A gay African 'anti-imperialism of fools'

As a Brit, perhaps excuse me these issues. They're not new.

The idea of an 'anti-imperialism of fools' is decades old (and behind an effin firewall on a magazine laughingly called 'Dissent').

Fortunately we have Nick effin Cohen via the hyper-capitalist Spectator *for free* to say:

In his Tyranny of Guilt, the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner emphasised the colonial mindset of ‘anti-imperialists’. The West may no longer dominate the world. (We are the first ‘imperialists’ without an empire.) But they can maintain that the West still matters because it is the root cause of the world’s ills. Psychologically, such narcissism is just about understandable as a compensation for decline. One day a cultural historian will notice that the explosion of chest-beating and garment-rending in the West coincided with the shift in economic power to east Asia. But as principled politics, the denial that there are reactionary movements and regimes in the world with motives of their own is a disgrace.

Thus may we view the fact of the New York Times blaming the US State Department for the persecution of gay men in Africa.

For the past few years the US has spoken up for LGBT rights, albeit selectively, worldwide and it has a small, funded support program. For most people this is progress and small beer, for others ... it is the 'Empire' doing its evil thing and promoting 'homocapitalism'.

The context from the Chomskyite left is of Glenn Greenwald telling Malians: 'I don't care what you f&cking think about an Islamist invasion, I know best.' (Which is what he actually did.)

IOW - and we already had a sense from their treatment of Muslim dissenters - it's tinged with racism, we Western lefties know best. 'Pro-gay'=pro-imperialist, in their minds. So of course the Times piece was gloatingly welcomed.

But the voices of actual gay Africans on US engagement with them wasn't heard (as it wasn't, shockingly, in the Times piece). Now they are speaking out.

Jay Michaelson writing in the Daily Beast:

Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Nigerian activist who founded the LGBT Christian organization Changing Nigeria in 2005, is one such person. “Obama raising the LGBT issue was marvelous,” Mac-Iyalla told The Daily Beast. “The African LGBT struggle could not have come this far without the support of the West.”

Mac-Iyalla also points out that the real turning point in terms of African perceptions of homosexuality as “Western” resulted not from U.S. foreign aid, but from the Anglican Communion’s evolution on the issue, beginning at the 1998 conference in Canterbury and culminating in the 2003 ordination of the first openly gay bishop, Bishop Gene Robinson.

Here's what the Times handed to African LGBT opponents and the Obama hate crowd:

Finally, the Times article radically overstated the amount of U.S. spending in the area, citing a figure of $700 million. That claim was duly repeated by anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council (which, in a nice leftward turn, accused the U.S. of “cultural imperialism”) and websites like Breitbart.

But that figure includes the total amount spent on all “vulnerable populations” for public health purposes, not just LGBT people. According to Andrew Park, director of International Programs at the Williams Institute, which studies issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, the actual figure is closer to $7 million—two orders of magnitude off.

The $700m figure is BS. And that BS still isn't corrected on the piece.

In fact, the only thing the Times got right was its impersonation of African anti-gay activists, who routinely say that homosexuality is a Western invention, a Western sin, or a Western value. They are the ones who link the justified rage at 300 years of Western depredation of Africa with opposition to contemporary Western policies. In what is now a series of articles, the Times has endorsed this view.

Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of HRAPF

This article has stirred so much that a number of African gay activists have publicly come out against it (comment from 76crimes.com).

“I read the article … with a lot of disbelief,” says Adrian Jjuuko, veteran Ugandan activist and executive director of the Uganda’s LGBTI-friendly legal organization, the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF). The article described “a very different reality from what I as an activist …  have experienced,” he says.

“The US support was always done in a respectful way and after consultations with activists on the ground,” Jjuuko writes in a letter to the editor of the New York Times.

In addition to Jjuuko, critics citing the Times article’s inaccuracies have included:

• Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of State;
• Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda;
• Andrew Park, director of international programs at the Williams Institute in Los Angeles;
• Kikonyogo Kivumbi, who represents key HIV-affected populations on the Global Fund’s Uganda Country Coordinating Mechanism health policy panel;
• Nigeria’s Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights; and
• This blog, in its Dec. 24 article, “Nigerian activists protest harmful, flawed N.Y. Times coverage.”

Why should anyone be unsurprised that Africans are upset at a Times piece which quotes Obama critics but not fans?

Those, of course, who value Western criticism above African opinion.

And, oh look, it just happens to exactly match that coming from the US far right. Funny, that.

