“That is not to say there is no place for a Nazi analogy in this debate. The Nazis rose to power by mastering the art of propaganda, repeating lies so frequently and so widely that eventually people took them as truth. Hence the importance of seeking out the truth, and exposing those who would engage in such deceit.
“Freud taught us about projection: Those who would compare Obama to Hitler or his policies to Nazism ought to look in the mirror.”
Michael Berenbaum (who knows a thing or two about Nazism) on healthcare reform, Nazis, and the out-of-control fearmongers who lie like rugs:
The Catholic Church lost another round today when Italy approved the use of RU-486, the abortion drug. The Vatican warned of immediate excommunication for doctors prescribing the pill and for women taking it.
Yeah, like, women are going to tell the Vatican they used it? So what happens if a Catholic woman confesses her “sin”to her priest? Does he keep his mouth shut, or is she bounced out of the confessional with a scarlet “R” on her cheek before she can finish the Act of Contrition?
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has announced his party will propose a law legalising same-sex marriage.
It is an unexpected move in a country that is still one of the most conservative in Europe and where homosexuality was illegal until 1995.
Mr Berisha acknowledged the proposed law might provoke debate but maintained that discrimination in modern Albania had to end. …
In a predominantly Muslim country with almost no open homosexual community, the announcement by a conservative PM has taken people by surprise.
Goran Miletic, a Belgrade-based human rights lawyer, working partly on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues said it was an important step forward for the country. …
I wonder how this will shake out — interfering with foreign governments — when it comes time for ADF’s head bigot Andy Pugno to start campaigning in earnest for the California Assembly? Ah, what am I saying? The Bigot District he wants to represent will probably give him a medal for beatin’ down them godless commies…
What, is Benedict Arnoldine going to start denying the Holocaust ever happened?
(Btw, if our headline isn’t clear, make no mistake: We’re on the side of the Jews. Always. You want to f*k with Jews, you’ll have to go through us first, especially in a war waged by the Catholic Church. So sayeth this ex-wafer chewer.)
No kidding. Adoption is still verboten (or rather, betiltott), but look what gay Hungarians just got, on the federal level — and in a country that is deeply Catholic and dangerously homophobic:
Three men who claim they were abused by Catholic clergy in America have succeeded in naming the Vatican as sole defendant in a lawsuit and are hoping to force Pope Benedict XVI to give evidence in the case.
The 6th US circuit court of appeal recently ruled that although the Holy See, as a sovereign state, was immune from most lawsuits, the plaintiffs could proceed with their argument that its officials were involved in a deliberate effort to cover up evidence of sexual abuse by American priests.
Their case centres on a 1962 directive from the Vatican telling church officials to hide sex abuse complaints against clergy.
William F McMurray, a lawyer representing the men, who claim they were abused in Louisville, Kentucky, says the document, which became public in 2003, makes the Vatican liable for the acts of clergy whose crimes were kept secret because of the directive. He says the pope, at 81, is the only living witness to the establishment of the 1962 policy. Before his election to the papacy, …
More at the link.
I’d be curious to know what kinds of lawsuits the Vatican or any other sovereign state is immune from, and why the 6th Circuit would OK this suit.
When I read this, I immediately thought of the trillion-dollar lawsuit against Saudi Arabia on behalf of the victims of the September 11th attacks. I don’t think there was any question the Saudis could be sued; I wonder why there was a question about whether the Vatican could be sued? Maybe sex abuse doesn’t rate up there with mass murder; I don’t know.
Dear Catholics: Before you get all huffy and submit that nasty comment:
1. I’m an ex-Catholic (by choice, not excommunication — yet), so I get to say whatever I want about the Catholic church. (I’d have the right anyway, but lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I was you, so challenging my Catholic cred is a waste of your time.)
2. There’s no other way to read the Vatican statement than the way it’s summed up in the following headline — I couldn’t say it better myself:
(and it doesn’t want disabled people to be protected, either, in case it promotes abortion)
The full extent of the regressive nature of the Vatican under Ratzinger was made clear this week when it was revealed that the Vatican had opposed two United Nations resolutions aimed at protecting gay and disabled people from discrimination and death.
When France proposed a resolution seeking all nations to decriminalise homosexuality, the Vatican immediately said it would oppose the resolution. This is despite the fact that up to 70 nations still have legal punishments for gay people including, in some instances, the death penalty. In a number of Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexual acts are still a capital offence.
The UN resolution is due to be proposed by France later this month on behalf of the 27-nation European Union. But Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage. …
A strongly worded editorial in Italy’s mainstream La Stampa newspaper said the Vatican’s reasoning was “grotesque”.
Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy’s leading gay rights group, said the Vatican’s reasoning smacked of “total idiocy and madness”. Mr Grillini said the resolution had nothing to do with gay marriage, but was aimed at stopping the execution of gay people in Islamic countries.
An editorial in Rome’s left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper said the Vatican’s position “leaves one dumbstruck”. Margherita Boniver, a leading member of Italy’s leftist Democratic Party, called it “alarmingly anachronistic”.
The gay rights activist, Grillini, said he feared what he called another “Holy Alliance” between the Vatican and Islamic states at the United Nations to oppose the proposed resolution. …
Meh, I’m not at all “dumbstruck” — it’s nothing more or less than I’d expect from the Holy Roman Inquisitors.
But — oh, yeah — it is indeed “grotesque” “idiocy and madness.”
London, Nov 24 (ANI): Dungeon dad Josef Fritzl is turning a lawyer — the Austrian sex beast is studying law in prison so that he could escape being jailed for life.
The incest monster has claimed that daughter Elisabeth, 42 whom he captured in an underground cellar and raped her for 24 long years to father eight children on her has lied to police.
