World News

Australia

A push to legalise same-sex marriage in South Australia fails in State Parliament

By Desmond Rutherford | ADELAIDE, SA -- The South Australia State Parliament's lower house, in a voice roll-call, voted down a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage at a state level for the first time in Australia Wednesday.

The measure had the support of SA's Premier Jay Weatherill, who remarked after the vote to his fellow parliamentarians that continuing forbidding marriage for same-sex couples was "a layer of discrimination that will be eventually removed."

Weatherill added;

"‘We have a responsibility to support legislation that will make our society more inclusive and tolerant, Weatherill said. "I see no good reason why we should not act. 

In practical terms what evidence is there that this change will have adverse consequences for our society? The alternative is to allow the tides of history to continue to wash away [marriage’s] relevance to contemporary society."

Susan Close, (Labor Party-Port Adelaide) who co-authored the measure had argued that under the country's constitution it was SA's right to push through the law.

Opposition MPs from the Liberal and National parties argued it was unconstitutional for a state to rule on same-sex marriage and the issue belonged in the federal arena. Some of those MP's voiced concerns a SA state gay marriage law would face a costly High Court challenge.

Former Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond said she supported gay marriage and wanted it legalised at a federal level.

"I indeed believe that it will come," she said. "I absolutely ... want the Federal Government to legislate to recognise same-sex marriage in this country."

However she would not support the state Bill which was "nothing but an attempt to politicize something which can't be decided by this Parliament."

Only 19 of the Lower House’s 47 MPs voted for the bill.

Another similar bill is currently pending before the Upper body, causing Rodney Croome of the group Australian Marriage Equality to remain optimistic, hopeful of achieving a change in the law.

"There is another bill before the state Upper House which we believe has a good chance of being passed if and when the Liberal Party allows a conscience vote," he said. 

Croome added that the defeat shows the importance of cross-party co-operation on marriage equality. 

"I urge marriage equality supporters in all parties to put politics to one side and work more closely to build a cross-party coalition for reform,’ he said. 

"Cross-party co-operation has been the key to achieving marriage equality in New Zealand and the UK and it will also be the key to moving forward at a state or federal level in Australia."

A new Australian Bureau of Statistics report revealed that the figures show there are twice as many children living in same-sex couple families than there were in 2006.

Additionally, in the latest census 33,700 couples reported living together in a same-sex relationship - 17,600 male couples and 16,100 female couples.

Russia

Ultra-Nationalist group targets Russian LGBTQ youth on popular Russian social media site VK

By Brody Levesque | KAMENSK-URAL, Russia -- A network of loosely organised groups of Russian ultra-nationalists are targeting LGBT youth online for brutal bullying, on the popular Russian social media site VK, creating fake accounts and profiles of gay and underage people as well as creating gay personal dating ads.
Members of the these groups then lure their victims to public meetings where the victims are harassed, brutally beaten, humiliated and forced to perform sexual acts with inanimate objects. These activities are recorded on video and digital photos and then uploaded to YouTube and VK groups "Occupy Paedophilia" and "Occupy Kamensky."
The most prominent group, "Occupy Paedophilia," is headed by Maxim Martsinkevich, who is known [in Russian] as "Tesak" which translates as "The Cleaver."
Martsinkevich's group operates from Kamensk which is located 96 kilometers south of the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains northeast of Moscow.

Martsinkevich, the former leader of a Russian neo-fascist organization "Format 18," was released from prison in December 2010, where he was serving a three-year sentence for inciting ethnic hatred. For two years, he has traveled around the Russian federation promoting his group's involvement in the capture of "paedophiles", using the VK adverts as "live bait."

He has also been a strong proponent of recent changes in Russian laws that have criminalized discussion of LGBTQ issues and gatherings such as Pride events.

According to Russian LGBT equality rights activists, there are approximately 500 online groups, which have been created inside the VK.com social network in order to organize illegal militant groups in every Russian city. Many from these groups have taken to following Martsinkevich's lead as they allegedly attempt to "identify paedophiles" and protect children, although one Russian gay activist told LGBTQ Nation in reality means that their idea of fighting paedophiles targets exclusively gay male teenagers who respond to the same-sex personal ads and show up for a date.

According to the activists and from accounts from the groups themselves, nearly all of the attacks occur in broad daylight and are recorded and are freely distributed on YouTube and VK in order to out LGBT teens to their respective schools, parents and friends.

Nicolai Alexseev, head of Gay.RU, a Moscow based LGBTQ equality rights group, told LGBTQ Nation Thursday that the reports that many of the victims were driven to suicides, and the rest "being deeply traumatized," are true.
Another activist, Valentin Degterev, said that efforts to squash these militant groups often ends up being useless as the local police more often than not refuse to step in and launch criminal inquiries, despite complaints filed by victims, parents of victims, activists, and evidence that clear violation of Russian criminal statues had taken place.

The founder of VK.com, Pavel Durov, has not responded to repeated requests for comment or action although Degterev noted that VK.com intermittently shuts down selected groups and profiles only to allow them to be re-open on the next day.

An email request for comment by LGBTQ Nation to YouTube regarding the numerous videos depicting the violence which is in violation of YouTube's published policies regarding content forbidding such content was not responded to by press time.