Will the World Wake Up to the Climate Change Threat?

Despite all kinds of scientific evidence that climate change is real, many Republicans and that party's toxic base of support continue to deny climate change is real and that the world is facing an existential threat. With Australia literally in flames, polar ice melting at a rapid rate and record temperatures hitting large parts of the world, the question is whether or not the world and nations like the United States will at last make needed policy changes to lessen the coming climate disaster. A piece in New Yorker looks at evidence that ought to convince anyone sentient that something must be done.  Here are article highlights:

In a Dantean sort of way, Australia’s holiday-season infernos provided a fitting close to 2019, which has been called “the year the world woke up to the climate crisis.” In India this past summer, a heat wave killed more than a hundred people in the northeastern state of Bihar, and in Japan a month later a heat wave sent an estimated eighteen thousand to the hospital. All-time temperature records were set in France, where a high of a hundred and eight degrees was reached in the town of Vérargues on June 28th, and in Germany, where the mercury in the town of Lingen hit a hundred and seven degrees on July 25th.

In Australia, records were broken only to be rebroken. On December 17th, maximum temperatures across the entire country, which is roughly the size of the continental United States, averaged 105.6 degrees. Then, on December 18th, they climbed to 107.4 degrees. The “feeling when you open the oven door” is how one Australian described the heat to the BBC. “It’s like that, but just the whole time.” Globally, it was the second- or third-warmest year since accurate measurements began.

What will the twenty-twenties bring? In geophysical terms, this question is almost too easy to answer. Temperatures will continue to rise. It’s virtually guaranteed that the coming decade will be warmer than the twenty-tens, which were warmer than the two-thousands, which were warmer than the nineteen-nineties, which—you guessed it—were warmer than the nineteen-eighties.

And with still higher temperatures will come still greater damage. Droughts will grow more punishing. (Australia’s horrific wildfires are, in large part, the result of what Australians are calling a “big dry,” which is now in its third year and has forced many towns to truck in water.) Warmer air holds more moisture, so the flip side of drought is deluge. (Last week, as Australia was roasting, flooding in Indonesia killed at least forty people.) Meanwhile, the planet’s ice sheets will continue to melt, leading to ever-higher sea levels, as will the Arctic ice cap. It’s possible that by 2030 the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free at the end of the summer.

Which brings us to the question of what it means to “wake up.” If in the past year (or the past decade) the world began to understand how dangerous climate change is, it certainly didn’t act like it. In the past ten years, more CO₂ was emitted than in all of human history up to the election of J.F.K.

The Trump Administration, which has filed to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, and the Morrison government, which wanted to use an accounting trick to fulfill its Paris commitments, were explicitly blamed for the stalemate. Many commentators noted the irony of the situation. A headline in the Guardian put it this way: “AUSTRALIA TOOK A MATCH TO UN CLIMATE TALKS WHILE BACK HOME THE COUNTRY BURNED.”

[T]he twenty-twenties will be consequential in a more or less permanent way. Global CO₂ emissions are now so high—in 2019, they hit a new record of forty-three billion metric tons—that ten more years of the same will be nothing short of cataclysmic. Unless emissions are reduced, and radically, a rise of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) will be pretty much unavoidable by 2030. This will make the demise of the world’s coral reefs, the inundation of most low-lying island nations, incessant heat waves and fires and misery for millions—perhaps billions—of people equally unavoidable.

Really waking up, and not just dreaming to ourselves that things will be O.K., has become urgent—beyond urgent, in fact. To paraphrase Victoria’s fire authority: The world is in danger, and we need to act immediately to survive. 

Threat of Rising Sea Levels Could Be three Times Worse

Street scene as Hurricane Irma hits the Miami area Sept. 10, 2017.

Living in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia - like many areas on the East and Gulf coasts - where tidal water is everywhere, causes most residents (other than perhaps Trump supporters on slowly drowning Tangier Island) to grasp that climate change and the attendant sea level rise is a real threat to the region's way of live, not to mention property values.  Meanwhile, the Trump/Pence regime continues to roll back regulations aimed at slowing climate change - as well as clean air and clean water protections - to the cheers of much of the Republican Party.  As new studies reveal, while the GOP and its ignorance embracing party base deny that climate change is real, the problems facing mankind are likely far worse than previously estimated.  Here are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:

Rising seas will be much worse and more expensive to deal with than previously thought, new research finds, not because of faster changes in sea levels but because of an increase in estimates of the number of people living on low ground.

The upshot of the study is that 110 million people worldwide live below the high-tide level — including many partly protected by sea walls or other infrastructure, as in New Orleans. Even under a scenario of very modest climate change, that number will rise to 150 million in 2050 and 190 million by 2100.

If climate change and sea level rise follow a worse path, as many as 340 million people living below the high-tide level could be in peril, to say nothing of how many could be affected by floods and extreme events.

Such figures are three times — or more — higher than earlier estimates.

The reason for the big change is that prior research has relied on data about coastal elevations that comes from radar measurements from the 2000 space shuttle Endeavor mission. But that data set has problems. The instrument detected the height not only of the coastal land surface but anything else that was on it, such as houses and trees. This introduced errors in land-elevation estimates averaging about 6½ feet globally, the new study says.

The new study uses the more accurate U.S. measurements as a guide, training an algorithm to apply similar adjustments to the global data set from the space shuttle. This is where the much higher numbers for exposed populations come from, with the biggest changes in exposure coming for countries in Asia. . . . “We are talking about hundreds of millions of people who will be directly exposed.”

The changes are certainly very large. The study estimates that 110 million people live below the current high-tide level vs. an estimated 28 million for the older data set. About 250 million people would fall below the level of the worst yearly flood, the study says, up from the previous estimate of 65 million.

If key instabilities kick in in Antarctica, 480 million people would be exposed to an annual flood in 2100.

The findings are worst for Asia, notably in China, Bangladesh and India. In the worst-case scenario, 87 million, 50 million and 38 million people in these countries, respectively, would fall below the high-tide level in 2100.

The situation is, if anything, more ominous than these figures suggest, according to the World Bank’s Hallegatte. That’s because in addition to high-tide and annual worst-case flood events, there are major floods from hurricanes and other storms and disasters to consider, even if they do not occur every year. The impact of these severe events will be worsened and affect larger populations as seas continue to rise.

“Most dikes and protection systems have been built for the sea level of 50 years ago or more, and will be increasingly ill-designed to protect people against floods, leading to rapidly increasing coastal flood losses in the absence of large upgrades,” Hallegatte said. “Upgrading those systems will be expensive but is unavoidable if one wants to avoid unacceptable economic losses in large cities.”

“This new study suggests that a lot of the assessments published on climate change risks are underestimated and would need to be revised,” Hallegatte said.

How does one act to make a difference?  The first step is voting a straight Democrat ticket here in Virginia on November 5, 2019.   Virginia can send a shock wave through the GOP - and perhaps be a precursor to 2020 - by putting Virginia Republicans in minority status across the board. 

Economists' Fears of a 2020 Recession Surge

Trump brags about the state of the US economy but economists increasingly fear his economic policies are about to drive the economy into the ditch.  The main cause of concern?  Trump's insane tariff and trade policies that are already slamming many manufacturers and farmers and, if continued will also begin to hit consumers with steeply higher prices.  If these fears prove correct, I hope they hit early enough in 2020 so as to help purge Trump from the White House and lead to the defeat of numerous Republicans.  CNN looks at the economic forecast:

America's business leaders are growing more worried that the United States will enter a recession by the end of 2020. Their primary fear: protectionist trade policy.

That is the topline finding of a report released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics. The survey, based on responses by 53 economists, is a leading barometer of where the US business community thinks the economy is headed.

"Increased trade protectionism is considered the primary downwide risk to growth by a majority of the respondents," Gregory Daco, chief US economist for Oxford Economics, said in a statement. The report found what it called a "surge" in recession fears among the economists.

The report comes as the United States ratchets up its trade war with China and has gone after other major trading partners, including Mexico and India. The risk of recession happening soon remains low but will "rise rapidly" next year. The survey's respondents said the risk of recession starting in 2019 is only 15% but 60% by the end of 2020. About a third of respondents forecast a recession will begin halfway through next year.

The United States is probably somewhere in the last stages of an epic run of economic growth that began in 2009. Dramatic and coordinated responses by the Federal Reserve, Congress and the Obama administration helped pull the country up from the Great Recession.

Donald Trump, who took the reins of the US economy from Barack Obama in 2017, has aggressively tried to reorder the US position on global trade. He has picked prominent fights with China and Europe and has threatened tariffs on Mexico over illegal immigration and India over access to its markets.

