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Monday, Oct 06, 2008
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Rex Wockner |
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| International News | |
| Anti-Luzhkov protesters arrested in Moscow
Three pro-gay protesters were arrested June 27 outside the European Commission office in Moscow during a picket by 25 people urging the European Union to revoke Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's right to travel in the 25-country bloc. The protesters said Luzhkov doesn't deserve to visit the EU because he has twice banned Moscow's Gay pride parade, calling it "satanic." Police halted the protest and arrested its apparent leaders even though the activists had a permit for the event. They were charged with "breach of a street demonstration order." "The formal reason [for the police action] was the construction which had suddenly appeared in front of European Commission office just a day ago," said Gay activist Nikolai Baev. "The police argued it could not protect demonstrators in this situation. ... There was no construction technique, just two holes digged on a huge and enclosed area. Perhaps this 'construction' will disappear in few days as suddenly as it appeared." The picket had received approval from city officials on June 25. The individuals who requested the permission were not known to the city as Gay activists. But the media then reported that the picket was related to Luzhkov's anti-Gay actions. On June 26, the organizers received phone calls from officials saying the picket could not be held due to street construction. On June 27, the authorities announced they could not guarantee the safety of the protesters. On June 28, at the picket itself, police then produced a document banning the event. "Activists applied [for] this picket as a demonstration which formally was not related to the Moscow Gay community," said Baev. "Among picket organizers was no one who was known by the homophobic authorities as Gay or Lesbian activist. Therefore the picket was originally approved in such an easy way. But as soon as mass media announced the picket as a demonstration of LGBT people, the Moscow authorities decided to cancel the rally. ... This is a very clear example of homophobic discrimination which is practiced by the Luzhkov administration." The picketers did manage to deliver a letter to the European Commission office demanding that Luzhkov's EU visa be revoked. Addressed to EC President José Manuel Barroso, the letter detailed Luzhkov's "homophobic ... violations of freedom of assembly." For the past two years, attempts to stage banned pride events in Moscow have ended in violence and bloodshed. Full stories on the mêlées are at tinyurl.com/2nkl7p and tinyurl.com/2lt8pl. Way more foreigners than Canadians marrying in Toronto Only one Canadian same-sex couple has gotten married in Toronto this year, while 118 American gay couples have married there along with 201 gay couples from elsewhere in the world. Same-sex marriages account for 4.3 percent of marriages so far this year. Ontario legalized same-sex marriage in 2003 and hundreds of Canadian gay couples have married in Toronto since then. In 2005, Canada legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Last year, 924 same-sex couples married in Toronto, 107 of them Canadian, 338 American and 479 from other nations. New Buenos Aires mayor was once anti-gay Newly elected Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri once told a daily newspaper that Gay people are sick. In a 1997 interview with Página/12, Macri was asked if he'd accept Gay players on the Boca Juniors soccer team he owns. He answered: "This situation hasn't come up. It's a complicated situation. It's a sickness. This is not a 100 percent healthy person. ... It's an undesirable deviation." The interviewer responded that seeing homosexuality as a sickness is "a bit of an old-fashioned idea." And Macri replied: "Would you be happy if your son were homosexual? Please. The world has made us so we join with a woman. Why are we going to join with a man?" By last month, however, Macri had moderated his stance. Answering a candidate questionnaire from the organization Argentina Homosexual Community, Macri said, "Society as a whole needs public campaigns that discourage and condemn all types of violence and discrimination, and that includes sexual orientation." But Macri was otherwise very cautious in answering several specific questions, choosing to speak against discrimination in general and not committing to any other specific actions on behalf of GLBT people. Civil-union bill introduced in Costa Rica Opposition lawmakers introduced a same-sex civil-union bill in Costa Rica June 19. It would grant spousal rights in areas such as inheritance, bereavement leave and medical decisions. The bill's sponsors, from the Citizens Action Party and Social Christian Unity Party, said they couldn't predict whether the measure would pass. Istanbul gay bars raided Istanbul police raided two Gay bars June 16, pushing patrons into the streets with threats of using pepper spray and billy clubs. When the patrons then ignored orders to disperse and instead began clapping, some were clubbed, said the Commission for Monitoring Human Rights of LGBTT Persons and Law, a project of several Turkish Gay organizations. The same officers, from the Beyoglu District, then went "hunting" for Gays and transgender people elsewhere and attacked several, the commission claimed. The commission demanded that the city's public prosecutor, the mayor, Parliament and the prime minister "investigate, search and monitor the human rights violations against LGBTT persons." "We will not be quiet against being prevented from our basic rights of being a human with any arbitrary practices," the group said. Canadian Anglicans won't bless same-sex couples The bishops of Canada's Anglican Church voted 21-19 June 24 against giving dioceses the option of allowing priests to bless same-sex marriages. To be approved, the measure needed majority support in separate votes by three groups at the General Synod meeting in Winnipeg: the bishops, the clergy and the laity. The latter two groups voted in favor of same-sex blessings. The clergy vote was 63-53 and the