Up to date on Friday 17 May 2013

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Portugal’s parliament today adopted legislation allowing individuals in a gay marriage or partnership to apply to adopt each other’s children. The bill passed its first reading by 99 votes to 94 with nine abstentions. The opposition Socialist Party and the extreme left, and 16 members of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s centre-right Social Democrats, voted in favour. The law now has to pass a second reading before being signed by the country’s president.

Two other bills seeking to give couples full rights to adopt jointly were rejected, however. In Portugal, any individual can apply to adopt but a gay marriage law passed three years ago explicitly excluded adoption for same-sex couples. The new bill aims not to revisit adoption by gay couples but to “respond pragmatically to existing family realities,” the bill’s authors said.

Agence France Press

Yesterday was of course the International Day against Homophobia and the Winnipeg Free Press looks at the progress gays in Canada have made – and finds it wanting.

Education Minister Nancy Allan said the government of Manitoba was fully committed to helping create an inclusive province for all. “We have to stand up against homophobia because we can’t be bystanders. Students can’t work if they’re humiliated, intimidated or marginalized,” she said, encouraging all Manitobans to fight homophobia. More and more bullying of gay students is occurring on the Internet and via social media, often cloaked in anonymity. “Bullying has taken on a new form and homophobia is changing. Our laws need to keep up.”

Winnipeg Free Press

More than one in four gay people in Europe have been subjected to violence, abuse or hate-filled threats in the past five years, according to a study of homophobia in Europe.

The European Union is calling for action to counter discrimination and violence against homosexuals after the survey, by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, revealed many gay people are living in fear across the 27-nation bloc. The survey of 93,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people showed that more than 80 percent of the group are verbally abused or bullied at school, nearly one in five feel discriminated against when seeking work and a quarter of the people have been attacked or threatened in recent years.

Morten Kjaerum, pictured, Director of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, said action is needed ‘to break down the barriers, eliminate the hate and create a society where everyone can fully enjoy their rights.’

2008 Photo: The Associated Press

The International Day against Homophobia was also marked in Tbilisi, Georgia, today. It turned nasty, quickly. Thousands of other Georgians led by priests broke through police barricades and forced gay rights activists to flee.

Holding banners saying “Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia!” and “Not in our city!”, the demonstrators swarmed into a square in central Tbilisi where about 50 Georgians were rallying in support of gay rights. Police escorted the gay rights supporters onto buses and drove them away to avoid violence. Several people, including some journalists, received minor injuries.

Later in the evening, rowdy crowds took to the streets and started shouting at people they thought might be homosexual.

David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters (Today)

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Up to date on Thursday 16th May 2013

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The organizers of Moscow’s gay pride have appealed to court over Moscow City Hall’s refusal to authorize their event, activists said today. They have asked the Tverskoi District Court to consider their complaint before the events are due to be held, and are seeking for city officials to be ordered to authorize the parades and rallies.

The gay pride parade organizers plan to file additional complaints with Moscow’s Tagansky District Court against a ban on holding gay pride pickets on May 25 and 26, and with the Khimki City Court against a ban on holding a rally and gay pride march on May 25. The campaigners referred to the European Court of Human Rights’ 2010 ruling that found the ban of similar public events in Moscow in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to be illegal.

Moscow City Hall: Andrei Stenin, RAI Novosti

Shepton town councillor Simon Davies has spoken out after being targeted in a “politically-motivated” slur. He feels that certain individuals have been trying to “rubbish his name” by using the fact that he is gay as a way to discredit him. They have been insistent that Mr Davies has yet another Criminal Records Bureau check as he is the council representative on the skate park committee.

Mr Davies, who does not have any dealings directly with children, said: “I would not have minded in itself, I don’t think it’s unfair but it has all started from my views on gay marriage. Every single aspect of council life involves working with vulnerable people, so on that basis every one of us should be CRB checked. People have their views and that’s fine, people with anti-gay views are never going to change, but as long as this CRB check is done fairly and not for the simple fact I’m gay. I worry that this kind of thing happens to someone more sensitive than I am. It’s really bad, and the council has to respect the public and what they may think of this behaviour. I’m a human being, I’m not paid to be a town councillor, and I shouldn’t have to be treated in this way.”

Simon Davies is the former Mayor of Wells and owns a Coffee House in Shepton Mallet.

