Intro: Gay Berlin is not hard to find. It’s present everywhere and in abundance. Even a world traveler who has seen all the major LGBT centers is impressed with the vibrant and audacious scene that Berlin offers. Here can one also find a gay museum, a gay mayor and some of the world’s most pro-gay laws. Two stories are offered here that scan the vast gayscape of this phoenix city on the Spree River.
Islam and Homosexuality 1998-2002
1 Power and Sexuality in the Middle East (Academic essay, 1998) 2 Gay Muslims in the Post-Attack World 10/01 3 Male Homosexuality in the Arab World 7/98 4 Gay Life and Death in the Arab World 2/02 5 Pakistani-American Gay Muslim Activist Works to Build Ties 11/01 6 Islamic Studies on Homosexuality (1998) 7 Gay Muslims Face a Growing Challenge 1/02 8 To
Story: Gay Ireland: A New History Emerges
Intro: Ireland is a visual treat with ancient stone walls, historic cities, colorful villages, sprawling green pastures, great ocean cliffs and warm hospitality. A three week drive around the entire periphery of the island revealed famous sites such as Dublin’s Books of Kells, Blarney’s Castle, the Giant’s Causeway, Waterford’s crystal factory and the grim war wall-murals of Derry and Belfast. Threaded throughout all these famous venues is a thriving and struggling gay and lesbian life force that was given legal birth in the early 1990’s when homosexuality was decriminalized. Since then, many organizations, individuals and activists have pushed for an equal share of modern Ireland’s social and economic prosperity.
Gay Australia and Gay Games VI 2002
Intro: Sydney Australia was the host city for the fabulous sixth Gay Games and Cultural Festival held November 2-9, 2002. For a week the city was indeed at the end of the rainbow as athletes and spectators flooded stadiums and cafes with excitement and color. Following the competitions, I traveled across this great continent-country all the way to Perth on the Indian Ocean interviewing lesbigay folks in the major cities along the way: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, as well as some Aboriginal gays I met along the way.
Poland’s Gays Awake Gradually to a New Era
Gay life is gaining steam slowly in very Catholic and very heterosexist Poland. With the weakening of the Catholic Church’s influence, the increased role of the Internet and Poland’s entry into the European Union (with it’s pro-gay laws), a place in the sun is being urged by an increasingly bold LGBT community. But the battlelines are clearly drawn as loud protests disrupted gay pride events in May and June 2004.
A guest author, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, offers a modern re-appraisal of gay life in Warsaw. From the grim and rusted Soviet repression a new era of openness and courage spurs homosexuality to dare to speak its name–despite strong ‘spiritual violence’ from conservative and religious activists.
Gay Palestine (and Israel): Stories from the Land of Milk and Agony: Israeli and Palestinian Gays
It’s difficult to separate information about Palestinian gays from the Israeli gay scene. Since Palestine is a very homophobic culture many Palestinian gays and lesbians are forced against their cultural and religious will to hide in Israel where homosexuality is much more acceptable and, indeed, protected. Three stories are presented here about gay living and loving in these two lands torn by tribal warfare.
Gay Scenes in Sicily and Italy 2002-one local and one legal
Story 1 is by a guest author–a Sicilian-American–who describes his experiences and impressions of visiting modern gay friends and ancient Roman sites on the historic island of Sicily.
Story 2 is a report from the International Herald Tribune of June 2002 about Italy’s refusal to pass laws against LGBT discrimination and its denial of gay unions.
Gay Israel 2002: More Stories from the Land of Milk and Agony: Israeli and Palestinian Gays
Three poignant stories from online magazines about gay living and loving in a land torn by tribal warfare.
Gay and Ancient Greece
Intro: Among the many splendors of Greece, the city of Athens and the islands of Mykonos, Santorini and Lesbos head the list for lesbigay pilgrims. For those in search of a sexually muffled pilgrimage, try a boat ferry to the monastic peninsula of all-male Mount Athos. Between these two different worlds is a Greek culture slowly changing to accommodate new concepts of Human Rights with Orthodox traditions.
Russia Through the Back Door: Finland to Russia via Boat Canal
Intro: Want to go to Russia without the throngs of airports, the dense huddles of Moscow or sandwiched in a package cruise up the Gulf of Finland to Petersburg? Try the back road from Lappeenranta, Finland, through forty miles of wilderness to Vyborg, Russia. The route is a peaceful journey amid beautiful lakes and forests with hardly a sound and no masses of traffic. This unique trip is by way of the remarkably engineered and little known (outside of Finland) Saimaa shipping canal.
Gay Norway: A Modern Civilization
Intro: By way of internet and a four cylinder engine, we came face to face with a dozen lesbigay folks in Finland, Sweden and Norway, some married to their lovers, some cohabiting, others happy not to be coupled up. In warm evening cafes, aromatic restaurants and squeaky-clean living rooms we heard and saw what it was like to be homosexually inclined in modern Scandinavia.
Gay Finland: Inside Gay Relationships
Intro: Compared to the anguished and furtive lives many lesbigays endure in Catholic and Muslim countries, visiting secular Scandinavia is a light-hearted relief. Our drive through Finland included meeting a few lesbigay folks in Helsinki for some easy conversation. The focus was not about the drama of survival or hiding but clarifying and refining intimate feelings.
Salt of the Earth: the Great Lake of Uyuni, Bolivia
Intro: In the middle of Bolivia there is one of the world’s great salt plains, which becomes a salt lake in the wet season. In the middle of the lake is a unique hotel with 360-degree views. Along the edge of the lake is a small town that makes a living from mining salt.
Into the Bowels and History of the Potosi Silver Mine
Intro: High in the mountains of Bolivia is the town of Potosi, home to a famous silver mine with an austere history. A visit there is a journey into a harrowing way of life and a grueling history of greed and conquest.
France’s Baccarat Crystal: Reality and Legend
Intro: A visit to the old town of Baccarat, France reveals both old world craftsmanship as well as modern but modest working life. The world famous Baccarat crystal is made here by artisans using old formulas to create great works of art.
Once Upon a Glacier
A half day trek into a snowy wilderness of danger and beauty.
Mei Ling: Mao’s Secret Retreat
Intro: Far from the corridors of present-day power in Beijing, the city of Wuhan is home to a strange and little-known retreat where China’s fate was once determined. Mao Zedong’s private villa still stands as a memorial to a by-gone era that altered the course of modern Asia.
Gay Israel 2000: Alert and Alive
Intro: Tal Weisberg-Bloch, a gay activist in Haifa, manned the Gay hotline one night as I talked with him about queer life in Israel. Here in the eye of the Arab middle east, under the guns of enemies, surrounded by Torah-thumping Orthodox Jews, inside a conservative and straight secular society–this ‘out and loud’ gay man was pleased to tell us about the significant gains for homosexuals in Israel over the past ten years. A box inside a box inside a box; yet it appears this smallest and innermost cell, the gay community, is also the most liberated and open minded of all the containers that compete for life in this desert land.
Life and Death in a Global Gay World
by Richard A. Ammon
True Stores and In-Person Interviews From a Hundred Countries From Persecution to Pride From Australia to Zambia
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