Tag Archives: LGBT

Uganda gay rights activist David Kato killed

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from BBC News

David Kato, a Ugandan gay rights campaigner who sued a local newspaper which outed him as homosexual, has been beaten to death, activists have said.

Police have confirmed the death and say they have arrested one suspect.

Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper published the photographs of several people it said were gay, including Mr Kato, with the headline “Hang them”.

US President Barack Obama was quoted as saying he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Mr Kato’s death.

His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged authorities to investigate and prosecute the killers.

Iron bar killings’

The BBC’s Joshua Mmali, in Kampala, says it is unclear whether the death is linked to the Rolling Stone campaign but police have said there is no connection between Mr Kato’s activism and his death.

The police say that though they have arrested one suspect, the main suspect – who they say lived with Mr Kato – remains on the run.

Homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda, with punishments of 14 years in prison. An MP recently tried to increase the penalties to include the death sentence in some cases.

There has been a recent spate of “iron-bar killings” in Mukono, where Mr Kato lived, in which people have been assaulted with pieces of metal.

Witnesses have told the BBC that a man entered Mr Kato’s home near Kampala and beat him to death before leaving.

His Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) group said Mr Kato had been receiving death threats since his name, photograph and address were published by Rolling Stone last year.

Frank Mugisha, the group’s executive director, told the BBC’s Network Africa programme he was “devastated” on hearing the news from New York.

“He was killed by someone who came in his house with a hammer, meaning anyone else could be the next target.”

Mr Mugisha said Mr Kato had recently been concerned about the threats he had received.

‘Profoundly saddened’

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for a swift investigation into his death.

“David Kato’s death is a tragic loss to the human rights community,” said HRW’s Maria Burnett.

He had campaigned against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which appears to have been quietly dropped after provoking a storm of international criticism when it was mooted in 2009.

In a statement, Hillary Clinton said she was “profoundly saddened” by Mr Kato’s death.

“This crime is a reminder of the heroic generosity of the people who advocate for and defend human rights on behalf of the rest of us – and the sacrifices they make,” she said.

“And as we reflect on his life, it is also an occasion to reaffirm that human rights apply to everyone, no exceptions, and that the human rights of [LGBT] individuals cannot be separated from the human rights of all persons.”

‘Extra caution’

Following a complaint by Mr Kato and three others, a judge in November ordered Rolling Stone to stop publishing the photographs of people it said were homosexual, saying it contravened their right to privacy.

Several activists said they had been attacked after their photographs were published.

Mr Mugisha called on the Ugandan government to step up security for gay people.

“We’re strongly asking every gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender person in Uganda to watch out for their security … [they] should take extra caution.”

Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhame told Reuters news agency he condemned the murder and that the paper had not wanted gays to be attacked.

“There has been a lot of crime, it may not be because he is gay,” he said.

“We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them.”

“Iron-bar killings” were common in Uganda when former leader Idi Amin was in power in the 1970s.

A rapid response police team has been sent to the area and several suspects have been arrested over the killings.

The original article’s link is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12295718

Obama Nominee for Judge Could Be First Openly Gay Man on the Federal Bench

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from the New York Times; written by: Benjamin Weiser

President Obama has nominated a former Clinton administration lawyer to be a federal judge in Manhattan; he could become the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench in the United States.

The lawyer, J. Paul Oetken, 45, is a senior vice president and associate general counsel of Cablevision.

He is one of two openly gay men whose nominations are pending to the federal courts. The other is Edward C. DuMont, a lawyer who has been nominated to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.

Mr. Oetken was originally recommended to the White House in September by Senator Charles E. Schumer, who described him as having “sterling legal credentials” and a “distinguished career in private practice and public service.”

His nomination on Wednesday came about a year after Mr. Schumer recommended that the president nominate Daniel S. Alter, a former assistant United States attorney in Manhattan, who is also openly gay, to the same court.

But Mr. Alter was not nominated. He has said he believes it was because of statements attributed to him relating to the use of the term “Merry Christmas” and to the Pledge of Allegiance, which he denied having made.

