The Rising Global Tide Against LGBT Individuals

I generally do not view myself as paranoid, but if one looks at what is happening both here in America and around many places in the world, if one is LGBT, there is much to worry about.  Here in America the Trump/Pence regime is waging a relentless war against LGBT Americans and has already taken measures rolling back LGBT protections put in place by the Obama administration, has intervened in a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit arguing that existing federal civil rights laws do not apply to LGBT individuals and that gays can be fired at will, and had its representative to the United Nations recently voted against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that condemned the death penalty for those found guilty of committing consensual same-sex sexual acts.  Meanwhile, Betty Price, a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and wife of former Trump Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, asked this week whether the government could quarantine people with HIV to limit transmission of the virus that causes AIDS.  In doing so, Price parroted a long time talking point of Christofascist organizations - much like what the Nazis did toward Jews - that gays are diseased and pose a public health crisis.  In her ignorance, Price ignored the fact that the exploding HIV crisis now is among blacks, but then again the Trump regime and evangelical Christians do not like blacks anymore than they like gays.

Overseas, things are just as disturbing.   In Russia, that country's awful law that fines anyone expressing support for LGBT rights in public could get even harsher after a senior official in the Ministry of the Interior suggested making it a criminal offense.  A piece in the Washington Post lists other anti-LGBT efforts fueled by religious belief and opportunist politicians only too happy to scapegoat gays to divert attention from their failing policies.  Here are excerpts:

This week, a government journal in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan announced that the country's interior ministry had compiled a registry of “proven” gays and lesbians. The list named 319 men and 48 women, whom Tajik federal prosecutors identified in operations they called “Morality” and “Purge.”

A purge — likely in the form of mass incarcerations — is exactly what human rights organizations are afraid will happen. But the phenomenon would not be unique to Tajikistan: Over the past few months, police in Egypt, Azerbaijan, Tanzania, Indonesia and the Russian republic of Chechnya have rounded up people suspected of being gay — and in many cases tortured or publicly humiliated them.

What's more, many of the crackdowns look like “copycats” of one another. “There are a lot of ways in which these crackdowns follow the same sequence of events,” said Kyle Knight, a researcher on LGBT rights at Human Rights Watch. “And there's reason to believe that what's happening in Tajikistan now is based on things their government there has learned from, say, what Azerbaijan just did.”

The sequence generally starts with someone — most likely a religious figure or government official — publicly denigrating acts of alleged sexual deviance. In countries where homosexuality is taboo and driven underground, such comments may be the first thing a person has heard in public about LGBT people. “It is easy to say that these particular people are spreading disease, that they are foreigners or sinners. From a starting point of ignorance, prejudice is an easy next step,” said Knight.

Then things get dangerous. . . . In most of the countries listed above, homosexuality is not illegal. But there also aren't any nondiscrimination laws that include sexuality. Without them, political leaders have to expend their own political capital to step in — assuming they think LGBT communities deserve protection at all. Instead, leaders usually side with the denunciations, or even calls for criminalization, and obscenity and prostitution laws are often turned against sexual minorities.  My colleagues in Jakarta, Moscow and Cairo have all recently documented that sequence.

As of this Tuesday, at least 20 people in Egypt had received prison sentences ranging from six months to six years, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights told our Cairo bureau chief, Sudarsan Raghavan. Four people were sentenced to three years each, and rights groups say some have already been beaten and forced to undergo anal examinations.  Of the 20, some were arrested for waving rainbow flags at a concert, others for Facebook posts supporting the LGBT community, and some were tracked down by police on gay dating apps and chatrooms.

In Azerbaijan, meanwhile, more than 80 people have been arrested since mid-September for suspected homosexuality.

The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have interviewed some of those arrested in Azerbaijian, who claim they were subjected to “electric shocks, beatings, forced shaving and other forms of humiliation to force them to incriminate themselves before being released,” according to a U.N. spokesman.

