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Also this issue: Outlaw Picnic Learning Curve Ball Still Fighting for the First The Bell Curve |
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April 24-30, 2003
city beat
 Teutonic twang: Germany's gay tourism guide (r) is far more risqué than Philly's. |
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Equality Forum celebrates gay and lesbian rights around the world.
Still reeling from Sen. Rick Santorum’s recent remarks comparing consensual gay sex to polygamy, incest and adultery, Philadelphia’s LGBT community is gearing up to host the Equality Forum, an annual gay rights event formerly known as PrideFest America, from April 28 through May 4.
Equality Forum executive director Malcolm Lazin says one of the key reasons for the name change was to make the event more overtly political.
While Lazin is a registered Republican, as an advocate of gay rights he condemned Sen. Santorum. "His statements marginalizing gay citizens are an affront to the basic concept of democracy. He is anathema to what Equality Forum stands for and is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." On the Santorum issue, gay groups from across the political spectrum, including the Log Cabin Republicans, have united to demand that the senator give up his position in the Republican Party leadership. (Lazin’s political affiliation has put him at odds with a number of prominent Democrats in Philadelphia’s gay community. Some even speculate that the name-change was prompted by a desire to re-brand PrideFest, which had become divisive).
Another reason for the name change, Lazin explains, was to make the event more global by removing "America" from the title and choosing a different featured country for each year. This year’s nation is Germany. In order to focus on both the global and the political, the Forum is hosting three prominent gay German politicians -- the mayor of Berlin, a member of Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, and a Munich city councilman.
Organizers hope Forum attendees will be inspired by the story of Germany’s gay community -- brutally persecuted under the Nazis, they are now one of the most liberated gay communities in the world, having recently won parliamentary approval for gay marriage. "Our collaboration with Germany gives us the opportunity to examine another culture and to examine ourselves by comparing ourselves with that society," Lazin says.
Philadelphia’s gay community may find they have more in common with the Germans than they might imagine. Openly gay Munich City Councilman Thomas Niederbuehl says, "Munich is a very liberal city in Bavaria, which is a very conservative state." Sound familiar? One of Niederbuehl’s first gay rights fights was pressuring Munich’s leading newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung, to permit ads containing the word "gay."
Niederbuehl’s political power is the result of German election procedures in which citizens vote for parties, not candidates, giving small third parties more power. Niederbuehl was elected on the ticket of the Rosa Liste ("Pink List"), a gay political party. Niederbuehl, who was first elected in 1996, says that in the most recent election, his party hoped to win enough votes to appoint a lesbian to the city council as well. Rosa Liste needed 2.5 percent of the vote but only got 2 percent.
While he is only one of 80 Munich city councilpeople, Niederbuehl has been instrumental in making Munich more gay friendly, in part by promoting gay tourism. In fact, while this is Niederbuehl’s first trip to Philadelphia, he has been to the United States twice to attend conventions of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA). Through his efforts, Munich became the first German city to become a member of the IGLTA.
Equality Forum director Lazin says one of the benefits of the event is it puts Philadelphia on the gay tourism map. "Gay tourism is a huge market," Lazin says, citing statistics that gay men are seven times more likely to engage in leisure travel than straights.
The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau is also trying to sell the city as a gay destination. It recently issued a brochure aimed at gay tourists titled "The City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection)," though its cover shot of Ben Franklin in front of a rainbow-colored star is tame compared with the German National Tourist Office’s "Gay Germany" booklet, featuring a shirtless man wearing eye makeup and a cowboy hat.
Making American popular culture more accepting of gays is also a Forum goal. In collaboration with PBS, Lazin has produced a documentary film, Jim in Bold, which weaves together the story of Jim Wheeler, a gay youth from Lebanon, Pa., who committed suicide, with a road trip across America in which young gays and lesbians are interviewed. The film makes big cities like Philadelphia look like small beacons of acceptance in a hostile nation. Along the way, filmmakers interview a group of gay Mormons in Salt Lake City and minority gay high school students in Wilmington, Del., struggling for acceptance from peers, family members and the community at large.
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