The White House announced this week that Pope Francis will visit President Barack Obama during his September trip to the U.S. Francis will be attending the Catholic Church’s World Meeting of Families (not to be confused with the World Congress of Families summit that will take place in Salt Lake City in October.) Kevin Riordan, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported on a gathering of LGBT equality advocates trying to figure out how to make the most of the Pope’s visit. This week Francis met with 10 gay, transgender, and HIV positive prisoners who were among 90 the pontiff had lunch with during his visit to a prison in Naples.
This week six openly gay U.S. ambassadors gathered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. for a panel discussion. The Washington Blade reports that Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James “Wally” Brewster discussed the opposition he and his husband face in the predominantly Catholic country, where Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo had referred to him as a “faggot” after he was nominated to the position by Barack Obama.
The Daily Beast released another video this week from its Quorum project, which documents LGBT people from around the globe telling their stories. The new video features Bisi Alimi, “the first Nigerian to openly declare his sexuality on national television, an event which transformed Nigeria’s discussion of sexuality – and threatened his life.”
United Nations: Russian proposal to roll back LGBT spousal benefits rejected
At the United Nations, a proposal by Russia to cut spousal benefits for LGBT employees whose home countries do not recognize their marriages was defeated in the General Assembly committee that handles administrative and budgetary affairs. More from Agence France-Presse:
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last June gave same-sex couples the same benefits, such as pension entitlements and travel allowances, that heterosexual couples can expect, provided they were wed in a country where gay marriage is legal. Previously, same-sex couples could only enjoy benefits if they were citizens of a country where gay marriage is recognized, which is not the case in Russia….
Russia argued the previous rules were not discriminatory and said the changes violate the sovereignty of states under the pretext of respecting human rights.
But Russia’s appeal was roundly rejected by 80 votes to 43, with 37 abstentions. China, Belarus and Muslim countries like Malaysia supported Moscow. Indonesia abstained but voiced “strong objections” to Ban’s decision.
European nations, the United States, Australia and Mexico were among those who rejected Russia’s motion. For Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Ban was within his rights to make the administrative decision, which has no effect on national laws.
Power criticized Russia for trying to “export to the UN its domestic hostility to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights.”
Northern Ireland: Supporters rally for bakery in ‘religious liberty’ case
In a case similar to the “religious liberty” debates raging in the U.S., where Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed such legislation into law this week, a baking company went to court this week defending “its right to refuse to ice a cake with the words, ‘support gay marriage,’” reports UPI.
The courts heard testimony that a worker at the bakery took the order without a problem. About two days later, the bakery canceled the order. Legal counsel Robin Allen said [Gareth] Lee was a regular customer at the family-run bakery and was never told of any restrictions on custom-made items.
“The rule of law says there shall be no discrimination in the commercial sphere,” Allen said.
Bakery General Manager Daniel McArthur said the order was refused because it was not in line with the company’s views.
“We considered it, looked at it and decided that it was at odds with our beliefs and was in contradiction with what the Bible teaches,” McArthur said.…
“This case raises issues of public importance regarding the extent to which suppliers of goods and services can refuse service on grounds of sexual orientation, religious belief and/or political opinion,” the commission said before the court hearing.
The BBC reports that more than 2,000 people showed up for an event organized by the Christian Institute to support the family that owns Ashers Baking Company. The hundreds who couldn’t make it into the full-to-capacity hall sang “Amazing Grace” on the sidewalk. A bakery supporter said it seems as though Christians “have no rights.”
One pro-marriage-equality columnist, Fionola Meredith, said she was supporting Ashers in the name of free speech and said that forcing the company to endorse same-sex marriage would to “nothing to advance the cause of equality.”
United Kingdom: Thatcher biographer decries ‘gay rights sharia’
Charles Moore, a former editor of the Telegraph and author of Margaret Thatcher’s authorized biography, slammed what he called a “gay rights sharia” that he said was out to silence people with “traditional views.” Moore’s commentary, which addressed the criticism of designers Dolce and Gabbana over their comments on “traditional families,” said children have become an “afterthought” in conversations about parenthood.
