[Gay] Gay News from Around the Gay World That is Gay

[Martinus]

The funny thing is conservative social types are freaking out about how Homo friendly Obama is.  He might as well support gays and at least get the credit for the thing he is being blamed for.

Well, conservatives are fucked up. The guy who died recently (the supply side economy guy about whom I started the "Burn in hell" thread - can't remember the name, since I found about him at queerty.com) apparently accused Reagan of being controlled by a "gay cabal", too.

[Grallon]

...But then that's all the media does anymore is blow every single issue out there completely out of proportion. I blame 24/7 news cycles. The world was more interesting when you only got news a couple of times aday.

Are you surprised ?  Information has become a spectacle, or more precisely, an entertainment product.



G.

[Grallon]

The funny thing is conservative social types are freaking out about how Homo friendly Obama is.  He might as well support gays and at least get the credit for the thing he is being blamed for.

When are american conservatives *not* freaking out about something or other?  We should speed them on their way to their god. 




G.

[Barrister]

The funny thing is conservative social types are freaking out about how Homo friendly Obama is.  He might as well support gays and at least get the credit for the thing he is being blamed for.

Well, conservatives are fucked up. The guy who died recently (the supply side economy guy about whom I started the "Burn in hell" thread - can't remember the name, since I found about him at queerty.com) apparently accused Reagan of being controlled by a "gay cabal", too.

Wow - you're incensed at some guy whose name you can't even remember.

[Martinus]

personally I think people are over reacting a bit in the media over Obama's supposed cold shoulder. But then that's all the media does anymore is blow every single issue out there completely out of proportion. I blame 24/7 news cycles. The world was more interesting when you only got news a couple of times aday.

Actually, from the gay media sources I have been following, the cold shoulder thing has imo started in the gay community and now blown over into the mainstream media - there has been a lot of discontent about his inaction, and this pretty much flared up completely after the DoJ DOMA defense brief. So I don't think this is a media circus, but a genuine outrage.

[garbon]

personally I think people are over reacting a bit in the media over Obama's supposed cold shoulder

Well everyone was expecting a massive outpouring of change after placing all their hopes on Obama.  When that didn't happen, you get the inevitable fallout...especially when the Dems have been passing most of their other wet dreams.


Good on India btw.

Oh and I agree with what Marty said about where the outrage came from, it was from the streets.

[Faeelin]

[Well everyone was expecting a massive outpouring of change after placing all their hopes on Obama.  When that didn't happen, you get the inevitable fallout...especially when the Dems have been passing most of their other wet dreams.

Have they? Waxman-Markley looks DOA, Health care reform is turning into a mess, and Obama's buy holding people indefinitely. What liberal wet dream have they passed?

[sbr]

personally I think people are over reacting a bit in the media over Obama's supposed cold shoulder. But then that's all the media does anymore is blow every single issue out there completely out of proportion. I blame 24/7 news cycles. The world was more interesting when you only got news a couple of times aday.

I agree.  Obama has been in office for what 180 days?  He has had some bigger fish to fry right off the bat -economy, N Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  If he finishes his term without addressing some of these gay issues then then there will be room to complain. 

[Neil]

Waxman-Markley looks DOA,

I've been watching that with some amusement.  Greenpeace always makes me laugh.

[Faeelin]

I agree.  Obama has been in office for what 180 days?  He has had some bigger fish to fry right off the bat -economy, N Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  If he finishes his term without addressing some of these gay issues then then there will be room to complain.

Well, a few thoughts. Frist, the wonderful benefits he signed could have been done instantly or far sooner than new when he came into office. Lord knows he signed plenty of other executive orders that are more controversial than "Gays can use sick days to take care of their partners."

Second, I don't think most people expected anything controversial from the Dems in their first year of office. But ENDA? That's got the support of most of the country. I also think the DOMA brief set a lot of people off, because it was carefully crafted to deal a huge blow to gay rights and had to have approval from high in the Obama administration.

[Martinus]

personally I think people are over reacting a bit in the media over Obama's supposed cold shoulder. But then that's all the media does anymore is blow every single issue out there completely out of proportion. I blame 24/7 news cycles. The world was more interesting when you only got news a couple of times aday.

I agree.  Obama has been in office for what 180 days?  He has had some bigger fish to fry right off the bat -economy, N Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  If he finishes his term without addressing some of these gay issues then then there will be room to complain.

Who the fuck are you?

[BuddhaRhubarb]

...But then that's all the media does anymore is blow every single issue out there completely out of proportion. I blame 24/7 news cycles. The world was more interesting when you only got news a couple of times aday.

Are you surprised ?  Information has become a spectacle, or more precisely, an entertainment product.



G.

umm no i'm not. that's why i wrote that post. anyone who expects journalism from CNN hasn't watched CNN since the early 90's

[Martinus]

David Cameron apologises to gay people for section 28

Nicholas Watt
The Guardian,    Thursday 2 July 2009
Article history
David Cameron has embarked on another major step in the modernisation of the Conservative party by offering a public apology for section 28, the notorious legislation which banned the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools.

In a gesture hailed by gay rights campaigners as "historic", Cameron condemned section 28 as "offensive to gay people" and predicted that a Conservative would become Britain's first openly gay prime minister.

The Tory leader, who voted against the repeal of section 28 as recently as 2003, reached out to the gay community on Tuesday night at a Tory fundraising event linked to Gay Pride this weekend.

"Yes, we may have sometimes been slow and, yes, we may have made mistakes, including Section 28, but the change has happened," Cameron said of the repeal of the legislation originally passed in 1988 when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

In remarks reported by the Pink Paper, he admitted that he did not have a "perfect record" on gay rights, a reference to his decision in 2003 to vote for the retention of section 28. But he added: "It does give me great pride to be standing here to celebrate Gay Pride and all you have achieved.

