UK  Gay  News
Monthly Archives

July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005

December 2004 October/November 2004 September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004

We welcome editorial suggestions and Press Releases.  Please email them.

ARCHIVE

Note that only articles originated by UK Gay News are archived

2005 Listing of UK, Ireland and Europe LGBT Events

August 2005

August 31:  Denmark:  Copenhagen Awarded Worldgames 2009, Newspaper Reports.  Copenhagen has been awarded the 2009 World Outgames, the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende is reporting this morning (August 31).
August 30:  UK:  Shutters Drawn on Manchester Gay Pride 2005.  Well, it’s all over.  The shutters have been drawn down on Manchester Gay Pride 2005.  And the organisers delivered on their “bigger and better than ever” promise.
August 30:  USA:  House of Blues Refuses to Cancel All Concerts by Homophobic Reggae Singer.  Despite community protests, the Los Angeles-headquartered House of Blues has refused to cancel all its scheduled concerts by Sizzla, a reggae singer whose lyrics promoting violence against gay people caused the United Kingdom to deny him entry to the country last year.
August 28:  UK:  Manchester Miffed at USA Figure of Those Watching Gay Parade: AP Reports 45,000 Rather Than 200,000.  By Andy Harley.  Manchester is miffed today.  The official figure put on those watching yesterday’s Key 103 Pride Parade was “in excess of 200,000”.  But many American newspapers were this morning reporting that just 45,000 lined the streets of Manchester to watch the colourful parade.
August 27:  UK:  Army Finds It’s ‘Queer Up North” As It Debuts at Gay Pride, by Steven Kay and Andy Harley.  There is an old adage in the military:  Don’t volunteer.  But that was put aside when the Army asked for volunteers to openly parade in the Key 103 Gay Pride Parade in Manchester.
August 27:  UK:  Manchester Pride Parade in Pictures.  Seven pages of photographs from today's parade.
August 26:  UK:  RAF Again In Manchester Gay Parade and Army Will Debut, by Andy Harley.  The Royal Air Force will again be taking part in the Manchester Gay Pride Parade tomorrow (Saturday).  Last year, the RAF became the first branch of the British Armed Forces to take part — in uniform — in a UK Pride.
August 26:  UK:  Manchester To Celebrate Gay Civil Partnerships, by Steven Kay.  The annual Pride in the capital of England’s North West will be celebrating the end of discrimination against same-sex couples who live in a committed relationship.  And there will be a look forward to the two ‘magical’ and long-awaited days in December from when couples will be able to legally get hitched.
August 26:  Iran:  Iran’s Anti-Gay Purge Grows – Reports of New Gay Executions.  By Doug Ireland.  There have been reports of a new execution of a gay man in the city of Arak, Iran, on August 16, and of other executions of four men, ages 17 to 24, for unspecified “sexual offenses.”
August 25:  Zimbabwe:  Operation ‘Clean Up the Filth’: Gay Zimbabweans Testify.  Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe have released testimonies  they have collected from their members who have been affected by President Robert Mugabe’s Murambatsvina campaign (Operation 'Clean Up The Filth'). Also: Full report from Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe by Keith Goddard. 
August 25:  UK:  Gays Targeted in Saucy Fire Safety Campaign.  The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have come up with a saucy fire safety campaign targeted at gays.
August 24:  UK:  New Website Targets Gay UK Military.  A new website aimed at the estimated 15,000 gay British servicemen has been launched – and has already notched-up 10,000 page views.
August 22:  UK:  Manchester Gay Film Festival Screens ‘Beautiful Thing’.  For the vast majority of those who have seen Beautiful Thing, the 1996 movie will be in their “Top 10” of romance films – and arguably the best teenage romance ever committed to celluloid.  The problem is that, in Hollywood “blockbuster” terms, relatively few have seen this British movie, made for the cinema by Channel Four Television and World Productions.
August 21:  Nepal:  Kathmandu Gai Jatra 2062 (Gay Pride 2005) In Pictures.  More pictures and short video clip from Kathmandu
August 20:  Nepal: Five Thousand March in Kathmandu Pride: Gai Jatra 2062 “A Grand Success”.  By Sunil Pant.  Blue Diamond Society’s fourth Annual Gai Jatra Pride festival today was met with unprecedented support with an increasing number of different sub cultures.
August 19:  Germany:  Censorship Deployed by Pope  – In the Press Room!  By Doug Ireland.  Pope Benedict XVI has had his doctrinal shock troops deploy censorship at the Catholic World Youth Congress (WYC) taking place in Cologne, Germany....and in, of all places, the Congress press room.  
August 19:  USA:  BUYcott Launched in Florida in Wake of Anti-Gay Policy in Tampa.  Equality Florida and a coalition of community organizations and leaders have announced the launch of a ‘BUYcott’, a campaign to spotlight businesses that support diversity.
August 18:  UK:  At Manchester Pride It’s ‘All Systems Go’ for Ten-Day Event.  It is ‘all systems go’ in Manchester on the eve of the city’s annual Pride which kicks-off tomorrow (August 19) and continues for ten days – and nights.
August 18:  UK:  Concerns Over Low Prosecution Rate for Gay Hate Crime in Brighton.  Brighton and Hove City Councillor Simon Williams has written to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) asking why there were so few prosecutions for gay hate crime across Sussex last year relative to the number of reported homophobic crimes.
August 17:  Commentary:  While We Sit and Bitch, Gay Human Rights Abuses Continue.  We sit in our comfortable homes and ponder whether we should go partying in a gay nightclub, or just go for a quiet drink in our neighbourhood gay pub or bar.  Once a year we can frolic in the streets during our local “Pride” in a way that was unthinkable twenty years ago.
August 16:  Nepal:  First Lesbian Group Launched in Nepal.  Nepal’s Blue Diamond Society has launched a support group for lesbians in the country’s capital, Kathmandu.
August 16:  Iraq:  Iraqi Gays Face Abuse and Murder.  As Iraq wrestles with its planned constitution, the country’s gays and lesbians face blackmail, rape and murder, a LGBT human rights group charged today.
August 11:  USA/Russia/Iran:  HRC, Gay Russian’s Replies on Aug 11 Pleas, by Michael Petrelis.  Earlier this week I both called and emailed staffers at the Human Rights Campaign in Washington to ask what, if anything, America's largest gay rights groups would do on August 11 in support of demonstrations around the globe against the death penalty and Iran's recent execution of two teenagers, who may have been gay.
August 11:  UK/Iran:  Hundred Protest in London Over ‘Gay’ Executions in Iran.  Over 100 people protested outside the Iranian Embassy in London today – coinciding with simultaneous US and European protests against Iran’s “tyrannical, homophobic, misogynistic and fundamentalist regime.”
August 11:  Estonia:  Organisers Upbeat Over Saturday’s Tallin Gay Pride Parade.  Organisers of the Gay Pride Parade in Tallin, Estonia, are confident that the event will go ahead as planned on Saturday (August 13), despite the objections of the Estonian Christian People’s Party and the Fatherland Union.
August 10:  Estonia:  Political Parties in Estonia Condemn Tallin Gay Pride.  Two political parties in Estonian have condemned the Tallin Pride Parade which is due to be staged on Saturday (August 13).  The parade, the second to be staged in the Estonian capital, has been officially sanctioned by the Tallin City Council and Mayor Tonis Paltsile.
August 10:  Russia:  International Contest to Design the Logo for Moscow Gay Pride 2006.  A competition to design the official logo for Moscow Gay Pride has been launched today (August 10).  Pride is to be staged for the first time in the Russian capital on May 27 next year, the 13^th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in the country. 
August 10:  Iran:  Five-City Protest Against Iran Executions of Gay Teens.  Dublin, London, Paris, Montpelier and San Francisco Stage Protests Tomorrow.
August 8:  Iraq:  Focus on Teens Trapped In Commercial Gay Sex Trade in Iraq.  Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, has started a desperate new life since being forced into the sex trade in Baghdad, joining a growing number of adolescents soliciting in Iraq under the threat of street gangs or the force of poverty.  “Every day I cry at night,” Feiraz said.  “I’m a homosexual and was forced to work as a prostitute because one of the people I had sex with took pictures of me in bed and said that, if I didn't work for him, he was going to send the pictures to my family.”
August 8:  UK:  Pfizer UK Foundation Donates £47,500 for Rapid HIV Testing in Birmingham.  The Pfizer UK Foundation has donated £47,500 to support a Terrence Higgins Trust HIV testing clinic in Birmingham for the next 12 months.  The ‘Fastest’ clinic offers a one hour HIV test service; results from sexual health clinics can take several days.
August 6:  UK:  Participants Get Applause At Belfast Gay Pride Parade.  The colourful parade slowly wound its way down Donegall Place.  Onlookers were welcoming, applauding as the parade passed by, as if to let the world know that the majority of people in Northern Ireland are not homophobic.
August 6:  UK:  Belfast Pride Parade in Pictures.  Twenty-four photographs from today's Gay Pride in Belfast.
August 5:  UK:  Belfast Gay Pride Targeted by Fundamentalists.  Fundamentalist Christians have vowed to stage protests tonight outside the city’s gay bars and clubs as Belfast Pride reaches it’s “big weekend”. 
August 3:  Poland:  President of Polish Gay Group Fined in Secret Court for Offending Catholics.  Robert Biedroń, the president of Kampania Przeciw Homofobii (Campaign Against Homophobia) has been fined 600 PLN (about £100/€150/$180) by a Polish court, sitting in “secret” for “insulting Roman Catholics”.
August 3:  Russia:  Moscow Radio Station Poll Shows 32 per cent Support for Gay Pride.  A poll conducted by one of the leading radio stations in Moscow, Echo Moskvy has revealed that there is more support for a Gay Pride Parade in the Russian capital next year than even gay activists thought.
August 2:  Uganda:  Amnesty Reports Intimidation of Lesbian and Gay Activists.  Amnesty International is concerned about the on-going intimidation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activists in Uganda.  The latest incident follows steps taken by Ugandan law-makers in July 2005, who voted for a constitutional amendment to criminalize marriage between persons of the same sex.
August 1:  Iran/USA:  Gay Media's Failure to Accurately Report Adds to Growing Hatred Towards Islamic World.  Op-Ed by Faisal Alam.  In the wake of the recent London bombings, the Western world has been propelled into another vicious cycle of revenge against Muslims and the Islamic world.  While mainstream media around the world have more accurately represented the outpouring of condemnation by Muslim organizations and institutions against the attacks in London, the gay and lesbian media in the U.S. has unfortunately succumbed once again to the false belief that Islam condones acts of violence including suicide bombings, executions of civilians and even the killing of homosexuals.