Badpuppy Gay Today

Thursday, 05 June 1997

Rex Wockner's International New Reports

IRELAND WILL GET NATIONAL RIGHTS LAW

Ireland will soon have national gay civil-rights protections, activists report.

Two bills are expected to pass parliament (The Dail) in coming weeks -- the Employment Equality Bill and the Equal Status Bill.

Together, the measures will ban discrimination based on sexual orientation (and other factors) in employment, access to goods and services, accommodations, financial and professional services, education, transport, entertainment, recreation, and cultural activities.

Kieran Rose, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network calls the bills "a formidable advance promising us comprehensive protections on which we can build to take our full place in Irish society."

"When these laws are put alongside the many previous advances, our legislation now ranks among the world's best," Rose said.

POLICE HARASS ZIMBABWE GAY GROUP

Police visited the office of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe May 19 "to find out if gay people are operating here."

A chief inspector promised to return and arrest the group's leaders but had not done so at last report.

Zimbabwe is virulently anti-gay with President Robert Mugabe as the head homophobe. He has called homosexuals "repugnant to my human conscience ... immoral and repulsive." He has declared gay sex "an abomination" and "sub-animal behavior." And he has urged citizens to "hand [gays] over to the police."

"I don't believe they have any rights at all," he stated in 1995.

GALZ came to prominence in 1995 when the group was banned from staffing an information booth at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. In 1996, GALZ fought the ban in court and won but the group's booth was then smashed and burned by homophobic young men.

GALZ members fled the display in fear for their lives.

POLES VOTE YES ON ANTI-GAY CONSTITUTION

Fifty-seven percent of Poles voted to approve the nation's new anti-gay constitution May 25.

The document outlaws gay marriage and guarantees the right to religious instruction in public schools.

A clause prohibiting anti-gay discrimination did not make it to the final draft, which states: "Nobody can be discriminated against based on any grounds in political, social or economic life."

The gay-marriage ban reads: "Marriage being a relationship between woman and man, the family, motherhood and parenthood are under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland."