Elton John recovering in hospital from flu, e-coli
(London) Elton John has been hospitalized after suffering from a case of E. coli bacterial infection and the flu, his spokesman said Monday.
Gary Farrow said the pop star hopes to be released soon but has been forced to cancel concerts in England, Ireland and the United States.
John intends to rejoin …
Tags: Bacterial Infection, Cancel, Concerts, E Coli, Elton John, England, Farrow, Flu, Ireland, London, Pop Star, Spokesman, united statesMilitias target some Iraqis for being gay
“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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Brits showing the way for American repeal of military ban?
The cover photo of an out soldier on the British army’s official magazine is a symbol of the success of the military’s nearly decade-long policy to allow openly gay personnel, according to this article. The British military reportedly has been advising its U.S. counterparts on a strategy to repeal its own gay ban. The Independent (London)
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Anglican Church may have ‘two track’ structure
(London) The Archbishop of Canterbury says the Anglican Church may have to accept a “two track” communion in which believers can hold different opinions about gay clergy and same-sex unions.
Rowan Williams wrote on his Web site Monday that there are “two styles of being Anglican” and that both sides should …
Tags: Anglican Church, Archbishop Of Canterbury, Communion, Gay Clergy, London, Same Sex Unions, Track StructureIn UK, New initiative launched to tackle homelessness among LGBT youth
Four leading LGBT charities have announced the launch of a new initiative to reduce homelessness among young LGBT people.
The initiative, known as ‘Jigsaw’, brings together the legal advisers Stonewall Housing, youth homelessness and support charity the Albert Kennedy Trust, the mental health organisation PACE and Galop, which supports victims of homophobic crime.
A joint statement from the groups said: “Despite the greater legal recognition of LGBT people, social acceptance is far from universal.
“Even in London today, many young LGBT people face rejection from their own family, persecution from their own communities, and even physical attack.
“Furthermore, most offenders of homophobic hate crime are aged between 16 and 20″.
Michael Nastari, the co-ordinator of Jigsaw, and a director of LGBT Youth Homelessness Prevention Network, commented: “The effects of homophobia and transphobia on young people’s lives can be devastating. As a result, they can fail to succeed in education, miss out on employment and training, and suffer a range of mental health issues.
See New initiative launched to tackle homelessness among LGBT youth
PinkNews.co.uk
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Football and art against homophobia T
The Justin Campaign will be making a stand against homophobia in football on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth this Wednesday the 22nd July 2009.
Over the summer, sculptor Antony Gormley has been inviting people to help create an astonishing living monument as part of his “One & Other” exhibition.
Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own. And on Wednesday the plinth will be the Justin Campaign’s.
Campaign founder and Brighton-based artist Jason Hall will be donning the Justin Fashanu All-stars strip and creating a top-secret installation atop the plinth between 7:00 am and 8:00 am.
The campaign was founded in memory of Justin Fashanu, the first openly gay professional footballer, who committed suicide on 2nd May 1998.
The aim of the Justin Campaign is to demonstrate the prevalence of homophobia in football and show how damaging the consequences of this can be on a society that holds the sport in such high regard.
Through art, events, education and football the organisation hopes to persuade the football authorities in England to observe Saturday 2nd May 2009 as Justin Fashanu Day and more generally, want 2nd May to become the annual international day of protest against homophobia in sport.
Campaign Founder Jason Hall said: “I wanted to use my hour on the Plinth to highlight the fact that gay and bisexual men are equally passionate about both playing and supporting ‘the beautiful game’, whilst increasing awareness as to how absurd it is that there have been no other ‘out’ gay players since Justin Fashanu.”
Like Hall maintains, “gay and bisexual men are equally passionate about playing and supporting” football, as are many lesbian and bisexual women and people in the trans community.
No doubt all LGB&T football and sports fans will be supporting Jason in challenging homophobia tomorrow night.
See Football and art against homophobia
The Lesbian and Gay Foundation -
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BLACK GOLD: A New Film by Nick Francis and Marc Francis
THE SYNOPSIS
As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. In this eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry, Black Gold traces one man’s fight for a fair price.
THE STORY
Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.
But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.
Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.
Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.
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For one gay UK officer, a time to stand and be counted
(London) For more than a decade, he had prepared for that moment.
Lt. Cmdr. Craig Jones climbed the staircase into the captain’s cabin, with its porthole overlooking the sea and its matched pictures of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. The captain paused in a conversation with his executive …
Tags: Craig Jones, Decade, Duke Of Edinburgh, Elizabeth Ii, Gay Uk, London, Lt Cmdr, Pictures Of Queen Elizabeth, Pictures Of Queen Elizabeth Ii, Porthole, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth Ii, Sea Pictures, StaircaseCondemnation for bishop who called for gay people to ‘repent’ Independent
The Bishop of Rochester has been accused of pandering to hate and homophobia after calling on homosexuals to repent. Michael Nazir-Ali provoked outrage among gay groups when he urged Church leaders to stick to traditional values instead of being swayed by “culture and trends”.
