AU.GAY.COM: Nation Party moved to November 4-6 in Phuket, Thailand--Asia's largest gay party announces new venue and dates

Asia's largest gay and lesbian network, Fridae.com, will hold its signature Nation party -- dubbed a "festival of international proportions" by Time Asia -- in Phuket, Thailand from November 4th through 6th, 2005.

Singapore authorities in April rejected an application to hold Nation, Asia's most acclaimed gay and lesbian party, which had been held annually since 2001 in the city-state to celebrate the country's National Day in August. In a faxed reply, the Singapore police turned down the license citing the event to be "contrary to public interest."

Fridae regrets the Licensing Division's rejection of Nation's license. "We are disappointed that the authorities have deemed a National Day celebration by Singapore's gay citizens as being 'contrary to public interest' when it had previously been approved for four years without incident," said Dr Stuart Koe, Chief Executive Officer. "This is a direct contradiction to previous calls for embracing of diversity."

Despite the Singapore government's attempt to curtail the public space enjoyed by gay Singaporeans and residents, organizers hope for the international gay and lesbian community to come together in creating a new "Nation" -- free from discrimination and welcoming of all.

"The Nation party is evolving with the circumstances," said Dr Koe, "and we hope for it to be truly an event where gays and lesbians from all over the world can come together and celebrate their diversity and take pride in their community." For the first time, the three day event will see gay party organizers from four Asian cities (Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei and Tokyo) involved in co-hosting eight parties to be held back to back over the weekend.

The last Nation party held in Singapore in August 2004 attracted an attendance of over 8,000 party revelers, of which 40 percent were international visitors. Tourist revenue generated over the three-day event was estimated to be close to US$6 million, based on unreleased data collected by an independent market research company at Nation in 2003.

Since 2001, the Nation parties had grown tremendously and garnered international media attention with extensive coverage by news agencies and leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Advocate, Time magazine and BBC radio.

Nation V is sponsored by Fortune 100 global communications leader Motorola for the second consecutive year and Subaru for the third. The carmaker is a well-known pioneer corporate sponsor of gay and lesbian athletic and community events in the United States and is represented by Motor Image in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
" We are very disappointed that the government is sending a very strong signal that a big minority of its population is not welcomed. That is very homophobic," Koe told Reuters.

Singapore's gay community has only recently enjoyed greater freedom after former premier Goh Chok Tong announced in 2003 that homosexuals could hold key positions in the civil service without fear of discrimination. But the gay community has come under fire in recent months after a junior health minister in Singapore said a gay and lesbian festival in August last year may have led to a surge in the number of local AIDS cases, a remark that outraged gay activists.

Although Singapore has one of Asia's lowest levels of HIV infection, the number of new infections hit a record high of 311 cases in 2004, up 28 percent from 2003. A third of the newly diagnosed cases were gay men, the health ministry has said. Gay activists say the remaining two-thirds appeared to be heterosexual men who caught the illness from prostitutes in nearby Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesia's Batam island, which is just an hour's boat ride from Singapore.

In March, the government rejected an application for an AIDS concert, citing concern over its gay performers. In December 2004, police threw out plans by gay activists to hold a Christmas dance party, saying the event went against the "moral values" of a large majority of Singaporeans.

Southern Cross University: Homosexual rights book earns national prize

Southern Cross University senior lecturer and Director of the Centre for Law, Politics and Culture Dr Baden Offord has been awarded the annual George Duncan Memorial Award for his book Homosexual Rights as Human Rights.

The book (published in 2003), on homosexual rights as human rights in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia, was described as "groundbreaking" and "an important contribution to the struggle for equal rights worldwide" by the George Duncan Memorial committee.

The national George Duncan Memorial Award commemorates the murder, with no subsequent conviction for the crime, of law lecturer Dr George Duncan near the University of Adelaide in 1972. South Australia later became the first state to decriminalise homosexual acts in 1975.

Dr Offord said receiving the award was an honour. He said he was 14 when Dr Duncan was murdered and remembered the news at that time. " Australia has come some was way in the past 30 years, but it would be incorrect to think that enough has been accomplished to end overt and covert discrimination in our society and families," he said.

" Sexuality, that dimension of being human which makes us most vulnerable, is still caught up in social and cultural apartheids."
In the foreword to Homosexual Rights as Human Rights, the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby compared the work to the pioneering studies of Alfred Kinsey and said Dr Offord pushed the boundaries of understanding, knowledge and acceptance.