Other notable findings from the National Association for Business Economics: 

-- 56% of respondents cited increasingly protectionist trade policy as the greatest risk to the US economy in 2019. Separately, 88% pointed to US trade policy, and retaliation by other nations, for why they lowered their GDP growth forecasts.

-- 14% believe a "substantial" decline in the stock market, and 10% feel a slowdown in global growth, are the biggest risks to the US economy.

-- Business spending will moderate this year and next after growing a strong 6.9% in 2018.

India Strikes Down Sexist Pro-Male Adultery Law

The Supreme Court of India is on a role.  First it struck down the British colonial era law (Section 377) criminalizing homosexuality.  Now, it has struck down a law (section 479) dating from the same era that imposed unequal adultery penalties on women and which protected male infidelity.  Ironically, the ruling comes on the eve of male U.S. Senate Republicans making it clear to all that they view women as inferior, not to be believed and existing only for the control and gratification of men.  While India's Supreme Court is moving quickly to push that nation to enter into the modern world, America under Republicans and their Christofascist masters is rapidly going retrograde and rushing to reimpose inequality.   The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court would be a huge step backwards for America.  A piece at CNN looks at the ruling in India.  Here are highlights:

India's top court has abolished a colonial-era law criminalizing extramarital sex, in a landmark ruling campaigners have hailed as a victory for women's rights.

Under the 158-year-old adultery law, known as section 479, a man could be imprisoned for up to five years for engaging in sexual relations with a married woman without the consent of her husband. The Supreme Court struck down the law Thursday, ruling it retrograde and discriminatory towards women.  "It's time to say that (a) husband is not the master of (his) wife," Chief Justice Dipak Misra, read out from the judgment. "Legal sovereignty of one sex over the other sex is wrong."

The five-judge bench was unanimous in its decision, declaring the law a clear violation of the fundamental rights granted in the constitution.

The law allowed a husband to prosecute any man who engaged in sexual relations with his wife. In addition, it prevented a wife from prosecuting either her husband or woman in which he was engaged in extramarital relations.  "You exact fidelity from a woman but not from a man?" asked Justice D. Y. Chandrachud during the four-day long hearing. "It is a big victory for women's status and position within marriage and within families" said Jayna Kothari, an attorney and the executive director of the Center for Law and Policy Research in Bangalore. "The adultery offense was used really as a threat against women by their husbands," she said, adding that it was mainly used where marriages had already broken down and partners moved on. The controversial law had long been championed by family rights campaigners, who argued that it was necessary to preserve social stability. The Indian government, a coalition led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, had supported adultery remaining a criminal offense, suggesting that rather than scrapping the law, it was amended to be gender neutral, with equal punishment for both men and women. However, in its ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed concerns that the abolition of the law would result in higher rates of infidelity.  "Each partner to a marriage is equally responsible to keep the sanctity of marriage intact," said the ruling.

It is the second ruling favoring sexual liberation in India this month following the repeal of Section 377, a colonial-era law criminalizing consensual gay sex.

Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down "Indefensible" Gay Sex Ban

Like so many places that the British colonized and where Christian missionaries took their anti-gay animus, India was subjected to the imposition of criminal penalties for same sex relations.  Also, like many other former colonies, India clung to anti-gay laws - many African countries are still doing so - bizarrely claiming that homosexuality was imported from the west when in fact it was anti-gay hate and religious bigotry that was imported.  Sadly, legislators in many such countries lacked the courage to challenge such idiocy and it has been left to the courts to end the anti-gay legacy of colonial rule.  Now, the Supreme Court of India has struck down that country's ban on homosexuality that dates back 150 years.  In a unanimous ruling, the Court deemed that archaic law irrational and indefensible.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on this most welcomed development:

India’s Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down one of the world’s oldest bans on consensual gay sex, a groundbreaking victory for gay rights that buried one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.

After weeks of deliberation by the court and decades of struggle by gay Indians, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the law was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

News of the decision instantly shot around India. On the steps of an iconic courthouse in Bangalore, people danced, kissed and hugged tightly, eyes closed. In Mumbai, India’s pulsating commercial capital, human rights activists showered themselves in a blizzard of confetti.

The justices eagerly went further than simply decriminalizing gay sex. From now on, they ruled, gay Indians are to be accorded all the protections of the Constitution.