The 73-year-old has been hooked to legal books during his time in jail on remand, so that he could challenge murder and slavery charges brought last week, which carry a life term. …
He also confessed that he blackmailed his underground family that they would be electrocuted or gassed if they even thought about escaping the cellar beneath his home in Amstetten.
However, Fritzl denied Elisabeths charges of murdering a newborn baby. …
“Elizabeth and I staged a ”baptism” for the little body. We prayed for him and decided together to burn his body, the Mirror quoted Fritzl as saying.
He added: “I put the tiny body in the oven and spread the ashes in my garden.
He also refuted the charges that he used violence to force Elisabeth into having sex, but admitted that “discipline and order were the way things worked.” …
Yep, “discipline and order” are the way things work.
Hey, come on, they prayed for the baby, and even “staged a ‘baptism’ for the little body” — how much more do you want?
With chandeliers instead of neon lighting and designer furnishings instead of springless sofas, a newly revamped homeless hostel in south Berlin looks more like a hip hotel — and aims to give some dignity to those worn out by life on the streets.
With its exterior daubed in sunshine yellow and sky blue, the new homeless hostel stands out in its row of pale buildings. And its interior is equally exceptional. As well as glitzy chandeliers, there are wooden floorboards, a gold border encircles the walls and the furniture looks plucked straight from a design catalogue.
But this is no hip new Berlin hotel. It is a revamped homeless hostel named Reichtum 2, or “wealth”, the work of Berlin-based artist Miriam Kilali. And wealth is something sorely lacking in the lives of the 21 men who now live in the hostel.
The hostel, which reopened its doors this week, was designed to restore a sense of self-worth in people who have been dealt a raw deal, to show them that they too deserve a decent home. “I wanted to give homeless people, people who had lost everything in their life, respect and dignity back,” Kilali told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “I wanted to create a place where they could recover from the stress of life on the street.” …
More at the link, including a photo gallery of digs that make my wife and me, in our 60-year-old suburban tract home, green with envy.
And here’s a thought: The same anti-gay crusaders who so easily succumb to Godwin’s Law (have you heard the “Gay Gestapo” epithet yet?) could be taking a lesson in humility from the very country that produced Adolf Hitler in the first place.
But noooooooooooooooo! It was much more important to destroy my marriage than to actually, like, help starving, homeless people. ‘Cause, you know, Jesus would have wanted it that way.
• Marching in not-so-gay-friendly neighborhoods is a good idea, but do we really want to descend on South Central waving posters of Coretta Scott King? Seems to me that would inflame the shaky “blacks-hate-gays” myth (yeah, myth) — and anyway, a lot of people are marching through territory that really is gay-hostile. (Even San Jose, which is considerably safer for queers than, say, Jackson, Mississippi, doesn’t have a gayborhood [unless you count the DeFrank Center building as a “neighborhood”]; we were downtown, and near downtown, three times in one week.)
• Two words: Mark Foley. No, make that three words: Mark Foley, slimebucket. Oops, that may be four words.
• When we saw the phrase “rabid Holocaust denier,” we thought the article was going to be about Scott Lively. It’s not. But even after reading about this piece of filth called Frederick Toben, we still can’t decide who’s worse. We also think that the radical religionists who keep screaming about same-sex marriage being some sort of “threat” to their free speech ought to be forced to live in Germany for a while; they could spend their time pondering real restrictions on free speech as they while away their time in their prison cells.
• Cleve Jones thinks there are lots of undiscovered Harvey Milks among us. I’d like to think he’s right, but I haven’t met any yet.
Paul Peter Jesep, Bishop of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Schenectady, NY, and author of Crucifying Jesus and Secularizing America — the Republic of Faith without Wisdom, Salt Lake Tribune:
Because citizens democratically voted to approve a constitutional amendment doesn’t make it just. It is breathtaking that citizens of Thomas Paine’s republic actually believe that the “will of the people” makes something right. Think again. Oh, please, think again!
Adolf Hitler received more than 43 percent of the popular vote that led to his parliamentary election as chancellor of Germany in 1933. Two years later the Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race were passed that denied Jews citizenship, property rights and dignity as children of the Creator. Not long thereafter they were sent to death camps to be “legally” exterminated. …
At one time the will of voting Americans also permitted the ownership of human beings. …
One of the limited roles of government in Thomas Paine’s republic is to guarantee equal rights for all its citizens. As Jesus prudently taught, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Supporters of Proposition 8 should remember that Pilate wanted to spare the life of Jesus. The crowd, however, repeatedly shouted “Let Him be crucified!” Pilate responded, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it.”
A member of the crowd shouted back, “we have a law and according to our law He ought to die.” Passage of Proposition 8 is the people’s will, but it is hardly just.
It is a tragic day when lies and money triumph over justice and truth. And today is just such a day. Due to the manipulations and false claims backed by out-of-state financiers and organizations, California voters have stripped a particular group of people of a right that they held. How shameful that we have allowed ourselves to be blinded by a magician’s sleight of hand into believing that this ballot was about educating children or churches or the school system. This was, and is about justice and equal rights and it is not yet over. 17,000 couples have been married. We will not let this rest.
As a supporter of No on Prop 8 and as a person of faith, on Election day I spent time giving out palm cards on No on 8. Standing more than 100 feet from the polling station, I asked an average-looking man in a fairly well-to-do Westside neighborhood if he had any questions about the proposition. With venom whose origins I cannot understand, he cursed at me and carried on to vote. After voting, he walked by me again. This time, after walking some 50 feet ago past me, he turned and yelled, “Remember Germany in the 40s?” I ignored him again, but as a Jew wearing a kippah, yes, I and my parents and grandparents remember Germany.