The award, in its second year, is presented for an outstanding piece of work contributing to legal reform and the betterment of the Australian lesbian, gay, queer, bisexual, transgender or intersex community.

Curve: Our Films, Our Selves

Written by: Diane Anderson-Minshall

Almost 3 million people watched Sambal Belacan, Madeleine Lim’s award-winning documentary about three Asian women making a home in the United States. The attention was nothing new for Singaporean-born, San Francisco-based director who runs the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project. The wildly successful QWOCMAP trains women of color to make films and then helps get those films in front of viewers. Lim talks to CURVE about her work and fostering the careers of other queer women.

What has surprised you most about your QWOCMAP experience?

I’m definitely surprised by how successful QWOCMAP is. We have expanded exponentially from year to year. The demand for the training program has been incredible, to the point where we maintain a waitlist for interested participants. By the end of this year, a total of 35 short films will have been completed through the training program. That’s 35 films made by and about queer women of color, going out to film festivals all over the world. Our screenings are packed. Which is why we’re expanding our exhibition program to weekend-long screenings. The training program was awarded the 2003 Best Video Program by the San Francisco Community Media Festival. Last week, I was awarded — as artistic director of QWOCMAP — a certificate of honor by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in public recognition of distinction and merit for outstanding service to the people of San Francisco. The level of excitement generated by community and funders alike has been phenomenal.

Besides Sambal Belacan and Shades of Grey, you did a film on homelessness, right? What other films have you done?

The video on homeless youth was called Youth Organizing: Power Through Art. In 2002, I made a documentary that traces the history and development of San Francisco’s Chinatown called A Vision of Smart Growth. I made an experimental short, which world-premiered at the San Francisco lesbian and gay film festival this year called Dragon Desire. I’m currently editing a documentary on the experiences of Afghan youth living in California. I’m also seeking funds for several documentaries. One project is about the experiences of newly arrived immigrant Chinese mothers and their daughters. Another project documents the lesbian of color movement in Europe, starting with a French group called the Sixth November Group. I also have a narrative script in development about the experiences of lesbians of color living in 1850 gold rush era California.

Can you tell me a bit more about QWOCMAP?

The objective of Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project is to build a vibrant and diverse community of queer women of color filmmakers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The lives and experiences of queer women of color — lesbians and bi-sexual women who are Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, Latina, Chicana, Native American, African American — are seldom heard or seen in mainstream cinema. Who will tell our stories if we don’t? So what QWOCMAP does is put filmmaking tools into the hands of queer women of color so that we can tell our own stories, and address the social and political issues pertinent to our diverse communities. The more films there are, the more images that reflect our real lives, the better.

How do you do that?

QWOCMAP promotes the creation and exhibition of films and videos by queer women of color through our two programs: the training program and the exhibition program. The training program is a free 16-week long digital-film production workshop that is offered to queer women of color. I believe in demystifying technology for my students. Because of economic issues, and survival issues, queer women of color don’t think to go into film or media, or we don’t have access to that technology. Participants learn major aspects of screenwriting, directing and video production, from conception of project idea to movie distribution — lots of hands-on exercises. The workshop culminates with individual projects that are written, directed and edited by the participants. Topics covered include development of idea, writing a script, storyboards, creating a shotlist, cinematography, continuity, lighting, sound, directing actors, managing crew, editing, film festivals and distribution.

Called the Queer Woman of Color Film Night, our exhibition program showcases the completed video projects annually during the San Francisco Queer Arts Festival every June. The screening is free and always packed, with standing room only, typically over 300 people. The atmosphere and sense of community is really incredible — watching new filmmakers experiencing public acknowledgment and love for their creative work from an extremely supportive audience! For 2005, we hope expand our one evening of film screening into the first [annual] Queer Women of Color Film Festival, a weekend-long affair. Fingers crossed on getting funding for it.

You have a very multicultural background — how does that work to your advantage in filmmaking?

Ethnically, I’m mostly Chinese, with some Malay, Indian, and Portuguese mixed in. I was born and raised in Singapore, with a stepfather who is German. My own journey in self-acceptance definitely informs my filmmaking. I definitely do not shy away from exploring the complexities in our society, and subsequently to convey those same complexities through film by interweaving different elements that can best tell that story and the issues involved. My films tend to be mixed-genre and pushes at traditional filmic boundaries. I find the traditional narrative form or the traditional documentary form somewhat limiting in terms of fully expressing my experiences. I weave scripted scenes, found footage, poetry and dance into a documentary, so that the final mixed-genre form is more able to fully express my vision.

