Duanna Johnson cop trial begins

The police officer caught on tape beating a black trans woman says he’s not guilty.

BAGHDAD — The young man turns to the camera and pleads with his tormentors.

“I’m not a terrorist,” he tells the Iraqi police who surround him. “I want you to know I am different. But I am not a terrorist.”

To some fundamentalist Iraqi Muslims, Ahmed Sadoun Saleh was worse than a terrorist.

He was gay. He wore his hair long and took female hormones to grow breasts. Amused by his appearance, Iraqi police officers stopped him in December at a checkpoint in a southern Baghdad neighborhood dominated by radical Shiite militias. They groped Saleh and ridiculed him.

The assault was captured on video and circulated on cellphones throughout Baghdad, says Ali Hili, founder of London-based Iraqi LGBT, a group dedicated to protecting Iraq’s gays and lesbians. Shortly after the video was made public, Hili says Saleh contacted him, fearing for his life, and asked for his help to flee Iraq.

“Unfortunately, it was too late,” Hili says. Saleh turned up dead two months later, he says.

At least 82 gay men have been killed in Iraq since December, according to Iraqi LGBT. The violence has raised questions about the Iraqi government’s ability to protect a diverse range of vulnerable minority groups that also includes Christians and Kurds, especially following the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities last month.

Mithal al-Alusi, a secular, liberal Sunni legislator, is among those who blame the killings on armed militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army militia.

See Militias target some Iraqis for being gay

USA Today

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‘Hate crime’ at Danish gay games

A Dane has been charged with committing a hate crime for allegedly throwing fireworks at athletes during a gay sporting event in Copenhagen.

He is accused of throwing fireworks into the Oesterbro stadium where the World Outgames running competitions were being held.

One US athlete suffered a light injury to his hand.

The attack marks the second suspected hate crime at the Outgames after three men were assaulted in the street.

In the stadium incident, the alleged perpetrator was apprehended by runners from the Sparta Athletes club as he attempted to escape.

See ‘Hate crime’ at Danish gay games

BBC New

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‘Two-Track’ Church Suggested by Archbishop of Canterbury

PARIS — The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said profound differences among the world’s 77 million Anglicans over gay clergy and same-sex unions could divide their church into a “two-track model” yielding “two styles of being Anglican.”

The formula could avert a formal breach between liberals and conservatives but bring new strains in the relationship between the global Anglican Communion and American Episcopalians who resolved this month to open the door to ordaining openly gay bishops and to start the process of developing rites for same-sex marriages.

Archbishop Williams insisted that the issue should not be debated “in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican.”

In a lengthy message published Monday on his Web site, the archbishop offered a detailed and nuanced response to events at the Episcopal convention in Anaheim, Calif., this month when gay-rights advocates in the United States chalked up major victories over conservatives on sexual issues. The Episcopal Church is the official branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States.

The developments were seen by liberals and conservatives as likely turning points in the history of the divided Episcopal Church, reflecting the profound rifts over sexual issues within Anglicanism — the world’s third largest network of Christian churches after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The differences have crystallized around the Episcopal Church’s consent in 2003 to the consecration of the church’s first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The Episcopalians had agreed to a moratorium on the election of gay bishops, but it was lifted at the convention in Anaheim.

The archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, which is composed of 38 provinces worldwide. The Episcopal Church claims about 2.3 million members.

In his message, Archbishop Williams repeated his view that “a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority” of the full Anglican Communion, any more than a blessing for a heterosexual couple living outside marriage would have.

That, in turn, means that as long as the broader church “as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.”

The issues have confronted the archbishop with deep divisions not simply between liberals and conservatives in the United States but also across the broader church with its many followers in Africa, Britain and elsewhere. Four conservative dioceses in the United States and many individual Episcopal churches have broken away from the national denomination to forge alliances with conservative Anglican groups such as the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Archbishop Williams said: “There is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.”

The archbishop has promoted the idea of covenant — described by some analysts as a kind of good-behavior guide for churches — to overcome the rift.

“This has been called a ‘two-tier’ model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure,” the archbishop’s message said. “But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure.”

The message continued: “It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion.”

