Life in Oz: how do gay rights in Australia measure up to those in the States? Right well, thanks, mate. (Gay Games VI Sydney, Australia).

Sydney is about to join the shortlist of aggressively gay-friendly cities that have hosted the Gay Games in its 20-year history. There's little question that the city, which throws the world-famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras every February, deserves its place among San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, and Vancouver, Canada, the previous hosts. It's less clear, however, how the rest of Australia--a huge, rugged country where Great Britain once exiled its criminals--measures up when it comes to acceptance of gay people. Are Americans going to notice a difference in attitude when they go Down Under for the Gay Games?

Yes and no. Not surprisingly, Australia has a lot of similarities to the United States. A strong gay and lesbian presence in the largest cities has resulted in thriving political and cultural scenes, while in the rural areas, it's a little more difficult to find comfortably out gay men and lesbians. Beyond these similarities, however, Australians say their live-and-let-live attitude has resulted in a tangible difference in the way straight and gay people perceive each other and, in turn, spawned more legal recognition for gay people than in the United States.

"On the whole, people are more laidback here, and I think they're less hung up on appearances and external details," says Gillian Kendall, a U.S. expatriate who has lived with her Aussie partner in the Melbourne suburb of Carnegie since December. "Gays and lesbians here are usually much safer to be out and to be clear about, being gays and lesbians, at work or on the street or in teaching or in government."

Kendall's relationship is a good example of the legal protections and recognition afforded to same-sex couples in Australia. Once the 41-year-old has lived with her girlfriend, 36-year-old Nicole Phillips, for 12 months, she is eligible to apply for a resident visa. Binational couples in the United States do not yet have that option.

"In the state of Victoria we have the same property rights and other like rights as married heterosexual couples," explains Leigh Johns, 32, president of Melbourne's popular annual GLBT Midsumma Festival, which takes place in January and February. "That level of acceptance and openness and tolerance is something that makes life here pretty pleasant." Johns, along with his partner of eight years and a lesbian couple, is a proud coparent of a 17-month-old daughter, Mietta.

The bulk of Australian gay society, politics, and culture revolves around the country's two main urban centers: Sydney, a sprawling, gleaming metropolis of more than 4 million people, and Melbourne, an older, more European-style city with just under 3.5 million residents. Both on Australia's southeastern coast, the cities have a dynamic with each other not unlike that between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"Sydney's gay scene tends to be en masse--big, really big--whereas Melbourne does things on a different sort of scale," says Sydney native Dominic O' Grady, editor and publisher of the Web-based Gay Australia Guide. "Mainstream gay life in Sydney is very much about taking your shirt off and partying for as long as you possibly can. They still love to party in Melbourne, but they also like to do their cafes and the restaurants. It's a bit more social, with smaller social groups there."