SENEGAL SCARE: Gay Witch Hunts & Lynchings Queerty

In Uganda, anti-gay hatred is manifested by newspapers printing of the names and faces of “gay suspects” and activists “storming Parliament” with their message to rid the nation of gays. But across the continent in Senegal, things aren’t any better for the gays. They’re being hunted down Jim Crow-style, with threats of lynchings.

Even though nine AIDS activists were just released from prison after their attorneys successfully argued the evidence for “unnatural acts” charges was insufficient, the climate is anything but tolerant. Rather, you have youth leaders calling for the lynching of gay men: “The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” one told Dakar newspaper L’Observeur, according to GlobalPost.

See SENEGAL SCARE: Gay Witch Hunts & Lynchings

Queerty * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Gays under threat in Senegal

DAKAR, Senegal — A mob gathered near a mosque outside Dakar. They were there to hunt down and kill nine men accused of homosexual acts.

Earlier this week the nine Senegalese AIDS activists were freed from eight-year-prison terms for alleged homosexual acts, but they went into hiding because of death threats from Muslim religious leaders and the general population.

“The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” Dakar newspaper L’Observeur quoted a local youth leader as saying.

“Gay men will never be free in Senegal. They expose us all to danger,” said Imam Mbaye Niang, a prominent religious leader and member of parliament. “The judges should understand that Senegalese people need to protect their children, their families from homosexuality.”

In Senegal — where 95 percent of the population is Muslim — homosexual acts are punishable by fines and up to five years in prison. In January, the nine men received the harshest sentence yet for such an offense in Senegal, getting the maximum of five years and an additional three for criminal conspiracy.

Though widely supported in Senegal, the conviction was condemned by international human rights groups and foreign governments, most notably France.

“They were judged and condemned very severely, surely on the basis of public outcry, therefore the justice was neither objective nor founded in law,” said lead defense attorney Barim Sassoum Sy, who called the initial ruling hasty and emotional.

A Dakar appeals court overturned that decision Monday, citing violations of legal protocol.

Acting on an anonymous tip, police had arrested the men — most of whom do HIV prevention work in the “men having sex with men” community — in December at the home of a prominent gay activist. But the police did not have a search warrant, nor did they catch the men in the act, which is required by the Senegalese law prohibiting “indecent acts against nature.” The judge hearing the appeal therefore declared their convictions null and void, Sy said.

Yet even as smiling attorneys and supporters celebrated in the packed courtroom Monday and exchanged congratulations, plans were already in place to get the freed men into hiding outside Dakar.

“The first judge sentenced them to eight years,” said Imam Niang. “He had the courage to say it. The judge that let them go was much less courageous. He yielded to international pressure.”

See

Gays under threat in Senegal

GlobalPost * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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On gay rights, two steps forward, one step back in the Alabama house

In a headspinning series of moves today, the Alabama House of Representatives today voted to add gays and bisexuals to the list of classes of people protected by a state hate crimes act — and passed a resolution praising Miss California for speaking out against gay marriage.

In a 46-41 vote today, the Alabama house approved a bill sponsored by Montgomery Democrat Alvin Holmes that would make it a crime to attack someone because of the victim’s sexual orientation. The bill updates a law passed in 1994 that included race, colour, religion and national origin.

Also today, the body passed on a voice vote a resolution sponsored by Republican Montgomery Representative Jay Love praising Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean. Love said she stuck to her convictions even though it may have cost her the pageant.

At the Miss USA pageant earlier this week, Prejean, competing as Miss California, was asked by gay blogger Perez Hilton, a judge, if she believe same-sex marriage should be allowed across the country. She said: “in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there but that’s how I was raised.”

