by E-Li

ILGA published the European chart for the year concerning LGBT rights.

It is in United Kingdom where LGBT rights are the most present and even if gay marriage is not legalized.

This chart in fact is based on 24 criteria and takes into account only the laws and not the justice part so the percentage of homophobe acts, for exemple, is not taken into account.

Joel Deroff, political adviser with ILGA, explains: "It is true that we could expect that the countries where the marriage is opened to all are at the head. But the United Kingdom made large progress on gender identity which is not the case in Spain."

Is there truly a country in Europe which gives more rights to LGBT people being better than another? Not really.

"We cannot say that a country is in advance on the others. None reaches the maximum score", Joel Deroff said. "No country is really at the head."

Of course, France, without laws for gay marriage and gay parenting, obtains a really bad result:

"If we had made this chart ten years ago, French score would have been one of the best," analyzes the person in charge of ILGA. "What is obvious is that France stopped its progress. The legal conditions which frame the change of civil identity are always very conservative. In fact the courts arbitrate on a case-by-case basis. If you are married, it is required in general that you divorce before the recognition of the identity change.”

For Eastern European countries it is not very great too.
"The absence of progress is worrying. It is the case for Moldavie or Ukraine where we recorded new acts of violence against LGBT people or events. We can then speak about breach of expression liberty.”

It's Italy however which is the worst country with zero point.

"We had this year two bills repressing homophobe and transphobes acts," said Joel Déroff. "It didn't works at all. Moreover, each time, it develop homophobe remarks in public. That worries us."

SOURCE: Lezbelib.com

by E-Li

Quebec launches a plan to fight against homophobia.

Whereas Canada gave the majority to the very conservative party of Stephen Harper, the government of the French-speaking part has just revealed measurements which will be launched to fight against homophobia. It is a big plan because it will be developed over 5 years, from 2011 to 2016, and 7.1 million dollard will be devoted to it.

This plan will be composed of 4 important measurements:

• To increase the assistance for LGBT associations and the development of projects
• Research on homophobia will be developed with the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), a "first of the kind in the anglophone world and a second in North America after Harvard", specified the Minister for Justice, Jean-Marc Fournier at the origin of the project.
  
• It will also have research about suicides of young people and the best methods to stop them.
• Campaigns in 2012 and in 2014 will be launched.

Laurent McCutcheon, founder of Gay Ecoute, organization which helps people (in particular young people) in the distress, greeted this plan which is "the fruit of a very long approach" after years of fight.

SOURCE: Lezbelib.com

The first Gay Pride in Prague will take place from August 10th to August 14th.

This first festival will be oganized over 5 days with a lot of things to see and do.

A spokesperson said: "We want to show the general public and of course visitors from abroad [that], Prague can host a complete pride festival."

"Prague is one of Europe’s main LGBT travel destinations and we are organising a festival the city can be proud of. By now we already know there will be a wide variety of events organized by our many partners."

More Informations

SOURCE: Lezbelib.com

by E-Li

Sebastian Pinera, the president of Chile, wishes to bring more rights to LGBT people by legalizing civil unions.

He requests this to the congress in order to provide more rules and protections for gay and lesbian couples.

However, he specified that he did not want gay marriage.
He said the "marriage in its essence and nature is between a man and a woman".

SOURCE: Lezbelib.com

by Arielle Marie McFadden

There are times where I find myself wishing a perfect stranger would come up to me and quote Ron Burgundy as a pick up line: because then I’d have found “the one.” And lucky for you, after reading this article, having somebody approach you with the line: “You have...an absolutely breathtaking hiney," will be so commonplace the popular movie quote may lose most of it’s funny. Not all…because let’s be honest…it’s Anchor Man…it can never lose it’s funny. Basically what I’m trying to say here is: people are going to want to be friend’s with your backside after you put these poses into practice.

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