#facepalm



See Also:

• Obama 'kills it' in another African speech
• New Muslim LGBT heroes
• Back brave LGBT comrades in Ukraine 

The case of Maxim Eristavi

Maxim Eristavi is a Ukranian journalist I've been following for about two years. When the EuroMaidan (what is now known as the 'Revolution of Dignity') broke out in Kyiv he was a strong English speaking presence reporting what was happening.

The first time I saw him was in a series of interviews around Ukraine he did with a German hipster where his ability to ask the right questions came shining through (see their report from March 2014 'What happened on the Maidan in Kiev?' after the jump). His writing last year for publications like New Republic pulled no punches, such as 'The New Ukrainian Government Is Poised to Abandon the LGBT Activists Who Were on the Front Lines'.

Now he is regularly interviewing Very Important People on the Hromadske channel he helped found, whose Sunday Show in English, which he co-hosts, has become a go-to source for Ukraine watchers.

He was recently made a Poynter fellow and spoke at the Yale Law School saying:

My mission today will be to highlight the 5 most popular myths about Ukraine and the Ukrainian-Russian war, to debunk them and by doing so to show how Ukraine is not, as it may appear, a far away localized conflict but instead a good case study for many global developments in international law, six main theories of international relations, social deconstructive studies, global fight for civil rights equality and development theories.

Eristavi on the Maidan

Eristavi is also openly gay, a rare thing in Ukraine, and features in a series by the artist Carlos Motta called "Patriots, Citizens, Lovers..." which was at the gallery owned by the oligarch Victor Pinchuk (who recently brought Elton John to Kyiv to tell Ukraine's elite to support LGBT rights). Motta developed the show in conversation with Ukrainian journalist Maxim Ivanukha and it is "composed of ten urgent interviews with Ukrainian LGBTI and queer activists who discuss the critical and dire situation of lesbian, gay, trans and intersex lives in Ukraine in times of war."

Here's what Eristavi had to say (you can watch him after the jump along with a Hromadske report about the show):

My name is Maxim Eristavi. I am an independent journalist and the co-founder of Hromadske International. I work on media coverage of Ukraine: Mostly on LGBT issues and media rights. I am also one of the few openly gay journalists in Ukraine. As a journalist I have always thought that if you know a topic really well or if your background helps you to cover a specific topic well, then you must do it. I decided that I can cover LGBT news better than non-LGBT journalists or those who do not quite understand the daily realities of LGBT people’s lives in Ukraine.

After I came back to Ukraine at the end of 2013, after a long absence, and the revolution had begun, I understood that this was an opportunity for the implementation of civil rights in Ukraine. The Maidan revolution was and is a unique opportunity for the majority of people in Ukraine to realize the importance of equality. Equality as a wide concept that concerns everyone and that has to do with the civil rights that all people should have since they are born. The revolution presented a unique opportunity to define this and to help the progress of attaining equality.

I used to live in Russia, which is often compared to Ukraine in terms of the scope of its homophobia. But when I returned to Ukraine I noticed how much society had changed. I started thinking that in Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, equality and the empowerment of the civil rights of the LGBT community were a potential victory. Achieving these goals here would be much easier than in other countries of the region and if we were to achieve them we could make progress for the whole region, not only for Ukraine.

From the gallery show

Recent polls show that more than 70% of Ukrainians think gay people are sick. This discussion is still stuck in the past. One can surely understand people who say that in times of conflict the time is not right to discuss important yet controversial issues, such as trying to change the course of history or stereotypes about minorities. Not only about the LGBT community but also about gender rights, religious expression or the concerns of other minority groups. But when they tell me: “Why don’t you wait 20-30 years until the big problems are solved and then we can get back to your problems?” I always answer that the war in Ukraine is not only military and economic, but also civil and cultural. Building a society that is dramatically different from Russia and from the post-Soviet values that we are still trying to get rid of would be a very important victory in this war. A victory for everyone, not only for the minorities, but also for the whole country. This won’t be achieved by solving only military and economic problems. Ultimately, strong and protected minorities are not a threat to a healthy and successful country.

But one year after the revolution and in the midst of the war the situation in the country has worsened. The problem is not only a change in the social attitude towards LGBT issues because you can often see a completely different trend. People want to know more, they understand the necessity to protect minorities... Yet from another perspective, I see the current situation as an attempt to highjack the conversation about LGBT issues, to instil fear in people and to manipulate them through this fear.