“This ruling is hugely significant,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. With restrictions on gay rights toppling in country after country, the ruling in India, the world’s second-most-populous nation, may encourage still more nations to act, she said.

Still, however historic the ruling of the court, considered a liberal counterweight to the conservative politics sweeping India, gay people here know that their landscape remains treacherous. Changing a law is one thing — changing deeply held mind-sets another.

Much of this may also be true in other parts of the world. But what made India stand out from most — at least until Thursday — was its application of an anachronistic law drawn up by British colonizers during the Victorian era and kept on the books for 150 years.

The law banned sex considered “against the order of nature,” and thousands of people were prosecuted under it. But for gays in India, prison was only one of the risks. The law was often used as a cudgel to intimidate, blackmail and abuse.

In their ruling, the justices said homosexuality was “natural.” They also said that the Indian Constitution was not a “collection of mere dead letters,” and that it should evolve with time.

The court did not rule that the law being challenged, known as Section 377, should be excised altogether. It can still be used, it said, in cases of bestiality, for instance. But it can no longer be applied to consensual gay sex.

The justices seemed moved by the stories they heard from the petitioners about harassment, blackmail, abuse and persecution.  “History owes an apology to members of the community for the delay in ensuring their rights,” Justice Indu Malhotra said.

India has a complicated record on gay issues. Its dominant religion, Hinduism, is actually quite permissive of same-sex love. Centuries-old Hindu temples depict erotic encounters between members of the same sex, and in some Hindu myths, men become pregnant. In others, transgender people are given special status and praised for being loyal.

But that culture of tolerance changed drastically under British rule. India was intensely colonized during the height of the Victorian era, when the British Empire was at its peak and the social mores in England were austere.

In the 1860s, the British introduced Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, imposing up to a life sentence on “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” The law was usually enforced in cases of sex between men, but it officially extended to anybody caught having anal or oral sex.

Not surprisingly, those most be moaning and opposing the ruling were "Christian" groups, some likely bankrolled by American Christofascists who continue to export anti-gay hatred around the world. 

Donald Trump and the Call to Dehumanize Others

One thing that unites much of Donald Trump's base of support - especially the white supremacists and the evangelical Christians, although in my view, the two groups overlap to a great extent - is their hatred of those who are different.  Gays are target of their hate as are blacks, Muslims, non-Christians of every stripe, Hispanics, those born overseas.  They insist that they are the "real Americans," ignoring the fact that America was stolen from its original occupants through genocide or that some of those they deem "other" have ancestries in America that go back for many decades - or centuries - longer than their own.  Some of my own ancestors go back to New England prior to 1800 while others seem to trace back to Louisiana following the "Great Expulsion" of  French Acadians from Canada by the British during the 1755–1764 time-frame, but since I am gay, in the world of these people I do not rate "real American" status.  During his campaign, Trump called to the racism and simmering hate and has since incited violence against the media - CNN has increased security to protect its employees - and those who oppose his toxic agenda.  A piece in the New York Times looks at one of the victims of such hate, the wife of an Indian man murdered by "real American" in Kansas. With my large number of Hindu clients, the piece resonated with me and made me sad for what Trump and his followers are doing both to the country and to decent, hard working people who are just as human and deserving of life, liberty and happiness as anyone else.  Here are article excerpts (please read the entire piece):

Mr. Kuchibhotla, an Indian-born engineer, was confronted about his immigration status at a bar, then fatally shot. By the time the police arrived, Mr. Kuchibhotla was dying, and his close friend Alok Madasani was wounded. Another patron who tried to stop the attack was also struck by gunfire.

In some ways, what one man shouted in anger and one woman uttered in grief capture one of America’s most troubling intersections.

“Get out of my country!” the gunman would yell, before opening fire on the two Indian men he said he believed were from Iran.

The episode happened at dinnertime in America, in a neighborhood bar, part of a spasm of hatred uncoiling in small towns and big cities across the nation — and in rising numbers.

A month before the shooting, the Victoria Islamic Center in Texas was torched, destroying the mosque. A month after the shooting, a white supremacist traveled from Baltimore to New York City on a mission to randomly kill a black man. He did just that. The reason:a deep hatred of black men.

Ms. Dumala had wondered how the couple fit into this new narrative, if they should move to a different country, and once even asked her husband, “Are we doing the right thing of staying in the United States of America?”

