Prime Minister honours gay victims in Holocaust Memorial Day statement
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has released a statement ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow, the international day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides.
HMD is marked each year on 27 January – the anniversary of the date of the liberation of Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“The theme of this Holocaust Memorial Day is Standing up to Hatred,” Mr Brown said.
“We all like to think that we know what we would do in the face of hatred – that in a moment of decision we would honour our obligations to resist brutality and to stand with its victims.
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PinkNews.co.uk, UK
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/prime-ministe…
Justice at last for gay war widower
Edward Young has finally proved he is entitled to a war pension, writes Jonathan Dart.
Every so often, Edward Young sits on the couch in his apartment and closes his eyes. “And then I just pretend I’m not here any more,” he says.
It has been 10 years since his partner, Larry Cains, died. They met in London in 1960 – he, a model, was introduced to Mr Cains, a photographer who had served with the Australian Army in Borneo during World War II.
“He was desperately handsome,” Mr Young said. “We spent two weeks together and I told him I wanted to spend my life with him.”
Now, after a decade of fighting to have the law recognise his and Mr Cains’s love as equal, the Sydneysider will soon become the country’s first recognised gay war widower.
Laws passed in November mean that partners in gay relationships with serving and retired soldiers will, for the first time, be allowed to claim pensions – opening the door for the so-called “forgotten people” of our military heritage and allowing for more people to make claims that must be paid out.
The decision will end a long-winded battle for Mr Young that began in a small inner-city law office, when he applied for a pension only to find the Veterans’ Entitlements Act limited the definition of “couple”. Under the old law, his 38 years with Mr Cains were invalid because he could not prove he was “living with a member of the opposite sex”.
Having lived through a time when discrimination against gay men was rife, Mr Young said the wording still jolted him. “I didn’t really need the pension,” he said. “I didn’t even really want it. What I wanted was to take on the little man, [the former prime minister John] Howard, and fight.”
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Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/justice-at-la…
New Russia treason law could be used against gays
(Moscow) Russian LGBT rights groups are concerned they could be arrested under a proposed treason law likely to gain easy passage in Parliament.
The new law drafted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Cabinet would allow authorities to label any government critic a traitor – a move that leading human rights activists …
