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Volume 34
Issue 15

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Rex Wockner

Wockner Wire - sorry, not in this weeks issue

Quote/Unquote

"'The parade was sooo boring.' If Pride Toronto got a loonie [dollar] every time we heard that line last summer, all the organization's financial needs would be met. The 2005 Pride parade was boring: It took too long, there were too many yawning gaps when nothing happened, there were precious few exciting floats and there were way too many sandal-wearing churchgoers who thought waving made a good show. So let's kill it. Let's cancel the Pride parade before it dies a slow tortuous death." -Gordon Bowness writing in the Toronto Gay newspaper Xtra!, March 2. "I wasn't a real fan of Brokeback [Mountain]. To me it basically tells the same old story that I heard about being Gay when I was growing up. It's sad, it's really really lonely, people hate you. It's tragic, so stop it!" -Writer/director Don Roos (Hart to Hart, Single White Female, Boys on the Side, The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) to Australia's Sydney Star Observer, March 2. "I was so irritated by those stupid, stupid cowboys [in Brokeback Mountain]. I felt like saying, 'Guys, get a map. Go to New York. Go to L.A. Your problems will be over if you just get a map!" -Writer/director Don Roos (Hart to Hart, Single White Female, Boys on the Side, The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) to Australia's Sydney Star Observer, March 2. "Who cares if straight people come out of a movie thinking, 'You know what - those Gays are not so bad.' Because that's really not what they're feeling. What they're feeling is: 'You know what? I'm glad I'm not Gay. Because it really sucks to be Gay!' That's the message of Brokeback [Mountain]. It's the perfect film for the Bush years: 'Don't be Gay, America!' It's the kind of movie that makes you glad to be straight." -Writer/director Don Roos (Hart to Hart, Single White Female, Boys on the Side, The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) to Australia's Sydney Star Observer, March 2. "The major concerns I had with Brokeback [Mountain] were that I wanted to get it right. Was it too Gay? Not Gay enough? Is it realistic? I wasn't around in the Midwest in the 1960s. But [screenwriters] Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana got it just right, thankfully. They took a novella, a story with hardly any words from the characters and created something that will definitely stand the test of time. I think it is wonderful that the film has opened the eyes of many non-Gay people, to see that Gay people are just that, people, too, who fall in love, and who need to be loved. I wanted the movie to be honest and did my best." -Director Ang Lee to 365Gay.com contributor Tim Nasson, March 20. "The world was very different when Charities began this ministry at the threshold of the twentieth-century. The world changed often and we adapted the ministry to meet changing times and needs. At all times we sought to place the welfare of children at the heart of our work. But now, we have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve." -The Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities announcing March 10 that it will stop providing adoption services because of a state law allowing Gays and Lesbians to adopt. "It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions, such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need." -The San Francisco Board of Supervisors blasting a Vatican edict against adoption by same-sex couples, March 21. "The right wing realized that Gay marriage was as emotional an issue for some people as abortion, and they pushed it forward, and we let them do it. And then we got suckered into it - and said, 'Oh, yes, sure, we should be married,' and then we fell right into their hands." -Lesbian author Rita Mae Brown to the Michigan Gay newspaper Between The Lines, March 2. "I don't agree to see this issue in a way that there is a heterosexual culture and a homosexual culture and that they are equal. I see no reason to promote such attitudes, because if they were common, the human race would have to die out." -Polish President Lech Kaczynski in Berlin March 9 after he was zapped by Gay activists