Current law states: "Same-sex relations taking place in public or resulting in a public scandal shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment. Enticing or seducing a person to practice same-sex relations as well as propaganda, association or other forms of proselytizing with the same aim shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment."

Gay activists say the wording of the law not only outlaws gay organizations but also criminalizes private relations between consenting adults if some member of the "public" manages to become "scandalized" by the relationship.

"Romania has missed again the chance to part from a repressive and archaic legislation which serves a totalitarian mentality and a police-oriented practice which have brutally and repeatedly violated human rights in Romania," commented the Bucharest gay group ACCEPT.

Marches in Toronto, Sao Paulo,
Rome, Mexico City

More than 15,000 lesbians strutted down Toronto's Yonge Street June 27 in the city's annual Dyke March. A day later, a whopping 750,000 people watched the three-hour-main parade, now in its 18th year.

Riding on an antique fire truck, Mayor Mel Lastman told reporters: "As mayor of Toronto, I should be here. As mayor of Toronto, it's my job to be here. As mayor of Toronto, it's my job to represent all the citizens of the city of Toronto.

"If they [my critics] don't like what I'm doing, that's too damn bad. I have no use for them. It's their way or no way and I don't buy that. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do."

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, 6,000 gays and lesbians marched down the main street of South America's largest city June 28 – three times last year's turnout. There was also a march on Atlantica Avenue in Rio de Janeiro.

In Rome, 3,000 people marched through the central city ending up at an open-air concert.

In Mexico City, thousands marched up central Reforma Avenue in the rain, creating a "carnival portrait that revindicated the richness of diversity," according to a local feminist news collective.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.