Local residents across Sydney have created their own rainbow crossings in chalk after the New South Wales (NSW) State Government dismissed public pressure and had a rainbow pride crossing installed for the Sydney Mardi Gras torn up in the dead of night on Wednesday.

Not even Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore had been told that road workers would be blocking off Sydney’s iconic Oxford Street to tear up the rainbow section of the road and replace it with black bitumen.

The following day a group of residents in Commonwealth Lane, Surry Hills, used colored chalk to make their own rainbow crossing and posted a photo online and the story went viral.

A grassed section of Sydney’s Taylor Square was also planted with dozens of rainbow flags to protest the removal.

By Saturday there were dozens of copycat chalk rainbow crossings across Sydney– with shelves cleared of chalk in many inner city stores.

Photos of rainbow chalk crossings were sent by copycats to a Facebook page created by the makers of the original crossing, brother and sister James and Kelly Brechney.

That page now has over 8,000 supporters. The petition to keep the Oxford Street crossing had received nearly 16,000 signatures but the NSW Government ignored it.

Chalk rainbow crossings have appeared as far a field as Kenya and Phoenix, Arizona, in New South Wales rural centers and across state lines in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.

One brave group of protesters even turned the footpath outside the building where NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay works into a rainbow chalk crossing.

Minister Gay is the man who had the ultimate say on whether the Oxford Street crossing would stay but he refused to relent in his plans for its removal – saying it posed a potential hazard as people had stopped to photograph themselves on the crossing when traffic was stopped at the lights.

New chalk crossings have continued to appear today and many sympathetic businesses have marked the pavement outside their shops, bars and restaurants to show support for the return of the original crossing.

Many people turned to social media to write how neighbours they had never met before who had spontaneously chipped in to help were now their friends.

‘We met more of our neighbours in an hour while making this than we have over the past six months living here,’ wrote Camperdown resident Munir Kotadia.

The Oxford Street crossing cost $75,000 to install and $30,000 to tear up. The chalk ones will just wash away with the rain.

The Organizing Committee of the St. Petersburg LGBT Pride says they will attempt to hold Pride on 29 June, 2013 even though three previous attempts have resulted in arrests and harassment and the city’s ban on so called ‘homosexual propaganda’.

The committee further stated that Pride would be held in order to attract public attention to the LGBT people in the city, as well as promoting tolerance and equality.

Last year the city’s government agreed to allow Pride but then banned it only two days before the event was scheduled to take place (7 July 2012).

Despite the sudden ban activists tried to hold Pride but were detained by police for organizing an unsanctioned event. Pride has also been banned in 2011 and 2010.

During the trial of the eight detained organizers, Yury Gavrikov and Maria Efremenkova proved their innocence and police malpractice.

Speaking with Gay Star News, Gavrikov said: ‘Pride this year will also commemorate a landmark anniversary; 20 years ago, on 27 May 1993, the Russian Duma repealed the notorious law criminalizing gay sex that was used to detain thousands of people during the Soviet times.

‘20 years later, history takes a turn for the worse – the Duma is in the process of a new national anti-gay law banning the ‘promotion of homosexuality among minors’.

In November 2011, St Petersburg’s legislature adopted at first reading a law banning ‘propaganda’ of ‘homosexualism, bisexualism, transgenderism and pedophilia’.

After delays and debates the legislative assembly of Saint Petersburg approved the law, and the city’s governor signed it taking effect on 30 March 2012.

Gavrikov commented: ‘Lawsuits against St. Petersburg’s ban on LGBT public events and its anti-gay laws have been won in local courts.

‘We have been informed that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on our case against the banning of Pride march in 2010 will be delivered later this year.

‘We are confident that the verdict will be similar to the case of the ECHR “Alekseev vs. Russia’ which ruled the ban against Moscow Pride as breaching the European Convention of which Russia is a signatory.

‘Taken together these are substantial rulings by several courts that show St. Petersburg Pride has been banned illegally.

‘We, as a social group, believe in the right to hold public events and will insist on it by all possible means, including going ahead with Pride which was illegally banned by the authorities’.

Lesbian pride festival, Dyke March, will return to the UK for its second year running.

The march, taking place on 22 June, has announced this year’s route will commemorate the Votes for Women Rally – the Suffragettes marched the same way through London in 1908.

Dyke March says the event will begin at 3pm in Berkeley Square, moving on to Piccadilly and Leicester Square before arriving in Soho.

