.jpg "Washington Blade - AIDS activist Didier Zheng says he hopes a new gay Internet TV show based in Beijing will improve understanding of Chinese gays. (Photo by Gang Gang, HO/AP)")
AIDS activist Didier Zheng says he hopes a new gay Internet TV show based in Beijing will improve understanding of Chinese gays. (Photo by Gang Gang, HO/AP)
Activists find inspiration, new enemies from the West
Homophobia a major obstacle to prevention efforts
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Friday, April 13, 2007
HONG KONG (AP) — A Chinese web site was set to launch this week with what its producer describes as the country’s first show to focus on gay issues and the first with an openly gay host. The weekly, hour-long Internet TV show “Tongxing Xianglian,” or “Connecting Homosexuals,” was set to debut on April 12 on www.phoenixtv.com, producer Gang Gang said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. The site is run by the same media company that runs the Phoenix satellite TV station. Gang said clips from the online show will be aired on the broadcaster. Gang said while gays have appeared on Chinese TV shows, this will be the first show to focus on gay issues and the first with an openly gay host, AIDS activist Didier Zheng. The new show will explore homosexuality from legal, parental and sociological perspectives, dealing with issues like gay marriage, Gang said. The program will also feature a friend-matching segment. It remains to be seen if the new show will face censorship. Though the communist government promotes Internet use, it has also set up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese residents from accessing material considered obscene or politically subversive.
SOUTH ELEUTHERA, the Bahamas — Some workers on a private cay off South Eleuthera in the Bahamas plan to walk off their jobs in protest of nude and gay tourists flocking to the island, the Bahama Journal reported last week. A waitress there said the cay has been attracting a clientele that has made employees feel uncomfortable. Some workers say they weren’t informed that clothing-optional and gay cruise ships ported there. Melissa Rolle told the Journal she wouldn’t have accepted the job if she’d known. Some have been reluctant to speak up because they fear for their jobs, she said, but others are angry enough to protest. “We are willing to strike if we have to because this is disrespectful to the employees. We shouldn’t have to look at two men making out on the beach or nude persons walking around as if it’s normal. It’s just disrespectful and not right,” Rolle said. A manager of the resort where some of the employees who plan to protest work, told the Journal his resort doesn’t discriminate and, thus, is not siding with the employees.
AMSTERDAM — A demonstration in Amsterdam last week to protest civil servants who refuse to perform marriages for same-sex couples drew 300 people, Expatica, a European news service, reported. COC Nederland is a gay rights organization whose name translates to Center for Culture and Leisure. COC organized the protest to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Netherlands. Expatica said after surveying 443 Dutch municipalities, seven continue to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. Though political party reps have said they don’t support officials who refuse to perform gay marriages, 20 municipalities surveyed said they might continue to hire such officials.
LONDON — Sweden’s royal family has consulted lawyers over a web site set up by an American sect of fundamentalist Christians the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported last week. King Carl XVI Gustaf provoked the anger of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas after a Swedish pastor was convicted for inciting hatred against gays two years ago. Rev. Fred Phelps, Westboro’s founder, responded by setting up a “God hates Sweden” web site that celebrates the deaths of Swedes and calling Gustaf the “King of Sodomite Whores” and “King of Fags.” Nina Eldh, a spokesperson for Sweden’s royal court, said the palace was looking at possible action under Swedish hate crime laws. Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s founder, was unapologetic when reached by the Telegraph. “They say they have human rights in Sweden. You can be any kind of filthy pervert but you cannot preach what the Christian scriptures say,” she said.
LONDON — A bishop with the Church of England says he was complying with church teachings when he chose not to give a gay man a post within his diocese, the BBC reported last week. John Reaney, from Llandudno, a town on the North Wales coast, applied to be a youth worker and claims his being gay cost him the job. The Bishop of Hereford, Rev. Anthony Priddis, told a Cardiff tribunal it was because Reaney is sexually active but not married, a sin by church standards. Reaney has filed an unlawful discrimination claim against the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance. Under British employment laws passed in 2003, it is illegal to discriminate against people as a result of their sexual orientation, but the law contains an exemption for organized religion.
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