Yes, with the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, three days away, when mobs ransacked thousands of Jewish businesses and murdered and deported thousands of Jews, I “remember” Germany. As a Jew, I know what happens when the constitution of my state is re-written to take away my rights. As a Jew, as a father to my two children, and after a recent civil marriage to my husband, this result on Prop 8 deeply pains me. We Jews, like other minorities, know about disenfranchisement, about inequality, and about laws that make me less than my neighbors. This makes it even more hurtful that so many minorities and Jews seemed to forget these lessons on Election Day.
Yet, we also know that the struggle can be long and that for me, with my faith to support me, like my ancestors before me, I will survive this hurt to see justice prevail in the end. My family is still a family and nothing can change that. We will continue to fight for the just resolution on this issue. The current decision on Proposition 8 is just one marker on a much longer and deeper journey to ensure that all people are treated as they should be – unique and cherished creations made in the image of God. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice, shall you pursue. (Deuteronomy 16:20)
The Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation (IJSO) is located at the Los Angeles Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and was founded in 2000 and works for the complete inclusion, integration and equal standing of LGBT people in Reform congregations and communities.
Founded in 1875, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the nation’s oldest institution of higher Jewish education and the academic, spiritual, and professional development center of Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR educates men and women for service to American and world Jewry as rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal service professionals, and offers graduate and post-graduate degree programs for scholars of all faiths. With campuses in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York, and Jerusalem, HUC-JIR’s scholarly resources comprise renowned library, archive, and museum collections, biblical archaeology excavations, and academic publications. Visit us at http://www.huc.edu.
Hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose to their highest level in five years last year, led by attacks between Latinos and blacks, officials said Thursday.
The annual report by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission showed hate crimes rose by 28%, to 763, with vandalism and assault leading the way.
In what commission Executive Director Robin Toma called an alarming trend, hate crimes based on race, religion and sexual orientation all rose, increasing against nearly all groups — including blacks, gays, Jews, Mexicans, whites and Asians — even as crime in general declined.
The largest number of racial hate crimes involved Latino suspects against black victims, followed by black suspects against Latino victims. Latinos also made up the largest number of suspects in hate crimes based on sexual orientation. Whites were the leading suspects in religion-based incidents. Overall, blacks made up nearly half the hate crime victims, totaling 310.
“What we’re seeing is the democratization of hate crimes,” said Brian Levin, who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “We’re not only seeing a diversification of victims but also increased diversification of offenders.”
Police agencies report hate crimes to the county, but because departments vary on when they pursue hate-crime charges, variations in hate-crime numbers can stem from an actual increase in crimes or from changes in reporting. In this case, experts said they believed that hate crimes themselves, not just the reporting of them, are rising.
Levin said other areas of the country have reported similar increases, including a 30% increase in New York last year; a 10-year study published last fall found that hate crimes in New York began to increase two years ago after declining over several years.
Levin said several factors may be driving the rise, including deepening economic distress, growing ethnic diversity and population density in neighborhoods and what he called “increasingly inflammatory rhetoric” over illegal immigration. …
One of the most worrisome findings, commissioners said, was the rising number of hate crimes between Latinos and blacks — many of them driven by gang hostility. …
Asked what can prevent hate crimes, the Rev. Eric P. Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles offered another answer.
“Pray,” he said. “How else do you change someone’s heart? Hatred is a spiritual wickedness.”
Hate crimes are a daily reality across the European continent. Recent, credible reports show that people suffer violence because they are black, Jewish, Roma or Muslim, or because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
They give examples of how individuals have been physically attacked in the street, had their windows broken or homes set on fire. Government authorities have a responsibility to put an end to these shameful and serious crimes. …
One country where several incidents have been reported is Ukraine. Last year, Nigerian medical student George Itoro Ebong was smashed over the head with a bottle while waiting for a bus in Kiev. The three attackers shouted at the bleeding victim, “Go back to Africa; you are a monkey!” This was not a unique case — there have been a number of other racist crimes in Ukraine in recent years, some of them with fatal outcomes. …
In the Russian Federation, extreme right-wing groups have committed a series of hate crimes, in some cases even murders, against members of ethnic, religious and national minorities. …
In Italy there have been serious violent actions against Roma people during the past year, including physical attacks and arson following prejudiced speeches by some politicians and xenophobic reporting in some media outlets. The whole Roma community has been made a scapegoat for crimes committed by only a very few, and politicians have demonstrated little moral leadership in trying to stem this wave of anti-Gypsyism.* …
Gay pride events have been attacked in several European cities, including Bucharest, Budapest and Moscow. In Riga, extremists hurled feces and eggs at gay activists and their supporters when they were seen were leaving a church service. Some years ago, a Swedish hockey player was stabbed to death in Vasteras after he had made known that he was homosexual. In Oporto, Portugal, a group of boys attacked and killed a homeless Brazilian transgender woman and left the body in a water-filled pit. These incidents are only the tip of the iceberg.
Some of these assaults may have been committed by distorted individual minds, but many of them bear the imprints of neo-Nazi groups or other organized, extremist gangs who tend to be at the same time racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and homophobic. They may also target foreigners and persons with disabilities. …
So what ought to be done in concrete terms to prevent and react to cases of hate crime? …
* The apparent anti-Roma (Gypsy) attitude in Italy is illustrated in this very disturbing story that made headlines around the world a few days ago:
Questions about the attitude of Italians to their Roma minority were again being asked yesterday after photographs were published of sunbathers continuing as normal with a day at the beach despite the bodies of two Gypsy girls who had drowned being laid out on the sand nearby. …
The incident took place outside Naples, where a Roma encampment was burned to the ground this year after its inhabitants had been evacuated for their own safety.
