Discharged homosexual soldiers to be honored

From Pink News:

"Several leading LGBT organizations in the United States are to join forces later this month to honor the 12,000 servicemen and women discharged as a result of the ban on openly gay, bisexual or lesbian people in the country's Armed Forces.
The current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy has been in place since 1994.
Commanders may not ask personnel their sexual orientation, but LGB people who are open about their sexuality may not serve openly.
The Human Rights Campaign has joined with the Servicemembers United, Log Cabin Republicans, Servicemembers Legal Defence Network and Liberty Education Forum, to host a three-day tribute, beginning on Friday, November 30th, the 14th Anniversary of DADT being signed into law,
12,000 flags will be placed on the National Mall in Washington DC, one for every discharged service member.
In addition to recognizing the servicemembers discharged under DADT the event is planned to serve as a reminder of the hundreds of thousands unrecognized gay and lesbian Americans who have fought for the US in previous conflicts."

Technorati tags: Don't Ask Don't Tell, DADT, USA, LGBT, Military

LGBT rights in USA - moving to the closet

Peter LaBarbera, Fred Phelps, Ted Haggard... names that we've blogged about formerly. The Evangelical Christianity in the USA keeps struggling to kill any effort started by LGBT organizations towards a broader support for sexual and gender rights for Americans (and non-Americans as well). The type of clown which Phelps or LaBarbera are, able to condemn a whole nation and step into private funerals (allegedly on their own right for freedom of speech), or travel nationwide to pay for a ticket to a BDSM fair in an intent to depict homosexuality as an intrinsecally perverted, vicious, dirty and abominable condition of sinners; those are just anecdotic steps in the Born Again Christian crusade to wipe sins off earth. In regards to more important matters such as ENDA, which as you all know has been stripped off its transexual protections in order to secure its passing on the US Senate, still not secured, Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. said that "I find it is an insult for myself as an African American that you are granting through this law special protection for sexual orientation that might only be imagined.", Pink News informs. Of course, this and many other bishops, allegedly religious people as well, don't care what we find to be an insult and a spit in our faces. They would not care because that's their view of the world: they are simply and absolutely right, possessing The Truth, as well depicted by Lex in her blog. Guess who attended last weekend's Washington Briefing 2007? Yes, them all: McCain, Giuliani, Thompson and Romney. So it's bad news for American homosexuals and transexuals, but bisexuals can still hide themselves for a while.

Alarm and catastrophism here? Maybe, but there was not so many people sure that Bush would get a second mandate, and there he is, speaking with Jesus the Lord every morning, and sending boys to wars that the Lord tells him to start. And by the way, democrats are moving towards repelling the US Armed Forces "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. Personally I guess that such will be a much more popular measure than reinstating the draft, however if homosexuals alone are not enough to feed the Armed Forces, expect a draft in a near future. Someone's got to fight USA's wars, and it seems it's not going to be Europe.

Finally, there's a very interesting analysis on the fight for gay marriage at Pink News.

Technorati tags: Christian conservatives, Christianity and Homosexuality, USA LGBT rights, Born Again Christians, Don't Ask Don't Tell, LGBT Marriage

Kudos to Waymon Hudson

Waymon Hudson writes a moving text in The Bilerico Project, under the heading The Everyday "Don't Ask Don't Tell". Recommended reading for the weekend: we can all learn a lot from it. If only we could start putting his suggestion to work, at least those of us who are out... Some excerpts.

People often ask, “How can I make a difference?” At times when you feel like you are just one small person in a society that seems to be committed to denying LGBT citizens their full rights and equality, it often seems easier to sit back, live your life, and not get involved. It is easy to feel like you have no role to play in the LGBT rights movement, to feel like your life isn’t making an impact. But you are wrong. You can make a huge impact on society and the fight for equality by simply living your life, openly and honestly. You can do this by making sure you aren’t living what I have come to think of as the everyday “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

So what is this “everyday” policy, you may ask? It’s how so many of us live our lives. We go quietly about our business, many times facing struggles and roadblocks because of who we are as LGBT people. We do this everyday and never tell anyone about it. We don’t let our friends or families who are straight know about the discrimination or legal barriers we face just for being who we are. They don’t ask and we don’t tell.

By telling those that love us that we need them, by including them in our successes and our struggles, we can start to change how society views the LGBT community. Start telling those around you about your life. Tell them what you are going through and dealing with. Soon they will be asking what they can do to help. You can start to change society, one person at a time. You can have a huge impact on LGBT rights just by being honest with those around you. By ending this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in our own personal lives, we can truly make a change that will improve the world. They will ask if we will only tell.

Technorati tags: LGBT, USA, Bilerico Project

Spain not so homophobia-free

Do you still remember that Spanish judge Mr. Calamita? Well, he's again on the news, this time in regards to the second lesbian-discrimination case we talked about. Now he's been charged with an administrative fault for delaying an adoption process by a lesbian couple, started in May 2006. When asked about the delay reasons, he allegedly answered that "there's no need to be an expert to know for sure that a child needs a male father and a female mother, and withouth both parental figures the child will grow unbalanced".

On another piece of news, the Spanish Navy impersoned by a logistics captain has denied the official 2 weeks leave for marriage reasons to a PFC who, last July, married to a transexual. While I don't think that such captain spoke for the official Spanish Navy stand on these matters, he's proof of the homophobic and ultracatholic, francoist views that a number of people in Spain still hold. Remarks such as "that's not a real marriage" and "if Franco was still alive, you red faggots would be killed" say it all.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the American Navy builds bases like this one in southern California, with a striking resemblance to the Hitlerian swastika (via FP Passport).

