Mormon leader: religious freedom at risk

The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon said Tuesday.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church …

Married lesbian couple seeks protection in India

LUCKNOW: Even as the country debates pros and cons of legalising the same sex marriages and the Central government finds itself in a fix over the issue, a lesbian couple tied nuptial knot defying all social norms in Muzaffarnagar, known for honour killings and fundamentalist diktats by caste-based panchayats.

This is not all. Two days after the incident hit the headlines, the Muzaffarnagar district administration received another application for same sex marriage from another lesbian couple. While in the first case, officers have provided security to the newly wedded, they have not given permission to the second couple fearing a backlash from the community. Significantly, in both the cases, the couples belong to low income group and are not highly educated.

In the first case, Komal Sharma and Pinki Kashyap entered into wedlock and left their families to live together. The couple hails from Dayanand Nagar, a small locality in Shamli tehsil of Muzaffarnagar district. While Komal belongs to a Brahmin family and is educated till class XI, Pinki hails from an other backward class family and has studied only till class VIII. Komal’s father Rajendra Sharma is with home guard and Pinki’s father Hariram runs a small dairy.

The two girls met three months back in a vocational training centre where both had enrolled for a course in stitching. The friendship soon turned into love and they got secretly married through Arya Samaj rituals at a temple in Muzaffarnagar. They also to have entered wedlock legally through a court marriage in Delhi. While Pinki posed as the groom, Komal dressed as a bride.

The couple kept their marriage a secret till July 23, the day they left their families. According to police, Pinki came to Komal’s house in the morning of July 23 when Komal was alone with her two younger siblings. The duo gave sleeping pills mixed in cold drink to the Komal’s younger brother and sister and left the house. The two girls also filed an application in the office of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Muzaffarnagar, complaining that they have threat to their lives from their families. See Married woman marries her ‘girlfriend’ in west UP Times of India

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Old Game, New Buzz, Gay Community Outraged

Pink News reports on gay groups becoming re-outraged over a game which requires players to shoot gay men. The game is called “Watch Out Behind You, Hunter”, and was originally launched in 2002 by frenchie Stéphane Aguie. The game is banned in France, but that hasn’t stopped it from making the rounds and finding a new host.

The gay group Gay Armenia said it was “completely disgusted” by the game, adding that it was created by “those religious-minded people in Tbilisi, Georgia… who constantly cite Bible to ‘justify’ their homophobia and hatred. A post on the gay group’s blog added: “Is this their ‘orthodox’ way of bringing up children by creating an image of an enemy and teaching them how to deal with it?”
The website’s owner, Jean Christophe Calvet, has rebuked claims of prejudice, saying that he “really didn’t understand why the association was attacking us” . He told news site France24.com: “The guy who came up with the game, Stéphane Aguie, wanted to mock hunters and rednecks, not gay men”.

He continued: “Our games are not politically correct. They’re aimed at teenagers and it’s true that they’re of a juvenile humour”. Mr Calvet said that while the game was removed from French websites after legal action from gay rights groups, it is “impossible to wipe it from all foreign sites too”.

He added: “Incidentally, not everyone in the gay community was supportive of banning the game. “I realise now that this one in particular could be found shocking, but I believe that you should be able to make this kind of joke in the name of freedom of speech.” The site has faced backlash for its games before. In 2001 it was criticised by American groups for a game entitled ‘New York Defender’ where the object was to protect the Twin Towers from plane attacks.

Mr Calvet also commented that the site was attacked over its depiction of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the French National Front. He took the creators to court after the game involved users throwing axes at his face. He was not the only celebrity depicted in the game, but for him, the axes were changed to swastikas. He added: “In the end, its all a bit of fun.”

See Old Game, New Buzz, Gay Community Outraged

Ve3d.com

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Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade

SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of thousands of people turned out for the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade, some in provocative costumes and outfits, but an increasing number of them pushing strollers.

“I feel like I’ve seen twice as many children as I saw last year,” said Joseph Bowik, who is a father to two children with his husband, David Bowik.

The Pride Family Garden, a small park cordoned off near City Hall to give parents a respite and an area for their children to play, saw more than 600 families last year, a record that appeared set to be broken during this year’s parade, organizer Meredith Fenton said.

“Probably the biggest thing we’re hearing about this year from kids is the word ‘backlash,’”‰” said Fenton, who is the program director for Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), which joined the park effort.

“With Prop. 8 passing and the Defense of Marriage Act, there’s so much talk about gay rights, but what people keep asking is, ‘How will the kids of gay parents turn out?’ Those people are all asking about us.” San Francisco and Alameda counties are home to the second- and third-most same-sex couples who are parents in California, after Los Angeles, Fenton said.

Diana Castillo, 18, moved to Oakland this summer for an internship at Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. Raised by her birth mother and her mother’s partner, she said growing up with two moms made her grateful.

