In Brief
BOMB AT PRIDE
Israeli police have discovered a small homemade bomb intended for the parade route of last Thursday’s gay rights march in Jerusalem, reports pinknews.co.uk. However, the 2,000 strong march passed off relatively peacefully. 12 anti-gay protesters were arrested at the march but there was not the violence that marred Moscow’s parade earlier in the year. There have been small violent incidents across the city in protest at the march, which ultra Orthodox Jews regard as unbiblical and unsuitable. The Israeli Supreme Court rejected last-minute petitions against the Pride event.
SAUNA FEARS
A gay sauna will add to St Kilda’s notoriety as a red-light area, residents have told the Port Phillip Leader, following approval for the conversion of the Greyhound Hotel’s second floor. Objectors outlined a range of worries, including the venue’s proximity to a primary school, perceived lack of parking and fears the sauna would attract prostitutes and drug use. Supporters said the issue had been blown out of proportion. “A sex-on-site premises for gay men has nothing to do with street prostitution,” resident Andrew Wilson said.
HIV JUMP
New HIV/AIDS infections in Singapore rose by a record 357 cases last year – a rise of 12.6 percent from 2005. 3,060 people are now living with the condition in the city-state of four million. Singapore has expressed alarm over the growth of HIV infections but the government has rejected widespread promotion of condom use, preferring cheaper methods, says AFP. The vast majority of new infections have come through sexual intercourse, two-thirds of these between heterosexuals.
HERO HONOURED
A statue has been unveiled in the UK to the gay man who cracked the German’s secret codes helping to win World War II for the Allies. The statue of Alan Turing is made of around half a million pieces of Welsh slate and has been placed at Bletchley Park, the nerve centre of Britain’s code breaking efforts. After his homosexuality was revealed Turing was ostracised and given no credit for his work. He committed suicide in 1954.
BOSS BOUT
The owner of an Auckland gay bar has won his first high-profile boxing match with “facial features intact”. Alan Granville of Urge bar fought at the city’s ASB Showgrounds. Granville publicly thanked his boyfriend for his support after the win, reports gaynz.co.nz – the crowd audibly gasped and cheered.
CIVIL CLAIM
Attorneys of a gay HIV-positive man who claims he was beaten by police in Uptown last year have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court against two Chicago cops and the City of Chicago. Uptown resident Alexander Ruppert claims that around 10:30 p.m. on March 5, 2006, two Chicago police officers beat him because of his sexual orientation.
GAY ROLE
The Southern Baptist Convention has created a new job of national strategist on gender issues who will work with gays and lesbians who believe they can overcome their homosexuality. Bob Stith, who was pastor of Carroll Baptist Church in Southlake, Texas, for 37 years, started the new job on June 1. On June 13, at the SBC annual meeting in San Antonio, Stith said he hopes to bring men and women "to wholeness in Jesus Christ." He hopes the ministry will help gays and lesbians "come to a place where this temptation doesn’t dominate”.