Organizer Emelia Holdaway, says the event will symbolize the biggest expression of lesbian pride without focusing on other LGBT people.

‘The march is open to all,’ she said. ‘It is organised by lesbians, for lesbians, but anyone who supports our cause can join in.

‘We want the UK to recognise how lesbians are maligned by modern society. Dyke March is to bring awareness to how lesbians are portrayed for the titillation of men today.

‘Last year we drew in around 800 attendants. This year we are expecting to draw in around 1,000.’

Speakers for the event are to be announced at a later date.

Attending the event is free. For more information on Dyke March, visit their website.

The first Dyke March took place in Vancouver, Canada in May 1981.

Speaker’s Corner at Hong Lim Park in Singapore will once again turn a rosy hue for Pink Dot, which will be on Saturday 29 June this year.

Like last year, those who believe that everyone should have the ‘freedom to love’ with gather at dusk with pink lights to form a dot showing there is support for LGBT rights in socially conservative Singapore.

The festival has grown exponentially since it started 2009 when 2,500 people turned out to show support. Last year there were 15,000 people so that the dot over-flowed out of the small park.

The organizers had hoped that the government would allow the festival to move into a larger space this year, but that didn’t happen. Speaker’s Corner at Hong Lim Park is the only place in Singapore where people are allowed to protest.

In an interview with Gay Star News last December, Pink Dot committee member Paerin Choa said that if the government allowed the festival to move to another space it would be an offical stamp of approval. Sadly, that doesn’t seem likely to happen.

This year has the potential to be a significant milestone in the passage of LGBT rights in Singapore, with the law that criminalizes gay sex being challenged in the High Court. 

Tens of thousands turned out to watch members of the New Zealand military march in uniform for the first time in Saturday’s Auckland Pride parade.

It was the first time that Auckland had hosted an LGBT pride parade since 2001 when the city’s annual Hero Parade ceased due to lack of funding.

This year’s Auckland Pride parade followed the same route as the Hero Parade – along Ponsonby Street – and terminated in Victoria Park for a large public party.

Members of the New Zealand Defence Force’s Overwatch LGBT peer support network were given permission to march in their uniforms for the first time in an LGBT pride march anywhere in New Zealand this year and were a crowd favorite.

One of those who marched, Airforce squadron leader Stu Pearce, told Radio New Zealand that there had been a serious message behind their participation in the parade despite the carnival atmosphere.

‘It sends a strong message to those men and women within the Defense Force who are perhaps struggling with their identity,’ Pearce said.

‘They might feel that they’re isolated or alone.’

Members of both the country’s Labour and Greens parties also marched in the parade – including the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Grant Robertson.

Openly gay Greens MP Kevin Hague and lesbian Labour MP Louisa Wall were joined on the lead float by the US Ambassador to New Zealand, David Huebner, and his same-sex partner – and by reigning Mr Gay World and Aucklander Andy Derleth.

This year’s parade was made possible by funding from the city council and the Mayor of Auckland, Len Brown, has promised the event will return in 2014.

The news comes as the New Zealand Parliament prepares to vote on leglislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

Traffic control has refused Queer Azaadi (freedom) Mumbai (QAM) permission to march through the city on Saturday 2 February.

Local police has agreed permission for the parade, which has been held every year since 2008, but traffic control rejected the organizers’ application.

‘They have just rejected our file without even meeting us or giving us any clear explanation,’ organizer Pallav Patankar told Gay Star News.

‘But we intend o speak to higher authorities and not let it go so easily.’

Patankar said he believed the hiccup was ‘just Indian bureaucracy’ rather than attempt to censor an expression of LGBT rights. He said there have been a lot of public protests in Mumbai recently and the authorities may feel that because QAM are not a political party, nor have political backing, ‘we are the easiest voices to silence’.

‘We, the LGBT community, walk the pride march to tell the nation that we are part of this country,’ Patankar told Times of India. ‘By denying us the right to march, we are being denied our right of free expression.’

The QAM festival started on Sunday with a kite flying event on Mumbai’s Juhu Beach and a queer games competition.

The full program includes theatre, a meeting for families, a treasure hunt, an open mic night, films, a rock concert and a flashmob.

QAM 2012 was a resounding success despite police interrupting a pre-festival fundraiser at the behest of a maverick ‘moral guardian’.

Last September police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad refused permission for the first LGBT pride march there.