SENEGAL SCARE: Gay Witch Hunts & Lynchings Queerty

In Uganda, anti-gay hatred is manifested by newspapers printing of the names and faces of “gay suspects” and activists “storming Parliament” with their message to rid the nation of gays. But across the continent in Senegal, things aren’t any better for the gays. They’re being hunted down Jim Crow-style, with threats of lynchings.

Even though nine AIDS activists were just released from prison after their attorneys successfully argued the evidence for “unnatural acts” charges was insufficient, the climate is anything but tolerant. Rather, you have youth leaders calling for the lynching of gay men: “The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” one told Dakar newspaper L’Observeur, according to GlobalPost.

See SENEGAL SCARE: Gay Witch Hunts & Lynchings

Queerty * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/senegal-scare…

More anti-gay attacks on Ga. universities

The furor over “queer theory” and other reseach at Georgia’s public colleges and univesities has grown since this week’s issue of Southern Voice went to press, and shows disturbing signs of developing into a full-fledged witch hunt.

What started with comments from state Rep. Calvin Hill (see my editorial on that here) now includes Rep. Charlice Byrd, who spoke from the General Assembly well late this week to denounce “a major misuse of the state university system’s budget.”

“Did you know that the state universities offer such special interest classes and expertise on “Male prostitution”, “Queer Theory,” and “Oral Sex”? Yes, ladies and gentlemen… you heard right,” Byrd said, repeating Hill’s misunderstanding of topics listed in an “expert guide” distributed by Georgia State University.

See More anti-gay attacks on Ga. universities
Sovo.com, GA

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They hugged! Lesbians expelled from high school

Back in my day, you had to wake up pretty early to get expelled from high school. You had to rise at the crack of dawn and sell drugs to the children of well-connected bankers and lawyers. You had to trudge a mile in the snow to flip off a teacher (like, repeatedly). You had to make some kind of threat, like: I’m going to blow up this stupid school. I think maybe you could also get expelled for wearing shorts above the knee. Such are the baffling, inexplicable rules of high school expulsion.

But even in my conservative Texas high school, you could not be expelled for being a lesbian. Far less for exhibiting “a bond of intimacy” that was “characteristic of a lesbian relationship” — which, by the way, sounds like approximately 86 percent of female friendships. But such was the case in California, where two 16-year-old girls were expelled for “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians.” An appeals court recently ruled that “the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating,” according to a story in today’s L.A. Times.

The Times story recounts the twisty tale that led a teacher (tipped off by a student) to probe the terrifying waters of MySpace, where she found such incendiary evidence as the fact that one of the students identified as a bisexual. There was also a photo of the two girls hugging. (Hugging?!?! Shouldn’t you get some kind of merit badge for that?) Seriously, the story is worth a read. At one point, the principal seems to be coming on to one girl. The tables keep turning. It’s like “Doubt” or something.

So, OK: It’s a private school that wants to uphold a certain religious ethos. (The school is associated with the same religious denomination as Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann. ) Should they be allowed to discriminate based on their shame-based ethos? I’ll leave that for the courts to decide. (A lawyer for the girls hopes to take the case to the California Supreme Court.) But at a time when our school system is so embattled — fingers crossed, economic stimulus plan — and at an age when kids are discovering themselves and in the very place you might hope adults would be trying to sheperd them into an adult world, it’s just a damn shame that a school would spend its valuable resources on this kind of witch hunt.

― Sarah Hepola See They hugged! Lesbians expelled from high school

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Map of Prop 8 Donors

Oh dear. Get ready to freak out. Somebody has gone and created a mash-up of Google Maps and Prop 8 Donors. Which you can see right here.

Proposition 8, if you recall, changed the California state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. That is to say, Prop 8 allowed discrimination into the state constitution. Eight Maps allows you to see who the people are who donated in order to pass it.

Is this a witch hunt? No. Is it cruel? A bit, maybe. But aren’t the 36,000 people whose marriages risk nullification entitled to know which of their neighbors paid to force them into divorce? Criminals are entitled to face their accusers in court. why can’t married couples know who’s funding their forced divorces? See Map of Prop 8 Donors