That torture and humiliation is reminiscent of what rights groups were hearing out of the Russian republic of Chechnya earlier this year. Roughly 100 people, mostly young men, were allegedly detained and mercilessly beaten as police attempted to force them to confess their homosexuality. This week, Maxim Lapunov became the first of them to lodge a formal complaint with Russia's Investigative Committee, which has previously dismissed allegations that any such “gay pogrom” ever took place.

Knight, of Human Rights Watch, said conditions are ripe for similar crackdowns in countries all over the world, pointing to Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova as examples.

 International out cry can push back against these horrific agendas.  Yet the United States in the age of Trump has signaled that it will not champion human rights for all even as it strives to give Christian extremist at home special rights to ignore non-discrimination and public accommodation laws. Here in Virginia, extremist GOP attorney general candidate John Adams has made it clear that he thinks religious belief should trump the Constitution's right of freedom of religion for those who are not right wing Christians.  It is indeed a worrisome time to be LGBT.  

WikiLeaks Outed Gay Men In Countries with Death Penalty for Gays

My opinion of Wilikleaks has been plummeting and news that the organization has callously "outed" gays in countries where gays face the death penalty as well as identified rape victims and victims of domestic violence in countries where the victims face potential violence.  One of the countries where such disclosures have been made is Saudi Arabia - America's false ally - where gays are routinely executed.  Apparently, the self-stroking of Julian Assnge's ego is more important that the lives of those his organization is endangering. Towleroad looks at these despicable and uncaring actions.  Here are highlights:

A new report out Tuesday has found that hacktivist group WikiLeaks has on more than one occasion outed gay men in Saudi Arabia, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.

WikiLeaks has increasingly shown little discretion when it comes to withholding private details about individuals named in documents it leaks online, even those of individuals who have nothing to do with the organization’s raison d’être: “We open governments.” Rather, it seems that WikiLeaks has no interest in taking the time to redact personal information that, if revealed, could endanger the lives of private citizens who have played no role in the Machiavellian machinations of statecraft it seeks to expose.

In the report, the AP found a staggering amount of “collateral damage to the privacy of hundreds of innocent people, including survivors of sexual abuse, sick children and the mentally ill” in WikiLeaks’ leaked documents. Among a trove of cables from Saudi Arabia, for instance, medical records and other personal information was revealed that effectively outs closeted gay men in that country. As the AP notes, “the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.”

The AP was able to get in touch with that man who said, “[WikiLeaks] published everything: my phone, address, name, details. If the family of my wife saw this … Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people.” That individual is also in the midst of a custody dispute with a former partner.

WikiLeaks has also published medical records of teenage rape victims, including a male teen:

Three Saudi cables published by the WikiLeaks identified domestic workers who’d been tortured or sexually abused by their employers, giving the women’s full names and passport numbers. One cable named a male teenager who was raped by a man while abroad; a second identified another male teenager who was so violently raped his legs were broken; a third outlined the details of a Saudi man detained for “sexual deviation” — a derogatory term for homosexuality.

Scott Long, an LGBT rights activist who has worked in the Middle East, said the names of rape victims were off-limits. And he worried that releasing the names of people persecuted for their sexuality only risked magnifying the harm caused by oppressive officials.

“You’re legitimizing their surveillance, not combating it,” Long said.

Apparently, in 2016, medical records are no longer a legitimate secret, even if you’re gay and/or a victim of rape. It is unclear at this point if WikiLeaks has outed gay individuals in other anti-LGBT countries besides Saudi Arabia.

I have come to believe that the best place for Assange may well be in prison where, with luck, he will suffer severely for the harm he has done to innocents.

Brunei Boycotts Spread to Milan

Years ago when I was in-house counsel for an oil company I traveled a great deal overseas and had the opportunity to stay at some amazing hotels - my all time favorite is the Plaza Athenee in Paris - including the Principe di Savoia in Milan.  Now, that august hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei and is feeling the effects of boycotts like those which have hit the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.  A piece in the Advocate looks at the mounting boycott in Milan over Brunei's enactment of Sharia law that as written allows for the murder of women and gays.  Here are excerpts:

[N]ow the city’s preeminent hotel, the 87-year-old Principe di Savoia — associated with a string of legendary guests from Josephine Baker and Eva Peron to Madonna and George Clooney — is facing a mass boycott in protest of the hotel’s owner, the sultan of Brunei.

 

For a hotel that has long been the epicenter of the city’s fashion weeks, this is no small thing—losses from major fashion clients are likely to be in the tens of millions.

 

The boycott stems from the sultan’s decision to introduce Sharia law, which includes the death penalty for sodomy. Brunei has not carried out any executions since 1957, and the specter of public flogging and stoning has prompted international revulsion, as well as fierce rebukes from the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights and Amnesty International, which said the new law would “take the country back to the dark ages.”

 

Although the all-powerful sultan, with his $20 billion, can afford to weather almost anything, the boycott comes at a moment when gay rights have created a clear fault line between the west and Russia, Africa, and much of the Middle East. While the Dorchester Group, which owns the Principe, as well as the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, claims that it is being unfairly singled out from other brands that depend on foreign investment, the boycott reflects a growing consciousness among American and European consumers of the role they can play in a globalized world.

 

But it’s not just individual consumers choosing to stay away. The Virgin Group was among the first to announce a boycott, quickly followed by Kering, which owns Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta, Puma, and Saint Laurent, among many others. That decision has electrified others in the fashion world, including Anna Wintour, Love magazine editor Katie Grand, and designers like Tomas Meier, creative director of Bottega Veneta, who told The Advocate that he would be staying somewhere “more human rights-friendly” on his next trip to Milan.

 

As the ultimate party magnet for models, editors, and designers alike, this kind of fallout has got to sting.

 While I feel bad for the employees, I support the boycott and hope that it spreads to every hotel owned by the Sultan.

Sultan of Brunei Owned Beverly Hills Hotel Claims It Is Being Bullied

Whining douche bag, Christopher Cowdray

As previously noted on this blog, the nation of Brunei in Southeast Asia - which is ruled by the Sultan of Brunei - has passed Sharia based laws that among other things will impose the death penalty for homosexual acts.  The Sultan of Brunei is among the most wealthy men in the world and holds far flung investments, including the Dorchester Collection which owns the Beverly Hills Hotel and other high end hotel properties.  In the wake of Brunei's barbaric legislation, boycotts have sprung up against the Beverly Hills Hotel and other Dorchester properties.  Now, taking a page from the Christian persecution myth, the manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Christopher Cowdray, is whining that the hotel is being subjected to bullying.   Gays are facing execution as Cowdray is whining.  Perhaps Cowdray needs to get his head out of his ass and get in touch with reality.  The Hollywood Reporter looks at Cowdray's despicable whining and the growing backlash against the hotel chain and other businesses owned by the foul Sultan of Brunei.  Here are highlights:

Amid protests against the Beverly Hills Hotel, the CEO of parent company the Dorchester Collection is saying the Hollywood hotspot doesn't deserve to be targeted despite the company being owned by the Sultan of Brunei, who has instituted a severe new penal code based on Sharia law that calls for death by stoning for homosexuals and adulterers.

Christopher Cowdray told CBS This Morning that the hotel "has done absolutely nothing wrong."

"I feel totally unfairly picked on," Cowdray said in a report that aired on Tuesday's edition of the morning show. "All they are doing is hurting a local business."

Cowdray declined to comment on Brunei's new law.

What began as a grassroots movement two weeks ago, with designers asking their Instagram and Twitter followers to boycott the Dorchester Collection of hotels, which the Beverly Hills Hotel is part of, has gained momentum, with prominent organizations dropping plans to hold dinners and fundraisers at the landmark hotel.

On Monday, the Motion Picture & Television Fund said that it would not hold its glitzy Oscar-eve fundraising party, the Night Before, at the hotel. Other events that have moved from the hotel to other locations include the Feminist Majority Foundation's Global Women's Rights Awards, the Independent School Alliance for Minority Awards and a Teen Line fundraiser honoring Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal. The Outgiving Conference, a meeting of LGBT donors, was the first event to pull up stakes. And the Human Rights Campaign Fund has urged other groups to follow suit. 

