Badpuppy Gay Today

Wednesday, 21 May 1997

The 1997 EuroPride March, to be staged June 28 in Paris, has issued its demands.

All European nations are told to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation; legalize same-sex unions; legalize gay adoption, custody and artificial insemination; and provide health care for everyone, especially people with AIDS.

The Council of Europe is urged to modify the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms so gays have the same rights as heterosexuals and to refuse membership to nations that criminalize homosexuality.

Additional demands include more objective information for gay youth, an end to anti-gay censorship in the arts, greater recognition of gay victims of the Nazis, and greater access to asylum for gays and lesbians mistreated in particularly anti-gay nations.

"Certain [European] citizens are 'less equal' than others, notably homosexuals and bisexuals," EuroPride said. "There are countries in Europe where homosexuality is still a criminal offense: Romania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia severely punish homosexuality. To a lesser degree, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece, Poland and Bulgaria, amongst others, have discriminatory legislation.

"The age of consent for homosexuals remains, in certain countries, different from the age of consent for heterosexuals (the United Kingdom, Finland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Albania, Croatia)," EuroPride continued. "Liechtenstein bans all positive representations of homosexuality, and the United Kingdom prohibits local government authorities from allowing such representations.

"Moreover, the legal recognition of the [gay] couple has been gained in only a very few countries: only Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Hungary have enacted laws -- even if they are not perfect -- allowing two people of the same sex to be 'united' legally and to enjoy rights comparable to those of heterosexual couples.

"In all that concerns parenting for homosexuals or bisexuals, even if certain encouraging advances have been made here and there (Belgium, Iceland, The Netherlands, the town of Valencia, Spain), discrimination remains the norm around subjects such as adoption, custody or artificial insemination.

"Europeans are not equal either in all that concerns people who are HIV-positive or sick," EuroPride said. "In certain countries real discrimination exists against these people, and access to health care is not always respected."

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For more information, contact Lesbian & Gay Pride Paris, 27 rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 75009 Paris, France. Fax: 011-33-1-45-23-10-66.

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