Accounts given by Italian media varied, but according to the news agency Ansa, the victims — aged 14 and 16 — and two other young Gypsies had been begging from daytrippers on the beach at Torregaveta, west of Naples, on Saturday. …
At about 1pm, the four girls decided to go into the water even though none of them, it seems, knew how to swim. …
Their corpses were dragged ashore and laid out on the sand under beach towels.
“But the knot of curious onlookers that formed around the girls’ bodies dissolved as [swiftly] as it had formed,” the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported. “Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away on the shoulders [of the officers] between bathers stretched out in the sun.”
La Repubblica also expressed astonishment at the behaviour of those present. “While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few metres away,” it reported.
Corriere recalled that this was not the first time people had decided a death was no reason to give up their day at the beach. …
But the fact that the two victims on this occasion were Roma added an extra twist to the affair.
Italy is gripped by anti-Gypsy feeling. Since coming to office in May, Silvio Berlusconi’s rightwing government has appointed three special commissioners to deal with the Roma in each of Italy’s three biggest cities — Naples, Milan and Rome. It has also ordered the fingerprinting of the country’s Gypsy population, including minors, who make up more than half of the estimated 150,000 Roma in Italy. …
The civil liberties group EveryOne said it was unconvinced by reports of the incident at Torregaveta and asked whether there might be something more sinister behind it. …
Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house. But the real terror was about to begin.
The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and they saw that his chest was shaved.
“They told me to take off my clothes to rape me or they would kill me immediately. This moment was the worst moment in my life,” he said, weeping as he spoke of the 2005 ordeal.
“I was watching them taking off their clothes, preparing to rape me. I did not know what to do, so I started shouting loudly, ‘Please do not do that! I will ask my family to give you whatever you want.’”
His pleas went unheeded. “The other two kidnappers took off my clothes by force, and, at that time, I saw them as three dirty animals trying to tear my body apart.”
He was held for 15 days, released only after his family paid a $1,500 ransom. He was raped every day. Only once, he said, was he allowed to talk to his family during captivity. “I told my family that I was beaten by them, but I did not dare to tell my family that I was raped by them. I could not say it, it’s too much shame.”
CNN spoke with Kamal, now 18, and his 21-year-old friend Rami about what it’s like to be gay in Iraq. Coming out as gay is not easy in any country, but to do so in Iraq could mean a death sentence or torture. …
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the situation for gays and lesbians in Iraq has deteriorated. …
It’s unknown how many homosexuals have been killed by militias in the lawless streets of Iraq’s cities, but some Web sites post pictures of Iraqis they say were killed for being gay. …
United Nations: Defeat for Discrimination, Victory for Inclusion
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Groups Gain Consultative Status
NEW YORK — July 23 — HRW — The decision by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granting consultative status to two groups that work on sexual orientation and gender identity is a victory in the ongoing struggle for inclusion at the UN, a coalition of six human rights organizations said today. The two groups approved on July 21 and 22, 2008 are COC Netherlands and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Spain (FELGTB), national organizations representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Netherlands and Spain.
“COC Netherlands is delighted about obtaining consultative status with the UN,” said Björn van Roozendaal, COC international advocacy officer. “It means we can join the efforts at the UN to address human rights violations against people with an alternative sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“Spanish-speaking LGBT voices will be heard in UN meetings where human rights questions are debated,” said David Montero, FELGTB Spain’s officer for international issues and human rights. “We thank all who have contributed to this exciting outcome, and especially Spain’s UN mission for their support.”
Consultative status is a key means for civil society to access the UN system. It allows non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver oral and written reports at UN meetings, and to organize events on UN premises. With it, these groups can share their information and analysis of the abuses and discrimination LGBT people confront around the world.
ECOSOC, consisting of 54 member states of the UN, grants consultative status to NGOs after reviewing recommendations made by its subsidiary body — the NGO Committee — which screens the applications.
COC Netherlands and FELGTB Spain join approximately 3,000 other NGOs with consultative status at the UN. However, only a handful of LGBT groups have received the status. In recent years, some states have treated LGBT groups’ applications with intense hostility, and ECOSOC has only granted such groups consultative status after first overturning negative recommendations from its NGO Committee. ECOSOC approved the Danish National Association for Gay and Lesbians, the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA-Europe), and the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany in December 2006. The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Québec and the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights gained consultative status in July 2007.
The US-based International Wages Due Lesbians and Australian-based Coalition of Activist Lesbians have had consultative status at the UN for more than a decade.
At its January session, the committee tied 7-7 on consultative status for FELGTB Spain, meaning the motion to recommend it failed, but at the following session in June it voted 7-6 to grant the status for COC Netherlands. At the July session in New York, ECOSOC adopted by consensus the recommendation on COC Netherlands and voted to overturn the recommendation not to grant status to FELGTB Spain.
“ECOSOC has recognized the place of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the work of the United Nations,” said John Fisher from ARC International, which supported the groups’ advocacy efforts. “In this 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is particularly important to affirm the core principle that all human beings are entitled to the full enjoyment of all human rights, without discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Yesterday’s vote sends a clear message that discrimination has no place in the UN system, and that sexual orientation and gender identity issues can, and must, be addressed.”
“Many states that harass or persecute LGBT people at home also try to shut down scrutiny of their records internationally,” said Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Program at Human Rights Watch. “This vote ensures that two more voices will be raised to defend basic human rights at the UN.”
“States from all five regions voted to overturn the negative recommendation from the NGO Committee in regards to FELGTB Spain,” said Philipp Braun, co-secretary general of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). “We would like the committee to acknowledge the repeated message sent by ECOSOC that it should recommend LGBT groups. We also congratulate our members COC and FELGTB on their victory.”
