ILGA's vote on NAMBLA could mean group's end

by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The status of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) as the recognized representative of gay groups throughout the world will be at stake next week when ILGA's 16th Annual World Conference votes on whether to expel a controversial pedophile group from its ranks.

The conference, scheduled to be held in New York City June 24 to July 3, is expected to draw 300 delegates representing gay organizations in as many as 60 countries, according to ILGA officials.

The event also marks the first time in over ten years that ILGA has held its world conference in the United States.

Officials say they had hoped to focus on such topics as the expanding gay movement in Eastern Europe and human rights abuses of gays in Asia, Latin America, and other regions. But virtually all of ILGA's officers have conceded that those and other international issues will be overshadowed by the group's vote on whether to oust one of its most controversial members-the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

Hanging in the balance, ILGA members say, will be ILGA's prestigious status as a non-voting, consultative member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). U.N. officials, reeling over complaints by the Unites States and other nations about ILGA's links with NAMBLA, have said ILGA itself will be expelled from the U.N. if it does not sever its ties with NAMBLA and other pedophile organizations.

NAMBLA supports the repeal of all laws banning sexual relations between adults and minors. Although the group has said it opposes all forms of sexual exploitation of minors, its press releases and position papers have said juveniles and adults should be free to enter into "non-exploitive" relationships, including sexual relationships.

ECOSOC admitted ILGA as a special status member in 1993 after years of lobbying by ILGA and its supporters. Gay activists hailed ILGA's acceptance into the U.N. as a major breakthrough for the gay movement. The special status enables ILGA members to attend U.N. meetings and events associated with human rights and healthrelated issues, giving them direct access to lobby U.N. delegates.

Most gay activists believe ILGA's ouster from the U.N. would be viewed as a serious setback for gays. U.N. officials have said it will likely take years for another gay organization to build the support it needs to gain acceptance to the U.N.

The repercussions from a decision by ILGA to retain NAMBLA would go beyond the U.N., ILGA members say. Julie Dorf, ILGA's chief representative from the United States and a member of the group's six-member secretariat, or governing body, said at least four secretariat members will withdraw their names from consideration for re-election as officers if ILGA does not expel NAMBLA.

Dorf, who said she is among those who

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secretariat members voted last November to urge the ILGA world conference to oust NAMBLA. Thus a vote by the organization to retain NAMBLA, Dorf said, will be viewed as a vote of "no confidence" in ILGA's leaders.

A withdrawal of ILGA's secretariat members could trigger other resignations and the mass withdrawal of many ofILGA's member groups, officials say, a development that could lead to the disintegration of ILGA itself.

Under ILGA's constitution, the group's annual world conference is the only body empowered to expel member groups. The constitution requires that 80 percent of the member organizations attending the conference must approve an expulsion.

Hans Hjerpekjon, a university professor from Oslo, Norway, who serves as ILGA's co-chair, has said he believes most ILGA members support the secretariat's proposal to expel NAMBLA. In a presentation at the secretariat meeting in New York last November, Hjerpekjon said ILGA accepted NAMBLA as a member over ten years ago when ILGA was dominated by radical-leaning gay groups in Western Europe.

Hjerpekjon and other ILGA leaders said then that a large number of new organizations have joined ILGA in recent years that represent mainstream gay groups in Europe as well as North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. These newer groups, ILGA leaders say, will likely support a pending resolution to expel NAMBLA and any group that espouses NAMBLA's views. Dorf, a resident of San Francisco, said she met last month with ILGA members in Europe and returned with a perception that most of the European members support efforts to expel NAMBLA.

"I'm more optimistic than I have been before that we will get the 80 percent we need [to remove NAMBLA]," Dorf said in a telephone interview.

A pre-conference schedule released by ILGA last month says the NAMBLA vote is scheduled for the morning of Thursday, June 30.

Reprinted with permission from the Washington Blade.

Let the Games begin

Continued from page 1

records are set in those events, they will officially stand.

The competitions, which run through June 25, are expected to attract as many as 500,000 spectators and pump $110 million into the local economy.

After the mayor's speech, the athletes marched around the stadium's track, which encircles a football field. Some countries, such as Canada, came with hundreds of athletes while others, such as Colombia, managed only enough to carry their national flag and a sign proclaiming their country's name.

The opening weekend included events in swimming, weight lifting, cycling, hockey, tennis, basketball, bowling, volleyball, softball and in-line skating.

The competition is being held in conjunction with an arts festival highlighting the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots, the watershed event of the gay rights movement. An estimated 1 million people are expected for the anniversary march June 26.

More than 70 different events in theater, dance, film, music, comedy, art and photography are planned over a 10-day period, playing everywhere in New York from Broadway to the tiniest East Village performance space.

From drag to drama, from celebrations of Judy Garland to a one-man show by Sir Ian McKellen, lesbian and gay culture is presented in a smorgasbord for all tastes.

Major artists contributing new works or performing include superstar Liza Minnelli, choreographer-dancer Bill T. Jones, playwrights Terrence McNally and Harvey Fierstein, singer Holly Near, comedian Reno, and a collection of artists in drag appearing in what is being billed as "Charles Busch's Dressing Up!"

Garland, the benevolent patron gay icon, will be the focal point of several events, including a film festival and a play that is set in a gay bar on the day she died. Her funeral in June 1969 occurred on the same day rioting broke out at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the beginning of gay liberation in the United States.

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