Gay Today: World

Outed: Austria's Joerg Haider

Canada Defines Marriage

European Union Parliament Adopts Marriage Resolution

By Rex Wockner
International News Report

Outed: Austria's Joerg Haider

Joerg Haider

Joerg Haider, the de-facto leader of Austria's far-right Freedom party, is a closeted homosexual, according to recent reports in Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Berlin Tageszeitung and Austria's Der Standard.

Haider, 49, also has sex with boys below the Austrian age-of- consent, which is 18, the reports said, and he often has sex in neighboring Slovakia, where the age-of-consent for gay sex is 15.

The papers said Haider's current partner is a youthful member of the Freedom party who has worked as his personal secretary.

"We've known about Haider's homosexuality for about 10 years," the national gay group, Homosexual Initiative Vienna, said in a statement. "On the one hand we think it's positive that the rumors are no longer capable of ruining a political career; on the other hand, an earlier outing of Haider would have been justified."

Haider threw Europe into turmoil early this year when the Freedom party entered the Austrian government in coalition with the conservative People's party. Amid growing protests, he resigned last month as the party's official chairman while maintaining a leadership role.

Haider's opponents consider him a xenophobic, racist extremist who, as the U.S. Anti-Defamation League put it, has made "numerous statements utilizing Holocaust terminology or legitimizing Nazi policy and activities."

The Freedom party's parliamentary leader, Peter Westenthaler, called the reports of Haider's homosexuality "absurd ... sleaze- mongering" and refused further comment.

Canada Defines Marriage

Canada's new gay marriage law won't be a marriage law.

The nation is in the midst of rewriting 68 federal statutes in areas ranging from pensions and insurance to income tax and prison visits, so that gay and straight common-law couples will have the same basic rights as married opposite-sex couples.

But, seeking to appease conservatives, Justice Minister Anne McLellan inserted language into the legislation March 22 that reads, "For greater certainty, the amendments made by this act do not affect the meaning of the word 'marriage,' that is, the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

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"We are providing reassurance to Canadians," McLellan said. "For the vast majority of Canadians marriage continues to be a unique institution."

The clarification was accepted by the House of Commons Justice Committee in an 11-4 vote on March 23.

Gay Member of Parliament Svend Robinson, a New Democrat from British Columbia, accused McLellan of "caving in [to] Neanderthal backbenchers."

European Union Parliament Adopts Marriage Resolution

The European Union Parliament adopted a resolution March 17 urging its 15 member nations to extend marriage rights to gay couples.

The vote was 265-125 with 33 abstentions.

The parliament also said it "deplores the fact that some Member States still have a discriminatory age-of-consent provision for homosexual relations in their criminal codes as well as other forms of discrimination, in particular within the army."