The Hollywood Reporter has also notified the hotel that it will no longer hold its annual Women in Entertainment breakfast there.

Actions need to have consequences and just maybe a financial message - along with diplomatic ones - will be sent to Brunei.   Meanwhile, these new laws underscore my belief that fundamentalist religious of all faiths are a scourge on mankind and need to be eliminated.

Brunei Law To Allow Death By Stoning For Gay Sex

I condemn conservative Christians who are best defined by their hatred of others frequently on this blog.  But Christian fundamentalists are not the only foul force in the world.  Right along side them are the Islamic fundamentalists who likewise cling to ignorance, spew hatred towards others and fight a rear guard battle against modernity itself.   The latest example is what is happening in Brunei where an extreme sharia law penal code has been enacted which imposes the death penalty for an array of offenses including same sex relations. If anyone deserves the death penalty, it is those who passed the new penal code and those who advocated for it.  Huffington Post looks at this development which violates international law:

The United Nations has responded to the nation of Brunei, a sovereign state in southeast Asia, where officials are reportedly set to roll out a new penal code including death by stoning as punishment for same-sex acts.

Other offenses referenced in the revision of capital punishment regulations reportedly include "rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, declaring oneself a prophet or non-Muslim, and murder." 

The revised penal code is slated to go into effect April 22, according to Gay Asia News and other media outlets.

“Application of the death penalty for such a broad range of offenses contravenes international law,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. “We urge the Government to delay the entry into force of the revised penal code and to conduct a comprehensive review ensuring its compliance with international human rights standards,” he told a news conference in Geneva.

Brunei is the latest in a series of countries to pass anti-gay laws that could result in extreme punishments for those engaging in same-sex acts. In February, Uganda's president signed a bill that calls for first-time offenders of same-sex acts to be sentenced to 14 years in jail, and "repeat offenders" could receive life in prison. Additionally, Nigeria has a similar anti-gay law that makes same-sex relationships illegal and sets penalties of same-sex acts at up to 14 years in prison.

Conservative/fundamentalist religion is always an evil.  The public needs to open its eyes to this reality and not be distracted by charitable activities that in no way outweigh the evils done and by claims of "religious freedom" on the part of those who seek to oppress others. 

American Christian Zealots Are Fighting Back Against Gay Rights—Abroad

Despite their best efforts and expenditure of millions of dollars in America, the ever growing support for gay rights and gay marriage in particular indicates that American Christofascists are losing the cultural war.  And their loses will only get worse as more of their aging, angry white power base literally dies off.  So what do do you do if you are a gay hating religious fanatic?   You export hatred abroad to places where your message of hate is an easier sell.  No place better represents such fertile ground than Africa where there are large ignorant populations and corrupt and dysfunctional governments only too happy to accept Christofascist money and use the supposed threat of gays as a distraction from the utter hell hole status of their respective countries.  Uganda is perhaps most often mentioned of these countries, but pretty much all of sub-Sahara Africa qualifies with the exception of South Africa.   For example, Ethiopia is reportedly considering instituting a death penalty for homosexuality:

An anti-gay organisation says it is hopeful a death penalty for homosexuals will soon be introduced in Ethiopia.  United For Life Ethiopia, a Western Evangelical Christian organisation which receives funding from the UK and the US, last week held a workshop to discuss the social “evils” and “disastrous” effects of homosexuality in the country, Egypt-based Bikya News reported.

Gay Star News reports the presence of a member of the Ethiopian Inter-Religious Council Against Homosexuality (EICAH), who apparently told participants homosexuality “is a result of inappropriate upbringing, identity crisis and moral decay.”

It adds: “At the conclusion of the workshop, the EICAH representative stated that the council is ‘making progress’ in convincing the government to be stricter on homosexuality and introduce the death penalty to punish ‘such acts’.”

