Neo-Nazi ideas blamed in gay Oxnard teen’s slaying
July 22 marked the third and likely final day of testimony in the pre-trial hearing of a boy accused of gunning down a gay classmate at an Oxnard junior high school.
Prosecutors contended Tuesday in Ventura County Superior Court that the boy, Brandon McInerney, was motivated at least in part by neo-Nazi beliefs.
McInerney was 14 and Larry King was 15 when King was fatally shot during a computer lab class on Feb. 12, 2008. McInerney was acquainted with local neo-Nazis and kept a notebook with elaborate drawings of Nazi symbols and regalia, according to testimony from an investigator. McInerney, now 15, has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder.
Read more about the shooting and pretrial hearing.
See Neo-Nazi ideas blamed in gay Oxnard teen’s slaying
Los Angeles Times –
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Humpday Isn’t Really About Gay Sex
Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, a sexual sitcom, opens with a pair of breeders in bed. A youngish married couple, Ben (mumblecordeon Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore), confess they’re too tired to procreate that night and then confess their mutual relief. As if in response, the doorbell rings at 2 a.m. and Ben’s long-lost college buddy, Andrew (Blair Witch Project survivor Joshua Leonard), stumbles in from deepest Mexico. Anna, who has never had the pleasure, watches the unexpected bromantic action with grim incredulity. Aggressively loud, demonstrative, and hairy, Andrew is a credible representation of Ben’s id.
Reuniting an uptight married man with a footloose old pal, Shelton’s third feature offers a (much) more extreme version of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, also a sort of buddy movie, also shot in the Pacific Northwest. In this case, the lost weekend is steeped in sexual anxiety. Friday night, Ben has to retrieve merry Andrew from a house called “Dionysus” — home to a bi cutie (the director herself) and an omnisexual assortment of roisterers. No orgies, but plenty of stoned dancing. Anna, who has prepared her signature pork chop dinner, sits home alone. She stews; Ben gets stewed. Prompted by news of an amateur porn festival — sponsored by a local alt-weekly — Ben finds himself proposing to costar with showoff Andrew in a mad art project, dude-on-dude action, totally straight, yet somewhere “beyond gay.” Maybe they’ll be famous. The only problem: Just who is going to bone whom?
Having thus invested its protagonists in a game of “chicken,” played to justify their respective life choices, Humpday delivers some excellent situation comedy. The scene where Andrew and Anna have a get-acquainted drink and Andrew inadvertently exposes Ben’s boastful lie that his wife has signed off on their “project” is pure Honeymooners. (Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!) Ben can’t tell Anna why he wants to have sex with Andrew, only that it’s very, very important to him. And, terrified that Ben might think he really did have a yen, Andrew can only sigh, “I wish I was more gay.” Of course. Just as Brüno is more of a comment on celebrity culture than the love (or hate) that dare not speak its name, Humpday is actually less a queer comedy than a satiric view of macho. Appreciative as Shelton may be of her dudes, she has another agenda. Each in his own way, the guys have been freaked by a manifestation of assertive female sexuality — although the term “pussy-whipped” is never used.
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Miami New Times
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IML’s (International Mr. Leather) executive…
IML’s (International Mr. Leather) executive committee has banned vendors at the group’s annual convention from displaying or selling any pornographic photos and videos which portray or promote unprotected sex, also known as barebacking.
A statement released on International Mr. Leather, Inc. letterhead and signed by Chuck Renslow, President of IML, reads as follows: @ IML bans material promoting unsafe sex
ChicagoPride.com
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Ending prisoner rape in Michigan
LINDA MCFARLANE writes:
The Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC) last week settled a class action lawsuit brought by over 500 female prisoners who were sexually abused in the state’s prisons. With the $100-million settlement agreement, hopefully the DOC will also begin to take the proactive steps needed to prevent and address the sexual violence that continues to plague its facilities.
This decision came after more than ten years of litigation, during which the courts repeatedly ruled against the state.
Although the prevalence of sexual abuse in Michigan prisons is well documented, leading officials have insisted that this type of violence is not a serious problem. In 2008, DOC Director Patricia Caruso opposed national standards being developed to address sexual abuse behind bars, stating that they would require that a “disproportionate amount of resources be dedicated to an issue that affects less than 1% of the DOC prison population.”
