In Anti-Gay Crackdown, Tanzania Suspends U.S.-Funded AIDS Programs

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency and the emboldening of Christofascists and haters in general that has been a key part of Trump's campaign has not just LGBT Americans terrified.  LGBT communities overseas, especially in Africa and Muslim nations are worried that the new regime will usher in an end to America's stance in support of LGBT rights and the decriminalizing of homosexuality.  Based on what is happening in Tanzania, such fears appear to be completely justified. For years American Christofascists have been exporting anti-gay extremism to developing nations and brainwashing the locals into believing that homosexuality is a colonial import to their countries when the truth is just the opposite.  Anti-gay beliefs and penal code provisions were imported to those nations by - you guessed it - Christian missionaries who were obsessed with imposing Victorian sexual mores on the inhabitants of their colonies.  As noted in many previous posts, wherever the missionaries went tolerance, if not full acceptance of homosexuality, was brutally stamped out, with those involved in same sex relations being executed and/or imprisoned.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the anti-gay jihad underway in Tanzania.  Here are highlights:

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — East African nations have launched some of the world’s most vicious campaigns against gay men and women, outlawing same-sex liaisons and threatening punishments of years in jail.

But in a move that has alarmed health workers, Tanzania is turning its anti-homo­sexual fury in a new direction — targeting HIV/AIDS programs that have helped tame a disease that once ravaged the region.

Last month, the minister of health announced that Tanzania will ban HIV/AIDS outreach projects aimed at gay men, pending a review. That forced the closure, at least temporarily, of U.S.-funded programs that provide testing, condoms and medical care to gays. About 30 percent of gay men in Tanzania are HIV-positive; now health workers say that figure could rise.

Tanzania’s actions appear to mark the first time that a country has suspended parts of the United States’ hugely successful foreign HIV/AIDS initiative in an attempt to crack down on the gay community. 

The ban comes after months of bitter speeches and threats from Tanzanian officials aimed at the gay community and at organizations treating its HIV/AIDS patients. This year, police raided two U.S.-funded HIV/AIDS organizations and seized confidential patient information and supplies, officials said. In September, the deputy minister of health, Hamisi Kigwangalla, accused HIV treatment organizations of “promoting homosexuality.”

People convicted of same-sex liaisons in Tanzania can be jailed for up to 30 years.

The health minister, Ummy Mwalimu, explained in a statement last month that officials had suspended HIV/AIDS outreach programs for gay patients to review whether they promoted same-sex relationships.

“In the short term, there are people who won’t go to [health] service centers, and if they aren’t on antiretrovirals, what happens? It’s a major concern,” said Warren Naamara, a doctor who is the director of the U.N. program on HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, referring to the drugs that suppress the virus.

PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, launched by George W. Bush with bipartisan support, has become one of the most important U.S. assistance programs ever in Africa. Tanzania is an example of its success. Since 2002, the overall HIV/AIDS rate in the country has declined from 12 percent to 5 percent. The number of people receiving treatment has grown in the past five years from 289,000 to over 700,000.

But even as assistance programs have sharply reduced the death toll from AIDS, some countries in eastern Africa have been escalating their campaigns against homosexuality. . . . This year, a Kenyan high court ruled that “anal tests” aimed at determining people’s sexual orientation were legal.

[S]ince John Magufuli was elected president last year, the government’s tolerance on the issue has disintegrated. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values.

U.S. officials said they are hopeful that the outreach programs will soon be restored, noting that the health minister has said the government is considering which HIV services would be appropriate for the gay community. But members of that community are pessimistic.

“It’s clear that the government doesn’t care whether we live or die,” said one 22-year-old gay man who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of punishment.

The take away?  That religion - especially those of the Abrahamic tradition - are a pestilence on society.  The embrace of ignorance and hatred of others are the twin pillars of all three variations.  Judaism and Christianity devolve from myths written by ignorant unknown authors  while Islam traces to a man who nowadays would be permanently locked up in a psych ward.   Yet, we still give deference to these so-called faiths.  Why?  

The Myth of "White" Christianity

As white supremacists rally to Donald Trump - including those masquerading under the smoke screen of "Christian" family values organizations such as Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and American Family Foundation - one myth being peddled is the myth of "White Christianity" that ignores the historical roots of Christianity.  Likewise, it ignores the reality that wherever white Europeans took Christianity, it more often than not coincided with the elimination or enslavement and exploitation of native populations and the sometimes ruthless suppression of indigenous religions. Indeed, even papal declarations supported slavery.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this myth that ignores the death and destruction that went hand in hand with the spread of Christianity by European missionaries and conquerors.   Here are excerpts: 

On the first day of the Republican National Convention congressman Steve King suggested that white people had been responsible for humanity’s greatest achievements including, among other things, the spread of Christianity.

King argued: “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about? Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?” When he was pushed about whether or not he meant Caucasians, King responded, “Than western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States of America, and any place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world.”

King is woefully underinformed about the contributions to human knowledge made by non-Caucasians. He seems to think that “Western Civilization” is monolithic and white. He is willfully blind to the way that the accomplishments he is focused on were often achieved using non-white slave labor or financed using natural resources stolen from colonized peoples. Is it really a “white accomplishment” if it is financed and earned by non-whites? 

Perhaps the most egregious error here is the assumption that Christianity was spread by white people. Because if Christianity is the linchpin in his view of history and accomplishment, I have some bad news for him.

Jesus and the twelve disciples were all Jews who lived in ancient Palestine. The majority of Jesus’ first followers were fishermen from the Galilee region. In movies and in European artwork Jesus is regularly portrayed as Northern European, but this doesn’t make it so. No matter how hard Megyn Kelly argues this point. On the basis of skeletal remains, physical anthropologists estimate that the average first-century Galilean male was around 5’ 4” and 136 pounds. If we take ancient style as our guide they are likely to have sported dark hair and a beard, and possessed deeply tanned skin.
 Paul, the self-appointed “apostle to the Gentiles,” was originally from Tarsus, an ancient university town in what is now south-central Turkey. He was a Roman citizen, which more than his race guaranteed him higher social status in the world of Jesus’ day. But like the other apostles he was likely to be a darker-skinned Mediterranean Jew. 

Augustine, Catholic saint and arguably one of the most influential thinkers in human history (to say nothing of Christian theology), was also not white. He was born and lived the majority of his life in North Africa. A more accurate (albeit extremely flattering) portrait of him can be found on the John Nava tapestries in Los Angeles. He looks a lot more like Denzel Washington than you probably imagined.

The truth is that if what King means by white and western is European and pale (put otherwise, people Donald Trump might allow to immigrate here), none of the first followers of Jesus or many of the key figures in the first four hundred years of the Christian Era would qualify. These are the people without whom Christianity wouldn’t exist.

Pride and Understanding LGBT History

It's Pride weekend here in Hampton Roads, Virginia and wonderful events are planned that will go on despite the horror that occurred last weekend in Orlando,  Yes, the police presence will be significantly increased and local offices of federal offices will likely be involved.  Yet again, among the information/recruiting booths on Saturday's main event will be the CIA.  Times have truly changed in some ways, but in others, much needs to be done.  Today, the June issue of VEER Magazine hits the streets and includes my column on "Pride and Understanding LGBT History."  I hope you will check it out.  Here are brief excerpts:  

June is Pride month and once again Hampton Roads Pride Fest will take place in downtown Norfolk’s Town Point Park.  This year’s event is on June 18.  The event now rivals the largest festivals in Norfolk and some have said that only Harbor Fest is larger.  When I first came out in mid-life, few could have envisioned how mainstream, if you will, the LGBT community has become.  Back then, same sex relationships could get you a felony conviction under Virginia’s sodomy statute.  My first Pride event was in 2003 and the venue was a hidden back portion of Lakewood Park.  Perhaps a few hundred were in attendance.  Fast forward to 2016, and the crowd this year could approach 20,000 people.  Pride is a time to be proud about one’s self, but also about LGBT individuals across the globe and throughout time.

This sea change in acceptance and visibility did not happen overnight and much work still remains to be done in Virginia and across America, not to mention across the globe.   Yes, through Supreme Court decisions and hard fought legislative victories, the sodomy laws used to persecute gays in Virginia are no more, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now on the trash heap of history and same sex marriage is legal across the nation.  But, employment non-discrimination protections, housing non-discrimination and other protections remain non-existent under Virginia law and in roughly 28 other states.  Organizations such as Hampton Roads Business Outreach (“HRBOR”), the local gay and gay friendly chamber of commerce, HR Pride, and Equality Virginia continue to strive for full LGBT equality in the business community and under Virginia’s civil laws.

Indeed, members of the LGBT community are everywhere, in every culture and throughout history.  Peruse a page and Wikipedia on “LGBT history” and one quickly sees that be it ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, pre-Columbian America, Persia, Japan, China and even India, same sex relations were tolerated, if not always fully accepted.  Just a few notable LGBT individuals from history as compiled by The Bilerico Project  . . .

A wonderful source to learn more of this hidden history is a book entitled “The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies,” the end product of over ten years of historical research.  My husband and I received a copy as a gift from is two friends – both historians – who gave a dinner party us as a “wedding gift.”  As noted above, the book concludes that acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality on the part of much of society historically have been the norm – just as it is in many other parts of the animal kingdom – and that it was the rise of the Roman Catholic Church that lead to homophobia as we know it today. 

So how did this happen?  In a nutshell, the Catholic Church’s bizarre abhorrence of all things sexual that developed in the Middle Ages that was spearheaded by so-called Church fathers who were obsessed with all things sexual, and who were, in my view, mentally disturbed to say the least. 

Thankfully, this religious based tide of animus and ignorance is subsiding, but horrors continue to be inflicted on LGBT individuals by both “godly Christians” and Islamic fundamentalists.  Meanwhile, those of us fortunate enough to live in America and Hampton Roads have much to be proud about and can look at our history with pride.  If you have never attended, consider coming to Pride Fest.

Shooter's Father Dishonestly Claims Killings Had Nothing to Do With Religion

UPDATED: the shooter in last nights slaughter of 50 innocent people last night called 911 as the massacre began and pledged allegiance to ISIS - a group documented to be murdering gays in the Middle East because of their failure to conform to fundamentalist Islams anti-gay beliefs.  Thus, this attack was ALL ABOUT TOXIC religion and demonstrates the dishonesty of the shooter's father who claimed otherwise.  This from CNN:

Mateen called 911 around the time of the attack to pledge allegiance to ISIS and mention the Boston bombers, according to a U.S. official.

"It appears he was organized and well-prepared," Orlando Police Chief John Mina said early Sunday. The shooter had an assault-type weapon, a handgun and "some type of (other) device on him."

There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack on jihadi forums, but ISIS sympathizers have reacted by praising the attack on pro-Islamic State forums.

As for the Lt. Governor of Texas, posting indicating that the victims got what they deserved for failing to conform to Leviticus, underscores the hate that underpins both fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam.  Both are evils that need to be eliminated from the world.

ORIGINAL POST: One of the most dishonest things said so far in the aftermath of the horrific mass murder in Orlando overnight is the statement by the shooter's father that the deliberate massacre had "nothing to do with religion."  I beg to differ.  If one tracks the history of homophobia, it tracts directly back to the Abrahamic religions, and specifically the ignorant writings of the Old Testament that carried over into Christianity and Islam.  Indeed, in most parts of the world, same sex relations and even transgender individuals were tolerated if not accepted.  That change due to the efforts of Christian missionaries Islamic conquerors.   Homophobia and anti-gay violence ultimately ALWAYS has something to do with religion.  NBC News quotes this dishonest liar:

Mir Seddique, Mateen’s father told NBC News, “this has nothing to do with religion.” Seddique said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago and thinks that may be related to the shooting.

As I said, we need to burn every Bible and every Koran and erase all knowledge of them from the memory of mankind.   

Why Does Gay Sex Scare Modern Muslims?

This blog has often noted that the raging homophobia in African nations reflects the ignorance of the populace as to true history of their own societies where homosexuality was accepted or at least tolerated.  A piece in The Daily Beast makes a similar case with Islam which in its so-called Golden Age was tolerant and strikingly different from the horrible thing it has become under Islamic fundamentalists.  The irony - as is the case with African nations such as Uganda - is that while fundamentalist seek to rebel from western values, homophobia was largely a British import.  It was Britain and the foul Christian missionaries that spread across the empire that brought homophobia to much of the world (American Christofascists now seek to maintain the bigotry as they lose power in America).  Here are article highlights:

LONDON — Half of British Muslims say being gay “should be outlawed.” Thus ran theheadline in London’s Sunday Times this week. Even more opposed gay marriage, while almost half thought it was unacceptable for a gay or lesbian to teach their children.

These findings from an ICM poll will be presented in a Channel 4 documentary, What British Muslims Really Think, airing this Wednesday. The show will portray the growing divergence between mainstream Britain and its Muslim communities.

Poll after poll of British Muslims has revealed statistically significant levels of illiberal opinion. Polling methodology and data may contain errors, as some critics note, but this is only scientifically rectified by more data, not by defensive posturing. A 2009 poll by Gallup found that 0 percent of Britain’s Muslims believed homosexual acts to be morally acceptable. What previous polls have shown us time and again is more of the same. This latest ICM poll asked a slightly different question, about whether homosexual acts should be legal rather than viewed as morally acceptable. Despite half saying no, this time 18 percent did say being gay should remain legal. Progress? Well, if our baseline was zero, there could only ever be progress.

Such numbers ought to prompt an urgent conversation about why Europe is having trouble integrating its Muslim communities. And it is likely that the answer, in part, relates to rising neo-fundamentalist approaches to scripture among Muslims.

There was a time when it was not like this.

Traditionally, Islam was open to exploring beauty and sexuality, especially when Islamic culture flourished and Europe was in what were known as the Dark Ages. The Prophet Muhammad taught that “God is Beautiful, and loves Beauty.” The 11th century Andalusian scholar Ibn Hazm wrote “The Ring of the Dove,” a treatise on the different stages of love, including some rather explicit real-life stories.

It is true that many early Muslim scholars condemned homosexuality, and cited scripture to justify their position. But the themes of love and sexuality have been debated and discussed by Muslim theologians and artists for centuries. The word “homosexuality” is not even used in the Quran. In fact, it did not exist in the Arabic language. The modern Muslim conclusion that homosexuality is “unnatural” is therefore not based on anything in scripture.

The chapter of al-Nur (Quran 24:31) specifically recognizes “men who are not in need of women.” As the context of the passage shows, these are men who are not attracted to women. They may have been gay or asexual, but, by definition, they were not heterosexual men. They are also not judged or condemned anywhere in the Quran. The Prophet’s own example shows that he accepted men living around him who were called “Mukhannath,” seen to be “acting like women.”

This subtle early recognition grew to a point where it was open within the courts of various caliphs in the Muslim Golden Age. Abu Nuwas (756-814) was one of the greatest classical Arab poets. He flourished during the start of the Abbasid era Golden Age (750-1258), based in Baghdad. 

As was normal during this period, sexual roles were only imagined in terms of active and passive participants, not as gay or straight sex, and what we would today describe as homosexuality was clear and present in this society.

Many other excellent classical Muslim poets wrote in homoerotic tones, including the Persian Ibn Dawud (868-909), Andalusian Ibn Quzman (1080-1160), and the Arab Sicilian Ibn Hamdis (1053-1133). Lovemaking manuals are also to be found, such as The Perfumed Garden (al-Rawd al-Atir fi Nuzhat al-Khatir) by the Tunisian Shaiykh Muhammad ibn Umar al-Nafwazi, between 1410 and 1434, and The Book of Respective Merits of Maids and Young Men (Kitab Mafaharat al-Jawari wa al-Ghilman) by the prolific al-Jahiz (777-869).  Later on still, Omar Khayyam (d. 1126) set the tone for sexuality in his Quartets(Ruba’iyyat), and Sa’di of Shiraz (1184-1291) graphically discusses his love of young men. 

But as prudish Victorian values spread from Europe to the Middle East through colonialism, and as 19th century neo-fundamentalist Wahhabism began to take hold in the Arabian peninsula, and as 20th century Islamism gained ground, spreading from Egypt around the globe, censorship, misogyny and homophobia began to spread among Muslims worldwide.

Despite this diverse history, homosexuality is forbidden today in almost every modern Muslim-majority country, while censorship, homophobia, and misogyny reach worryingly high levels.

Previous Orientalist assumptions that fetishized Eastern sexuality have given way to a new form of generalization that accepts as normal the overbearing religious conservativism that has swept across Muslim-majority societies.

For too long, populist demagogues, xenophobes and racists have been able to use coded language about intolerable Muslim intolerance to argue that Muslims have no place in Europe. We must begin to discuss these issues with courage and candor, rather than trying to pretend there is no problem, or shying away from the difficult conversation we all must have around the non-integration of Europe’s Muslims.

In this way, if we are able to bank the progress that has been made, admit to the progress that is yet to be made, and throw open the conversation for all to participate, perhaps, just perhaps, we will be able to pull the rug out from under the feet of populists who want us all to believe that the only good Muslim is a deported Muslim.

But the only way to achieve this is by owning the conversation, not fearing it, nor by ceding it to those who seek to use these depressing survey results for their altogether different aim.

Sadly, like conservative Christianity, much of Islam has come to celebrate and embrace ignorance as it tries to war against modernity and its own past (it wasn't until the 12th and 13th centuries that psychotic and mentally disturbed "Church fathers" began their war on same sex love). 

Indian MP Vows to Continue to Fight Anti-Gay Bigotry

Opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor

India threw off British rule decades ago after World War II, yet like parts of Africa that continue decry colonialism, India cannot throw off the shackles of repressed and attitudes toward sexuality and sexual orientation imported by the fanatical Christian missionaries.  The irony, of course is that nowadays conservative Hindus support anti-gay attitudes not realizing that such attitudes are the result of British rule, not indigenous native attitudes.  As noted before, the scholar work "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies" documents the fouls work of Christian missionaries across the globe in supplanting acceptance of homosexuality.  There are some in India who recognize the need to reject this imported societal poison.   One such individual is opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor who vows to continue the fight for LGBT equality and the repeal of anti-gay laws dating to British colonial rule.  a piece in Reuters looks at his efforts.  Here are highlights:

An Indian politician campaigning for gay sex to be legalised said on Monday he would continue his fight for the freedom and equality of sexual minorities despite attempts by members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party to thwart his efforts.

Opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor in December introduced a private member's bill in India's lower house of parliament seeking to amend a British colonial era law which punishes homosexual sex with up to 10 years imprisonment.


Normally opposition comes at the discussion stage, you don't prevent a bill being introduced by a private member, its uncollegial if nothing else," Tharoor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

"But they did that and they succeeded, partly because prejudice sadly is still there in our society."
Seventy four members voted against the bill, said Tharoor, 21 in favour and one member abstained, making it impossible for him to even attempt a debate on the contents of the bill.

India's top court reinstated a ban on gay sex in 2013, ending four years of decriminalisation that had helped bring homosexuality into the open in the conservative country.

The law, which dates back to 1860, prohibits "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal."

Activists say that since the ban on gay sex was reinstated, there has been a surge in reports of gangs, as well as police, intimidating, harassing, raping, blackmailing and extorting money from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

There are no official figures on the number of cases. Most go unreported, say activists, as victims are too scared to report crimes to the police fearing Section 377 will be used against them. Tharoor said 578 people have been arrested since homosexuality was recriminalised.

Senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said he personally believes gay sex should be decriminalised, but lawmakers are fearful of losing support in their largely conservative and religious constituencies.

Tharoor, who was a minister in the former Congress-led government and also a former United Nations diplomat, said he was not giving up his fight for India's LGBT community.

A petition requesting Modi to amend the law has amassed around 25,000 signatures on change.org, said Tharoor, adding that he planned to reach out to sympathisers from the BJP and resubmit the bill in the next session of parliament in February.

"I think a debate will help actually sensitise the nation to the issue at stake. I have long argued that this is not about sex but about freedom. It's about our constitutional values," said Tharoor.  "It is indeed about getting the government out of people's bedrooms."

I have many clients originally from India many of whom know I am gay.  To them, it is a non-issue, perhaps in part because here same "godly Christians" who hate me hate them as well and view them as destined to Hell.  Ironically, a number of them want the husband and me to go to India with them sometime.  However, with Section 377 still on the books, I would be apprehensive. Repealing Section 377 would not only be a triumph of freedom, but also a potential boon to tourism.

Japanese Buddhist Temple Officiates Gay Weddings - A Return to Tradition?

One of the great ironies of Japan is that homosexual love was once considered honorable - even superior to heterosexual love - although to maintain the family line, males would have wives and families.  The ideal of homosexual love was most honored and distinguished among the Samurai class.   Yet nowadays, most Japanese know nothing of this documented history.  An article published at St. Thomas University notes as follows:

The people of the West are not aware that there once existed in Japan a cultural tradition of homosexuality comparable to that of ancient Greece. During a period of time in which the traditional civilization of Japan reached its perfection, the homosexual love was considered a passion more noble and more gracious than heterosexuality. Over time, this tradition of homosexuality would quickly become discouraged, and eventually it was kept so hidden as it was thought to have disappeared altogether.

The tradition of male on male love was greatly encouraged within the samurai class. It was considered useful to boys in teaching them virtue, honesty and the appreciation of beauty. While at the same time the love of women was often devalued for its so called 'feminising' effect.

This tradition greatly flourished in the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries. The samurai deemed boys aged thirteen to nineteen suitable for love. This is called wakashu-do (or shudo for short), which means the way of the youth or more literally, the way of the young men. There seems to be definite distinction amongst samurai homosexuality and general homosexuality in Japan. The samurai preferred a young man as supposed to a young boy, and the relationship was between the samurai and his pupil. 

The decline of shudo started with the westernization of Japan. At the end of the industrial revolution, homosexuality had disappeared from the social realm. Even today, the Japanese only speak of it as a deficiency or a sexual anomaly. This is a direct result of the anti-homosexual society that has been established, as it was in Europe. Modern writers and historians purposely hide this tradition from foreigners, as they do from the Japanese themselves. They have deemed it an ancient dishonor, and a sign of underdevelopment of Japanese society.

With the introduction of western thought and the Christian ideal of homophobia, no one remembered that at the time of Japan's greatest glory, the traditional Japanese arts of No and Kabuki were homosexual theaters linked with prostitution. That what was called the flower of the samurai spirit and formed the real basis of the samurai aesthetic was shudo, the love of young men. We now understand that it is impossible to understand the traditional civilization of Japan without taking into account these predominant homosexual traditions.

What changed all of this?  The Christian missionaries and eventually Japanese leaders who sought western approval and did not want to be looked down as "uncivilized." Now, a Buddhist Temple is beginning to conduct same sex weddings.  Here are highlights from Towleroad:

The Shunkoin Temple in Kyoto, Japan has become the first zen Buddhist temple offering to officiate symbolic same sex weddings within the country. Japan’s views on homosexuality and gender nonconforming individuals is a complex one. Despite artistic cultural exports that sometimes Japan as being a socially progressive society in regards to gender and sexual expression, the country still struggles with broad legislation that would ensure LGBT equality.

A Pew poll conducted in 2013 found that Japanese citizens, while divided on the issue, were slightly more inclined to agree with the idea that homosexuality should be accepted by society. Nevertheless, change has been gradual.  “It’s not like we have to keep tradition the way it is,” Takafumi Kawakami, a priest at the Shunkoin Temple said in an interview with CNN. “We welcome every couple regardless of their faith or sexual orientation.”

“Japan still has no LGBT protection laws, lawmakers aren’t even talking about it,” said LGBT activist Maki Muraki. “If more people come out and get married, it’ll increase LGBT awareness, marriage equality, and workplace equality.” 

The Castration of Alan Turing, Britain’s Code-Breaking WWII Hero

I continue to be pissed off that the movie "The imitation Game" about gay WWII Hero Alan Turning still is not playing anywhere in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.  Virginia truly needs a law like that just enacted in California that mandates the teaching of gay history in public schools.  Of course, enacting such a law in Virginia will remain impossible as long as the Republican Party of Virginia remains a bunch of sniveling whores who willingly prostitute themselves to The Family Foundation and its allied hate groups which seek to turn back the clock to the 1950's both in terms of gay rights and civil rights for minorities.   Two pieces underscore why this movie needs to be shown nationwide in all communities.  The first comes from Queerty and reveals the thoughts of Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Turning in the movie.  Here are excerpts:

The feeling you have for the man after getting to know him through the duration of the film is really exacerbated by the frustration and anger, not just at the injustice served him, but also at the fact that, why don’t I know this story? It seems unbelievable that someone who is a war hero, someone who is the father of the modern computer age — and a gay icon — could remain in such relative obscurity to the scale of his achievements in his brief time on this planet. 

One of the main reasons I was really attracted to playing him was to try and bring his story to as wide an audience as possible. It still seems unfathomable to me that Turing is not on bank notes; that he’s not on the front cover of a textbook. I’m serious. I mean, Newton and Darwin are on bank notes for Christ’s sake. 

This man, as acknowledged by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and other titans of the digital age… was the forefather of modern computing. He was an extraordinarily important man. I just think he should be celebrated as a social-cultural hero as well as someone of extraordinary importance in the scientific and modern worlds.”

Pretty strong words, but 100% on point.  The reason for Turning's obsurity can be spelled out in one word: religion.  The Christofascist and their willing prostitutes censor anything and everything that might expose the lies of their anti-gay propaganda and sick religious beliefs.  A second piece in The Daily Beast follows up on earlier post on the injustice done to Turning.  Here are highlights:

The Imitation Game, the new movie in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays the prodigal computer pioneer Alan Turing, opens an uncomfortable window on the still-festering swamp of British sexual behavior. When I saw the movie in London there was a palpable frisson of disgust from the audience on learning how Turing had been treated by the country he had served with enormous distinction in World War II.

In 1952, Turing was found guilty on three counts of “gross indecency contrary to Section II of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885”—a law that had its first sensational effect in the trial of Oscar Wilde.  Turing had not contested the charges—he gave an explicitly detailed admission of them. He had invited a 19-year-old drifter named Arnold Murray to his house and they had had consensual sex.

Murray had not made a complaint—Turing had triggered a police investigation himself by reporting a petty burglary at his house that, it transpired, had been carried out by an acquaintance of Murray’s.

Turing was given the choice of either prison or submitting himself to the officially mandated nostrum of the day: “cure” by what Turing himself described as “organo-therapy,” chemicals believed to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. He was prescribed a course of hormone pills that caused him to grow breasts and rendered him impotent.

I realized that the effect of this barbarity on the movie audience around me was a measure of how distant the world of such a moral regime now seems.

Turing’s term of probation ended in April 1953. In the final months of his treatment, the doctors ended the course of pills and inserted an implant of hormones into one of his thighs. Correctly suspecting the effects would be lasting, Turing removed it, although by then the fundamental physical effects were irreversible.  Despite the publicity the case brought to them, Turing’s employers at the University of Manchester appointed Turing a Readership in the theory of computing that guaranteed him work for at least ten years.

Nonetheless, Turing killed himself on June 7, 1954, in a deliberately prepared way, by eating a cyanide-laced apple.

What happened to Turning was horrible - I would dare say criminal and monstrous - but what is disturbing is the realization that Turning was but one of countless hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of gays tortured and/or killed over the centuries thanks to the poisonous beliefs disseminated by Christian missionaries around the globe.  As noted in prior posts, the book "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies," demonstrates that acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality on the part of much of society historically have been the norm - just as it is in many other parts of the animal kingdom - and that it was the rise of the Roman Catholic Church that lead to homophobia as we know it today.  The beliefs of the Christofascists and the Vatican need to be shown for the lies that they are and defeated and thrown on the trash heap of history where they belong.

Native Americans - The Other Side of Thanksgiving

Putting aside the fact that the first Thanksgiving took place at Berkeley Plantation here in Virginia on December 4, 1619, rather than in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, there is another whole side of Thanksgiving that most will not reflect on today: that of Native Americans.  While popular culture and school room drawings this time of year reflect on the assistance that Native Americans gave to the Massachusetts colonists, nothing is said about the fact that those same colonists would soon launch a campaign of genocide and land theft against the same Native Americans that helped them survive.  Worse yet, that genocide would eventually become national policy for the new American nation.  Along with this agenda was the campaign against the two spirited Native Americans whom the godly Christians viewed as an abomination.  A piece in Gay Star News looks at this other side of what Thanksgiving means.  Here are highlights:

[F]or many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is not a cause of celebration, but rather a national day of mourning, remembering the real significance of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 as a symbol of persecution and genocide of Native Americans and the long history of bloodshed with European settlers.

And in a supposedly more enlightened, if not ‘post-racial’, you would think that television images of whites doing ‘war whoops’ and ‘tomahawk chops’, coming across your screen were buried and long gone with its troubled era of Native American relations in this country.

I am also reminded of my Two-Spirit Native American brothers and sisters who struggle with their families and tribes not approving of their sexual identities and gender expressions as many of us do with our families and faith communities.

Homophobia is not indigenous to Native American culture. Rather, it is one of the many devastating effects of colonization and Christian missionaries that today Two-Spirits may be respected within one tribe yet ostracized in another.

‘Homophobia was taught to us as a component of Western education and religion,’ Navajo anthropologist Wesley Thomas has written.

‘We were presented with an entirely new set of taboos, which did not correspond to our own models and which focused on sexual behavior rather than the intricate roles Two-Spirit people played. As a result of this misrepresentation, our nations no longer accepted us as they once had.’

Traditionally, Two-Spirits symbolized Native Americans’ acceptance and celebration of diverse gender expressions and sexual identities.

They were revered as inherently sacred because they possessed and manifested both feminine and masculine spiritual qualities that were believed to bestow upon them a ‘universal knowledge’ and special spiritual connectedness with the Great Spirit.

The term Two-Spirits was coined in the early 1990s. Prior to this, Different indigenous peoples had specific words for Two-Spirits. In Lakota they were wíŋkte and nádleehé in Navajo. Today, the term has come to include all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex Native Americans.

The Pilgrims, who sought refuge here in America from religious persecution in their homeland, were right in their dogged pursuit of religious liberty. But their actual practice of religious liberty came at the expense of the civil and sexual rights of Native Americans.

And the Pilgrims’ animus toward homosexuals not only impacted Native American culture, but it also shaped Puritan law and theology.

Because the Pilgrims’ fervor for religious liberty was devoid of an ethic of accountability, they acted without moral liability and legal justice. They brought about the genocide of a people, a historical amnesia of the event, and an annual national celebration of Thanksgiving for their arrival.

As we get into the holiday spirit, let us remember the whole story of the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers to the New World.

It is in the spirit of our connected struggles against discrimination that we can all stand on a solid rock that rests on a multicultural foundation for a true and honest Thanksgiving.

And in so doing, it helps us to remember, respect, mourn and give thanks to the struggles not only our LGBTI foremothers and forefathers endured, but also the ongoing struggle our Native American Two-Spirit brothers and sisters face everyday – and particularly on Thanksgiving Day.

Sadly, wherever they went be it the Americas, China, Japan or Africa, the Christian missionaries took their hatred and bigotry against LGBT individuals with them and caused the elimination  of long cultural acceptance of same sex love.  Just as is the case today, for the "godly folk," religious freedom has always meant depriving others of their rights and freedoms.  Selfishness and hypocrisy are two words that spring to mind. 

The Sad State of Gay Rights in Africa

In most countries in Africa, the term "gay rights" describes something that is almost nonexistent.  Gays face persecution in the majority of Africa's countries and Mauritania, Sudan and Nigeria have death penalties for gays.  While corrupt governments claim homosexuality is a western import, the truth is that homophobia is the true western import that was brought in by the British and fanatical Christian missionaries.  Sadly, given Africa's largely uneducated population (a prerequisite for religion to thrive), new waves of Christofascists are finding the continent to be fertile ground for their message of hate as they steadily lose the culture wars in America and the educated west. As has been the case so often in the past, religion works to prop up despotic regimes.  The Advocate looks at the abysmal state of affairs in Africa.  Read the entire piece for all the depressing details.  Here are excerpts:

Homophobia thrives in most countries in Africa, making the continent an oppressive place to live for countless LGBT people. 

Months after Uganda's Constitutional Court overturned its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which prescribed life in prison for many instances of gay sex, nearly identical legislation returned — this time in the Gambia.

In October, Chad took up a sweeping bill that calls for 20-year prison sentences for those percieved to be LGBT. 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to institutionalized hatred for lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people in Africa.

Apparently, the Chadian government didn't get the memo about the international and financial impact Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act had on that nation during the six months it was in force, before being overturned on a technicality in August by the Constitutional Court in the capital city of Kampala.

After Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed the act into law in February, the east African nation became the target of international criticism and saw nearly $200 million in aid donations from Europe and North America vanish. Gone in a matter of weeks were substantial portions of government aid contributions from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and by March, the U.S., which also canceled a scheduled military exercise between U.S. and Ugandan armed forces. By summer's end, the White House announced that it would deny visas to certain Ugandan officials, that it was scuttling plans for an HIV and AIDS research program at a Ugandan university, and that the country would no longer be the location for a planned $3 million health institute in east Africa.

Now, however, with a foreign policy portfolio bulging at the seams and antigay legislation on the African continent looking more like a potential back-burner issue, those same human rights groups aren't taking any chances. Groups such as Amnesty International and Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights First are urging the president and the State Department to use the Uganda experience to similar effect in Chad.

"Following the U.S.-Africa Summit in August, where President Obama met with African heads of State to discuss strengthening economic and democratic ties between the United States and Africa, it is time that the United States make clear that the future of these bilateral relationships will be damaged by the enactment of antigay legislation," says HRF's advocacy counsel for LGBT rights, Shawn Gaylord. "We hope that the State Department will respond deliberately, as it did when Uganda passed its antigay law, with a plan to respond to the passage of these bills."

Three African nations expressly call for capital punishment for those convicted of same-sex sexual contact, often labeled a "crime against nature," "sodomy," or, in a nod to the colonial origins of such harsh antigay laws, "buggery." Those nations are Mauritania, Sudan, and Nigeria. 

A staggering 32 countries in Africa criminalize same-sex sexual contact with jail time: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

How to Help
There are currently two bills before the U.S. Congress that aim to prioritize the protection of LGBT people worldwide as a key facet of U.S. foreign policy initiatives, explains HRF's Gaylord.

"The International Human Rights Defense Act would establish a Special Envoy on LGBT rights in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the State Department, ensuring global LGBT rights remain a key foreign policy priority," Gaylord tells The Advocate. "The Global Respect Act would ban foreigners who have committed or incited basic human rights violations against LGBT individuals from entering the United States."

Human Rights First recommends three ways for Americans who care about LGBT equality to pressure the government to act against homophobia in Africa:

"American LGBT people and allies can call their congressmen, congresswomen, and senators and ask them to support these two important pieces of legislation," Gaylord says. "There is also a petition online sponsored by the American Jewish World Service that asks President Obama to appoint a Special Envoy on Global LGBT Rights."

Finally, says Gaylord, "local human rights groups and LGBT community groups in Africa are always in need of additional support from the international community. People can reach out to them directly to find out the best ways to become involved."