Senator Schumer said on Thursday that Mr. Oetken fit his three criteria for federal judges: legal excellence, moderation of views and diversity.

“I am looking for people who fit the three criteria, and I was shocked to learn there were no openly gay male judges on the entire federal bench.” Mr. Oetken “fit the bill,” he added.

Mr. Oetken, a graduate of the University of Iowa and Yale Law School, was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and worked in the Justice Department and in the White House counsel’s office.

Before joining Cablevision, Mr. Oetken was in private practice in New York.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Oetken, who lives in Manhattan, would fill the slot previously held by Judge Denny Chin, who has been elevated by President Obama to the federal appeals court in Manhattan.

Mr. Schumer declined to comment on the matter involving Mr. Alter, whose recommendation he announced last February at a dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. At the time, he called Mr. Alter “a brilliant attorney,” adding that he would be “a history-maker who will be the first openly gay male judge” nominated to the federal bench.

Mr. Alter, a graduate of Columbia and Yale Law, was an assistant United States attorney and later national director for civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League.

Mr. Alter declined to comment on Thursday, but told The New York Law Journal in October that his nomination appeared to have run into trouble because of “certain false attributions” to him of statements that he denied making.

The Washington Blade had earlier reported that Mr. Alter, while working for the Anti-Defamation League, was quoted in a news service article as recommending against merchants using “Merry Christmas” instead of a more generic greeting and in remarks in a magazine suggesting the group favored legal challenges to the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mr. Alter told The Law Journal: “Neither of the quotations attributed to me are accurate or in any way reflect my personal reviews.” The White House has declined to comment on the issue.

Last summer, 66 of his former colleagues in the United States attorney’s office wrote to Mr. Schumer, urging the senator to fight for his nomination.

“We stress that if Mr. Alter’s nomination were derailed by these false allegations, the loss to the federal judiciary and to the public would be significant,” the letter said. The signers included two former United States attorneys, James B. Comey and David N. Kelley; Mr. Comey was later a deputy attorney general in the Bush administration.

Another of the signers, Gideon A. Schor, said on Thursday that the failure of Mr. Alter to be nominated “was crushing.”

“It was a real loss, I think, for the public and the bench and the lawyers and the parties,” he said, adding, “For all of our sakes, I hope he gets another chance.”

The Original Article can be found at this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/nyregion/28judge.html?smid=tw-nytimes

Census Shows that Gay Parents Are More Common in the South

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from The New York Times; reporting by: Sabrina Tavernise

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Being gay in this Southern city was once a lonely existence. Most people kept their sexuality to themselves, and they were reminded of the dangers of being openly gay when a gay church was bombed in the 1980s. These days, there are eight churches that openly welcome gay worshipers. One even caters to couples with children.

The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows, Mr. Gates said. At the same time, there are fewer white women of childbearing age nationally, according to demographers, while the number of minority women of childbearing age is expanding.

Jacksonville was a magnet for Ms. Maffett even before she moved here. While its gay residents remained largely hidden, it had a gay-friendly church. In 2003, she spent her Sundays driving 90 minutes each way to attend from the town where she worked as a school bus driver.

The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows, Mr. Gates said. At the same time, there are fewer white women of childbearing age nationally, according to demographers, while the number of minority women of childbearing age is expanding.

Jacksonville was a magnet for Ms. Maffett even before she moved here. While its gay residents remained largely hidden, it had a gay-friendly church. In 2003, she spent her Sundays driving 90 minutes each way to attend from the town where she worked as a school bus driver.

Ms. Maffett appreciated the safety of the church in Jacksonville. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her former husband was a member of the Church of Christ, so she knew how unwelcoming some churches could be for gays. Even so, she felt little connection to the gay congregation in Jacksonville — mostly white, male and childless.

“The pastors were all white guys,” said Ms. Maffett, who is black. “They were nice to us, but we weren’t really feeling that they knew how to cater to kids.”