I wouldn’t only blame the nationalists or other marginal groups for this. Our own community is also to blame. In a country of 45 million people there are practically no LGBT people who are out. There are only a handful of them and they are mostly involved in the field of activism. Ordinary Ukrainian citizens don’t know what LGBT means and they don’t know any LGBT people. In a country that keeps its LGBT life in the closet, the community itself should be the first to address this issue.

 When it comes to gay rights, gay Ukrainians don’t differ from other Ukrainians who want to have more rights. This goes back to a culture of fear common to Soviet times. Constant paranoia and fear of being punished for having a different opinion created a culture of fear that still persists. When you speak with LGBT people of an older generation, generally they don't participate in any events or speak openly about their sexuality, even with their families, which might be more important than coming out publicly.

My whole life could be described as an escape: An escape that started at school when I was trying to avoid being bullied and to get away from people who tried to humiliate me. Later on, the escape becomes larger as you want to escape your city since you don’t feel safe and you are trying to find a new and more tolerant society. Later you want to leave the country. I went to places where I thought I would feel more comfortable but I realized that this fear stays inside you everywhere you go. It is impossible to escape until you turn back, stop, and start hitting back. Where you live is not so important, you first have to solve the problem of self-respect. Hating something inside you, something you can’t overcome, something passed on to to you at birth, is toxic and destructive.

Honesty is one the things that attracted me to journalism. It was important for me not only professionally, but personally as well. If I had become honest with myself and with those people whom I tell my story, I realized that I could do things differently in my job. I have idealistic and romantic journalistic standards and I realized that it is impossible to tell people stories without talking about my personal background… If I tell a story about LGBT people, I have to say that I am also gay.

If there are so many LGBT people in the Ukrainian media, why is the media’s coverage of LGBT issues so unprofessional? I wouldn’t only blame journalists for this but also LGBT activists themselves. Due to the activists’ previous negative experiences with the media they prefer to take some distance and agree only to minimal cooperation. Both sides need a fresh start; we need to work together in order to understand why the coverage is so unprofessional and often homophobic.

I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel. But we have to pay attention to history and to the experience of other countries where this issue has resolved successfully. We need to try to learn something elsewhere and to test it here to see whether it works. We need to constantly search for new ways to achieve progress. Ultimately, despite history and everyone’s different backgrounds it comes down to one simple task: Accepting the choices of another human being.

When I recall my childhood and the problems I faced then: being humiliated at school by other boys who wanted to disgrace me by locking me up in the public toilet, I understand that I am more successful now than they are and that I feel better than they do. I don’t need special rights, additional rights or special privileges. I just need just equality, a right that is given at birth and is guaranteed not only by law but simply by the right to life. Equality shouldn’t require any additional expenses or the efforts of lawmakers. One shouldn’t have to vote or organize elections in favor of equality. Equality is something you have at birth. It is a right to be proud of who you are and not to be afraid to say it to others. It is something given to all humans at birth. This is the idea with which absolutely all Ukrainians can agree on after the Maidan revolution.

Some contrarian thoughts on Russia and The Gays

Zhuravlyov and his colleague Nikolai Valuev, who is also no fan of sexual minorities

Is Russia's 'remove kids from gay parents' bill the straw that will break Russian anti-gay forces? When will Western media finally report that the Russian version of America's Christianist anti-gays have Russian opposition?

Last week the news came out that a long hinted at new anti-gay bill had been introduced in Russia's parliament, the Duma. Deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov's bill would make sexual orientation a factor in cases when the government is deciding whether to take a child into state custody.

Zhuravlyov (also written as 'Zhuravlev') said in an explanatory note to the bill that, according to experts, 5 to 7 percent of Russians have a "nontraditional" sexual orientation and a third of them currently have children. In accompanying supporting documents, Zhuravlyov refers to the fraudulent and debunked paper on gay parents published in 2012 by University of Austin professor Mark Regnerus. And in interviews Zhuravlyov has sounded more or less like a mirror image of the American anti-gay right-wing.

Harvey Fierstein cited the possibility of such a bill in his fiery New York Times editorial, which kick started the movement to boycott the Winter Olympics in Russia. American media has widely covered the move of lesbian journalist Masha Gessen from Moscow to New York with her family, citing the fear that her kids could be taken from her.

What is being ignored is that a wide number of sources think that such a bill is too absurd to pass Russia's Duma and be signed into law by President Putin.

The Moscow Times described the reaction of Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Kremlin's human rights council, as "indignation". It quoted him saying to the BBC's Russian service:

Will we deprive left-handed people of their driver's licenses now too? They're left-handed, you know, and all our vehicles have the steering wheel on the left side, so it's harder for a left-handed person to drive.