What was it like coming out in Singapore?

Hard and challenging. I attended an all-girls convent school. I had my first girlfriend when I was 15 and I almost got expelled from school at 16, in 1980, for being a lesbian. I was constantly pulled out of my class and interrogated by the teachers and the principal about how unnatural lesbianism was, how I should use make-up, how I should date boys.

My girlfriend and I were literally forced to break up. There were no women’s support groups, no LGBT support groups, no books, no information, nothing. I literally had to re-invent the wheel for myself. I finally came out to my mum at 19. At 21, I ran an underground lesbian feminist newsletter for two years and tried to organize a lesbian community. That effort really came from trying not to feel isolated and alienated as a lesbian. After the Singapore government arrested dissenting citizens, I left for the U.S.

Do you have to struggle to get your lesbian identity validated in Singapore? How about your Asian identity among American lesbians?

Being a lesbian in Singapore today is very different than it was in
1980. Young lesbians, especially the butches, are very visible everywhere. There are organized sports for lesbians, lesbian nightclubs and email listservs for lesbians. Information is available literally at the tip of your fingers through the Internet. The last time I was in Singapore in 1999, I didn’t have to struggle to get my lesbian identity validated.

I’m extremely fortunate to live in San Francisco where a third of the population is Asian or Asian American. The community that is closest to my heart is of course the Asian Pacific Islander queer women’s community. There are tons of API queer women’s ethnic organizations here: Japanese, Mandarin speakers, Vietnamese, Singaporean and Malaysian, Filipino, South Asian, Middle Eastern — the list goes on. Asian American lesbians have been extremely supportive! So I feel totally at home here in San Francisco. The issue for me is less about being an Asian than it is about being an immigrant in the U.S. and feeling like I belong and included here.

What are your hopes for lesbian filmmaking in the future overall?

Film and video is such a powerful medium — visually and emotionally. It is the means by which we see reflections of ourselves. It is the means through which we understand our quests for self, community, the tangible and intangible world around us.

Films are all about fantasies. Fantasy of the perfect romance.
Fantasy of the ideal parents. Fantasy of the best childhood. The question is, “Whose fantasies get to go up on the big screen?” I personally have never been able to identify with any of the characters in most films. My hope is to see the lives of queer women of color reflected on the silver screen. I want to see films that tell the stories of lesbians of color from center stage, instead of having our experiences relegated to the sidelines, or worse yet, completely non-existent. I would love to see a sexy, sizzling, romantic comedy between two lesbian of color characters! Soon!

AFP: Singapore minister upholds ban on gay Christian concert

Singapore - Singapore's information and communications minister has upheld a ban on a planned weekend concert organised by a local gay Christian support group, the media industry regulator said Wednesday.The Media Development Authority (MDA) said Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang supported its earlier decision to deny a permit for the Affect05 concert scheduled for Sunday, to protect public interest. " The minister has carefully considered the appeal for the licence application for Affect05 and has decided to uphold the MDA's position that such performances that promote alternative lifestyles are against the public interest," MDA said in an e-mail to AFP.

Susan Tang, spokeswoman for the concert organiser Safehaven, said the group was disappointed with the rejection of their appeal. The MDA said last week it turned down Safehaven's application for a permit after reviewing past performances of the main performers, a Los Angeles-based Christian gay couple named Jason and deMarco.

" Based on the duo's website and reports of their performances in the United States, it is assessed that their performance will promote a gay lifestyle which would be against the public interest," the MDA said at that time. Safehaven, which lodged the appeal, has said the aim of the concert was to raise funds for HIV/AIDS sufferers in Singapore and promote awareness of the illness.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is an incurable condition which is passed on by having unprotected sex, among other causes. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. Singapore's gay and lesbian community has protested comments earlier this month by a senior health ministry official who said a sharp rise in new HIV infections could have been caused by an annual gay and lesbian party held in the city-state.
The annual Nation Party on Sentosa island is a key date in Asia's gay festival calendar.

A record 311 people in Singapore contracted HIV last year, 28 percent more than in 2003, Senior Minister of State for Health, Balaji Sadasivan said. He said 90 percent of the people who contracted the virus last year were men, a third of them gay. There are now more than 2,000 HIV-infected or confirmed AIDS patients in Singapore, which has a population of about 4.2 million people including resident foreigners.