“Many states claim that ECOSOC’s votes need to follow the recommendations of its NGO Committee; the view of those who voted in favor of the LGBT groups, however, is that this cannot be done at the price of discriminating against anyone, including LGBT voices,” noted Adrian Coman from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), who participated in monitoring the ECOSOC and NGO Committee meetings.
The NGO Committee is due to review a number of additional applications from LGBT groups at its next two sessions in January and May 2009.
Remember the Lesbians (as in “residents of the Isle of Lesbos,” or Lesvos) who filed suit to stop a gay group (the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece) from using the word “lesbian” in its name, because it “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos? (Backstory here and here.)
Well, there’s good news out of the Mediterranean today: The sanctimonious homophobes lost.
We’re glad.
And we couldn’t think of a better headline for the story than the one 365Gay.com gave it:
A Greek court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing an LGBT rights group of demeaning the people of the Aegean island of Lesbos by purloining the word Lesbian, a term islanders have used to name themselves for centuries. …
In dismissing the case, the court said that islanders did not have sole claim to the name.
Attorneys for the three islanders said they may appeal to the European Court. …
Oh, lotsa luck with that — the European Court is light-years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to attacks on LGBTs. IOW, the EC will laugh the appeal right out of the courtroom.
Dimitris Lambrou one of the litigants in the case said Sappho was not gay.
So? It’s always seemed to me (and to a lot of other lesbians) that she was bisexual. Big whoop. (And the eternally-up-in-the-air question of Sappho’s sexual orientation isn’t going to stop yours truly, a ReaLesbian® since birth, from identifying as Sapphocrat, the Lesbian.)
“But even if we assume she was, how can 250,000 people of Lesbian descent — including women — be considered homosexual?”
Boy, somebody’s got a bad case of Straw Man Syndrome.
Lambrou also denied the suit was homophobic.
Then why are you so hysterical about the idiotic idea that someone will think you’re a lesbian, Mister?
“The word lesbian has been associated with gay women for the past few decades but we have been Lesbians for thousands of years,” he said.
Try the past three centuries, Dimitris:
“The word lesbian dates back at least to 1732 and lesbianism appears in the 1870 Oxford English Dictionary meaning sexual orientation rather than a reference to Sappho and inhabitants of Lesbos. Lesbian as an adjective is in the 1890 Oxford English Dictionary and as a noun by 1925. Until the early twentieth century lesbian was interchangeable with Sapphist.”
It’s the word homosexuality that’s only been around since the 19th century — specifically, since 1869.
If it was such a problem, Dimitris, why didn’t your great-great-whatever grandfather gets his panties in a twist?
I haven’t finished the first part of project mentioned here, but it’s getting there. In the meantime, while I continue to dig into the ugly depths of the anti-gay movement, here’s a quick rundown of what’s happening in our world:
Speaking of The Presumptuous Nominee, Queerty notes that Florida’s gay Democrats are disappointed with the Obama campaign, and quotes a report from Florida Capital News: “The leader of the Florida Democratic Party’s gay caucus, declaring that ‘I’m sick and tired of getting table scraps,’ complained Saturday that Sen. Barack Obama offended a large and faithful voting bloc by not sending his wife or another top campaign surrogate to the group’s annual meeting.”
Now, before anybody resorts to the tired old argument that ignoring gay groups is consistent with Obama’s refusal to pander to any single “interest,” we say: If Saint Barry can find the time to pander to hard-right Christian fundies — like he’ll be doing (again, and this time along with John McCain) at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church — then he can at least send his compulsive gum-flapper of a wife to talk to the Florida Democratic Party’s gay caucus. This isn’t like ignoring local gay press; this is an official caucus of the Democratic Party.
Back in the reality-based world, we’re happy to hear that activists in San Diego aren’t taking Doug Manchester’s campaign of anti-equality lying down — especially in one of Manchester’s beds. (Backstory here and here.) Just before San Diego Pride Saturday, between 150 and 200 people rallied in protest outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt (and were countered by about 75 bigots).
As for the San Diego pridefest itself, while Wendy Fry was bemoaning the fact that straight men just can’t wear boas and sequins the way gay men can, the “internationally renown anti-Scientology activism group Anonymous” was marching in its own contingent in the parade. If I were Anonymous, I’d remain anonymous, too. Those zany Xenuists scare the bejeebers out of my quivering little body thetans.
Tourism experts are “puzzled” since five grand is such a measly price to pay “for such a lucrative niche market.” We’re not puzzled at all; hysterical homophobia always trumps common sense. Look at Jamaica, where they’d rather murder us than prop up their own barely-on-life-support economy with our Big Gay Dollars. We say: Screw ‘em — both Jamaica and the Jamaica of the United States, South Carolina. Let them eat dirt.
Also, my dear Gaytheist shines the light on yet another example of masking bigotry behind “deeply held religious beliefs,” in the case of a gay-hatin’ British cop: What’s the Matter With the UK Lately?
(Speaking of dumb cops, one of the San Diego Harbor Police shot to death a go-go boy who fell off a pride-cruise boat, and got physical with his rescuers. I don’t care what the guy did — when you’ve got one suspect surrounded by a bunch of armed police officers, there can’t be any excuse for failing to subdue him without killing him.)
Elsewhere on the international front: We’re glad that Iris Robinson, wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, and Ignorant, Sour-Lemon-Faced, Mad Old Cow whose sunken, empty eyes are only accentuated by a criminal sense of makeup application (see the picture at the link), lives half a world away from us, so we don’t have to listen to her vile nonsense about how much worse homosexuality is than child sexual abuse.
