31 May

Thursday 31 May 2012

Photo: Helen Westwood’s facebook profile picture

Gay Marriage may have moved a step nearer in Australia. The New South Wales upper house passed a motion calling on the federal government to allow gay marriage by 22 votes to 16, joining Tasmania and the ACT in having a parliamentary chamber call for the 1961 commonwealth Marriage Act to be amended to allow same-sex marriage.

During the debate, Labor MP Helen Westwood described being in a lesbian relationship and having eight grandchildren. “There’s just no evidence that my children or my grandchildren have been disadvantaged by being raised in a same-sex relationship,” she told the chamber on Thursday.

Nick Herbert. Photo: Sky

Meanwhile in Britain Nick Herbert, the justice and policing minister, waded into the row in the Conservatives about gay marriage. Mr Herbert, who has a civil partnership, said that he and others of the same sexuality are effectively being treated as second-class citizens, and opponents of same-sex marriage are making intemperate and unreasonable arguments. “I am getting rather fed up with people metaphorically jabbing a finger into my chest and saying I should put up with a civil partnership.”

Condoms and a banana. Photo: Izismile

At this time of year the health statistics seem to pour out like an overflowing medicine bottle and today we are on STDs. This year there is a two percent rise in the number of new sexually transmitted infections in England: 427,000. Young people and men who have sex with men are at highest risk, with new gonorrhoea cases up 61 percent in their group. The increase was mainly cases of gonorrhoea, syphilis and genital herpes, which were up by 25, 10 and five percent. Among gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, new cases of gonorrhoea were up 61 percent, with syphilis up 28 percent. The number of new chlamydia infections reported had risen by 48 percent on 2010′s figures.

Senator Ted Lieu. Photo in public domain

Reuters reports that a bill to ban an ex-gay therapy directed at children and teens passed California’s Senate on Wednesday, moving the state a step closer to becoming the first in the nation to ban the controversial treatment. The 23-13 vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate marked a major victory for opponents who say the therapy has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder, and that the therapy can cause depression leading to substance abuse and suicide. “These therapies are dangerous,” Senator Ted Lieu, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said on the Senate floor before the vote, citing the case of Ryan Kendall, an outspoken advocate of gay rights who underwent such therapy as a child. “Ryan was told that being gay made God cry,” Lieu said. “He testified that for 10 years of his life, he wanted to commit suicide. He has not done that and now he is speaking out against this type of therapy.”

Lord Browne’s comments over gays in senior positions, which we blogged yesterday, have drawn some criticism. “Homophobia in the workplace? Lord Browne would have had an easier time if he’d been open about his sexuality,” says Andrew Pierce. “… Lord Browne of Madingley, often described as Tony Blair’s favourite businessman, was one of the most influential men on the planet. In 2005 he was asked by the Financial Times if he was gay. He replied ‘you have got the wrong man there’. The journalists knew that he was lying. .. Browne, in his speech at Arup this week to launch the company’s Connect Out gay networking organisation, revealed he had lived in the closet for so long was because of his mother Paula. Mrs Browne regularly accompanied her son to BP social events to the evident bemusement of some of his colleagues.”

Your Activist – out at work from 1976 – with no detrimental effect on a career – has always advocated openness and honesty in such matters. Yes, Your Activist was lucky but still believes that honesty pays dividends.

SP

26 May

Saturday 26 May 2012

Photo: 123 RF

What? You want me to update Gay Activist?

Today?

In this weather? Ha ha ha ha ha – oh.

Eight months after the repeal of DADT, gay midshipmen describe the transformation at the Naval Academy, reports the Tampa Bay Times. Last month, for the first time, faculty members and staff attended an off-campus dinner that had been organized secretly every year by and for gay midshipmen. “It’s been really great, actually,” Bonsall, 20, of Middletown, Del., said of life at the academy since repeal. “Everyone has been really accepting of us.”

The experience at Annapolis this year mirrors those at the other service academies, but some future officers worry about what happens after they graduate. While their generation might be accepting, the broader military is made up of people of all ages and backgrounds. Some senior officers say privately that they won’t come out for fear of jeopardizing their careers.

