Violence Mars Romanian Gay March



Police in Romania's capital Bucharest has made dozens of arrests during a gay rights march on Sunday.

The homosexuals were attacked by violent protesters, and police had to use teargas to hold the latter at bay, media report.

People were throwing eggs, stones and plastic bottles at the gay campaigners, according to reports.

According to the AP, gay people from the UK, Spain and Serbia had turned up to support the Bucharest GayFest participants, who marched against discrimination and for legalizing gay marriages.

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Gay Marriage Advocates March On Bridge
Critics: President Playing Politics


Bay Area supporters of gay marriage are going head-to-head with President Bush. They took the opportunity to walk across the still-open Golden Gate Bridge in opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
Sunday's march took place at the same time as a gay marriage march on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

Gay couples say even though they are in the minority they deserve the same rights and protections the majority of Americans have.

Teresa Sooknemizell, gay marriage supporter: "We're just regular people fighting for our rights. We work with them, we shop with them. We pay taxes, although unfairly. We just want to be equal."

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From: glbt napal) International civil society denounce UN meeting on AIDS as a failure

Civil society groups from around the world denounced the final UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, released after marathon negotiations during the UN High Level meeting on AIDS this week.

“Once more we are disappointed at the failure to demonstrate real political leadership in the fight against the pandemic” said The Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, the Anglican Archbishop of Capetown. “Even at this late stage, we call on the world’s political leaders to rise up and meet the challenges that the pandemic presents and to set ambitious targets at a national level to guarantee universal access to treatment, care, support and prevention.”

UN Member States refused to commit to hard targets on funding, prevention, care and treatment. They rejected frank acknowledgement that some of the today’s fastest growing HIV epidemics are happening among injecting and other drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men. “The final outcome document is pathetically weak.  It is remarkable at this stage in the global epidemic that governments can not set the much needed targets nor can they can name in the document the very people that are most vulnerable” said Sisonke Msimang of the African Civil Society Coalition.

“African governments have displayed a stunning degree of apathy, irresponsibility, and complete disrespect for any of the agreements they made in the last few months” said Leonard Okello, Head of HIV/AIDS for Action Aid International. “The negotiation processes was guided by trading political, economic and other interests of the big and powerful countries rather than the glaring facts and statistics of the global AIDS crisis, seventy percent of which is in Sub-Saharan Africa.”