VA gov. issues LGB directive
The gov. of VA issued an unenforceable directive banning LGB discrim after outcry.
Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl ad ignites uproar
Focus on the Family’s planned Super Bowl ad featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow is generating outcry from thousands of people – enough to give rise to a Facebook page with more 2,500 fans urging CBS to reject the anti-abortion spot.
In addition, nearly 1,500 people have signed a change.org petition …
Public Outcry Kills Anchorage Gay Protections
An Anchorage, Alaska gay protections bill is likely doomed as public sentiment turns sour, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Hundreds of opponents appeared to testify against the bill at a Wednesday Anchorage Assembly hearing on the issue. The bill would protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the areas of employment, housing and credit. An original draft included transgendered persons, but lawmakers cut out the provision amid loud protest. Opponents’ demands have resulted in three drafts of the ordinance, including one that turns the protections on their head. That version would allow discrimination based on sexual orientation, while protecting other classes. “The added language in the third version guts the intent and the integrity of the ordinance,” said Jackie Buckley, spokeswoman for EqualityWorks, the group that lobbied for the gay protections. But time is ticking as a new, unsympathetic mayor is about to be installed on July 1, Republican Mayor-elect Dan Sullivan. Sullivan, however, gains veto power over all ordinances seven days prior, on Wednesday. As people continued to pile in to testify against the bill – nearly 600 people have signed up and only 300 have been heard – Anchorage Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander said Friday she will continue to allow testimony. The extension is likely to make it impossible to approve the bill before Sullivan gains veto control. Acting Mayor Matt Claman, a Democrat, supports the measure.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/public-outcry…
Whose Holocaust? Plan to Recognize Gay Victims at Memorial Sparks Row
A plan to memorialize gay male victims of Nazism amid a collection of memorial stones for Holocaust victims in a quiet half-acre patch of Brooklyn has provoked an outcry.
New York State Assembly Member Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat whose many Orthodox constituents include numerous Holocaust survivors, has decried the planned addition as a distortion of the Holocaust’s meaning with regard to Jews.
“It’s easy to say, let’s include everybody, let’s be universal, diversity is great,” he said. But he added, “It just isn’t fair. It diminishes and really dilutes what the Holocaust is.”
Hikind and the Holocaust Memorial Committee, steward of the tiny Holocaust Memorial Park in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, are calling for the park’s memorial stones to be restricted to Jewish victims of Hitler. But the plan, approved by the city’s parks department, to commemorate non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime there is proceeding thus far.
On June 9, representatives of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors, which proposed the addition, could be found combing the bayside memorial to measure unmarked stone pillars and determine if memorial text could be carved on them, association co-chair Rick Landman said.
The altercation raises a question that Jews have faced with increasing frequency: Whose Holocaust is it, anyway? Roma Gypsies, the disabled and gay men were among those also especially targeted by the Nazis. According to historians, though, only Jews and Roma were targeted for annihilation. Altogether, the Nazis are estimated to have murdered some 11 million from their coming to power in 1933 until their downfall in 1945.
Flanked by Emmons Avenue and Shore Boulevard, at the easternmost end of Sheepshead Bay, the memorial, built in 1997, consists of a tall eternal flame sculpture — engraved with a short statement on the Holocaust and the nations affected by the genocide — surrounded by two adjacent gardens of stone markers, each of which features either a paragraph or two of history or a list of victims’ names.
For $360 per engraved line, donors to the non-profit Holocaust Memorial Committee can pay to have a victim’s name printed on one of the stone markers. The registration form for this service, found on the committee’s Web site, asks donors to provide the victim’s name and a brief history of his or her Holocaust experience. The committee then meets to verify the authenticity of the proposed inscription, committee treasurer and past president Alfred Gollomp said.
Gollomp complained that in signing on to the IALGCHS proposal, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the city’s parks department were ignoring a memorandum that gives the Brooklyn-based group control over the park markers.
See Whose Holocaust? Plan to Recognize Gay Victims at Memorial Sparks Row
Forward
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/whose-holocau…
Christian Reformed Church takes up gay issues
HOLLAND, Mich. – The Christian Reformed Church in America takes up gay issues and an apartheid-era anti-racism statement at a general meeting this week in Holland.
The 166,000-member church opens its General Synod on Thursday.
The agenda includes adoption of a document known as the Belhar Confession. It was drafted in 1982 during the struggle against the white supremacist system of apartheid in South Africa.
The church’s Web site says the statement was an “outcry of faith” and “call for faithfulness and repentance.” See Christian Reformed Church takes up gay issues Chicago Tribune – * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/christian-ref…
Gays being kicked out of military at steady rate
WASHINGTON — A steady number of troops are being discharged from the US military for being gay, according to the latest Pentagon statistics, which show that 619 troops were kicked out last year under the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars homosexuals from serving openly in the ranks.