The realization that her husband was killed because of intolerance, because he was not born in America, is what forced her to emerge from this personal, private hell. If people were to know the aftermath of a hate crime, the crater-sized void and endless questions left behind, if the victims were rendered as three-dimensional, maybe there would be less fear, less hate, she thought.

“My story needs to be spread,” she says plainly. “Srinu’s story needs to be known. We have to do something to reduce the hate crimes. Even if we can save one other person, I think that would give peace to Srinu and give me the satisfaction that his sacrifice did not go in vain.”

The best friends, more like brothers, were at Austins. Typically the two went with another close friend from the office, Manju Nag, but he had been out of town on business. That night, it was just Mr. Kuchibhotla and Mr. Madasani at their regular table on the patio, the one closest to the door, discussing Bollywood movies and drinking a pair of Miller Lites.

The assailant approached the friends. Witnesses recall him wearing a white T-shirt with military-style pins, his head wrapped in a white scarf. He was intent on finding out one thing: Did the men at the table belong in the country?

Adam W. Purinton, a white Navy veteran, turned to the two brown-complexioned men, both living in the United States for years, and demanded to know their immigration status.

Not long after, according to the authorities, Mr. Purinton returned to the bar with a handgun. He stood in the door entrance, pointed his gun toward the two men, and fired.

Mr. Kuchibhotla was hit first. Mr. Madasani, who had been sitting on the other side of the table, hit the ground, forced by a bullet, instinct or both. He crawled on his belly toward the opposite door. He thought the bullets were close by because the floor shook with each gunshot. “All I was thinking about at the time was about my baby, all I was thinking of was my wife’s belly,” said Mr. Madasani, whose wife was pregnant with their first child, a boy due in July. “In flashes, I was thinking, ‘I have to live.’”

Once outside, he realized he had been shot in the left leg. “I saw Srivinas on the floor, not moving. I kept on yelling to everyone, ‘Leave me, go and attend to him.’”

Mr. Grillot, the bar patron who had intervened earlier, chased Mr. Purinton into the parking lot. Mr. Purinton turned and shot him in the chest and hand.

Mr. Purinton, 52, was formally charged with premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of premeditated attempted murder. Last month, he was also indicted on federal hate-crime charges.

The term “hate crime” was being used over and over and by the police, journalists and politicians to describe the death of her husband. All of a sudden, Mr. Kuchibhotla was a hate crime statistic, an example to bolster anti-hate legislation  . . . . . 

This is not the America that I want to live in.  The majority of Americans I suspect do not either.  It is time we take back America from the bigots and haters. 

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Call for Statewide Sex Abuse Probes of Catholic Dioceses

The movie Spotlight won and Academy Award for the portrayal of the Boston Globes exposure of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston.  Meanwhile, Pope Francis' panel established to hold prelates accountable for cover ups seems moribund, and in India, the Church continues to hide sexual abuse crimes and seemingly pretend that they are not happening.  And, as noted before, United States and Ireland have topped the list in sexual abuse cases by Catholic clergy, but the list of countries with sex abuse scandals is lengthy and includes, but is not limited to Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Norway, Poland, US, Tanzania, and Philippines.  Given this track record and the recent explosive grand jury report out of Pennsylvania, some members of the Pennsylvania legislature are calling for investigations of every diocese in that state.  The Church has made it clear that it will not police itself. Such investigations should, in fact, be conducted for EVERY diocese in America.  Here are highlights from The Morning Call on the developments in Pennsylvania:

Breathing deeply to control his anger and shame over his childhood rape, a state lawmaker called on prosecutors and the Legislature to use the power of their offices to safeguard children and punish the Catholic Church and other institutions that protect sex abusers they employ.

For decades, the Catholic Church has shielded predatory priests, said Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, a victim of clergy abuse. The most recent evidence of those "systematic cover-ups," Rozzi said, is outlined in last week's state grand jury report that accuses two bishops overseeing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown of allowing at least 50 priests and other religious leaders to sexually abuse hundreds of children for decades.

It must end now, Rozzi said at a news conference Wednesday in the state Capitol.

Rozzi, along with Rep. Tim Murt, R-Montgomery, called on the state's 67 county district attorneys to conduct grand jury investigations into their local Catholic dioceses and set up phone hotlines to allow victims to step forward.

They want the Legislature to adopt Murt's bill, which would temporarily lift the civil law statute of limitations. The bill would provide a two-year window from the law's enactment for victims to file civil claims, no matter how old the alleged abuse and cover-up.