Hamed. Winnipeg Free Press.

The Winnipeg Free Press have been talking to a gay refugee from Iran who is now in Canada. 27-year-old Hamed is sponsored by a Group of Five connected to the Rainbow Resource Centre. “I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to me.” Hamed spent 17 months in Turkey after he was outed. “Being gay in Iran is not acceptable. If someone wants to hurt me or kill me, there is nobody to protect me.” Even in Canada, he’s worried about what could happen to him if homophobic fundamentalists discover his last name and track him down.

“When I came to Turkey, two gays helped me find my way. At that time, I really needed it. I didn’t know anything about Turkey or the United Nations.” Before long, he was helping others who’d fled Iran, and shared an apartment with a transgender couple and a gay man. “I tried to be a family with my situation.”

No, it’s not the new Gay Activist range of sexy mens’ underwear, which we know you are all agog to see. Traditional Ndebele leaders at the launch of the Institute of African Royalty in Johannesburg in 2009. Traditional leaders have consistently rejected LGBT people as ‘un-African’. Photograph: Themba Hadebe/AP

Gays in South Africa are concerned about the traditional courts bill which threatens to undermine gay rights for millions of gay South Africans living in rural areas. The bill is the latest attempt to define, regularise and institutionalise the role of traditional leaders, but the bill undermines the protection afforded by constitutional civil rights.

It would grant individual traditional leaders sole authority to interpret and implement customary law. The bill would also prohibit rural people from opting out of the jurisdiction of traditional courts, preventing access to alternative forms of justice and circumventing the authority of the constitution.

SP

16 May

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Councillor Peter Main. This is Bristol

Councillor Peter Main, Bristol’s first openly gay Lord Mayor, dedicated his forthcoming year of office to his partner, Gordon Williams, who died three years ago. He said he was inspired to seek the office by Gordon, his partner for 34 years. “He encouraged me to be the city’s first citizen and I thought to myself, ‘I don’t think this is going to happen’. But here I am now, facing the most exciting year of my life, and I therefore dedicate my term of office to Gordon Williams.”

“‘Hard to spot and easy to miss,’ that’s veteran activist Peter Tatchell’s take on the LGBT presence at the London Olympics.” writes Gay Star News. “If he’s right, it’ll be a sad irony. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people seem to have been integral to winning the games for London (diversity was a key part of the bid to the International Olympic Committee) and gay individuals and businesses will also play a big role in delivering the games. But despite the efforts of many in one of the world’s most diverse cities and many more gay sports activists around the globe, there are only a handful of openly gay Olympic and Paralympic competitors due to take part.”

Same Same

Compare and contrast with the world of gay rugby. “This Saturday May 19, the boys from the Sydney Convicts Rugby Club will be stripping down to raise money for the upcoming Bingham Cup in Manchester,” writes Same Same. Gay Activist welcomes all the players in the gay rugby contest to the UK; we hope you have a fantastic stay. We also wish you all every success in the Bingham Cup.

Not much good news for the gay residents of Colorado, US. A last-ditch effort by Colorado’s governor to give gay couples in the state rights similar to married couples failed on Monday after Republicans rejected the proposal. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper had said the special session was needed to address a ‘fundamental question of fairness and civil rights.’ Republicans assigned the bill to the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, which voted 5-4 along party lines to kill the measure.

Rewriting history dept: It would seem that Newsweek’s latest cover showing President Obama with a rainbow halo declaring him ‘The First Gay President’ is not merely attention-grabbing but historically inaccurate too. Critics and history buffs, quick to scorn the sensationalist cover, have pointed out that James Buchanan was likely the first homosexual President more than a century ago. Rumours about Buchanan’s sexuality have circulated with historians determining that the fifteenth leader of the U.S was gay.

Is there any avidence for this claim? We have heard similar ones before.

“Loewen points to a letter that Buchanan wrote to Mrs Roosevelt on May 13, 1844.
In the missive Buchanan describes his loneliness after his great love, Alabama senator William Rufus King, moves to Paris to become the ambassador to France. Buchanan wrote: ‘I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.’ Buchanan, who was in the White House from 1857 to 1861, was the only president who remained a life-long bachelor. Before becoming president, Buchanan lived with King for 15 years in Washington DC. King served as Vice President under Franklin Pierce but died shortly after Pierce came into office – four years before Buchanan took over.”

Not enough, girls.

Webmaster’s note: Today Your Activist has been doing some re-organising of the Information Pages, putting them into three categories, so that the drop-down menu feature works better. Some of the pages – not many – as a result may have a few out of date links. We will try to find them and correct them as soon as possible. Thankyou for your patience and for your continued support of Gay Activist.

SP

3 May

Thursday 3 May 2012

Richard Grenell

Openly gay spokesman Richard Grenell left the Mitt Romney campaign because he was ‘silenced’ while his boss refused to defend him against personal attacks. Mr Grenell, Mr Romney’s former foreign policy and national security spokesman, felt his reputation was being destroyed by far right criticism that he would advocate for gay marriage inside a Romney White House. Mr Grenell resigned after less than a month on the job and cited ‘personal reasons’ as the cause for his departure.

A gay bar in Copenhagen has confirmed it has barred straight couples from kissing there. Jobbe Joller, the founder of Homosocialt Fællesskab, said a bouncer at the Never Mind bar in the Danish capital told a woman in his party she could not kiss her boyfriend. Confronting the bouncer, he said: “The bouncer replied that it was unacceptable to conduct in that kind of behaviour at a gay place and that Never Mind receives a lot of emails from its gay guests concerning the high number of straight guests that visit the bar. I asked him if it was not the same as saying that black people are not allowed to kiss in Never Mind, but he disagreed and told me that the owner of Never Mind may decide who can kiss and who can’t kiss in the bar.”

So now you know. Never mind.

Averil Power. Photo: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland

The Irish Government has blocked a move to protect gay doctors and teachers from being fired due to their sexual orientation. Justice Minister Alan Shatter claimed Fianna Fáil senator Averil Power’s Employment Equality Bill may not have been able to pass “constitutional muster”. Ms Power said appropriate wording could have been worked out at committee stage, but the move was voted down. The Gay and Lesbian Equality Network described the Government’s attitude as “very disappointing”. Ms Power told the Seanad provisions in law that could see schools, hospitals and other institutions sack staff because of their orientation “serve as a daily chill factor for gay lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people”.

Di Natale. Photo: Getty

Udinese striker Antonio Di Natale has stated that the taboo of homosexuality in professional football will not be broken any time soon. “Professionally, I admire Prandelli and am fond of the man, but I disagree with him [on homosexuality],” Di Natale told La Repubblica. “Breaking the taboo of homosexuality in football is difficult, almost impossible. I wonder how the fans would react? I’m sorry, but I disagree with the choice to go public, at least in football because privacy is very important. Our world, in some respects, is very complex.”

“You are here: Home » Moral Depravity”, says Radiance Weekly, helpfully. They mean us. Oh, yes they do!

“Homosexuality is a mental disorder and psychological perversion which psychologists call a sadomasochistic perversion – an act of changing good and right into bad and wrong. The result of this act is very dangerous: 1. The perversion of justice 2. The perversion of the truth 3. Sexual diseases like gonorrhoea and syphilis, which kill the patient slowly and painfully.”

Wow. Would you like some more of this enlightenment? Okay then, brace yourselves.

“A study shows that gay persons are mentally retarded and they hate children. Those who need children either adopt or get them through heterosexual unions. It is proved that sexual permissive practices spread deadly diseases like HIV and AIDS. It is discovered that after 1960 the rates of sexually transmitted diseases rose sharply. In 1993, Simon Le Vay who studied the mental status of homosexuals and heterosexuals found an important difference in the size of the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that regulates hormones. Genetics also influence such an attitude. A study on 33 pairs of homosexuals revealed that they had a distinctive genetic pattern involving X Chromosomes. There are clinics rendering service to homosexuals who are mentally disorder. In India, there are seven lakh homosexuals affected with venereal diseases.
Stop this menace or face consequences, may be destruction of the world.”

What a load of piffle.

Tony Whyte

Gay Activist is sad to note the passing of Tony Whyte of Sheffield who has died age 84.

“From the late 1950s to the ’70s his limp-wristed camp act, long before the days of Larry Grayson and John Inman, was the talk of the town. His catchphrase was, ‘Shut your gob, Tony’s speaking’. Glasgow-born, Tony’s real name was Frederick York Clark Wight. He spent much of his childhood in the Fulwood Cottage Homes orphanage in Sheffield, reflecting: “I was born of good parents but on the wrong side of the blanket.” National Service saw Tony stationed in Germany and Austria with the Army Medical Corps, then he signed up for six years as a medic in the Navy. Out on Civvy Street he worked first for a tailor in Attercliffe, standing in the doorway to attract custom, later becoming the ‘singing waiter’ at the now demolished Rotherham House pub, near Castle Market. Later he worked at Firvale Infirmary – now the Northern General Hospital – as a geriatric staff nurse.”

SP

12 April

Thursday 12 April 2012

Two Dads

Peter TerVeer, a former management analyst at the Library of Congress is claiming he was fired after he “liked” the “Two Dads” Facebook page for same-sex parents, a group that helps “promote the gay and lesbian community,” an act he says led to his boss discovering he is gay. When his manager, John Mech, discovered he was gay, TerVeer’s once-positive performance reviews turned negative, he alleges, and his boss started making derogatory statements about his sexual orientation.

It’s a wake-up call for employees who may not yet understand the extent to which their social media participation can impact their careers. This month Maryland became the first state to ban the practice of asking for a job candidate or worker’s social networking password; and Illinois is considering similar legislation. Facebook has threatened to “take action to protect the privacy and security of our users” in cases where employers seek passwords.

Your Activist has heard of similar problems in the UK.

Iain Stewart MP. Milton Keynes

UK town Milton Keynes’ first ever Gay Pride will take place on August 11 in Campbell Park. Headed with pride by openly gay MP Iain Stewart, the slogan is ‘Come on MK – it’s OK to be Gay!’ “Our aim is to raise awareness and encourage inclusive behaviour. Milton Keynes is vibrant, young, energetic and colourful and we should be allowed to celebrate this,” said joint organiser, 45-year-old Jo Green. She and her partner Tamara Smith have formed a non-profit making Community Interest Company called MKPride.

BBC Photo from 2001 of a gay club in Dubai

Two men, one of whom is from Britain, have been sentenced for three years in jail for having drunken gay sex in public in Dubai. Both will be deported after serving their prison terms. A 28-year-old British male teacher, identified only by his initials PA, admitted to having consensual gay sex with MB, a 40-year-old man from the Seychelles, next to a petrol station while drunk in February 2011. A man parked behind the petrol station saw them and reported them to police. They tried to escape when the police arrived, but were caught. During a court hearing in March they both admitted to having consensual sex and consuming alcohol. Each was sentenced to three years in jail.

SP

11 April

Wednesday 11 April 2012

The Mr Gay World Contest. Deccan Chronicle

“Somewhere between the worlds of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Philadelphia lies Mr Gay World, rank with the stench of hypocrisy, fetid with bigotry and homophobia, adrift in an ocean of ambivalence and fighting for dignity and rights. It happened in Johannesburg on Easter Sunday.”

Oh, Christians didn’t think much of holding the Mr Gay World Contest on Easter Sunday.

“ACDP national chairwoman Jo Ann Downs didn’t hold back when she accused Mr Gay World organisers of deliberately attempting to provoke Christians by holding the event on a day she described as “the holiest of holies”. “If they wanted to get people like us on their side, this is not the way to do it… I don’t think anybody wants to see anybody else’s human rights violated. But if they had respect for other people’s religious beliefs and behaviours, there’s probably a way where people like us, people like me would go to places like Uganda and say don’t kill people for what they’re doing. Respect their right to life. I don’t think Christians have shown animosity. Nobody’s picketing outside saying ‘Die homosexuals’… The second point is that Jesus very clearly said I will die for your sins, but sin no more and people are asked to move away from their sins and that’s adultery and fornication and all of that. So on Easter Sunday we don’t expect people who are all in adultery to rise up and say okay, we’re going to have a Mr Adultery competition.” “

No animosity towards gays from Christians? That would be a first.

Now here’s an interesting headline. “Robert Spitzer, Psychiatrist Behind Controversial ‘Ex-Gay’ Study, Retracts Original Claims”

Dr Robert Spritzer. ABC

The psychiatrist who published a controversial 2001 study proclaiming that “highly motivated” gay and lesbian people could change their sexual orientation, Psychiatrist Bob Spitzer, who had ironically led the effort to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973, has changed his mind about going ex-gay. He now wants to retract his study, while addressing several of the ample criticisms against its findings.

“In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct,” said the 80-year-old Spitzer, who is now retired and ill. “The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more.”

Ruairi Quinn. UL

Better news for gay teachers in the Republic of Ireland. Ireland’s Education Minister Ruairi Quinn told teachers yesterday he will bar discrimination against gay people that may prevent them taking up employment as teachers. Sandra Irwin-Gowran of Ireland’s Gay and Lesbian Equality Network said: “The Minister’s statement sends an unambiguous message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teachers that they will be protected in employment and in accessing employment and promotion in the same way as their heterosexual counterparts. This will do much to remove the ‘chill factor’ that the threat of Section 37.1 of the Employment Equality Act brings for lesbian and gay teachers.”

SP

16 March

Friday 16th March 2012

Gay Activist wishes all our Irish friends a very happy St Patrick’s Weekend.

Public Domain

All right, all right. There’s no need to get carried away.

Proposals to allow gay marriage on an equal footing with traditional marriage could lead to “significant” costs for schemes if implemented. Now actuaries and accountants are working out how they will cover potential liabilities for their schemes. They seem to be getting worried as the penny drops.

The Equality Act 2010 currently exempts occupational schemes from having to provide benefits to surviving civil partners based on pre-2006 accrual but that might change.

The exemption is because civil partnerships did not exist before 2006. It discriminates against the gay community because heterosexual survivors receive a survivor’s pension, if one is offered by the scheme, which does not vary according to the length of their marriage, but gay survivors of gay scheme members are punished by receiving a pension which is only based on contributions since civil partnerships became legal. A point this Activist made clear to a number of politicians and industry bodies at the time.

Allowing gay people to marry fully could call into question their different treatment by pension schemes. “Retrospective rights may remain an issue when equal civil marriage is introduced, but the Department for Work and Pensions is currently considering whether this provision in the Equality Act should be retained, and the impacts of its removal or modification”, says the consultation document.

The Protection of Freedoms Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords earlier this week. Gay Activist is informed by Parliament that the bill now goes back to the House of Commons with the amendments made by the Lords for the Commons’ consideration.

Conservative group LGBTory has challenged the assertion by Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough that the government has no mandate to allow equal marriage rights for gays. Commenting for LGBTory, Chairman Matthew Sephton said: “The fact is that same-sex marriage was explicitly mentioned in the Conservative Party’s 2010 manifesto documents and the Conservatives were the only one of the main three Parties to include it. The move towards same-sex civil marriage is being led by a Conservative Prime Minister and we will be working with him at all stages to ensure his wish to see this on the statute books by 2015 is realised.”

Politicians often have selective memories.

Be careful which groups you book for the Proms this summer. The principal of an Iowa secondary school which let a Christian rock band preach anti-gay and anti-abortion views while showing images of aborted foetuses is resigning. Mike Cooper, who oversees grades 7-12 at the school in Dunkerton, will tender his resignation Monday and remain on the job until the end of the school year. The statement says that the resignation is not related to Cooper’s recommendation that the band Junkyard Prophet should perform at last week’s assembly.

There has been a verdict in the Tyler Clementi case. Dharun Ravi, 20, who used a webcam to secretly film his room-mate in a gay encounter has been found guilty of hate crime and invasion of privacy. Ravi shook his head as the verdict was returned at a court in the state of New Jersey. His room-mate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from a bridge in 2010. Ravi was found guilty of 15 counts as a whole, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, which is a hate crime, and not guilty of several subparts of the bias intimidation charges. While Ravi was not charged in connection with Clementi’s death, which occurred shortly after the spying, the suicide was mentioned by witnesses during the trial. He will be sentenced on 21 May and could face up to 10 years in jail and possible deportation to India, although he has lived in the US legally since he was a young boy.

SP

2 March

Friday March 2nd 2012

David Lewis

Sgt. Brandon Morgan didn’t expect to become a global phenomenon when he kissed his partner upon returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. But then a friend posted a photo of their embrace on the Gay Marines page on Facebook. Morgan, in desert camouflage, is seen wrapping his legs around Dalan Wells’ legs. A large U.S. flag is in the background, writes the Chicago Sun Times. This photo, taken some five months after the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prohibiting gay servicemen from openly acknowledging their sexuality, is among the first showing a gay active-duty serviceman in uniform kissing his partner after coming home.

Aaaaaah.

Photo by Brandon Krepel

The Catholic school music teacher who was fired after church officials learned that he planned to marry his male partner of 20 years has been fired from a second position in the Archdiocese of St. Louis: as a music director at a north St. Louis County Catholic church. Al Fischer, 46, has been told that he could no longer work as one of the parish’s part-time music directors, a paid position he’s held for several years, according to Fischer’s partner, Charlie Robin.

Years and years ago – back in the 1970s in fact – your Activist was told by someone who knew about this sort of thing, that every service a gay man could need could be found in San Francisco and California. He was not joking. Now California has a circle for men who cannot.

Says SF Gate: “Malecare announces the first social gathering exclusively for single gay men with erectile dysfunction will take place on the evening of saturday, March 10, at a private home in Studio City, California.”

“Gay men experience health issues from their unique perspective, but, health care professionals continue to ignore this, causing needless harm to thousands upon thousands of gay men who experience erectile dysfunction,” said Darryl Mitteldorf of Malecare Cancer Support. “Malecare wants all gay men to find the help they need, from men who care about them and we are proud that one of our support group leaders, Dennis Bogorad, has developed a supportive meeting focused on erectile dysfunction.”

The gathering will offer single gay men with erectile dysfunction a chance to meet other gay men with erectile dysfunction. It will be a chance for men to mix and mingle in a no stress environment, share experiences, make new friends or maybe meet the love of their life.

And possibly catch up with their knitting. Who knows?

SP

#111004

Top News

Up to 16,000 convictions on gay men for offences committed prior to legalisation could be removed from or annotated on UK police records as a result of the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which is awaiting its third reading in the Commons. The provisions will also wipe malicious convictions for “loitering with intent”.

It is not known how many of the men who were caught by discriminatory policing are still alive to apply to have their records amended.

The Drewitt-Barlow family 2010; Photo: Guardian

Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow have appeared in Southwark Crown Court with others accused of faking the results of clinical trials. They deny five counts of contravening the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations. The charges relate to their company Euroderm Research, which went into liquidation in 2008. The business conducted tests for dermatological and cosmetic products. The Drewitt-Barlows are charged with letting participants take part in trials more than once, failing to complete consent forms correctly and making a false application for an ethics committee opinion by saying Barrie was a nurse when he did not hold the necessary qualifications.

Spot the gay workers! Photo: London Fit Outs

CVs which indicate an applicant is gay are 40 per cent less likely to be granted an interview than those which do not, according to a researcher in the US who sent out fictitious CVs to 1,700 white collar job openings, such as managerial positions.

One CV mentioned relevant experience in a university gay society as a treasurer, while the other listed experience in the ‘Progressive and Socialist Alliance’.

The results showed that applicants without the gay reference had an 11.5 per cent chance of being called for an interview. However, CVs which mentioned the gay society had only a 7.2 per cent chance. The difference amounted to a 40 per cent higher chance of the heterosexual applicant getting a call.

SP