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UN resolution battle

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00

UN resolution battle

The U.N. General Assembly split over the issue of gay rights on Thursday after a European-drafted statement calling for decriminalization of homosexuality prompted an Arab-backed one opposing it.

Diplomats said a joint statement initiated by France and the Netherlands gathered 66 signatures in the 192-nation assembly after it was read out by Argentina at a plenary session. A rival statement, read out by Syria, gathered some 60.

The two statements remained open for further signatures, the diplomats said. No resolution was drafted on the issue and there was no voting, they added.

The division in the General Assembly reflected conflicting laws in the world at large. According to sponsors of the Franco-Dutch text, homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries, seven of which punish it by death.

EU vs Muslim countries

The European Union-backed document, nothing that the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was marked this month, said those rights applied equally to all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

It urged states "to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention."

But the opposing document said the statement "delves into matters which fall essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states" and could lead to "the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia."

"We note with concern the attempts to create 'new rights' or 'new standards,' by misinterpreting the Universal Declaration and international treaties to include such notions that were never articulated nor agreed by the general membership," it added.

This, it said, could "seriously jeopardize the entire international human rights framework."

Muslim countries have for years opposed international attempts to legalize homosexuality.

U.S. officials said the United States had not signed either document. They said the broad framing of the language in the statement supporting decriminalization created conflicts with U.S. law, but gave no further details.

But Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters it was a "very special day at the U.N."

"For the first time in history a large group of member states speak out in the General Assembly against discrimination based on sexual orientation," he said. "With today's statement, this is no longer a taboo within the U.N."

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters sponsors of the statement had "cornered" other members by springing the declaration on them.

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Serial gay killer caught

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Serial gay killer caught

After 13 murders of gay men in the same park in just a year and a half, Brazilian police finally arrest suspect of "rainbow murders"

A retired police officer has been detained in connection with the murders of 13 gay men in a low-income suburb of Sao Paulo, police said Thursday.

Retired state police Sgt. Jairo Francisco Franco was taken into custody Wednesday night after a witness identified him as the killer of a homosexual man on Aug. 19, said police inspector Paulo Fortunato.

Franco is suspected of acting alone in all of 13 killings between February 2007 and August 2008 at Paturis Park, a favorite meeting point for gay men, Fortunato said.

The suspect, who worked as a private security guard in a supermarket, has denied the charges, Fortunato said. He added that Franco did not yet have a lawyer.

"We have a credible witness who says he saw Franco pump 12 bullets into a black gay man inside the park," Fortunato said in a telephone interview.

A second witness said Franco visited the park frequently, "apparently cruising for gay men and victims," Fortunato said.

Police have dubbed the killer of the 13 men as the "rainbow maniac," a reference to the gay-pride symbol.

"We are convinced he is the rainbow maniac we have been looking for," Fortunato said.

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Pink Christmas

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Pink Christmas Amsterdam: the first gay Christmas festival

A gay Dutch organization has organized a festival called “Pink Christmas”, to be celebrated for the first time in Amsterdam and that will, among other things, include a living Nativity scene with two Josephs and two Marys.

Parties will be held, as well as an public street market, an public debates and Christmas religious services for LGTBs.

Frank van Dalen, head of the organizing group ProGay, said that the objective of the event is to increase the range of options for queer men and women during the Christmas week.

Van Dalen also believes that the festival will encourage people to reflect about homosexuality and religion.

Christian groups, particularly from Dutch provinces, have called for protest letters to be sent to ProGay and Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen. They are angry at the “spin” the group has given to the holiday.

Possible visitors can find more information about the program for the Christmas and the movie festival on www.pinkchristmas.nl and www.rozefilmdagen.nl

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Hate Journalism South Africa

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00

South African journalist to court for writing homophobic article

After protests by activists, court investigates Sunday Sun writer for hate-filled texts...

Four months had to pass before several complaints piled up against the article.

The Human Rights Commission had to apologize for the delay:

“It’s regrettable that it’s taken so long because we have always been very clear about our stance on gay rights”, according to a press secretary. He also said that the court’s ruling will most likely be binding, which means that these articles will be prevented from appearing in the future.

Norms and values

The article attacked leftist and liberal people for finding the appointment of gay or lesbian bishops normal.

“The real problem is the accelerating degradation of norms and values through the so-called liberal influence of today. One sees men kissing in public all the time nowadays. You see them walking hand in hand and enjoying their ‘lifestyle’ and ‘sexual preferences’ shamelessly. Qwelane wrote.

Mugabe

He went on to day to support the policies of neighbouring president Robert Mugabe: “ there are some things about him that I do not agree with but what concerns gays I think Mugabe is absolutely right.”

“Please tell the Human Rights Commission that I will not retract my comments and will certainly not apologize for them.”

Press freedom

The Sunday Sun has been criticized by the Press Ombudsman regarding this issue. He believes that the paper should not have published Qwelane’s article.

