Discrimination against gay men, lesbians and transsexuals is widespread in the European Union, researchers say. About half of all respondents felt in the year before the survey that they had been discriminated against or harassed because of their sexual orientation.
Lesbians (55%), respondents aged 18-24 (57%) and people with the lowest incomes (52%) had experienced this most. 90 percent of those did not report the discrimination to the police.
Greece: Report says gay activists and supporters are targets of ‘violence and threats from extremists and supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party’: here.
French President Francois Hollande signed into law a Bill authorising marriage and adoption by same-sex couples on Saturday: here.
Britain: Youth groups in Salford staged a thought-provoking photo exhibition dubbed Don’t Assume to help promote International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (Idaho) today: here.
Clashes break out during a rally to mark the international day against homophobia in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday. Thousands of conservative ultra-Orthodox supporters broke through heavy police cordons, clashing with gay rights activists: here.
That British Conservative is controversial historian Niall Ferguson. To some people, better known as the husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali … err, that is not her real name: of Ayaan Hirsi Magan.
Ms Ali Magan justifies her Islamophobia by the homophobia of some Muslims; basically of all Muslims, according to Ms Ali Magan.
Looking at Ms Ali Magan’s husband now, it seems more than ever that Ms Ali Magan pretends to support LGBTQ rights just as a pretext to attack Muslims.
This video is called Niall Ferguson is really sorry he’s a homophobic bigot.
Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has apologized for remarks claiming John Maynard Keynes’ theory of economics was doomed to failure because Keynes himself was gay and childless.
Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes’ economic philosophy was flawed and he didn’t care about future generations because he was gay and didn’t have children.
Kostigen writes that Ferguson, speaking in front of hundreds of financial advisers and investors at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., broached the subject in response to a question comparing Keynes’ theories and Edmund Burke‘s.
Burke had many children, Keynes had none, Ferguson reportedly said. And thus, Burke believed in a “social contract” that would endure for generations, while the childless, gay Keynes believed in a philosophy of self-interest.
Ferguson, “says it’s only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an ‘effete’ member of society,” Kostigen wrote. “Apparently, in Ferguson’s world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.”
Kostigen went on to call Ferguson’s comments “gay-bashing,” “intellectually void,” and “vulgar,” saying they put “the full weight of the financial crisis on the gay community and the barren.”
On Twitter, senior editor at InvestmentNews Dan Jamieson confirmed the comments:
Others, including Felix Salmon from Reuters, were quick to condemn them:
“A lot of people have this idea that Keynes didn’t care about the future because of the famous line, ‘in the long run, we’re all dead,’ which people take to mean that the only thing that matters is the short term.”
But that line is taken out of context and the full quote says something entirely different, according to Weisenthal.
“In other words, [Keynes] is slamming economists for being sanguine about near-term troubles, merely because in the long term, stability and equilibrium will return,” Weisenthal writes.
In the New Yorker‘s review of Robert Skidelsky’s biography, “John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Freedom,” Louis Menand notes that Skidelsky “is wisely inconclusive in assessing the bearing of Keynes’ sexuality on his economic views. Implicit in those views is a rather sharp distinction between public and private life, with private life given a nearly absolute priority.”
“Saying that Keynes’ economic philosophy was based on him being childless,” Blodget noted, “would be like saying that Ferguson’s own economic philosophy is based on him being rich and famous and therefore not caring about the plight of poor unemployed people.”
In Ferguson’s apology, posted to his website Saturday, he wrote that the comments “were as stupid as they were insensitive:”
Sexualising Keynes: Not just about Niall Ferguson: here.
Less than 24 hours after being sworn in as a member of Italy’s new coalition government, a junior equalities minister has been removed from her post for saying that gay people invite discrimination by “ghettoising” themselves.
Michaela Biancofiore, was relocated to a new position after gay rights groups protested on Friday after Biancofiore, a parliamentarian from former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom Party, was appointed to the equalities ministry as an undersecretary.
