Antigay app resubmitted to Apple

Report: Antigay hate crimes up

Anti-LGBT hate crimes, esp. those against people of color and in Puerto Rico, increased in 2009.

Religious groups in India have warned they will…

Religious groups in India have warned they will oppose any move to legalize homosexuality as the federal government prepares to hold talks on a law that classifies same-sex acts as crimes.

India’s Hindu nationalist main opposition has in the meantime called for a national debate on the legislation that law minister M. Veerappa Moily last week said would come up for a discussion within the government.

“This is a sensitive issue and warrants a debate within the Indian society at large before arriving at any decision,” said Sidharth Nath Singh, spokesman for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

An Indian court is due to give its judgment on a petition filed by a nonprofit group that has challenged the anti-gay provision of the penal code.

In a news conference last week, Moily refused to spell out his government’s stand on it because it awaits judicial determination. But his comments that the federal home minister was “contemplating” a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues on the law drew widespread coverage in the largely conservative country.

“Hope floats at rainbow parades,” read a caption on a front-page picture from a gay parade in New Delhi in Monday’s Times of India newspaper.

Participants in that march demanded repeal of Section 377 of the penal code, which criminalizes private consensual sex between adults of the same gender in the country. Watch a New Delhi march in support of gay rights »

Religious leaders, however, oppose any suggestion to scrap 377, describing homosexuality as “unnatural.”

“We are against calling homosexuality a criminal activity, but we are certainly in principle against legalizing it, because that would mean the state endorsing same-sex relationships,” said Babu Joseph, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

Homosexuality “violates fundamental norms of a family,” he said.

See India faith leaders: Anti-gay law must stay CNN International

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Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times

SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.

After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.

Crisis averted, the party continued.

And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.

But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.

This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

See

Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries

New York Times

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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WATCH In His Own Words: What Obama Promised Gay Americans

President Obama surprised and disappointed many this past week when his Department of Justice defended the Defense Of Marriage Act in court. Daily Kos’ Jed Lewison has compiled clips from the campaign in which Obama forcefully advocated equal rights for gay Americans and stated his support for strong civil unions with all the benefits of marriage. Watch:

WATCH In His Own Words: What Obama Promised Gay Americans

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Obama Admin References Incest, Child Rape in DOMA Defense

Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.

At AMERICABlogs, John Aravosis writes:
“despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush’s top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn’t just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn’t motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn’t be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn’t discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can’t).He actually argued that the courts shouldn’t consider Loving v. Virginia, the miscegenation case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages, when looking at gay civil rights cases. He told the court, in essence, that blacks deserve more civil rights than gays, that our civil rights are not on the same level.”

See Obama Admin Defends Federal Gay Marriage Ban In Court Filing

References Incest, Child Rape… DOJ Defends

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Lambda Legal Applauds West Virginia Court Order Restoring Custody of Foster Child to Lesbian Mothers

‘The West Virginia high court has ruled in the best interests of this child. We applaud them for rejecting the prejudice that would have removed her from the only home she ever knew.’

(Charleston, WV, June 8, 2009) – The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia ruled Friday that a foster child should be returned to her lesbian foster parents, Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess, reversing an antigay lower court ruling that sought to remove the child on the basis that her placement was not with a “traditional family.” Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief representing several foster care groups.
“The West Virginia high court has done the right thing in ruling in the best interests of this child. We applaud them for rejecting the prejudice that would have removed her from the only home she ever knew,” said Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. “Children in West Virginia need parents to love and care for them and that’s what the state should want, too.”

Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the court on February 19, 2009, on behalf of Foster Children Alumni Association, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of the Eastern Panhandle, COLAGE (Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere), and Fairness West Virginia to urge the reversal of a trial court order removing the then year-old girl from the home of Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess. The removal was ordered after the couple indicated that they wished to adopt the child. The trial judge accepted the view of the guardian ad litem that the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) should only pursue an adoption placement for the child in a “traditional family,” consisting of both a mother and a father. The GAL also sought a statewide injunction barring foster children from being placed in gay homes. Friday’s ruling reverses this lower court finding, allows the child to remain with her foster parents, and permits the possibility that this home where the child has thrived eventually will be the adoption placement for the child.