Socially conservative moral views are now teetering on the edge of criminality, and are over the edge of disapproval by those who run modern Britain.
Why this extraordinary repression of traditional belief? Some of it is understandable revenge. If you have been persecuted for homosexuality or single parenthood or (you have to be pretty old for this to have happened) divorce, you may well want to get your own back.
But there is more at work here. The BBC Today programme on Monday brought on Patrick Strudwick, who is the LGBT editor of Buzzfeed. Mr Strudwick was made furiously righteous by the fact that Dolce himself is gay. His attitude proved, he said, “the internalised homophobia of gay people”, for which (of course) society is to blame. “Their subconscious is kind of poisoned”: gays who think that a child is best brought up by a father and mother are suffering from “polonium… a silent killer”. So are gays who do not want to be “out of the closet”.
What we were hearing – and it has snatched the microphone of homosexual life in the same unrepresentative way that Islamism has grabbed the public voice of Muslims – was the voice of a self-appointed moral policeman. If you are gay, Mr Strudwick seemed to assert, there are certain things you must believe. Nothing else is permitted under the gay rights sharia.
Nigeria: Presidential candidate denies marriage-equality deal
We reported earlier this month that the party of President Goodluck Jonathan had accused his opponent, All Progressive Congress candidate Muhammadu Buhari, of having made of deal with western nations to support marriage equality if he were elected. This week Buhari supporters responded:
A group, Buhari Volunteers Network (BVN), has denied the allegation that the All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, signed agreement with four Western nations to support same sex marriage in Nigeria, if he becomes President.
At a media briefing in Abuja, National Coordinator of BVN, Olayemi Success, who described the allegation as “another unguarded vituperation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said there was no relationship between Buhari and any Western nation concerning gay marriage and “such pervasive orientations that are not in conformity with our culture and values”.
According to Success, “It is laughable and unreasonable for anybody to think that a man of General Buhari’s standing will at this age and stage descend to a level of upturning Acts of Parliament single-handedly in a democracy.
“The only explanation is that the PDP and Fani-Kayodes of this world have dirty minds and are not qualified to speak to Nigerians in the capacity they are doing today.
Mexico: Marriage equality continues to spread
Marriage equality continues to spread in Mexico via federal court orders, or amparos, issued on behalf of couples or groups of couples seeking to marry. The amparos instruct local authorities to issue licenses but do not generally eliminate the underlying local laws until there have been five rulings against a state. This week 68 same-sex couples in Tampico were awarded an amparo. And in Baja California Sur, the chief judge of the state’s high court proposed new provisions he described as “advanced, visionary and realistic” to harmonize state family law with judgements of the federal courts. Meanwhile, the city council of Mexicali filed a legal motion challenging court orders against the city’s ban on marriage by same-sex couples.
Iran: LGBT Activists respond to government’s response to UN human rights recommendations
According to Human Rights Watch, the “human rights crisis” in Iran has worsened in recent years. The UN Human Rights Council voted March 27 “to renew the mandate of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, signaling the international community’s continued concern over the state of human rights in Iran.” Foreign Policy noted this month that Shaheed’s report to the UN this month showed that President Rouhani’s rights record has been limited to mere “baby steps.” But some activists welcome any steps in the right direction.
Justice for Iran, a nonprofit human rights organization formed in 2010, announced last week that the group and the Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network (6Rang) “welcome the decision by the Islamic Republican of Iran to accept 139 of the 291 recommendations and to partially support 59 recommendations put forward by the 28th session of the Human Rights Council that address the rights of sexual minorities.”
Despite the limitations, this is the first time the Islamic Republic has acknowledged ill-treatment and torture of the LGBT community. It is also Iran’s initial move on the international level towards recognition of the rights of sexual minorities.
