In Vancouver, the formerly scheduled closing date for Insite, that province’s safe and supervised injecting room facility, has come and gone, due to its life extension by Justice Ian Pitfield of the British Columbian Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, the ideologically driven Canadian federal government isn’t taking no for an answer, and despite British Columbian police, Vancouver Downtown […]

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Hardly has the ink dried on the right-wing Iemma administration’s attack on human rights, civil liberties, free speech and meaningful religious freedom in the name of Catholic-dominated “World Youth Day” when some dissident Catholics have announced that they don’t like the overkill involved either. Moreover, it has emerged that the institutional church negotiated with the […]

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David Herkt and I have had one of our periodic spats between creative genius and technocrat about Chris Brickell’s landmark Mates and Lovers.
Due to the significance of Chris’ book, I thought I’d take a more scholarly perspective in this second review of his work, given space and time availability in this format. How does Chris’ […]

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In response to the New South Wales Iemma administration’s attack on civil liberties, human rights and free speech in the context of Catholic World Youth Day, potential protagonists remain defiant.
Predictably, the Chaser boys remain their usual irreverent and rowdy selves, and their spokesperson, Julian Morrow, agreed with those who wanted the legislation repealed, and urged […]

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In New South Wales, the ALP State Government has just engaged in an unprecedented attack on human rights, civil liberties and free speech. Why? Is it an international terrorist threat against a sensitive international target? Well, no. It’s July’s Catholic World Youth Day, due to be held in Sydney soon.
Sometimes, I wonder if LGBT New […]

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 Paisley Currah, Richard Juang and Shannon Price Minter (ed) Transgender Rights: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota: 2006.
Most lesbian, gay and bisexual New Zealanders would agree with me that transgendered/fa’afafine/whakawahine folk have made notable contributions to our communities, and that they are integral elements of the diverse rainbow of our numbers. For example, Express’ commendably broad coverage […]

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Serendipitously, Australia and New Zealand both have news items related to different sides of the faith/state separation barrier. Let’s begin with the good news.
Graham Capill isn’t going to be paroled. According to the Fairfax Stuff website portal, the Parole Board is unconvinced that he’s not still a risk to children. The article recounted the story […]

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In Gay Times (UK) (May 2008), there are a couple of fascinating pieces on same-sex parenting in the United Kingdom, which deals with what will probably happen when our own Parliament eventually gets around to amending our Adoption Act 1955.
In some areas, New Zealand is ahead of the United Kingdom. While I understood that lesbians […]

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I’ve often felt slightly queasy about the Christian Right’s apparent obsession with reddening rearends for righteousness, and found a rather nauseating little subculture. It’s all about “Traditional Christian Marriage,” or so say its practitioners.  Look, while I find their polarised gender role-playing to be rather quaint, this is going too far.
This, from one of their […]

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It seems to be the season for boundary testing across the Tasman, given the recent request from an Australian Muslim leader that Australia should contemplate legalisation of polygamous heterosexual marriages.
In Sydney’s Lakemba suburb, Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre clarified that while he didn’t perform polygamous marriages himself, he knew other Australian immigrant […]

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