laity vote 79-59. Paradoxically, the synod also declared that blessing same-sex marriages does not conflict with the core doctrine of the Anglican Church of Canada. And the newly elected leader of the church, Halifax Bishop Fred Hiltz, voted for Gay blessings. "How long must this conversation continue?" Hiltz asked. "On the one hand, we said it is a matter of doctrine, but not creedal -- that is, not essential to one's salvation, shall we say. But on the other hand, the church is not prepared ... to proceed immediately with the blessing of same-sex unions." In the larger context, the entire worldwide Anglican Communion is teetering on the brink of schism because of strong and prolonged disagreements over whether to treat gays the same as straight people. The U.S. wing of the communion, the Episcopal Church, is in a particularly precarious position because it does allow same-sex blessings and, in 2004, it horrified church conservatives by electing an openly Gay and partnered bishop in New Hampshire, an act that effectively tossed red meat to homophobes in developing nations with large Anglican churches, such as Nigeria. The Anglican mother church, the Church of England -- and the Anglican Communion spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams -- seem to be trapped between the warring factions and have been unable to make anyone happy. Canada is one of six nations where Gay couples have access to full civil marriage. 2,000 march in Edinburgh About 2,000 people marched in the Gay pride parade in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 23. It rained, but cleared up for the post-parade festival at Pilrig Park in Leith. "We had a real ale bar, entertainment, a health and community fair, sporting activities and a 'petting zoo' organized by LGBT Youth Scotland," said spokesman John Hein. "A nice day out which wasn't helped by the weather -- but it all came right in the end and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves." There were Gay pride celebrations in scores of other cities around the globe in June, some attracting hundreds of thousands of participants. Gay pride in Edinburgh. |
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| by Rex Wockner SGN Contributing Writer "I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage." --Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, speaking at the kickoff event for San Francisco gay pride, June 24. "It's not the only thing we disagree about. She actually says what she thinks. A lot of people I love and care about feel the same way Elizabeth does. ... I'm very strong about ending discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. But I'm not quite where Elizabeth is yet." --John Edwards appearing with his wife on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, June 25. "The differences between the Democratic and Republican fields of candidates on [LGBT] issues are shockingly stark and profoundly depressing. Over time, the majority of Americans have moved to support basic fairness for LGBT Americans, including nondiscrimination and hate crimes laws, repeal of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell,' and protections for our families. Sadly, the Republican field has gone in the opposite direction, still clearly pandering to the venom of the so-called 'religious right.' This only means that they will continue to use our lives as cultural wedge fodder whenever it's deemed politically expedient." --National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman in a June 27 statement. "We were all amphetamine thin with long dirty hair and hip huggers and funny black boots that zipped up the side and denim cowboy shirts with pearlescent pressure-pop buttons. We didn't have big showboat muscles or lots of attitude. We didn't look very healthy, but we were healthy -- this was 12 years before AIDS was first heard of, and all we got was the clap. We had that a lot, maybe once a month, since no one but paranoid married men used condoms." --Gay author Edmund White writing about 1969 and the Stonewall Inn in the pride issue of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, June 20. See tinyurl.com/2k9c5q. "I was there [the night the Stonewall Inn was raided], just by chance, and I remember thinking it would be the first funny revolution. We were calling ourselves the Pink Panthers and doubling back behind the cops and coming out behind them kicking in a chorus line. We were shouting 'Gay Is Good' in imitation of the slogan 'Black Is Beautiful.' GLBT leaders like to criticize young gays for not taking the movement seriously, but don't listen to them. Just remember that at Stonewall we were defending our right to have fun, to meet each other, and to have sex. Up till that moment, we had all thought that homosexuality was a medical term. Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group -- with rights, a culture, and an agenda. June 27, 1969, was a big date in gay history." --Gay author Edmund White writing in the pride issue of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, June 20. See tinyurl.com/2k9c5q. "[W]e're at war with jihadists (and millions of their supporters around the world) who wish devoutly to see Western liberties replaced by Koranic law. To acknowledge this reality is not to buy into some nefarious right-wing agenda; it's to recognize a clear and present threat to liberal democracy -- a threat that gays, above all, should take seriously, because tolerance of people like us heads the long list of things about the West that drive orthodox Muslims nuts, and because we'd be among the very first to suffer in a society governed according to sharia." --Gay author Bruce Bawer writing in the pride issue of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, June 20. "[M]ore pro-LGBT-rights laws were passed this year than any year in our movement's history. As a result, for the first time more than half the U.S. population will live in jurisdictions that outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and nearly 40 percent will live in jurisdictions that protect transgender people from discrimination. Seven years ago, the fight for civil unions in Vermont nearly caused a civil war. In the last seven months, however, three states -- New Jersey, Oregon, and New