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.

Fiat Lux Fiat Windows

Via Pink News we learn that Rev. Ken Hutcherson, head of the Antioch Bible Church based in Redmond has launched a plan to "take over Microsoft, one of the world's largest companies by packing it with shareholders who will vote against their policy of advocating gay rights." Reverend Hutcherson "told a shareholders' meeting that he would be the company's "worst nightmare", threatening that he has the support of not only the 3,500 members of his church, but perhaps also millions of evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews."

It's unclear whether next versions of Internet Explorer would deny actively browsing gay sites, or Microsoft Office would wipe out any reference to homosexuality from documents taking advantage of a new improved autocorrection feature. Reverend Hutcherson didn't make clear what would be the Antioch Bible Church position on Linux and Open Office, or MacOS.

This guy Ken Hutcherson is the same one we came across when reading about the American Christian support for violent anti-gay Lithuanian groups, like that one called Watchmen on the Walls. And if you read the articles provided on links in this post, it will become quite apparent that Hutcherson is just another greedy liar.

 

Technorati tags: Born again Microsoft, Ken Hutcherson, Abominations and Deadly Sins

Amnesty International to focus on Lithuania homophobia

Pink News informs that Amnesty International is launching a campaign against Lithuania's homophobia. Says AI:

"To persecute people for their sexual orientation is to violate their fundamental human rights. Amnesty International calls on the Lithuanian authorities to respect the right to peaceful freedom of assembly for all, the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation and to actively promote respect for diversity in their country. The Lithuanian authorities also need to offer adequate police protection to the country's gay community."

Recent incidents in that European country comprise refusals for EU truck drives supporting anti-discrimination, bus drivers banning homosexuality-inclusive ads, and Lithuanian authorities banning ILGA public events in support of anti-homophobia in the country.

Technorati tags: Homophobia, Lithuania, Amnesty International

Gay club attacked in Lithuania

That's how PinkNews opens this article about Lithuanian homophobia. It's apparent now that eastern european countries are among the most homophobic at least inside the European Union. While the reasons for this behavior are not yet clear, in my opinion there seems to be some sort of religious resurgence, the deep rejection of communism which probably leads people to the far right in the political spectrum, and an overall laissez faire towards neo-nazi gangs while communist counterparts are hunted, as in the Poland case where not only homosexuals were going to be listed and fired from civil servancy, but every person with "communist" collaboration issues in the past had been included in black lists during the Twin Government. I think we have spoken about Lithuania formerly, here and here, and also you can explore the bonding of their anti-gay bands with US-based organizations in this Alternet article.

It's quite clear to me that the American Religious Right can't do much in Western Europe to strike back against LGBT rights, but recent documents related to Uganda and Lithuania appear to draw a similar trend where the ultimate link leads to American Evangelist Churches — with a paranoid conspiracy sense awake, one would say that such cults had launched a crusade to baptise the world. But we're no paranoid, are we?

Technorati tags: Christianity and Homosexuality, Lithuania, Homophobia, Hate crimes

Lithuania going Poland way?

"A new law currently before the Lithuanian parliament could be amended to ban the "promotion" of gay, lesbian or bisexual relationships to children", informs Tony Grew in PinkNews.

Apart of the systematic use of the word "promotion", a constant in anti-gay speech which I believe is trying to instill the idea that homosexuals want to turn the whole world homosexual, Lithuania is a country into the EU, thus the article very well states that :

Margarita Jankauskaite, project manager for the Centre of Equality Advancement and ambassador for the European Commission Campaign "For Diversity, Against Discrimination," claims that the proposed amendment is contradictory to the legislation and the values of the European Union. "

So, against some people's opinion that countries like Poland or now Lithuania, trying to pass Acts which downgrade homosexual (human) rights, be expulsed from the EU, I think that such countries would better be carefully watched, kept inside the European Union, so that minorities have a tool to resort to when they feel their rights are cut.

Technorati tags: Lithuania, Anti-gay legislation, Homophobia, Europe