While calling for the “traditional teaching” of the Bible to be upheld, the Bishop said of homosexuals: “We want them to repent and be changed.”
His controversial remarks were published just hours after more than half a million people, including the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah, took part in the Gay Pride parade in London.
Sharon Ferguson, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, condemned Dr Nazir-Ali for making comments that she said would encourage hatred.
“It feeds to the more fundamental individuals who are looking to have their opinions ratified and speak hatefully and behave hatefully,” she said.
“His comments are likely to cause more of a schism within the Church of England. He’s saying their [gays and lesbians] sexuality is a sin. It’s not. It’s a gift from God. God made us all.”
She added: “He is telling people ‘You have to repent’ for something they have no control over. It’s like asking someone to repent because they have blue eyes.”
Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said he was “shocked” at the level of anti-gay prejudice voiced by the bishop. “Homophobia is a social and moral evil, just like racism. Bigotry, even in the guise of religion, has no place in a compassionate, caring society,” he said. “I call on the bishop to repent his homophobia. His prejudice goes against Christ’s gospel of love and compassion.”
Labour MEP Michael Cashman accused the Bishop of Rochester of being “selective” about which parts of the Bible he upheld. “When he calls for the closure of all the banks, finance houses and credit card companies because of what it says in the Bible about usury, then I’ll take him seriously,” he said. “Until then, unless he can say anything good, he should shut up.”
In his comments, made to a Sunday newspaper, the bishop said homosexuals should be welcomed into the Church but that a person’s sexual nature could only be correctly expressed in a heterosexual union within marriage. His remarks reopened the row over homosexuality that has for years threatened to tear the Anglican Church apart.
He made them on the eve of today’s official launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans at Westminster Central Hall in London where he is expected to speak in support of the organisation. The UK branch of the Fellowship is regarded by many liberals within the Anglican movement as an attempt to create a church within a church with the aim of heading off moves to ease rules on homosexuality. Dr Nazir-Ali is to step down in the autumn and he is expected to play an important part in the Fellowship’s activities.
The Very Rev Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark and a prominent liberal, was so alarmed by the the impending departure of Dr Nazir-Ali from the See of Rochester that he described it as “clearly a move towards a sectarian alternative church intentionally designed to create turbulence in the Anglican Communion”.
Canon Chris Sugden, of the Fellowship, said a message from the Queen will be read out during the ceremony but a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman called it nothing more than a “standard response” to the many requests made to the monarch each year. “It isn’t endorsing anyone’s point of view,” she said.
Zeal of the convert: The Bishop of Rochester
*Michael Nazir-Ali has been one of the most vocal and controversial of bishops of the past decade and has rarely been afraid to speak out.
He was a leading contender to become Archbishop of Canterbury when George Carey stood down but has found himself at odds with Rowan Williams, the incumbent.
The issue of homosexuality has been one of the biggest causes of friction between Dr Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, and the liberal wing of the Anglican Church.
In 2008 the rift was so marked that he boycotted the Lambeth Conference, a meeting of Anglican Church leaders held once a decade, because of the row over homosexuality. He is part of an evangelical wing urging the Church to stick to a traditional interpretation of the scriptures regarded by liberals, especially on the issues of homosexuality and women priests, as backward.
This year he announced he would step down as Bishop of Rochester in September to allow him time to concentrate on representing the Church in parts of the world where Anglicans are a minority religion or oppressed.
Born in Pakistan to Catholic parents, he converted at the age of 20 and holds dual British and Pakistani nationality. Appointed the 106th Bishop of Rochester in 1994, he was the first non-white diocesan bishop in the Church of England. Since then he has been a frequent critic of the rise of Islam in Britain.
See
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Brüno’ Actor Shucks Clothes for Gay Mag Cover
Homophobic Film Ever Made?” That’s the blurb on the cover of Attitude, a British gay magazine, where comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, posing nude to promote his new film, appears.
The film in question–and the name of the character, whom Cohen continues to portray in live promotional appearances–is Brüno, in which Cohen plays a gay fashionista seeking redemption during a global road trip.
The production reportedly drew trouble for Cohen, who was arrested several times during the shoot.
But the film’s reception has also been mixed, with dubious and even hostile reactions coming from the GLBT community.
Though the film reportedly seeks to skewer homophobia, some GLBT equality advocates worry that “Brüno” will actually threaten social progress made by gays in the last several years by presenting audiences with a flamboyant gay character.
A July 1 article at the UK newspaper The Daily Mail reported that Cohen’s appearance on the cover of Attitude was meant to “appease” gay audiences.
The article pointed out that Cohen also appeared nude on the cover of GQ magazine.
Last month, Cohen appeared at the film’s London premiere in character, and in a revealing costume that riffed on the traditional uniforms of the Queen’s Guards, drawing headlines in the process. See Brüno’ Actor Shucks Clothes for Gay Mag Cover
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