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Lambda Legal Marks First Anniversary of Historic California Marriage Victory

‘…denying marriage to loving and committed same-sex couples is morally wrong…’
(Los Angeles, May 15, 2009) — On the first anniversary of the California Supreme Court’s historic ruling in In re Marriages, Lambda Legal Marriage Project Director Jennifer C. Pizer issued the following statement:
“One year ago today many thousands of lesbian and gay Californians became full citizens for the first time when the state supreme court ruled that we all are equal under law and everyone – gay and straight alike – must have the same right to marry the person they love. For some of us who’d worked on the case for years, the court’s clarion clear decision gave real meaning to the California Constitution’s promise of equality. And then, as more than 18,000 same-sex couples jubilantly exercised that right all over the state, family and friends shared their joy, cried during their vows, and were changed for the better.

The court’s historic decision also paved the way for the high courts of Connecticut and Iowa, which in turn gave great boosts to the legislatures in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia. Awareness now is dawning for great numbers of Americans that denying marriage to loving and committed same-sex couples is morally wrong and inflicts real harms—government should not be in the business of discrimination. Public opinion is shifting fast toward fairness. But no minority should have to depend on the generosity of the majority to enjoy basic rights. Proposition 8′s theft of our right to marry has advanced a broadly pernicious recasting of “equal protection” that, if upheld, puts every California minority at risk. It was a sad, knee-jerk response to the sight of couples in love celebrating their happiness.

Paper is the traditional first anniversary gift and there are two obvious examples — our constitution, torn asunder by Prop 8′s antigay exception, and the high court’s imminent decision that we hope will mend that tear. Today’s anniversary reminds us that we win in court and in life when we publicly celebrate our truth, love and joy in equal measures.”

Jennifer C. Pizer is Director of Lambda Legal’s Marriage Project and co-counsel in the cases that established same-sex couples’ right to marry in California and the pending challenge to Proposition 8.

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Miss Universe to anti-gay group: Stop using Carrie Prejean pageant footage

TMZ reports that Miss Universe Organization has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the National Organization for Marriage.

Seems the Miss Universe organizers are not too thrilled with NOM using footage from the Miss USA 2009 pageant in an anti-gay marriage commercial.

The commercial is playing on NOM’s website and uses Prejean’s controversial response to the gay marriage question to back up the group’s message.

This doesn’t mean the MUO is taking sides. Although we kinda think it might be.

But NOM cannot legally use copyrighted pageant material to promote its social agenda.

To see the video, click here

See Miss Universe to anti-gay group: Stop using Carrie Prejean pageant …

Los Angeles Times

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LGBTQ Student Rights in the Wake of Tragic Suicides

‘Every student deserves the right to a respectful and affirming experience in school hallways and classrooms. We owe it to Jaheem Herrera and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover to make sure that school officials, teachers and fellow students take a stand against LGBT-related harassment every day.’

(New York, April 27 2009) — Lambda Legal today issued the following statement in response to the tragic suicides of Jaheem Herrera of Dekalb County, Georgia, and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, of Springfield, Massachusetts, both 11-year-olds who faced antigay harassment and bullying.
Statement from Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal:

“This has been a somber time for everyone who heard the terrible news of two young people taking their own lives after being the targets of antigay physical and emotional abuse. We extend our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of these young boys.
“The tragic deaths of Jaheem Herrera and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover underscore the importance of safe schools where harassment and violence based on racist, sexist, antigay or other biased attitudes are not tolerated. Unfortunately, there is much work to be done. Harassment of LGBTQ students and those perceived to be LGBT remains a serious problem across the country. Lambda Legal pledges to continue to stand up for students and hold schools accountable for preserving their rights and integrity. We applaud schools that stand up for safety and respect for all students because any student can be the target of LGBT-related bullying and harassment.

“Lambda Legal has played a key role in securing equality for LGBTQ and allied youth and standing up for their rights in schools. We advocated for students’ rights to an environment of safety and respect in communities from New York and New Jersey to Oregon to California and Georgia. In 1996 we made history with the first legal challenge to antigay violence in public schools on behalf of Jamie Nabozny, in Nabozny v. Podlesny, and in our 2000 case, Colin v. Orange Unified School District, we established the obligation of schools to allow Gay Straight Alliance’s on equal terms with other student activities.

“Every student deserves the right to a respectful and affirming experience in school hallways and classrooms. We owe it to Jaheem Herrera and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover to make sure that school officials, teachers and fellow students take a stand against LGBT-related harassment every day, and at Lambda Legal we will continue our work in schools to help prevent similar tragedies from occurring.”
Lambda Legal will join the Faith and Community Alliance and other community groups at a vigil for Jaheem Herrera on Tuesday, April 28, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., First Christian Church of Decatur ,601 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur, GA.
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Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.