NY Times Article: Gay Pride In Warsaw Poland Is A Step In The Direction For Gay Rights In Eastern Europe.

Gay Parade in Warsaw Meets Jeers From Some

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: July 17, 2010

WARSAW — Rainbow flags flying, Village People and Madonna songs pumping from the floats, drag queens waving like royalty to the crowds: some things are the same at gay pride parades everywhere. But the thousands of police officers holding back clusters of jeering, egg-throwing youths here on Saturday served as a reminder that Poland was not quite Holland when it came to gay demonstrations.

Leszek Szymanski/PAP, via European Pressphoto Agency

Thousands of gay men and lesbians marched in support of equal rights and greater tolerance in the EuroPride 2010 parade in Warsaw.

Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals not just from Poland but from all over Europe and North America marched and danced their way through downtown Warsaw, calling for greater tolerance and equal rights, in particular the right to marry or at least to be joined in civil partnerships.

The event, the first Europewide gay pride parade held in a former Communist bloc country, revealed a place where gays and lesbians aspired to the level of acceptance found in Western European cities like Amsterdam and London, yet remained part of a deeply Catholic society that was still significantly more opposed to homosexuality than in the West and where politicians did not seem ready, or perhaps willing, to change that.

It was most likely the largest gathering of its kind in Polish history, but its 8,000 participants made up just a fraction of the 50,000 people who took part in last year’s parade, in Zurich. For the most part, Saturday’s parade went smoothly, but it was met with resistance from a population ill at ease with open displays of homosexuality. Many gay men and lesbians here say they continue to fear repercussions from coming out of the closet.

“I lived in Berlin and, there and here, they are simply two different worlds,” said Tomasz Baczkowski, head of the Equality Foundation and an organizer of this year’s EuroPride event.

It was just five years ago that Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president who died in a plane crash in April, banned Warsaw’s annual gay pride parade in 2005 when he was the city’s mayor. Mr. Baczkowski was among the plaintiffs in a 2007 lawsuit before the European Court of Human Rights that successfully challenged the ban.

Since then, Mr. Baczkowski said, “things have developed quickly, but not quickly enough for us.” He said he hoped to see Poland legalize gay marriages within three to four years, as Argentina did on Thursday.

But a sociology professor at Warsaw University, Ireneusz Krzeminski, said the political culture was not yet ready.

“In Poland,” he said, “we still do not have major politicians directed toward changing this rather hostile attitude toward Polish gays.”

Mr. Krzeminski, who is gay himself, said he found hope in the millions of Poles who have traveled abroad since the country joined the European Union in 2004, especially those who lived and worked in other countries like Britain, and who saw being gay in a much more normal and positive context.

Wojtek Kobylski, 42, said he had seen improvement not just in Warsaw but outside the capital in more conservative corners of Poland, where he performs in drag.

“Every year there are fewer negative reactions,” said Mr. Kobylski, who was wearing a long platinum-blond wig and three-inch-long fake eyelashes as parade volunteers decked out their floats with colorful balloons and D.J.’s tested their sound systems.

After performing at a show in Warsaw, he was invited to perform in the city of Olsztyn, in the northeastern part of the country, said Mr. Kobylski, who as Tatiana sings old Russian and Polish songs. Now he appears there once a month. “People see that the gay clubs are more friendly,” he said, “that these are the places where there are no fights and you can have fun.”

Yet the parade got off to an ugly start. As it reached Senatorska and Marszalkowska Streets downtown, youths chanted obscenities and yelled at the marchers to leave, before hurling eggs and plastic bottles at the first float to pass.

About 2,000 police officers were there to control the crowd, one for every four people who took part in the march. A Swiss man, who said he was there to show his support, remarked that he had never seen so much security at a gay pride parade in his life.

Another parade organizer, Krzysztof Kliszczynski, said that was because “it’s still happening that gays and lesbians are being attacked on the streets.” A counterdemonstration by the conservative, right-wing group All-Polish Youth drew 200 to 300 participants, according to police estimates.

“Polish society is much more conservative than the establishment,” said the group’s president, Robert Winnicki, 25. “Polish society is more passive. People do not take part in the public debate. We are the voice of the majority.”

The Warsaw police detained eight people for upsetting the parade by attacking police officers, throwing eggs or tearing down flags. One participant was detained for drug possession. Those disturbances were the exception, however, on an afternoon whose scorching temperatures hardly dented the festive atmosphere.

The march was demure compared to similar events in cities like New York or Berlin. A few men decided to forgo shirts in the heat, while another group dressed in feathered carnival outfits, but otherwise it was a clothed and orderly procession.