The head of gay rights advocacy group Gaynet, said that she was “known for her statements against the rights of homosexual couples,” and went on to question the “logic” of appointing her to “work for civil rights, including those of homosexuals”.
Pokarekare Ana – Full version with lyrics, translation and story
I couldn’t find the full version to this anywhere on youtube so I decided to post it myself, the lyrics are there to sing along to, along with a translation; with a gorgeous picture of a Kapiti sunset in the background. Also a link to the story behind one of the world’s most beautiful love songs, enjoy
in this version they sing Tua whati aku pene, instead of whati whati aku pene, tua basically meaning 2, don’t worry it has the same meaning.
Translation:
Pökarekare ana (They are agitated)
ngä wai o Rotorua(The waters of Rotorua/Waiapu)
Whiti atu koe hine (But when you cross over girl)
marino ana e(They will be calm)
Chorus:
E hine e (Oh girl)
hoki mai ra(Return to me)
Ka mate ahau (I could die)
I te aroha e(of love for you)
Tuhituhi taku reta (I have written my letter)
tuku atu taku rïngi(I have sent my ring)
Kia kite tö iwi (So that your people can see)
raru raru ana e(That I am troubled)
Chorus
E kore te aroha (My love will never)
e maroke i te rä(Be dried by the sun)
Mäkükü tonu (It will be forever moistened)
I aku roimata e(By my tears)
chorus
Tua whati taku pene (My pen is shattered)
ka pau aku pepa(I have no more paper)
Ko taku aroha (But my love)
mau tonu ana e(Is still steadfast)
New Zealand MPs vote to legalise same-sex marriage
Thursday 18 April 2013
The New Zealand parliament echoed with a traditional Maori love song on Wednesday after MPs made it the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to legalise same-sex marriage.
Supporters of the Bill, including hundreds of gay-rights advocates, stood and cheered after the 77-44 vote was announced.
Then as MPs tried to move to next business, someone started singing Pokarekare Ana in the Maori language and soon nearly the whole room joined in.
Before the vote, MP Maurice Williamson mocked a claim that the Bill would set off a “gay onslaught.”
“The sun will still rise tomorrow,” he assured the Bill’s opponents.
Same-sex marriage is recognised in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Denmark.
David Cameron’s announcement that Margaret Thatcher will receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral should surprise no-one.
Thatcher’s political career was dedicated to the same class interests of big business and society’s wealthy elite championed by Cameron and his conservative coalition.
She never faltered in her determination to ride roughshod over working people, their organisations and the public services on which they depended to make the rich richer still.
Her easy recourse to tears when her idiot playboy son lost himself in the Sahara during a car race or when she was knifed by her Tory Party MPs in the wake of the poll tax debacle was at odds with her failure to shed a drop for her millions of victims.
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Thatcher was exultant when Argentinian conscripts were needlessly sent to a watery grave aboard the Belgrano, as she was when Irish republicans abandoned hunger strikes in the grisly realisation that there was no limit to her willingness to see countless more die.
But it was her attitude to Britain’s organised working class, describing its members as the “enemy within,” that marked her out as a nasty piece of work, even compared with other Tory prime ministers.
Her single-minded readiness to mobilise all the resources of the state, egged on by the Tory lynch-mob media, contrasted with the inability of labour movement leaders to understand what they were facing.
Thatcher’s government was able to confront train drivers, print workers, seafarers and miners in their turn and to defeat them.
While TUC leaders vowed to remain law-abiding, the police, justifiably dubbed “Thatcher’s bootboys,” were given free rein to run riot on picket lines, infringe people’s free movement and other rights to smash the trade union movement.
On Mandela’s release, his courtesy visit to Thatcher, complete with photographs of a broad-beaming Mandela alongside his sour-faced host, summed up what fellow “communist terrorist” and later Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs called the “soft vengeance of a freedom fighter.”
That soft vengeance is not yet available to Thatcher’s victims in Britain because there has been no political turning of the tide.
New Labour refused to repeal the Tories’ vicious anti-union laws or to return privatised assets to public ownership.
