Fridae

HIV/AIDS is hitting Asia in a big way, and MSM are now bearing the brunt of it. Dr Tan Chong Kee urges all MSM to ask ourselves what we can do to stop the spread of HIV among the community.

A HIV/AIDS researcher has warned that Sydney's gay community could have an HIV infection rate that is similar to countries in Africa. South Africa is a step closer to legalising same-sex marriage after the controversial legislation passed both houses of Parliament. In Manila next week, the LGBT community and their allies will march on Dec 9 as the Philippine Congress is considering passing an Anti-Discrimination Bill.

New Zealand's Gay Men's Health launches "Assume Nothing," a major new HIV/AIDS awareness campaign; still on HIV/AIDS, the fifth Singapore AIDS Conference will be held on Dec 2. A Chinese university has approved the country's first LGBT campus group. In a landmark ruling, a court ruled that couples who marry in civil ceremonies abroad will be allowed to register their unions locally.

One of the most important key missions in having a gay pride parade is to create societal acceptance. But some Bangkok gay residents are resistant to accepting the event themselves. Fridae's Bangkok correspondent Vitaya Saeng-Aroon writes.

For all the praise and applause following Taipei's seventh - and largest to-date - Gay Pride festival, not all is as rosy as rainbow floats and party balloons. To scratch beneath the city's seven-year itch, Fridae's Taipei correspondent Philip Hwang talks to J.J. Lai, gay rights activist and owner of the city's iconic "GinGin's Bookstore," about double-faced authorities, clashes behind the scenes, and the future of gay pride in Taipei.

Lucky Seven: The latest Bangkok pride festival was held from Oct 28 to Nov 5 with no soldiers in sight. Douglas Sanders notes the changes this year as the parade appeared to be less commercial, over all, than in past years.

Singapore's newest HIV prevention campaign will be launched today. The *think again campaign is the first HIV prevention campaign conceptualised based directly on a survey of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Singapore.

As part of Singapore's first major penal code amendments in 22 years, anal and oral sex in private among between consenting heterosexual adults will soon be decriminalised but the law criminalising sexual acts between men will remain.

Disgraced former US evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who was fired amid allegations of paying for gay sex and drug use, will undergo "therapeutic restoration" conducted by Focus on the Family's James Dobson and two other pastors.

The major Australian broadsheet, which broke the news, is being criticised for using homophobic language such as "rampant homosexual activity," "horrified users," portraying gay men as predatory and linking gay men with paedophiles. Fridae speaks to two Sydneysiders about the issue.