Curiously enough, while South African journalists get punished for being homophobic, Kurdish writers in Iraq go to jail just for writing about homosexuality in general.

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Moscow’s “Gay Propaganda”

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Moscow’s “Gay Propaganda”

His latest of numerous verbal attacks was statement that "propagation of life-style of sexual minorities" was one of the factors in spreading AIDS/HIV in Moscow. This statement was made at the opening of conference "HIV/AIDS in developed countries" earlier in December.

Speaking at an international conference on HIV/AIDS, Mayor Luzhkov said:

"So-called democrats consider that sexual minorities can be the main indicator and main symbol of democracy, but we will in future continue to ban propaganda of the views of sexual minorities.

"Of course, we will be criticised by all democrats in the world but in each society there are own views on that." Maybe by propaganda he means the pictures of gay activists getting bashed by the police.

The Mayor implied gays are behind the spread of AIDS in Moscow and said condoms should not be advertised as 100% safe as "contemporary science" proved they are not.

Moscow Pride organisers have been denied the right to hold an event in May for three years running by the Mayor, who previously referred to gay rights marches as "Satanic."

The news was brought by most of the mass-media, but only tabloid "Vremya novostey" dared to ask for comments professional working with HIV-affected community. Prof. V. Pokrovsky, full-member of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, director of national center of cure and fight against AIDS, questioned the competence of Mr. Luzhkov.

Pride and Percentages

"Only through sustained education of this community, which started already in middle 80's, less than five percent of gays in Moscow are HIV-positive. Such a low figure could be source of pride, as in average Western capital, in similar community, usually 20 and more percent are infected", - said Pokrovsky.

In addition, according to Pokrovsky, Luzhkov's statement that condoms are almost useless in stopping HIV/AIDS transmittion is dangerous discreditation of the only effective mean of protection. "We have to understand that while single sexual contact with an infected partner bears a risk of infection around one percent. Use of condom reduces the risk more than 300 times".

Activists have tried to have the Mayor prosecuted under Article 149 of the Russian Criminal Code for using his political power to prevent legal public events for the LGBT community in the city.

Pride organisers are planning to hold the event in Moscow next May to coincide with the city's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest.

[Additional information and quotes provided by Arxi in Moscow]

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Obama’s Lesbian choice?

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Obama’s Lesbian choice?

Mary Beth Maxwell is one of three in President Elect Obama’s shortlist for the position of secretary of labor. The Wall Street Journal describes her thus:

“For the rainbow cabinet of the nation’s first African American president, Mary Beth Maxwell is the perfect labor secretary you’ve probably never heard of: a gay woman, community organizer and labor leader with an adopted African American son. And this founding executive director of American Rights at Work is about to get the full-court press.”

She is competing against two very different candidates, female state governors Jennifer Granholm from Michigan, and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

Ms Maxwell has, amongst other accomplishments, that of being a founding executive director of American Rights at work. The organization aims to modernize American Labour laws.

Obama’s candidate has been recently marked by his choices of big political figures, including his former primary opponents Hillary Clinton and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

Human Rights Campaign has decided to back Ms Maxwell, and gay rights groups would be fascinated with her being appointed, but whether it will go through still remains to be seen.

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Vatican vs Europe

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Vatican opposes EU's attempts to decriminalize homosexuality

Gay rights groups and newspaper editorials condemn the Vatican for its decision to oppose a proposed U.N. resolution calling on governments worldwide to de-criminalise homosexuality.

The row erupted after the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations told a French Catholic news agency the Holy See would oppose the resolution, which France is due to propose later this month on behalf of the 27-member European Union.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would "add new categories of those protected from discrimination" and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.

Grotesque

"If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations," Migliore said. "For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure," Migliore said.

A strongly worded editorial in Italy's mainstream La Stampa newspaper said the Vatican's reasoning was "grotesque".

Pointing out that homosexuality was still punishable by death in some Islamic countries, the editorial said what the Vatican really feared was a "chain reaction in favour of legally recognised homosexual unions in countries, like Italy, where there is currently no legislation".

Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy's leading gay rights group, said the Vatican's reasoning smacked of "total idiocy and madness".

"The French resolution, which is supported by all 27 members of the European Union, has nothing to do with gay marriage. It is about stopping jail and the death penalty for homosexuals," Grillini told Reuters.

France defends resolution

The resolution is to be presented by Rama Yade, France's state secretary for human rights. On Tuesday the Paris government defended the resolution. "France's initiative ... is an initiative that is based on existing texts. The idea is not to create new rights. The idea is ... to make decriminalisation possible," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.

Human rights groups say homosexuality is still punishable by law in more than 85 countries and by death in a number of them, including Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said "no one wants the death penalty or jail or fines for homosexuals" but defended Migliore's comments, adding that the Vatican was in the majority on the issue.

"It's not for nothing that fewer than 50 member states of the United Nations have adhered to the proposal in question while more than 150 have not adhered. The Holy See is not alone," Lombardi said.
An editorial in Rome's left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper said the Vatican's position "leaves one dumbstruck". Margherita Boniver, a leading member of the Italy's leftist Democratic Party, called it "alarmingly anachronistic".

