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2005 Listing of UK, Ireland and Europe LGBT Events

2005

May 29:  UK:  Stop Homophobia in Schools Petition Launched at Birmingham Pride.  A petition with a difference was launched today at Birmingham Pride.  The petition which will be presented to Parliament in the autumn is to highlight the problem of homophobia in schools.
May 29:  UK:  Birmingham Pride in Pictures.  This page contains images and might take awhile to download on "slow" internet connections
May 27:  Ambassador Assures MEP On Bucharest Gay Pride Parade.  The Romanian Ambassador has assured a British MEP that the Bucharest Pride Parade has been issued with a permit and will definitely go ahead tomorrow.
May 26:  Romania:  Romanian President Steps In to Save Bucharest Gay Pride Parade.  The Romanian President has stepped in to save this weekend’s Bucharest's Gay Pride Parade – GayFest – which has now been given full official blessing by city authorities, it was learned tonight.
May 26:  USA:  Teen Editors Take 'Press Freedom' Stance Over Censorship.  As regular visitors to this website will know, the past week has seen an intriguing ‘freedom of the press’ situation brewing in the United States.  This is not about a ‘heavyweight’ internationally-known publication fighting off high officialdom.  It is about a student newspaper, run by the students themselves, in Bakersfield, California.
May 26:  USA:  ExxonMobil Shareholders Vote to Include Sexual Orientation in Non-Discrimination Policy.  ExxonMobil shareholders voted today with record support for a shareholder resolution to amend the company's written equal employment opportunity policy to include the category of sexual orientation.
May 25:  Canada:  Outgames 2006: It's a Gay Showtime!  The internationally acclaimed Quebéc diva Diane Dufresne and the Cirque du Soleil, whose international reputation needs no introduction, will perform at the opening ceremony of the 1^st World Outgames – Montréal 2006 – next year at the Olympic Stadium.
May 24:  Romania:  European  Gay  Pride Parades … And Now Bucharest Falls Foul of Officialdom. Romanian Gays Defiant.  Tonight comes news that the Pride Parade – GayFest – scheduled for Saturday May 28 in the Romanian capital, Bucharest has been refused permission by the Mayor’s office in a major u-turn after the parade had been originally approved.
May 24:  USA:  Banned TV Ad for Church Named Outstanding Commercial of 2004.  A United Church of Christ television commercial by Gotham Inc., banned by the big three television networks, was named Outstanding 2004 Commercial for its positive portrayal of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people at the first-ever Commercial Closet Images in Advertising Awards
May 24:  UK:  Northern Ireland Police Failing Gay Community.  Figures released this week by the Police Service of northern Ireland (PSNI) reveal a massive 176% increase in homophobic incidents across the North.  The biggest marked increase is seen in the Derry City Council area with a 300% plus increase in reported incidents.
May 24:  USA:  Rufus Wainwright to Join Elton John for  HIV/AIDS Awareness Concert in Philadelphia.  Organizers today announced that singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright will be joining Sir Elton John on July 4 in the City of Brotherly Love, when the superstar and humanitarian headlines the landmark Philadelphia Freedom Concert and Ball to raise awareness and funds for HIV/AIDS.
May 23:  Poland:  Warsaw’s Gay Pride Parade To Go Ahead Despite Mayor’s Ban.  Defiant gays in Warsaw have pledged that their Pride Parade scheduled for June 11 will go ahead, despite a ban announced last week by the city’s mayor.
May 22:  UK:  City of Westminster Ban on Rainbow Flags Condemned as ‘Incompetent Bigotry’.  Westminster City Council’s ban on ‘rainbow flags’ in the gay area of Soho has been condemned as ‘bigotry compounded by incompetence’ by a gay councillor who urged the committee to permit them.  And London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has entered the controversy.  He described the Westminster City council as being “completely out of touch with the needs of 21st century London.”
May 21:  UK:  A Matter of Fairness and Prudence, by Kathryn Johnson.  There was an audible gasp in the room on the morning of April 29, 2005 when the Northeast Jurisdictional Committee on Appeals announced its decision overturning both the verdict and the penalty in the case of the Rev. Beth Stroud.
May 20:  UK:  Make Poverty History: Manchester’s Queer Community Bands Together.  Manchester’s Gay Village Businesses, The Lesbian and Gay Foundation, Operation Fundraiser, George House Trust and Oxfam have joined forces to encourage the queer community to support the Make Poverty History campaign, a UK coalition of organisations and celebrities that are asking the world’s leaders to take a stand against global poverty in 2005.
May 19:  Poland:  Mayor Puts Damper on Gay Pride Parade in Warsaw.  News is coming in that the Mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski has banned the Polish capital’s Pride Parade which was scheduled to be held on June 11.
May 18:  Moldova:  Moldovan  Authorities Ban Gay Rally Outside Parliament.  Just days before the fourth Pride event to be staged in the Moldova capital, organizers received a set-back when they were refused permission to hold a rally outside Parliament.
May 18:  UK:  BBC Producers Fail to Block Anti Gay Libel, Group Claims.  The BBC is being urged to mount a full and frank inquiry into a possible breach of its producer guidelines that allowed ‘comic’ Dara O'Brian to insinuate that Sir Elton John is a paedophile during a broadcast of the satirical programme Have I Got News For You , which was transmitted on Friday May 13 at 9pm.