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Tony Blair and Gordon Brown adopted her government policies wholesale, paving the way, as Ken Livingstone says, to today’s housing, banking and benefits crises. Their first promise at the 1997 election, which remained unbroken, was to leave taxation of the rich at the pampered level bequeathed by Thatcher’s ministers.
Blair used to phone her for advice and calls her a “towering political figure,” while Brown invited her to Chequers and Downing Street during his brief and unmemorable stint there.
Her stature appears majestic only in comparison with the easily bullied Lilliputians in her Cabinets and the new Labour mountebanks who followed in her footsteps.
Thatcher’s famous dictum that there is no such thing as society is contradicted by her funeral arrangements, which will be covered by the public purse rather than her family’s extensive wealth.
Just as her admirers remain committed to emulating her divisive policies, working people should be equally determined to reverse her and new Labour’s neoliberal agenda and chart a more progressive course.
South Africans give mixed response to Margaret Thatcher death. Condolences but also criticism of British former PM who once dismissed ANC as ‘a typical terrorist organisation’: here.
Margaret Thatcher: the artists loved to hate her: here.
Thatcher destroyed the heavy industries and the people who rebuilt post-war Britain. She took their jobs, their pride and their sense of self. There will be no state funeral in their memory: here.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams launched a scathing attack on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher today. Mr Adams pilloried the deceased baroness for her “shameful role” in Northern Ireland: here.
British human rights activist Peter Thatchell reacted:
In 1988, the Thatcher government legislated Britain’s first new anti-gay law in 100 years: Section 28. At the 1987 Conservative party conference she mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right.
“During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murder. Gay men were widely demonised and scapegoated for the AIDS pandemic and Thatcher did nothing to challenge this vilification.
Added: Wednesday 13 Mar 2013, 22:46
Updated: Wednesday, 13 Mar 2013, 23:03
Jorge Bergoglio made a career in the Argentine church in the nineteen seventies. His emergence coincided with the years of the Argentine junta, the military dictatorship of the years 1976-1983.
Bergoglio in recent years has been associated with the junta a number of times. The Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky claims that two Jesuits, who were kidnapped and tortured by the junta, then deliberately were not not protected by Bergoglio.
One of these Jesuits even says that Bergoglio then handed them over to the military. In 2005, shortly before the conclave then, Bergoglio because of this was indicted by a human rights lawyer. Bergoglio denied and no evidence was found. …
Baby
There are more accusations against the new pope. Bergoglio is said also to have done too little for a woman whose baby was stolen by the regime. That happened in that time to hundreds of children. They were given away to supporters of the regime.
The woman says she asked Bergoglio for help when she suspected that her child would be taken away. Bergoglio himself said in 2010 that he knew nothing about the stolen children.
The Argentine bishops in 2012, led by Bergoglio, collectively apologized to the Argentine Roman Catholics. The church then protected its faithful insufficiently, the bishops admitted.
The most well-known episode relates to the abduction of two Jesuits whom the military government secretly jailed for their work in poor neighbourhoods.
According to “The Silence,” a book written by journalist Horacio Verbitsky, Bergoglio withdrew his order’s protection of the two men after they refused to quit visiting the slums, which ultimately paved the way for their capture.
Mr Verbitsky’s book is based on statements by Orlando Yorio, one of the kidnapped Jesuits, before he died of natural causes in 2000. Both of the abducted clergymen survived five months of imprisonment.
“History condemns him. It shows him to be opposed to all innovation in the Church and above all, during the dictatorship, it shows he was very cosy with the military,” Fortunato Mallimacci, the former dean of social sciences at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, once said.
Those who defend Bergoglio say there is no proof behind these claims and, on the contrary, they say the priest helped many dissidents escape during the military junta’s rule.
New pope elected as Catholic Church tries to stem crisis: here.
Pope Francis Against Gay Marriage, Gay Adoption: here.
It’s probably the first — and last — time someone who is both Muslim and gay will be the one to bring them [priests] news of a new Pope: here.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the UK’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric, has resigned as the head of the Scottish Catholic church after being accused of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests.
