Gay Today: World

Canadian Mayor Walter Gray
of Kelowna, Pouts

London May Get a
Very Gay-Friendly Mayor

Canadian TV Chef Daniel Pinard
Comes Out

By Rex Wockner
International News Report

Canadian Mayor Walter Gray
of Kelowna, Pouts

Mayor Walter Gray

The mayor of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, Walter Gray, says he will stop signing any city proclamations in response to a March 23 ruling by a provincial Human Rights Tribunal that he discriminated against gays.

Gray refused to include the word 'pride' in his proclamation of "Gay and Lesbian Pride Day," proclaiming instead "Gay and Lesbian Day."

"I cannot support their lifestyle through a proclamation," he said.

Tribunal member Carol Roberts called Gray's edit "tantamount to a political insult" and said it unlawfully discriminated against gays and lesbians because of their sexual orientation.

London May Get a
Very Gay-Friendly Mayor

Ken Livingstone, the frontrunner for London mayor, said March 30 that, if elected on May 4, he will support registration of gay partnerships and will withhold city business from homophobic companies.

"I will not tolerate companies which are commercially involved with the GLA [Greater London Authority] if they display any homophobia," he said.

Ken Livingstone

He added: "I want gay people to have the right to register their relationships to stop discrimination. It would help to ensure that if a gay person in a relationship dies there will not be a dispute over entitlement to pension rights, for instance, because the relationship has been formally recognized."

Canadian TV Chef Daniel Pinard
Comes Out

Popular Tele-Quebec food-show host and sex symbol Daniel Pinard, 57, came out of the closet in March.

Legions of lusty female viewers were apparently flung into the abyss of existential despair upon learning of Pinard's sexual orientation.

Said Toronto's Globe and Mail: "With his seductive blue eyes, silver-grey hair, handsome features and athletic build, Mr. Pinard is a younger Paul Newman. He is bright, cultured, funny. He talks about food in such a sensuous way that you want to eat his dishes right away, preferably with him facing you across the table in soft candle light."

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Winnipeg's Gay Mayor Dons a Bullet-Proof Vest

London Assembly Candidate's Gay & Lesbian Manifesto

Svend Robinson: An Interview

Related Sites:
City of Kelowna, Canada

Livingstone for Mayor

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In his coming-out interview, Pinard told reporters: "I wouldn't be here tonight if it had not been for [the late actor] Jean- Louis Millette. He saved me from suicide. He told me: 'You'll be happy some day, but keep your mouth shut. People are not as tolerant as you think.'

"It's terrible for teenagers, because they're surrounded by kids who are frightened by their own sexuality and their own ambivalence and are searching for an image to destroy."

Unlike many gays, Pinard would take a pill that would turn him straight if such a thing existed, he said.

"Life would be so much easier, and it would be nice to have children," he said.