A lengthy article in The Economist looks at the large picture of the efforts of the American Christofascists to export anti-gay hate and violence.  And parts of the former Soviet Union and Central America have likewise been targeted fro the exporting of anti-gay hate.   It's ugly, but then conservative Christianity is an ugly religion separated from Islamic extremism only by a matter of degrees.  Both are hate and fear based at their core.  Here are article highlights:

As gay rights advance in the West—France and New Zealand are the latest countries to legalise same-sex marriage—homophobia is on the rise elsewhere. But these apparently contradictory trends may be related. Confounded at home, a crusading squad of American conservative Christians are taking the fight abroad.

In an unusual case, brought under the Alien Tort Statute, a judge in Massachusetts is pondering a claim by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a gay-rights group, against Scott Lively, a preacher and co-author of “The Pink Swastika” (which argues that Nazism was fuelled by homosexuality). Mr Lively visited Uganda in 2009, meeting politicians, appearing on television, and sharing his theories about homosexuals’ recruitment of youngsters.

Shortly afterwards a Ugandan MP introduced a parliamentary bill that would stiffen existing penalties for homosexual behaviour; among other drastic measures it mandated the death sentence for “aggravated” homosexuality.

This episode is part of a wider campaign. Other preachers, such as Lou Engle, a fundamentalist pastor at a megachurch in Kansas, have also been to Uganda. A new documentary, “God Loves Uganda”, depicts co-ordination between the visitors, resident missionaries and American-trained Ugandan priests. Offshoots of the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a group founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson, in Kenya and Zimbabwe, are said to have resisted gay-friendly changes to their constitutions. (The ACLJ insists it “does not export an agenda”.)

In Africa campaigners adopt the language of anti-colonialism, portraying gay rights, and even homosexuality itself, as Western impositions; opponents counter that the criminalisation of gay sex is itself largely a legacy of empire.

Two bills trundling through Ukraine’s parliament, for example, would criminalise gay “propaganda” (a similar bill is on the stocks in Russia’s Duma). To be sure, indigenous hostility (sometimes violent) towards homosexuality abounds. But Jim Mulcahy, a retired priest now ministering to gays in Ukraine, thinks the anti-gay lobby’s resources and multimedia techniques bespeak American involvement.

Both Paul Cameron, an American psychologist who likens homosexuality to drug use, and Mr Lively, have toured eastern Europe. Gay activists in Moldova say that outsiders’ influence helped to reduce the prominence of sexuality in a recent anti-discrimination law. In Latvia Mr Lively fraternised with a church whose members have harassed gay-pride marches.

A third front is the Caribbean and Central America. Caleb Orozco of UNIBAM, a gay-rights group in Belize, is arguing in court that its criminalisation of homosexual sex violates the constitution. According to Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, an American civil-rights watchdog, a coalition of churches resisting the move is supported by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), another American outfit. (The ADF, like Mr Engle, could not be reached for comment.) Belize’s most prominent anti-gay cleric is American;

The American fundamentalists see themselves as defending biblical values and stemming degeneracy. Abroad, the policies they advance in that cause are often more extreme than those they espouse at home (though Mr Lively would like to “re-criminalise adultery, fornication and homosexuality” in America, too, albeit as minor misdemeanours). Several would like to usher in a global theocracy.

In America exponents of such ideas are liable to be dismissed as cranks and bigots; for their part they regard their own country as morally lost. But on their travels abroad they receive a respectful hearing, addressing parliaments and appearing on mainstream television..

That sort of reception boosts morale, but can offer practical benefits, too. Influence, visibility and access, in countries where (as the faithful see it) righteousness remains unvanquished, all help with fund-raising. The activists often traverse the same circuit, in what could be seen as a kind of competition.

The suffering of homosexuals in such places, he says, is “collateral damage” in America’s culture wars.

Fundamentalist religion - especially those seeking theocracy - need to be stamped out.  They are a pervasive evil and their fruits are hate, bigotry and the dehumanizing of others.  Western governments need to do much more to limit the ability of American Christofascists to take their poison overseas.

"Speak out against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009"

It what has to be a case of lions lying down with lambs, gay rights activists like Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin and former high priest of the ex-gay "cure myth," Warren Throckmorton (who attacked me by name in a Townhall.com piece some years back) are in agreement that Uganda's horrific proposed anti-gay legislation needs to be defeated. Via a Facebook group, I have received e-mails from both Burroway and Throckmorton both urging individuals to speak out and target the defeat of the proposed legislation that not only calls for a life sentence for anyone convicted of homosexuality, but also threatens a death sentence for anyone who is convicted with HIV/AIDS."

