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Friday, Aug 29, 2008
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Rex Wockner |
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| International News | |
| LARGE ANTI-GAY RALLY
IN MADRID Tens of thousands of Catholics rallied in Madrid's Plaza de Colón Dec. 30 in support of the "traditional" family and against same-sex marriage and easier divorce. Cardinal Antonio Cañizares conducted a mass at the gathering and Pope Benedict XVI addressed the ralliers via video link . Cañizares said the liberal policies of Prime Minister José María Rodríguez Zapatero threaten the very existence of society. The pope said the family is "based on the unbreakable union of man and woman." Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005. Organizers pegged the rally's turnout at 1.5 million. "These atheist, irreligious governments want to make us believe that our life has no meaning," one of the organizers, Kiko Argüello, told Reuters. Spain holds a general election March 9. In recent polling, Zapatero's Socialist party held a 2 percent lead over the conservative Popular Party. In response to the rally, Zapatero said his policies are supported by the "vast majority" of Spaniards and that the Roman Catholic Church should stop attempting to curtail citizens' constitutional rights. MCKELLEN BECOMES COMPANION OF HONOUR Openly Gay actor Sir Ian McKellen was made a member of the prestigious Order of Companions of Honour in Queen Elizabeth II's New Year honors. The order, founded by George V, has only 65 members. McKellen, who has been a knight since 1990, was honored "for services to Drama and to Equality," and now can place the initials "C.H." after his name. "I am honored to join an order which includes such distinguished practitioners in the arts," McKellen, 68, said. "It is particularly pleasing that 'equality' is included in my citation." Other members of the order include Sir John Major, Dame Judi Dench, Sir David Attenborough and Prof. Stephen Hawking. CANADIAN BILL WOULD PROTECT TRANSGENDER PEOPLE Canadian Member of Parliament Bill Siksay has introduced a bill to ban inciting hatred or advocating genocide against Transgender people, the Vancouver Gay newspaper Xtra! West reported. Gays have had such protections since 2004. The bill would add "gender identity" to the list of distinguishable group traits in the Criminal Code. The measure also gives judges leeway to impose harsher sentences for crimes motivated by "bias, prejudice or hate" based on gender identity. Siksay, who is Gay and represents a Vancouver-area district, said Canadian "Transgender and Transsexual people are regularly victims of abuse, harassment and physical violence." Only one of Canada's 13 provinces and territories -- the Northwest Territories -- explicitly prohibits anti-Trans discrimination. NEW BOLIVIAN CONSTITUTION NOT ALL GOOD FOR GAYS Although the final wording of Bolivia's planned new constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, the document also will ban same-sex marriage, defining matrimony as the union of a man and a woman, according to a report in La Paz's La Prensa. The definition also would apply to common-law marriage. If the constitution is ratified in a national referendum, Bolivia will become the sixth nation to ban anti-Gay discrimination via its constitution, and the first to protect Transgender people constitutionally. Gay groups called the planned protections a huge advance, but lamented that the document might impede recognition of same-sex partnerships. The other nations that protect Gays constitutionally are Canada, Ecuador, Fiji, South Africa and Switzerland. Sweden's constitution, in a section on press freedom, prohibits agitation and threats against Gay people as a group. ONLINE HOMOPHOBES PROSECUTED IN THE NETHERLANDS A Dutch man who was subjected to a barrage of homophobic abuse in an online chat room took a printout of the attack to police and got the offenders prosecuted, Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported Dec. 31. Franklin Hill, a 32-year-old flight attendant, was bashed with comments such as "Dirty faggot," "Death to fags" and "The Third Reich should be resurrected." A court determined that such language is illegal and sentenced one of the bashers to 15 hours of community service and fined another one 750 euros ($1,100). "The fact that they now know they can't just say what they want in a chat room, and that they didn't get away with it, gives me satisfaction," Hill told the radio station. "You just have to do something about it when people do something like this," he said. "There are enough laws and legislation to take on discrimination and threats." BISHOP: 13-YEAR-OLDS PROVOKE SEXUAL CONTACT The Roman Catholic bishop of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands is in hot water for saying that 13-year-olds seek sex with adults, according to TypicallySpanish.com. In a Christmas Eve interview with the newspaper La Opinión de Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez said, "There are 13-year-old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what's more, wanting it, and if you are careless, they will even provoke you." Álvarez added that such activity harms society the same as homosexuality does, and said cultures where either takes place will pay a price down the road like "other civilizations" paid. Álvarez's office later released a statement saying he had not meant to suggest that "an event as condemnable as the abuse of youngsters" could be justified. The Triángulo Canarias Foundation for the Social Equality of Gays and Lesbians condemned Álvarez's remarks. CANADIAN STUDENTS TARGET GAY BLOOD BAN The Canadian Federation of Students is stepping up its opposition to Canada's ban on blood donation by any man who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977, CanWest News Service reported Jan. 3. Federation spokeswoman Amanda Aziz said the ban is outdated and "a form of institutionalized discrimination." Opposition to the ban has provoked renewed organizing at the University of Toronto and McGill University in particular, the report said. A spokeswoman for Health Canada called the policy "science-based" and said men who have sex with men are not the only individuals targeted. People who visited the United Kingdom or France between 1980 and 1996, for example, also are banned from donating blood, because they may have a type of mad-cow disease. Canadian Blood Service said it is continuing to study the issue. Current HIV testing can detect infection within days of its taking place. |
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| picture - Bill Siksay |
