‘Happy and Gay’ in Pakistan? ABC News

It wasn’t until she was 16 years old, when she’d left her Pashtun family in Peshawar for an elite school where the teachers were nuns, that Minot realized she was gay.

“I found out when I dated my literature teacher [a nun],” she said. “I got an A.”

It is virtually unheard of in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for a lesbian to be willing to discuss her sexuality openly, especially a lesbian who is also Pashtun. The Taliban, who are overwhelmingly Pashtun and were born in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas near Peshawar, have pushed walls of bricks on top of gay Afghans.

But Minot, now 42, who asked that only her nickname be used because of societal stigma, sat recently in jeans and a T-shirt in the Pakistani city of Lahore, confidently talking about her sexuality, her girlfriends and her attempts to be with men.

“I have been with men, two men,” she said. “But that was to get the confusion out of my mind. Since then,” she said, pausing, “happy and gay.”

See ‘Happy and Gay‘ in Pakistan?

ABC News

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Is President Obama lying about opposing gay marriage?

hose of us who view gay marriage as a slam-dunk, open&shut
equal-protection issue don’t need to rely on any precedent.
The 14th amendment says that “no state shall … deny to any person
under its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.
If there is a man whom my sister can marry but I can’t,
then we are not equally protected, so the state’s treating us
that way is unconstitutional. END of discussion. Or at least it ought to be.

Couples as opposed to individuals are a little more complicated because “deny to any person”
does not say exactly the same thing as “deny to any couple”.
It is hard, though, to deny the couple withOUT denying either or both of the people in it — SO hard that when that FINALLY (in 1968) reached the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, they dismissed
the claim that bans on inter-racial marriages did NOT violate the equal protection clause — because white people and black people were both equally prohibited from marrying someone of the opposite race — with extreme prejudice.

See Is President Obama lying about opposing gay marriage? Daily Kos

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Africa AIDS activists slam US funding shortfall

(Nairobi) Health activists say that a shortfall in promised U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS projects would affect over 30 million people and means President Barack Obama risks reversing the gains made by his predecessor.

“Such projects are like planes … they must have a forward momentum or they will stall and crash,” …

Shock Jock Shock: Anti-Gay Radio Pundit Michael Savage Banned from UK

The British government banned 22 people from being allowed to enter the UK on May 5. Along with the Islamic clerics and white supremacists the Home Office barred for “spreading hate” appeared the names of two Americans: the Rev. Fred Phelps, whose Topeka, Kansas church, Westboro Baptist Church, pickets the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and conservative radio talk show host Michael Alan Wiener, known more widely by his professional pseudonym, Michael Savage.

The news was posted at a May 6 article at CNN.com. See Shock Jock Shock: Anti-Gay Radio Pundit Michael Savage Banned from UK EDGE Boston* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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HR orgs slam new Burundi sodomy law

Human Rights Watch and other organizations condemn Burundi’s new sodomy law.

HR orgs slam new Burundi sodomy law

Human Rights Watch and other organizations condemn Burundi’s new sodomy law.

Lambda slams school officals re: South Medford High School student and Gay Straight Alliance

(Medford, Oregon, April 17, 2009) — Lambda Legal has sent a letter of support to South Medford High School Principal Kevin Campbell, Medford School District Superintendent Phil Long, and the School Board on behalf of South Medford High School student and Gay Straight Alliance member Connie McNair.

The letter objects that school officials have been imposing restrictions on the Medford High GSA to which no other on-campus group is subject and that seriously burden club members’ free speech and associational rights. These include requiring GSA members to get prior approval for their announcements and activities from an assistant principal, deeming the club’s legitimate educational activities illicit “proselytizing,” and even prohibiting the club from formally announcing today’s “Day of Silence.” The Day of Silence is a national event calling attention to anti-gay bullying and harassment in schools.

In the letter, Lambda Legal Staff Attorney Tara Borelli writes “While we hope that the school’s actions to deter the GSA’s activities are simply the result of confusion about its obligations, the law in this area is well-established and school’s unequal treatment of the GSA is difficult to understand and should be remedied swiftly.”

