Gay/Lesbian News

A study finds that countries whose people enjoy more freedom tend to be happier. A study finds that countries whose people enjoy more freedom tend to be happier. Who knew? The legalization of gay marriage might make Californians happier. At least that's what a new study based on surveys of 350,000 people in nearly 100 countries suggests. No, the authors aren't gay activists, nor do they seem to be peddling any particular political agenda. But in their search to discover which countries are happier than others and why, these scholars -- led by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart -- have stumbled on one pretty fundamental conclusion about what people want out of life: freedom. Yes, that's right, more or less the same thing you were celebrating Friday by scarfing down hamburgers next to the pool in your brother-in-law's backyard. How exactly, you ask, is gay marriage connected with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? It's simple. more

Fred Barnes knows just how to revive John McCain's listless presidential campaign -- gay-bashing his way to victory by more strongly emphasizing his desire to frustrate the goals of gay and lesbian Americans who want to serve their country in uniform or get married to people they love. There's perhaps no better time to recall that McCain guru/lobbyist Charlie Black used to be a Jesse Helms guy and liked his race-baiting campaign tactics.

THE Archbishop of Wales is to chair a controversial conference featuring the world’s first openly gay bishop, at a time when the issue of homosexual clergy threatens to divide the Anglican Church. As news of the conference emerged last night, traditionalists in the Anglican Church said the move would be closely monitored by church officials in the Southern Hemisphere. The election of Bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, in the US, has sparked a crisis which has pitted traditionalists against liberals. The event will be held a week before bishops from around the world gather for the Lambeth conference, held once a decade. more

It's difficult and downright painful for many of us to fathom how Californians could, by vote, repeal the hard-won right of gay couples to marry. more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a worrisome report late last month on a jump in newly diagnosed HIV cases among young gay men. From 2001 to 2006, such cases among all gay males ages 13 to 24 rose by 12%, which was ominous enough. But the steepest increase was among young gay blacks -- up 15%, compared with 8% for young gay Latinos and 9% for young gay whites. Dr. Wilbert C. Jordan, medical director of the OASIS Clinic at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center near Watts, confirms the increase on the ground. In the last 15 months, the HIV clinic has gone from treating one teenage patient to treating 47. This month the clinic will begin a program on Saturdays just for adolescents. Jordan expects to have 100 teenage patients before the end of the year. Many of his patients are kids who got kicked out of their homes for being gay or experimenting with sex with another boy, Jordan said. So, he said, they went to West Hollywood, prostituted themselves for food, contracted HIV and now are back in South Los Angeles, infecting their friends. more

Barack Obama's presidential campaign sent an email to its supporters on Sunday, to thank them for making a significant impact during Pride month. The campaign's website offers some of the best photos from Pride events all over the country...

LGBT Anglicans and their allies can use a new website - Letters to Lambeth - to join in the Lambeth Listening Process.

Launched by Oasis California, the LGBT Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of California, the project has been endorsed by these bishop: The Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus of the Diocese of California, the Rt. Rev. John Chane, Rt. Rev Gregory H. Rickel, Diocese of Olympia; the Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith of the Diocese of Missouri, the Rt. Rev. S. Todd Ousley of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan and the Rt. Rev. Otis Walker of the Diocese of Long Island.

From the Windsor Report forward we have heard calls for what is called “The Listening Process,“ meaning a deep, Communion-wide attentiveness to the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people.

We believe belief that forwarding the listening process is a work that needs to be engaged by all of us who think it would be valuable, rather than for us to wait for some entity to take up the work for us.

You can use the Letters to Lambeth site to send either a public or a private letter.

I travel frequently for my job, so I've been in this situation before. In the best cases, answering this question opens the door to a discussion, regardless of whether the person supports the idea of gay parents raising children.

But occasionally, the passenger next to me responds with silence. That's what happened this time. He looked at me, blinked and then sat back in his seat, staring straight ahead. Finally he grabbed the magazine in the seat pocket in front of him and opened it. His body language, roughly translated, meant, "I did not buy a perfectly good seat on this airplane so that I could sit next to some lesbian."

Getting them there physically is very difficult, because it's hard for them to get passports and visas. Many of them can't get jobs because they are gay—or in the case of straight allies—because they are sympathetic to the GLBT cause. The British immigration people don't care why they are jobless -- they just won't let them in if they don't have a job to return to.

So the idea for a Voices of Witness Africa video, similar to the Voices of Witness 2006 video produced by Louise Brooks for Claiming the Blessing, emerged. It seemed a natural way to bring the African witness into the Lambeth context. But raising money takes time, and the first bloc of funding didn't arrive until the first of June.

Rowan Williams has been too compliant in the face of the Church's conservatives and homophobes

All eyes now turn to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Is there anything he can do about these Focas?

