Minn. school district settles gay harassment suit
A school district in Minnesota agreed to pay a $25,000 settlement to a high school junior who was subjected to harassment by two teachers around his perceived sexual orientation, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
Teacher Diane Cleveland commented that the boy’s “fence swings both ways”; when he wrote a paper on Ben …
Tags: Fence, gay, Harassment Suit, Minneapolis Star Tribune, School Harassment, Sexual Orientation, Star Tribune, Swings, Tribune ReportsBisexuality 101: Am I bisexual?
Some people would say that everyone is bisexual, but I’m not going to buy into that line. That’s the easiest way to confuse those of you who may be on the fence.
And no, just because you thought about doing something with a friend of the same sex—or maybe even did a little fooling around at one time—it doesn’t mean that you’ve got the “B” label branded on your forehead forever. Nor, does it mean if you’ve never actually had sex with both a man and a woman that you cannot declare yourself a bisexual.
In fact, many people who identify as bisexual have yet to experience full sexual relations with a man and a woman (and it doesn’t have to be at the same time, either!)
Bisexuality, in its simplest form, is the understanding or awareness that you can be attracted physically and emotionally to either gender at some point.
It doesn’t mean that you have to be equally attracted to both, and it doesn’t mean that you have to have regular sex with both genders to be happy or satisfied. And yes, bisexuals can be monogamous, and have one only one partner at a time and be very content. See Bisexuality 101: Am I bisexual?
Examiner.com -
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Conservatives reject funding for Montreal gay festival
A gay and lesbian arts festival that was told it met all government criteria under a new tourism stimulus program learned Tuesday it was rejected for funding.
The news arrived at Montreal’s Divers-Cite a few weeks after tension swept the Conservative caucus over funding for Toronto’s Pride week, and just days before the beginning of the event.
The directors of Montreal’s Divers-Cite had actually sprung to the defence of Stephen Harper’s government earlier this month, telling The Canadian Press that the Conservatives had never treated them differently. Some in the gay community attacked them for their comments.
They had submitted a bid under the new Marquee Tourism Events Program for $155,000 to add performers and promotion to this year’s $2-million event.
Government relations and marketing director Paul Girard said bureaucrats handling his file at Industry Canada told him his application met all the criteria, and had been sent up to Minister Tony Clement’s office for final approval.
When he phoned to check on the bid Tuesday, Mr. Girard says he was told by a senior bureaucrat that the $100-million program had received so many requests, the government simply had to make a choice.
“We knew that anybody that was to be refused and didn’t meet the criteria got a quick No,” Mr. Girard said. “As time advanced, we became more and more confident.”
Paul’s sister Suzanne, the festival’s director, says the organization was completely shocked by the response. Divers-Cite has received funding from Economic Development Canada for several years, as well as Canadian Heritage.
See Conservatives reject funding for Montreal gay festival
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Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
NEW DELHI: Was Indian society tolerant of homosexuality before the colonial administration proscribed it in 1860? The government has taken conflicting positions on this within the country and outside.
On a petition pending before the Delhi high court seeking to decriminalize homosexuality, the government said in its counter affidavit that that there were “no convincing reports to indicate that homosexuality or other offences against the order of nature mentioned in Section 377 IPC were acceptable in the Indian society prior to colonial rule.�
But when it was being reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council last year for the first time ever, India distanced itself from that provision when Sweden, arguably the most gay-friendly country in the world, questioned its record in ensuring equality irrespective of a person’s sexual orientation.
This is how Goolam Vahanvati, who was then solicitor-general and is now attorney-general, tried to save India’s face before the council as part of its official delegation. “Around the early 19th Century, you probably know that in England they frowned on homosexuality, and therefore there are historical reports that various people came to India to take advantage of its more liberal atmosphere with regard to different kinds of sexual conduct.
“As a result, in 1860 when we got the Indian Penal Code, which was drafted by Lord Macaulay, they inserted Section 377 which brought in the concept of ‘sexual offences against the order of nature’.
Now in India we didn’t have this concept of something being ‘against the order of nature’. It was essentially a Western concept, which has remained over the years. Now homosexuality as such is not defined in the IPC, and it will be a matter of great argument whether it is ‘against the order of nature.”
Vahanvati’s admission on the international forum that the ban on homosexuality was a western import and its relevance was debatable flies in the face of the government’s unabashed efforts before the Delhi high court to retain Section 377, complete with its colonial baggage and archaic notion of unnatural offences.