Fedotov told Interfax that if the bill rises 'to the top of public consciousness' that would be a 'disaster, and then we do not know what to do with it'.

The Kremlin's western-facing news service, Russia Today, reported that several top Deputies were "very skeptical about the initiative."

The St. Petersburg LGBT organization Coming Out, who were included in the civil society group which met President Obama on Friday, said:

We may derive consolation from the thought that this initiative won’t be approved due to its obvious absurdity, and legal complications in proving the fact of the parent's homosexuality. After all, deputy Elena Mizulina’s (“Fair Russia”) idea of removing children from homosexual families (initially all children, later adopted only) did not catch on.

(Mizulina is the one who has led the anti-gay activity in the Duma through her committee chairpersonship, and in the media. She has used the state to harass her critics and those who've made fun of her.)

The controversial activist Nikolai Alexeyev also thought it was unlikely that Zhuravlyov's bill would be signed into law. He described it to Interfax as "absolute nonsense".

I can't imagine how this initiative would be accepted in the Duma. I think it's just the latest populist move to attract attention to a certain individual. Deputies are competing to see who can come up with the most absurd initiative.

I don't believe that things like this can end up in law and be signed by the president. The president says the rights of homosexuals are not infringed upon, but initiatives like this will create excessive tension between Russia and the West. It's a provocation against the Russian government.

Russia has uplifting stories you're not reading

The idea of Zhuravlyov's bill as being 'anti-government' seems a bit odd, given that Zhuravlyov is a prominent member of Putin's United Russia party.

But the idea that the bill will not become law does make sense if you perceive Russia as not being a universally anti-gay hellhole. Alexseev's comment that the bill is a populist, careerist move makes sense if you compare Zhuravlyov's bill with the antics of Tea Party members in the US Congress, such as them voting to repeal Obamacare - what is it? - 60 times? But you would not judge America solely on the antics of those absurdist US Congresspeople.

Apart from those prominent Russians describing Zhuravlyov's bill as absurd, a quick skim of the Russian gay news portal Gay Russia reveals numerous examples of prominent Russians opposing anti-gay laws and defending gay people.

Many of these stories would obviously translate to interesting and insightful background for Westerners. Such as that of Ksenia Sobchak, a rich, glamorous 'it' girl turned media star and dissident who has 750k followers on Twitter. Sobchak has been one of the main targets of Deputy Mizulina in her at times farcical pursuit of her critics.

Another one would be the hunky pop star slash actor Sergey Lazarev (450k on Twitter), who says he doesn't care about rumours that he's gay and that "I'm always loyal to the people with a different sexual orientation."

Gay Russia has an story about a prominent economist saying that it is inevitable that the anti-gay laws will be repealed because Russia's destiny is as part of Europe. Vladislav Inozemtsev said:

Everyday life in Russia today is too European. The same individualistic society, as there. And even more. No big[ger] individualists than Russians.

Inozemtsev suggested a repeal may happen quicker than most would think, 'within one or two years', and compared how quickly another civil society set back perceived as irreversible was actually reversed, from Putin appointment to the direct election of regional governors.

One incident highlighted for me how reporting on Russia and The Gays has become seriously skewed and, I would argue, is thus hurting LGBT Russians because it's hurting Western decision making on how and where to try to help them.

The venerable Russian American journalist Julia Ioffe (who was recently yelled at on air by a MSNBC host because she gave a 'counterfactual' answer on Snowden and Putin) wrote for the influential liberal magazine The New Republic 'Eight Horrific and Uplifting Stories About Being Gay in the New Russia'. These come from her own life and from Russian media and alongside the skinheads beating up gay and trans teens are friends aiding gay friends. It colourfully demonstrates the mixed, nuanced picture elsewhere absent.

The New Republic's URL for the story is 'gay-life-russia-eight-horrific-stories'. The lying page title, what you see in a Google search, is 'Gay Life in Russia: Eight Horrific Stories | New Republic'.

Seeing an upside to an absurd bill

Moves against gay parents are not just confined to Russia and Russia's anti-gay laws and rhetoric is being supported and echoed by right-wing forces in several Western countries. Coming Out's comments could also be said of some parts of America: that the real damage of such a bill is "the fact that such an initiative could be developed and put forth", that its mere existence amounts to "cruel harassment of LGBT families".