May 17:  Cote d'Ivoire:  Muslims Seek to Break Down Prejudice by Speaking Out on HIV/AIDS.  In a town hall meeting room in the Ivorian capital earlier this month, women assembled on one side and men on the other, joined together in a prayer to Allah “to remove AIDS from humanity”.
May 17:  Bulgaria:  First Ever Equality Walk Hailed a Success in Patriarchal Bulgaria.  The Bulgarian Council of Ministers and the National Assembly received a proposal that the country should adopt May 17 as a national day against homophobia each year.  If successful, it will fall on the same day as IDAHO, the International Day Against Homophobia.
May 17:  UK:  Protestors Demonstrate at Saudi Embassy in London Over Persecution of Gays.  “Human rights, gay rights! Stop the Saudi killers!” chanted 25 lesbian and gay activists outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London at lunchtime today.
May 17:  USA:  First Anniversary of Gay Marriage in Massachusetts:  Listing of Commemorative Events Planned in the Boston Area
May 14:  UK:  Religion and Hypocrisy: Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing.  Opinion by Dee Tate.  This world is so hypocritical.  You have self righteous arrogant people who want to control how people are to live and act.  I was taught that this sort of thing makes a communist state.  For us behaving and acting the way we do towards one another, how can anyone, including all the self righteous religions, dare say we live in a free society?
May 13:  UK:  Students Raise Cash For Derry Rainbow Project.  Students at University of Ulster Student’s Union (UUSU) Magee Campus have presented the cash-strapped Rainbow Project in Derry with a cheque for £200.  The money was raised during ‘Rag’ week, a charity fundraising week run every year.
May 13:  UK:  London Protest Against Saudi Torture and Executions of Gays.  Gay  and human rights activists are to protest outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London next week as part of the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).  Simultaneous protests will take place in 50 cities across the globe.
May 12:  USA:  HRC Welcomes Changes to Government Website, But Says More Has to Be Done.  Recent changes to the US Government’s Health and Human Services (HHS) website have been welcomed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as “positive” – and the HRC has publicly applauded the government agency, but has said that there are still improvements that  are needed to be made.
May 11:  UK/Europe:  Boom-Bang-a-Bang:  Eurovision Is Coming - THT Organises Eurovision Fundraiser.  Yes, it’s that time of year, again!  Yes, you either love it, or hate it, or even love to hate it.  The Eurovision Song Contest – adopted by UK gays as the campest programme on TV  – reaches its climax with the final in Kiev on Saturday May 21 with the hours-long telecast of songs from umpteen European countries, not to mention a few countries not in Europe, and the “riveting” voting for the best song.
May 10:  Pakistan:  Focus on Gay Rights in Pakistan.  Sitting on a bench in the shade of the cool palms of Lahore’s Lawrence Gardens, Tariq thought carefully over what to say next.  For years he had kept his sexuality a secret, knowing all too well the risk of revealing himself as gay.
May 9:  UK:  Awareness of Homophobic Hate Crime To Be Raised in Bristol.  In a bid to tackle homophobic hate crime in Bristol, police are now working with EACH (Educational Action Challenging Homophobia).
May 7:  USA:  Reflections on the Soulforce Action Against Focus on the Family.  Coming into Colorado Springs for Soulforce's action against Focus on the Family, my quiet cab ride was disturbed by two signs that I had landed in a red state. The first was an impassioned plea on the radio from James Dobson encouraging Colorado voters to contact Senator Ken Salazar to tell him to end his support of the Democratic filibuster of Bush's judicial nominees.
May 6:  UK:  Labour Has Blocked Gay Equality Ten Times.  The Labour government has enacted several welcome and positive reforms for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBTs), such as equalising the age of consent and ending the ban on gays in the military. But most of these reforms were forced on the government by adverse rulings in the European Court of Human Rights. Europe declared anti-gay discrimination illegal, and only then did Labour enact reform.
May 6:  UK:  UK Election Result Good for Gay Rights Says OutRage!  Gay human rights group Outrage! expressed delight at Labour’s reduced majority, the failure of the Tories to make significant gains in yesterday’s general election and the increased vote for Liberal Democrat and Green parties.
May 5:  UK:  Low Marks on Report Card for Global HIV/AIDS Commitments.   Four years after world leaders at the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on AIDS pledged to scale up their fight against the disease, many countries are falling short of their targets, a new report has found.
May 5:  UK:  National Student Pride: Out With a Bang!  Oxford Brookes University Students' Union LGBT Society are hosting the first ever National Student Pride, ‘Out With a Bang!’, on Sunday (May 8).  Every student and university in the country is invited as well as all our own fellow students and young people from the community.
May 5:  USA:  Ohio 'Matter of Pride' Conference Focuses on Ageing.  Dr. Margaret Cruikshank Keynote Speaker.  Ageing in the LGBT community is often an area that gets little attention.  But the eleventh annual “A Matter of Pride” Conference in Columbus, Ohio, next month has as its focus the question of ageing.
May 4:  UK:  Celebrities Help Launch Manchester Pride’s “Big Weekend”.  Celebrities mingled with gay community leaders in Manchester to officially launch Manchester Pride’s “Big Weekend”, being staged between Friday August 26 and Monday August 29.
May 3:  USA:  JACK NICHOLS (1938 - 2005).  Seminal GLBT Leader Jack Nichols Passes Away.
May 2:  USA:  Bill Gates ... Say It Ain't So, by Selisse Berry.  Unless you live in a deep dark hole in the ground, there is a Microsoft product within three feet of you.  Decades after Henry Ford put our hands on a steering wheel, Bill Gates put our fingers around a mouse.