Even after death, abuse against gays continues
(Thies, Senegal) Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in this corner of the world any more.
Madieye Diallo’s body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.
The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.
“I locked myself inside my room and didn’t come out for days,” says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo’s who is ill with HIV. “I’m afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?”
A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries.
In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for ‘repeat offenders.’ And in South Africa, the only country that recognizes gay rights, gangs have carried out so-called “corrective” rapes on lesbians.
“Across many parts of Africa, we’ve seen a rise in homophobic violence,” says London-based gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell, whose organization tracks abuse against gays and lesbians in Africa. “It’s been steadily building for the last 10 years but has got markedly worse in the last year.”
To the long list of abuse meted out to suspected homosexuals in Africa, Senegal has added a new form of degradation – the desecration of their bodies.
In the past two years, at least four men suspected of being gay have been exhumed by angry mobs in cemeteries in Senegal. The violence is especially shocking because Senegal, unlike other countries in the region, is considered a model of tolerance.
“It’s jarring to see this happen in Senegal,” says Ryan Thoreson, a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who has been researching the rise of homophobia here. “When something like this happens in an established democracy, it’s alarming.”
Even though homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, colonial documents indicate the country has long had a clandestine gay community. In many towns, they were tacitly accepted, says Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, a professor of social anthropology at Senegal’s largest university. In fact, the visibility of gays in Senegal may have helped to prompt the backlash against them.
The backlash dates back to at least February 2008, when a Senegalese tabloid published photographs of a clandestine gay wedding in a suburb of Dakar, the capital. The wedding was held inside a rented banquet hall and was attended by dozens of gay men, some of whom snapped pictures that included the gay couple exchanging rings and sharing slices of cake.
The day after the tabloid published the photographs, police began rounding up men suspected of being homosexual. Some were beaten in captivity and forced to turn over the names of other gay men, according to research by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
Gays immediately went into hiding and those who could fled to neighboring countries, including Gambia to the south, according to the New York-based commission. Gambia’s erratic president declared that gays who had entered his country had 24 hours to leave or face decapitation. Many returned to Senegal, where they lived on the run, moving from safehouse to safehouse.
In March 2008, Senegal hosted an international summit of Muslim nations, which prompted a nationwide crackdown on behaviors deemed un-Islamic, including homosexuality.
The crackdown also coincided with spiraling food prices. Niang says political and religious leaders saw an easy way to reach constituents through the inflammatory topic of homosexuality.
“They found a way to explain the difficulties people are facing as a deviation from religious life,” says Niang. “So if people are poor – it’s because there are prostitutes in the street. If they don’t have enough to eat, it’s because there are homosexuals.”
Imams began using Friday sermons to preach against homosexuality.
“During the time of the Prophet, anytime two men were found together, they were taken to the top of a mountain and thrown off,” says Massamba Diop, the imam of a mosque in Pikine and the head of Jamra, an Islamic lobby linked to a political party in Senegal’s parliament.
“If they didn’t die when they hit the ground, then rocks would be thrown on them until they were killed,” says Diop, whose mosque is so packed during Friday prayer that people bring their own carpets and line up outside on the asphalt.
Sermons like Diop’s were carried on the mosque’s loudspeakers as well as in Senegal’s more than 30 newspapers and magazines.
Around this time, in May 2008, a middle-aged man called Serigne Mbaye fell ill and died in a suburb of Dakar.
His children tried to bury him in his village but were turned back from the cemetery because of widespread rumors that he was gay. His sons drove his body around trying to find a cemetery that would accept him. They were finally forced to bury him on the side of a road, using their own hands to dig a hole, according to media reports.
The grave was too shallow and the wind blew away the dirt. When the decomposing body was later discovered, Mbaye’s children were arrested and charged with improperly burying their father.
In the town of Kaolack three months later, residents exhumed the grave of another man believed to be gay. In November 2008, residents in Pikine removed a corpse from a mosque of another suspected homosexual and left it on the side of the road.
The grave-robbing has shocked even hardened gay activists, such as Nigerian Davis Mac-Iyalla.
“People have done horrible things (in Nigeria). I have seen people spit on coffins and people spit on graves,” he said. “But it stopped there.”