Simon Davies in his coffee house: Shepton Mallet People

Europe’s oldest matchmaking event, the traditional Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival in Ireland, is having a new gay and lesbian weekend at the start of the festival. “The Outing” is the brainchild of local hotelier Marcus White, who has enlisted Dublin Pride Festival organiser Eddie McGuinness to manage the event. They hope the Outing will become the world’s largest gay and lesbian singles event.

“At the end of the day it’s about love – that’s what the matchmaking festival has always been about. Ireland is leading the world on a lot of gay issues and hopefully we will have gay marriage soon, so the time is right for something like this to take place,” said Mr McGuinness.

The Broadsheet

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Up to date on Wednesday 15 May 2013

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Kim Jho Gwang-soo, a gay South Korean film director (pictured) is set to symbolically marry his long-term partner, saying he aims to pry open the closet in this conservative Asian country where homosexuality is still taboo and gays have been subjected to hate crimes. Kim Jho Gwang-soo (also known as Peter Kim) became the first South Korean show business personality to do so and only the second to ever come out. The other, an actor, now says he regrets his decision.

Asia One

The authorities in Brazil have ruled that marriage licences should not be denied to same-sex couples, and it was wrong for some offices just to issue civil union documents when the couple wanted full marriage certificates. Correspondents say the decision in effect authorises gay marriage, but full legalisation depends on approval of a bill being examined by the Brazilian Congress.

Getty Images

Anton Krasovsky’s friends and colleagues in Russian TV knew he was gay. When he announced it on live television, it caused a sensation. Anton was no marginalised liberal; he was very much part of the system. But with his words, he had crossed a red line. “I am gay, and I am a human being just like Putin and Medvedev,” he said to the cameras, referring to Russia’s President and Prime Minister. He was fired immediately, and all references to him were removed from the channel’s website. “I have made a lot of money in television and I understood that I’d lose everything,” he recalls over coffee, months later. He is currently unemployed.

Shorex, 2008

Gov. Mark Dayton on Tuesday signed a bill making gay marriage legal in Minnesota, the 12th state to take the step, as thousands of onlookers cheered. “What a day for Minnesota!” Dayton, a Democrat, declared moments before putting his signature on a bill. “And what a difference a year and an election can make in our state.”

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Up to date on Tuesday 14 May 2013

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Today Ukraine’s Parliament indefinitely postponed a vote on a bill that would have barred employers from rejecting workers based on their sexual orientation, while hundreds of anti-gay activists protested outside (pictured). The bill was opposed in parliament by the Communist Party and the nationalist Svoboda group. The vote on the bill, which was introduced by the government, was dropped while deputies sought to avoid another hot-tempered exchange in the chamber.

Sergei Supinsky/Agence France Press

In Paris’ Marais neighbourhood, couples stroll hand-in-hand, steal kisses while window shopping past chic boutiques, or whisper sweet-nothings over marble-topped tables at a sidewalk cafe, just as they do everywhere in Paris: but along the Rue des Archives, the couples in question are likely to be same-sex, Global Post informs us. But Gay Paree is not all it is cracked up to be, says the article: “The Socialist government’s bill to make France the world’s 14th country to legalize gay marriage has unleashed a wave of opposition that has mobilized mass demonstrations and revealed a current of homophobia running deep and wide through French society.” Opponents have launched a legal challenge at the Constitutional Court to block gay marriage. A “national demonstration day” in favor of the “rights of children to have a mother and a father” has been called for May 26th.

“Homophobia is growing in France,” said Adrian Lambert, a barman at Cox, pictured, a gay bar on Rue des Archives. “Society is more closed than other countries,” he said, while pouring beers. “If you look at Spain or the Netherlands, France is more backward. Plus, there is this extremist tendency we always have to watch out for.”

Anti gay marriage protest on May 5, 2013 in Paris. Photo: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images | Trip Advisor

Kira Izzard and Laura Cull, a lesbian couple on the Isle of Man, pictured, are calling for a change in the law after being turned down for a flat on the basis of their sexual orientation. They were shocked to discover there was no legislation to protect them from discrimination. They have now launched an online petition calling for the island to adopt the UK’s Equality Act 2010.

The island’s chief minister, Allan Bell, pictured, said: “I am extremely disappointed that this type of ugly, outdated prejudice survives after all the work that has been done over the past 20 years or so to make the island a more tolerant place. I do believe that our society today is generally much more tolerant than it used to be. But this incident shows that there are still isolated pockets of bigotry that can only be tackled through legislation. An equality bill, based on the UK Equality Act 2010, is already in the drafting process and will deal with discrimination of this kind. I have asked that preparation of this legislation be accelerated.”

BBC | Isle of Man Government

Russian gay activists applied yesterday to Moscow City Hall for permission for a gay pride parade on May 25. “We will consider the application within the lawful time period, but our position on such events has not changed,” said Alexei Maiorov, the head of City Hall’s regional security department. Activists plan to hold the rally with about 1,000 people on the weekend of May 25-26, with a march starting on Myasnitskaya Ulitsa at Chistiye Prudy metro and up to Ploshchad Revolyutsii.

One of our readers writes: “Dear Activist, have you noticed the close resemblance between Raquel Welch and Richard Branson? Are they at all related?”

Miss Google, can you help, please? Thank you.

Richard Branson

Raquel Welch

Goodness! Richard has had a free upgrade.

Public Domain | Uncredited

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Up to date on Sunday 12 May 2013

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A 23-year-old man has been tortured to death in Russia in an apparent homophobic attack. Rights groups warn that anti-gay sentiments are on the rise in Russia. The victim’s battered and naked body was found in the courtyard of an apartment building in the southern city of Volgograd on Friday morning. The young man had suffered numerous injuries, including to the genitalia, and had been sodomized with several beer bottles.

“He was raped with beer bottles and had his skull smashed with a stone,” Natalia Kunitskaya, a spokeswoman for the Volgograd region branch of the Investigative Committee, told AFP. She confirmed the attack was believed to have been a hate crime, a rare admission in Russia.

Two men aged 22 and 27 have been detained in connection with the attack, the Moscow-based Investigative Committee said in a statement on Saturday. One of the suspects has a criminal history. The victim was said to have been drinking with the two men, apparently while celebrating Victory Day which Russia marks on May 9. Regional investigator Andrei Gapchenko told Echo of Moscow radio on Saturday that two men started beating the victim after he told them he was gay.

Nikolai Alexeyev, the Russian gay activist, called for harsher punishments for homophobic crime. We are planning to press for hatred of sexual minorities to be qualified as an aggravating circumstance if it is a motive for a crime,” Nikolai told Interfax. “At the moment, hatred for sexual minorities is practically disregarded as a motive, and most likely that [Volgograd] crime will be investigated as one caused by a trivial row and the homophobic motives will gradually disappear from all the documents.”

Destination 360

Former minister Tim Loughton (pictured) and fellow Tory MPs are pushing for a public referendum on gay marriage to be held on the same day as the next general election, which under our new five year term law is due in May 2015. Back in February 134 Tories voted against the Coalition’s plan to introduce equal marriage, 35 abstained and only 126 voted for gay marriage. MPs calling for a referendum include the Unionist MP Jim Shannon and David Burrowes, the Conservative who spearheaded Tory oppostion to the policy. An amendment tabled to the draft law in the past few days calls for public to be asked: “At present, the law in England and Wales defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Should the law be changed to define marriage as the union of two people – whether a man and a woman, or woman and a woman, or a man and a man?”

The Gay Marriage (England and Wales) Bill is due to have its third and final reading in the House of Commons on 20 May.

Sarah Lee/Guardian

Associated Press reports that Asllan Berisha and Brian Ramirez, both 21, were arrested in connection with the beating of two gay men in Manhattan early Friday and police are investigating whether there is a link to an earlier anti-gay attack in the same area last Sunday. The two victims were approached by a group of about five men who shouted anti-gay slurs and beat them. The gay men tried to flee but the attackers followed them to the entrance to the 33rd Street PATH station, where Port Authority officers saw the assault and broke it up. Several of the attackers fled but officers arrested two suspects on charges of felony assault as a hate crime.

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Up to date on Saturday 11 May 2013

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Death threats against Caleb Orozco, pictured, who is attempting to overturn laws that criminalise homosexuality in Belize, have escalated during the four-day courtroom hearing and his case has stirred up resentment of the gay community, according to Lisa Shoman. “There has been a visible increase of threats and violence against Mr Orozco and against all homosexuals in Belize,” she told the local TV channel. “There are threats for killing, burning, shooting; you name it. It has to stop. We are all Belizeans. We can agree to disagree without getting violent about it.”