"For me, as most of you know, this is personal," Rozzi said.  When Rozzi was 13, he was raped by an Allentown Diocese priest, the Rev. Edward Graff.

Murt, also a Catholic, said the Altoona-Johnstown grand jury report is far worse than anything he read in a 2012 Philadelphia grand jury report that found the Philadelphia Archdiocese covered up priest sexual abuse.

The lawmakers' ire was not only directed at the Catholic diocese, however. They also blasted Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who they claim has bottled up Murt's legislation, House Bill 951, since it was introduced in April 2015.

Murt's bill is not the only one that deals with the statute of limitations. In the House, Rep. Michael O'Brien, D-Philadelphia, and former Rep. Louis Bishop, D-Philadelphia, also a child sex-abuse victim, introduced bills. Bills also have been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton; Rob Teplitz, D-Dauphin; Andy Dinniman, D-Chester; and John Rafferty, R-Montgomery.

Note that it is a Republican allegedly bottling up the bill that would protect children and hopefully identify child rapists and predators.  

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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.

GOP Closet Case Aaron Schock Facing Questions About His Expensive "Male companion"

Aaron Schock's boyfriend??

GOP Congressman Aaron Schock's troubles about his lavish lifestyle and extravagant travels just keep on growing.  now, it seems that Schock violated House of Representative rules when he took Jonathon Link - Schock's "photographer - to India to accompany the congressman on the trip, but failed to disclose Link's name appears anywhere on the travel disclosure form Schock filed afterwards. There has been much speculation that Schock is gay and now, some are questioning Link's real relationship with Schock.  Schock may be a jerk, but Link - -pictured above - does seem to have some some attractive attributes even if they have nothing to do with photography.  Here are highlights from CNN:

Another week, another report about a possible violation of House ethics rules by Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Illinois.

The congressman traveled to India last August 24-29 on a trip sponsored by the Global Poverty Project, an international anti-poverty group. The group also paid for Schock's Dallas-based photographer, Jonathon Link, to accompany the congressman on the trip, the group's spokesperson confirmed. But Link's name appears nowhere on the travel disclosure form Schock filed afterwards, as required by House rules.

The National Journal first reported about the disclosure oversight.

Schock's office paid Jonathon Link $4,166 for "communications" in September 2014 and listed him under "personnel" in its quarterly expense records, making him an official staffer. It is unclear if that payment was for the services rendered in India and Link did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Schock, a fourth-term congressman from a reliably Republican district, has been under scrutiny over his use of taxpayer and campaign money to pay for flights on private jets -- including planes owned by key donors -- concert tickets and other entertainment expenses. 

He's also under fire for lapses in reporting some of his expenses and already has taken steps to correct or amend some of those errors. He has hired a public relations team as well as a pair of lawyers, William McGinley and Donald McGahn, to review the compliance procedures in his official office, campaign and leadership PAC to decide whether they can be improved.

Global Poverty Project spent $4,000 to fly Link from Dallas to New Delhi and to lodge and feed him. According to the travel disclosure form Schock filed, the group spent $5,000 on his travel, $525 on his lodging, $300 on his meals and another $389 on travel insurance and ground transportation. Schock stayed at the Radisson Blu Plaza in New Delhi at a rate of $152.03 a night and at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai at a rate of $159 a night, according to the disclosure form.

One can only wonder what next week's revelation will be!  Meanwhile, some on the far right are beginning to call for Schock's resignation.

The Asian Vote - Another Lost Battlefield for the GOP?

Something has happened which should have been easily predicted: by embracing the far Christian Right - which basically hates everyone who isn't an American born white, far right Christian - and most recently the white supremacist crowd, the Republican Party has driven away other demographic groups who either are (i) non-white, (ii) non-Christian, or (iii) who don't want the likes of Tony Perkins setting policy positions.  And it's not just the Pacific rim Asians who have been alienated.  South Asians - as many of Indian descent describe themselves - also find the hate and religious extremism of the GOP base abhorrent.  Stated another way, my many Hindu clients have easily figured out that the GOP base hates them just as much as they hate gays, notwithstanding Bobby Jindal's willingness to prostitute himself to Christofascists.  A piece in Politico looks at this other demographic that the GOP has lost.  Here are excerpts:

Even in a national election shadowed by geopolitical instability and a heated debate over immigration, it’s a rare campaign that has voters hearing about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and maritime disputes between Japan and the Republic of Korea.

