Friday March 2, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 09 |
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Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
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Rex Wockner |
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| International News | |
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JAMAICAN MOB TARGETS FOUR GAY MEN A mob of men, women, teens and children surrounded a pharmacy in Kingston, Jamaica, Feb. 14 and demanded that four Gay men inside come out and face punishment for being homosexuals. The crowd formed after another shopper took exception to the men's presence and began screaming that "battymen," or faggots, must be killed. Police eventually rescued the men, three of whom "had bleached-out faces" and were "dressed in tight jeans pants and skimpy shirts," the Jamaica Observer newspaper reported. The officers had to fire tear gas into the crowd of 200 to clear an exit path. One of the Gay men was hit in the head with a rock while being escorted to a police vehicle. "Unu can come save them nasty boy yah? Them boy yah fi go down," one member of the mob shouted at police, the Observer said. The statement means the men must be burned to death. After rescuing the men, the police officers disparaged them en route to, and at, the police station, according to a statement from the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays. "While in the vehicle, all the way to the police station, the men were taunted by the police with anti-Gay epithets," J-FLAG said. "The insults continued even when the men arrived at the Half-Way Tree police station, where other police joined in the name-calling. The policemen at the station told them that they should be grateful and warned them never to return to Half-Way Tree." The fourth Gay man in the store, J-FLAG leader Gareth Williams, who was shopping separately from the others, said police slapped him, hit him in the head and struck him in the stomach with a rifle. Jamaica, which seemingly has one of the world's most overtly antiGay populations, punishes Gay sex with up to nine years in prison. "Citizens perceived to be Gay remain vulnerable to attacks both from violent members of the public as well as from the security forces," J-FLAG said. NIGERIAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ADVANCES ANTIGAY BILL The Women Affairs and Youth Committee of Nigeria's House of Representatives held a hearing Feb. 14 on an extreme antiGay bill that some activists had believed was not going to see any action. The measure, which bans same-sex marriage and Gay relationships, also seems to outlaw such things as belonging to a Gay group, visiting a Gay Internet site and socializing between Gay people. The bill states, in part: "Publicity, procession and public show of same-sex amorous relationship through the electronic or print media physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise are prohibited in Nigeria. ... Any person who is involved in the registration of Gay clubs, societies and organizations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a term of 5 years imprisonment." The National Assembly is now expected to pass the bill, in some form, before April's general election. According to Scott Long from Human Rights Watch's LGBT program: "The most useful form of outside pressure is from governments, in the form of statements by foreign embassies in Abuja or demarches at the ministerial level. Support to get those governments to take a stand would be vital." As recently as late January, leading activist Dorothy Aken'Ova of the Nigerian organization INCRESE, or International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, had considered the bill dead and had strongly urged reporters not to write anything about it for fear news items could rekindle legislators' interest in the measure. "[T]he bill is more or less dead because there is pandemonium [in advance of] the elections coming up in March/April and the swearing-in for a new government -- we hope -- in May," she said in an e-mail interview. "Now they have found enemies within themselves and are not looking for Gays, etc., to lead to the slaughter. If this remains the situation ... then the bill is dead in all practical terms. "[P]ress attention to the bill, even if it is as mild as reporting that it is presumed dead as a result of political tension ... will be dangerous. Right now, we want silence," Aken'Ova said. Some other local activists had a different take in late January, just prior to the bill's resurrection. "Silence does not equate the death of the bill," Alimi Adebisi Ademola, executive director of the Gay youth group The Independent Project, said in an interview. "We believe strongly that the bill is still alive only going through a process that no one knows." Davis Mac-Iyalla, director of the Gay Christian organization Changing Attitude Nigeria, concurred: "Just because the House has been silent about the bill does not make it dead." Leo Igwe, executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement, had urged that international activism against the bill not stop "even though the 'general feeling' now is that any call for public action might be counterproductive unless there are indications that the legislation might be passed in weeks." Aken'Ova, the Nigerian Gay group Alliance Rights, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and others have suggested that British activist Peter Tatchell of the Gay-rights group OutRage! may be to blame for the bill's resurrection. They say OutRage! launched a new international action against the bill in January without seeking input from leading Nigerian activists who were calling for a "be silent" approach. "Launching a global call to action without consulting the range of activists in Nigeria is irresponsible and insulting," said HRW's