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May 2008
Province spares change
After a decade of delisting by the Harrisites, sex-change operations are again covered by health insurance in Ontario. Then health minister and LGBT do-gooder George Smitherman expects eight to 10 people will get the surgery annually after passing the required psychological tests.
May 2008
Trekkie ties knot
California’s Supreme Court overturns the state’s same-sex marriage ban and orders counties to issue gender-neutral “party A” and “party B” licences. Needless to say, a lot of partying is going on. One of the first to publicly announce licence plans is George “Sulu” Takei of Star Trek fame. Getting married in September, Takei plans to go boldly down the aisle, with Chekov and Uhura in the wedding party.
April 2008
Stopping Murder iTunes
Egale Canada and Stop Murder Music manage to convince iTunes that dancehall music calling for the murder of gays has no place in the North American music market. Buju Banton, Elephant Man and T.O.K. are, thankfully, no longer available for download. Now it’s time for HMV to follow suit.
March 2008
Playboy on boy
The hetero male bastion decides it’s time to diversify its flagging portfolio by offering “erect genitalia, male-on-male fellatio and simulated or implied intercourse” to Time Warner cable subscribers. No word yet if Hef is throwing a gay gala at the Grotto.
March 2008
Go Dutch
Amsterdam pols raise it another notch by allowing public gay sex in Vondelpark, a 47-hectare central city park, starting in the fall. There are some rules: clean up used condoms, do it at night, and stay away from the kids’ playgrounds. Straights can go at it in the rose bushes, too, but everyone has to wait until September to see how the police deal with all the bushwackers.
January 2008
Organ don’t
After Health Canada turns up its nose at gay organs, then provincial health minister George Smitherman decides it’s time to go on the offence. He promises to keep the Trillium Gift of Life Network reaching out to the queer community for desperately needed organs and to push the feds to retract their insensitive move. They say they were just “formalizing” the screening process. Talk about ass-covering.
August 2007
Putin on a show
A couple of months after Moscow police sided with skinheads instead of peaceful gay demonstrators, and the mayor called homosexuality “satanic,” Russian prez Vladimir Putin decides to re-enact his favourite scenes from Brokeback Mountain. Well, not really, but his campy topless beefcake images could have been a Fab cover shoot.
