By Christopher Cappiello

Gay Teen Suicide in Wales

An official investigation into the January 25, 2006, suicide of 15-year-old Jonathan Reynolds of Bridgend, Wales, concludes that the boy lay down in front of a speeding train after suffering teasing about his sexuality. A text message from Reynolds just before his death triggered the investigation.

“Tell everyone that this is for anybody who eva said anything bad about me, see I have feelings too,” the boy’s chilling message to his father and sister read. “Blame the people who were horrible and injust 2 me. This is because of them. I am a human just like them.” He added, “None of you blame urself mum, dad, Sam and the rest of my family. This is not because of you.”

One of Reynold’s closest friends, Aimee Murray, told investigators that he told her he was gay just a few weeks before he took his life. She also said he had been teased about his sexuality by other boys at school.

Reynolds was a strong student who received an A grade in a standardized Welsh oral exam the day he died. At the time of his death he had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit for driving.

Israel Moves to Ban Pride Parades

The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, approved a preliminary bill June 6 that aims to give local authorities the right to ban events like Gay Pride parades. It is widely believed that the bill is intended to give Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox mayor, Uri Lupolyansky, the authority to cancel that city’s Pride parade, currently scheduled for June 21.

The parade has been approved by local law enforcement, which already has the authority to ban such events.

The Knesset moved the bill forward in spite of opposition from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has a gay daughter. A spokesperson told London’s Times that the prime minister was against the bill because it “would restrict the right of protest.”

Two days after the Knesset vote, the Tel Aviv Pride parade went forward without incident, with more than 3,000 participants marching, the Israeli Ynet News reports.

Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Yael Dayan dismissed the Orthodox politicians’ attempts to ban or move the event. “Those objecting to the parade are wasting their time because in Tel Aviv there is no question as to the importance of the Pride parade,” he told Ynet.

Montreal and Melbourne Gay Bar Discrimination

Two gay bars on opposite sides of the world—one in Montreal, Canada, and the other in Melbourne, Australia—have bumped up against the very laws originally intended to protect their customers as they are accused of discriminating based on sexual orientation and/or gender.

A bar in Melbourne’s Peel Hotel recently won a court case allowing its owners to turn away heterosexuals and even lesbians, granting an exemption from Australia’s far-reaching Equal Opportunities Act. A tribunal in the southern Australian state of Victoria determined that allowing large numbers of straight people into the bar could “undermine or destroy” the welcoming atmosphere for gay men, according to The Associated Press.

“To regard the gay male patrons of the venue as providing an entertainment or spectacle to be stared at, as one would at an animal at the zoo, devalues and dehumanizes them,” tribunal Deputy President Cate McKenzie said in her decision.

The bar can now advertise that it turns away straight people, and its staff members can ask patrons if they are gay before inviting them inside.

At the end of May, a Quebec woman filed a complaint with the provincial Human Rights Commission, claiming that she was discriminated against when asked to leave Le Stud, a Montreal gay bar, because she is a woman.

Audrey Vachon, 20, says she was having a drink with her father at the bar in the heart of Montreal’s Gay Village, when a waiter informed her Le Stud was a men-only establishment, the Canadian Press reports.

Vachon invoked the province’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in her complaint. In addition to banning discrimination based on gender, since 1977, Article 10 of the charter has protected citizens from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

G8 AIDS Pledge Met with Skepticism

The annual Group of Eight summit meeting ended on June 8 with a dramatic pledge from the leaders of wealthy countries to commit $60 billion to the global fight against AIDS, a declaration that was met with skepticism among activists for its vagueness and lack of timetable.

“I am exasperated,” U2’s Bono told Reuters, after personally lobbying many of the leaders for increased resources against HIV/AIDS. “I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation ... We are looking for accountable language and numbers. I might be a rock star, but I can count.”

Activists pointed out that the declaration says only that the money will come “over the coming years,” with no specific timetable.

“We see promises, we see pledges, but these are general statements,” said Nahmia Mniki of African Monitor, an independent organization established to track the G8’s progress on its landmark agreement on global AIDS made at the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. “These are general statements that are not legally binding and cannot be traced down to actual disbursement.”

In advance of the G8 summit, held in Heiligendamm, Germany, this year, London’s Financial Times reported that the countries were backtracking on the Gleneagles agreement. The 2005 pact called for universal access to treatment in Africa, with a goal of treating 10 million people by 2010. The Heiligendamm agreement, the Times reports, calls for a goal of 5 million.

The lowered goal reportedly came at the insistence of the United States, reflecting divisions between U.S. and European officials.

Days before the summit, President George W. Bush unveiled a U.S. plan to commit $30 billion to global AIDS in the five years after he leaves office, extending his President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief established at the 2003 State of the Union Address. That money is included in the G8’s $60 billion total.