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Monday, Oct 06, 2008
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Rex Wockner |
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| International News | |
| Cameroon jails Gay men Six men were jailed in Cameroon in mid-August after a young man who had been arrested on theft charges was coerced by police into naming his Gay friends, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reported. "The tactics of the Cameroonian government define the term 'witch hunt,'" said Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC's senior program officer for Africa. "Imagine being forced to denounce your friends. Imagine finding yourself in prison because your name is on a list." More than 20 people have been detained in the past two years under Article 347 of Cameroon's penal code, which criminalizes consensual sex between men. "Hardly a month goes by without reports of the arrests of people because of their sexuality," said Steave Nemande, director of the Gay group Alternatives-Cameroun. Nemande recently wrote a letter to the Ministry of Justice in an attempt to address the situation. Dutch Gays worried about anti-Gay attacks An increase in Gay-bashings on the streets of Amsterdam this year is worrying some Dutch Gay people. A new survey conducted by the EenVandaag television show and the national Gay group COC found that 42 percent of Gays and Lesbians feel less safe in public than they did a year ago, ?dutchnews.nl reported. Of that 42 percent, 38 percent said they have encountered anti-Gay situations in the streets -- 64 percent of which were verbal assaults and 12 percent of which were physical attacks. Pollsters questioned 1,980 Gay people as part of a larger survey of 23,000 Dutch residents. Overall, 61 percent of respondents said the Netherlands is a Gay-friendly country and 72 percent support the nation's law that allows same-sex couples to marry. COC originally stood for Cultuur en Ontspannings-Centrum (Culture and Leisure Center) but the organization now is known solely by its former initials. Nova Scotia Gays sue city over flag snub Pride organizers in Truro, Nova Scotia, have filed a complaint with the provincial Human Rights Commission over the Town Council's refusal to raise the rainbow flag over the Civic Building during August's pride festivities. "[We] believe that there is some form of homophobia in the works there," Charles Thompson, spokesman for Truro Pride, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The council has OK'd flying flags for other groups and organizations. The vote against the Gay flag was 6-1. Mayor Bill Mills remarked: "God says, 'I'm not in favor of that [homosexuality],' and I have to look at it and say, 'I guess I'm not, either.' "If I have a group of people that says pedophiles should have rights, do we raise their flag too? I don't want to lump them in with homosexuals, but that's the point, the issues, and that's my feeling. There doesn't seem to be standards anymore. Everything is OK, everything is a go." Truro, population 12,000, is about 60 miles (96 km) northwest of Halifax. Hungarian radio station fires anti-Gay editors Budapest's Lánchid Rádió station fired two editors Aug. 29 after they posted a doctored photograph on the station's Web site that showed openly Gay government official Gábor Szetey wearing a pink triangle and standing outside the Auschwitz ?concentration camp. Szetey, the federal human resources secretary of state, publicly came out July 5 as he opened Budapest's 12th Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Festival of culture and arts. Responding to the photo incident, Szetey told reporters he "cannot be intimidated." The radio station's management called the picture "impermissible and offensive" and apologized to Szetey and anyone else who found it upsetting. Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány also denounced the image, calling it ?"a scoundrel act." "The fascists are gathering," Gyurcsany said. "They are not knocking on the door, they are right here among us." On July 7, Budapest's Gay pride parade was attacked by hundreds of skinheads, neo-Nazis and other thugs. They threw eggs, bottles, smoke bombs, Molotov cocktails and bags of sand at the 2,000 marchers, physically attacked several marchers, and pelted police with beer bottles. The protesters chanted, "Faggots into the Danube, followed by the Jews," "Soap factory" and "Filthy faggots." Dozens more pride attendees were attacked in the vicinity of the post-parade party at the open-air, riverside Buddha Beach nightclub, the parade's endpoint. In his pride-week coming-out speech, Szetey said: "It is not your choice whether you are Gay or not, but it is your choice to accept it. ... I believe in truth and I am sick and tired of lies. ... I believe that we can and we have to break the culture of silence. I have to say out loud who am I, so that finally my own decisions direct my destiny. We have to say it out loud so that we take control of our lives. So that we can be what we are meant to be. ... So that we don't have to live two different lives. One public life and one secret life. Indonesian Gay film fest gains acceptance The sixth Q! Film Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, attracted less opposition than in some previous years when Muslim protesters tried to halt screenings. The event, which ran from Aug. 24 to Sept. 2, featured 80 movies, making it the largest Gay film festival in Asia. An Indonesian documentary shown at the festival focused on the "sacred transvestites" of a community on the island of Sulawesi. 60,000 at Copenhagen pride Some 60,000 people turned out for Copenhagen's Gay pride parade Aug. 25, the highlight of 11 days of pride events. A party followed in Town Hall Square featuring Danish and Swedish entertainers. A report on the Euro-Queer e-mail list said media coverage of the events was scant. Aussie transsexual loses birth-certificate case A postoperative transsexual in the Australian state of Victoria lost a federal court case Aug. 29 in which she sought to have her sex changed from male to female on her birth certificate. In a 2-1 ruling, the court said the unnamed woman could not switch her official sex because she is married and Australian federal law specifically bans same-sex marriage. |