In the statement, O’Brien apologised to any people he had let down and said he did not want the controversy to overshadow the election of the new pope.
“I have valued the opportunity of serving the people of Scotland and overseas in various ways since becoming a priest,” he said. “Looking back over my years of ministry, for any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologise to all whom I have offended.”
His resignation means the cardinal will not now take part in the election of a successor to Pope Benedict. This will leave Britain unrepresented in the process, as O’Brien was the only cardinal in the British Catholic churches with a vote in the conclave.
Although Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the archbishop emeritus of Westminster and former leader of Catholics in England and Wales, will attend pre-conclave meetings, he will not have a vote in the election itself as cardinals aged 80 and over are ineligible to vote. He is 80.
O’Brien, who missed celebrating mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh on Sunday, had been due to fly out to the Vatican on Tuesday for the conclave.
However, with the Vatican and Benedict’s successor facing a series of serious challenges to its reputation, O’Brien’s speedy retirement will allow the church to move quickly to settle this controversy.
The Observer reported that the four men came forward last week to demand his resignation largely because the complainants did not want O’Brien taking part in the papal election.
O’Brien said he had already agreed with Benedict that he would step down on 17 March as he was “approaching the age of seventy-five and at times in indifferent health”. The pope had now agreed he could resign immediately, he said, forcing the church to find an “apostolic administrator” to run the diocese until a new archbishop could be appointed.
Confirming he would not now go to the conclave, O’Brien said: “I thank Pope Benedict XVI for his kindness and courtesy to me and on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Scotland, I wish him a long and happy retirement.
…
O’Brien has been an outspoken critic of gay rights, denouncing plans for the legalisation of same-sex marriage as “harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved”. He was named bigot of the year in 2012 by the gay rights group Stonewall because of his central role in opposing gay marriage laws in Scotland.Colin Macfarlane, the director of Stonewall Scotland, called for a full inquiry into the claims against the former cardinal. “We trust that there will now be a full investigation into the serious allegations made against ex-cardinal O’Brien,” Macfarlane said. “We hope that his successor will show a little more Christian charity towards openly gay people than the former cardinal did himself.”
Gay rights campaigners react to Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation: here.
Cardinal O’Brien and the Vatican: Sex, Power and the Corruption of the Closet: here.
The author dedicated 18 months to getting to know homosexual couples in order to put together a photographic collection about relations that are gaining greater acceptance and understanding in Vietnamese society.
Using the pseudonym Maika Elan, the Vietnamese photographer, 26, graduated from Hanoi’s Social Sciences University and has participated in numerous workshops and festivals in Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Bangladesh.
Audio visuals and behind the scenes of Gomez de Villaboa photo shoots in Milk and Lead gallery with the stunning pieces of art of Iris Schieferstein, all video and editing by Pablo Taran de Regil whose work is invaluable.
Throughout Europe people are battling with the policies of austerity and the resulting unemployment, rising poverty and political instability.
In countries such as Spain and Greece, where the unemployment rate has risen to 26.6 per cent and 26 per cent respectively, people feel that government-imposed austerity is unbearable, condemning their countries to years of painful cuts and job losses.
Social suffering, insecurity and turmoil have given rise to fascism and xenophobia in countries hit by austerity policies and recession.
The Greek situation is particularly dramatic. Far-right party Golden Dawn, which until recently has been marginal, has surged in popularity. In last June’s parliamentary elections it gained a 6.92 per cent share of the national vote.
It also came third in several opinion polls, after the conservative New Democracy and pro-EU left-wing party Syriza.
Recession, austerity policies, unemployment and oppression have made the situation insufferable for many young people in Europe, some of whom decide to relocate to other countries such as Britain. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people are among those who flee.
LGBTQ people Britain need to be aware that what Greece is experiencing today, they may face tomorrow. The long queues for food in cities such as Barcelona are now a reality here in Britain too as poverty rises.