Hilton later said on his blog that she gave “the worst answer in pageant history”, and that she lost not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage but because “she’s a dumb bitch”. See

On gay rights, two steps forward, one step back in the Alabama house guardian.co.uk

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KATHY GRIFFIN, BISHOP GENE ROBINSON, MILK, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE, THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW, AQUÍ Y AHORA HONORED AT 20TH ANNUAL GLAAD MEDIA AWARDS PRESENTED BY IBM

Los Angeles, Sunday, April 19, 2009 – Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Alba, T.R. Knight, Kate Walsh, Teri Hatcher, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Megan Mullally, Bill Paxton, Jennifer Beals, Alan Cumming and Gus Van Sant were among the celebrities who joined the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) as the organization honored Kathy Griffin, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, and the best in film, television and journalism last night at the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles.

GLAAD, the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, present the GLAAD Media Awards to recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the LGBT community and the issues that affect their lives.

At the ceremony, T.R. Knight presented the Vanguard Award to Kathy Griffin, a strong ally of the LGBT community, who regularly includes LGBT people in her Bravo reality program Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and in her live comedy shows. In media outlets around the world, Griffin is a vocal advocate for marriage equality for same-sex couples, and regularly supports LGBT community organizations. The Vanguard Award is presented to individuals who, through their work, have increased the visibility and understanding of the LGBT community in the media.

“This is a thrill and an honor and an awesome night,” Griffin said in her acceptance speech. “You guys have been so good to me. I appreciate you, I get you, I love you, and I’ll keep making you laugh as long as you’ll let me! Thank you!”

Also at the event, Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, presented the Stephen F. Kolzak Award to Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in the history of the Episcopal church. The Stephen F. Kolzak Award is presented to an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for the LGBT community in the media.

Photo: (l. – r.) Cleve Jones and Dustin Lance Black presented the Stephen F. Kolzak Award to Bishop Gene Robinson at the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards with GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano (r.) at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, April 18, 2009. © 2009 Jeff Vespa/WireImage. All Rights Reserved.

“It is such an honor to be here, and to be honored by the Board of GLAAD….To have you say thanks in this way just means the world to me,” Robinson said accepting his award. Speaking of the LGBT movement, Robinson continued, “We need to be in this for the long haul…Just because we achieved civil rights in the sixties for African Americans, it doesn’t mean racism is gone. Because we achieved rights for women in the seventies, it doesn’t mean sexism is gone….But we can stay in this fight because we know how it’s is going to end. This is going to end with full equality for LGBT people in our churches and in society. I have no doubt of it.”

Alan Cumming presented a Special Recognition Award to The L Word which completed its sixth and final season on Showtime in March. Show creator Ilene Chaiken accepted the award with cast members Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey and Katherine Moenning. At the 17th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in 2005, The L Word received the award for Outstanding Drama Series.

In her remarks, Chaiken commented on the continuing need to advocate for the inclusion of LGBT characters in the media. “At this moment in history, when marriage equality is virtually inevitable and maybe even imminent, when we’ve welcomed new LGBT civil rights legislation in Iowa, Colorado, Washington D.C., New Hampshire and soon New York…how can it be that LGBT people – after years of slow but promising momentum – have careened backwards in terms of representation in mainstream popular entertainment media?” Chaiken said.

Chaiken continued, “GLAAD has been working vigilantly to ensure that the defamation of LGBT people does not go unchecked. GLAAD’s been working to ensure that our lives are visible in the news and in the media. GLAAD’s work is vital and critical to helping us to achieve the milestones that are lifting LGBT people to our rightful place of full, unfettered equality. Thank you, GLAAD. And thank you Showtime, for six wonderful years…Thanks for breaking ground and for having the courage of your convictions. Now let’s do it again. Let’s do it more. Let’s do it often. Let’s do it always.”

GLAAD also recognized Prop 8: The Musical, a video created for FunnyorDie.com in response to the passage of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative which eliminated the right to marry for same-sex couples. Directed by Adam Shankman and written by Marc Shaiman, the video received over one million hits on its first day online. During the show, Miss Coco Peru and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles performed the song live onstage. Shankman accepted the award on behalf of the team of creators.