Long. "Anybody who is proposing mass public action needs to check their stuff," said IGLHRC's senior specialist for Africa, Cary Alan Johnson. "[OutRage!'s] not taking responsibility for not having checked in with folks both in the U.S. and Nigeria bugged me -- and I've witnessed similar kinds of disregard for local activists in Uganda and elsewhere." In a Jan. 31 "Public Statement of Warning," Aken'Ova and 19 other African activists declared: "Until OutRage!'s action was issued, the bill was dead. By calling on people to begin a campaign at this stage, interest could be awakened in the bill. OutRage! is acting irresponsibly and in direct contradiction to the advice of leaders of the Nigerian LGBTI movement." In an interview, Tatchell responded that his group "acted in good faith" and noted that he suspended the action four days later, after learning that some Nigerian activists were counseling silence on the matter. He also said some African Gay groups disparage OutRage! because they "resent the fact that we also work with other groups that they see as rivals. They want exclusive control." "This vendetta is an attempt by certain groups to maintain their dominance and exclude other Gay campaigners," Tatchell said. OutRage! members also said the Public Statement of Warning against OutRage!, rather than OutRage!'s call for action against the bill, could have been the catalyst for the House of Representatives' renewed activity on the measure. The public statement denouncing Tatchell for speaking out generated several media reports in the United Kingdom. POLISH PRESIDENT DISPARAGES GAYS Speaking at a National Forum On Europe meeting in Ireland on Feb. 20, Polish President Lech Kaczynski warned that if homosexuality "were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear." "Imagine what grand changes would occur in mores if the traditional links between men and women were set aside, he said. Reports said others in attendance gasped at the remarks. Kaczynski, who banned the Gay pride parade in 2004 and 2005 when he was mayor of Warsaw, said he'd do it again if he were mayor today. "This is a tendency, an orientation that has always existed, I don't know why," he said. "I do not intend to combat it, to force them into therapy. But at the same time, I don't think it's appropriate that they should promote their sexual orientation." Openly Gay Irish Senator David Norris called Kaczynski's comments "ignorant, unsophisticated ... a disgrace" and representative of "his very limited intelligence." Dublin Mayor Vincent Jackson said Kaczynski's "beliefs are of a bygone age." MALTA OKs TRANSSEXUAL MARRIAGE Malta's Civil Court ordered the Public Registry to issue marriage banns (an announcement of a proposed marriage) for a post-operative Transsexual woman, The Times of Malta reported Feb. 16. Justice Gino Camilleri said a union between the woman and her male partner would not violate the nation's Marriage Act. He also told the registry to change the woman's gender designation in other official documents. FRENCH COURT NIXES LESBIAN ADOPTION France's top appeals court refused Feb. 20 to let a Lesbian adopt her partner's biological child. The court said such an adoption is possible only within a marriage. Same-sex couples are not allowed to marry in France, although they can enter civil unions. Adoption outside of a marriage requires the biological parent or parents to relinquish their parental authority, the court said. ndent Project. File photo. |
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| "I believe very strongly in the responsibility of people with power and influence to be role models. Living more openly in the later years of my NBA career was one of the things that radically changed my life. It made me happier. I want to spread my influence in the same way that I was able to because I had a basketball in my hand. I hope now to have perhaps a different lectern to stand behind but with an equally important message." --Former National Basketball Association player John Amaechi announcing Feb. 11 that he will serve as a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign's Coming Out Project. "I think [NBA players' reactions to my coming out] illustrate the diversity of opinion. Some of them illustrate a great deal of naïveté, and an oversimplification of the issue, and some of them don't speak with much thought at all, but there are some really well-spoken, provocative things that people have said that are positive and they should be added to the conversation." --Former National Basketball Association player John Amaechi to the Associated Press, Feb. 12. "From a marketing perspective, if you're a [professional sports] player who happens to be Gay and you want to be incredibly rich, then you should come out, because it would be the best thing that ever happened to you from a marketing and an endorsement perspective. You would be an absolute hero to more Americans than you can ever possibly be as an athlete, and that'll put money in your pocket. On the flip side, if you're the idiot who condemns somebody because they're Gay, then you're going to be ostracized, you're going to be picketed and you're going to ruin whatever marketing endorsements you have." --Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 12. "I hate Gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like Gay people and I don't like to be around Gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States. ... I wouldn't want [a Gay teammate]. I would really distance myself from him because I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room. ... If you have 12 other ballplayers in your locker room that's upset and can't concentrate and always worried about him in the locker room or on the court or whatever, it's going to be hard for your teammates to win and accept him as a teammate." --Retired Miami Heat player Tim Hardaway speaking on local