But in these suburbs a few miles from the nation’s capital, these are only a few of the unconventional issues rearing up in the battle for control of Congress. Candidates up and down the ballot have hurled themselves into winning over the area’s swiftly growing Asian-American population, striving to sell themselves as champions of small business and public education, and as masters of even the narrowest ethnic preoccupations.

Fairfax is only one of a lengthening list of urban and suburban battlegrounds – from northern New Jersey to the greater Atlanta area, to the streets of Minneapolis and Las Vegas and up and down the West Coast – where the two national parties have focused with new intensity this year on wooing this expansive and diverse immigrant population.

Spurred by President Barack Obama’s landslide victory among Asian-American voters in 2012 and new government data showing Asians outstripping Latinos as the fastest-growing immigrant population, prominent elected officials on both sides of the aisle have called for a stepped-up focus on Americans of Asian descent.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn . . . . called it essential that the GOP start “showing up” before these communities’ distrust of Republicans gets cemented in place.  “That is a trajectory for permanent minority status and we have to do something about it,” said Cornyn, the number-two Republican in the Senate. “I’m astonished to hear what our opponents tell people about Republicans, to some groups, when we’re not there.”

California Rep. Judy Chu, the Democrat who leads the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said both parties increasingly see Asian Americans as a “margin of victory” population in some especially challenging races. 

Pollsters warn that it’s difficult to generalize about Asian-American voters, mainly because it’s a vastly diverse population. Indian Americans, Thai immigrants and voters of Korean descent may share an ancestral continent, but it’s hard to say they represent a cohesive electoral bloc.

Yet partisan strategists and Asian-American activists say that even across culturally disparate immigrant groups, there are common preoccupations – an intense focus on education, for instance, and concern about the economic environment for small, family-owned businesses.

Increasingly, there is also a broad affinity for the Democratic Party – seen overwhelmingly as the party that stands for racial and ethnic diversity, and a more inclusive federal immigration policy.

In 2012, Asian Americans voted for the president by a larger margin – 47 points – even than Latinos. In swing-state Virginia, where Asian Americans made up 3 percent of the electorate, they supported Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine by 32 points.

Here in Fairfax, local leaders call Northern Virginia a snapshot of the whole country’s political and demographic future, with both elected officials and ethnic community leaders a few big steps ahead of other swing-state colleagues when it comes to political engagement and community outreach.

Even here, however, the change has come swiftly enough to transform the politics of the region in less than one political generation. Beyer, who will easily capture a safe Democratic House seat next week, recalled his early campaigns for public office: “My first race was 25 years ago and I don’t even remember [Asian American outreach] being in my list of 24 campaign priorities.”

“Now, increasingly, the Asian American vote, along with the Latino vote and the Muslim vote – which of course is kind of pan-Asian – they’re very important,” said Beyer, who emphasized just how heterogeneous the ethnic groups of his future district are. “The Chinese are different from the Filipinos, who are different from the Japanese. I don’t find any one theme works – except for economic opportunity and inclusion.”

The GOP can talk all it wants about economic opportunity, but as long as it remains the party of exclusion, white supremacy, and hatred towards non-Christians, the Asians I know are not going to fall for the disingenuous out reach.  The saying goes that you are known by the company you keep, and the GOP keeps some pretty ugly and racist company.  Here in Virginia, the Republican Party is owned by the white supremacist religious extremists at The Family Foundation.  That's not how one wins the Asian vote - or Hispanics or progressives either. 

Homophobia - A Residue of British Colonial Rule

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At times I want to pull my hair out over the ignorance of those in Africa, India and now Singapore who claim that the acceptance of homosexuality is a western trait that threatens indigenous social mores.Why don't this homophobes have "I'm an ignorant cretin" tabooed on their foreheads?  The truth is that homophobia is a western import that traces back to British colonial rule.  As noted in treatise, The Origins and Roles of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies, opposition to same sex relations was low across the globe until the arrival of Christian missionaries.  Now, American Christofascists are working diligently (with corrupt politicians and parasitic churchmen) to follow in the footsteps of their equally bigoted ancestors and dupe local populations into embracing homophobia.  A piece in the Washington Post traces all of this back to British colonial rule.  Here are highlights:

During the past half-century, many countries have eliminated criminal laws against what are variously called “homosexual offences”, “sodomy,” “unnatural acts” or  other terms used to describe consensual sexual relations between people (often specifically men) of the same sex.