So to mark February as LGBT History Month, Unite London & Eastern LGBT committee and Sertuc LGBT network are holding an exhibition of new work by the Spanish photographer Francisco Gomez De Villaboa.
The exhibition is a celebration of the contribution that young LGBTQ people, from countries hit hard by austerity policies – Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Ireland and Portugal – have made to the queer scene in London and the south-east.
It consists of portrait photographs of some of them, such as the Cypriot London-based artist Hermes Pittakos and longstanding Irish activist Joseph Healey, currently a leading light in Queers Against the Cuts.
Francisco himself is part of the LGBTQ scene, his art being part of such landmarks as the Joiners Arms and Antagony night club, along with recording works by queer performance artists.
The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the contribution these people made to the LGBTQ scene and also to be a sign of solidarity to our LGBTQ sisters and brothers in those countries.
Furthermore, we aim to draw inspiration and urgency to our own resistance to the austerity policies of the Tories, which are wreaking havoc on our communities, and impacting on the LGBTQ scene here in London.
Emmanouil Balomenos is an LGBTQ activist from Greece.
The photographs by Francisco Gomez De Villaboa, curated by David Sharkey (Unite London & Eastern Region LGBT committee), will be on display at Unite House, 128 Theobald’s Rd, London WC1, from 6.30pm on February 4, with a presentation by Rachel Newton of the Greece Solidarity Campaign.
During the 80s, transgender Greek artist and prostitute Paola Revenioti published the trans-anarchist fanzine Kraximo. Funded by her own prostitution, the zine pioneered the fight for gay and trans rights, combining interviews with Greek poets and intellectuals alongside Athens street hustlers and her own photography, since compared to the work of Larry Clark and Walter Pfeiffer. Today she continues to work as an artist and activist, making Athens-based documentaries with her “Paola Projects”. This interview is taken from the May issue of Dazed & Confused: here.
Awarding Qatar the 2022 World Cup was always a terrible decision. It was iffy for footballing reasons alone, indefensible for political reasons – and deeply suspect, given the corruption allegations which have repeatedly been levelled at the decision-making process.
No supporter with any conscience can defend the prospect of £200,000-a-week Premier League megastars strutting their stuff in stadiums built by forced labour and soaked in the blood of hundreds of dead workers.
England’s fans and players alike should boycott Qatar 2022.
Qatar 2022 World Cup will exploit migrant workers, says report: here.
The name of Hammond’s job is a lie. His armed forces are not defending England, Scotland or Wales. They are thousands of miles away, waging neocolonial wars in Afghanistan, Mali, etc.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has told students in Surrey that allowing gay couples to marry would be like sanctioning incest.
The Conservative MP made the comments on Friday evening just hours after the government published its Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill during a visit to the University of London Royal Holloway’s Egham campus in Surrey.
Mr Hammond is the university’s local MP and had been invited to give a speech about British security and defence; however, his arrival was met with around 70 students chanting “gay, straight, black or white, marriage is a civil right.”
But on Friday, the senior cabinet minister, who had agreed to briefly meet with students Joe Rayment and Jack Saffery-Rowe used more contentious language.
Mr Rayment told PinkNews.co.uk that Mr Hammond said he was “very concerned” with the reform and that he believed gay couples would attempt to take religious groups to court if they refused to provide them with a marriage ceremony.
Mr Rayment challenged Mr Hammond on the fact that the Anglican Church to which he belongs had in the past altered its position on marriage, the MP responded: “yes, but that wasn’t yesterday”.
When the students asked why the MP believed the government should retain a ban on same-sex marriages, he responded by likening the current ban on equal marriage to incest, where it is illegal for two siblings to enter into wedlock.
Mr Hammond also said existing civil partnership legislation had removed discrimination.
When asked by PinkNews.co.uk to clarify the remarks concerning incest and why he mentioned the word, Mr Hammond personally emailed PinkNews.co.uk: “The discussion ranged very widely and was not limited to same sex relationships.”
MPs will vote on the second reading of the government’s Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on 5 February – although Mr Hammond revealed to the students that he would not be in the country when it is expected to take place.