“Maybe we have a little different morality, but I can’t imagine many homosexuals here in Poland who want to be naked on a platform. It’s not our tradition,” said Joanna Hald, 41, a translator with a black bandana and a battle-ax tattoo, who was riding with a lesbian motorcycle group.

She had lived in Denmark for 18 years, where she started an Internet forum for Polish lesbians, Ms. Hald said. Asked what brought her back to Poland, she replied, “My wife.”

She said several other women had decided not to ride because they feared they would be recognized and “might get fired.”

“I’m a freelancer,” Ms. Hald said, “so I can’t get fired.

AFP Article: New Vaginal Cream May Help Prevent HIV Infection In Women.

Major step seen in quest for anti-HIV vaginal gel

By Richard Ingham (AFP) – 7 hours ago

VIENNA — Scientists on Monday reported a major stride towards a vaginal gel that can thwart HIV, a goal that would be of huge benefit to African women bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic.

A prototype cream tested in South Africa curbed the risk of infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by 39 percent overall, but by 54 percent among those women who used it most consistently, they said.

The study coincided with the six-day 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, where leading campaigners responded with cheers leavened with some caution.

A wider trial has to be completed to scrutinise the gel for safety and efficacy, and several important questions must be answered.

Even so, this is a bright ray of hope, the scientists said.

“Without this gel, we may see 10 women becoming infected in a year. With this gel, we would see only six women becoming infected,” said Salim Abdool Karim, one of the two leading co-researchers, in a teleconference with reporters.

Leading figures in the fight against AIDS applauded loudly, but also sounded a note of prudence.

“We are giving hope to women. For the first time we have seen results for a woman-initiated and -controlled HIV prevention option,” said Michel Sidibe, executive director of the UN agency UNAIDS.

“If confirmed, a microbicide will be a powerful option for the prevention revolution and help us to break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Margaret Chan vowed the UN agency would work hard to speed up access to the product, once it is proven to be safe and effective.

Twenty-five million people have been slain by AIDS today and more than 33 million others today are infected by HIV, which causes the disease.

More than two-thirds of these live in sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of new infections occur among women and girls.

One of the big vectors of transmission is through coercive intercourse by an infected partner who is unwilling to wear a condom.

The gel that was tested contains a one-percent formulation of tenofovir. It is a frontline component in the “cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs that disrupt HIV reproduction in immune cells.

Previous microbicides that have been tested have not contained an antiretroviral, and have had either a very low level of protection or even boosted the risk of infection.

Over nearly three years, the gel was tested among 445 HIV-negative women, while 444 counterparts received a harmless lookalike called a placebo.

They were then tested for HIV at monthly follow-up visits, where they were also given counselling in safe sex, access to condoms and treatment for sexually-transmitted disease.

Each participant was asked to insert, using a vaginal applicator, a first dose of the gel within 12 hours before sex followed by a second dose as soon as possible but within 12 hours afterwards, said co-leader Quarraisha Abdool Karim, also of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) in Durban.

Thirty-eight women in the gel group became infected with HIV, compared with 60 in the placebo group.

In statistical terms, the gel reduced the risk of HIV infection by 39 percent overall, but by 54 percent among women who adhered to the instructions most faithfully.

There was no increase in side effects, nor — among women who became infected with HIV — any sign that they were more resistant to tenofovir as a result of the gel.

In addition, the microbicide halved the risk of herpes simplex virus type 2, or HSV-2, a lifelong and incurable infection, according to the results.

Despite this good news, the scientists said they still had to tackle several important issues.

One is why the gel seemed to be less effective against HIV after about 18 months.

This may be due to weakened adherence to the cream, they suggested. About 40 percent of the women in the trial used the microbicide less than one time out of two.

The study, published by the US journal, Science, was to be the focus of a seminar on Wednesday, the third day of the world AIDS forum.

If — eventually — the gel is approved for use, it will join a small but growing arsenal of preventative tools against HIV.

For a long time, the condom was the only method that had a confirmed high degree of protection from HIV in intercourse.

Four years ago, it was joined by male circumcision. Removal of the foreskin, which contains cells that are vulnerable to penetration by HIV, can reduce HIV risk by more than half, but only for men and not for women, field studies found.

Jean-François Delfraissy, executive director of France’s National Agency for AIDS Research (ANRS), said the CAPRISA work was “one of the greatest (medical) trials in the history of HIV”.

Even with this success, there remained no “magic bullet” on prevention, but a panoply of methods that had to work together, he told AFP.