Among the people who appeared in the photograph published from the gay wedding was a young man in his 30s from Thies. He was an activist and a leader of a gay organization called And Ligay, meaning ‘Working together,’ which he ran out of his parents’ house.
He was HIV-positive and on medication.
When the tabloid published the photograph, Diallo went into hiding, according to a close friend who asked not to be named because he too is gay. Unable to go to the doctor, Diallo stopped taking his anti-retrovirals. By the spring of 2009, he was so ill that his family checked him into St. Jean de Dieu, a Catholic hospital in downtown Thies, says the friend.
He was in a coma when he died at 5:50 a.m. on May 2, 2009, according to the hospital’s records. Although the hospital has a unit dedicated to treating HIV patients, the young man’s family never disclosed his illness, according to the doctor in charge.
Several gay friends tried to see Diallo in the hospital but were told to stay away by his family, says the friend.
When the AP tried to speak to Diallo’s elderly father at his shop on the main thoroughfare in Thies, his other children demanded the reporter leave. One sister covered her face and sobbed. Another said, “There are no homosexuals here.”
Hours after he died, his family took Diallo’s body to a nearby mosque, where custom holds the corpse should be bathed and wrapped in a white cloth. Before the family could bathe him, news reached the mosque that Diallo was gay and they were chased out, says the dead man’s friend. His relatives hastily wrapped him in a sheet and headed to the cemetery, where they carried him past the home of Babacar Sene.
“A man that’s known as being a homosexual can’t be buried in a cemetery. His body needs to be thrown away like trash,” says Sene. “His parents knew that he was gay and they did nothing about it. So when he died we wanted to make sure he was punished.”
The video footage captured on a cell phone shows what happened next. His thin body was placed inside a narrow trough in the middle of the bald cemetery dotted with clumps of weeds. Then you hear shouting.
The shaky image shows a group of men jerking around the edges of the grave. One of them straddles the pit and shovels away the fine gray dirt until you can see the shrouded body. It’s still inside the trough when they tie a rope around its feet.
They yank it out, cheering as the body bends over the lip of the grave. The shroud catches on the ground and tears off, revealing the dead man’s torso.
Rassul Djitte, 48, watched from behind the wall of a nearby school. He had not known Diallo personally, but says he felt a stab. “People were rejoicing,” he says. “They dragged him past me and his body left tracks in the sand. Like a car passing through snow.”
Gay iPhone Radio Application from GayInternetRadioLive.com Reaches 50,000 Downloads
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) July 20, 2009 — GLBT Radio Network, LLC announced today its customized iPhone application for GayInternetRadioLive.com (G.I.R.L.) has surpassed 50,000 downloads from Apple iTunes. The application debuted in the Apple iTunes store four months ago this week and remains listed as one of Apple’s top 100 free music applications. The wildly popular dance formatted station appeals to all dance music enthusiasts but specifically targets the GLBT demographic.
“This technology has had an enormous impact on time spent listening by more than tripling the amount of time our mobile audience spends with the station,” said Christopher Leonard, President and CEO of GLBT Radio Network. “The response has been overwhelming. To meet audience demand, we have increased our bandwidth capacity, moved our iPhone listeners to a dedicated stream server and also increased the number of concurrent seats available on the mobile stream. I continue to receive hundreds of emails and calls every week thanking us for the application.”
Unique to this iPhone application is the ability to deliver powerful branding messages with the use of colorful mobile banner advertising. When clicked, the app opens the advertised content within the application. The audio stream is not interrupted and customized web pages built specifically for iPhone browsing are displayed.” Leonard continued, “This provides endless opportunities for advertisers to provide direct response marketing such as “tap to call” and “tap to email” options while the advertisement is literally in the hands of the consumer.” Traditional in-stream audio ads, generally 10 to 30 seconds in length, blend in with the dance music format to promote gay and gay friendly businesses worldwide. It’s advertising for today’s mobile tech savvy consumer.
Some additional features include:
|
About GLBT Radio Network
GLBT Radio Network is an Internet based media company specializing in Internet only radio programming that targets the Gay and Lesbian community. For more information and advertising opportunities visit www.GLBTradionetwork.com .
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-iphone-ra…
Minister in Tory homophobia claim BBC News
Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has said “a deep strain of homophobia still exists on the Conservative benches”.
Mr Bradshaw, one of three gay men currently in the cabinet, made the comments as a new poll suggested more gay people were turning to the Tories.