And here are the rest of the headlines that caught my eye today — I’ll leave you to them while I get back to the dirty work of digging into the incestuous circle of money and hate behind the Proposition 8 campaign:
Young, Gay and Murdered Kids are coming out younger, but are schools ready to handle the complex issues of identity and sexuality? For Larry King, the question had tragic implications.
Hungary isn’t the only place you could have had rocks thrown at your head during a European pride event lately. Sofia, Bulgaria, held its first-ever pride parade, with about 150 marchers — and at least 60 neo-Nazi skinheads who threw everything from eggs to Molotov cocktails at the marchers. The Bulgarian National Alliance (the equivalent of the KKK) had covered the city with anti-gay posters reading: “Be Intolerant — Be Normal.”
The city of Brno was the site of the Czech Republic’s first gay pride parade, where about 500 marchers were attacked by about 150 skinheads, 15 of whom were arrested.
I was very upset to hear the reports of violence at the Pride parades in Prague, Riga and Sofia in the last few weeks, and also very disappointed that pressure from various sources meant the Pride parade in Moldova scheduled for May did not take place. This was in marked contrast to the peaceful Pride held for the first time ever in Delhi on Sunday 29 June.
The FCO is committed to promoting equality and ending the discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people around the world and we’ve developed a program of skills and information for Embassies and diplomats to help achieve this. We look at where the UK can have a positive effect in providing information on the official British policy on gay rights and instructions in how to provide added value to equality and non-discrimination work. It covers a wide range of issues, from decriminalisation, sexual health, reproductive rights and health education to bilateral work with other countries.
Although we focus work in countries where homosexuality is criminalised, we also monitor the situation across Europe closely. The British Embassies in Warsaw and Riga, for example, were active in helping support and celebrate the diversity, equality and acceptance for all that the Pride events promote. We are also very active in international organisations in promoting our goal of equality for LGBT people in the enjoyment of human rights.
The MTI Bulletin reports that the Central Court of Budapest fined four people for attacking gay pride marchers — and the police trying to protect them — while acquitting three others, ruling that “throwing eggs was within the scope of freedom of expression.”
Some 1,500 marchers were pelted by rocks, bottles and eggs, thrown in from outside a metal barrier flanking the length of Andrassy Boulevard, the pride event’s venue. A few hundred anti-gay protesters clashed with police, throwing firebombs and cobblestones at them, injuring 12. They also set fire to a police minibus and wrecked two patrol cars.
The court did fine some egg-throwers — but only the ones who refused to stop throwing eggs after police told them to stop.
The fines ranged from 20,000 and 66,000 forints ($136 to $451).
A total of 57 people were arrested in the anti-gay violence at Saturday’s parade, but we don’t yet know what the court is doing with the rest of them.
Oh, and the three attackers who were acquitted? The court let them off the hook because they pleaded not guilty, claiming they didn’t know they were breaking the law. (Gee, what a great place Hungary must be for career criminals! “Sorry, Judge — I didn’t know robbing banks was against the law!”)
Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany is calling for an anti-violence rally in September in response to the anti-gay attacks — and, incredibly, the opposition party (called, ironically, the “Free Democrats”) is condemning the move, because — get this — “it disputes the event’s independence from party politics.”
The problem the oppos have is with Gyurcsany’s announcement that he “plans to launch a new body — ‘the Hungarian Charter’ — in the wake of far right violence against the Gay Parade.”
In other words, the oppos are saying Gyurcsany is coming out against anti-gay violence for political reasons. We say the oppos are missing an excellent opportunity to transcend partisan politics in a demonstration of solidarity against anti-gay violence.
Hell, if George W. Bush called for Republicans to rally against anti-gay violence, I’d march with them.
The San Francisco Dyke March site has the transcripts of speeches given last Saturday by two lesbians from Serbia — both well worth the full read:
Tijana Popivoda
…Thank you for your persistence in protesting on the streets for so many years. Your visibility gives us, lesbians from Serbia, strength for our own visibility. All your achievements empower us in our dreams and give us the knowledge that they are possible. …
In the country where I live, Serbia, as well as in most other places in the world, visibility can mean that we risk our lives. Visibility can mean that we are exposed to be insulted or beaten up in public spaces. There are no laws that protect our rights to live lesbian existence, we are still full of psychiatrists and religious leaders who are judging us and telling us that we are sick. Homophobia is in every step we make in our lives.
I would like to talk to you about the fear of visibility, and to tell you about lesbians from one small town in Serbia — when they want to watch lesbian videos, they lock themselves up with a key in their own room inside the house, while husband, children and grandchildren are in the other parts of the house. …
Here are some facts: In all the countries in Eastern Europe, the right wing is very much present and nationalism and religious fundamentalism are increasing. There are no dyke marches in Eastern Europe, and they are rare in Europe in general. In some countries, LGBT Pride parades do not exist, because there are no safe conditions for their running. …
We activists have a dilemma: should we hold the parades, should we celebrate our love, when 1,000 homophobic police officers are on the streets with us? …
In past years, I would often sit with my lesbian friends and watch video files on the internet from dyke marches in the US, especially from San Francisco. I would watch them again and again and again…
Lepa Mladjenovic
… My homeland was a small country called Yugoslavia which fell apart through the war into seven smaller countries during the 1990’s.
And I come from one of them, Serbia, whose previous regime started and carried out that war.
In the wartime — what did we lesbians see?
Of many things, we saw that the moment the universal soldier takes a gun to kill — he makes many enemies and lesbians are among them. War reduces one’s identity to only a few symbols, to the nationality of one’s name, to religious or a tribal symbol. War reduces women’s bodies to a battlefield, and leaves zero space for lesbian desire.
What did we learn?