This claim is in blatant defiance of the facts. A 2007 national survey by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, which surveyed inmates at three Michigan prisons, found that the proportion of prisoners experiencing sexual victimization in the past year alone ranged from 4.6% to 7.9%.
Rape and other forms of sexual violence cause long-term harm to survivors and their communities. Prisoner rape survivors suffer physical injury, contract HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and experience severe psychological trauma. The vast majority of inmates ultimately return home, bringing their experiences and medical and psychiatric conditions with them.
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Detroit Free Press -
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Effort To Ban Gay Unions Falling Short In Wash. State
The effort to place a gay-inclusive domestic partnership law up for a vote in Washington State appears to be falling short.
With a looming deadline of Saturday at 2PM, opponents of the law dubbed by the media as the “everything but marriage law” have only 4 full days left to gather thousands of valid signatures.
Opponents – a coalition of mostly religious groups – announced their attempt to repeal the bill in November, even before it became law in May. Gary Randall, president of the Faith and Freedom Network, says his group filed Referendum 71 because the law is too close to marriage and violates the law.
“The bill … elevates homosexual relationships to that of traditional marriage, thus eliminating any legal difference between domestic partnerships and marriage,” Randall wrote in a blog entry posted on the group’s website before the bill became law.
“I do not believe a majority [of] Washingtonians believe in homosexual marriage, nor do they want to become a national attraction for homosexuals from other states and countries,” he added.
Organizers, however, admit that they have fallen desperately behind in collecting the 120,577 valid signatures needed to qualify the measure. Randall told the conservative group Concerned Women for America that only 75,000 signatures had been collected as of Friday. Leaving the group at least 45,577 signatures short. But in order to ensure there are sufficient valid signatures, the group estimates it needs to collect 75,000 signatures. In other words, opponents need to collect as many signatures in one week as they did in the previous seven to eight weeks.
The Democratic-controlled House passed the bill in April along a mostly party-line vote of 62 to 35. Senators approved the bill in March with a 30 to 18 vote, and Governor Chris Gregoire signed the bill into law on May 18. See Effort To Ban Gay Unions Falling Short In Wash. State
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What will parents do to avoid having a gay son?
In the early 1990s, when genetic research was far less advanced than today, Jonathan Tolins posed the question: If a woman knew in advance that her male baby would be born gay, would she still go through with the pregnancy?
That’s the premise of his 1992 drama “The Twilight of the Golds,” which was filmed for cable television in 1997 and which receives an emotionally gripping staging courtesy of Theatre Out.
Through her husband’s medical research firm, which has devised genetic testing of fetuses, the pregnant Suzanne Gold-Stein (Jennifer Pearce) has discovered that her baby boy has the genetic markers of homosexuality.
The question of whether to keep the baby is, in fact, illuminated by the family’s firsthand experience: Suzanne’s brother David (Tim Woods) is gay, a factor that has, despite their denials, always affected his bond with her and with their parents.
The play is told from the opera-loving David’s point of view, its title a pun drawn from “The Twilight of the Gods,” the fourth opera in Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle. He frames the play’s focal issue when he asks, “What difference does being gay make?” As the story progresses, its ethical complications are magnified, even as Tolins takes time out to assail the materialism of the 1980s.
Complicating the ethical dilemma posed by Tolins is the way it splits the family. For David, who is, ironically, pro-choice, aborting the baby is tantamount to killing him. As much as she dotes on David, mom Phyllis (Karen Harris) has to admit that “it hurts to see your child become something different.”
Seeing genetic testing as a boon to mankind, Suzanne’s husband Rob (Eric James) insists that he and Suzanne “don’t need David to tell us how to live our lives,” while patriarch Walter Gold (Rick Kopps) maintains that “it’s Rob and Suzanne’s decision.”
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US May Lift Entry Ban on HIV Patients
For more than two decades, anybody who is HIV positive has been prevented from entering the United States. But with President Barack Obama’s support, the ban will likely expire soon, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) taking public comments until August 17. The department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will then make the final decision. “We’re trying to end the stigma and the discriminatory practice for a disease that doesn’t warrant exclusion for coming into this country,” said the director of the CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine, Dr. Martin Cetron. “We have to appreciate this is not a threat we face from abroad.” He acknowledged that “HIV is clearly a public health disease of significance,” but added that simply letting somebody with HIV into the country does not “immediately pose a risk to the public.”