Thus even though she may well be wrong that the bill will become law and that a real threat does exist to her family (I would like to see someone put that to her), Gessen is understandably playing it safe as a parent because, as Coming Out puts it:

Politicians, endowed with power to guarantee safety and well-being of citizens, chose the most vulnerable social group – minorities with children – as their target.

(Edited to add: G. Rayner points out that "Masha Gessen has some special and unique concerns. Not only is she concerned about the proposed law about taking children away from gay people in Russia, there is the June law passed by the Russian Duma which prohibits gay foreigners from adopting children. Gessen is an American citizen with an adopted child, so, indeed, at least theoretically, she can be affected by this other law." I would say that as far as I'm aware she has cited what is now Zhuravlyov's bill rather than the existant adoption law.)

Yet if this bill is a step too far for those anti-gay politicians then a point I made in 'Some Comment on Russia and the Gays' is relevant.

It is also worth noting, as Alexander Kondakov explains at openDemocracy, that the received opinion that Russians are extremely homophobic may not be all it seems. He suggests that actual opinion, based on his reading of polling, shows a population actually much closer to Western opinion - 'not bothered', 'leave them alone' - than assumed, though due to ignorance and an absence of any information.

(Which reminds me of received opinion about British Muslims when polling shows tolerance: that they may religiously reject homosexuality but support anti-discrimination, that almost all UK Muslim MPs voted for gay marriage.)

So if the laws can become seen as somehow burdensome then maybe those evangelically believing in and prosecuting them can be isolated, as a minority. This is a familiar trajectory in many countries.

If the bill does advance (and especially if he is being asked to sign it) then given Putin's genuflections on 'non-discrimination' is it absurd to think he might publicly denounce it? That, as has happened so many times elsewhere (think of the Briggs initiative against gay teachers in California in the 70s, which Reagan opposed), that Zhuravlyov's bill might make the choices so stark that a path toward change opens up?

This is happening, recall, whilst the Russian LGBT and allies organised movement is visibly growing. 14+ Russian cities took part in global #Russia4Love protests last week, see more pictures like the one right in this album.

What will Russia do, what will Putin do, if the bill advances and, as Fedotov puts it, 'we [meaning the Kremlin] do not know what to do with it'. What if, as Inozemtsev suggests, rejecting the evangelical anti-gays does become seen as part of Russia's economic development, as about becoming more European? What if Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Kostyuchenko succeeds in collecting evidence in order to 'out' gay but anti-gay Deputies, those hypocrites always found at the centre of anti-gay activity the world over, and actually publishes?

And is it so absurd to think that Coming Out's wish may come true?

We are convinced that the best evidence of tolerance towards LGBT people today can be a public apology from “United Russia” for debasing LGBT citizens and same-sex families with children with discriminatory statements and legislative initiatives, followed by repeal of such legislation, and further treatment of LGBT as equal in rights and dignity to all citizens of Russia. As is, this is yet one more in the list of legislative proposals that further promote discriminatory and homophobic attitudes in society, paint LGBT as an abnormality and a danger to children, and lead to grave violations of rights of LGBT people in Russia.

Three missing gay stories: Iran, Turkey, Belarus

Still from video of mob hunting gays in Jamaica

It's Russia, Russia, Russia when it comes to 'foreign gay news' these days. But it's a much bigger and badder gay world out there.

Although the video footage of gays being tormented by Russian Nazis is mainstream news, worse footage from Jamaica is failing to attract anything like the same attention. The Jamaican situation is getting so bad, with the government doing nothing about what seems to be a wave of murders and violent attacks, that the veteran, exiled gay leader Maurice Tomlinson is on the verge of calling for economic sanctions.

Should Tomlinson call for sanctions -- and get support from the organised Jamaican LGBT community -- I wonder if that will break through and get anything approaching the attention Russia has? I have to say I'm cynical.

Jamaica, however, does get at least some attention but there have been three recent stories which leapt out at me and I think deserve at least some coverage (as opposed to none) because they obviously qualify as serious news.

LGBT activism now 'terrorism' in Belarus

Belarus is the former Soviet republic now known as Europe's 'last dictatorship'. It's leader, Lukashenko, has accused 'the West' of trying to turn Slavs gay and is known for bon mots on the gays like that 'women become lesbians because men are worthless'.

The country may not yet have a 'gay propaganda' law like Russia's but there have been repeated rumours that it might actually recriminalise gay sex. When a gay group tried to officially register last December police raided gay clubs and activists found themselves hauled into police stations, one had his passport confiscated.