A wound

Grillini, the gay rights activist, said he feared what he called another "Holy Alliance" between the Vatican and Islamic states at the United Nations to oppose the proposed resolution.

At a major U.N. conference on the family in Cairo in 1994, the Vatican teamed up with Islamic and Latin American countries to defeat an abortion rights proposal.

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. But in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity and a wound".

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Iraqi Kurdistan: doctor in jail

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Iraqi Kurdistan: doctor in jail for writing about homosexuality

A Kurdistan journalist has been sentenced to six months of prison for writing an article about homosexuality. Dr. Adel Hussein, journalist and medical doctor, has already begun serving his time in Erbil’s central prison.

The Journalist’s Union has condemned the decision by the Iraqi judiciary and is demanding the Kurdish authorities to intervene in the matter. “We still don’t even know who pressed charges against him”, a member of the Union, Mr. Kamal, added.

Last year, Adel Hussein published an article on the Hawlati al-Kurdiyah, an independent newspaper in Suleimaniyeh, second city of the province. In it, he talked about same-sex relations. He was then accused of encouraging homosexuality.

According to a law recently voted by the Kurdistan-Iraqi parliament, the arrest of journalists because of their writings is forbidden, but they may be fined if found guilty of displeasing with their opinions.

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Serbian Ministry Funding

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Serbian Ministry Funding

The Ministry of Culture in Serbia has decided to give 2,500 GBP to a Serbian GLBT news website.

Queer Serbia is updated often and offers news, culture and art-related articles. The website strives to increase GLBT visibility and decrease homophobia and has been lobbying for funds since 2003, when they were told they would receive them, but were later ignored.

An adviser to the then Minister for Culture, Bora Đorđević, told the press: "he has no intention to give money to faggots."

Accession

"This is a big step for the gay-lesbian population in Serbia, which received for the first time a support from the State, which is financed back also by them through taxes and contributions, and which did not do a lot till now regarding the respect of gay-lesbian rights," said Predrag M. Azdejkovic, Editor in Chief of the Queeria Web Portal.

Serbia, along with the Western-Balkans, are potential candidate for EU accession, and thus need to do a lot of work fighting homophobia if then want to get in.

The country has had gay marches since 2001, but every time something is organized there is a clear and present risk of it being attacked violently by neo-fascists.

Two-thirds of Serbs consider homosexuality an illness and half want their government to work to prevent it.

An estimated 70% of gay people have been physically assaulted or know another gay person who has.

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Coming Out 5

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:00:00

Coming Out 5

[Column]

This is the last piece on our coming out special. A lot has been said already by Adrian, David, Farid and Chrissie. They have made good points about how coming out should be done on your own terms, but that it is also an empowering act that shows how confident you are about yourself.

While I agree, because I experienced things similarly, there is one peculiarity about my case that makes it different from the other accounts.

When I came out, I was frantically in love with a boy.

I didn’t care about other people., I didn’t care if my mother and stepdad and father liked it or not, or if people at school were OK with it. In fact, expecting backwardness from both my mom and dad, I would later on give them an ultimatum: accept it or go to hell. On that note dear reader, beware: knowing my parents, I calculated that my being morally and logically right and them loving me as their son would force them to accept my non-mainstream taste for men. In due time, they both did, but you need to make that calculation for yourself too.

The thing that devastated me, and that even now five years later is still very hard for me to write about, is that I was madly in love with my unsuspecting best friend, and that at the time, my romanticism and my imagination had made him and the prospect of us my most important priority and the purpose of my life. Have you ever watched an Almodóvar movie with one of his stubbornly and obsessively in-love characters? They could have been tailored after me.

Of course, things got out of control because, as a closeted teen, I had no role models to follow except perhaps for that of Tom Ripley, which is definitely not the most ideal. I had no notion about what openly gay people of my circumstances were like. There were two gay kids in my small international school but they were not in my class and they were single so I didn’t have any real knowledge about what a gay couple could be like, just my over-developed imagination.

Whatever the reason may have been, the longer I kept quiet about my feelings, the higher the stakes got, and the longer my parents could afford to dream about me living the straight burgeois dream.

So there we were, one afternoon after school. We used to bike home together and then split up at a crossroads near our homes. Often we would stop there and talk for a while. One afternoon in May, I decided that I had had it with fantasizing in secret about him and me, and that I was going to tell him.

“Hmmm, there’s something I want to tell you. You need to promise you won’t tell anyone else though. OK?” I said, sitting on my bike and leaning with my hand on a road sign for support.

“I’m gay. And not only that: I like you, I’m crazy in love with you.” (I said it with more words but I’ll spare them for space and time constraints.)

I’d said it for the first time. I had put it out there.

In the end, nobody can convince you that being gay is wrong. At the same time, you can’t force people to love you.

Gerardo

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