The document states sterilization, sex change operations and reparative therapies that are either forced or coerced due to absence of a free and informed decision-making process, will be made illegal. Furthermore, citizens will not face any form of torture based on sexual orientation. Iran reiterates its commitment to protect those rights of recognized religious, ethnic and sexual minorities that are in accordance with its constitution, and conditions this statement on the fact that some may require amendments in law or involve a period of time before they are fully implemented. In addition, according to the Human Rights Council website, Human Rights Council website, Iran accepts 59 additional recommendations with some limitations….
Shadi Amin of 6Rang pointed to continuing problems:
“However, Iran’s refusal to accept recommendations to fully decriminalise ‘same-sex sexual relations, remove the death penalty and flogging for offences relating to consensual same-sex relations between adults’ on the one hand, and making illegal torture due to sexual orientation with some reservations on the other, raise serious concerns regarding Iran’s will to implement the recommendations,” she added. “Unfortunately, no mechanisms are in place to monitor the implementation of this decision.”
Justice for Iran Executive Director Shadi Sadr said, “We call on the members of civil society to follow up on recommendations as made by Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands that Iran has partially supported. In addition, we call on all international organisations to press Iran to accept the remaining 102 recommendations, all of which reflect fundamental rights of Iranians.”
The Baha’i representative to the UN in Geneva, said Iran’s response to the recommendations offered a “bleak outlook for Baha’is and human rights.”
Also last week, Amnesty International called on the Iranian government to abandon plans to execute a young Kurdish Iranian to “prove that their participation at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is more than a mere PR exercise.”
Puerto Rico: Religious, political leaders slam government for ending defense of marriage ban
Last Friday, Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda announced that the Puerto Rican government would no longer defend a ban on marriage by same sex couples against federal court challenges of the law’s constitutionality.
Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, a Democrat and a defendant in the case, has previously stated his opposition to marriage equality.
“Everyone knows my religious beliefs but political leaders should not impose their beliefs,” the 43-year-old practicing Catholic said in a statement Friday.
Megachurch pastor Wanda Rolon called it “a grim day for the history of Puerto Rico” and accused the government of “rebelling against God.” Catholic Archbishop of San Juan Roberto Gonzalez Nieves, called for a referendum on the topic to prevent “a dictatorial imposition by the government.”
The government’s decision is “very regrettable and disconcerting,” Gonzalez Nieves said, adding that “Pope Francis has labeled this type of imposition on the part of a government as ideological colonization.”
“We want a society that welcomes, accompanies, loves and protects the legitimate rights of its gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgender sons and daughters. We want a society that prays for them and condemns and eradicates hate crimes. That’s why we’re calling for equality, respect and tolerance,” the archbishop said.
However, “this does not justify considering their unions analogous to a marriage between a man and a woman, the only union capable of bringing life into the world and which reflects the design of the creator.”
Some lawmakers are also challenging the decision. Senator Ángel “Chayanne” Martínez said he would launch an effort to put a marriage ban in the island’s constitution.
Italy: Civil union legislation moves forward
In Italy, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved civil union legislation that would also allow gay parents to adopt a child who is the biological offspring of one of the partners. Under the legislation, marriages that take place in other countries, as well as marriages in which one couple has made a gender transition, could be recognized as civil unions.
Here’s an Interview with Andrea Miluzzo, who launched boycott of Dolce and Gabbana after recent comments regarding non-traditional families.
Australia: Debate on marriage equality postponed; opponent attends lesbian daughter’s wedding
A debate on marriage equality legislation that was scheduled to take place in the Australian Senate on Thursday was postponed again because “the ruling Liberal Party refused to let its members vote with their conscience.”
Pro-marriage-equality Senator David Leyonhjelm received a letter telling him to “leave Australia in a hurry” and warning that “there will be a curse and you and your family.” The letter ended with, “Someone should give you a blast of shotgun. Preferably in the stomach. You filthy animal.”