Now the government has adopted new policy on 'the fight against terrorism' which extends the logic of some of the statements coming from Eastern Europe (or from some anti-gay American activists for that matter): gay activism is 'terrorism':

The document also notes that the internal source of a terrorist threat can become a "weakening of patriotism and traditional moral values among the youth due to the insufficient level of development of civil society, the destructive impact of information on the process of socialization of young people, a manifestation of trends towards the increased social stratification, the presence of a significant number of criminal and other unlawful acts against the person and property"

Given all else that has happened to them, local gay activists sound wearied. Alexandr Paluyan from Gay Alliance Belarus told me:

Relative to the new law. Indeed, information about non-traditional family values, as it used to be called in post-Soviet countries, the authorities can really be regarded as terrorism. Due to the fact that since the beginning of this year is the total pressure on the LGBT movement in Belarus, it is not excluded, and this fact is to apply the law in the future, however, it seems to me that this will not happen. But the fact of the possibility of equating LGBT activists as terrorists, and information resources called terrorist, of course, a matter of concern.

Exactly how this might work out for them seems, from the limited information I could find, opaque because exactly how the policy will be applied is not clear. Nor is whether the equation of gay activists with terrorists will spread, but I would not be shocked if it does.

Iran criminalises homosexual identity

Last month amongst the Russia-related coverage National Geographic ran a story reminding everyone that 76 countries criminalise gay sex and ran through details on some of the worst places to be gay. In the midst of which this caused a double take:

An updating of Iran's penal code in May 2013 criminalized homosexual identity, rather than specific acts, making it punishable by 31 to 74 lashes.

There was no source given in NatGeo's story but I tracked it down to the veteran Iran watcher Hossein Alizadeh at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). He confirmed it:

The new Iranian Penal code that was passed by the Guardian Council of the Constitution in Iran on May 1, 2013, states, "male homosexuality , in other cases rather than lavat [sodomy] and tafkhiz [rubbing penis between another man's tights without penetration], such as passionate kissing and lustful touching - is punishable by 31 to 74 punitive lashes of 6th degree." [Article 237].

The wording of the law [such as..] allows the judge to consider any other "homosexual" conduct - whether imaginary or real - as deserving punishment .... This vague law, in practice, paves the way for the punishment of anyone arrested on suspicion of homosexuality, but can't be tried on sodomy charges due to the lack of evidence.

(Here's the full text of the law on the Guardian Council's official website.)

I looked. This story got no publicity, in English at least.Why did the Iranian regime do this and what might it portend? I know reporting from Iran is difficult if not impossible but it would be good if some news outlet at least reported that this happened, and answered that question.

Turkey writes LGBT into draft constitution

Alongside Albania, Turkey is a Muslim-majority country which does have legal protections for LGBT people.

Contrary to preconceptions, those protections aren't the result of European Union pressures but of Turkey's thriving LGBT movement and the political support it receives.

The proposed new constitution is controversial, with many seeing it as a power grab for the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and Prime Minister Erdogan. However the current draft does, in a concession from the AKP, include "sexual orientation and gender identity, and other factors" as protected classes.

The language is in the preamble rather than the main text but even that concession, won by opposition politicians from the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) and CHP (Republican People's Party), is being seen as a "milestone", according to Turkish politician Rıza Türmen and IGLHRC:

That identities be recognized at a constitutional level, even if it is in the preamble, by constitution drafters, is a significant gain for the LGBT. This step is a milestone for LGBT people in the Republic of Turkey’s constitutionalism.

If the constitution is passed it would be Turkey which would become the third country (after South Africa and, as I discovered, another very surprising African country) to offer LGBT explicit protections in its countries founding legal document. Yes, Turkey ...

There may be different reasons why these three stories aren't surfacing in international media but they're all information which should be more widely known.

Where's Bayard Rustin's statue?

Mug shot of Bayard Rustin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is especially pleasing to see as part of the remembrance of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom the rehabilitation of Bayard Rustin, a lost gay hero or a lost hero full-stop.

As, of all people, Robert Turner of Log Cabin Republicans put it in the Washington Blade:

It is important that we in the gay community observe and honor our heroes of all nationalities, races, and genders. Rustin deserves a place in the annals of history right next to Frank Kameny and Harvey Milk.

Rustin was a gay liberationist, a socialist, a civil rights leader and a pacifist. And he was the March's organiser. A week after the March it was he who was on the cover of Life Magazine, not MLK.