See Anglican Sees ‘Two-Track’ Church @ New York Times

Archbishop warns ordination of gay clergy could lead to two-tier … guardian.co.uk
Anglican Head Warns Of Two-Tier Church After Gay Vote On Top Magazine Archbishop of Canterbury responds to General Convention actions on … Austin American-Statesman

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A Brutal Gay-Bashing In ptown

Andrew Sullivan reports: “I was shocked tonight to bump into a new friend, Mark, hobbling down the street. I was about to make a joke as I rode up behind him on my bike and then saw his face. It was a blur of blood and bruises. Friday night, he was leaving the Atlantic House – an historic gay pub in Ptown – when a group of three local kids hiding in an alley-way to target gays threw a bottle at his face and called him a faggot. He threw the bottle back and then they set upon him. He’s not a slight guy, he’s strong and built and bearded. But he was clearly reeling from the assault and will return to the hospital tomorrow. The cops apparently responded heroically and after a chase captured the assailants.” See A Brutal Gay-Bashing In ptown

Atlantic Online

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International gathering of gay activists kicks off in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN — Music and aerial acrobats are kicking off the second edition of the World Outgames – nine days of sports, cultural and human rights events for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Some of the 5,500 participants from about 100 countries are marching in a parade of nations on Copenhagen’s City Hall Square. Artists, suspended in wires above them, are performing spectacular acrobatics to deafening music and a frenzied light show.

See International gathering of gay activists kicks off in Copenhagen

The Canadian Press

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Outgames international gay sport and culture event opens in Copenhagen

There will be triathlon and handball – but also bridge and line dancing. Copenhagen is preparing for thousands of gay people from dozens of nations to descend this weekend for the Outgames, a nine-day sporting and cultural olympics for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

When the 5,500 participants are introduced on a catwalk in Copenhagen’s central square today, it will kickstart nine days of sport, arts and political debates with almost 100 nations represented in more than 30 events, traditional and improvised.

But the event is about much more than podium places. The Outgames has launched itself under the banner of sport, culture and human rights. Participants from a host of cities, including Tel Aviv and Mexico City, will take over public spaces throughout Copenhagen to showcase artists and performers.

See Outgames international gay sport and culture event opens in Copenhagen

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Gay activists and union leaders commit to year two of Hyatt Boycott

At a press conference last Friday, GLBT activists and union leaders marked the one-year anniversary of the Manchester Hyatt Boycott, launched last year in response to hotel owner Doug Manchester’s $125,000 contribution to qualify Proposition 8 for the ballot.

“For over a year we have urged San Diegans, Californians and Americans to boycott the Manchester Hyatt because of Manchester’s contribution to Proposition 8 and onerous workloads for the hotel’s housekeepers,” said Cleve Jones, a national gay leader and former aid to slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk. “The hotel’s own people have admitted to losing over $7 million in business due to the boycott. This boycott has truly shown the power of our reenergized community and the alliance between the gay community and labor.”

Proposition 8 eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. Boycott organizers also committed to continue the boycott and expand its scope.

“One of our goals for the next year will be to take the boycott to the next level – global,” said Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate. “We will ask travel planners and tour operators throughout the world not to book meetings and room nights at the Manchester properties. We will put up a virtual bright yellow caution tape around Manchester’s hotels, and ask people not to cross it.”

The boycott has drawn increasing media attention and picked up steam since it began. Early on, several groups announced that they would move or cancel events at the hotel. Recently, the American Association of Justice, a trial lawyers group moved its entire convention out of the Manchester Hyatt to San Francisco to honor the boycott. At a recent gay and lesbian travel exposition, a hotel spokesperson confirmed that the boycott has cost the hotel more than $7 million.

At the July 17 press conference, organizers unveiled more than just a new approach. They came with a new logo and visual aid – bright yellow caution tape reading “Do not cross. Do not support bigotry and discrimination.” Organizers say the caution tape is intended as a reminder for individuals throughout the country not to patronize the hotel.

“We want to send a very simple message to all those planning to travel to San Diego that the Manchester Hyatt Boycott is on and stronger than ever,” said Human Relations Commissioner, Nicole Murray-Ramirez. “The unions, hotel workers and gay community started this fight together and we intend to finish it together.”

See Gay activists and union leaders commit to year two of Hyatt Boycott

Gay and Lesbian Times

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