Italy opens prison for trans people
Italy opened a medium security center for trans inmates to provide support and treatment for 30.
Analysis: Soccer tarnished by cold-shoulder to gays
(Paris) Marcello Lippi, Italy’s World Cup-winning soccer manager who seems to have both feet planted in the 19th century, says he’s never come across a gay player in his 40-odd years in the sport.
Clearly, Lippi needs to take an eye-opening trip to Milan.
There’s a gay soccer team there, competing weekly …
Gay footballers battle for world domination
One year before the FIFA World Cup kicks off, 26 teams of gay and lesbian footballers are battling for global supremacy in the Gay Soccer World Championships
Co-ordinated by the International Gay & Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA), the tournament, which began on Sunday, is being hosted by the Federal Triangles club in Washington D.C., and supported by the local Major League Soccer (MLS) side D.C. United.
IGLFA spokesman Michael Pranikoff told CNN that the competition has been running annually since 1992.
“We started very small. There were just a few clubs from around the world. But we have gone from strength to strength. Last year the tournament was in London and sanctioned by the Football Association.”
Pranikoff said there are no professional players involved, but the standard of play is strong and the teams in the top divisions are very competitive.
Although the tournament involves club sides — rather than national teams, there is still a strong international feel with players from the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Argentina, Italy, and Norway all taking part.
The London Stonewall Lions are the reigning champions in the men’s division and expected to figure in Sunday’s final at Trinity Washington University, he said.
Despite the competitive nature of the event, Pranikoff said there are also less serious divisions where there is a more important message.
See Gay footballers battle for world domination
CNN International -
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-footballe…
Italy TV row over gay cowboys, full Brokeback Mountain will now be aired
AN Italian TV station is under fire after it cut kissing and sex scenes from a screening of Brokeback Mountain.
The film, which won three Oscars in 2006, tells the gay love story of two cowboys and stars Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.
Gay rights groups say RAI TV censored the Ang Lee film and would never have done so if it had involved a heterosexual couple.
According to RAI, the cut version was aired on Monday by mistake after the film arrived from the distributor already censored, ready for prime time.
But when it was decided to show the film late at night, no one checked for the uncut version.
RAI have now promised to show the full-length film.
Some commentators and politicians were not satisfied, saying the cuts would not have been justified even if the film had been aired earlier.
See Italy TV row over gay cowboys
The Sun
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/italy-tv-row-…
Europe Goes Slow on Gay Laws
European Union governments are in no hurry to widen the scope of the bloc’s anti-discrimination rules so that gays and lesbians can enjoy greater rights.
Under a law dating from 2000, discrimination in the workplace on grounds of sexual orientation is prohibited. Yet because the measure is restricted to employment and training, homosexuals are denied its protection once their working day is over. As a result, a doctor could refuse to treat a gay patient, or a landlord could refuse to let his apartment to a same-sex couple.
To plug this legislative gap, the European Commission came forward with a new proposal in July this year that would make it an offence to discriminate against gay people in access to healthcare, education, social protection, housing and the provision of goods and services. Discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, religion and belief are also covered by the proposal, which is modelled on EU-wide laws that have already been introduced against racial prejudice.
The blueprint has had a problematic birth. Senior figures from the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, are known to have been reluctant to introduce the proposal, with some arguing that only discrimination against people with disabilities should be covered by it. Their rationale was that a more comprehensive measure would be unlikely to win approval from the EU’s governments.
This prediction appears to have at least partly materialised. Greece and Malta are seeking to have the measure watered down, according to EU officials, by seeking that the clauses on discrimination in education are removed.
An official tracking the law’s progress said that there is little chance that the Czech Republic will be able to secure a deal allowing the legislation to come into effect when it holds the EU’s rotating presidency in the first half of 2009. See Europe Goes Slow on Gay Laws
Inter Press Service, Italy
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/europe-goes-s…
Italian TV Transforms Brokeback Mountain into a straight tale of friendship
Italians tuning in to their state TV network this week had a rare chance to see Brokeback Mountain, the tale of true friendship between two straight cowboys.
At least that was the version of Ang Lee’s gay cowboy Oscar-winner that was broadcast by channel Rai Due: two love scenes between the male protagonists had been excised, cuts which provoked furious accusations from gay-rights groups of censorship driven by creeping homophobia in Italy.
“The need to change a film about homosexual love into a film about simple male friendship says a lot about the current cultural climate,” said Franco Grillini, president of Gaynet.
La Repubblica noted that the cuts – involving a kiss between actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and a love scene in a tent – came days after the Vatican attacked a European Union proposal that the United Nations formally condemn discrimination against gays.
But Rai yesterday claimed the cuts were an honest mistake and promised to broadcast the full version of the 2005 film. “Since it went out after the watershed we could have shown the full version but did not have the copy,” said Rai director general Claudio Cappon. The copy broadcast, Rai said, had been supplied by a distributor for use before the watershed.
Opposition senator Luigi Vimercati called the explanation “embarrassing” and said he would demand a parliamentary inquiry.
Critics noted that while the gay love scenes were removed, censors left a heterosexual sex scene in Monday night’s version. “Evidently it is not sex which creates fear and pain, but the feelings between two men,” said Grillini.
See Italian TV Transforms Brokeback Mountain into a straight tale of friendship
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Uproar after Italian TV edits ‘Brokeback Mountain’
(Rome) Gay rights groups charged Wednesday that Italy’s state television censored Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” when it aired the Oscar-winning movie by cutting scenes of gay sex.
Activists protested that RAI TV would never have dropped similar scenes had they involved a heterosexual couple, and politicians called for the incident to …