The proposal could allow an average of about 5,000 HIV-infected people into the United States each year. And according to a CDC estimate published in the federal register, the lifetime medical costs of those admitted in just the first year would total almost $100 million. The United States is one of about 15 countries that prevent entry of HIV-positive patients, though it is possible to obtain a waiver under certain conditions. See US May Lift Entry Ban on HIV Patients
The New American
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Closet Case: How Intolerance Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis
New research has challenged the long-standing belief that HIV and AIDS in Africa primarily affect heterosexuals. A study published on the website of the British medical journal Lancet found that men who have sex with other men are up to 10 times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be infected with the virus — which suggests that the fight against AIDS on the continent may be undermined by widespread homophobia.
Researchers from Oxford University, the Population Council of Ghana and the Kenya Medical Research Institute reviewed AIDS studies conducted over the past few years and concluded that male-male sex was a major blind spot in AIDS research and policy in Africa. Men having sex with other men is far more common in Africa than is socially acknowledged, owing to widespread hostility toward homosexuality, and the phenomenon there is underreported in research and largely ignored in public-health responses to the pandemic. The researchers compiled statistics from a small but growing number of studies conducted in various African countries in recent years that included estimates of HIV prevalence among men who have sex with other men. (See pictures from Africa’s AIDS crisis.)
See Closet Case: How Intolerance Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis
TIME
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For Gay Iranian Refugees, a Matter of Life or Death
NOTE: This is the second of two parts, the first, on the election revolt, was on EDGE in June.
The international media clamor surrounding last month’s Iranian election, which saw the contentious re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad result in weeks of protests, demonstrations and violence, may have died down, but the unstable atmosphere lives on for residents of the Islamic republic.
They continue to face major restrictions on free speech and threats to their safety if they choose to speak out. And they will not soon forget the street violence that resulted in the death, imprisonment and harassment of many protesters, activists and journalists–all part of the worst unrest the country has seen in thirty years.
This is particularly true for gay and lesbian Iranians, both those who remain inside the country and those who have escaped. They are familiar with oppressive treatment from their government, one which continues to outlaw homosexuality and crack down against any outward display of queerness. The first story (published here June 30, 2009,) examined the environment facing the Iranian queer community, particularly in light of the government’s attempts to silence any post-election voices of dissent.
Building from that story, we now take a look at the climate facing queer Iranians who have fled the country with the hopes of seeking asylum in the West. Forced, in many cases, to leave behind their families, friends and the culture of their blood, their dreams of living in freedom still face a number of challenges.
When gay Iranian refugees and asylum seekers leave, they are sent to live temporarily to a number of a different places, though most end up in small Turkish towns known as “satellite cities,” far from the larger cities like Ankara or Istanbul. They file a request to be granted official refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in order to legally move West, and then they wait. In many cases, that waiting period can last up to three years, a time during which employment is difficult to find and harassment is not unusual.
See For Gay Iranian Refugees, a Matter of Life or Death
EDGE Boston
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Boy accused of killing gay classmate bragged he had guns at home, police say
Oxnard junior high school student Brandon McInerney bragged that he had guns at home if he ever wanted to kill someone, a police investigator testified at the youth’s pretrial hearing today in Ventura County Superior Court.
McInerney made the comment to another student at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard sometime before walking into the classroom and allegedly gunning down gay classmate Larry King on the morning of Feb. 12, 2008, said Oxnard police Sgt. Kevin Baysinger.
“Brandon said if he ever wanted to kill anybody, his dad had a bunch of guns and he had the capability,” Baysinger told the court. Other witness testified that McInerney, then 14, and King had been feuding over King’s alleged romantic overtures toward McInerney.
McInerney was clearly irritated after King, 15, reportedly said, “Baby, I love you,” the day before the shooting occurred, based on interviews with students. Other students reported similar threats, he said.
McInerney reportedly told one of King’s friends the day before the shooting, “Tell Larry goodbye because you’re not going to see him again,” Baysinger said. Other students reported similar threats, he said.
The testimony came during the first day of a pretrial hearing to determine whether the case should go to trial.
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Los Angeles Times -
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