Then she met Valerie Williams, a customer service worker with a sunny personality and a booming voice. Ms. Williams, 33, had been part of the city’s gay community for years, and when the first African-American, gay-friendly church opened in 2007, she thought it needed to go one step further.

“People were looking to do stuff with their kids, and they had no place to go,” she said.

So last summer, Ms. Williams became pastor of St. Luke’s Community Church, one of the oldest gay-friendly churches in the city, and immediately set up a youth program. Attendance by the mixed-race congregation swelled to more than 90 from 25 in just a few months.

Ms. Maffett appreciated the safety of the church in Jacksonville. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her former husband was a member of the Church of Christ, so she knew how unwelcoming some churches could be for gays. Even so, she felt little connection to the gay congregation in Jacksonville — mostly white, male and childless.

“The pastors were all white guys,” said Ms. Maffett, who is black. “They were nice to us, but we weren’t really feeling that they knew how to cater to kids.”

Then she met Valerie Williams, a customer service worker with a sunny personality and a booming voice. Ms. Williams, 33, had been part of the city’s gay community for years, and when the first African-American, gay-friendly church opened in 2007, she thought it needed to go one step further.

“People were looking to do stuff with their kids, and they had no place to go,” she said.

So last summer, Ms. Williams became pastor of St. Luke’s Community Church, one of the oldest gay-friendly churches in the city, and immediately set up a youth program. Attendance by the mixed-race congregation swelled to more than 90 from 25 in just a few months.

“All of a sudden you started seeing all of these women coming out,” Ms. Maffett said. “All of them had children.”

In 2009, the Census Bureau estimated that there were 581,000 same-sex couples in the United States, Mr. Gates said; the bureau does not count gay singles.

About a third of lesbians are parents, and a fifth of gay men are. Advocacy groups argue that their children are some of society’s most vulnerable, with fewer legal protections and less health insurance than children of heterosexual parents.

Even so, their ranks have been mostly left out of national policy debates, because the Census Bureau did not conduct its first preliminary count of same-sex couples until 1990. This year, the bureau will count married same-sex partners for the first time.

“We don’t know a lot about this group,” Mr. Gates said. “Their story has not been told.”

About 32 percent of gay couples in Jacksonville are raising children, Mr. Gates said, citing the 2009 Census data, second only to San Antonio, where the rate is about 34 percent.

Some gay parents here say that family life can be complicated. Cynthia, the mother of a talkative 9-year-old, can be herself at her daughter’s cheerleading practice, because it is far from their home. But at her daughter’s school, she tells no one that she is gay, because her partner, Monique, teaches there.

Their daughter, they said, ends up with a mixed message at school.

“We tell her, ‘Be honest, don’t lie, but keep this in the closet,’ ” said Monique, who asked that the couple’s last names not be used to protect her privacy at work, “It gets confusing for her.”

Ms. Williams confronts those troubles directly with a program called Youth Power Hour, a kind of group counseling session for children of gay parents. This month, the group of about 20 young people discussed their problems after a free spaghetti dinner cooked by one of the adult moderators.

“This girl at school is always bullying me,” said a 9-year-old named Diantra.

Ms. Williams responded, her voice filling the room: “Remember what we said? Tell an adult.”

Cynthia’s daughter, also part of the group, said the sense of community it provided helped her.

“It feels good to be around people who don’t just have moms and dads,” she said, pulling her braids nervously. “I like it because I’m not alone anymore.”

Married same-sex parents face legal hurdles. Florida does not recognize same-sex marriage, and its domestic partnership recognition, while growing, is an uneven patchwork, and still leaves many spouses uninsured.

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable. Until recently, Florida was one of a handful of states that expressly prohibited adoption by gay couples.

But money is often a more immediate problem.

Ty Francis, a bank customer-service worker here with a sharp sense of humor, supports six children together with her partner, Rosalyn Cooley, a health care worker.

“I’m one check away from being on welfare,” Ms. Francis said.

