2007 Gay Pride Toronto

 2007 Gay Pride Toronto

Nine Scottish firefighters who refused to hand out safety leaflets at a gay pride event were today ordered to undergo "intensive" diversity training.

Some of the officers, from Cowcaddens fire station, in Glasgow, argued that it would have been "embarrassing" for them to attend the Pride Scotia festival, which took place in June, in uniform.

Others claimed that taking part in the event would have contradicted their moral beliefs.

However, managers at Strathclyde Fire and Rescue said the officers' refusal to distribute leaflets containing advice on fire prevention was "a fundamental breach of one of their core responsibilities".

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`Gung ho,' gay - and alive today

I am in agreement with William Butte's commentary of Sept. 4 on the military policy of "Don't ask, don't tell." It reminded me of my experience in the U.S. Navy in 1964: 43 years and nothing has changed.

Just out of Catholic high school and in a hurry to become a working adult, I joined the U.S. Navy. I thought the four years would "teach me to be a man" and allow me to get an education and some worldly knowledge.

I was very innocent and, to be sure, quite ignorant about the ways of the world. I was very sexually active with boys all during my school years, even as early as the fourth grade. I liked guys, but didn't consider myself "queer" and had never heard of the term "gay." "Homosexual" was a derogatory dictionary term.

In basic training I decided I would like to go to corps school to become a Navy corpsman.

Moscow gay march organizers call for probe into attack on ...

Moscow, September 8, Interfax - Organizers of the unsanctioned gay pride march that took place in Moscow on May 27 have filed an appeal with the Moscow prosecutor's office, which earlier refused to open a criminal case into an attack on German Bundestag Member Volker Beck, a participant in the event. "Organizers of the gay march protest the decision by the deputy prosecutor of the Tverskaya inter-district prosecutor's office to refuse to open a criminal case into the attack on Bundestag member Beck," a statement published on the GayRussia.ru web site on Friday reads. "Beck sent an appeal to the Russian Prosecutor's General Office demanding a criminal case be opened against Aleksey Napylov, who said that he does not regret his actions in an interview with the Russian version of the Newsweek journal," the press release reads.