Whatever the politics behind this glaring contradiction, there is ample evidence placed before the high court by petitioner Naz Foundation substantiating in effect Vahanvati’s view that in the centuries prior to the enactment of section 377, India was rather accommodating of homosexuals. See Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
Times of India
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Shanghai gay pride: the show goes on
A colourful show of drag queens dressed in Chinese opera costumes was one of the festivities that marked Shanghai’s gay pride on Saturday, the first in China where homosexuality remains largely hidden.
A “Big Bash” barbecue Saturday — billed as the highlight of the week-long festival — went ahead as planned in a bar despite previous last-minute event cancellations by local authorities that marred the “Shanghai Pride.”
Drag and fashion shows and a ‘hot body’ competition took place at Cotton’s bar attended by at least 500 people, in a garden that was hidden from view by a rainbow banner covering the surrounding fence.
Later Saturday night, two fake gay marriages were to take place before people were ferried onto buses to go to an afterparty at a bar on Shanghai’s famous Bund promenade.
“We would have liked the whole week to go without cancellations, but today everything has happened as we wanted it to, so we’re happy,” said Kenneth Tan, spokesman for organisers Shanghai LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender).
Events for “Shanghai Pride” have been organised at private venues without a public parade — in stark contrast to similar events elsewhere in the world — to avoid attracting unwanted official attention.
But still, city authorities forced the cancellation of a film screening and a play during the festival, and the two venues hosting the “Big Bash” events Saturday had received calls from officials, according to Tan.
He said police had come to Cotton’s Saturday where expatriates and Chinese people mingled but soon left.
Liu Yang, a 27-year-old Chinese homosexual who was enjoying the shows Saturday, said he was amazed by the festival.
“I’ve never been abroad, and I have really wondered how such an event could take place so smoothly — I’m really nicely surprised,” he said.
See Shanghai gay pride: the show goes on AFP - 4
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Africa: Gay and lesbian voices in African blogosphere
Homosexuality is perceived as a new phenomenon in Africa and a taboo. It is outlawed in many African countries. Many African leaders have condemned homosexuality as being un-African. The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe once described gays as worse than dogs and pigs. Former Namibia’s President, Sam Nujoma, once stated that “Homosexuals must be condemned and rejected in our society.”
Nigeria introduced a bill in 2007 banning same sex marriage. According to Rod 2.0 the bill is the most comprehensive homophobic legislation ever proposed in the world. Early this year homosexuals in Nigeria stormed the National Assembly seeking for legislation that will guarantee the protection.
Lifestyle, culture and religion have become the invisible fence to many homosexuals in Africa barring them from their freedom of sexual expression. A Kenyan blogger, Wilde Yearnings, was quite optimistic after US President Barack Obama officially declared June being a gay pride month and decriminalizing of homosexuality all over the world earlier this month. He posted Obama’s speech on his blog:
My Administration has partnered with the LGBT community to advance a wide range of initiatives. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world…NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.
Naughy Feeling commented on the post:
It is great our comrades in America are getting recognition. In our dear country we can’t stick our necks in the sand and tell ourselves all will be well. The gigantous task ahead demands of us that we kid not ourselves of the responsibility ahead of us. It may require sacrifices but all for the greater good. May God bless LGBT kenya n give us strength for what is ahead. But hey, look on the bright side, we can still have fun at it.
But will culture, religion and lifestyle factors derail the decriminalisation of homosexuality in most African countries or will it be as Wilde Yearnings described “meanwhile in Kenya… The struggle continues…”?
It has been said that homosexuality is a lifestyle adapted by Africans from the West, SebaSpace a Ugandan blogger tries to points out that his “sexuality” and “him ” are one, that homosexuality cannot be a lifestyle because for him to be involved with someone it has to be sexually, emotionally and spiritually bringing the fact that homosexuality is a physiological function too.
SebaSpace has been on a constant war with an anti-gay blogger also from Uganda and the war is always revolving around religion, culture and lifestyle. This created a stir in the LGBT blogosphere and another gay Kenyan blogger wrotes a post to answer the three questions The Red Pepper had asked. The questions were:
1. If you try to drink water through the ear, you naturally spoil it because it was created by God to do the hearing function. That’s physical harm.
2. when they discovered you were gay. You know very well how we love having grandchildren in Africa. Imagine what goes on in your parents’ minds to know that you will never give them grandchildren (I am assuming that you a die-hard gay man but if you are bi, please forgive me). So that is emotional harm.
