Page 12 - ATD 23OCT,2015
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WORLD NEWSFriday 23 October 2015
In pageant-crazy Venezuela, men compete for Miss Gay British couple is
killed at home on
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) island of Tobago
— There’s a beauty contest
for almost everyone in pag- Argenis Gonzalez wears the Miss Gay Venezuela crown after winning the beauty pageant in Ca- JABARI FRASER
eant-obsessed Venezuela. racas, Venezuela. When not dressed as a woman, Gonzalez goes by the first name Manuel. DAVID McFADDEN
In the popular Miss Gay Associated Press
Venezuela competition, (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad
men don elaborate wigs (AP) — Police said they are
and layers of makeup to any other country. Young The Miss Gay contest is event was 24-year-old so- currently investigating the
show off their skills in what women from poor neigh- less conventional, but still cial media coordinator slaying of a British man and
they call “the art of trans- borhoods pay huge sums cleaves to some beauty Manuel Gonzalez, who his wife who were found
formation.” to attend beauty schools contest norms, including competed as Argenis hacked to death in their
At the ninth annual event with hopes of making it to evening wear and swimsuit Gonzalez. In classic beau- home on Tobago, a tiny
on Sunday, the frenzy of the international pageant competitions. All contes- ty queen style, he burst Caribbean island where
backstage activity was circuit. Young men com- tants have to be younger into tears after it was an- there have been other un-
intense, with young men pete in events that reward than 37 and stand at least nounced he had won as solved attacks on expatri-
pinning wigs into place, handsome faces and chis- 1.7 meters (5’6”) tall. the representative of Cara- ates and tourists by ma-
adjusting fake breasts and eled muscles. The winner of Sunday’s bobo state.q chete-wielding assailants.
creating hourglass figures Trinidad and Tobago po-
by wrapping their waists lice have identified the
multiple times with thick slain couple as Richard
tape. Some spent up to five and Grace Wheeler. The
hours getting ready. butchered body of the Brit-
After their painstaking ish lawyer was found in his
preparation, contestants Carnbee home, while his
wearing 1950s-style cat wife was found in their yard
eye makeup, pink lips and with her throat slit. The bod-
blonde pin curls performed ies were apparently first dis-
song and dance numbers covered by their gardener.
and strutted their stuff in se- There have been no arrests
quined dresses created by in the apparent home in-
some of Venezuela’s top vasion. Acting Senior Police
designers. Beauty pageants Superintendent Joanne Ar-
have reached the level of chie said Wednesday that
national sport in Venezu- investigators are “follow-
ela, which claims to have ing every possible lead” in
produced more interna- Tobago, the smaller and
tional contest winners than less developed of the two
islands that make up the
Gay couples celebrate civil unions for first time in Chile twin-island Caribbean na-
tion off the coast of Ven-
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Some wore matching tra- “Now we can make deci- “The civil union doesn’t ezuela.
Dozens of same-sex cou- ditional Chilean cowboy sions together like a cou- end our struggle. We’re It’s the latest unsolved
ples in Chile began cele- garb, others elegant tux- ple. We’re thrilled.” demanding same-sex mar- attack by a machete-
brating civil unions on Thurs- edos and dresses. Civil union gives same-sex riage. wielding assailant in tour-
day, taking advantage of “It was beautiful. It was and unmarried couples We’re going to request for ist-dependent Tobago. A
a new law that gay advo- such a nice ceremony. It many of the rights grant- the measures stuck in con- German couple in their 70s
cates say is a clear sign of was all very emotional. ed to married couples. gress to be revived,” said were found fatally hacked
change in a country long Our families were here, Partners can inherit each Rolando Jimenez, president on a beach last year near
regarded as one of Latin everyone was shedding other’s property, join one of the Gay Liberation and their vacation home on To-
America’s most socially tears,” Virginia Gomez told another’s health plans and Integration Movement. bago’s southern coast.
conservative. reporters after she regis- receive pension benefits. Chile decriminalized gay That fatal attack was a
The civil union law was tered her union with her They have been recog- sex in 1999 and It was one short distance away from a
debated in Congress for partner, Roxana Ortiz. nized in several South Amer- of the last countries in the villa where a British couple
over a decade until it was “History changes today,” ican countries, though only world to legalize divorce, in were seriously injured in a
passed and signed into law Ortiz said, showing the blue Argentina and Uruguay al- 2004. 2009 home invasion by a
by the president in April. As passport-like document low formal gay marriage. The brutal killing of a gay man wielding a machete.
it went into effect, couples that validates their union. Gay advocates in Chile man in 2012 set off a na- The year before, a Swedish
began arriving at civil regis- The couple had married in are celebrating the right to tional debate that prompt- couple was butchered in
try offices early to officially Spain but their union was same-sex civil unions as a ed Congress to pass a hate their Tobago villa in a simi-
validate their unions. not recognized in Chile. step toward full rights. crimes law. q lar home invasion.q