*

Sadly, this proposed bill is the logical extension of the anti-gay hate and intolerance that have been widely disseminated by far right Christian extremists for years when embraced by a backwards third world nation where the uneducated populace is easy prey to religious demagogues. Even domestic gay-haters such as Rick Warren seem to be concerned about the possible fruits of their anti-gay screeds and the message it will send about self-righteous "godly Christians." The Warrens have issued this statement:

*
STATEMENT OF PASTOR RICK & KAY WARREN REGARDING ACTIVITIES OF MARTIN SSEMPA IN UGANDA
*

Martin Ssempa does not represent me, my wife Kay, Saddleback Church, nor the Global PEACE Plan strategy. In 2007, we completely severed contact with Mr. Ssempa when we learned that his views and actions were in serious conflict with our own. Our role, and the role of the PEACE Plan, whether in Uganda or any other country, is always pastoral and never political. We vigorously oppose anything that hinders the goals of the PEACE Plan: Promoting reconciliation, Equipping ethical leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the sick, and Educating the next generation.
*

Actions and words DO have consequences and it is revealing that suddenly a few Christianists are belatedly worried about what will potentially come back to their doorsteps. One needs to ask where are the leaders of Western based denominations that have church operations in Uganda in demanding that this legislation be killed? All of us need to voice out outrage and make it clear to Uganda officials that the nation will become an outcast if this bill passes.

*

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin is an example of taking action. In a letter (pdf) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin told the Secretary that she is looking for “swift action” to stop the “Anti-Homosexual Bill” introduced earlier this month in Uganda. Here are highlights from Congresswoman Baldwin's statement:
*
This egregious bill represents one of the most extreme anti-equality measures ever proposed in any country and would create a legal pretext for depriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans of their liberty, and even their lives,” Baldwin wrote [to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton], joined by Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Howard Berman (D-CA), Vice Chair, Gary Ackerman (D-NY), and Ranking Member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). “Particularly given the United States’ substantial contribution to Uganda through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we believe swift action is necessary to ensure Ugandan leaders understand this bill is wholly unacceptable and antithetical to democratic values,” they wrote.
*

Here is more information on how to voice your condemnation:

*
We call on the Facebook community to join in opposition to this bill and to contact the various stakeholders named below to express your views.Contacts to express one's views about Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009:
*
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
State House Nakasero
email: info@statehouse.go.ug
*
Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi
email: ps@opm.go.ug
*
Speaker of the Parliament
Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka
email: speaker@parliament.go.ug
*
Minister of Gender, Labour, and Social Affairs Honorable Opio Gabriel
email: ps@mglsd.go.ug
*
Chair of the Uganda Human Rights Commission
Med Kaggwa
email: uhrc@uhrc.ug
*
Directorate for Ethics and Integrity
email: info@dei.go.ug
*
Chair of the Uganda Diplomatic Human Rights Working Groups
Mathisen Gørild
email: gorild.mathisen@mfa.no
*
Please also send a copy to:
Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda Embassy of the United States of America
Jerry P. Lanier
email: kampalawebcontact@state.gov
*
Christian pastors in Uganda:
Martin Ssempa
ssempam@gmail.com
*
Stephen Langa
stephenlanga@yahoo.com
*
You may contact Watato Church (formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church and closely associated with both Ssempa and Langa) at connect@watotochurch.com.
*

This legislation is yet another example of religion being a force for evil in the world instead of a power for good.