3. Spiritual harm. You tamper with God’s plan of procreation. Understand that the main reason of creating the sexual organs was procreation purposes. For you in an attempt to be very creative, you put your organs at the disposal of pleasure only (I hope it is fun).If you have radical parents, they can start questioning God as to why he gave them such a child. I know parents of a gay boy who visited scores of witchdoctors thinking that their child had been bewitched. I can give you as many reasons as possible. I hope you are an objective gentleman who looks at things objectively.With so much hate from all sides, will the African Leaders put their priorities in order from all the pressure by the UN, IMF and World Bank and speak out for the sexual minorities or will still hold them in this invisible cage?
His answers:
The Ugandan rag called Red Pepper has been engaging Afro gay, a fellow Gay blogger from Uganda in arguments regarding the situation on Homosexuality in Uganda. Follow this link to see the full post. Recently, the editor of red pepper wrote to Afro arguing that he (Afro) was causing Physical, emotional and Spiritual harm to his family by being gay.
I promised Afro that I will write my responses to the Editor on my blog and link back with him. I have taken their questions, edited without altering the message and I have responded to each question.
I tend to disagree with you when you say that homos have never done anybody physical, emotional or spiritual harm.
Without any prejudice I want to tell you that they are guilty of all the three accounts.
Count 1. If you try to drink water through the ear, you naturally spoil it because it was created by God to do the hearing function. That’s physical harm.
Red pepper has made three elementary mistakes (assumptions) 1) The common one that homosexuality is equal to sodomy (their shallow analogy of the ear above) 2) Following number 1 above that sodomy is practiced only by homosexuals and 3) That all homosexuals engage in anal sex.
I will deal with the last one first. Is the paper saying they are ok with someone with homosexual orientation as long as they don’t engage in sex? Have they ever heard of celibate gay people and gay people who don’t engage in anal sex? Well, I have and know both types.
It’s worth noting, that from the very beginning sodomy and homosexuality were two categorically separate things. The correct definition of sodomy–then and now–is simply non-procreative sex, whether practiced by heterosexuals or homosexuals. It includes oral sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, contraceptive sex, coitus interruptus, and anal sex–any sex in which semen does not find its way into a uterus.
The anal sex thing is one elephant in the room, but it’s not an inherent part of being gay, it isn’t an activity engaged in exclusively by gay people.
SebaSpace refused to answer the questions from Red Pepper. He gives reasons for his refusal: @ Africa: Gay and lesbian voices in African blogosphere
Global Voices Kenya
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U&K Police sound alarm as anti-gay attacks rise
Senior police are “exceptionally concerned” about a recent spate of murders of gay men as figures reveal that homophobic attacks are escalating.
Campaigners say anti-gay violence has surged, and Scotland Yard statistics reveal a 9% rise in homophobic and transphobic offences to 1,372 in the year to April. Greater Manchester police recorded a 63% rise in homophobic crime. Acting Detective Superintendent Gerry Campbell, of the Metropolitan police, who headed a recent operation against hate crime that led to 292 arrests, said: “Homophobia cannot be considered a thing of the past, it’s on the increase.”
A confidential briefing note for Scotland Yard’s lesbian gay bisexual transgender advisory group, seen by the Observer, says nine “critical incidents” have been recorded in the force’s area since March 2008, compared with five incidents from 2001 to 2005. Recent cases include the murders of Daryl Phillips, 39, stabbed two weeks ago in Tottenham, north London, after arriving from Trinidad to escape homophobic bullying, and of Gerry Edwards, 59, knifed when he answered the door in Bromley, south London. His partner, Chris Bevan, 56, was also stabbed.
The new chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Peter Fahy, has expressed “alarm” about the rapid rise of such offences, from 327 to 533 in the year to April 2008. Paul Burston, author of The Gay Divorcee, said homophobic violence appears to be growing in both the number of incidents reported and in severity.
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2 little 2 late? Rep. Foxx Sends Apology Letter To Matthew Shephard’s Mother
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx has written a letter of apology to the mother of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming man whose name is on a bill adding sexual orientation to federal hate-crimes legislation.
During recent debate on the bill, Foxx, R-5th, called attempts to label Shepard’s 1998 murder a hate crime “a hoax.” She said that he was killed during a robbery and not because he was gay.
Shepard, 21, was robbed, beaten and left to die on a prairie fence near Laramie, Wyo., in 1998. Two men pleaded guilty to killing him and testified that they singled him out because he was gay.
Foxx’s remarks caused an uproar, and she later issued a statement saying that her use of “hoax” was “a poor choice of words.”
See Virginia Foxx Sends Apology Letter To Matthew Shephard’s Mother
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