Three million people took part in the 11th Pride parade in São Paulo, Brazil, on June 10, making it easily the world’s largest such parade ever.

The president of the São Paulo Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transvestite Parade Association, Nelson Matias Pereira, said the march down Avenida Paulista aimed to confront homophobia, machismo and racism, according to the Agência Brasil wire service.

Marchers included the mayor, the governor and the federal sports and tourism ministers.

The official attendance figure was provided by police. Last year, 2.5 million people turned out.

According to the BBC, 70 other Brazilian cities also have Pride parades.

The day before the march, about 1 million evangelical Christians staged an anti-gay “March for Jesus.”

Reports said one participant, Christian pastor André Fabiano, used a public-address system mounted on a truck to chant, “Vade retro, Satanism! Vade retro, homosexuality!” – a paraphrase of a medieval exorcism formula.

Chief Moscow Pride organizer Nikolai Alekseev was found guilty June 9 of disobeying police orders regarding traffic control at the May 27 Pride rally outside City Hall.

The ralliers were protesting Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s refusal to issue a parade permit. Luzhkov has called gay parades “satanic.”

Alekseev was arrested as soon as he arrived at the rally. Hundreds of police officers then proceeded to watch anti-gay protesters punch and kick activists, foreign dignitaries and European parliamentarians who had gathered for the event (story: www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=9858).

Alekseev was fined about $39, the same punishment given to fellow activist Nikolai Khramov a day earlier by the same court. Alekseev is refusing to pay the fine and will appeal to the Tverskoy District Court.

“The court session [was] a farce,” he said. “The judge refused to admit photo and video evidence proving that we had not disturbed law and order. I am ready to go up to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary to prove that I am innocent and that all the charges against me were fabricated.”

Alekseev already has a case pending before the Euro court, challenging Luzhkov’s ban of last year’s Pride march.

In a similar case from Poland, the court recently ruled that a ban on Warsaw’s 2005 Pride march violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ guarantee of freedom of association and assembly, its prohibition on discrimination and its guarantee of a right to an effective remedy.

It took 800 police officers to protect it, and the arrest of 108 counter protesters, but the June 9 Pride parade in Bucharest, Romania, was a success.

Officers tear-gassed hundreds of anti-gay protesters who threw rocks, fireworks, garbage, eggs and tomatoes at the 500 marchers. No injuries were reported.

Pride organizers called for anti-discrimination protections and legalization of same-sex partnerships.

“The police did … very professional work,” said Maxim Anmeghichean, programs director of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

“The participants were guarded by tall iron police trucks on one side, which, being literally half a meter behind each other, formed a protection fence. Hundreds of policemen stood on the other side of the march, also forming a live fence of protection.”

Since most of last year’s attacks on marchers occurred in subway stations after the parade, police cleared the metro stops of neo-Nazis before allowing the marchers to disperse this year.

The parade, organized by the gay group ACCEPT, was part of Gay Fest 2007.

“[It] was … very colorful, empowering and protected with much professionalism,” Anmeghichean said.

Anti-gay activists are vowing to run gays out of a favored cruising park near the Moscow offices of President Vladimir Putin.

Members of nationalist and Christian groups told local media they will patrol Ilyinsky Park every evening and urge suspected homosexuals to move along.

About 50 people turned out for the first cleansing on June 12.

A spokesperson said the presence of a monument to military heroes makes the park “sacred.”

Openly lesbian Japanese politician Kanako Otsuji, 32, and her girlfriend, Maki Kimura, 32, got married June 3 in Tokyo.

They wore white dresses and carried roses in the ceremony that was not recognized legally.

A former member of the Osaka Prefectural Assembly, Otsuji is a proportional-representation candidate for the National Diet’s House of Councilors, the upper house of parliament. Under the proportional-representation system, the percentage of votes cast for the Democratic Party and Otsuji’s spot on the party’s list of candidates will determine if she wins election July 22. She would become Japan’s first-ever openly gay MP.

“Ten years ago, it would have been impossible for me to stand as the official candidate of a major party,” she told The Scotsman newspaper.

“I want to give all kinds of minorities in Japan a voice to express themselves in the political world … single mothers, the victims of domestic violence, common-law couples who do not have the same rights as married people – not just gays and lesbians.”

Otsuji came out publicly at Tokyo’s 2005 Pride parade.

“Homosexual people have often kept silent for fear of discrimination and prejudice,” she said at the time. “By declaring I’m homosexual, I would like to highlight the problems and put an end to a vicious circle of discrimination and prejudice.”

She later published an autobiography called Coming Out: A Journey for Finding Your True Self.

Australia saw its first adoption by a same-sex couple June 13 in Perth, local media reported.

Assistance: Bill Kelley