Scared for Their Lives

Meanwhile, in Iran - the country that seems to reflect the toxic intertwining of religion and civil laws sought by extreme Christianists in this country - things for gays are beyond bad. With the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran (who looks better all the time when contrasted to the theocrats now in power) gays have to literally fear for their lives under the hate driven, intolerant sharia law imposed on the population. When one considers how advanced the Persian Empire was more than 2500 years ago, it is amazing how backwards elements within the Iranian government have become fueled by religion in one of its most toxic forms. Unfortunately, even when they escape from Iran,gays often find themselves still subjected to discrimination and immigration/asylum policies that ignore the reality of what will happen to gays sent back to Iran. Here are some highlights of the situation on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the revolution tomorrow:

*

The first of April 2009 marks 30 years since revolution in Iran resulted in the birth of the Islamic Republic and the adoption of sharia law. This strict penal code criminalized homosexuality and the gay community in Iran have subsequently suffered three decades of persecution. The punishment for lesbian sex is one hundred lashes, with the death penalty being imposed on the fourth offence. Sodomy, or lavat, between men is punishable by death on the first offence. The law is enforced by the Basij Secret Police and gay and lesbian Iranians live with the constant threat of being followed and arrested.

*

‘It’s because of the Islamic revolution that people like me are here’ explains Ayra, an Iranian currently seeking asylum in Britain. ‘The revolution is a really bad memory for gay and lesbian people. Before, they were free but now they can’t live in Iran and have to escape.’

*

Arrival in Britain is often the beginning of another long ordeal. . . . Access to support networks can also make a big difference in the process of applying for asylum in Britain, as illustrated in February this year when Iranian lesbian Pegah Embakash was finally granted refugee status. Pegah fled Iran in 2005 following the arrest, torture and imprisonment of her partner. In Britain she was initially refused asylum, arrested and detained in Yarls Wood Detention Centre. In August 2007 she was hours from being deported to her death but was saved by a last minute reprieve.

*

‘Almost everybody from Iran is initially refused asylum by the Home Office on the grounds that they are not believed to be gay or lesbian,’ says Sebastian from The UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group (UKLGIG). The only group of its kind in Britain, UKLGIG helps people to ‘prove’ their homosexuality by providing witness statements at the court of appeal and referral to specialist solicitors. However, even if they are believed to be gay, a large number of Iranians’ appeals are rejected on the grounds that they can go back to Iran and hide their sexuality. ‘To me, telling people to go back and hide their sexuality is persecution in itself,’ continues Sebastian.

*

For gay Iranians like Behrouz and Ayra the anniversary of Iran becoming an Islamic Republic is a reminder of the persecution that forced them to flee their country. Having been refused sanctuary in Britain, it is also a reminder of their uncertain future and the suffering they will face if they are returned. Behrouz found a solicitor who believed he had a strong case and put in a fresh claim for asylum. However, 18 months later he still hasn’t had a response from the Home Office and is living in limbo. ‘I want to live, I don’t want to hide,’ he sighs. ‘I want to live like everybody else’.

End-Running Contraception

From my review of Christianist organizations' websites for a number of years, it has long been evident to me that gays are not the only targets in the Christianist agenda to implement a Taliban-like legal structure to bar all citizens from exercising rights and choices not supported by the Christianists' warped, intolerant religious views. Among the other matters they seek to force to conform to their views are divorce - they want to make divorce much harder, even though ironically they have the highest divorce rate of any religious group - and contraception. A reading of their sites and articles by their blowhard talking heads make it clear that they believe that there is NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY under the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, they seek not only a reversal of Roe. v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas, but also Griswold v. Connecticut which struck down laws banning the use of contraception by MARRIED couples. Now, Bob Felton over at Civil Commotion has a post that shows that the Chimperator is trying to assist this agenda backhandedly by regulations and interpretations. Here are relevant highlights:

*

It’s been clear for a long time that the evangelical right means to eliminate not merely abortion, but even contraception; I’ve written about it previously here, here, here, and here. Now, President Bush’s Health and Human Services department proposes a rule that permits employees of facilities that receive federal dollars — which is practically all hospitals — to refuse to participate in any procedures that violate their religious beliefs, including the provision of contraception.