- that we lesbians need to be in the anti-war movement, that we must collaborate, ally ourselves and get together with feminists, peace activists, anti-fascists… and some of us did exactly that. Together with Italian, Spanish, Israeli feminists we created network of Women in Black Against War and many women around the world joined in.
- we learned that women’s solidarity and lesbian solidarity can be a fact of everyday life. … I would not have survived all those years of pain if there had not been many lesbians and activists who came to protest with us, who sent us books of poetry and lesbian cartoons, who came to bring us chocolate and coffee and listen to our stories. …
We need dyke marches to point out that lesbians are discriminated against as women first of all…
We need dyke marches to remember: in the city of Chennai in India, two women, who loved each other from the age of 18, living under hate pressure from their families, on the 17th of May 2008 embraced each other, poured kerosene on their embraced bodies, and set themselves on fire. A week later a group of brave feminists organized a press conference and announced that from January this year six other lesbians have set themselves on fire in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and that in the last 10 years in the neighboring state of Kerala, 35 lesbian couples have committed suicide. …
Again, hit the link and read both speeches in full. You will be pained, angered, moved — and, ultimately, uplifted.
I still haven’t told you all about our (very positive) marriage license adventure, or the most productive marriage equality meeting we attended Monday night. I’m bad. Well, maybe not so bad as just pushed. I’m still digging out from under a million years’ worth of family belongings so we can move households, and trying to fix wedding plans (July 26th is the tentative date), and it was Mom’s birthday yesterday, and there’s a family friend impatient for me to pick out a new computer for her (lifelong tech support comes with the territory of being/having been an I.T. professional), and… just and, and, and.
But I will get around to both. Fingers crossed.
Hateful Sow, Hateful Sow, Hateful Sow!
I watched the “gay parenting” episode of “30 Days” last night with my mom (on her 87th birthday), and all I can say is that I’m not sure which of us was more disgusted — only that she gasped a lot more, and I exhausted my lexicon of Profane Words I Can Use In Front of Mom. Since Buffy had to go to bed before the show, I taped it for her, and all three of us re-screened it this evening, with me exhorting Buffy throughout to blog the thing, and Buffy telling me I’m better at long, analytical take-downs than she is (which is totally wrong; she’s way smarter and more analytical than I am, which is one of the things I adore about her). I argued that if I blogged the show, I’d end up with thirty paragraphs consisting of nothing but what I snarled at the screen, over and over: “Hateful sow! Hateful sow!” — directed, of course, at the anti-gay, terminally cognitive-dissonant B-word, “Kati,” from Fullerton, California (Heart o’ the Hateland), who can’t break through her bubble of utter wrongness and dimwitted bigotry disguised as What God Says to admit that her stubborn, numbskulled, Dark-Ages christendom is absolute bullshit when confronted by two fantastic men raising four good boys who would otherwise be languishing in some crap-hole of a foster home.
Hear that, Kati Whateveryourlastnameis? You are a hateful sow, and you make me thank the god I don’t believe in that I spent mere months living in Orange County, California’s magnet for sickening bigots like you. (You also make me thankful I was raised Catholic — Catholics look positively bohemian next to Mormons. Of which Kati is one. Of the most hopelessly brainwashed variety.)
As I commented on the excerpt Joe.My.God put up on YouTube:
I can’t decide who the more hateful sow is — “Kati” or that pr*ck Sprigg. Or maybe it’s the screwed-up daughter compelled to wreak vengeance of on her father (for… whatever) by airing her own neuroses over her father’s gayness, and slamming all gay people in the process. Hateful, hateful, hateful, stupid, and mean-spirited.
Now, Kati, you hateful sow, go pull a Sally Kern or an Ann Barnett and tell us all how hurt and surprised and shocked you are when people call you on your most un-Jesus-like dogmatism. May your fragile bubble of cognitive dissonance blow up in your proud, ugly face. And let me know when you want me to call the waaahmbulance.
(See, Buffy? I told you I couldn’t blog that show without dissolving into “Hateful sow! Hateful sow!”)
And those lies presented by the Farcical Research Council that GLAAD is (and I am) pissed about? That was nothin’ compared to the screwed-up daughter of a gay man, who was given the stage to wreak vengeance on her old man by slamming the gay community at large. Another hateful sow. And FX didn’t have the decency to counter her obvious exercise in airing dirty laundry, ’cause, like, maybe, she’s just an astoundingly annoying attention-seeker no shrink in the world would put up with for five minutes, so she has to bash Daddy Dearest on national TV and make the whole gay world look like a bunch of freaks. (That’s what I think.)
Speaking of Mormons, a straight, married Mormon ally has this to say to the LDS church. If we believed in his god, we’d thank Him for him.
We Love Antonio Villaraigosa (and not just because he took his ex-wife’s name)
L.A. mayor solid on gay marriage: With the clink of champagne glasses, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday became the latest politician to preside over the marriage of a same-sex couple, uniting a Hollywood producer and his five-year companion in a short ceremony at City Hall. …
Click the link and read how some religious wingnut called the “Angel of the Trinity” disrupted the ceremony.
Today in Anti-Gay Violence
Four Arrested After Anti-Gay Assault at Flagstaff, Arizona Pride: Two men, one of whom was a worker for Equality Arizona, were assaulted outside a Pita Pit restaurant in downtown Flagstaff, Arizona following the city’s “Pride in the Pines” festival. The attackers preceded their attack with anti-gay slurs…
Second Man Guilty In Murder Of Gay Author: (West Palm Beach, Florida) The second of two men charged in the 2006 murder of Alan Shalleck, the collaborator of the “Curious George” books and TV series, has been found guilty by a West Palm Beach jury. …
Today’s Anti-Gay Creep Forced to Be Nice Story
SC School Begrudgingly Allows Gay Club: (Irmo, South Carolina) A high school whose principal announced he would resign rather than allow a gay student club to meet on campus will gets its club after all. …
LOL-A-Palooza of the Day
Limbaugh: ‘Democrats will bend over’ for blacks and gays: On Monday, radio talk host Rush Limbaugh opined that, while Republicans will abandon their conservative voter base, Democrats are willing to “bend over, grab their ankles, and say ‘Have your way with me’” for the “kook-fringe base” backed by billionaire George Soros. …
Wishful projection, Rush?
