Spain pre-election promises, promises, promises...

With most eyes focused on the American campaign, I've just following, like most Spaniards, the moves of our pre-elections season. Eventually, the Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy disclosed some amount of the changes to bring about on society: contract agreements for immigrants to "behave like Spaniards" and "fulfill the existing laws" (I had never guessed that any person coming to Spain, tourist or permanent settler, had not the obligation to respect and fulfill our laws, and that Spanish behavior might mean they will have to shout and scream in bars for most of the Saturday evening, drive fast and half drunk, and learn how to throw papers and all sorts of other rubbish out of the wastecans when walking the streets); of course, on homosexuality the Party is starting to appear more the wolf they are than the sheep: the first (notice: the first) proposal is to ban homosexual marriages from adoption. It's just a first step, I'm afraid, later on it'll come the banning of homosexual marriage too. But the implications are broader: if homosexual couples can't adopt, it must be because they are not able to raise children correctly, and hence... what will we do when a lesbian couple give birth to a baby? Of course, call the social services and find a suitable home. Preferably traditional, catholic, and conservative.

On other parts of the world, Romania's Senate is trying to amend the Romanian Civil Code on marriage to explicitly forbid same-sex marriages, though that's a move which could bring about some sort of admonition from the European Union. When joining the EU in 2007, Romania had to "recognise same-sex couples registered in other member states". A couple of cases brought before the European High Court could oblige lawmakers to rewrite their homophobic moves.

And just two interesting links to finish: Patrick Chapman makes a brief but interesting critic to the NARTH Journey into Straight, showing that studies of ex-gay organizations are not always trustable, while Ziggy on High posts The Gay Agenda according to the US ultraconservatives.

Gay memorial in Berlin

Because not only Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, gays too, this piece of news is most welcomed:

A multi-media memorial to the thousands of gay men who died in Nazi concentration camps should be ready in a matter of months.

Read the full article in Pink News.

A bit busy lately

But still had some time to browse through the week's news, choosing the worst of them all in Cameroon, another nation which has sentenced three guys to six years of hard labor just for being gay. That's fair justice and treatment, absolute equal rights. One wonders if heterosexuals would be given equal sentences in a gay-leaded country. And speaking of country leaders, from inside Spain it doesn't seem that next March 9th election will only depend on gay marriage, as Deutsche Welle puts it. No, even though the Roman Catholic hierarchy is actively fighting everything they deem as sin, some days ago the Popular Party leader, Mr. Rajoy, said that his party position on gay marriage is to let it be as is. It's of course not clear whether them, the right side of the political spectrum, would amend the gay marriage law if they could obtain Congress majority enough to govern alone.

On the northeastern side of Europe, Topix says that Lithuania is facing the Council of Europe censure over their position on homosexual rights. There must be something in advantage when your country belongs to the European Union, the Bill of Rights is common for all countries (except for Poland, but it'll change too). However, on Eastern Europe, "Metropolitan Kirill, Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, has made a strong statement condemning societal acceptance of homosexuality and reaffirming the task of the Church to proclaim the truth". Of course, it's a religious thing, what else can they say?

Well, I guess it's been all for today. I promise I'll try to keep updating for the weekend, but forgive me if I'm sending scarce posts till after Carnival... A man also needs a bit of free time for himself. Cheers.

The art of provocation

Times Online brings forth again a freedom of expression limits in the Netherlands. An Iranian artist has seemingly "photographed gay men wearing masks of the prophet Muhammad" and was "forced into hiding and her work removed from a museum exhibit." The journal says: "Speaking on the telephone from an unspecified location in the Netherlands last week, the artist, an Iranian exile who goes by the pseudonym of Sooreh Hera, said she had been threatened with “execution”. She accused the director of the municipal museum in The Hague of cowardice for caving in to Muslim extremists."