Hampshire -- enacted civil-union laws with barely a ripple. As a result, one-fifth of the population will now live in a state that offers broad protections to same-sex couples." --National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman writing in the pride issue of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, June 20. "You can have a loving relationship despite an age difference. ... I think the Greeks understood it well, and so did the gay community. Back in the '70s, the gay community featured older, hairy guys in gay porn all the time. During the AIDS crisis, everything we saw, in advertising and porn, suddenly became young and clean." --Christopher Turner, 35, husband of author Armistead Maupin, 62, to the San Francisco Chronicle, June 17. "I have a really bad habit of taking washcloths from hotels. White ones, with the round corners. I use them back home to wipe up around my sink. I'm obsessive. After I brush my teeth or wash my face -- if there's a drop of water on the faucet or sink I take one of my washcloths and clean them up. I love them when they're 100 percent cotton. I have good ones from the Palais Jamaï Fès. They were mint and had the P and J sewn in. Very chic." --Lesbian comedian and actress Sandra Bernhard to the Dallas Voice, June 15. "I was looking through second-hand [record] stores and things that were uncharted territory, at least for me. So then I landed on country music and really started to get a vision for cow punk, and fell in love with Patsy Cline, and sort of had an image of how I could approach country with a very liberal, gay, vegetarian point of view." --Lesbian singer k.d. lang to Chicago's Windy City Times, June 20. "It really started because I don't wear leather, and finding appropriate plastic shoes became too much of a hassle." --Lesbian singer k.d. lang on why she performs barefoot, to Chicago's Windy City Times, June 20. "Travel is over. Travelling to America, I can't think of anything worse. This is the year I unveil my new no-planes policy. ... Before 9/11, airports were my favourite place in the world. Now, they are just where you see the mess of the world, the worst side of authority, with swaggering security people telling all the wrong people to take their belts off. It's just not a good feeling any more." --Gay actor Rupert Everett to Scotland's Sunday Herald, June 24. "Gay audiences are just fantastic. They can be very fickle but they are extremely loyal and they escort a diva on the path of her career and that is a beautiful thing!" --Pop singer Melissa Manchester to Chicago's Windy City Times, June 20. "I'm really slutty when it comes to MySpace. I'll be friends with everybody. I'll fuck Tom, I don't care." --Honorary-homosexual comedian Margaret Cho when the San Diego gay magazine Buzz pointed out that her MySpace page has 49,000 friends, June 22. "Olivia Newton John -- for years everybody was talking about how she was a lesbian, and then I met her and she was so hetero. It was the headband she wore all through the '80s that made people think she liked women." --Comedian Margaret Cho to the San Diego gay magazine Buzz, June 22. "I find it particularly disturbing when American politicians and Hollywood people embrace Fidel Castro. I don't know if they understand they are embracing a murderer, a dictator, a man who has been horrible to gays and lesbians, particularly focused on homosexuals. He had a whole campaign to basically, I would call it torture gays and lesbians. I don't get it when the Hollywood people kind of embrace him." --Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani speaking with reporters June 21 in Hialeah, Fla., according to The New York Times' blog. "Ex-gay ministries are support groups designed to offer strategies to keep people out of gay establishments or relationships that they desperately want to be in. In the old days, this was simply called being in the closet. But Exodus [International] figured out that misery likes company and that they could profit by creating a communal closet where self-loathing and sexually frustrated homosexuals could whine to each other about their unhappiness." --Syndicated Gay press columnist Wayne Besen, June 21. "Gay leaders repeat endlessly that abortion is a gay issue, but it isn't. Personally, I support all forms of abortion: A fetus may be 'human' but it is not a 'person.' Nevertheless, how abortion can be an issue for gays and lesbians whose sexual activity does not produce fetuses is never explained. Yes, some lesbians might want to get pregnant but then abort a badly deformed fetus. Fine. Get an abortion, but don't say doing it is a gay issue just because you are Gay. Gay leaders say people have a right to control their own bodies. I agree. But do they mean it? Do they therefore also defend, as I do, the right to assisted suicide, S/M, drug use, ex-gay therapy, prostitution, promiscuity, etc.? And the central issue remains whether a fetus is just part of a woman's body or an autonomous person. That argument is seldom joined." --Syndicated Gay press columnist Paul Varnell, June 27. "GLBT (or more recently -- ladies first) LGBT is a relatively young orthodoxy. It originates from a 1995 meeting of gay organization leaders in Washington who decided that we were no longer the gay/lesbian movement but the 'gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender' movement. Well, I don't feel bound by what 'gay leaders' try to dictate. It was amusing at the time to hear people initially spit out the whole litany (instead of just saying 'gay') before the acronym was contrived. But these aren't all one movement and what we have in common is limited." --Syndicated gay press columnist Paul Varnell, June 27. "Emulating Sexual Contact Open Source Masturbation Fetish Lore Jesus Hates Trannies?" --E-mail subject line on stock-promoting spam that made it through this column's spam filters, June 28. Further down, the spam informs us that "hormones may change the behavior of the amygdala effecting women's visual focus when looking at erotic images." It asks: "Afraid to Start Your Second Sex Life? Feel free to share your feelings about Surrendered Wives." And it ends with the burning question, "Is that Woman Looking at Your Crotch?" |
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