But that kind of financial difficulty does not dampen enthusiasm for coaxing along acceptance in this conservative city of more than 800,000 people. A recent billboard supporting gay and lesbian youth drew no public scorn or boycotts, and gay pride parades have been held for several years.

Ms. Williams compares the community’s efforts to the struggles of the civil rights movement.

“Slowly but surely, all this will pass,” she said. “I truly believe that.”

find original article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/us/19gays.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes

LZ Granderson says, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Frees Up Everybody.’

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from CNN: Opinion article by LZ Granderson

Grand Rapids, Michigan — A couple of years ago, while interviewing members of the Los Angeles Lakers, I had the pleasure of looking like an idiot on camera.

I was asking four of the team’s youngest players about what it’s like to be rich and famous in L.A., and who was their Hollywood crush. After some joking and bantering between the players, Ronny Turiaf, who now plays for the Knicks, turned the tables and asked me aboutmy Hollywood crush.

I hesitated — not because I wasn’t sure of the answer but because I wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. But the more I awkwardly tried to deflect the question, the more persistent Turiaf became. Eventually, I felt as if I had no choice but to answer, and so with the ESPN cameras fixated on my slightly perspiring face, I blurted out the one name I always give when someone asks me that question — Hugh Jackman.

Funny, I’ve been openly gay for nearly 15 years and still every other day I find myself coming out of the closet; the byproduct of a society groomed to believe it’s impolite to ask and too personal to tell.

For much of the 1980s and into the 90s, it was hard to hear the word “gay” and not think about AIDS, in large part because those two words were so regularly linked in the media. For a lot of people that remains true, even though the disease has long been proven not to discriminate.

Today, after hearing the phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell” for nearly two decades on TV, and reading it in newspapers and online, the word gay has been couched as an “over-share” and asking is an “invasion of privacy.”

Yes, the repealed law was targeted at men and women in the military, but its inherent admonishment to “assume everyone here is straight and don’t say otherwise” seeped its way into the public’s consciousness. “Gay” went from being associated with a disease to a word you shouldn’t say.

Hearing the phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell” over and over subliminally encouraged secrecy. Even though we’ve grown accustomed to seeing gay characters on TV, many of us still tend to whisper when talking about gay people in real life. Why?

Because we’re all supposed to be straight and if you’re not, you’re not supposed to volunteer the information. If asked, you’re not supposed to tell. “It’s private,” we say, which is really just a euphemism for “I’m scared.”

But straight people “ask” and “tell” all of the time without thinking about it — through wedding announcements, or flower deliveries on Valentine’s Day. At the office, when a woman talks about visiting her boyfriend’s family for Christmas, who accuses her of ramming her private life down someone’s throat? But if the same conversation happens and “he” becomes “she,” all of a sudden she is metaphorically riding a motorcycle in between cubicles, braless, with an 8-foot rainbow flapping behind her.

It’s a double standard that’s only going to go away when we stop assuming and start asking and telling. But by asking and telling, I don’t mean “Are you gay?” followed by “Yes, I am,” like defendants on trial, but rather by answering harmless questions without the need to switch pronouns.

By asking and telling, I don’t mean speaking in a hushed, cloak-and-dagger fashion as if we’re sharing a juicy piece of gossip, but in the same monotone drone we use when talking about having bologna for lunch again.

President Obama can sign a bill into law. The judicial system can enforce it. But only everyday people can breathe life into the greater, cultural and personal significance behind the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal. And that is, we don’t have to hide.

By inquiring about my celebrity crush, Turiaf wasn’t invading my privacy and me telling him the truth wasn’t a TMI moment. We were just having a conversation.

Now, whenever I look back at that footage, I can tell from his and the other players’ faces that Wolverine wasn’t exactly the answer they were expecting to hear. But I can also tell from my face that I wasn’t expecting what the athletes did after that — nothing.

Not a slur, barely a pause and no one walked out.