The London-based Human Dignity Trust, which is supporting his case as part of its global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality, and whose chairman is the eminent human rights lawyer Timothy Otty QC, said Orozco’s car had been damaged in an attack on Thursday night.

UN Aids Caribbean

National lottery grants have been awarded to homophobic British faith groups, including a range of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other religious groups, over the last 20 years, mainly to finance community projects working with young or vulnerable people.

They include the Nigerian based Christ Apostolic church in Luton, which won a £10,000 lottery grant to set up an after-school club for students to play music together in 2007. The club no longer operates. A Sunday school lesson plan says: “… Same-sex relationships are foreign to God’s Law … Anyone who practises lesbianism, homosexuality, gay-marriage etc is a beast! Don’t do it!” It adds: “At the end of this lesson, the people of God should be showing deeper hatred for sexual sins.”

Gay campaign groups want a funding review and more oversight, and say groups should not get public money if they do not uphold equal values.

AOL Money

Europe’s biggest gay rugby tournament, the Union Cup 2013, is on in Bristol from 23 to 26 May. 550 rugby players have registered. The fifth biennial Union Cup tournament will be hosted by Bristol Bisons RFC, the city’s gay and inclusive rugby team. This year is set to be the largest tournament so far, with teams from as far afield as Stockholm, Berlin, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Dublin. There will also be teams from Cardiff, London, Birmingham and Manchester. This Is Bristol thinks the tournament will boost the city’s economy by £250,000.

Union Cup 2013 web site

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Up to date on Sunday 5 May 2013

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Nigel Evans, Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, who is the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, was arrested yesterday over allegations of rape and sexual assault relating to two men and was taken to a police station in Lancashire, and questioned over offences dating from 2009 to March this year. Forensic teams were searching his two homes in London and Pendleton as part of their inquiries. By last night, no charges had been made against Mr Evans, who came out as gay in 2010.

Swansea-born Mr Evans, who worked in his family supermarket business before entering politics, has been a Tory MP since 1992. He held a series of senior posts and was Parliamentary Private Secretary to William Hague in 1996, when Hague was in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. In June 2010, he was elected as one of Mr Bercow’s three deputies, bringing his total parliamentary salary to £102,000 a year. He has been tipped as a possible successor to the Speaker’s job.

Mr Evans has been released on bail, and denies the allegations.

c-r-y.org

Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and author, apologized for saying economist John Maynard Keynes was less invested in the future because he was gay and had no children. Ferguson said his remarks were “as stupid as they were insensitive.”

Boston Globe

Norman Tebbitt, former Government minister and MP, told a correspondent that he thinks straight people should be able to get a civil partnership if they want, but he is still against gay marriage. “There is no discrimination whatsoever in the present law, except that against heterosexual population relating to civil partnerships. All unmarried males are free to marry any unmarried woman. All unmarried women are free to marry any unmarried man. No men are free to marry other men. No women are free to marry other women. This arrangement has worked well enough for the past several thousand years.”

James Robertson Photography

Michaela Biancofiore, a parliamentarian from Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom party, Italy’s equal opportunities minister, has been moved to another post only a day after being sworn in to the new government, after saying homosexuals invited discrimination by “ghettoising” themselves. Her comments reportedly upset Enrico Letta, the new prime minister, particularly because he had appealed to members of his government just a day before to observe “sobriety” in their public comments and work as a team. Ms Biancofiore, who says she is opposed to gay marriage but supports “civil unions” to protect gay couples, was reassigned to the civil service ministry.

Press Association

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Up to date on Thursday 2 May 2013

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Robbie Rogers, the US international footballer who announced his retirement after coming out as gay, could return to the sport. The former Leeds United winger is back in training with the Los Angeles Galaxy, and if Rogers does return to Major League Soccer, he would be one of the first out gay professional footballers to take the field anywhere in the world.

Getty

South Australian Greens’ Tammy Franks yesterday introduced a bill to do away with the ‘gay panic’ defence in South Australia.

“The ‘gay panic’ defence, is an archaic law with dangerous consequences that sends all the wrong messages in the year 2013,” Ms Franks said. South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland are seen to be lagging behind the rest of Australia by still allowing provocation to be considered a partial defence to murder.