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| by Rex Wockner -
SGN Contributing Writer "Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage ... by reason of the fact that both persons comprising such a couple are of the same sex. [State marriage law] must be read and applied in a gender neutral manner so as to permit same-sex couples to enter into a civil marriage." -Polk County District Court Judge Robert Hanson striking down Iowa's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act on Aug. 30. He said the law violates the state constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection. One same-sex couple managed to marry the next day before Hanson issued a stay of his decision while the county appeals the ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court. "The states have always determined age of marriage, other conditions and over time we've gotten rid a lot of discrimination that used to exist in marriage laws. That's now happening. People are making decisions. Civil unions, marriage. They're deciding in the states and I think that's the appropriate place for that to be." -Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Aug. 31. "People in California have to be prepared to march in celebration or in protest. If he signs it, then there should be a massive celebration, and if he doesn't sign it, there should be a humongous demonstration of anger, which there wasn't last time. It's shocking that the Gay population in California has been invisible on all this. You also need to have a massive protest before Schwarzenegger acts. Tell him, 'Sign that bill or else.' You need to have a lot of angry Gay people. You tell him, 'We are angry you sold us down the river so far, and we won't let you do it again.'" -Author and activist Larry Kramer to this column Sept. 1 on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's expected veto of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Schwarzenegger vetoed an identical bill in 2005 - the only time any U.S. legislature has voted to open the institution to same-sex couples. "The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone Gay these days and very few people - excepting some committed anti-Gay activists - really care. It's the kind of thing that drives religious conservatives crazy because it makes the party look like it's not really committed to traditional sexual morality." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Dale Carpenter in an Aug. 29 filing. "[A] closeted Gay Republican [lives] a life of desperation and fear and loneliness, of expressing one's true feelings only in the anonymity of the Internet, of furtive bathroom encounters, of late nights darting in and out of dark bars, hoping not to be seen. It [is a] life without a long-term partner, without real love." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Dale Carpenter in an Aug. 29 filing. "My gut wrenched when I read of Sen. Larry Craig's bathroom arrest. I remembered my own late-night encounter with the law at a Garden State Parkway rest stop following a political dinner in north Jersey. I pulled into the rest stop, parked my car, flashed my headlights, which was 'the signal,' and waited. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I saw a state trooper approaching. I desperately tried to convince the trooper of my innocence, showing him my former prosecutor's badge, a gift from the office when I left. The trooper radioed his office and returned. 'I never want to see you here again,' he said. I survived for another day. I was in my late 20s. It would be another 25 years before my parallel lives collided and I was coerced out of the 'closet.'" -Former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey writing in the Washington Post, Sept. 3. "While many Americans may only be vaguely familiar with the idea of 'cruising,' there is a secret world of sex between men that exists in public places across the country. ... Public places like men's restrooms, in airports and train stations, truck stops, university libraries and parks, have long been places where Gay and Bisexual men, particularly those in the closet, congregate in order to meet for anonymous sex. Over time, people familiar with cruising told ABCNEWS.com, Gay men began using a codified system of signals to indicate to others that they were interested in sex." -ABC News covering the Sen. Larry Craig toilet-sex scandal, Aug. 28. "Tapping of the foot is pretty standard for men who cruise in toilets. They will usually go to the stall at the far end of the strip of toilets. They will see each other and usually decide to go someplace else. The vast majority have no interest in being seen. They may be meeting in public locations, but they will be as discreet as possible." -Keith Griffith, owner of CruisingForSex.com, discussing the Sen. Larry Craig toilet-sex scandal with ABC News, Aug. 28. "Sen. Larry Craig ... has been publicly denying assertions that he's Gay since at least 1982, when a whisper campaign implicated him in a House page scandal. Back then he called allegations of homosexual conduct 'despicable.' Last year he called new charges brought by notorious Gay-rights activist Mike Rogers 'completely ridiculous.' On Monday, Craig denied 'any inappropriate conduct' in a men's room at the Minneapolis airport (even after he pleaded guilty). And today, he declared 'I am not Gay and never have been.' And in between his 1982 denial and last year's, he called President Bill Clinton a 'naughty boy' and talked of giving the president a little spanking for his Oval Office tryst and denial of it." -Mary Ann Akers writing on the Washington Post's blog about the Sen. Larry Craig toilet-sex scandal, Aug. 28. "It seems as that Sen. [Larry] Craig would rather risk a lifetime - literally, a lifetime - of national ridicule and mockery, of whispers that his marriage is a sham, of suspicion every time he ducks into a Capitol Hill bathroom, than he would engage in an intense, scary, period of introspection." -Marc Ambinder writing at TheAtlantic.com, Aug. 29. "[Sen.] Larry Craig isn't simply 'a nasty, naughty, bad boy,' as the senator famously called Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Larry Craig is a confused and closeted Gay man unable to connect the dots between his sexuality and his belief in marriage and family. ... Craig's personal story is a cautionary tale in support of Gay rights as consistent with marriage and family values. Craig should never have married a woman in the first place, and his scandal is a reminder that legal recognition for Gay relationships can help other closet cases see an alternative to attempting heterosexual marriage, with all the collateral damage to unwitting spouse and children." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Chris Crain, Sept. 4. "When [Sen. Larry] Craig said, 'I am not Gay,' he might even have believed it. That wasn't him in the men's room. That was another guy with whom he happens to share the same body and consciousness. And that guy is bad! There should be laws to stop that guy! And yet, no matter how many laws Craig votes for or against, that guy, that doppelganger, keeps appearing, interfering with his simple attempts to use the bathroom of a large regional airport." -Columnist Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 4. "The officer first saw a man [Sen. Larry Craig] gazing into his stall through the opening between where the stall door and divider come together. After someone else using the facilities left, the man moved his suitcase to keep anyone from seeing under the door. The man then passed his left hand under the stall divider into the police sergeant's stall with his palm up. I always thought that was the universal sign for 'please pass me some toilet tissue. I'm all out over here.' But in the underworld of secret sex, that, along with tapping your foot several times, is the universal signal 'communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct.'" -Margaret Carlson writing at Bloomberg.com, Aug. 29. "Somehow, the idea of furtive bathroom sex seemed more in vogue when pop icon George Michael was arrested. Now, the guy in the stall next to you is likely a Gay obsessed mayor, an undercover cop or a crusty old conservative legislator. With such unappetizing menu choices, one has to be quite desperate and pathetic to try to find his man in the can - especially with the advent of the Internet, which can deliver a pick-up faster than a pizza. So, the few remaining men who seek to cruise the commode are mostly married conservative hypocrites looking for love on the sly." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Wayne Besen, Aug. 29. "Poor [Sen.] Larry Craig. He's being held to the same standard of sexual conduct he imposed on the U.S. armed forces. Fourteen years ago, in his first term as a Republican senator from Idaho, Craig helped enact the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. The Air Force, for instance, now says any airman will be discharged if he 'has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act.'" -William Saletan writing in the Washington Post, Sept. 2. "What is shocking about Senator Larry Craig's bathroom arrest is not what he may have been doing tapping his shoe in that stall, but that Minnesotans are still paying policemen to tap back. For almost 40 years, most police departments have been aware of something that still escapes the general public: Men who troll for sex in public places, Gay or 'not Gay,' are, for the most part, upstanding citizens. Arresting them costs a lot and accomplishes little." -Laura M. MacDonald writing in the International Herald Tribune, Sept. 2. "Why are undercover cops hanging out in airport restrooms? Are we all done with terrorists? Does this mean that Appalachian grandmothers can pass through airport security without being frisked for explosives? Just asking." -Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writer's Group, Sept. 2. "The New York Times ran 15 articles on [Sen. Larry] Craig's guilty plea to 'disorderly conduct' in a bathroom. The Washington Post ran 20 articles on Craig. MSNBC covered it like it was the first moon landing - Three small taps for a man, one giant leap for public Gay sex!" -Conservative commentator Ann Coulter in a Sept. 5 column. "[W]hile it is possible to note (and rightly so) the hypocrisy of [Sen. Larry] Craig, and while it is sensible to believe that a sitting Senator should not be putting himself in such compromising positions, the large implications of an almost laughably petty misdemeanor are revealing of problems deeper than one man's personal tragedy. One problem is the cruelty of public discourse. Yes, Craig is a public figure, but he is also a human being, and a Gay human being, and I feel for him, for the lies he has told himself and others, for the psychic pain that led him to this place, and for the obvious lack of self-control that his profoundly split identity entailed. I don't think he even knows he's Gay. Yes, he deserves criticism for poor judgment, for trying to use his position to get out of a sticky situation, for opposing Gay equality and dignity, while being Gay himself. But this was a victimless incident, in which no one tried to harm anyone else; and he also needs support and help and compassion. The glee at his exposure came from both sides. It was ugly wherever it came from." -Gay writer and blogger Andrew Sullivan, Sept. 4. "As you already know and as any D.C. therapist or male prostitute or honest historian will happily remind you, this is the way it's always been; incidents like Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's toe-tapping in the tearoom merely reinforce the great Rule of Conservative Hypocrisy - the louder and more self-righteous the indignation over a given 'moral' issue, the more sure you can be that the screamer in question is simply oozing with repressed fantasy/lust regarding that very issue - and what's more, is very likely acting on it, right now, in a fetish dungeon, brothel or bathroom stall near you." -San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, Sept. 7. |
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