during a speech at Humboldt University. "For Gays and Lesbians, today's Poland is like 1930s Germany. We are ruled by a fascist party, which uses the same language and ideas as Hitler." -Polish Gay activist Szymon Niemiec to Britain's The Observer, March 12. "When I leaned more towards trying to date a guy, it just didn't click. When you're in a relationship with somebody, it can't just be a physical thing. You have to have an emotional-spiritual connection or it's not going to work. And I never really found that I could have that connection with another guy." -Former Gay porn star Tom Katt (David Papaleo) to the Gay newspaper Dallas Voice, Feb. 23. "So many people - including myself at one time - believe those crazy so-called Christians who say if you're Gay or bi, God doesn't want you. That's a big piece of crap. ... If you look at it historically, culturally and you're not pulling things out of context, the Bible says 'don't go against what is natural.' [I]t means going against what's natural for yourself." -Former Gay porn star Tom Katt (David Papaleo) to the Gay newspaper Dallas Voice, Feb. 23. "I don't think that erotica or sexuality is a bad thing. I believe that sex is the strongest physical expression of love to another person. But porn is not an expression of love. It's empty and cold. There's nothing at all wrong with sex. God made sex, too. He gave us these things for a reason. When it's not an expression of love, that's when you're demeaning it into something less than it was meant to be." -Former Gay porn star Tom Katt (David Papaleo) to the Gay newspaper Dallas Voice, Feb. 23. "If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow Neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade? People have rights. If we let the ILGO [Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization] in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?" -John Dunleavy, chairman of New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade, to the Irish Times, March 16. "Gay pubs and clubs have become so over-run with straight revellers, attracted by the ambience of the Gay scene, that they have been forced to introduce strict quotas of heterosexual partygoers. Many clubs are now operating a 'Gay majority' door policy to ensure that such places as Canal Street in Manchester and Old Compton Street in Soho remain as Gay areas. But these strategies have become so severe that genuine Gay people are also being turned away if they do not manage to convince the bouncer of their sexuality." -From an article in London's The Independent, March 19. "My theological conviction is that there is a good case for recognition of same-sex partnerships if they are stable and faithful. I would not, however, call it marriage. If physical sex is not always tied to procreation, then same-sex relationships might be legitimate in God's eyes." -Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the U.S. Episcopal Church, to Britain's The Guardian, March 21. "Cultural right-wingers worry about [HBO's] 'Big Love,' too. The existence of a mainstream TV show about polygamy seems to confirm their hellish vision of America becoming a kind of year-'round Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, complete with what may be their most dreaded fear: married homosexuals cavorting in public." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Eric Mink, March 22. "I can look out my office window at him in his office window, and we can make light signals to each other. He's close enough to know when I am home." -Actress Suzanne Somers, who has a home in Palm Springs, talking about neighbor Barry Manilow, to the Palm Springs Gay magazine The Bottom Line, March 17. "Gay men love me. And why not? I get what that experience is. I think children of alcoholics are wounded birds, and I think the Gay experience is very wounding. I have always had great relationships with my Gay friends, and I think that's because we're simpático. We get one another. I know the wounding; I know how to find my way through. So do they." -Actress Suzanne Somers to the Palm Springs Gay magazine The Bottom Line, March 17. "I don't know what it is, but Lesbians don't make passes at me. Maybe I'm too femme?" -Actress Suzanne Somers to the Palm Springs Gay magazine The Bottom Line, March 17.t
International News