His leadership almost didn't happen. After being jailed as a 'conscientious objector' in World War II, and jailed again in the 1950s after being caught having sex with two men in a car, and having briefly been a communist, it is to their credit that MLK and other civil rights leaders overruled objections to Rustin as organiser. This was despite three weeks before the March on Washington, segregationist senator Strom Thurmond entering into the congressional record a picture of "pervert" Rustin talking to King while King was in a bathtub.

Gary Younge, who has a new book on the March (I've posted video of a fascinating interview with Younge after the jump), quotes Roy Wilkins of the NAACP saying:

I don't want you leading that march on Washington, because you know I don't give a damn about what they say, but publicly I don't want to have to defend the draft dodging. I know you're a Quaker, but that's not what I'll have to defend. I'll have to defend draft dodging. I'll have to defend promiscuity. The question is never going to be homosexuality, it's going to be promiscuity and I can't defend that.

In 1960, shamefully, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of Harlem, had threatened that he would say King was having an affair with Rustin unless he cut him out of the top civil rights leadership, his inner circle. King complied.

According to John D'Emilio, author of 'Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin', Rustin had expected that he would be defended.

When he wasn’t defended, it was — it was painful. It was very painful. And he spent a couple of years, mostly — in the early '60s, mostly involved in the peace movement rather than in the civil rights movement because of that rupture. And it's the March on Washington that brought him back into the center of things.

It was Rustin that had schooled King in organisation, says D'Emilio. Rustin began organising 'Freedom Rides' in the 1940s: "Rustin, with 15 years of experience, you know, breaking the law nonviolently, went down to Montgomery, Alabama, introduced himself to Dr. King, and began a process of mentoring and tutoring someone who was clearly destined to be a great leader."

Rustin, with A. Philip Randolph, had wanted to organise a 'March for Jobs and freedom' in 1941, 23 years before the 1963 March. This was canned after FDR ordered an end to discrimination in defense industries and federal agencies.

Edited to add: A correction from Stuart Elliott:

The 1941 march was simply "The March on Washington." After getting FDR to agree to integrate defense plant employment, Randolph continued with the "March on Washington Movement" during the war and until 1947, which voted to use non-violent action to integrate the military, which might have been the first adoption of civil disobedience in the US. Rustin was involved in those trainings and those of the organizations formed after the war to concentrate on ending Jim Crow in the military. (The MOWM had a broader agenda.) When Randolph succeeded and Truman issued an executive order, Rustin was critical of Randolph and avoided contact for a year or two.

MLK was not the only one though to have trouble with Rustin's remarkable, for its time, open homosexuality. According to Michael G. Long, editor of 'I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters': "Even A.J. Muste, the great pacifist of the twentieth century and a man deeply influenced by the principles of love and justice, advised Bayard to sacrifice his gay relationships for the sake of the peace movement."

Economic justice

Rustin was one of many socialists involved in the March and it is disappointing to see much of the anniversary coverage focused solely on King's 'I have a dream' speech, forgetting that the March was just as much about economic justice as it was for equality. Four of the March's ten demands were about economic justice, such as a national minimum wage, and also "a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers, Negro and white, on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages." Video of Rustin reading the demands at the Lincoln Memorial is after the jump.

Adds Long:

Bayard was often asked whether the modern civil rights movement led by King really changed anything in America. And he would sometimes reply by saying that had the questioner lived through Jim Crow, with its segregated restrooms and swimming pools and schools, he or she would know beyond a doubt that life had become far better for African Americans. But he was also quick to point out the unfulfilled dream of full employment and adequate health care and education for all Americans.

Picture by @batmanWI from March on Washington anniversary

Although, writes Gene Demby, a report released by the Census Bureau for the March's anniversary shows enormous progress for blacks in income, poverty levels and education:

Despite those dramatic gains, the economic picture over the last 50 years for blacks has been a mixed bag: incontrovertible, substantial progress — a lot of it due in part to policies the march helped enshrine — while some troubling disparities remain stubbornly in place.

Aisha C. Moodie-Mills and Preston Mitchum of the Centre for American Progress argue that Rustin offers another legacy, one for the LGBT movement, that economic justice should be as central as equality, just as it was at the March on Washington:

Contrary to the myth of gay affluence, the LGBT community is economically insecure. After controlling for other factors known to influence the likelihood of being in poverty, same-sex couples and LGBT people are more likely than their non-LGBT counterparts to be poor. Within the LGBT community, women, couples with children, and black LGBT people have been shown to be particularly vulnerable. Women in same-sex couples, for example, are nearly twice as likely as married different-sex couples to be among the working poor.

