Portugal Votes to Legalize Marriage Equality

As reported earlier:

The mainly Catholic population of Portugal, which is also one of Europe’s more socially conservative countries, is expected to approve legislation on Friday that will legalize marriage equality, and expected to do so without a great deal of opposition.

Portugal’s current government is made up of a majority of those belonging to the Socialists and other left-wing parties which has paved the way for the new law is to gain quick approval.

Unlike the 2005 decision to legalize same sex marriage in Spain, which invoked hundreds of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets, the pending legislation in Portugal has received minimal opposition even from those on the right.

Amazingly, the Catholic Church has not been active in seeking support against the law which according to Lisbon’s Cardinal Patriarch Jose Policarpo, is “parliament’s responsibility”. It would appear that Portugal’s residents have a greater understanding of the importance of separation of church and state than many Americans.

According to Miguel Vale de Almeida, Portugal’s first openly-gay lawmaker:

“I think the Portuguese people have learned one of the fundamental tenets of democracy: respect for the rights of the individual.”

UPDATE:

Portugal’s parliament passed a bill today that would make the predominantly Catholic nation the sixth in Europe to permit gay marriage.

Conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva is thought unlikely to veto the Socialist government’s bill, which won the support of all left-of-center parties. His ratification would allow the first gay marriage ceremonies to take place in April — a month before Pope Benedict XVI is due on an official visit to Portugal.

Right-of-center parties opposed the change and sought a national referendum on the issue, but their proposal was rejected and the government’s bill was passed by 125 votes to 99.

Gay rights campaigners applauded from the galleries, hugged and kissed outside the building and ate wedding cake.

“This law rights a wrong,” Prime Minister Jose Socrates said in a speech to lawmakers, adding that it “simply ends pointless suffering.”

More at: Mercury News!

Spain’s Latest Export: Gay-Friendliness?

Spain — Guys in drag steal a kiss while gals locked in embrace land a playful smack on a nearby derriere.

Such colorful scenes along a main thoroughfare of Spain’s capital city helped garner votes in November to make Madrid’s Gay Pride celebration the best annual gay event in the world, according to a popular gay travel website.

But the international crowd of more than 1 million people partying all weekend long is drawn by more than a fiesta. Following landmark legislation in 2005 that allowed for marriage and adoption among same-sex couples, foreigners are settling into Spain to enjoy the rights they can’t at home.

“People on the outside look very conservative but on the inside, socially, they’re not,” said Clare Warburton, an Englishwoman living here with her Spanish partner. “I mean they are open. That’s why you can get married here because people in their hearts, they’re socially liberal.”

More at: Global Post!

Portugal Ready to Leagalize Gay Marriage

According to sources, José Sócrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal, has been busy developing a new government after the elections in September. Part of that new government is equality for the country’s LGBT citizens. On October 23, Sócrates stated that legalizing same-sex marriage will be one of the new leadership’s first changes.

According to a post on PortugalGay.pt:

“The measure is part of the official program of the party and according to government sources, the move will be done as soon as the government is complete.” (Complete as in completely formed).

Portuguese lawmakers from all parties are in favor of the move and support marriage equality, leading to the belief the bill will pass with ease.

Portugal has recognizes “de facto unions” for both opposite and same-sex couples since 2001, but much like civil unions, they only grant limited rights to couples, so the lawmakers feel it’s time to even the playing field.

Portugal would become the nineth country to legalize same-sex marriage, joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Nepal in offering its LGBT citizens marriage equality.

BAG: Barcelona Art Gay 2009 Coming in May

BAG’09 [BarcelonaArtGay] is a cultural event of gay subject, created by Sergi Ortín, which is born this 2009 aiming for a maximum diffusion and its annual repetition. Everything turns about an art exhibition in the Espai Cultural Francolí, headquarters teresarius: promotors d’art (www.teresarius.com),
following its multidisciplinar character together with an offer following varied cultural exprint and upward, from the 7th to the 29th of May. It includes painting, photography, sculpture, comic and video-installation of well-known artists and new values, and is accompanied of interesting related parallel
activities during May.

Artists: Sergio Cattivelli, Roberto Delgado, Violeta Gomez, Antonio J., Invernot, Sebas Martín, David Mirás, Sandra Mondon, Elena Montull, Nazario, Ocaña, Olgaz, Daniel Torrent, Sandra Turnbull, y MR. WOOLMAN.