Uh, is it my lol conspiracy sense or there is any sort of ultra-right and pro-fascist thing in Navies nowadays?

Ok, let's all wipe off these unconfortable feelings we're right now having, and finish this post with the all-time disco hymn from our favorite people in the village.

 

 

Technorati tags: Spain, Homophobia, Navy, Ferrin Calamita

Juan Cole: Informed Comment on Iran and USA religion and homosexuality

Juan Cole took the issue in a much more scholar way than I took it yesterday. And I forgot to point you to a former entry in this blog about gay secret life in Iran. Writes Juan Cole:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bigotted statement that there are no homosexuals in Iran derived from his rightwing religious commitments. What he said is very serious. He erased gays right out of existence. The ultimate in denying people their rights is to deny they even exist (the nonexistent obviously have no rights.) There could be a debate over whether the gay lifestyle exists in Muslim countries, as a matter of identity politics, of course, but Ahmadinejad is not that sophisticated. He was saying that all Iranians are straight. Of course, gays are punished very severely in Iran, in reality.
It would be nice for the US Right to have us forget that they pull the Ahmadinejad act with regard to gays every day. Denying gays the right to marry is a way of erasing them from civil society. It is a way of denying that they really love one another, as straights do. It is a way of asserting that they do not exist.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the US military (so unlike the one followed by many NATO allies) is also a way of erasing gays. They don't exist unless they themselves press the case that they exist. In order to remain in their jobs, they are forced to erase themselves by their silence. The 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is a way of pretending that there are no gays in the US military. For if it could be proven that anyone is gay, he is immediately expelled. It is just as silly as what Ahmadinejad said, and just as pernicious. That policy is supported by the entire American Right, which is no better than Ahmadinejad in this regard.
Here are a couple of Christian statements resembling the vile ones spewed by Ahmadinejad, just for comparison.
Catholic Ahmadinejads from Hannity and Colmes:

' COLMES: group that is where I am. Let me just show you another quote, and you'll be surprised at who's saying this.
"Based on the facts that are known to us, we continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature."
The Conference of Catholic Bishops saying that, Congressman, Dornan.
DORNAN: Did you watch the -- did you watch the debate? I watched six hours of debate, and I had a face-to-face fight with Cardinal McCarrick, who told me to my face there are no homosexuals in our seminaries. This is a discredited bunch of once holy men.
----FOX: HANNITY & COLMES, November 15, 2002 '

For the full irony of Dornan's reported conversation, see this link.
Evangelical Ahmadinejads. Bishop John Shelby Spong observes:

[Conservative] 'commentators have not mentioned the blatant homophobia in both Africa and Southeast Asia. Christian leaders in Africa still maintain that there are no homosexuals in their countries, or if homosexuality is admitted, that it was "caught" from white Europeans. Christians throughout the Third World still assert that homosexuals are either evil people who can be changed if they are converted, or that they are mentally sick people who can be healed if properly treated. Such theories are dismissed as nonsense in Western medical circles today. Homosexual people in Africa have told me that they risk murder if they come out of their closets. They believe that if they were killed, the act would be endorsed by many Christian leaders of that continent, who quote scripture to justify it.'

So if some American Republicans, Catholics and evangelicals want to have the standing to laugh at Ahmadinejad for his prejudice, they have some work to do at home first.

Technorati tags: Ahmadinejad, Juan Cole, Homosexuality and religion, LGBT, Iran, USA

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Play in Porn Flicks

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Mixed bag - Around the world newslinks.

Today's review of what's been happening in the world of GLBT issues must start with a favorite of mine: Michael Moore, who, in an interview with The Advocate, dropped the idea of his next documentary could deal with the issue of homophobia and the anti-gay movement. The way Moore puts things on the screen, I'm already drooling on the possbie results. And you don't miss his Sicko movie, it's demolishing - of course if you're not George W. Bush. In the meantime, some leaders of anti-gay programs (I'll be writing on such things next week for those of you who are not familiar with that thing) apologized to GLBT people by late June, while asking other leaders to do the same. Still in the US of A, homosexuals in the military will receive Ron Paul's statement of rejecting the Don't Ask Don't Tell rule if elected president. It's a long way for Paul to arrive to the White House, but recent studies say that the argument for Unit cohesion is futile, as servicepeople from Ft. Bragg, NC speak in a The Fayetteville Observer article.

Leaving the USA we find that Swedes may soon welcome the whole ecclesial apparatus of marriage with organ, religious chants and whatever it takes, while the Vatican and the Orthodox church strenghten their position (sadly, not unique) on anti-gay grounds. Catholic Ireland will guarantee full equality for same sex couples (though not marriage), while a lesbian couple is taking court action against Gibraltar government, and in Zagreb, Croatia, one man has been charged with a hate crime after the attacks on a Pride march.

In Africa, Nigerian archbishop Akinola's anti-gay rhetoric is analysed in an article on The Advocate, and the rest of the world witness how Singapore forum on decriminalization of homosexual acts is attended by hundreds, while Hong Kong rejects a gay sodomy ban, Australian government is considering the increase in rights for homosexuals, Lebanese homosexual youth is flourishing again in Beirut, and in Jamaica three dancehall musicians made public their signature of some sort of deal called Reggae Compassionate Act by which they compromise to not include gay bashing, homophobic and hate-crime sparkling lyrics in their songs. Sam could write a full essay on the issue, let's hope he'll have time to do so. The worst part of news is that Iran may keep executing more gay people, and in Nepal, four transgendered young people have been beaten by police officers in Katmandu, allegedly for carrying condoms for their own use.