Three days after an attempt to stage Moscow’s first Pride march ended in violence, injuries and arrests, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said he blocked the May 27 march because Russia is morally cleaner than other nations.

“Our way of life, our morals and our tradition – our morals are cleaner in all ways,” Luzhkov told a local radio station. “The West has something to learn from us and should not race along in this mad licentiousness.”

The small group of marchers was attacked repeatedly by neo-fascists, skinheads, militant Christians and riot police while attempting to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin and stage a rally in a square across from City Hall.

In all, at least 120 people were arrested, both gays and lesbians and counterprotesters. They were later released, but march organizers Nikolai Alekseev and Eugenia Debryanskaya face court appearances for staging an illegal picket.

“I am not going to attend the hearing,” Alekseev said May 31. “They will probably fine me. I am not going to pay any fines and am ready to go all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Police said the marchers and their supporters numbered around 200. About 1,000 police officers, a quarter of Moscow’s force, were assigned to prevent the march from happening.

Fifty-one anti-gay protesters were arrested June 3 at the Pride parade in Bucharest, Romania, after they threw bottles, rocks and eggs at the marchers. Ten people were injured in the fracas.

More than 1,000 protesters – including nuns and priests carrying crosses – confronted the 500 marchers. Other homophobes tossed eggs from balconies along the parade route.

Earlier in the day, 400 supporters of the Christian organization Noua Dreapta (New Right) staged a so-called family-values march in protest against the Pride parade and in support of “normality.”

Polish gays and lesbians have won the right to stage Pride parades.

In a definitive ruling May 25, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court upheld a ruling against Poznan Mayor Ryszard Grobelny, who banned last year’s parade.

Other Polish officials – including President Lech Kaczynski when he was mayor of Warsaw – also have banned or attempted to ban Pride parades.

The ruling applies nationwide.

A committee of Bermuda’s House of Assembly rejected a bill May 26 that would have amended the Human Rights Act to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.

Member of Parliament Renee Webb, the bill’s author, told local media she had “never seen anything so lacking courage.”

The measure was rejected in a voice vote, and Deputy Speaker of the House Jennifer Smith refused Webb’s request for a roll call.

The Human Rights Tribunal in the Canadian province of Ontario ruled May 25 that transgender people who are strip-searched by police can choose whether a male or female officer – or both – conducts the search.

The case was brought by Rosalyn Forrester, a preoperative transsexual who was searched by male Peel Region police officers in 1999 and 2001, despite her requests that females perform the searches.

The tribunal found the police guilty of sex discrimination and ordered the force to produce and show its officers a video on transsexuality.

Six anti-gay protesters hurled verbal abuse, a glass jug of water, cups, pens and a copy of the Constitution at Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell as he spoke about same-sex civil partnership at a May 26 conference in Dublin.

The demonstrators, said to be from the Catholic group Ancient Order of Hibernians, left after 10 minutes.

McDowell described the disruption at the Royal College of Physicians as a “mini-riot” and said Irish gays and lesbians deserve equality.

New Zealand’s gay and lesbian film festival, Out Takes, has been criticized by some community activists for offering a trip to Fiji as a membership incentive prize.

Fiji bans gay sex and reportedly blocks entry of people who are HIV-positive.

The group Reel Queer, which stages the film fest, defended the prize by arguing that a boycott of Fiji would be less effective than “to stand up and be present in the face of unjustified persecution.”

The Jerusalem District Court on May 29 ordered the city to fund the activities of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, including the annual Pride parade.

The city must give Open House $77,566 in funding that was denied in the years 2003-2005 and stop discriminating in its future funding of nonprofit groups, Judge Judith Tsur ruled.

“The municipality … must treat this community with equality, out of recognition of the supreme value of equality, and out of respect for the values of tolerance and pluralism, which exist at the heart of democratic society,” she said.

Same-sex couples united under Sweden’s registered-partnership law are divorcing at a higher rate than heterosexual couples, Radio Sweden reported May 30.

According to Statistics Sweden, 30 percent of lesbian couples and 20 percent of gay male couples have split after five years compared to 13 percent of married heterosexual couples.

More than 3,300 same-sex couples have tied the knot in the 11 years Sweden has offered registered partnerships.

Assistance: Bill Kelley