Argentina annuls marriage of gay couple

A federal judge annuled the marriage of two gay men that took place in Buenos Aires last week, according to the Catholic News Agency; but gay marriage bills are still moving ahead in Argentina.
Judge Felix Gustavo de Igarzabal of Buenos Aires ruled that marriage is defined by being between a …

Group claims DADT would mar religious freedom

A right-wing Christian values coalition is worried a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would marginalize the effectiveness of military chaplains, the Catholic News Agency reported.

“The military would effectively establish preferred religions or religious beliefs,” the letter said. “That is a constitutional offense that carries a very pragmatic consequence: just …

Gay Pride in Moscow: Report from a Chicago Activist

Andy Thayer, from the Gay Liberation Network in Chicago, in Red Square last night.Photo courtesy Glay Liberation Network.

By Andy Thayer in Moscow
MOSCOW, May 14, 2009 (Gay Liberation Network) – After 14 hours of flights, last night I found myself in Eastern Europe for the first time in my life, warmly greeted by lesbian and gay activists who, despite state repression, are organizing their fourth annual pride event in this city. This year’s event is dubbed ‘Slavic Pride’, denoting the significant participation of activists from around the region.
The previous three years’ events have gone forward despite bans from the authorities and violence from neo-fascists in Russian orthodox and skinhead garb. This year the authorities not only banned the Pride event, but for good measure, approved the anti-gays’ application to hold their own event this past Tuesday.
That same day, our Moscow friends countered with their own unsanctioned action at the Department of Registration of Acts of Civil Status – an attempt by two lesbian activists to get a marriage license.
Leading Slavic Pride activist Nikolai Alekseev said the action was inspired in part by a February civil disobedience action at a marriage license bureau in Chicago. The Moscow action received widespread international press coverage, including from the New York Times.
As I shadowed Alekseev around the city last night, press coverage if anything seemed to build, with Nikolai’s two cell phones ringing incessantly and meetings with Finish and Slovenian journalists held near midnight just outside of Red Square.
Slavic Pride is slated for this Saturday, amidst the big ‘Eurovision Fest’ being hosted this year by Moscow. For those not familiar with what Eurovision is, think American Idol times ten, with a profusion of media coverage and street banners that puts Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid hype to shame.
While our specific plans for Saturday are necessarily secret at this time, the aim is to cause maximum embarrassment to the government if they attempt to arrest us or allow the neo-fascists to attack.
In response to Moscow activists’ application for a permit this year, police chief Vladmir Pronin told the Russian news agency Interfax that gay pride parades in the capital are “unacceptable – gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed”.
“No one will dare to do it, such ‘braveheart’ will be torn to shreds,” he added. “The West can say we’re bad guys, but our people will see it is right. Our country is patriarchal, that’s [sic] sums it up… I positively agree with the Church, with the Patriarch, politicians, especially with [Mayor] Luzhkov, who are convinced that man and woman should love each other. It is established by God and nature.”
However, Moscow Pride organizers have vowed to move forward with this year’s Pride event despite the police chief’s threats.
“Mr. Pronin already showed his incompetency last year when his services were unable to prevent us unveiling a banner directed against the Mayor, right opposite his office,” said Alekseev.
The main pride event successfully took place nearby at the monument to the famous Russian gay composer, Peter Tchkaivosky, while the authorities and neo-fascists were hoodwinked in to thinking that it would take place outside of homophobic Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s office.
Today at the start of a gay rights conference at an undisclosed location east of the city, I was joined by British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and LGBT activists from around Russia and Belorussia Minsk, Rostof, Sochi, Ufa, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Ekaterinbourg, Volgodonsk, Ryazan and of course Moscow.
As we gathered on a coach to go to the conference, Moscow activist Nikolai Baev explained how a group of young activists from Ryazan, about 200 miles south of the capital, got involved in organizing this year’s Slavic Pride:
“There is a very discriminatory law in the Ryazan region which prohibits so-called propaganda about homosexuality20and among minors. The law passed in 2006 and we had pickets that said that homosexuality is absolutely normal and we are proud of our situation. We picketed in front of schools in Ryazan and we were detained because it was illegal.”
Two people were found guilty and fined 1500 roubles (about $45 US) each. Alekseev came to Ryazan to help in the campaign and in the appeal of their cases to the Constitutional Court of Russia.
Then, Sergey Yenin, 19, explained how he became involved in gay rights organizing in Belorussia :
“I felt myself to be gay from my early childhood, he explained.
“Last year I came to Minsk and there I got acquainted with some gay activists and I thought it would be great if I fought for my gay rights. There are a lot of people who don’t fight for their rights, who don’t participate in such activist movements, and they just consume our achievements.
“For example, we fought for our gay club, our one gay club in Minsk. It was in danger of being closed [by the government], but it still exists, due to us.”
I asked Sergey if he had participated in Minsk Pride events before.
“Yes, of course. The most outstanding Pride parade took place in 2001. But I didn’t participate because I was only 11 then. There were over 300 people participating in this event and 300 watching. This was fabulous This was an historical moment in Belorussia.
“The last one took place in October of 2008. It was named Queer Walk and it took place on the 11th of October 2008, the international day of coming out, and we organized a pride parade. It was a rather private, intimate event, there were fifty participants because we cannot organize such a public event because of our government.
“If we applied for an event, we would be denied.
“There is an action that takes place [each year] called Chernobyl Way, and all of the opposition parties take place there, and our LGBT group participated last year and this year. Last year we raised the rainbow flag and there were a lot of bad comments about it, there were a lot of thre ats [of violence]. There were such political parties as Right Alliance, and they threaten us all of the time. This year we didn’t20raise our rainbow flag because the organizer of the Belorussian National Front, the main opposition party, they coordinated a call to us, do not raise your rainbow flag, not because we have anything against you, because our fight for clean air, free of radiation will turn into a fight for gay rights.”
I asked Sergey why he personally joined the 15 others for the ten hour train ride from Belorussia to join this Saturday’s Slavic Pride: “I [only] made the conclusion [to come] on May 12 because I was really very frightened about myself and my friends. I know that there is some information that Pride is going to be canceled, and more than this, that Pride participants are going to be beaten.
“Because this is my fight really.If I don’t go to the pride parade, who will go there? My reasons to come was to support my friends – and of course to support gay rights.”
SEE ALSO
Tatchell To Attend Moscow Gay Pride. Despite threats to bash and arrest the marchers, British gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will attend this Saturday’s Moscow Gay Pride parade – this year renamed Slavic Gay Pride to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality struggles in all Slavic countries, Russian and non-Russian. (UK Gay News, May 11, 2009)
Gay Marriage Campaign Starts in Russia. Two women will apply for a marriage license in Moscow on May 12, it emerged this afternoon. The announcement was made today during a press conference for Slavic Pride which is planned for later this month in Moscow. (UK Gay News, May 5, 2009)

