Threats Scrap Serbian Gay-Pride Parade
The fallout from a canceled Gay Pride parade in Serbia might be a ban on violent political groups, the AFP reported.
Speaking on Serbian television Monday, junior justice minister Slobodan Homen said the government was considering banning “all organizations that voice threats.”
He mentioned by name the two ultranationalist groups that forced the closure of a planned September 20 Belgrade Gay Pride parade: Obraz (Honor) and Serb Popular Movement 1389.
Gay groups agreed to call off their parade after the government warned it could not guarantee the parade's safety. Insufficient security during its last parade in 2001 turned the protest into chaotic violence when extremists attacked.
Serbian police officers walk past graffiti reading "Death to homosexuals," referring to the aborted gay-pride parade in Belgrade, on Sept. 20, 2009
But nationalists, who had cheered the decision as a defeat for “infidels and satanists,” proceeded with their anti-gay demonstration, even after officials banned all public gatherings in the center of the city.
The Associated Press reported that 46 extremists were arrested by police on Sunday.
Three foreigners were violently attacked in Belgrade, the nation's capital and largest city, in the days leading up to the anti-gay protest. The BBC reported that a Sunday attack on a 25-year-old Australian man followed an earlier attack on a 28-year-old French football fan who remains in critical condition. Up to 11 men could be charged with attempted murder for attacking three French football fans on Thursday, officials said.
UKgaynews.com reported a British citizen was attacked in the city center on Thursday evening.
The site also reported that a Gay Pride event hosted by Krister Bringeus, the Swedish ambassador to Serbia, took place in the Belgrade suburbs, and drew about 50 people.
“Pride is all about the message of tolerance,” Bringeus told the crowd. “I am very sorry that Pride didn't take place. But welcome to this small Pride event.”
On Friday, Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas came out in favor of outlawing “groups and organizations that condone violence.”
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Gay history is always in the making and I believe we are living in a day and age that is very fascinating, as fascinating as the Stonewall Riots 40 years ago. 
S.C. House lawmakers have given key approval to a new teen dating violence policy that excludes references to gay relationships. A bill that would require schools to provide resources to teens about dating violence passed the South Carolina State House Thursday. Debate over LGBT inclusion has turned a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation into a firebrand.
A brutal beating on the streets of Manhattan, New York has left a Buffalo man fighting for his life Thursday night. And police say the victim may have been the target of a hate crime. Crime tape cordoned off the West Greenwich Village Street more than twelve hours after the brutal 2:00 a.m. attack.
Kaushal Niroula, prime suspect in the Gay Grifter murder case, in which a group of high-living San Francisco nightlife denizens allegedly killed and robbed a retired gay Palm Springs art dealer, collapsed in court Monday and was taken to the hospital.
A Colorado man who says he bludgeoned his date to death out of rage and shock after discovering she was biologically male was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder and a hate crime. Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding Allen Ray Andrade, 32, guilty of killing Angie Zapata, formerly known as Justin Zapata, 18, of Greeley last July after meeting up on a social networking website. District Judge Marcelo Kopcow swiftly sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole -- the state's mandatory sentence for first-degree murder.
Zapata, a transsexual, had dressed as female for much of her life, her family said. The case was among the first uses of a hate-crimes statute that protects transgendered people. The victim's mother, Maria Zapata, told the judge before sentencing: "It's been so hard, so hard for my family and myself. . . . I lost something, somebody so precious."
I hope you address the recent rough-play-gone-bad death of New York City radio newsman George Weber. According to reports, it appears Weber met a guy on Craigslist for "violent sex," and the guy stabbed Weber to death. It's a reminder that if you have these kinds of fantasies -- Weber wanted to be bound and abused -- you're better off doing it with someone you trust and not with some random trick off the Internet. No one should wind up dead trying to fulfill a sexual desire.
More than 2,000 gay men, lesbians and their allies took back Vancouver's West End on Sunday, shutting down Davie St and marching to demand an end to gaybashings and the violence that continues to target our community accord to 
Vancouver has seen five gaybashing trials in the last eight years. Only once has the Crown sought a hate crime designation, Herbert pointed out, asking the crowd to send Crown a message that gaybashings must be treated as hate crimes and stiffer sentences sought.
A man accused of murdering his former lover by pouring gasoline over his head and then setting him on fire has told a jury he is innocent in a London, England court. Nadim Kurrimbukus, 25, and a second man, Yusuf Dulloo, 27, are charged with murdering Charlie Davies (pictured left).
