This week new US rules for federal contractors went into effect, forbidding workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. When the executive order was issued last year, conservatives complained that it lacked an exemption that conservative religious leaders had sought. Fox News’ Todd Starnes said the order “endangers religious liberty.” But, Christianity Today reported last July, “Many religious organizations, such as World Vision, World Relief, and Catholic Charities partner with the federal government, but often receive grants, not contracts, so are not affected by the order, said Stanley Carlson-Thies, director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance.”
Two women who applied for a marriage license in Guam were turned down and plan to file a lawsuit in federal court.
Mormon Church: High officials slam ‘counterfeit’ gay families
Not long after winning praise from Utah LGBT activists for a compromise in which the church supported legislation opposing discrimination in employment and housing, Mormon officials reaffirmed Church teaching against, in the words of apostle L. Tom Perry, “all of the counterfeit and alternative lifestyles that try to replace the family organization that God himself established.”
“Despite what much of media and entertainment outlets may suggest, however, and despite the very real decline in the marriage and family orientation of some,” he said, “the solid majority of mankind still believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman.”
Perry’s comments were made at the Annual General Conference, which was held last weekend. Another members of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Quorum President Boyd K. Packer, said, “The end of all activity in the church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home and sealed together for time and for all eternity.”
Vatican: Church reportedly resists appointment of gay ambassador from France
In January, the French Council of Ministers approved the appointment of openly gay Laurent Stefanini to be the country’s ambassador to the Holy See, but the position remains vacant, “leading many to wonder whether the hold up might be disapproval of Stefanini’s appointment from the Vatican itself,” writes Andrew Potts at Gay Star News.
The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois and the former president of the Bishops’ Conference of France have sent a letter to Pope Francis to support the French Government’s choice of ambassador.
However according to a report by Swiss based BlastingNews.com, some members of the Roman Curia believe Stefanini’s appointment is a provocation by the French Government and the president of French anti-gay marriage group Manif Por Tous, Ludovine LaRochere, has contacted the Apostolic Nuncio in Paris to object to his appointment.
FirstPost.com cites French daily LeJournal du Dimanche quoting a Vatican source saying the rejection is due to “a decision taken by the Pope himself.”
Ireland: Archbishop says Christians persecuted for opposition to gay marriage
Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh and Priate of All Ireland used his Holy Thursday Mass to talk about the “persecution” of Christians, including those opposed to same-sex couples getting married. Naith Payton writes for Pink News:
Archbishop Eamon Martin spoke out about the difficulties faced by Christians who believe in the “Church’s understanding of marriage and the family”.
During Chrism Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, he said: “To be like Christ in an increasingly secularised world often means being different, counter-cultural, and not easily swayed by the prevailing attitudes and opinions around us. This is not easy.
“The pressure on us to conform, to become just like everyone else is often immense and overpowering. Sometimes daring to witness openly to our sincerely held Christian convictions can bring upon us ridicule, condemnation or even persecution.
“I am thinking, for example, about our strong beliefs in the sacredness of human life from the first moment of conception until the moment of natural death; our Church’s understanding of marriage and the family; our Catholic social teaching about the fair distribution of goods, care for creation and concern for the weakest and most vulnerable. It is equally challenging for us in our ministry as priests and bishops.”
Meanwhile, the Irish National Teachers Organization is calling for the abolishment of a law that allows a school to protect its “religious ethos” when making employment decisions, a law that is causing anxiety among gay and lesbian teachers as Ireland’s referendum on marriage equality approaches.
ISIS: Man accused of being gay stoned to death in Syria
Islamic State militants reportedly stoned a blindfolded man to death in Homs, Syria, based on charges of “homosexuality.”
Japan: Same-sex wedding ceremonies gaining acceptance
At Japan Times, Mikako Kubo reports that Shunkoin Temple has hosted five Buddhist wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples in the past five years.
What prompted the openness was a request from a Spanish gay woman participating in a Zen meditation session who asked to use the temple for a wedding with her partner. Zenryu Kawakami, the deputy temple master who talked with the Spanish woman, said he accepted her request because Mahayana Buddhism, the prevailing form in Japan, has nothing against homosexuality.