Yet, the decriminalization of homosexual conduct is an uneven process and several countries are moving in the opposite direction. 

Among such criminalization cases, a common narrative is that acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality is a foreign, or alien, Western imposition on indigenous cultures.  For example, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called homosexuality an invention of the West that will “disturb the African moral fabric.”

Here stands one of the biggest ironies.  The idea that the so-called tolerance towards homosexuality somehow sprang from a western source doesn’t hold.  As our research shows, this narrative is not only wrong-headed but the opposite of the historical facts.  Instead, for many countries, including some of those mentioned above, criminalization laws were based on British imperial legal instruments, like the Indian Penal Code Section 377A, introduced and imposed on these countries by Britain when they were colonized.

We investigated whether and why there is variation in laws regulating and punishing homosexual conduct around the world.  Looking at a variety of data on 185 countries, we found that former British colonies are much more likely to have laws that criminalize homosexual conduct than former colonies of other European powers, or than other states in general. 

It seems that when the British Empire was introducing legal systems around the world, one of the laws they included was the law against sodomy, which was not decriminalized in England and Wales until 1967. By this time, most of the “Winds of Change” wave of decolonization had left former colonies independent of changes in British legislation.  By contrast, after the French Revolution, the French Empire decriminalized sodomy between consenting adults, and spread this Enlightenment legacy among its colonies.

Highlighting the colonial origin of anti-gay legislation is an important way to counter the narrative that tolerance of homosexuality is a neo-colonial imposition. . . . Another strategy is to publicize the numerous examples of accepted homosexual practices and relations in various pre-colonial African cultures.

 What is sad is that the original British colonials played upon the ignorance of native populations in introducing anti-gay laws.  Now, American Christofascists are engaging in the same toxic conduct.   As for leaders who claim to be rejecting foreign influence by enacting anti-gay laws, all they ultimately prove are they they are ignorant asses.  Are you listen, Mr. Putin?

Anti-Gay Myths Derailed by Economist's Data Research

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Homophobia - especially state sponsored homophobia such as exits here in Virginia thanks to the efforts of Christofascists at The Family Foundation and their trained monkeys in the Virginia GOP - is bad for business and bad for Virginia's economy.  That finding has been underscored by an economist at the University of Massachusetts who has studied the economic cost of homophobia from Virginia to as far away as India.  Business Week looks at the findings that confirm that religious based bigotry needs to be eliminated from the public square and the marketplace.  Here are some highlights:

Economist Lee Badgett says equal treatment for gays and lesbians can benefit economies from Virginia to India. For the past two decades, she’s mined data in her quest to prove it. 

“My long-run goal has always been the same: It’s using research to help create a more just world,” said Badgett, 54, director of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Center for Public Policy and Administration. “When policy makers can pick out their favorite myth about gay people to hang their policy on, it’s pretty hard to argue against.” 

The World Bank is collaborating with Badgett to analyze homophobia as a hurdle to development in emerging markets. She’s been called as an expert witness before Congressional subcommittees and in a court case that found California’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. Colleagues credit her with publishing the first research tackling gay and lesbian issues as economic rather than sociological. 

This week, Badgett’s work for the institute was widely cited by national and international news outlets after the White House said President Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order that would bar federal contractors from discriminating against gay and transgendered employees. The change would cover 14 million more workers than state laws do, she found. 

Preliminary findings showed that discrimination related to homophobia leads to less education, lower earnings, poorer health and shorter lives. The lost workplace productivity and health problems connected with homophobia cost the country between $2 billion and $31 billion in 2012. The range is wide because data on sexual minorities is scarce, she said. 

Her work there has shown that gay couples without the option to marry miss out on tax and insurance benefits, and states that don’t allow same-sex marriages lose incremental revenue. Virginia could realize as much as $60 million in the first three years from spending on weddings and tourism, April research showed. While the impact is relatively small -- Virginia’s gross domestic product totaled $426 billion in 2013 - - it does contribute to the economy. 

The only thing that in the last analysis that supports anti-gay discrimination is religion - something that has across the centuries brought more wars, death, and destruction than almost anything else.  One need only look at the sectarian strife in Iraq or the terror attacks of religious extremists to see that the evils of religion go on unabated even today.   The civil laws need to cease empowering religious based hate and bigotry.