We just moved on to the next name on people’s list, which was Beyonce, and then on to another topic.

To this day, those two minutes remain one of my most embarrassing times on camera. Not because I had to tell complete strangers I was gay, but because I assumed they would have a problem with it once I did. I respected them as athletes, but didn’t give them much credit as people. My distrust, my assumptions about them were caught on tape for the world to see.

I guess after so many years of a wintry reception it was hard for me to leave my coat behind, even in sunny L.A.

I’m sure there are many other GLBT people and allies who feel they can’t leave their coats behind. But the truth is “don’t ask, don’t tell” will soon be officially dead … and with that comes the thaw.

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

The original article can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/22/granderson.dadt.gays/index.html

The Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

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From the New York Times, by: Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON — The military’s longstanding ban on service by gays and lesbians came to a historic and symbolic end on Wednesday, as President Obama signed legislation repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the contentious 17-year old Clinton-era law that sought to allow gays to serve under the terms of an uneasy compromise that required them to keep their sexuality a secret.

“No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie or look over their shoulder,” Mr. Obama said during a signing ceremony in a packed auditorium at the Interior Department here. Quoting the chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, Mr. Obama went on, “Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well.”

The repeal does not immediately put a stop to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Mr. Obama must still certify that changing the law to allow homosexual and bisexual men and women to serve openly in all branches of the military will not harm readiness, as must Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen, before the military can implement the new law. But the secretary and the admiral have backed Mr. Obama, who said ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a topic of his first meeting with the men. He praised Mr. Gates for his courage; Admiral Mullen, who was on stage with the president during the signing ceremony here, received a standing ovation.

While there is still significant resistance within the military to the change in policy, especially within the Marine Corps, at least one proponent — Representative Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts — insisted on Wednesday that this latest effort to integrate the armed services will go more smoothly than did racial or gender integration.

“Reality will very soon make it clear that there is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Frank said. He called the signing the biggest civil rights moment in the nation since the signing of voting rights legislation in the 1960s. “If you can fight for your country, you can do anything,” he said.

In the years since President Bill Clinton first enacted “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, some 17,000 service members have been discharged under the policy. While many gay people in the military are now breathing a sigh of relief, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents soldiers facing charges under the policy, is warning its members that they are “still at risk” because the repeal will not take full effect until 60 days after Mr. Obama, the defense secretary and admiral certify readiness.

“The bottom line is DADT is still in effect and it is not safe to come out,” the organization said.

For Mr. Obama, the ceremony — held at the Interior Department because the White House is tied up with holiday tours — marked yet another in a string of last-minute, bipartisan legislative triumphs, a surprising turnaround in the wake of the self-described “shellacking” his party took at the polls last month. He had already signed a bipartisan tax deal into law, and the Senate appears headed on Wednesday to approve a new nuclear arms pact with Russia, which will give him a significant foreign policy victory as he wraps up the first half of his term. He looked relaxed and upbeat as he soaked up the energy from an enthusiastic crowd.For the gay rights movement, which has been frustrated with the pace of progress under Mr. Obama, Wednesday marked a celebratory turning point. “Thank you, Mr. President,” someone shouted, as Mr. Obama took the stage, prompting a round of other shouts: “Chicago’s in the house, Mr. President! You rock, Mr. President!” Mr. Obama pronounced himself overwhelmed.

The audience for the ceremony included a who’s who of gay activists, among them Frank Kameny, who was fired from a civilian job as an Army astronomer in 1957 — an act that prompted him to found a gay rights advocacy organization in Washington D.C. and to file a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1965 he picketed the White House, in the first ever demonstration there by gays.

Now white-haired at 85, Mr. Kameny also served as an enlisted Army soldier; he signed up in May 1943, he said, three days before he turned 18, and saw “front line combat” in Germany during World War II. He said he was asked if he had “homosexual tendencies” and denied it. “They asked, and I didn’t tell,” he said, “and I resented for 67 years that I had to lie.”

Link to the article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/us/politics/23military.html?ref=politics