British Age of Consent Law Doesn't Apply to Islands

The British gay group OutRage! says Britain's recent reduction in the age of consent for gay sex to 16 will not apply to the self- governing British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man -- and that Prime Minister Tony Blair is unwilling to pressure local parliaments on the issue.

OutRage! is also protesting "that despite the equalisation of the age of consent, men of 20 or over convicted of consensual 'buggery' and 'gross indecency' with 16- and 17-year-olds in situations where more than two persons are present or where the sex takes place in parks, backrooms, toilets and other 'public' places will still be branded as pedophiles and forced to sign the Sex Offenders' Register."

Lesbian Will Sit on Tel Aviv City Council

Baring a major change in circumstances, an open lesbian will be elected to Tel Aviv City Council in October.

Activist Michal Eden won second place on the Meretz Party list in the June 23 primary election. Since the party is expected to continue to hold four seats on the Council, her election is all but a given.

In other news, more than 1,500 people marched in Tel Aviv's first gay-pride parade June 26.

Led by dykes on bikes and a rainbow flag the width of the street, they walked from Rabin Square to Independence Park.

Politicians making the trek included Labor Members of the Knesset Elie Goldschmidt, Yael Dayan and Eitan Cabel, Meretz MKs Dedi Zucker, Naomi Hazan and Anat Maor, Hadash-Balad MK Tamar Gozansky, and Tsomet MK Modi Zanberg, who is believed be the first right-wing MK to attend a gay event.

"Something good has happened to society in Israel," Zucker told local reporters.

Activist Dan Yakir of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel said, "Changes in the law regarding homosexuals are worthless if they are not accompanied by social change. But this parade clearly proves that such social change exists."

Scotland Yard Launches Gay Group

Britain's Scotland Yard launched a gay contact group last week in hopes of increasing the reporting of anti-gay crimes.

Seven officers staff a gay-crime phone line 24 hours a day.

"We formed the group to develop a better working relationship between the police and the gay community," said spokesman Mark Williams. "Part of the gay community is not reporting homophobic offenses."

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.