radio Feb. 14 about former NBA player John Amaechi's coming out, according to the Miami Herald. Hardaway later apologized several times. "People in America and England would like to think racism is over, sexism is over, and homophobia is over, but it's not. My coming out will show that Gay people don't all look like Jack from Will and Grace. Some of us are big, athletic men, and that should be OK." --Former National Basketball Association player John Amaechi to the Miami Herald, Feb. 15. "How much would you bet that Reverend Ted Haggard falls off the wagon in the very near future? I'm serious. I know he just got a big check to shut up and leave town, but you know what he likes to spend his money on! Tick-tock, gentlemen." --Author Susie Bright writing at The Huffington Post, Feb. 12. "It's not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said, 'No, I'm not [Gay],' but I didn't want to draw any more attention to it. ... I didn't have to prove to anybody that I wasn't [Gay]. I didn't feel like I really did." --Country singer Kenny Chesney on TV's 60 Minutes, Feb. 18. "People think my movies are exaggerations until they come to Baltimore for two days and they see all the characters standing on the street corner." --Gay filmmaker John Waters to Philadelphia Gay News, Feb. 9. "The male sex scenes actually got more and more difficult as the show [Queer As Folk] went along. You start to dread them; doing a sex scene, period, is like simulating sex with a cousin on the dining room table at Thanksgiving. It's the most awkward thing -- and there are 35 people standing around. They're spraying you with water to make you look sweaty, and they shoot you from certain angles so it doesn't become porn -- and so the audience doesn't see that you're wearing a sock on your crank." --Actor Hal Sparks to Windy City Times, Jan. 31. "I hope I'm heading in the direction of being a good old Gay person! I think it means being the best version of 62 I can be, not lamenting that I'm not 35. There is some wisdom that comes with age if you've been listening at all to the universe." --Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin to the Oregon Gay newspaper Just Out, Feb. 2. Maupin's new book, Michael Tolliver Lives, will be released in June. "How wide should you open a relationship before there's nothing there at all? I can't speak for women except through my own empathy, but I think men in general decide that they have to make contracts with each other that accommodate their maleness. If this other person is truly the primary relationship in your life, and you are devoted to making that clear every moment, then you are far less likely to hurt each other when the opportunity comes to play with someone else. I had trouble with this for many years." --Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin to the Oregon Gay newspaper Just Out, Feb. 2. Maupin's new book, Michael Tolliver Lives, will be released in June. "There are stereotypes about drag. You know, that you are lip-syncing and getting drunk in bars. But when I am in the drag world, I see this very huge talented group of people that are very diverse. I celebrate all of that. Even the bad drag." --Actor Clinton Leupp (aka Coco Peru) to the Palm Springs Gay magazine The Bottom Line, Feb. 2. "I live in a rural area of Colorado. We have farmers, horses -- and families that I meet at town meetings and at the feed store. In the last five years, people have seen the show, subscribed to Showtime and come up to me, standing tall, and said, 'I have a Lesbian sister -- no one talks about it but I feel good telling you.' They love to mention -- with pride -- that I am in a show called 'The L Word' and they are much more knowledgeable about Bisexual and Transgender people too. If it is happening in the microcosm of a small town in Colorado, it's happening across the country and around the world." --Actress Pam Grier to Los Angeles' Lesbian News, February issue. "If you were trying to promote yourself as Anderson Cooper, are you Gay first and foremost, or are you Anderson Cooper? If he does agree to talk about it, well then you can't talk about anything else, and no one wants to talk about anything else, which is understandable. They've got someone prepared to talk about it, so they're like little kids -- every journalist just wanting to know more and more and more, and as you're talking about it you're draining everyone of interest in you. Then people start thinking, 'Oh, my God, he's such a bore --I wish he'd shut up about being fucking Gay, these fucking fags.' And then you trigger another phobia, which is the impression that Gay men and Lesbians never stop going on about it." --Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue. "Being Gay is not an identity; that's the bottom line. It's a sideline. But through nobody's fault and everybody's fault it's become a subject for identity, so you run away from mainstream culture into a kind of offbeat culture, and then the offbeat culture becomes a little mainstream culture of its own -- just as brutal, actually, as the culture you thought you were leaving behind." --Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue. "When she [Madonna] fixed you with her regard, there was a tenderness and warmth that made your skin bump, but when she looked away, it was like sunbathing on a cold day and suddenly a cloud comes. ... She had the cupid-bow lips of a silent-screen star, and it was obvious that she was playing with Sean [Penn's] cock throughout the meal [we were sharing]." --Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue. "For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy and strategy and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party or Gay people or immigrants." --U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Feb. 10 in Springfield, Ill. |
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