ... The ruling means the end of the road for attempts to establish through the courts that discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination," she said.

Grant's lawyer in the case was Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The European Court of Justice, located in Luxembourg, is the supreme court of the European Union, 15 western European nations working toward unification. The Union was formed by the 1956 Treaty of Rome.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com.

The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longergay-press articles.