CANADIAN TORIES THREATEN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Canada's ruling Conservative Party will follow through on a campaign pledge to revisit the nation's legalization of same-sex marriage, Justice Minister Vic Toews said April 5. The government will engineer a "free vote" on the matter in the House of Commons - meaning Conservative members of Parliament will be permitted to vote their consciences rather than the party's position. Other parties could choose to grant their MPs the same freedom. Toews said the vote will happen "sooner rather than later." Parliament granted same-sex couples access to full marriage last July, under the then-Liberal government. By that time, courts already had forced legalization of same-sex marriage in nine of Canada's 13 provinces and territories. "[This] is about the Charter of Rights," said then-Prime Minister Paul Martin. "In a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right." Same-sex marriage also is legal in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. A court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in South Africa will take effect Dec. 1 unless Parliament makes the change sooner. Foreign couples are welcome to marry in Canada, and only Quebec has any kind of waiting period. P.M.: IRELAND WILL HAVE CIVIL UNIONS Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said April 3 that his government is committed to full equality for Gay people and will try to create civil unions for same-sex couples. "Our sexual orientation is not an incidental attribute," Bertie said in a speech at the opening of the new offices of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network. "It is an essential part of who and what we are. ... Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship. "I want to state clearly today that the government is unequivocally in favor of treating Gay and Lesbian people as fully equal citizens in our society," he said. "Giving effect to this principle in legislation is necessarily complex and challenging. Legislating for civil partnerships requires thinking through a host of related matters. The British Civil Partnership Act ... has 264 sections and 30 schedules. Moreover, our written constitution gives rise to complexities that did not arise in the British case. This challenge, however, is one that the government is determined to meet. We are committed to legislating on this issue." BAHAMAS BANS BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN The Bahamas Plays and Films Control Board banned Brokeback Mountain March 30. A spokesman cited the film's nudity, profanity and "extreme homosexuality." The board reportedly took action at the request of the Bahamas Christian Council. Gay groups and some media personalities denounced the ban. GREECE AFFIRMS MILITARY GAY BAN Greece's armed forces affirmed March 28 that it doesn't allow Gays in the military. They are excluded under regulations that ban people with "psychosexual or sexual identity disorders." Gay activists are protesting the ban because in order to obtain a driver's license in Greece, one must present a document proving he completed his compulsory military service - and, as a result, some Gay men reportedly have had trouble getting a driver's license. WARSAW CLOSES DOWN PROMINENT GAY CLUB Gays staged five days of sleep-ins at the Warsaw Gay club and cultural center Le Madame in late March after the City Council ordered police to close it. At times, more than 200 demonstrators took part in the defense of the establishment. At 6 a.m. on March 31, however, when only 50 people were inside the building, police conducted another raid and shut it down. Activists told blogger and Gay City News contributor Doug Ireland that police beat some of the club's defenders who had chained themselves to pipes and railings or went limp as they were hauled away. The defenders regrouped across the street and chanted, "It's not over, it's just the beginning," Ireland said. The city, which owns the building, said the club had to close because the city needs the space for another use. But the Polish Green Party, whose headquarters were at Le Madame, charged, "In fact, the club has been closed because the right-wing government in Poland wanted to shut down this meeting point for civil society where artists, political activists, homosexuals, feminists and globalization critics met." GAYS WIN INHERITANCE RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA South Africa's Pretoria High Court ruled March 31 that Mark Gory is the sole heir to his male partner's estate, the South African Press Agency reported. Judge Willie Hartzenburg declared the Intestate Succession Act unconstitutional because South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Gory's live-in partner of two years, Henry Brooks, died last year without a will. Brooks' family reportedly then began raiding the couple's possessions and eventually forced Gory out of his home and sold it. Gory will now receive the proceeds from the sale of the dwelling. SCOTTISH MP MARRIES Member of the Scottish Parliament Margaret Smith tied the knot with her girlfriend, Suzanne Main, under Scotland's new civil-partnership law March 31. About 150 friends and family members attended the ceremony at Edinburgh's Apex City Hotel. The couple has been together for three years, before which both were married to men. Scotland has seen 233 civil partnerships since the law came into force last Dec. 20, according to The Scotsman newspaper. EUNUCHS AND GAYS MARCH IN BANGALORE Several hundred Gays and eunuchs marched in Bangalore, India, March 31 demanding equal rights and repeal of the nation's ban on Gay sex. The eunuchs - of which India has around 1 million - demanded access to marriage, adoption and jobs. Some of India's eunuchs (known as hijras) are born as such, but most are males who were castrated before puberty. CAMBODIAN GLBT MARCH About 400 people marched in the third Gay-pride parade in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 31. Parties and other events continued through the weekend. The parade was organized by the Salt Lounge bar and sponsored by Population Services International, Family Health International and the Women's Network for Unity, according to the German wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur.