100 Nations Meet in Copenhagen to Celebrate and Fight for Homosexual Rights
COPENHAGEN, — This week, thousands of people from across the globe will arrive in the Danish capital Copenhagen to take part in the most important international event for homosexual, bi-sexual and transgender men and women - World Outgames 2009. On the agenda is one of the largest and most important conferences on homosexual rights the world has ever seen.
Nearly 100 nations will be represented, and up to 200,000 participants, tourists and Copenhageners are expected to take part in World Outgames 2009 from July 25 - August 2. Apart from focusing on human rights for nine days, a large number of theme festivals and an extensive cultural and sports program will make Copenhagen the place to be.
“By hosting World Outgames, Denmark will send a signal to the rest of the world that it should maintain focus on the right to love whomsoever one wishes, irrespective of gender and sexuality. From Northern Europe to South America, in Eastern Europe and the Far East, there are human rights battles to be fought - particularly for homosexuals. We hope that World Outgames and the thousands of people from around 100 different countries will be able to spread the message to the world,” says Uffe Elbaek, director of World Outgames 2009.
The heart of World Outgames is a major international human rights conference being held in close cooperation with Amnesty International and IBM focusing on the necessity that all people, irrespective of gender and sexuality should have equal rights.
“It is important for Copenhagen that issues concerning homosexual rights and tolerance can be discussed without prejudice. World Outgames enables us to pay tribute to the diversity and openness that is such an innate part of the city. We are greatly looking forward to welcoming participants and spectators,” says Lars Bernhard Jorgensen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen.
A great variety of cultural activities will take place in Copenhagen during the event. Cities such as Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Antwerp will contribute with music, entertainment, dance and much more. Sporting events throughout the city will include some 30 disciplines - such as ice hockey, beach volleyball and triathlon in Copenhagen’s harbor area. Apart from the cultural program and the sport events, the city will be awash with a large number of free activities.
Also, a gay cruise with 2,600 passengers will be docking at Copenhagen during World Outgames, and a mass blessing has been arranged at Copenhagen Cathedral offering gay couples special recognition by the Church to commemorate the 20th anniversary of legally recognized same-sex civil unions in Denmark.
Facts and additional information about homosexual rights in Denmark:
http://www.visitcopenhagen.com/factsheetWOG
Read more about World Outgames: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/
Official program: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/program
Download photos: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/photo
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/100-nations-m…
Changes in San Diego reflected in San Diego’s Pride Parade, Festival
The hundreds of San Diegans who marched for gay rights in the mid-1970s walked through a city largely indifferent, even antagonistic, to the cause.
What strides they have made.
Today, up to 9,000 people will take part in the San Diego Pride Parade, including the mayor, police chief and seven of the eight City Council members. Organizers are expecting 175,000 spectators from across the country and as far away as Australia, Germany and Britain.
While San Diego’s parade may never be as big as those in San Francisco or Los Angeles, there are many signs of how San Diego has changed into a city in the forefront of the campaign for gay rights.
In November, in the days after California voted to ban same-sex marriage, the largest protest in the nation occurred in San Diego. More than 20,000 people marched, double any other city’s turnout.
The size of San Diego’s crowd came as a surprise to many, including Cleve Jones, the gay rights activist and lecturer who founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt and was an intern for slain San Francisco supervisor and gay icon Harvey Milk. Jones is the grand marshal of today’s parade and several others around the country.
See Changes in San Diego reflected in today’s Pride Parade, Festival
San Diego Union Tribune
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/changes-in-sa…
2009 Gay Soccer World Championship Opens in Washington D.C. on Sunday June 14, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC — The International Gay & Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA) will open the 2009 Gay Soccer World Championship (www.iglfa2009.org) in the Washington D.C. area on Sunday morning June 14, 2009. The 2009 Gay Soccer World Championship is being hosted by the Federal Triangles Soccer Club (FTSC) of Washington, D.C. This marks the first time the tournament has been held in the United States since 2004 when it was held in San Francisco. This also marks the second time that this tournament is being hosted in the Washington D.C. area by FTSC.
This year the IGLFA 2009 Official Gay Soccer World Championship tournament coincides with the end of Capital Gay Pride. The Capital Pride organization is a partner with IGLFA 2009. The 2009 IGLFA Tournament is also being supported by both the D.C. United of Major League Soccer and the Washington Freedom of the Women’s Professional Soccer League. Both the D.C. United and Washington Freedom will have players signing autographs this Sunday, June 14th at the Capital Pride Festival.
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/2009-gay-socc…
A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played
Reviewed By JAY JENNINGS
“A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played“
By Marshall Jon Fisher
Crown, 321 pages, $25
As was true every year since Wimbledon’s tennis stadium was built in 1922, the grass at Centre Court in the summer of 1937 had been worn to brown patches at the baseline and service line during tournament play. Players started, stopped and skidded hundreds of times during matches, and the grass could have used a break to recover after the Wimbledon championships ended in early July. Two weeks later, though, on July 20, the players who had faced each other in the final there were back again. Don Budge, a 22-year-old American, and Baron Gottfried von Cramm of Germany, 28, were scheduled to meet in the sport’s premiere team competition, the Davis Cup.
Budge and Cramm were competing in what was essentially a semifinal to determine whether the U.S. or Germany would go to the challenge-round final against England. The match normally would have been staged on Court No. 1, but in a tribute to the renown of the two players, Wimbledon officials moved it to Centre Court. The American star, who had honed his serve and backhand to almost untouchable sharpness, made a likely favorite for the British, since he was taking on the representative of the increasingly bellicose German nation. But the crowd was on Cramm’s side: England was already set to play in the final round, and the fans were hoping that the Germans would beat the formidable American team, giving England a better shot at the cup.
Cramm had other supporters that July day, but their backing sent a chill through him: Nazi officials sitting in the royal box expected him to win for the glory of the fatherland. A victory would also reassure them about his patriotism. The German star had refused to join the Nazi Party, and in April he had been interrogated by the Gestapo regarding allegations of homosexual activity — a crime in Nazi Germany. The handsome, aristocratic Baron von Cramm desperately needed to redeem himself against the homely young American who had learned to play tennis on public courts in California. Cramm’s prospects were not encouraging: In the Wimbledon final, Budge had beaten him easily in straight sets.
But then the match began, and spectators and players alike soon realized that an extraordinary competition of skill and guile and endurance was under way. James Thurber, the tennis-besotted writer for The New Yorker magazine was on hand, and he would later describe the Budge-Cramm five-set marathon as “the greatest match in the history of the world.” Read the rest of this WSJ Review. Learn more about A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played.
gay books lesbian books gay men * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/terrible-sple…
Maine’s marriage debate turns deeply religious
(Augusta, Maine) A legislative hearing to extend gay marriage to Maine took on the atmosphere of a religious revival Wednesday as ministers made impassioned speeches for and against the bill before thousands of cheering spectators packed into a civic arena.
Gay couples also took turns pleading for recognition of their partnerships, …
Tags: Atmosphere, Augusta Maine, Civic Arena, Gay Couples, Gay Maine, gay marriage, Impassioned Speeches, Maine Marriage, marriage, Marriage Debate, Partnerships, Religious Revival, Spectators