"If five years ago we had a Conservative and Gay Pride party, I don't think many gay people would have come or many Conservatives would have come. In wanting to make the party representative of the country, I think we have made some real progress.

"If we do win the next election, instead of being a white middle class middle-aged party, we will be far more diverse. The Conservatives had the first woman prime minister and we are bound to have the first black prime minister and the first gay prime minister."

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, described Cameron's speech as "historic". He said: "We have heard the leader of the Conservative party say the words 'section 28' and 'sorry'."

Cameron's apology shows how far the Tory party has moved in the past decade. Shaun Woodward, now Northern Ireland secretary, defected to Labour after he was sacked from the Tory frontbench by William Hague in 2000 for rebelling against the party's support for section 28.

Cameron, who succeeded Woodward as MP for Witney at the 2001 general election, mocked his opposition to section 28. "Did Mr Woodward order a survey of local opinion about the issue that triggered his resignation – clause 28 and the promotion of homosexuality in schools?" Cameron wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph in September 2000.

The future Tory leader voted to retain Section 28 in the 2003 Commons vote which led to its abolition. Cameron, whose wife Samantha has long opposed section 28, later admitted that this was a mistake.

In his first conference speech as Tory leader, three years later in 2006, Cameron showed how he had moved on in what he called a "journey". He said: "There's something special about marriage. Pledging yourself to another means doing something brave and important ... You are making a commitment.

"And by the way, it means something whether you're a man and a woman, a woman and a woman or a man and another man. That's why we were right to support civil partnerships, and I'm proud of that."

However as recently as last year, Cameron alarmed gay and lesbian campaigners by voting to restrict access for lesbian couples hoping to conceive children through in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

To the surprise of Tory modernisers he supported a Commons amendment by the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith that would have strengthened existing laws to make IVF clinics consider the "need for a father and a mother" before allowing women to begin fertility treatment. The amendment was defeated.

Anyone buying that? 

[BuddhaRhubarb]

well I think there would be more (in NA at least are Tories religious bigots in UK?)  queer conservatives if conservatives these days were the old school fiscal conservatives of yore as opposed to the self righteous skygod worshipers they are now.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Gay sex decriminalized in Delhi. Only in one city? Does this mean that India's newest "ghetto" will have decent property values as all of India's gays move to Delhi?

Court decriminalizes gay sex in Indian capital

By MUNEEZA NAQVI – 1 day ago

NEW DELHI (AP) — New Delhi's gay community celebrated a landmark court ruling Thursday that decriminalizes homosexuality — a decision that could end widespread police harassment and be a harbinger for gradual acceptance for homosexuals across this deeply conservative country.

The Delhi High Court ruled that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution. The ruling, the first of its kind in India, is not binding outside New Delhi.

Hours after the ruling was issued dozens of members of New Delhi's gay community — some with rainbows painted on their faces and others holding signs that read "Queer and loving it" — gathered in the heart of the capital to celebrate.

"I'm so excited and I haven't been able to process the news yet," said Anjali Gopalan, the executive director of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, the sexual health organization that filed the petition with the court.

"We've finally entered the 21st century."

But some religious leaders quickly criticized the ruling. "This Western culture cannot be permitted in our country," said Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a leading Muslim cleric in the northern city of Lucknow.

Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in India since a British colonial era law was issued in the 1860s classifying it as "against the order of nature." According to the law, gay sex is punishable by 10 years in prison.

While actual criminal prosecutions are few, the law frequently has been used to harass people. The court's verdict should protect New Delhi's gay community from criminal charges and police harassment.

"This legal remnant of British colonialism has been used to deprive people of their basic rights for too long," Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "This long-awaited decision testifies to the reach of democracy and rights in India."

The verdict came more than eight years after the New Delhi-based Naz Foundation filed its petition — not unusually long in India's notoriously clogged court system. The decision can still be challenged in India's Supreme Court.

The government has remained vague about its position on the law, and Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said he would examine the high court's order before commenting.

"Our effort will be to try to see that the government does not appeal to the Supreme Court. There is a chance that others will go and appeal," Anand Grover, a member of a lawyers group involved in the case, said in Geneva.

While the ruling is not binding in India's other states, Tripti Tandon, a lawyer for the Naz Foundation, said she hoped it would have a "persuasive" effect on other courts.

Rights activists say the law, also popularly known as 377, or section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, sanctions discrimination and marginalizes the gay community. Health experts say the law discourages safe sex and has been a hurdle in fighting HIV and AIDS. Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV.

The U.N. agency UNAIDS welcomed the court ruling and said it would make it easier to reach homosexual men with programs to combat the spread of HIV.

Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues. The last two years have also seen large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities such as Mumbai and Calcutta.

Still, being gay remains deeply taboo in most of the country, and a large number of homosexuals hide their sexual orientation from their friends and families.

Religious leaders in the capital and in other parts of India argue that gay sex should remain illegal and that open homosexuality is out of step with India's deeply held traditions.

"We are totally against such a practice as it is not our tradition or culture," said Puroshattam Narain Singh, an official of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council.

In New Delhi, Rev. Babu Joseph, a spokesman of the Roman Catholic church, told New Delhi Television that while homosexuals should not be treated as criminals, "at the same time we cannot afford to endorse homosexual behavior as normal and socially acceptable."

Still, rights activists hope that Thursday's ruling will send a message to the entire country.

"The symbolic value of this judgment is unmatched," said Arvind Narrain, another lawyer involved with the case. "It says lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people are citizens with equal rights."

Associated Press Writers Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India and Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.