Why We Need Full, Federal Marriage Equality, Part 849,284,223,197
Czech Government Bans Anti-Gay Protests: (Prague) Authorities have banned two anti-gay rallies that were to have taken place Saturday to coincide with an LGBT pride march in Brno, South Moravia. The parade is billed as the first gay pride march in Czech history. …
June 10, 2008 - 3:00 pm ET (Athens) Three islanders from Lesbos told a court Tuesday that gay women insult their home’s identity by calling themselves lesbians.
The plaintiffs — two women and a man — are seeking to ban a Greek gay rights group from using the word “lesbian” in its name.
Also known as Mytilini, Lesbos was the home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love among women. It is a major travel destination for gay women.
The Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece “causes confusion by using a geographic term in connection with (the group’s) special character and social action,” said Dimitris Papadelis, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
A spokeswoman for the group accused the plaintiffs of homophobia. …
I accuse the plaintiffs of homophobia, too — and supreme headuptheassism.
What can I say? My heart swells with gratitude — while my anger swells at the disgusting, revisionist lies of Holocaust deniers (like Scott Lively) that are allowed to spread.
But no anger now. Just gratitude, and admiration for a country with the courage and humility to acknowledge the starkest genocide of the twentieth century — and to recognize the slaughter of and atrocities inflicted upon the homosexual “undesirables”:
BERLIN (Reuters) — Germany unveiled a monument to the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis, whose laws were used to prosecute gay men for a generation after World War Two.
Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, who is openly gay, hailed the grey, concrete memorial as a long overdue acknowledgement of the repression of homosexuals, 50,000 of whom were convicted by Nazi courts during Adolf Hitler’s 12-year dictatorship.
“The monument consecrated today is a reminder to us of the horrors of the past and draws our attention to the degree of discrimination that currently exists,” Wowereit said.
“Great efforts will still need to be undertaken before the sight of two men or women kissing here or in Moscow or elsewhere on the planet is accepted by society in general.” …
Nazi authorities ordered the castration of some gay men, and sent thousands more to concentration camps, many of whom were murdered or died from hunger and disease.
Until 1969, when the centre-left Social Democrats headed a government for the first time since the Weimar Republic, Nazi laws continued to be applied to prosecute homosexuals. …
EU Should Insist on Reforms to Counter Persisting Inequality and Abuses
ISTANBUL — May 22 — Turkey should urgently change law and policy to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from extensive harassment and brutality on the streets, in homes, and in state-run institutions, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch also called on the European Union to make Turkey’s membership aspirations contingent on ending endemic abuses and guaranteeing equal rights and protection for LGBT people.
The 123-page report, “‘We Need a Law for Liberation’: Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights in a Changing Turkey,” documents a long and continuing history of violence and abuse based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Human Rights Watch conducted more than 70 interviews over a three-year period, documenting how gay men and transgender people face beatings, robberies, police harassment, and the threat of murder. The interviews also exposed the physical and psychological violence lesbian and bisexual women and girls confront within their families. Human Rights Watch found that, in most cases, the response by the authorities is inadequate if not nonexistent.
“Democracy means defending all people’s basic rights against the dictatorship of custom and the tyranny of hate,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “Where lives are at stake, Turkey needs to take concrete action and pass comprehensive legislation to protect them.”
In recent years, Turkish authorities have repeatedly harassed human rights defenders and civil society groups working on issues of gender and sexuality. Most recently, on April 7, 2008, police raided the offices of Lambda Istanbul, a nongovernmental organization that has advocated for LGBT people’s rights for over 10 years. The police justified the incursion by claiming the organization “encourages” and “facilitates” prostitution. The Istanbul Governor’s Office has also filed a lawsuit trying to close down Lambda, arguing its name and objectives are “against the law and morality.” Lambda will once again have to defend its right to exist before the Beyoðlu 3rd Civil Court of First Instance on May 29, 2008.
The report examines a wide range of human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Several transgender people told Human Rights Watch how police tortured and raped them. One gay man recounted how another man stabbed him 17 times in an attempted murder that still remains unsolved. A lesbian couple described how their parents used violence to try to separate them; when they turned to a prosecutor for help, he refused, questioning them instead about their sex life. Human Rights Watch also found that, in a flagrant violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Turkish military continues to bar gay men from serving in its forces. At the same time, Turkey withholds any recognition of conscientious objection to military service. Some objectors must instead identify themselves as “sick” — and are forced to undergo humiliating and degrading examinations to “prove” their homosexuality.
The report acknowledges that there have been some positive changes in Turkish law and policy as the country attempts to join the European Union. However, it also calls on the EU to insist on respect for LGBT people’s basic rights as a barometer of Turkey’s human rights progress.
Turkish law offers no express protections for LGBT people’s universal human rights. In 2005, Turkey reviewed some of its laws to bar discrimination, a move meant to show Turkey’s commitment to European Union standards. However, Turkey has yet to adopt a comprehensive antidiscrimination law that conforms to EU standards.
“In the complex path toward European Union accession, this report points to an area where little or nothing has changed,” said Long. “The EU must fully incorporate issues of sexual orientation and gender identity when considering Turkey’s application for membership.”
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