Badpuppy Gay Today |
Friday, 09 May 1997 |
A British gay man prosecuted for having group sex in his home is taking the United Kingdom government to the European Court of Human Rights.
When Britain legalized male homosexuality in 1967, parliament stipulated that gay sex must take place in private, with "private" defined as no more than two men being present.
The plaintiff, who does not want his name published, was convicted of gross indecency for sex play with four other men in their 30's and 40's. He was arrested when a search of his house in an unrelated matter turned up a video-tape of the group activity.
The man claims his arrest violated Article 8 (right to privacy) and Article 14 (gender discrimination) of the European Human Rights Convention.
Only male group-sex is prohibited in Britain; co-gender and all-female groupings are allowed.
Following a nine-year campaign by gay activists, the Australian state of Tasmania has finally legalized gay sex, wiping out the nation's last sodomy ban.
In an unrecorded voice vote May 1, the island's Legislative Council repealed Criminal Code sections 122 and 123, which outlawed consenting sexual intercourse "against the order of nature" and "indecent practice between male persons."
The punishment was up to 25 years in prison.
The lower chamber of parliament, the House of Assembly, passed the repeal measure March 27.
Pro-repeal forces in the 19-member upper chamber fought off proposed amendments that would have banned "promotion" or "encouragement" of homosexuality and would have set the age-of-consent for gay sex higher than 17, which is the legal age for straight sex. They also dislodged a preamble that would have blamed gays for AIDS.
"This marks the end of a 25-year campaign for gay law reform across the country," said Rodney Croome, spokesman for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group (TGLRG), which waged the long battle to legalize homosexuality. "What we have got today is an uncompromised and unqualified victory for justice and equality for gay and lesbian people in this state, for all Tasmanians and all Australians.
"For nine years we've been sustained by our faith in the Tasmanian people: our faith that they are essentially rational and fair-minded. Today's decision shows that our faith was not misplaced...This decision lifts a destructive criminal stigma from our shoulders--a stigma we've lived with all our lives."
Tasmania's ban had been condemned by a 1994 ruling of the United Nation's Human Rights Committee (as a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) and denounced by Amnesty International and the Anglican Church. It was the subject of a federal High Court case, which gays were expected to win, and the target of a federal law passed in 1995 guaranteeing the right to sexual privacy. The High Court was expected to determine that the privacy law took precedence over the state ban.
TGLRG plans to move forward with a campaign for an anti-discrimination law.
Philippines Senate President Pro Tempore Blas Ople called on the military to drop its ban on gays April 25.
"Tolerance and open-mindedness should be the policy of recruitment," Ople said. "Devotion to country and the ideals of courage and heroism are not a monopoly of heterosexuality and the traditional genders."
Ople was responding to remarks by Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Arnulfo Acedera.
"We cannot have in-betweens in the military," Acedera said April 21. "What we need are men or women. From where I sit, I don't know of any gays at present in the service, but if indeed there are, they must be advised to get out."
The Philippines' Progressive Organization of Gays called Acedera's remarks "inhuman and discriminatory," according to UPI.
"He might even be surprised, some of the best men may be gay," said PROGAY spokesman Allan Tolosa. "(His statements) prove that our society is colonial, feudal and patriarchal...and heading toward militarization."
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