*

I am not making this up, or indulging in hyperbole:

*

Therefore, the Department proposes to interpret this term broadly, as encompassing individuals who are members of the workforce of the Department-funded entity performing the objectionable procedure. When applying the term “assist in the performance” to members of an entity’s workforce, the Department proposes to include participation in any activity with a logical connection to the objectionable procedure, including referrals, training, and other arrangements for offending procedures. For example, an operating room nurse would assist in the performance of surgical procedures, and an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure, would be considered to assist in the performance of the particular procedure.

*

And don’t kid yourself: These yahoos won’t hesitate for an instant to put their hands on other people’s lives and destroy them for the glory of Jesus. It is beyond shocking that HHS would seriously propose to codify such a wide-ranging veto of private health decisions. Contact Congress … today.

Netherlands and UK Turning Their Backs on Gay and Lesbian Iranians Facing Deprtation and Execution

I find it unbelievable that the Netherlands will not grant asylum to Mehdi Kazemi, age 19, who fears he will be executed if forced to return to Iran. The same goes for the United Kingdom. Based on all the well founded reports of gays being executed in Iran, even those under age and in violation of international treaties. One can only wonder what the Hell is enough to show that asylum is need. As ABC News is reporting (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4413302&page=1), Kazemi’s boyfriend has already been executed by hanging. The denial by the Netherlands and the mealy mouthed talk by the British Home Office are shocking. Here are some story highlights:

While studying English and science in the U.K., Kazemi learned that his boyfriend had been executed for sodomy back in Iran. His father told him the boyfriend had confessed to Iranian authorities that Kazemi was his lover. The authorities, Kazemi found out, had already been to his parents' house with a warrant for his arrest. "I was very scared," Kazemi wrote in a letter accompanying his request for asylum in Britain and published in full on the website of the Canada-based Iranian Queer Organization. "I wish to inform secretary of state that I did not come to the UK to claim asylum … But in the past few months my situation back home has changed. The Iranian authorities have found out that I am a homosexual and they are looking for me."

A British judge denied Kazemi's request for asylum in 2006 on the grounds that Iran does not systematically persecute homosexuals. But Kazemi, terrified at the prospect of being handed over to Iranian authorities after his application for asylum was denied, fled the country. After a journey that sent him through the Czech Republic and Germany, he is now in The Netherlands, where he is being held in detention while a Dutch court decides whether the country is obliged to hand him back over to Britain under a treaty that says refugees can only request asylum in one European Union country.

Pegah Emambakhsh, a 40-year-old lesbian woman who fled Iran for Britain in 2005 also faces deportation to Iran after being denied asylum. Emambakhsh's partner is currently awaiting execution by stoning in Iran.

Homosexuality is a capital crime in the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to one estimate by gay rights activists, more than 4,000 homosexual men and women have been executed in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Both Kazemi's and Emambakhsh's cases have caused a public and political uproar in Britain. According to the Independent, more than 60 British Members of the European Parliament have signed a petition asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to overturn the judge's decision in Kazemi's appeal for amnesty.

More Reasons to Fear Huckabee

Speaking of dangerous religious fundamenatlism, my friend Wayne Besen has an post that demonstrates just how extreme Mike Huckabee's beliefs may be. As Wayne points out, in 1998, Mike Huckabee co-wrote the book, In his book "Legislating Immorality," Grant expresses sadness that in the modern world there are no longer legal codes proscribing the death penalty for homosexuals.with Reconstructionist author George Grant - btw, this book equated homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. George Grant is an Christian Dominionist ideologue with extreme, even dangerous religious views. The question is, does the former Arkansas governor share Grant's Dominionist views? Here are some statements previously made by Grant:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are afier. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land - of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ."It is to reinstitute the authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations. (See: The Changing of the Guard (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), pp. 50-51.)

To make matters worse, in his book "Legislating Immorality," Grant expressed sadness that in the modern world there are no longer legal codes proscribing the death penalty for homosexuals. Sadly, I suspect no one in the mainstream media will hold Huckabee's feet to the fire and demand straight out, non-evasive answers to where he stands on these frightening and undemocratic views. I will never understand why the TV talking heads (1) do not do their homework and (2) are so afraid of asking hard questions of religious extremists. Truth be told, I suspect Huckabee agrees with them based on the statements I have seen him make in interviews.