Chris Bryant, another gay minister, said: “If gays vote Tory they will rue the day very soon.”
But Tory frontbencher Alan Duncan said the two men’s comments showed Labour was “actually the nasty party”.
Being seen to be more “gay friendly” has been a key part of David Cameron’s mission to decontaminate the Conservative Party brand and make it more acceptable to young, socially liberal voters.
See Minister in Tory homophobia claim BBC News
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/minister-in-t…
An Exorcism of Hate
A recently posted YouTube video shows church members in southern Connecticut performing an exorcism on a 16-year-old boy in order to remove the “homosexual demons” from his body. The video is horrifying to watch — the church audience screams at the supposed evil spirits as the boy convulses on the ground.
The logic and belief set behind this act are so far beyond my comprehension that it defies comment. What I do find compelling, however, is the church’s response to the uproar that the video created. “We have nothing against homosexuals,” protested the Reverend Patricia McKinney. “I just don’t agree with their lifestyle.” I frequently hear comments such as this from those who oppose equality for homosexuals. These people say they love gay people — they even have gay friends and family! — but it’s unfortunately “against their beliefs” to treat homosexuals equally. This video, however, is a perfect example of how this explanation is a blatant lie.
The phrase “I just don’t agree with,” connotes a mild dislike. I don’t agree with mustard, but I can still enjoy my dinner to the fullest when it’s present at the table. What people such as Reverend McKinney feel toward homosexuals is nothing short of loathing. It is impossible for her to argue she respects gays when she believes that demonic spirits live inside their bodies. She could preach tolerance to her parish every Sunday, but her actions unambiguously declare that being gay is a sinful, satanic state that must be cured. McKinney clearly has something very big against homosexuals, and it’s insulting for her to suggest otherwise.
Politicians are guilty of similar dishonesty, but they tend to be more subtle. A senator who opposes gay marriage shouldn’t be able to say that he’s protecting “family values.” He should say that he believes that gay couples are incapable of raising the kinds of families that our society accepts. A congresswoman who disqualifies a lesbian couple from adopting children should proclaim that two women will irreparably damage a child should their adoption request succeed. It’s the typical political non-speak, but it’s even more damaging when those who say it can claim that they aren’t prejudiced.
Outright homophobia has become socially unacceptable in most circumstances. This is momentous progress from a hatred that had until now been painfully public. But, ironically, this political correctness is now hurting the gay rights movement.
Homophobic people, such as Reverend McKinney, should have to state their beliefs openly, without duplicitous assertions that they “have nothing against homosexuals.” What they should really be saying is that homosexuality is disgusting and perverted — that any person practicing it is a sinner who needs to be saved now before suffering an eternity in Hell. Judging from their comments and actions, that’s what they believe, and they should own up to those principles.
Polls have shown that young people as a whole have a more liberal view regarding homosexuality than their parents. It stands to reason that, as a society, we’re marching on a path towards equality and tolerance for gay people. But I hope this liberalization permeates far deeper than the blatant dishonesty of people such as Reverend McKinney and her congregation. Those of us who actually have nothing against homosexuals — who feel no need to cast the ‘homosexual demons’ from their body— should reject such flagrant duplicity.
See An Exorcism of Hate The Dartmouth
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/exorcism-of-h…
Ga. Supreme Court rules against ban against allowing kids around father’s gay friends
The Georgia Supreme Court tossed out part of a Fayette County court’s decision that kept a divorced gay father from allowing his children to interact with his gay friends, according to a ruling today from the state Supreme Court.
In the ruling, Justice Robert Benham wrote the high court acknowledges that trial courts have the discretion to “limit a parent’s exposure of the children to certain people, if it can be shown that the children would be adversely affected.”
In this case, the Supreme Court justices rejected Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards’ ban on having the gay father bring his gay friends around his children. Edwards has been nominated to fill the a seat on the state Supreme Court after Chief Justice Leah Sears steps down at the end of June.
“The blanket prohibition against exposure of the children to members of the gay and lesbian community who are acquainted with husband is another matter,” says today’s opinion. “There is no evidence in the record before us that any member of the excluded community has engaged in inappropriate conduct in the presence of the children or that the children would be adversely affected by exposure to any member of that community.”