Milk received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release. The award was accepted by director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi accepted a GLAAD Media Award for the episode “Ellen & Portia’s Wedding Day” from The Ellen DeGeneres Show nominated for Outstanding Talk Show Episode. Show creator Marc Cherry, along with Teri Hatcher, Dana Delaney, Kyle MacLachlan, Tuc Watkins, Kevin Rahm, Andrea Bowen and Brenda Strong accepted the award for Outstanding Comedy Series for Desperate Housewives. The episode “Unidentified Funk” from The New Adventures of Old Christine received the award for Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without an LGBT character), and show creator Kari Lizer, cast members Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Clark Gregg accepted with award with episode guest star Megan Mullally. Finally, Univision news program Aquí y Ahora received the award for Outstanding TV Journalism – Newsmagazine for its story about the murder of transgender teenager Angie Zapata. Monica Zapata, Angie’s sister, accepted the award with Univision producer Belissa Morillo.

Photo: (l. – r.) Director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, producer Dan Jinks and producer Bruce Cohen accepted the award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release for Milk at the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, April 18, 2009. © 2009 Jeff Vespa/WireImage. All Rights Reserved.

GLAAD Media Award-winning performer Miss Coco Peru hosted the show, and award-winning Broadway stars Cheyenne Jackson and Jennifer Holliday performed for the black tie audience at the Nokia Theatre. Photo: Miss Coco Peru hosted the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, April 18, 2009. © 2009 Vince Bucci/WireImage. All Rights Reserved.

Other celebrity guests at the event included: Jessica Alba, Chad Allen and Jeremy Glazer, Jensen Atwood, Jennifer Beals, Bebe Zahara Benet, Dustin Lance Black, Andrea Bowen, Ilene Chaiken, Justin Chambers, Marc Cherry, Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks, Matt Cohen, Jennifer Elise Cox, Wilson Cruz, Alan Cumming, Katelynn Cusanelli, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, Dana Delaney, Kirby Dick, Ileana Douglas, Randolph Duke, Joely Fisher, Scott Michael Foster, David Furnish, Robert Gant, Rebecca Gayheart, Thea Gill, Spencer Grammer, Clark Gregg, Kathy Griffin, Greg Grunberg, Leisha Hailey, Teri Hatcher, Cheyenne Jackson, Maurice Jamal, Paul James, Cleve Jones, Dan Karaty, T.R. Knight, Rex Lee, Jeff Lewis and Ryan Brown, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jane Lynch, Justina Machado, Camryn Manheim, Alec Mapa, Kyle MacLachlan, Katherine Moenning, Megan Mullally, Mary Murphy, Ryan Murphy, Mandy Musgrave, Nichelle Nichols, Lupe Ontiveros, Cheri Oteri, Peter Paige, Bill Paxton, Miss Coco Peru, Patrik-Ian Polk, Kevin Rahm, Bishop Gene Robinson, Gabriel Romero, Howard Rosenman , Brad Rowe, Adam Shankman, Sean Smith, Darren Star, Darryl Stephens, Amber Stevens, Brenda Strong, George Takei and Brad Altman, Bruno Tonioli, Gus Van Sant, Christian Vincent, Kate Walsh, Tuc Watkins, Trevor Wright, Monica Zapata, and GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano.

Following is a complete list of GLAAD Media Award recipients announced Saturday in Los Angeles. Additional awards will be presented in San Francisco on May 9 at the Hilton San Francisco. Previously awards were presented in New York at the Marriot Marquis on March 28.