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‘Gay man’ disinterred in Senegal BBC News

he body of a man believed to be homosexual has twice been dug up from a Muslim cemetery in Senegal.

The man, in his 30s, was first buried on Saturday before residents of the western town of Thies dug up his body and left it near his grave, police say.

His family then reburied him, but he was once more exhumed by people who did not want him buried there. His body was dumped outside the family house.

Senegal outlaws homosexual acts but there is a tradition of effeminate men.

A police officer told the AFP news agency that the body was eventually buried away from the cemetery.

The state-owned Le Soleil newspaper reports that it was buried within the grounds of the family home.

“Goor-jiggen” (men-women) dress up as women, socialise with females and have long been tolerated in Senegal, a majority Muslim country. However, attitudes seem to be changing.

The AFP news agency reports that local imams, as well as some newspapers and radio stations, have denounced homosexuals after an appeals court last month overturned the conviction of nine people for homosexual acts.

‘Gay man’ disinterred in Senegal

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Roman Catholic Bishop Tobin: Roamn Catholic apathy on same-sex ‘marriage’ must end

“Abysmal” Catholic apathy must be overcome to oppose those who are “fiercely determined” to impose homosexual “marriage,” Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island Thomas J. Tobin has warned. Reasserting Catholic teaching on sexual morality, he also said that same-sex “marriage” will endanger religious freedom.

Writing in his April 23 column in The Rhode Island Catholic, Bishop Tobin spoke of a “relentless” political march towards homosexual marriage, with New England leading the way. “The supporters of gay marriage in Rhode Island are well-organized and well-funded. They’re fiercely determined to impose their politically correct agenda on all the citizens of the state – human history, culture and moral principles not-withstanding. Anyone who opposes them is quickly labeled a bigot,” the bishop observed.

However, he said the typical Rhode Island Catholic’s response was indifferent and cited not wanting to judge people. Tobin also said that Catholics give rationalizations about the decline of Catholic influence.

“[G]ay marriage will affect you and you should be concerned. And there’s a lot we can do,” the bishop wrote, proceeding to review reasons Catholics oppose same-sex “marriage.”

Bishop Tobin explained that “homosexual activity is unnatural and gravely immoral. It’s offensive to Almighty God. It can never be condoned, under any circumstances. Gay marriage, or civil unions, would mean that our state is in the business of ratifying, approving such immoral activity.”

The movement for same-sex “marriage,” he added, “seeks to radically redefine the most fundamental institution of the human race, the building block of every society and culture. From the beginning, marriage has been defined as the stable union of man and woman, designed by God to continue the human race through the procreation of children.

“Homosexual relationships are not marriage – never have been, never will be.”

Bishop Tobin introduced what he called the “champagne principle.” Saying that not every wine has the unique characteristics of champagne, the bishop argued that someone who relabeled a bottle of Chianti and tried to sell it as champagne would be arrested for fraud.

Similarly, those who seek to redefine marriage and “to usurp the title ‘marriage’ for their morally bankrupt relationships,” are “committing an act of fraud,”he charged. “It’s insulting to those who have entered the authentic, sacred and time-honored institution of marriage over the years.”

See Bishop Tobin: Catholic apathy on same-sex ‘marriage‘ must end
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Report: Iran AIDS doctors sentenced to prison

(Tehran) Two internationally renowned Iranian AIDS physicians were among four men sentenced to prison over the weekend for allegedly participating in a U.S.-backed plot to overthrow Iran’s Islamic regime, Iran’s state news agency reported Monday.

The prosecution of scientists Arash and Kamyar Alaei, who have been held in prison since June …