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| Jailed for Sodomy Britain's House of Commons Torpedoes Rights Bill Italian City Recognizes Lesbian Marriage |
| By Rex Wockner
International News Report
Zimbabwean Catholic Priest A Catholic priest in Tshabalala, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, was jailed for five months July 3 for engaging in sodomy with a 28-year-old male parishioner. The sentence against Fr. Fanuel Makumbe, 33, was handed down by Bulawayo provincial magistrate Charles Mukwindidzah. Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe commented, "This inappropriate sentence is indicative of the mounting hysteria of state- instigated hatred of homosexuals which seems now to have seeped even into the minds of members of the judiciary." GALZ request protest letters to The Hon. Dumiso Dabengwa, Minister of Home Affairs, Private Bag 7703, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe. Fax: 011-263-4-726716. And to The Hon. Patrick Chinamasa, Attorney General, Corner House, P.O. Box 7714, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe Fax: 011-263-4-700223.
Britain's House of Commons Torpedoes Rights Bill Britain's House of Commons torpedoed a minor party's gay-rights bill July 2 by a vote of 234-18. The six openly gay/lesbian members of Parliament either voted against it or did not vote. The measure, drafted by the gay group OutRage! and introduced by Liberal Democrat MP Robert Maclennan, would have amended the Human Rights Bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and HIV status. "Surely it is not too much to expect gay MPs to vote for gay rights," said David Allison of OutRage! "By failing to support equal treatment for their own community, by behaving like the rest of Labour's automatons, the six gay and lesbian MPs are suggesting that they are more interested in their personal parliamentary careers than in the welfare of the gay community."
Italian City Recognizes
News reports did not name the women, aged 54 and 51, who have lived together for 11 years. The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano called the registration a "provocation." But Pisa Mayor Piero Floriani said the move "represents for the community the acknowledgment of the existence of different types of relationships." 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. |
The city of Pisa, Italy, has recognized the marriage of two lesbians and recorded it in the civil-union registry.
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