Despite the grave dangers gays and lesbians face in Iran, some brave activists there photographed themselves making a statement of gay Pride on International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) back on May 17. (The full slideshow is here.) Iran was one of a number of countries unfriendly to LGBTs that had participants, including Algeria, Burma and the United Arab Emirates. [Care2Care].
There aren’t enough gay Republicans in the world, so heterosexual hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer is giving $1 million to fund a super PAC that will expressly lobby for marriage equality on the federal level. American Unity PAC will, in part, help deflect some of the financial fallout politicians will feel from taking a pro-gay stand. “There’s a feeling among some people that the Republican party is harsh on some things,” says Singer, a major GOP back with a gay son. [Politico]
As Parliament debates the legalization of gay marriage, Conservative MP Liam Fox announced that only a ‘metropolitan elite” were pushing for it. “I think that the vast majority of the public have a completely different set of priorities from what I would call the metropolitan elite and I think they will be looking for economic and social issues to be dealt with first.” Oddly, Fox was forced to step down as Secretary of State for Defence last year after his unusual relationship with a much younger man surfaced. [Telegraph]
In Dublin, gay rights group LGBT Noise is protesting outside the 50th annual International Eucharistic Congress, which began Sunday. The Congress, a religious gathering, includes Roman Catholic clergy and lay leaders and involves large open-air Masses and devotional ceremonies. (More than 25,000 people are expected at Friday’s closing ceremonies.) “Church leaders lobby governments to prevent LGBT people’s civil rights,” read a statement on the group’s website. “Civil marriage equality… is a civil right not a religious rite. If Catholic leaders want nothing to do with same-sex marriage, they don’t have to have one.” [Irish Central]
Clockwork
>Despite the grave dangers gays and lesbians face in Iran, some brave activists there
>photographed themselves making a statement of gay Pride
Courage, 110% courage;
May our brave brothers and sisters in Iran soon experience the freedoms we have in America, Canada, and Europe.
me2
@Clockwork who wrote: “May our brave brothers and sisters in Iran soon experience the freedoms we have in America, Canada, and Europe.”
If you are referring to “rights” in general, I agree…but if you are referring to full civil rights protections for the GLBT community…well, the equation comes out a little differently.
—- Canada, definitely…Europe, selectively…America, sparsely.
But, at least they don’t execute us anymore here in the USA, or make it a twenty year prison sentence like what was legal in the state of Georgia just a few years ago before the Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court decision striking down anti-gay sex laws throughout the USA. I suppose that’s some progress. That and we can marry in a few states even though the federal government doesn’t recognize those marriages as legal. But we’re heading in the right direction.
Clockwork
@me2:
>If you are referring to “rights” in general, I agree…but if you are referring to full
>civil rights protections for the GLBT community…well, the equation comes out a little
>differently.
>—- Canada, definitely…Europe, selectively…America, sparsely.
I knew this was coming!!!!
You folks hate America, and I love you for it!
billywingartson
@me2:
thje cray types like in georgia are getting nuttier all the time. Look out for the battle fo the bulge (when their pants bulge when they say gay) and the next holy inquisition of torture and murder by the German pope who also hates jews (ps – gays shared hitlers ovens with the Jews, estimated ata bout 15000
NYtimes link re holocaust denier bishop williamson UNexcommunicated by RATZInger
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/world/europe/25pope.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all