See:

Gay parents along with kids celebrate in annual parade San Jose Mercury News – Sean Maher – ‎
Video: Gay pride on the streets
Remembering Stonewall: 40 Years Later Gay Wired Gay Pride Parade Marks 40 Years After NYC Uprising WDIV

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Antigay hate crimes highest since 1999

A new report stated that antigay hate crimes increased 2% in 2008, experts blame backlash.

Antigay hate crimes highest since 1999

A new report stated that antigay hate crimes increased 2% in 2008, experts blame backlash.

Backlash to lenient sentence in gay bashing case

A group of local activists have planned a rally June 18 outside the Edward Brooke Courthouse to protest the sentence of Fabio Brandao, a 29-year-old Framingham man who pleaded guilty to taking part in a brutal gay bashing in the South End on Aug. 24. Boston District Court Judge Thomas C. Horgan imposed a two-year suspended sentence and mandatory completion of an anger management program on Brandao, but the Anti-Violence Project and the grassroots LGBT group Join The Impact Massachusetts plan to demonstrate to send the message that they believe the sentence was too lenient. Brandao pleaded guilty to nine charges, including four civil rights violations; he and three friends ambushed a group of four people in their mid-20s on Columbus Avenue who were returning home from the Roxy nightclub, and the assailants kicked and punched two of the men in the head, leaving them with cuts, bruises and mild concussions. Brandao and his assailants allegedly called the victims “faggots” during the assault.”It’s just inconceivable that Brandao could have left two men brain-injured in the street on Columbus Avenue and then walk out of court with an anger management assignment. It shocks the conscience, and it points to a deep-seated problem the Anti-Violence Project has struggled with since 1986, and that’s that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people don’t get equal protection under the law,” said Don Gorton, chair of the Anti-Violence Project. See Backlash to lenient sentence in gay bashing case
Bay Windows

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How Far Will Mormons Go to Fight Gay Marriage?

If a gay marriage question is put on the California ballot in 2010, it will put the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a seriously interesting crossroads.

It has been three or four decades since the Mormon Church chose a low profile in American politics, after its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and theological hostility to black Americans, spurred an anti-Mormon backlash. The Mormons are among the most persecuted of American sects, and highly sensitive to criticism.

The church’s low-key strategy seemed to work. There are still some Mormon-haters in evangelical Christian

circles, but for the most part the Mormons are accepted and admired, and church membership has soared. Mormon politicians like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman are regarded by mainstream America as legitimate presidential timber.

Mormon watchers were surprised, then, when the church hierarchy took such an active role in the passage of Proposition 8 in California, limiting marriage to a man and a woman. Gay Americans were surprised as well. They didn’t expect the church to embrace gay marriage, but neither did they predict that the Mormon Church would emerge as a resolute and politically-active foe, whose support for Prop 8 was perhaps determinative. Some of the resultant anti-Mormon rhetoric has been vicious.

Now that Prop 8 has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, gay rights groups say they will put gay marriage on the ballot in California again, and mount a full scale effort to win public approval, perhaps as soon as 2010.

That will put the ball back in the church’s court. The family is at the center of Mormon theology. But the national political trends are running against the church. Younger Americans—even young evangelicals—are more than willing to see their gay friends get married.

Opposing gay marriage in Utah (as the church did in 2004) is one thing, but taking a lead public role in a national campaign to deprive a persecuted minority of a right shared by all other Americans is another. It would be seen as a sign that the days of low-key tactics are over, and that the current Mormon leaders are prepared to give, and get, the political bruising that occurs when religion mixes with politics in America.

Check out our political cartoons.

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Goldstein: ‘Joe the Plumber’ backlash would help pass marriage equality

Garden State Equality Chair Steven Goldstein said today that he welcomes “Joe the Plumber’s” visit to New Jersey to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan tomorrow, especially in light of controversial comments about gay people he made in an interview that was published today.

“Joe the Plumber,” a.k.a. Samuel Wurzelbacher, told Christianity Today that he favors letting states decide the gay marriage question – which is more or less the same position that Garden State Equality takes. But in elaborating his point, Wurzelbacher made some comments some gay rights activists and progressive groups found offensive:

“People don’t understand the dictionary-it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do-what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.”

Goldstein said that such comments actually help his group’s cause because they help create a backlash against anti-gay attitudes among regular New Jerseyans.

See Goldstein: ‘Joe the Plumber’ backlash would help pass marriage … PolitickerNJ

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Poll shows support for gay marriage

For the first time in a nationwide survey, more Americans say they support gay marriage (49%) than oppose it (46%), according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.

That 49% supporting gay marriage, in fact, is a significant jump from 2004, when the Post/ABC poll found just 32% in favor.

This surge within the past month suggests that any backlash against the recent moves across the country to legalize gay marriage has yet to emerge. See Poll shows support for gay marriage

msnbc.com -