Adelaide Now

A Cambridge university lecturer has caused an outcry after footage emerged showing him calling homosexuality an ‘inexplicable aberration’ and saying gay people are ‘so ignorant you don’t even understand what your bodies are for’. Tim Winter, 52, a theology lecturer and Director of Studies at Wolfson College, called homosexuality the ‘ultimate inversion’, and said homosexual acts were an ‘extreme defiance of Allah’. Today the academic, a practising Sufi Muslim who also uses the name Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad, apologised for his remarks, saying they were made ‘at least 15 years ago’ before he joined the university, and his views had changed since.

In the video, Mr Winter compared gay people to arsonists, arguing that arsonists have a genetic predisposition to be arsonists, but just because they are born with it does not mean arson should be made legal. ‘That’s no argument for legalising what they do,’ he said. ‘The claim that a human being is born with a particular tendency means that it should be legalised is neither here nor there.’

Tab Cambridge

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Up to date on Wednesday 1 May 2013

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Wishing a very happy May Day to everyone. Mind the sticks please, I can’t get out of the way very quickly. I said Mind the sticks, I can’t – Ouch.

Sonotab

The daughter of Cuban president, Raul Castro, Mariela, will be allowed to travel to the US to accept an award for her gay rights advocacy. She will attend the Equality Forum’s annual conference on civil rights for the LGBTI community. A US official confirmed that Castro has been authorised to go to the event. High-ranking Cuban government officials and Communist party members cannot enter the US without special dispensation. But Cuban academics, scientists and entertainers are finding it easier to visit because the current US administration has relaxed travel restrictions.

Eric Risberg/AP

John Sullivan, a UKIP candidate in tomorrow’s county council elections, has been accused of making anti-gay comments on Facebook. He thinks that physical exercise “releases tension and thus avoids homosexuality”. Mr Sullivan is also said to have congratulated Russia when it banned gay pride events in the country, writing “Well done the Russians”. James Carver, Ukip agent for the Forest of Dean and West Gloucestershire, said Mr Sullivan would still stand for election on Thursday but added a full investigation would take place soon. The party has been repeatedly criticised in recent days for not carrying out a thorough vetting of its prospective candidates.

Your activist had to do PE at school for years. Your Activist can also confirm that PE did not prevent him from being gay. Sorry, Mr Sullivan…

Still, this story has enabled Your Activist to add a new tag category: “Fruitcake culture”.

UKIP’s Nigel Farage Photo: Julian Simmonds/Telegraph

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Up to date on Saturday 27 April 2013

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A new bid to win Northern Ireland Assembly backing for same-sex marriage is likely to fail, because the DUP has tabled a ‘petition of concern’. Approval would require a majority of both unionists and nationalists, and with its 38 members the DUP can stymie the move, reports the Belfast Telegraph. Both the Catholic and Presbyterian churches wrote to all 108 MLAs urging them to reject the Sinn Fein motion. Last October a joint Green Party-Sinn Fein initiative insisting that same-sex couples “should have the same legal entitlement to the protections, responsibilities, rights, obligations and benefits afforded by the legal institution of marriage” was defeated by just five votes – 50 against to 45 for.

Stormont

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned he is considering a ban on the adoption of Russian children for states that allow single-sex marriages. Speaking at Novo-Ogarevo, his residence outside Moscow, Mr Putin said he thought bilateral agreements with other countries on adoption should be changed if they contradicted Russian law. Mr Putin’s comments were the firmest suggestion yet that a legal ban could be adopted. In 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, parents in France adopted 283 Russian children, while British parents took in 48.

Associated Press

Yesterday a British court ruled that users of Facebook and Twitter are not above the laws that govern the press. Dean Liddle and Neil Harkins escaped nine months in prison when it was agreed to suspended their sentences for publishing online some pictures purporting to be of James Bulger’s killers on the 20th anniversary of the toddler’s death.

Meanwhile it has also been announced that the government’s controversial plans to monitor internet use and to beef up police powers to monitor the way in which criminals and terrorists use the internet to plot crimes and prepare attacks, the communications data bill, dubbed the ‘snoopers’ charter’, has been scrapped from next month’s Queen’s Speech. The law would require a record kept of every website visited and every communication on social media sites.

Gay Activist continues to comply fully with UK laws, so that our information and service will continue to be available.

Modern Hotels of Nepal

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