Private View: Thursday 7th of May from 7.30pm

We will count with artists, Dj Lapablo, performance and projection of Lechifla (designers of the image of BAG’09), service of catering by Ago Catering and wine by Vino Gay.

And the party continues from 11.30pm at Lotus Theater.

Parallel activities:
- ‘Kink: The freedom of the selfedition’. Conference by of PacoyManolo. Thursday 14th, 19h.
- ‘Remembering Robert Mapplethorpe’. Workshop of photography with model. Saturday 16th, 10-14h.
- ‘Mythology and Art: the secrets of Dionise’. Workshop of tasting of wines. Thursday 21, 19.30 h.
- ‘Gaycelona: from the persecution to the integration’. Route for the history and culture of the
Gay Barcelona. Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of May to the 18h.
- Workshops Bondage in charge of Neo-Cortex BDSM.

Closure: Thursday 28th of May from 7.30pm. Wine by Louis de Vernier.

Performance by Thomas Reydellet and Presentation of collection of leather by ATELIERFER.
[Barcelona Art Gay]
Group Show of Gay Erotic Art
7th to 29th of May 2009
Opening: Thursday 7th of May from 7.30pm

BAG’09 sights to the contemporary art from the re-assertion of an identity LGTB (lesbian, gay, transsexual and bisexual). The elaboration of esthetic proposals that inquire in the universe that forms the plural and different identity built by this group to fight the discrimination, the prejudice and the
estigmatización accessing to their visibility with the intention of creating interesting subjects of analysis and debate in our society. The ‘Gay Art’ nowadays it is very much present in the international artistic panorama, it is already in magazines of trends, fashion and design, in the most in galleries of London, New York or Tokyo or in Art Fairs like Arco, Basel, Frieze or Miami.

Homoerotic art is usually the one created for and for the homosexual community. The subjects of this type of art go from the sensuality of the naked one up to the relationships psico-affective and erotic among people of the same sex. This demonstration is generally explicit, but not pornographic, although
it is difficult to draw an unmistakable border among erotism and pornography, since there will always be different interpretations and criteria; however when to talk of homoerotism we base in the emotional part associated with the erotism, which the sexual desire looks for waking up and at the same time
converts an explicit description in a little romantic, many times deepening more in the feelings than in the details specific to the act.

The homosexuality has been present in all the art history. This artistic gender has one of its bases in the ancestral cultures; these cultures dedicated part of their artistic expressions to the phallic cult, as developer of the fertility, but also as symbol of the virility and of the transmission of the force among
the warriors of a clan or tribe. It does not have to be forgotten that other cultures, besides the occidental one, also have clear examples of this subject, from the Indian to the Japanese.

The Greek art contains explicit references to this type of images with men, generally older, that they transmit its wisdom and its physical power to their students. In the Roman art the different representations of Zeus can stand out kidnapping and raping the beautiful Trojan prince Ganímides. In
the medieval period we have martyrs as San Sebastian, penetrated by arrows (phallic symbols) with expressions of pain and pleasure at the same time. In the Renaissance painters as Botticelli or Leonardo da Vinci and in the Baroque with Caravaggio usually present us secret codes in works of art that only
certain people understand.

Some artists of the 20th century and 21st to stand out for their contribution are Paul Cadmus, Gilbert & George, Tom of Finland, David Hockney, Will McBride, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pierre et Gilles. As example of feminine homoerotism we can quote Frida Kahlo, Gustav Klimt and Gustave Courbet.

For the blog, click here (Spanish only).

The Pope Takes a Swing at LGBT’s Again

That’s right, the Pope is at it yet again, with his third strike against gays in just weeks.  This time it was at a

pro-family rally in Madrid, Spain this past Sunday.  Spain is one of the few countries which has legalized same-sex marriage.

The pope spoke in front of hundreds of thousands of people who were attending a Mass aimed at reversing the country’s three-year-old gay marriage law. He insisted that Christian families need to “remain strong”.

He stated in his address:

“Dear families, do not let love, openness to life and the incomparable links that join your homes weaken. The pope is by your side.”

Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, the archbishop of Madrid, added:

“The future of humanity depends on the family, the Christian family.”

Recently the Pope had announced that he did not support decriminalization of homosexuality and he later compared saving the world from homosexuality was as important as saving the rain forest.  At the risk of upsetting someone, I’d like to question who is going to save the young catholic boys from being sexually assaulted by Catholic priest?

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