Peter Westmore, the chairman of the National Civic Council of Australia, described by the Northwest Star newspaper as “the leading Catholic-based lobby group campaigning against same-sex marriage in Australia, attended and gave his blessing to his daughter’s New Zealand marriage to another woman.
Mr Westmore has railed against Australian and international moves toward same-sex marriage. In 2012 he told an audience at the National Marriage Day rally outside Federal Parliament: “We are here to celebrate marriage, the union between a man and a woman, because it provides the foundation on which every successful society, from time immemorial, has been based.”
In 2013 he questioned same-sex marriage legalisation in New Zealand, and in 2014 opposed a Greens’ bill for Australian recognition of foreign same-sex marriages. “The battle to defend the true meaning of marriage is continuing,” he wrote in June last year.
Yet on Tuesday he confirmed that in November he attended his daughter Trish’s marriage to partner Christy in New Zealand, where same sex marriage was made legal in 2013. He said his daughter’s wedding had his blessing . “She always has my blessing in everything she does.”
Asked on Tuesday if he still supported the NCC’s opposition on same sex marriage he said: “Of course I do.”
Saudi Arabia: New documentary, ‘A Sinner in Mecca’ will premiere in April
Filmmaker Parvez Sharma’s “A Sinner in Mecca” will premiere at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto.at the end of April. From the festival website:
Openly gay and a devout Muslim, Parvez Sharma embarks on a perilous pilgrimage to Mecca hoping to find an answer to this most personal question: is it possible for someone like him to be a good Muslim? Director of 2008’s A Jihad for Love, which documents the lives of LGBT Muslims, Sharma turns the camera on himself in his latest film. A journey full of dangers—homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, corporal punishment, fines and even death—A Sinner in Mecca is not only a fascinating personal essay on a gay Muslim’s inner-most struggles, but a captivating portrait of contemporary Islam. “As an adult, my relationship to conventional Islam has never been easy,” Sharma says in the film. “Islam is at war with itself and I have fought hard to not be a casualty.” Juan Baquero
Russia: Conviction under gay ‘propaganda’ law overturned
A report by Christopher Blummer for Human Rights First:
In a rare victory for the human rights of LGBT Russians, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Nizhny Tagil overturned the January 23rd conviction of Elena Klimova for “promotion of homosexuality.”
Klimova is the creator and director of Children-404, an online community where LGBT teenagers can share coming out stories, post letters, and find advice and support. The site also provides resources for adults and allies.
She was found guilty despite numerous problems with the case, including mistakes in the judge’s ruling, failure to meet official requirements for such a verdict, and, most egregious, her lack of an attorney for the conclusion of the trial. She asked for a delay but was convicted and fined 50,000 Rubles.
This was the second time that Klimova was prosecuted under the now infamous propaganda law. Last year, Klimova was acquitted by the same court for her work with Children-404.
Unfortunately, her latest victory may be short-lived. The case will now be presented before a new judge.
Turkey: Cartoonists fined, but not jailed, for insinuating president is gay
Two cartoonists were fined, but spared the 11-month jail term they could have received, for publishing a cartoon in a satirical magazine some saw as suggesting that President Tayyip Erdogan is gay. According to Pink News, “They published a cartoon in satirical magazine Penguen in which the President greets an official, who is making a hand gesture used to mock gay people in Turkey.”
The case was brought against them after a reader complained the cartoon was against the country’s moral values. Lawyers representing President Erdogan pushed for a conviction for “insulting a public official”.
The pair were facing 11 months in jail, but were spared based on good behaviour during the trial. They have been fined 7,000 Turkish lira (£1,830).
Being gay has been legal in Turkey since 1858, but the country is still largely conservative on the issue, will no legal rights or protections for LGBT people. Many people – including a 13 year old boy – have faced legal trouble for insulting President Erdogan.
Sweden: Gender neutral pronoun officially joines Swedish language
The Swedish language now official contains a gender-neutral pronoun – “hen” – in addition to the male pronoun “han” and female pronoun “hon.”
