American-Dutch gay couples wed in Amsterdam

(Amsterdam) The mayor of Amsterdam presided over the weddings of five American-Dutch gay, lesbian and transgender couples on a boat during the city’s Gay Pride festival Saturday, challenging the United States to legalize gay marriage, as well.

Mayor Job Cohen also performed the first weddings in the Netherlands after the country …

Gay Pride festival takes hopeful stance

NYACK – David Blau, a Nyack resident who has been with his partner for 28 years, said it’s a matter of time before New York joins a group of six states that allow same-sex marriage. But, aside from that, he added, “I would like to see a change, but … my partner is my partner and no one can change that. That’s how I feel.”
Blau and many others at Gay Pride Rockland’s 11th annual festival, held yesterday in the Riverspace Arts theater parking lot, voiced their hope that same-sex marriage would become a reality in the state, but added that they weren’t holding their breath.
“We’re definitely more hopeful, but I still don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Laurie Blase of Garnerville. “I think it’s still going to be a while.”
In May, the state Assembly passed legislation to allow same-sex marriage – the second time in two years the Assembly approved such a bill. See Gay Pride festival takes hopeful stance
Lower Hudson Journal news

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-pride-fes…

Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times

SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.

After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.

Crisis averted, the party continued.

And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.

But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.

This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

See

Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries

New York Times

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/shanghai-jour…

mayor makes Gay Pride U-turn BBC News

A newly-elected mayor who threatened to cut funding to a South Yorkshire town’s Gay Pride festival has said the money will now go to the event.

Peter Davies, of the English Democrats, previously argued that public money should not be spent on the annual event in Doncaster.

But he has now said the council will honour the £3,000 commitment it made to the event before he was elected.

The decision was welcomed by the Doncaster Gay Pride Committee.

In a statement issued through Doncaster Council, Mr Davies said: “The Gay Pride event has been planned for some time and the funding already committed.

“In the circumstances, I believe I should honour this commitment and the event will go ahead.

See mayor makes Gay Pride U-turn

BBC News

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/mayor-makes-g…

Gay pride invitation goes sour Albany Times Union

ALBANY — A local woman whose vandalized Volkswagen launched her on a career as a gay activist welcomed nationwide as a speaker, often in conjunction with a documentary film she made about her experiences, will not be in the Capital Region for this weekend’s gay pride festival because of a dispute with event organizers.

The activist, Erin Davies, blames the Capital Pride Committee, a group of community volunteers and staffers of the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, for scuttling an Albany showing of her award-winning documentary, “Fagbug.”

Accepted at dozens of film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, the movie will be shown tonight, the date originally planned. But the screening has been moved from a 250-seat theater at the State Museum to the Photography Center of the Capital District in Troy, where it will be shown in a room that seats approximately 20.

“They tried to bribe and threaten me, but I wouldn’t let them and just found another place,” said Davies, 31. She alleges that anonymous members of the committee thought her $10 suggested ticket price for the museum screening was too high and vowed to remove the showing from Capital Pride listings unless she lowered it. Davies makes her living with paid speaking engagements and film screenings; the admission price was meant to offset some of the difference between what she normally receives for appearances and the $500 fee she had agreed to for the museum event, she said.

Organizers and other people involved in discussions with Davies dispute her account of what happened and characterize Davies as having a martyr complex that led her to exaggerate routine, if frustrating, negotiations into antagonism and personal attacks.

“We absolutely support (the screening). It’s always been one of our events,” said Nora Yates, executive director of the community council. The screening was included in printed calendars and is mentioned, with its new Troy location, on the community council’s Web site. Founded in 1970, the CDGLCC, believed to be the oldest such continuously operating group in the country, is the prime force behind the 11-day, 34-event Capital Pride 2009 observance that culminates with Sunday’s pride parade and festival in Washington Park.

See Gay pride invitation goes sour

Albany Times Union

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-pride-inv…

China bans parts of gay festival

The organisers of China’s first Gay Pride Festival have been told to cancel two of their sessions.
The news came on the very day a state-run newspaper described the Shanghai festival as of “profound significance”.
Officials have warned the owners of two venues planning to hold a play and a film screening they would face “severe consequences” if they went ahead.
Homosexuality was illegal in China until 1997, and officials described it as a mental illness until 2001. See China bans parts of gay festival
BBC News

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual