29 May

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Photo: Sky News

A law banning so-called “homosexual propaganda” throughout Russia is to be debated in the Russian parliament next month. For the seventh year in a row the gay pride parade has been banned in Moscow but activists challenge the authorities by taking to the streets anyway.

Many Pride goers are detained for wearing badges bearing pink triangles. One woman was arrested for holding a packet of coloured felt tip pens, a replacement for the banned rainbow symbol of gay pride.

Ed Balls. Photo: This is London

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor today revealed that his uncle was gay and would have liked the right to a same-sex marriage as he spoke out in support of the campaign for gay marriage. Mr Balls said gay couples should be able to marry in church. He was proud that Labour had advanced gay rights while in power by repealing Section 28, equalising the age of consent and introducing civil partnerships. “And now we should go further and say to people regardless of their sexuality, people who want to get married should be able to do. Twenty years ago my uncle came out in his fifties as gay — and he died, I’m afraid, before he and his long-term partner could have a civil partnership. But actually in our family we would have liked him to have gone further and to have got married. It’s what he would have wanted, I believe.” Mr Balls said he would not name his late uncle because he wanted to maintain the family’s privacy.

A 2004 picture of Rev White in happier times. MLK Duluth

The Rev. Oliver White, 69, watched most of his congregation leave after he voiced his support for gay marriage. He is now at risk of losing his church, unless he can collect enough donations to keep the doors open. He needs to raise $200,000 by June 30. As of last week he had raised $13,000.

A black leader at the helm of a predominantly black church, White — who marched for racial equality during the Civil Rights era, stood up for gay rights in 2005 by joining a majority of delegates from across the country who voted to support gay marriage. He returned to his congregation the following Sunday and explained his decision. Almost immediately he saw church membership plummet. Within weeks he lost two-thirds of his followers, and now a Sunday sermon draws at most about 20 people. His church is not a “gay church” but welcomes everyone. He says he doesn’t regret taking his stand, even if it ultimately means the church will be no more. “I’ve often said if one person has been turned around, if their thinking has been turned around, and they are no longer homophobic, and they can reach out and love their brothers and their sisters as they love themselves, unconditionally, without labeling them in any way, then losing the church will not be in vain.”

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11 May

Friday 11 May 2012

Messages to the Home Office consultation computer system from people who tried to register their views using a link from the website of the Coalition For Marriage, which campaigns against gay marriage, have been automatically rejected as spam by anti-hacking software, which has treated 4,100 anti-gay responses – just over 40 per cent of the total – as spam. The Home Office last night blamed an “IT glitch” which it said had now been rectified and insisted that the responses had not been lost. The sheer number of messages passing from one source may have triggered software designed to detect spam emails. Opponents of gay marriage are claiming that the consultation is a “sham”.

Photograph by Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images

Bloomberg Business Week notes that political infighting over gay marriage in America is actually hurting business. Never mind business, Bloomberg, what about the lives of gay couples in America where one partner faces deportation because their gay marriage outside the US is not recognised? Wouldn’t it be better for business (and everyone else) if the matters were resolved?

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8 May

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP

The Guardian has been talking to five American gay activists about the progress on gay rights in the US.

“I’ve focused on journalism because there is no LGBT group where I feel at home. The loss of democracy is not unique to the LGBT movement, but tragic nonetheless. We all hate Citizens United, but let money rule our own movement. Progress still? We talk about it on our Gay USA show every week. But I miss the community the movement forged – and not because I’m nostalgic,” says Andy Humm.

“One thing I routinely tell younger LGBT activists who complain that we haven’t attained full equality, is to recognize the lightning speed with which the gay rights movement has achieved tremendous success. The two movements that created the platform for the successes of the LGBT movement are the feminist and black civil rights movements, struggles that took hundreds of years to secure freedom and equality. The LGBT community probably will have achieved total victory in less than a half-century, making ours the swiftest major social movement in history to achieve its goals,” says Ethan Geto.

John Bercow. Photo: Getty

Human rights reforms in the 76 countries around the world where homosexual activity is illegal are to be championed by John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons. Mr Bercow will highlight the plight of gay men and women in 41 of the 54 Commonwealth countries which have not yet abolished laws criminalising homosexuality, in a speech to the Kaleidoscope Trust next week. In five Commonwealth countries gays face death. He will argue that the laws are on the statute book as a result of the nations’ colonial legacy from Britain. Mr Bercow is president of Kaleidoscope.

Some gay sperm? Photo: Medical News

A recruitment drive aimed at gay men has contributed to a significant reduction in the waiting times for Australian women seeking a sperm donor in their bid to have a baby. Australian women were waiting up to 18 months for donor sperm about a year ago. The waiting time is now about eight weeks thanks to the generosity of Australia’s gay men!

Now why is your Activist not a bit surprised?

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7 May

Monday 7 May 2012

Getty

War seems to be breaking out between the Coalition government parties in the UK. After the poor showing in the elections last week, gay marriage was unceremoniously dumped as it was thought to be unpopular with voters. Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister, who is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party, the second party in the UK Coalition government, has other ideas. “There will be no U-turn on equal marriage.” She said the Coalition would continue to focus on “core issues”, such as reducing the deficit, at the same time as introducing laws allowing same-sex couples to marry by the end of this Parliament.

Francois Hollande. Photo in public domain

There were also elections yesterday in France and new French President-elect Francois Hollande is expected to legalise gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples by early next year. Hollande says on his website: ‘Freedom is the ability to let two people in love, regardless of their sexual orientation to unite. Equality is to allow any couple to use the same device without legal discrimination.’

While Hollande may support gay marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, he will face a battle to get it through. National Front, the far right party led by Marine Le Pen, got 18.1% of the vote. In a radio interview last year, she said: ‘I am totally opposed to gay marriage and I think that only a minority are for it anyway. Gay pride events with its parades are, as a general rule, provocations against other people, notably Catholics.’

Raymond Taavel. Photo: Globe and Mail

Meanwhile in Canada friends and supporters of murdered gay activist Raymond Taavel continue his efforts to build a more compassionate community, and held a memorial service yesterday. Raymond Taavel was beaten to death outside a bar in Halifax on April 17. About 200 people marched from the city’s Grand Parade to St. Matthew’s United Church to recall Mr. Taavel’s work advocating for the human rights of gay and lesbian Canadians. Andre Denny of Cape Breton is charged with second-degree murder in connection with Mr. Taavel’s death.

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6 May

Sunday 6 May 2012

David Cameron in happier, gayer times. Uncredited press photo

The difference a few days makes. Just hours ago the Tories and Liberal Democrats received a thrashing in local council elections, losing more than 800 seats between them, mainly to a reinvigorated Labour Party, although probably mostly as a protest vote against economic austerity and failure. Now Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to drop his plans to legalise gay marriage after his party’s miserable showing in those elections sparked a backlash from angry Tory backbenchers. The gay marriage pledge is expected to be dropped from the forthcoming Queens’ speech.

Photo: Help Valerie

Ediage Valerie Ekwedde’s deportation to Cameroon has been temporarily halted after he refused to board a flight from London to Paris. Campaigners say his life is at risk because he is gay and should not be removed from the UK. Mr Ekwedde fears persecution in Cameroon. The UK Border Agency found “no credible evidence” he was gay. The pilot is said to have decided not to fly with him out of consideration to other passengers. Mr Ekwedde arrived in Britain last November claiming he had been persecuted in Cameroon because of his sexuality. In July 2010, the UK Supreme Court ruled that two gay men from Cameroon and Iran were entitled to refugee status in a landmark ruling. The Supreme Court heard that in Cameroon jail sentences for homosexuality ranged from six months to five years.

Some of the attendees at this year’s Equality Forum. Photo: South Florida Gay News

The Equality Forum in the US is under way and JTA proudly reports that Israel is the featured theme. The events in Philadelphia, which end today, feature an array of Israeli gay performers and activists, as well as an address by Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States. The forum brings together a number of gay activist groups. They have a different theme every year. This year is the twentieth consecutive annual event.

Patekile Holomisa. Photo: New Age

There is an attempt to turn the clock back in South Africa. The National House of Traditional Leaders wants to remove a clause from the Constitution which protects people on the grounds of sexual orientation. The clause, in section nine of the Constitution, reads: “The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.

ANC MP Patekile Holomisa, who chairs the constitutional review committee, said sexual orientation was a difficult subject. “The last time this issue was discussed was about same-sex marriages. Most of the people in the caucus were opposed to it, but then Luthuli House and the leadership instructed us to vote for it,” he said. Holomisa heads the Congress of Traditional Leaders.

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2 May

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Public domain

The death of Gareth Williams, the MI6 officer who was found naked in a padlocked holdall in the bath at his London flat, was “criminally mediated”, and on the balance of probability, Williams was “unlawfully killed”, Coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded, but there was not enough evidence to deliver a formal unlawful killing verdict. She criticised the behaviour of MI6 and SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism unit, whose officer operated as a conduit between the intelligence service and detectives investigating Williams’s death. The head of the intelligence service made an unreserved apology to Williams’s family over the delay in reporting him missing and the subsequent anguish it caused. It was unlikely Williams’s death would ever be satisfactorily explained.

Hardly justice for Gareth.

Reuters

Russian police have arrested 17 gay rights activists while trying to unfurl rainbow flags at a May Day rally in St Petersburg. Police said they were to be charged with failing to co-operate with officers. “The first activists who unfurled their flags were detained. Some tried to raise posters, they were also detained,” said Yury Gavrikov, a local gay rights leader. “Two police officers would grab each person, with no warning.” More than 30,000 people took part in the city’s May Day celebrations, officials said. The rally was led by the ruling United Russia party, but also included representatives of the Communist party and nationalist groups.

UKIP

UKIP supporters burned a picture of openly gay mayoral candidate Brian Paddick in London’s Soho. The press officer for UKIP tweeted a picture of an image of Mr Paddick being burned in the capital’s historically gay district with the caption ‘@UKIPLondon2012 campaign on fire in Soho’. The press officer said that the man burning the photograph of Mr Paddick was himself gay and that the campaigners were burning his image as a Liberal Democrat politician, not as a gay man.

Scotsman

One of the best known gay bars in Scotland may be set for a new lease of life. Priscillas, in Leith Walk, Edinburgh, shut suddenly three weeks ago after five years of trading. A new potential owner is in advanced talks to take over the bar and is committed to ensuring it remains a fixture on the gay circuit.

Gary Leek, who runs the Gayzout Network Edinburgh website, said: “Priscillas was always a traditional gay venue, which we never used to have in Edinburgh. There was nothing else like it. The clientele was mixed but everyone was welcome and it had its own niche. I think it appealed because it had something for everybody and it was more down to earth. They had a good mix of cabaret and music. People in other bars tend to come and go, but people in there at 8pm would still be there at 11.”

Ken’s at Kensington. Photo: Ben Rushton BGR

Sydney, Australia’s famous gay sauna, Ken’s at Kensington, is to close due to the sale of the building on Sunday, May 20. The infamous sex-on-premises venue on Anzac Parade started life in 1973 after original owner Ken “Kandy” Johnson moved into what had been the home of another Sydney gay icon, the Purple Onion drag venue. The site was originally known as Ken’s Karate Klub, then Kensington Karate Klasses, an in-joke at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in NSW to explain why there were rubber mats all over the floors and “occasional sounds of groaning” from within.

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23 April: St George’s Day

Monday 23 April 2012

Wishing everyone a very happy St George’s Day.

Mr Slipper. Channel 10

Australia’s government has lost its one-vote majority just two weeks before Parliament resumes, after Speaker Peter Slipper resigned after allegations of financial impropriety and sexual harassment. Mr Slipper’s resignation follows civil action by James Ashby, 33, an aide he employed in December, alleging sexual harassment. Mr Ashby is on leave from Mr Slipper’s office. There are also criminal allegations about the possible misuse of taxpayer-funded Cabcharges, which are being investigated by federal police and the Department of Finance.

The late Gareth Williams. Public domain

The inquiry has begun into the death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams whose decomposed naked corpse was found inside a locked holdall in his bath. He had complained of “friction” at work and had become disillusioned with life in London. The body of Mr Williams was found in his home in Pimlico, central London, in August 25, 2010. A painstaking investigation has drawn a blank. Mr Williams may have died after breathing in too much carbon dioxide.

The bath where Mr Williams was found. Public domain

Police lawyer Vincent Williams told Coroner Fiona Wilcox: “There is a live, complex ongoing investigation taking place. It is because there may be criminal proceedings further down the line that the Commissioner feels that the pattern of disclosure… has to be done with some care.” He warned a “careful line must be struck between open justice” at the inquest and a criminal investigation.

John Glen MP. BBC

Salisbury Conservative MP, John Glen says he will not be bullied into cutting ties with a charity that sponsored an event where a “cure” for homosexuality was discussed. He uses interns from the anti-gay Christian Action Research and Education charity.

New Statesman

The potential withdrawing of housing benefit for the under-25s is an assault on the lives of young LGBT people. Government policy and spending cuts assume that young people will remain at home with their parents. This ignores the fact that not all young people are able to remain in the parental home. Young LGBT people in particular are already at much higher risk of homelessness than their straight counterparts, with around 25% of the young homeless population in urban areas identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Parental rejection is still an issue for these young people; many face the prospect of losing their homes on coming out, or increasingly, in the age of social media, being outed. Still more are living with parents or family members who are openly hostile or even violent. For some, the price of staying at home includes attempts by family members to ‘cure’ them of their sexual or gender identities, through reparative therapy, religious ritual, torture, corrective rape or forced marriage. Is it reasonable to expect them to remain? asks the New Statesman.

No; the policy contravenes the government’s own definitions and principles of “discrimination”.

The Times of India, faced with increasing number of suicides among gay men who are HIV positive, finds a number of cases that are worrying. They come to the conclusion that in India, suicide is rampant among gay HIV-positive men.

“23-year-old tattoo artist Veer (name changed) recently discovered that he was suffering from AIDS. Unable to cope with his rapidly falling health, the lad just stopped taking medicines and finally committed suicide a few days back. Along with being HIV positive, these two men had another thing in common – both of them were closet gays and hadn’t declared their sexuality to their families. So, what needs to be done to contain these suicides in the gay community?” asks the Times of India.

Sex education, support groups and dialogue are needed urgently, says the paper.

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14 April

Saturday 14 April 2012

Senator Brown. Photo: Jeremy Buckingham/MLC

Openly gay Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Green Party is retiring as his party’s leader and a senator in the Canberra federal parliament, aged 67, after 16 years as party leader. Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group’s Rodney Croome, said: “Bob Brown’s charm, erudition, bravery and compassion, and most of all his pride in being gay in face of deep prejudice, have made him a beacon for three generations of gay and lesbian people in Tasmania and across the nation. All of us owe Bob a debt of gratitude for the rights we have, for the acceptance we enjoy, and for the hope we have of a better future.”

There have long been calls for a review on the way internships in our Parliament are funded. Now it has emerged that anti-gay Christian Action Research and Education charity has provided staff to the parliamentary offices of Caroline Spelman, Alistair Burt and Steve Webb; and with Anglican Mainstream, sponsored a London conference about homosexuality and Christianity which included sessions on “mentoring the sexually broken” in 2009. Anglican Mainstream is one of the conservative Christian charities that was blocked this week from showing adverts on London buses promoting “ex-gay” therapies and groups. The 2009 conference said they were “very worried about the continued progress of the gay agenda across the board in the UK. Social, cultural, political and religious sectors are being targeted and most of them are capitulating”.

There is no gay agenda. There certainly is a Christian anti-gay agenda though.

Peterson Toscano, right, with his partner Glen Retief. Photo uncredited/Guardian

Peterson Toscano told the Guardian what was done to him when he consulted an ex-gay outfit. “Someone in the church knows you are struggling through people sharing prayer requests about you or talking behind your back. One way or another some church authority finds out about it and they say: ‘listen, let’s help you brother’. The treatments are varied. One person will try and cast out demons, the other will take you through a 12-step programme. In essence they are saying it is wrong to be gay, it is not natural and you have to change. If you don’t there are direct consequences in this life and the next….

“(with a counsellor) We went for walks two to three times a week to chat about the issues and we would meet in his office. It was very grandfatherly and in many ways very sweet. But on the other hand he reinforced the idea that I needed to change and while I still may have the same desires, I was making the right choice in denying them…. We talked about my desires. Masturbation is a big thing that comes up in that world a lot. Even if you are not doing something with someone else you are doing it with yourself. He looked at the roots of it and he leaned on the addictive model – suggesting I was lonely, angry and my homosexual urges were a way of comforting myself….

“It was not seen as a natural orientation, but rather a twisted addiction to help you cope with a hard life. It was kinder and gentler than what I had been getting in my church up to that point with people telling me it was an evil spirit and I was an unrepentant sinner. But they are savvy at being gentle. Even though you are feeling miserable as you go through it, they are giving you all this positive attention. But when it stops working, you get blamed.”

The Seattle Times reports on polling research into attitudes towards gay rights and gay marriage in the Latino community, long considered to be unfriendly towards gay rights, and found that is not the case at all.

Social Science Research Solutions and the National Council of La Raza found Latino support for many pro-gay policies at least on par with that of the population as a whole, 54 per cent support same-sex marriage compared with 53 percent of the general population who indicated such support in a Gallup poll last year. And by even wider margins, respondents in the SSRS study favor policies aimed at protecting gays against hate crimes and discrimination related to jobs, housing and military service.

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7 April

Saturday 7 April 2012

Police officers detain a gay rights activist who tried to protest against local anti-gay legislation in St. Petersburg on April 5, 2012. AFP/Getty

Police in the Russian city of St. Petersburg have arrested two gay rights activists for breaching the new law that bans the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors. The two men were detained on Thursday after picketing against the law. St. Petersburg, Ryazan, Arkhangelsk and Kostroma regions impose fines for the dissemination of “gay propaganda” to minors. Gay rights activists in St. Petersburg have challenged the law in court, arguing that any mention of homosexuality can now be considered an offence under the bill.

Researcher Ghassan Kassisieh. Photo: Nick Cubbin/Sydney Morning Herald

Members of Australia’s gay Arabic community have been the victims of homophobic violence, verbal abuse or family pressure to act straight. The community’s elders and religious leaders say gays should be excluded or “corrected”. 37 gays, their families and community and religious leaders were interviewed in Ghassan Hassisieh’s study. Most respondents were Christians in Sydney. Seven of them said they went to a doctor, priest or imam to be cured of their homosexuality.

Nassim Arrage came out to his parents when he was 20 but he says his Lebanese father still does not accept it. “He wanted me to experience being with women before I made a final decision about being gay.” Mr Arrage says he has never been physically attacked, but he says it hurts to be overlooked. “Arabic culture very much prioritises getting married and having children, so anyone that doesn’t fit that mould, gay or otherwise, is kind of on the margins.”

Kellie says her mother and siblings know she is attracted to women, but she is not sure if she will ever tell her dad. “He suspects, though. He has come out and asked me if I’m a lesbian and technically I don’t identify as a lesbian, so I guess I denied it because there’s not really any point in causing a storm there. … One reason why I don’t talk to him about my same-sex attractiveness is because, well I never spoke to him about who I slept with before I slept with women, so why does he necessarily need to know? But when it comes to situations like, for example, when I finally got into a long-term relationship with a woman, it was a bit weird because my girlfriend would come over and spend time with me but I’d have to say to my father ‘oh this is my friend’ and kind of keep up that façade, which I think did put a bit of pressure on me and my girlfriend as well.”

When Antony Sher was a member of the Gay Sweatshop theatre company in the 1970s he managed to stay in the closet. “I look back and blush. We all agreed to do it on the basis that it was stated that not all the performers were gay so you didn’t know who was and who wasn’t. Then, in the mid-80s, when I did the British premiere of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, I still wasn’t out. I was doing press interviews about this great gay play that I felt so strongly about for a specific reason and I wasn’t saying it – it was an astonishing waste of energy. But that’s the kind of tangle you get into if you’re not out.” Sher finally came out in 1990, inspired by the example of Ian McKellen and Simon Callow. Yet, more than two decades on, despite strides in gay equality and the entertainment industry’s liberal reputation, many gay actors still fear that being open about their sexuality will damage their careers.

Equity has persuaded some actors to support a campaign helping gay actors who come out. “It’s about giving members the confidence to come out and if they do, that we’ll be there to offer them support,” said Max Beckmann, Equity’s equalities officer. “If actors experience homophobic bullying we would be able to raise that with the employer or if there was a case of member discrimination we would offer them legal assistance.”

Malcolm Sinclair. Photo: Teri Pengilley/Guardian

Malcolm Sinclair, Equity’s president, says coming out has a positive impact on actors’ work: “Acting at its finest is about telling the truth, so being honest about yourself is always going to benefit your craft.” Sher agrees. “When you see any great performer, you sort of see into that person’s soul. Your sexuality is profoundly a part of who you are. I think it’s very difficult to really reveal yourself in that exquisite way if you’re trying to hide part of yourself.”

Ben Bradshaw. Photo: David Rose

Ben Bradshaw, the former culture secretary, thinks we have already won equal rights with the introduction of civil partnerships and “never needed the word ‘marriage’ “. The Labour MP thinks the Prime Minister’s motives are simply to try to show that the Conservatives have changed. Tony Blair’s decision to introduce civil partnerships had given same–sex couples all the legal protection they needed, he told reporters for the Washington Post, reported by the Telegraph. “This is more of David Cameron trying to drag the Conservatives kicking and screaming into the modern world. Of course, we’ll support it, but this is pure politics on their part. This isn’t a priority for the gay community, which already won equal rights. We’ve never needed the word ‘marriage,’ and all it’s done now is get a bunch of bishops hot under the collar. We’ve been pragmatic, not making the mistake they have in the US, where the gay lobby has banged on about marriage.”

Mr Bradshaw, there are many in the UK gay community who have not taken advantage of civil partnerships because (a) we had already made the necessary legal arrangements to protect ourselves, and (b) we do not see why we should live in a form of apartheid.

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29 March

Thursday March 29 2012

(L-R) Peter Lawrence and Don Gallagher. Sky

A gay banker has won his appeal against a decision to award his former partner £1.7m of the couple’s wealth. Peter Lawrence, 47, claimed West End actor Don Gallagher was receiving more than he was entitled to because judges had taken into account a £2.4m London flat he bought before they got together. The case is believed to be the first involving a civil partners to reach the Court of Appeal.

Lord Justice Thorpe said same-sex partnerships enjoy exactly the same rights as straight marriages under the law but said the original financial calculations had followed “too theoretical a map”. The 55%-45% division of assets seemed unfair given the fact Mr Lawrence’s flat had soared in value while the couple were together, he said. “Whether approached on a needs basis or a fair-sharing basis, I would propose a lump sum of £350,000,” said the judge.