His track record isn't all that encouraging. Since this crisis began, Dr Williams has been bending over backwards to accommodate evangelical demands. Despite his progressive instincts, he reversed his support for the gay cleric Jeffrey John becoming a bishop and then decided that he would not invite Bishop Gene Robinson to the forthcoming Lambeth conference. Time and again, the Archbishop has given in to conservative ultimatums in the search for unity. And all that happens is that they come back for more.

A traditionally inclusive church like the C of E is especially vulnerable to infiltration by extremists. For the whole point of being inclusive is that all are welcome. It's a natural openness that is currently being exploited by those who have no love in their heart for the very inclusivity that allows them in in the first place. Even more so than the Labour Party in the 1970s, the English church is vulnerable to entryism. If fundamentalist Christianity were allowed to take over the Church of England, it would gain unprecedented access to national government through its role as the established church. The prospect of a state church, determined to convert Muslims, should set off huge flashing red lights in every corridor of power. In America, the separation of church and state creates a firewall between fundamentalist religion and state power. We have no such protection.

Rowan Williams is a good and holy man with an impossible job. He has a deep care for the worldwide church, especially in the poorer parts of Africa. But the current crisis needs him to care more about the condition of the Church of England. The open space that is the traditional mark of the English church is being undermined by a determined minority of well-funded extremists. It is time for him to fight back.

Reverend Dr Giles Fraser is vicar of Putney

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rough some 3,000 articles on this site. Google Custom Search July 06, 2008 Barnes Advocates Gay Bashing Strategy For McCain Conservative political commentator Fred Barnes is advising Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain to exploit gay issues as a strategy to win the White House in the fall election against Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama. On Fox News Sunday, the Weekly Standard executive editor and The Beltway Boys co-host, said he believed McCain needed to use the issues of gay marriage and “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” - the military's policy baning gays from serving openly in the Armed Forces - to rally conservative voters. “Here's what he needs to do, he needs to touch on some of the social issues which energize the right... In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do, but backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain's going to have to use. You can't ignore the right. If he does, he'll loose,” Barnes said. more

HIS only crime was to be gay. For that he was half-drowned, brutally beaten and then fell into a coma. He survived, escaped from jail, fled his country and eventually arrived, exhausted and bedraggled, here in Scotland. And now the Government wants to send him back. Syrian Jojo Jako Yakob last night pleaded with the Home Office to reverse a deportation order and spare him the certain death he believes he will face if he returns to his country. "I wish to claim asylum and I wish to stay here in Scotland," he said. more

Stonewall staff, accompanied by the charity’s co-founder Sir Ian McKellen, visited British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for half an hour this morning. A range of issues were discussed including the work that Stonewall does through its Education for All programme tackling homophobic bullying in Britain’s schools. “We were delighted to have the opportunity to talk through forthcoming legislative proposals,” said Ben Summerskill, Stonewall chief executive. “The Prime Minister also offered his full support to the work we’ve been doing in tackling homophobic bullying in Britain’s schools. “He promised that the government wanted to do more in this area. He clearly had a really good understanding of the damage that bullying can do to young people and their life chances,” Mr. Summerskill added. Ian McKellen commented: “For the Prime Minister to see a group of Stonewall staff on this particular day was a hugely welcome gesture.

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Photo: Prime Minister Gordon Brown with the staff of Stonewall and the charity's co-founder Sir Ian McKellen.

A 20-year-old diver set to represent Australia at the 2008 Olympic Games in August has said that the country's Prime Minister is "narrow-minded" for opposing marriage equality for gay couples. more

A more open-minded populace is coming of age. The term freethinker comes to mind and has been tossed around for ages. Thomas Jefferson was a freethinker.

In the United States all religions are equal and none have more say than any other. Ie: some of you Christians need to get off your high horse!

In 2007, when the first Muslim was elected to Congress he was sworn in using a Quran which once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

A thug who chopped a gay man's face with a machete in a homophobic attack has been jailed for seven years.

Sending Rashad Cooper to prison yesterday, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves warned that such crimes of hate will not be tolerated in Bermuda.

BACKSTORY

Historically when times are not good in this country the blame tends to fall on the party that holds the White House.

With the terrible economic news of factory closings in the heartland, and numbers on home foreclosures, joblessness and gas prices heading upward everyday, many folks in this country are feeling pretty dissatisfied some Republicans are getting out the matches and lighting up the Gay Reichstag Fire again.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom filed papers to create an committee for a possible bid for California governor in 2010.

The blogs are buzzing with news regarding the death of Jesse Helms.

Of course the media makes him sound like some kind of saint. Obviously they have decided to ignore much.

Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.”

In 1993 he sang “Dixie” in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, “I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries.”

It was a black, stretch-velvet dress that outed Shawn Fowler at the age of 14. Hours earlier, the sexy number had been tucked secretly away in his bedroom -- along with a wig, lipstick and mascara.

Hours earlier, the sexy number had been tucked secretly away in his bedroom -- along with a wig, lipstick and mascara. Yet there was his sister, sashaying through his grandparents' house, only she was donning the frock. "That was the catalyst that started me talking to my family about being gay," Fowler, now 29, recalled.

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