My opinion here is two-faceted. First of all, it looks exactly like any other art case involved with religion, no matter which religion: artists that, it appears to me, want to gain hype and recognition just by messing with, be it evangelicals, ultracatholics, islamists, or whatever other fundie religious group. That sort of publicity is free, and though we have in many cases advocated freedom of expression, I should say that, for all those cases and artists, it's a funny thing that you first go and choose your "art" subject then claim that you didn't intend to hurt no religious feeling. Of course you intended, Mr. and Mrs. Artist, and that's precisely where your possibilities of making the headline in The Times, the New York Times or whatever other respectable newspaper are. But you don't want to face the consequences of your action, huh?

Now in this case, there's a second lecture for us Muslims: just because someone claims that some given mask is that of Prophet Muhammad are we going to believe it? Where in the world is there any painting, drawing, or whatever, that accurately depicts which factions and appearance Prophet Muhammad had? Nowhere, right? So when any of these 15-minutes-of-fame-seekers claims that "the mask is that of the prophet Muhammad" how do they know? Because they had a revelation in a dream? Come on, brothers and sisters, if any of you is reading this: that's just provocation, and we'd better not respond to such gross intents. As for the "gay men" part, I didn't know till today that in the Netherlands, there was some sort of certificate that shows one's gay.

I could as well take a picture of someone wearing a mask of Daffy Duck and write over the photograph: "This is a gay man and the mask depicts prophet Elijah". And gain my 15 minutes of shame.

Technorati tags: Art of provocation, Netherlands, Wannabe artists

City of Rome puppet of Vatican

"The city council in Rome has blocked plans for a domestic partners register for same-sex and heterosexual couples.
The Vatican, which is an independent state within Italy as well as the seat of the Roman Catholic church, had vehemently opposed the measure." From Pink News.

Now it'll be certainly curious to see how Rome, and Italy at large, complies with the newly issued European Union Chart of Rights, given that Italy doesn't have any sort of excluding signature in the same sense that Poland got it, so that rights wouldn't be applied to homosexual citizens. And given that UK civil partnerships are recognized in Spain as marriages, and that seems to be a common trend all over the countries comprising the European Union, one wonders for how long would a British civil partnership stay unrecognized in Italy or Poland. After all, it might be a matter of courts, but in the end we're going to have homosexual marriage in the European Union. Or is this just my wishful thinking?

Technorati tags: Italy, Vatican, Gay marriage, Civil partnerships

Janis Pujats, last addition to our Archbishop list

"Latvia's Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis resigned last week and the Archbishop of Riga Janis Pujats warned new candidates not to support LGBT related issues", Pink News informs. Therefore, the priest had himself to describe and define homosexuals and homosexuality as "total corruption in the sexual arena" and "an unnatural form of prostitution."

Wait a minute, a roman catholic talking about total corruption in the sexual area? Someone who allegedly has chosen to stay in celibacy for his whole life? What sort of sexual knowledge Mr Pujats have, to be able to pontify about what's good and bad for me and my fellow Latvian homosexuals? And since when the Chuch still has the right to crown a Prime Minister? Hey, Mr. Archbishop, this is the European Union!!

Technorati tags: Christianity and Homosexuality, Homophobia, Catholics and Politics

A double rule in Europe

While European (and African) LGBT organizations, with help of EU governments, are pushing African governments to stop state-supported homophobia in preview of a EU-Africa summit next week, Italian government Foreign Minister says plainly that gay marriage won't be supported in Italy. That speaks enough for Europe's double rule, and while I personally think that the Yogyakarta principles should be adopted worldwide, and of course welcome the push on African governments, Italy should be pushed too in order to stop anti-gay bias in its governments officials. Not long ago, it was an Italian city major who blabbed in favor of creating gay ghettos there. And then retake the Pink Triangle used in the 40s, that could be next step.

While Italian politic corpse is well aware and ready to hurt feelings of Islam followers, it seems to me that such a territorial insertion as the Vatican State is displaying a lot of force in Italian politics, just in the same way the Roman Catholic Church would love to do in Spain, however not risking the creation of a separate political party. Now, this is how our democracy works: if you want to become a lawmaker you have to run for the Congress and obtain a majority there.

Technorati tags: Double rule on homosexuality, Italy, Africa, Yogyakarta Principles