Vanguard Award: Kathy Griffin (presented by T.R. Knight)

Stephen F. Kolzak Award: The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson (presented by Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones)

Special Recognition: The L Word (Showtime) [Accepted by: show creator Ilene Chaiken, with Jennifer Beals, Katherine Moennig, and Leisha Hailey]

Special Recognition: Prop 8: The Musical (FunnyorDie.com) [Accepted by: director Adam Shankman]

Outstanding Film – Wide Release: Milk (Focus Features) [Accepted by: director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks]

Outstanding Comedy Series: Desperate Housewives (ABC) [Accepted by: show creator Marc Cherry, Teri Hatcher, Dana Delaney, Kyle MacLachlan, Tuc Watkins, Kevin Rahm, Andrea Bowen and Brenda Strong]

Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without an LGBT character): “Unidentified Funk” The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS) [Accepted by: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Megan Mullally, Clark Gregg, and show creator Kari Lizer]

Outstanding Talk Show Episode: “Ellen & Portia’s Wedding Day” The Ellen DeGeneres Show (syndicated) [Accepted by: Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi]

Outstanding Spanish-Language TV Journalism – Newsmagazine: “A juzgar por las apariencias” y “En otro cuerpo” Aquí y Ahora (Univision) [Accepted by: Univision producer Belissa Morillo and Monica Zapata, sister of murdered transgender teenager Angie Zapata]

GLAAD also announced that Brothers & Sisters (ABC) received the award for Outstanding Drama Series and Secrets of the Trade by Jonathan Tolins received the award for Outstanding Los Angeles Theater production.

Support from corporate partners allowed GLAAD to offer free or low-cost tickets to the event to over 1000 youth and young adults from the Southern California area. Fox television network also sponsored a special youth after-party, which included appearances by the cast and producers of Fox’s upcoming series Glee, as well as celebrity attendees from Milk, The L Word, Greek, Grey’s Anatomy, and Noah’s Arc.

Many of last night’s guests wore white ribbons provided by WhiteKnot.org. These ribbons symbolize support for marriage equality for same-sex couples.

More than 100 corporate sponsors are showing their support, including National Presenting Partner IBM and Local Presenting Partners ABSOLUT® VODKA and Prudential. GLAAD is also grateful to the event’s Platinum Underwriters Comcast, TimeWarner and University of Phoenix. AT&T, Allstate Insurance Company, American Airlines, Barefoot Wine, Disney/ABC Television Group, HMS Media, Herb Ritts Foundation, New York City Marriott & Renaissance Hotels, Renaissance New York Hotel, MillerCoors, NBC Universal, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Southwest Airlines, The Terry Watanabe Charitable Trust and Wyndham Hotel Group support the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards as Underwriter Partners.

For a full list of corporate sponsors or information on how to become a corporate sponsor, purchase tickets or a tribute journal ad, please visit www.glaad.org/mediaawards or contact Stamp Event Management at (877) 519-7904 or glaad@stampeventco.com.

About GLAAD
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit http://www.glaad.org/.

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Gay Iraqi could face death penalty if deportation goes ahead

A gay Iraqi man due for deportation tomorrow has been told by the UK Border Agency to conduct his relationships “in private” on his return to Iraq, where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Campaign group Iraqi LGBT says the asylum seeker will become the seventh gay Iraqi to be returned to the country by the UK, despite the country being one of only nine in the world where homosexual people are executed.

Though a ruling was made in September 2007 allowing two gay Iraqis to remain in the UK, campaigners working on behalf of the man facing deportation tomorrow say his case was held too long ago to benefit from the change in case law achieved in 2007.

Keith Best, the director of the Immigration Advisory Service, told the Guardian that the government ought to give the asylum seeker a fresh hearing.

The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) has said that the man’s homosexuality did not form the basis of his original asylum application in 2001 and that his subsequent conviction for seeking to stay in the country illegally makes him an untrustworthy defendant, undermining his claim to be gay. See Gay Iraqi could face death penalty if deportation goes ahead
American Chronicle, CA

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Craig should have come out: ACLU rep

Samuelson: Former senator as an out gay man would have had stronger grounds to fight conviction.

Craig nixes further appeals

(Minneapolis, Minnesota) Former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has reached the end of the road in his effort to reverse his conviction in an airport bathroom sex sting, one of his lawyers said Thursday.