Now an interesting snippet. The Law Commission is currently reviewing legislation on how married couples and civil partners can claim financial support from one another after a divorce or dissolution, which includes looking at ‘non-matrimonial’ property which has been acquired before a relationship begins or has been received as a gift or through inheritance. The commission is expected to report back in 2013.

Disturbing news from Moscow. A bill banning the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors was introduced into the State Duma on Thursday, less than a week after similar legislation came into force in St. Petersburg. Novosibirsk regional lawmakers submitted the bill, which calls for fines of up to 500,000 roubles for promoting a gay lifestyle in the media and through “public activities that promote homosexuality as normal behavior.” “The propaganda of homosexuality is widespread in modern Russia,” says a note attached to the bill..

The legislation argues that exposure to a gay lifestyle is particularly dangerous for children and teens who are not able to properly evaluate what they are seeing. The bill will stir fears in the gay community about an increase in discrimination and a crackdown on every manifestation of homosexuality — from gay-pride events to the arts and media.

Giles Chichester: PA

Giles Chichester, a Conservative MEP for the South West who represents the Tory Party in Brussels, has written to the Prime Minister urging him not to legalise same-sex marriage which he calls a “bizarre” move that will prompt a grassroots party revolt.

Mr Chichester believes it is a “mystery” why Mr Cameron is pushing the “militant gay agenda” championed by pressure groups. While supportive of same-sex civil partnerships, he warns the proposals, launched this month, are among a series of policies working to “undermine the traditional family”…. “Should this measure go through, it will cause many Conservatives to question their loyalty to a party which is no longer supporting values inherent to the party.”

Sunil Gupta at an earlier exhibition at London’s Tate. Jeff Mather Photography

Meanwhile the same European Parliament adopted its annual report on EU citizenship – in which it laments that same-sex couples still face disproportionate obstacles when moving inside the European union. The European Parliament “reiterates its previous calls for Member States to ensure freedom of movement for all EU citizens and their families, without discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or nationality”. Specifically, the Parliament reminds Member States that they must implement the rights granted under the Free Movement Directive, not only to married heterosexual couples, but also to registered partners and same-sex spouses.

A gay art exhibition in India has been stopped. The exhibition celebrating gay life which opened in Delhi last week has been closed by police following an anonymous complaint of obscenity. The exhibition at the Alliance Française featuring photographer Sunil Gupta’s work is titled Sun City and Other Stories: Paris-San Francisco-Delhi. The exhibition opened to a rapturous response last week.

The police say they received a complaint on Saturday. An officer reportedly said: “[the caller] said a blue film was being played at Alliance Française. Since it is a diplomatic area, the police cannot enter the premises. Hence an area assistant sub-inspector went [there] and spoke to the manager and they decided to take action accordingly.”

“The absence of leadership and role models in the gay community leads to lack of identity, purpose and direction for gay men. There is no compelling vision for the future that serves as the motivation to change the old mindsets about sexuality that permeate the gay lifestyle. Gay men need a new vision that catapults the gay community into a more fulfilling and meaningful future.

The evidence for the problem is easily seen in gay media channels and by listening to the opinions of heterosexuals about gay men. A person can come to a Pride Parade and witness the demonstration of sexual acts, eroticism and sexual innuendo instead of being presented with new ideas and inspiration to live a meaningful and purposeful life,” says Paul Angelo.

“It is important to act now because sex-centered lifestyle doesn’t work any longer. Love, happiness, good health and financial independence require more than sexual compatibility. In addition, the world is changing faster than ever and the economic and social hardship will only get worse in the coming years. By acting now, gay men can get a head start in creating the ultimate lifestyle and in enjoying the benefits of a loving partner, successful career and a healthy lifestyle.”

Oh, dear. Life was so much simpler when all you had to worry about was your Ring of Confidence.

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