See Ga. Supreme Court rules against ban against allowing kids around … Sovo.com
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ga-supreme-co…
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.
Become a political insider: Subscribe to U.S. News Weekly, our new digital magazine.
See How Far Will Mormons Go to Fight Gay Marriage? U.S. News & World Report* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-far-will-…
Slim on LGBT Cases, Sotomayor Wins Gay Praise
Video: Who is Sotomayor? KRQE.com
Who is Sotomayor? KRQE.com
No, Sonia Sotomayor Isn’t Gay. But Is She Gay Friendly? Queerty
Gay Activists Applaud Sotomayor Nomination On Top Magazine * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/slim-on-lgbt-…
Same-Sex Marriage Approved In Maine: What It Means For One Couple …
With Maine becoming the fifth state in the union to approve same-sex marriage, our former Jaime McLeod, a member of MTV’s Street Team ‘08, wrote a blog for us about what the ruling means to her …
Five years ago, my partner and I stood up in front of our families, our friends and our God, and pledged to walk together and care for one another, no matter what life brings. Though it wasn’t legally binding, we meant it, and we still mean it today.
In 89 days, we will finally be able to make the vows we made to one another official. It won’t change the way we see our relationship. It won’t change the way those who love us see our relationship. And, for that matter, it won’t change the way those who hate us see our relationship. As some of my gay friends keep pointing out, gay marriage won’t cure homophobia. It won’t cure AIDS. It won’t keep queer kids from getting bullied in school. But it’s a step. It ensures that the relationship my partner and I have worked so hard on for the last eight years doesn’t receive fewer protections under the law than the drunken Vegas wedding of a pop starlet to some guy she hardly knows. It means our friends won’t have to go through a ridiculously difficult legal process so that their kids can have two legal parents. And it means that a majority of legislators in my state were willing to stand up and acknowledge that same-sex relationships are just as valid as heterosexual ones.
Thank you, Maine State Legislature, and Gov. Baldacci, for doing the right thing and affirming the rights of all Mainers. You’re all invited to my second wedding! See Same-Sex Marriage Approved In Maine: What It Means For One Couple …
MTV.com* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/same-sex-marr…
Rudy Giuliani Skips Gay Friends’ Wedding
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was a last-minute no-show at the wedding of his former roommates — a gay couple — yesterday.
It was a disappointment for Queens car dealer Howard Koeppel and his longtime lover, Mark Hsaio, who tied the knot in a double-ring ceremony before 10 guests in Westport, Conn.
The couple famously let the ex-mayor crash at their luxury $2.37 million three-bedroom Manhattan apartment while he was going through a nasty divorce with Donna Hanover in 2001. Later, Giuliani married the “other woman,” Judith Nathan.
“Rudy and Judith were both invited with a beautiful written invitation by mail,” said Koeppel. “His secretary called Thursday and said he was not able to come to the wedding and wished us all the best.”
See Rudy Giuliani Skips Gay Friends’ Wedding
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/rudy-giuliani…
Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy
Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren continues to be haunted by past statements on gay marriage, and tried to soften his anti-gay marriage posture last week onLarry King‘s show. Warren stood by his belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but said he’s never been an activist on the issue.
Part of what’s gotten him into hot water was a video-taped interview, available on the Internet, done before the Nov. 4 vote to implement the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban. In it, Warren seemed to liken gay marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy.
“I’m opposed to having a brother and sister together and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to having an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.”
The interviewer then asks, “Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?
“Oh, I do,” responded the megachurch leader, whose subsequent selection to give Barack Obama’s inaugural invocation stirred controversy.
Warren later posted a video on his Web site to try to clarify his view. But there was still more clarifying going on with Larry King last week.
“I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be,” he said. “During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement.
“The week before the vote, somebody in my church said, ‘Pastor Rick, what do you think about this?’ And I sent a note to my own members that said, ‘I actually believe that marriage really should be defined – that that definition should be saved between a man and a woman.’ And then all of a suddenly out of it they made me, you know something that I really wasn’t. …
“I wrote to all my gay friends, the leaders that I knew and actually apologized to them. That never got out. There were some things said – everybody should have 10% grace when they say public statements and I was asked a question that made it sound like I equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest which I absolutely do not believe.”
See Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy
OCRegister
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/rick-warren-w…