Attorney Tom Kelly said Craig had decided against asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to void the conviction. The …

Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals

By ANTHONY B. ROBINSON
GUEST COLUMNIST

SHOULD RICK WARREN be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration?

You might think that after the months-long saga surrounding Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the president-elect would do whatever he could to avoid further pastor-politics dramas.

Apparently not. Inviting Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif., and popular author of the “Purpose-Driven Life” series of books, has touched off a controversy.

During the Jeremiah Wright controversy I suggested that Wright needed to be seen within the context of the black church experience. In a similar way, it seems important to set Rick Warren within the context of evangelical Christianity in the U.S.

Warren embodies what many see as the new evangelical spirit. As an evangelical Christian, he is clear about his commitment to Christ and about conversion as the path. But Warren has parted company with fundamentalism and its political arm, the religious right, over its mean-spirited approach to politics and its fixation on abortion and homosexuality as the be-all and end-all.

Warren has emerged as an evangelical who puts both mouth and money on the line for AIDS prevention and care, issues of poverty and the global gap between rich and poor, and climate change. For this evolution Warren has incurred the wrath of those on the religious right. In the larger scheme of things, Warren represents an important shift in the influential evangelical world. This shift meant Obama captured support among young evangelicals who care about poverty, social justice and climate change.

While people on the fundamentalist religious right are incensed that Warren would agree to take part in the inauguration and give his blessing to a president who supports choice on abortion, folks on the other side are ticked off by Obama’s choice of the bearded, aloha shirt-clad pastor from Southern California because Warren has questions about gay marriage.

While Warren was not out in front on this, he supported Proposition 8 in California’s recent election, a measure that took back what California courts had granted, the right of gay people to marry. Warren is concerned about “redefining the 5,000-year-old institution of marriage,” which he sees as a foundation of human civilization. This has elicited charges that Warren has “defamed” gays. Others tagged Obama himself a bigot for daring to invite Warren.

Here’s what I think. Obama is doing what he said he would do, namely, reach across the culture-war divides, across the polarized minefield of American political life, to invite to the party someone who doesn’t agree with him on every issue. Some argue that Obama lacks the courage of his convictions on full inclusion of gays. It seems to me, rather, that Obama is remaining true to his convictions of a post-partisan, nonideological approach and style. After all, inclusion doesn’t really mean much if you include only those who already totally agree with you.

This is, remember, the man who wrote “The Audacity of Hope.”

“I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we are in,” he wrote. And, “it’s precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.” Inviting megachurch pastor Warren, who is also challenging old orthodoxies, fits these sentiments.

Personally, I can think of people I would prefer to Rick Warren for the role of inaugural prayer-giver. But Obama’s choice seems to me consistent with what he has said and his operative philosophy. Moreover, the attempt to reach out to more centrist evangelicals, whom Warren represents, is important. To claim that because Warren has questions about gay marriage means that he’s a bigot or that he has “defamed” gay people is a stretch.

Finally, it is important to note that Rick Warren is not being asked to take up a cabinet post or otherwise make or administer policy. He’s been asked to give a prayer. My hunch is that if this country has a prayer, it will be because we do find a path beyond ideological purity and rigid orthodoxy.

In closing, a personal note: I lost one of my most faithful readers last Sunday when 95-year-old Jim Jambor of Olympia died. Jim watched for this column, “the Saturday Special” as he called it, and seldom failed to comment. We’ll miss you, Jim!

Anthony Robinson, a pastor of the United Church of Christ, is a speaker and teacher. He can be reached at anthonybrobinson@comcast.net.

See Articles of Faith: Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals
Seattle Post Intelligencer

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4 sought in gang rape of lesbian

(San Francisco, California) Police in Richmond, northeast of San Francisco, are hunting four men accused of the brutal kidnapping and gang rape of a lesbian. Investigators have appealed to the public for help and have posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrests and conviction of the men.

Police …