A David McNeill story in the Irish Times about the increasing acceptance of gay relationships in Tokyo, examines the differing role religion has played in the treatment of homosexuality in Japan:
Although blighted by the usual agonies of personal identity and need for secrecy, life for gays and lesbians in Japan did not suffer the same outright repression as in other parts of the world. Discrimination in Britain and the US, at least until the 1960s, was “horrendous”, says Mark McLelland, a UK-born academic and author of Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realties.
“You could be prosecuted there, whereas the Japanese are fairly laid-back about sexual scandal – it’s not personally harming in the way it is in the West.”
While cops elsewhere were still busting men in toilets and public parks, Japan did not even have an anti-sodomy law. Nor did it have what McLelland calls the “anti-homosexual rage” of many Christian cultures, the lethal fuel for homophobia and the “hyper-violence” of gay-bashing incidents. As [Japanese author Taq] Otsuka puts it: “Homosexuality was never considered a sin here, just shameful.”
Dominican Republic: Presidential contender slammed, apologizes for anti-gay comments
Former president Hipólito Mejía, who is positioning himself for another run at the office, came under fire last week for making anti-gay comments while he was in New York drumming up support. Mejia is close to the notoriously anti-gay state Sen. Ruben Diaz. Blogger Andres Duque publicized comments Mejía made about a campaign advisor wanting him to sit like a “maritoncito,” which translates into “little faggot.” After he was criticized by New York City Counsil Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and LGBT groups in the Dominican Republic, Mejía apologized this week, saying his intentions had been isinterpreted.
As we have previously noted, during a 2013 press conference, Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo described openly gay US Ambassador James “Wally” Brewster as a “faggot.”
Chile: Civil union bill gets OK from constitutional court
The Constitutional Court issued a ruling on Monday upholding the constitutionality of a civil union bill that Congress passed in January. The law had been intensely opposed by religious conservatives; evangelical pastor Javier Soto led a protest in the Chamber of Deputies last year.
Russia: LGBT youth support group faces Kafkaesque persecution
We have previously reported that Russian officials have used the country’s anti-gay “propaganda” law to target Deti 404, an online support group for LGBT youth. This week Human Rights Watch provided an update:
On April 6, Deti 404 legal representatives went to the Oktyabrski district court of Saint Petersburg to observe the hearing, but a prosecutor informed them that the court had issued a ruling against Deti 404 in a hearing on March 25, the day a court in the city of Nizhni Tagil dismissed a “gay propaganda” case against Deti 404’s administrator, Elena Klimova. Klimova told Human Rights Watch that she had not yet seen the ruling and did not know the specifics of the court‘s decision. Neither Klimova, nor the group’s lawyers knew that the court had changed the date of the hearing to March 25. As a result of the ruling, Russia’s state agency for media oversight could now move to block Deti 404’s website in Russia.
Colombia: ‘One step forward, two back’ for gay couples
Reuters reports on the story of lesbian couple Veronica Botero and Ana Leiderman, who won a ruling from the Constitutional Court last year that Botero could adopt Leiderman’s children.
The ruling, handed down in 2014, was the first of its kind in the socially conservative Andean nation.
But more than seven months later, university professor Botero, and her spouse, Ana Leiderman, are still waiting for their adoption papers, blocked by a local judge who has autonomy.
The couple have become a symbol of the struggle gays and lesbians face in winning equal rights to heterosexuals over adoption and marriage in the predominantly Catholic country, where traditional views of the family unit hold sway.
Opponents of advancing gay rights, including Colombia’s powerful inspector general, the Catholic Church and conservative lawmakers, view homosexual acts as a sin and say only a man and woman can form a family and have the right to adopt….
In 2011, the Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex unions were legal but Colombia’s lawmakers have since failed to pass a law to regulate gay marriage.
This means a marriage license is issued at the discretion of a local notary and judge, and so far only 30 same-sex couples have been awarded one in Colombia, Albarracin said.
Jamaica: President Obama praises LGBT activists during visit
US President Barack Obama visited Jamaica this week. Activists had urged him to address issues facing LGBT Jamaicans. Human Rights First praised Obama for participating in a town hall meeting with young leaders that included LGBT activists. During his remarks, Obama publicly praised Angeline Jackson, director of the pro-equality Quality of Citizenship Jamaica. From a report by the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers:
“As a woman and as a lesbian, justice and society weren’t always on her side,” said the president. “But instead of remaining silent she chose to speak out and started her own organization to advocate for women like her, get them treatment and get them justice and push back against stereotypes and give them some sense of their own power. And she became a global activist.”