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| Quote/Unquote | |
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| by Rex Wockner -
SGN Contributing Writer "I actually quit my job to do the show because they wouldn't let me take a leave. I honestly don't know what to do now. I don't know. We'll see." -Gay Mormon Todd Herzog, winner of this season's Survivor, to AfterElton.com, December 17 "Absolutely. Why not? People are competent because - not with anything to do with their sexual orientation. I had people who are homosexual who worked for me in the governor's office." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee when asked on CNN December 17, "Could a Gay be in your administration?" "[I] probably would let the military make that decision [on whether to keep Don't Ask, Don't Tell]. One thing I don't think you need is a president who's trying to tell the military how to run the military, other than set broad policy agenda." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to CNN, December 17 "It's not because I don't like them [that I oppose same-sex marriage]. It's because I like even more the idea that the heart and soul, the essence of our civilization is in the family. It's not in the government. It's not even in some institution, not even the church. Before there was the church, and before there was government, there was family. When you mess with the design, you end up messing with results. We can't afford to do that. That's why you will never hear me waver." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaking to voters in Iowa, December 22 "I don't know whether people are born that way. People who are Gay say that they're born that way. But one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice. We may have certain tendencies, but how we behave and how we carry out our behavior [is the issue]." -Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on NBC-TV's Meet the Press, December 30 "Poor Mitt Romney just can't flip without flopping. In a cynical ploy to win over social conservatives, Romney has beat a well-documented retreat from a whole host of moderate positions, including a number of Gay rights issues. ... How ironic that a man who wears his faith - albeit in generic Christian form - on his sleeve turns out to be the biggest moral relativist in the race from either political party." -Syndicated Gay-press columnist Chris Crain on his blog, citizenchris.typepad.com, December 27 "Let me ask you something. As mayor of New York, would you live in an apartment with three Gay guys? I'm not Gay. I don't hate Gays. But I don't want to live in an apartment full of them. They'll bitch and cry and all. That doesn't bother Giuliani. It doesn't bother Giuliani to put a dress on to do Saturday Night Live. I don't trust him. I don't think he's electable. ... Why do you break up with your wife and move in with Gay guys?" -Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt to Vanity Fair, December 20 "[W]e can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't." Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan on John Edwards, December 28 "It's just as well I'm Gay. If I was straight, I'd be a hopeless mad movie star who fucks everything that moves. That's what I'd be like - married to every single girl that I'd worked with, on wife number 10 by now, always being sued for divorce because I'd been caught with two chicks somewhere. ... Or I'd be like a rapper - three girls at the same time, coke, orgies, yachts. I would be a monster, actually. I'd have to be competitive on a lad level with all those other male movie stars. I'd probably be an alcoholic, too. Mind you, I'd have made a lot more money - 20 times more money, probably." -Actor Rupert Everett to London's Telegraph, December 9 "I was always a girl that dated guys and then I shot Two Girls in Love and was dating a guy and then I had a relationship with a woman. I thought, I can't say I'm straight anymore, that would just be a lie. I looked for other relationships with women and they didn't happen. I don't know if that's because I'm shyer with women. And then ultimately I met my husband and got married. I wish I had met more women. I guess people can define my sexuality however they see fit, but I mostly just don't define it." -Actress Laurel Holloman, Tina on Showtime's The L Word, to the national Lesbian magazine Curve, January/February issue "Coming out, coming out, coming out. That's the only thing I've ever done, really. That's what it can say on the gravestone. That will be the obituary." -Actor Sir Ian McKellen to the BBC, December 29 "Let's be clear: we have lost this war. We have lost because the initial, central goals of the invasion have all failed: we have not secured WMDs from terrorists because those WMDs did not exist. We have not stymied Islamist terror - at best we have finally stymied some of the terror we helped create. We have not constructed a democratic model for the Middle East - we have instead destroyed a totalitarian government and a phony country, only to create a permanently unstable, fractious, chaotic failed state, where the mere avoidance of genocide is a cause for celebration. We have, moreover, helped solder a new truth in the Arab mind: that democracy means chaos, anarchy, mass-murder, national disintegration and sectarian warfare. And we have also empowered the Iranian regime and made a wider Sunni-Shiite regional war more likely than it was in 2003. Apart from that, Mr. Bush, how did you enjoy your presidency?" -Gay writer Andrew Sullivan on his blog, December 17 "Who is the most annoying celebrity? Rosie O'Donnell - 44%. Paris Hilton - 24%. Ann Coulter - 16%. Heather Mills McCartney - 12%. Perez Hilton - 4%." -From the results of Parade magazine's 2007 Year-End Pop Culture Poll, which quizzed 2,000 readers of the magazine's website. "There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. ... We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America." -From The New York Times' New Year's Eve editorial. "The State prohibits and punishes any form of discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious creed, ideology, political affiliation or philosophical beliefs, marital status, economic or social status, type of occupation, level of education, disability, pregnancy, or other factors that have the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of the rights of everyone." -From Article 14 of the finalized text of Bolivia's planned new constitution, the first in the world to protect Transgender people and only the seventh to protect Gay people. With assistance from Bill Kelley |
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