In addition to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution, public school students are also protected by the federal Equal Access Act. The EAA says that if a school receives federal funds and allows extracurricular student groups to meet, it cannot discriminate against any of the groups based on the content of its speech. GSA groups across the country have used the EAA in court to protect their right to free speech.

“It’s simply unlawful for South Medford High School to create unequal obstacles for Connie or the GSA, or to stifle the GSA’s announcements about the Day of Silence,” said Borelli. “We want to remind South Medford school officials that they have a responsibility to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, and we’re asking them to lift any restriction applying to the GSA but not to other groups.

“All we want is safety and equality within our school,” said McNair. “Our GSA members want
students, school officials, and the community to know that we can’t be discriminated against based on our speech or activities.”

Lambda Legal has given school officials until May 1 to respond to the letter.

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Activist dedicates his life to fight for gay rights

Across the floor of the Geneva human rights conference, Arsham Parsi spotted the Iranian government representative.
This was his chance. In 2005, Parsi fled Iran after police found out he was a homosexual rights activist.
But, Geneva was not the Islamic Republic.
Homosexual rights have been mired in controversy worldwide. At present, there are 58 countries that punish it — nine with death. The regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so horrifying, 28-year-old Parsi has dedicated his life to fighting the extreme brutality.
“A friend once told me I didn’t decide to become an activist,” says Parsi. “Society forced me to.”
Parsi felt his heart pound as he approached the official. Understandable. His government punishes kissing with 60 lashes and sodomy with death. Iranian courts’ requirement for witnesses is little assurance. Police will raid birthday parties and formally charge suspected homosexuals for drinking.
Then, there is the interrogation.
“When my friend was arrested, they asked him to identify people by pictures in an album,” says Parsi. See Activist dedicates his life to fight for gay rights
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Smoking prevention groups go after tobacco ads targeting gays

The cigarette pitch demands a second look.
Two ripped, rakish men and one lean, pristine hound pause, inexplicably, in the cool shallows of a calm green sea.
“How gay is this ad?” R.E. Szego, a Portland tobacco-prevention specialist, asks when she sees such an image.
It’s a sincere question, not a slam.
Wooed for years by tobacco companies — who lavish free merchandise on their bars and clubs, sponsor their events and advertise heavily in their publications — gays, lesbians and bisexuals remain hooked on cigarettes, even as the general population smokes less.
But public health specialists are optimistic that a new ban on smoking in Oregon bars will cause a decline in the smoking rates of gays and lesbians, who tend to pick up the habit as teens coming to terms with stigma surrounding their sexual identity.
“If you were coming up gay, it used to be the only place you got to meet was in a bar,” says Michael Kaplan, executive director of Cascade AIDS Project and a former pack-a-day smoker. “If you wanted to fit in, you’d smoke.”
About one in three gay, lesbian and bisexual Oregonians smoke, compared to about one in five smokers in the state’s overall population, according to the public health division of the Oregon Department of Human Services. The disparity is worse among gay, lesbian and bisexual teens, who are 2 1/2 times more likely to smoke than their straight peers. What’s more, half of all gay Oregon smokers say they don’t want to quit.
Nationally, tobacco-related illnesses such as cancer and heart disease kill about 30,000 gays, lesbians and bisexuals each year, reports the American Cancer Society. AIDS kills about half as many, straight people included, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See Smoking prevention groups go after tobacco ads targeting gays
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Tom Hanks calls LDS Church’s support of Prop. 8 ‘un-American’

Actor Tom Hanks went after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for their support of California’s Proposition 8 while talking to Fox News. Today, the Church responded.

Hanks played a gay attorney who was fired from his job in the movie “Philadelphia,” and he paid special tribute to a couple of gay teachers in his Oscar acceptance speech. Now, he is slamming people who voted for an anti-gay marriage proposition in California.

See Tom Hanks calls LDS Church’s support of Prop. 8 ‘un-American’
KSL-TV, UT