“More than anything she cares about her Jamaica and making it a place where everybody, no matter their color or their class or their sexual orientation can live in equality and opportunity,” added Obama as members of the audience that included Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt and Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays Executive Director Dane Lewis applauded. “That’s the power of one person and what they can do.”
Obama made another reference to gay rights to the audience that primarily consisted of young people before introducing Jackson.
“You’re more eager for progress that comes not by holding down any segment of society, but by holding up the rights of every human being, regardless of what we look like or how we pray or who we love,” he said.
Obama’s comments come against the backdrop of rampant anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in country that includes reports of a gay teenager who was recently stoned to death. Jamaica is among the Caribbean nations in which consensual same-sex sexual acts remain criminalized.
As we have noted previously, American evangelicals have traveled to Jamaica repeatedly to shore up support for the country’s colonial-era law that criminalizes homosexuality.
Jamaican LGBT rights activist Maurice Tomlinson, who now lives in Toronto with his Canadian husband, recently wrote about his work to challenge legal bans on gay people entering the nations of Belize and Trinidad and Tobago.
Asia: LGBTs flee ‘family shame’ and violence
Reuters’ Alisa Tang reported this week on the number of LGBT people in “largely patriarachal and conservative” Asian countries who are flocking to cities and increasingly leaving their home countries to escape the “family shame factor” and live more freely.
Activists say including sexual orientation and gender identity in laws, policies and programs to prevent violence against women and children would reduce family violence against LGBT people.
For instance, Cristobal said a young man in Manila contacted her via Facebook last year because his brother had threatened to kill him because he was gay. She told him to call the police.
“The brother was not there any more. Police came and gave their personal mobile number. The neighbors saw the police… were supportive of the gay guy, so I think that regulated them from directly telling him negative things,” she said.
Vietnamese mother-son activists Lily Dinh and Teddy Nguyen say family attitudes in Vietnam have changed since the government decriminalised same-sex marriage.
In 2013, Vietnamese government officials organized discussions on same-sex marriage, and invited Dinh – who heads a small chapter of PFLAG, a group for parents and friends of LGBT people – to speak, along with others from the group.
“I think that was the first time the government officers from the ministry of justice and from congress met LGBT people in real life, and the first time they met with LGBT parents, too,” Dinh said in a Skype call from Ho Chi Minh City.
“We told our stories because we wanted the government to understand the difficulties our children face in their daily lives… I think that the officials understood and felt empathy for the PFLAG members and for the LGBT community.”
India: Recriminalization of homosexuality leaves gays vulnerable to violence, blackmail
Reuters reports that thousans of LGBT Indians have faced persecution since the country’s high court reinstituted the colonial-era sodomy law in 2013. The article recounts the story of a gay man whose attackers filmed the sexual assault and threatened to tell report him to police.
“What is becoming increasingly common are gangs whose modus operandi is to befriend victims on gay dating sites, meet them in a hotel room, get them naked and take compromising pictures of them,” said Sonal Giani, advocacy manager at the Humsafar Trust, a Mumbai-based charity which works for LGBT rights.
“These gangs threaten to report them to the police if they don’t give them money. They often beat and sexually abuse the victims … but the victims are so scared that they generally don’t tell anyone.”
United Kingdom: Court rule Nigerian asylum seeker ‘fabricated’ her lesbianism
A High Court judge ruled against Nigerian Aderonke Apata, who has applied for refugee status on the grounds that as lesbian and LGBT equality activist she faces violent persecution and imprisonment if returned to Nigeria. In spite of her marriage to Happiness Agboro, a Nigerian who has been granted asylum on the basis of her sexuality, the government argued that Apata had “fabricated” her sexuality and is not really a lesbian.
Nigeria: Anti-Gay president defeated
President Goodluck Jonathan, who had signed a harsh anti-gay law and used it as a campaign theme, was defeated by his opponent Gen. Muhammadu Buhari last week. As we reported previously, Jonathan’s campaign had accused Buhari of secretly telling western nations he would back marriage equality in return for their support. Jonathan won praise for quickly conceding the election and encouraging a peaceful democratic transfer of power.