365Gay.com: Singapore Nixes AIDS Concert Over US Gay Singers

Singapore - The government of Singapore is refusing to allow a local AIDS group to hold a fundraising concert because it would have featured gay pop singers Jason and deMarco.

Safehaven, an AIDS support group, had planned to hold the concert on April 3. " Based on the duo's website and reports of their performances in the United States, it is assessed that their performance will promote a gay lifestyle which would be against the public interest," the Singapore government said in a statement.

Singapore has one of the lowest HIV/AIDS rates in Asia, but over the past year the number of new cases rose by 28 percent. A third of the cases were in gay men. The government's ban on the concert followed remarks earlier this month by a Singapore official who claimed that a gay pride event last August was responsible for the increase in HIV.

The rejection of Safehaven's application for an event permit has angered AIDS and LGBT rights groups who say the concert was a means of drawing attention to the spread of AIDS within the gay community. Jason and deMarco are a monogamous couple for the past 5 years and regularly perform throughout the US and Canada. Jason toued for several years with the Christian Contemporary recording group TRUTH. DeMarco, who grew up in Canada, performed in concerts, festivals, and clubs in Los Angeles and across the country.

When the two met, found they had common music interests and then fell in love, they began performing together.
Last December Singapore police scuttled plans for an all-night Christmas dance party because they said it would attract a large number of gays.

Singapore, an ultramodern city-state of four million people, still bans gay sex, defining it as ``an act of gross indecency'' punishable by a maximum of two years in jail. There have been few prosecutions, however, the city state's large Moslem community has been pressuring the government to crack down on gays. Earlier this week an Anglican bishop in Uganda refused a gift of more than $350,000 to fight AIDS because the Episcopal diocese in the US which offered it supported the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. (story)

Reuters: Singapore government AIDS comment outrages gay activists

March 11. 2005

Singapore - Gay activists responded with outrage and disbelief on Thursday to statements by a Singapore official who said a gay and lesbian festival -- dubbed Asia's largest gay event -- may have caused a big spike in Aids cases. The "Nation.04" party -- a festival of international DJs, podium dancers, pumping music and muscular boys stripping off their tops on packed dance floors -- had increased in size every year since it was launched in 2000.

Last August's party could have allowed "gays from high prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community," junior health minister Balaji Sadasivan told parliament on Wednesday. Sadasivan said this was the view of an unnamed epidemiologist to explain a 28 percent rise in the number of new HIV/Aids cases in Singapore in 2004 to an all-time high of 311. " This is a hypothesis and more research needs to done," he said.

Gay activists such as Eileena Lee of People Like Us accused the government of promoting homophobia and being irresponsible.
" This is almost like paranoia," she said. "Statements like this can marginalise and stigmatise what is already a minority group." Fridae.com, which organised the event and runs Singapore's main gay and lesbian Internet site, said the government must shoulder more responsibility for the rise in HIV because of its poor public health policies and laws which criminalise oral sex. Under Singapore's Penal Code section 377A, acts of "gross indecency" between two men are punishable by up to two years in jail. The government has said it may decriminalise oral sex but only between men and women.

" In the past 25 years none of the public health campaigns have ever targeted the gay community. It's really no wonder that the rates of infection are increasing," said Stuart Koe, chief executive of Fridae.com. " It's very simplistic and dangerous of them to point the finger at one single event and say that that is responsible for the spike," he said.

Ninety percent of newly diagnosed patients were male and a third of them gay men, said Sadasivan, describing the new cases as "the tip of the iceberg" in Singapore where a total of about 2,000 people are diagnosed to be suffering from HIV/Aids. " For every Aids patient we have diagnosed, there are possibly two to four undiagnosed patients with HIV in Singapore. That means there could be, anywhere between 4000 to 8000, undiagnosed HIV patients in Singapore," he said. The "Nation.04" party -- half of whose 6000 revellers came from other Asian countries and the United States to make it Asia's largest known gay festival -- is at odds with Singapore's image as a strait-laced city-state.

But the government has turned a blind eye to the growth of an entertainment industry catering for homosexuals, quietly acknowledging the potential of the "pink dollar. " Gay activists have urged authorities to decriminalise homosexuality in the affluent, predominantly ethnic Chinese island of 4.2 million people to strengthen Aids awareness.