LA Times Article: Study Finds That HIV In The Heterosexual Community May Be Linked To Poverty In American Inner Cities.

Poverty and HIV are strongly linked, CDC survey finds

Regardless of race or ethnicity, heterosexuals living in low-income communities are up to five times more likely to be HIV-positive than the rest of the U.S. population.

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles TimesJuly 20, 2010

Heterosexuals living below the poverty line in U.S. cities are five times as likely as the nation’s general population to be HIV-positive, regardless of their race or ethnicity, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

Their neighbors in the impoverished communities who live above the poverty line are 2.5 times as likely to be infected, according to the first comprehensive study of groups that aren’t involved in risky behaviors.

Because African Americans are 4.5 times as likely as whites to live in poverty and Latinos are four times as likely, the findings could account for many of the ethnic and racial disparities in HIV infections in this country, said Dr. Paul Denning, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC. Denning was the lead author of the study, which was released in Vienna at the International AIDS Conference.

---

In the United States, the overall HIV prevalence rate for blacks is eight times that for whites, while that for Latinos is three times that for whites. “That disparity appears to disappear in very-low-income areas, at least in this study,” Denning said at a news conference.

The findings, based on studies of more than 9,000 people in 23 U.S. cities, indicate that these areas now have what the United Nations defines as a generalized HIV epidemic. In the past, the United States has been said to suffer from what is known as a concentrated epidemic, confined primarily to two high-risk groups, gay men and injection drug users. Those individuals were excluded from this survey.

The new results indicate that the epidemic is now firmly established in the heterosexual population and will continue there even if it could be controlled in the high-risk groups.

“There is a powerful link between poverty, low socioeconomic status and HIV,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “In communities with a generalized epidemic, we need to reach everyone in the community with prevention information and interventions.

“We need to address larger environmental issues, such as poverty, homelessness and substance abuse, which are well beyond the traditional scope of HIV intervention. Addressing those is as essential to HIV prevention as providing condoms.”

The study found that 2.1% of heterosexuals living in high-poverty urban areas were HIV-positive. That included 2.4% of those living below the poverty line as defined by the Census Bureau, and 1.2% of those living above it. More than half of the households in the survey had annual incomes below $10,000, Denning said.

Overall, the HIV prevalence rate was 2.1% among blacks, 2.1% among Latinos and 1.7% among whites. In the U.S. at large, 0.45% of the population is HIV-positive.

Because the data from all 23 cities was pooled, results for individual cities are not available. In general terms, however, western cities had lower rates than those in the Northeast and the South.

In the United States, an estimated 1.1 million people are thought to be HIV-positive and another 56,000 are infected each year — a number that has remained constant for more than a decade. The new findings suggest that, by focusing prevention efforts on the high-risk groups, the government has been overlooking a critical population.

About 18,000 Americans die of AIDS each year.

One Life To Live: The Big Gay Wedding Love Triangle: Kyle, Oliver, & Nick.

Usher’s Hot New Video: There Goes My Baby!

People Magazine Article: Lesbian Rock Star Melissa Etheridge Slams Her Ex Wife Tammy Lynn Michaels!

Melissa Etheridge: Tammy Used Our Children as ‘Pawns’

By Marisa Laudadio

Thursday July 15, 2010 06:00 PM EDT

Melissa (left) and Tammy Etheridge

In detailed new court papers, Melissa Etheridge says she cherishes every moment she can spend with her kids between her tour dates this summer. So, she was shocked when she traveled to Boston on July 6 to see 3-year-old twins Johnnie Rose and Miller – only to be served with court papers from her ex instead.

“[She] used our children as pawns,” the rocker, 49, says in court papers released Thursday in her increasingly bitter split with Tammy, 35.

In other papers released Thursday, Tammy revealed her finances as she continues to seek support from Etheridge.

RELATED: Attorney: Melissa Etheridge Is Paying Tammy’s Bills

The former actress, who is a full-time homemaker and has no income, states that her rent is $6,000 a month and she spends $1,500 on groceries and household supplies, $50 on laundry and cleaning and $800 on dining out with her children. Before the split, her monthly clothing budget was $5,000.

The former Tammy Lynn Michaels suggests that Melissa can easily afford to support her and the twins, estimating that the rocker earns between $600,000 and $750,000 a month.

Tammy also asks for $4,300 a month for childcare, so that she can work or get job training.

Melissa’s attorney told a judge on Monday that Melissa gives Tammy $2,000 a month and pays all of her household bills.