The figures, which are on par with the previous four years, are bound to spark a new outcry from gay rights advocates who have grown frustrated with President Obama’s unwillingness so far to take steps to lift the ban, despite a campaign pledge to do so.
Of the discharges for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 410 were male and 209 were female, according to the figures obtained by the Globe from Pentagon personnel officials. That compares with a total of 627 discharges in fiscal year 2007; 612 in 2006; 726 in 2005; and 653 in 2004.
The new statistics come to light as the Obama administration comes under growing pressure to use his executive powers to place a moratorium on the discharges while he lobbies Congress to overturn the controversial 1993 law — which was enacted as a compromise after then-President Bill Clinton set off a mutiny when he tried to allow gays to serve openly in uniform.
SEE Gays being kicked out of military at steady rate Boston Globe -See * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gays-being-ki…
Gays being kicked out of military at steady rate
WASHINGTON — A steady number of troops are being discharged from the US military for being gay, according to the latest Pentagon statistics, which show that 619 troops were kicked out last year under the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars homosexuals from serving openly in the ranks.
The figures, which are on par with the previous four years, are bound to spark a new outcry from gay rights advocates who have grown frustrated with President Obama’s unwillingness so far to take steps to lift the ban, despite a campaign pledge to do so.
Of the discharges for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 410 were male and 209 were female, according to the figures obtained by the Globe from Pentagon personnel officials. That compares with a total of 627 discharges in fiscal year 2007; 612 in 2006; 726 in 2005; and 653 in 2004.
The new statistics come to light as the Obama administration comes under growing pressure to use his executive powers to place a moratorium on the discharges while he lobbies Congress to overturn the controversial 1993 law — which was enacted as a compromise after then-President Bill Clinton set off a mutiny when he tried to allow gays to serve openly in uniform.
SEE Gays being kicked out of military at steady rate Boston Globe -See * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gays-being-ki…
Miss California defends nude pics
Miss California Carrie Prejean, who sparked a gay rights outcry following an outburst at the Miss USA pageant, has defended a series of raunchy snaps that have hit the internet.
A photo of Prejean topless and in lacy pink underwear surfaced on websites such as www.perezhilton.com and spread quickly. Five other photos are rumoured to be hitting the internet soon.
Miss California officials are investigating whether the snaps violate her contract as a beauty pageant winner.
Prejean, 21, said the photos were taken when she was a teenager and their release was designed to “mock” her religion.
“I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos,” she said in a statement.
“Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be.
“But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive.”
Miss California defends nude pics
Stuff.co.nz * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/miss-californ…
Gays under threat in Senegal
DAKAR, Senegal — A mob gathered near a mosque outside Dakar. They were there to hunt down and kill nine men accused of homosexual acts.
Earlier this week the nine Senegalese AIDS activists were freed from eight-year-prison terms for alleged homosexual acts, but they went into hiding because of death threats from Muslim religious leaders and the general population.
“The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” Dakar newspaper L’Observeur quoted a local youth leader as saying.
“Gay men will never be free in Senegal. They expose us all to danger,” said Imam Mbaye Niang, a prominent religious leader and member of parliament. “The judges should understand that Senegalese people need to protect their children, their families from homosexuality.”
In Senegal — where 95 percent of the population is Muslim — homosexual acts are punishable by fines and up to five years in prison. In January, the nine men received the harshest sentence yet for such an offense in Senegal, getting the maximum of five years and an additional three for criminal conspiracy.
Though widely supported in Senegal, the conviction was condemned by international human rights groups and foreign governments, most notably France.
“They were judged and condemned very severely, surely on the basis of public outcry, therefore the justice was neither objective nor founded in law,” said lead defense attorney Barim Sassoum Sy, who called the initial ruling hasty and emotional.
A Dakar appeals court overturned that decision Monday, citing violations of legal protocol.
Acting on an anonymous tip, police had arrested the men — most of whom do HIV prevention work in the “men having sex with men” community — in December at the home of a prominent gay activist. But the police did not have a search warrant, nor did they catch the men in the act, which is required by the Senegalese law prohibiting “indecent acts against nature.” The judge hearing the appeal therefore declared their convictions null and void, Sy said.
Yet even as smiling attorneys and supporters celebrated in the packed courtroom Monday and exchanged congratulations, plans were already in place to get the freed men into hiding outside Dakar.
“The first judge sentenced them to eight years,” said Imam Niang. “He had the courage to say it. The judge that let them go was much less courageous. He yielded to international pressure.”
See
Gays under threat in Senegal
GlobalPost * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/gays-under-th…
University drops gay student housing plan
(Fort Worth, Texas) Texas Christian University has abruptly reversed itself and dropped plans for LGBT student housing following a massive outcry from evangelicals opposed to gay rights.
The Fort Worth school is the largest of 17 colleges and universities associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). More than 59 religious …