They point out that in 2013:

Black men in same-sex relationships are more than six times as likely to be in poverty than white men in same-sex couples—18.8 percent to 3.1 percent, respectively—and black women in same-sex relationships are three times more likely to be poor than white women in same-sex relationships—17.9 percent to 5.1 percent, respectively.

Rustin's grand vision

Rustin's central role as a philosopher in the movement insisting on Ghandian non-violence and on the need for integration, not segregation, is shown in him being the one who took the debate to Malcolm X, video of which I also post after the jump. Says Long:

Bayard certainly had a grand vision. As an openly gay, African American, pacifist, socialist activist with roots in communism, he could see the interconnections of sufferings caused by various prejudices and discriminations. And because of this, he insisted on practicing coalition politics. While he understood the frustration and anger of individuals wanting to “go it alone,” he also believed that “frustration politics” does nothing constructive. What we need to do, he said, is to start building coalitions with like-minded people, including those in power, around the grand ideas of equality and justice for all. Bayard was the first to encourage King to build coalitions with labor and political liberals. And he was right about this — coalition politics centered on achieving rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for everyone is the path to achieving our unique goals. As he put all this, we need to move “from protest to politics.”

According to Arch Puddington (who worked as an aide to Rustin) from Freedom House, for which Rustin worked during his last two decades, because of his opposition to linking the civil rights movement to the anti-Vietnam war cause, Rustin became "a pariah to the new breed of radical black personalities, who increasingly turned away from nonviolence, integration, and coalition-building while embracing black nationalism, Black Power, and (at least rhetorically) the use of violence."

Gay Liberation

It is also disappointing to see little mention in anniversary coverage of Rustin's role after the 70's, in his last two decades, as a supporter of the Gay Liberation Movement, although he wasn't really publicly outspoken until the 1980s: In 1986, just before his death, he gave a speech 'The New Niggers Are Gays':

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new “niggers” are gays. … It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. … The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

Regarding his late joining in such public statements, Michael Bronski, in his interview with Long, points out that Rustin was a product of his times, seeing sexuality as a 'personal issue', and compares Rustin to Susan Sontag who was lesbian, and not closeted, "but never really came out and had little to say about LGBT rights". As Long points out though, Rustin did influence the Gay Liberation movement, because it was so heavily influenced by the civil rights movement Rustin had helped shape.

Rustin said of the Stonewall riot, where some reportedly chanted "We shall overcome!":

That was the beginning of an extraordinary revolution, similar to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in that it was not expected that anything extraordinary would occur. As in the case of the women who left the Russian factory, and in the case of Rosa Parks who sat down in the white part of the bus, something began to happen, people began to protest. They began to fight for the right to live in dignity, the right essentially to be one’s self in every respect, and the right to be protected under law. In other words, people began to fight for their human rights. Gay people must continue this protest.

As Turner puts it the documentary about Rustin, 'Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin', "should be required viewing for everyone in the [LGBT] community, right along with 'Before Stonewall' and 'Milk'."

Rustin's rehabilitation will continue as he has been posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor by President Obama. He is the last of the main civil rights leaders to receive this honour. Rustin has a few memorials. There is a plaque in a New York City park and schools in New York and West Chester named after him. He is on the walk in Chicago of gay leaders. A University gives out an award in his name. But despite his stature, no statue. Maybe that will now change.

Some comment on Russia and The Gays

Anonymous posters appeared this month in St. Petersberg quoting SS Heinrch Himmler on Gays

Since there's such vast verbiage on Russia and The Gays ATM I'm restricting myself to points which seem to be getting little or no airing.

The Red Menace

Richard Smith has rightly pointed out that Americans would have a particular thing with the Russians now wouldn't they?

It's not like they're running boycotts of products from Cameroon, or Tanzania, or numerous other places with active LGBT crackdowns/backlashes. Of course they'd have a thing for the special evilness of the commies Russians.

That may well be right but it's not the whole story. See this interview (video after jump) of the playwright and legend Harvey Fierstein talking on Chris Hayes show.

What I hear from Fierstein, whose New York Times fierce pro-boycott editorial started much of the furore, is a righteous anger that comes from many who lived through HIV/Aids. He sounds like Larry Kramer. It's a very particular New York style which comes from a 'no turning back' history, Russia is just the current place on the receiving end.

Fierstein told Hayes on his show Wednesday, “What’s going on in Russia is absolutely frightening. Even in your intro just now you talked about one law. There are three laws that have already come out, one saying that gay couples or singles may not adopt all. The other says that nobody in any country that allows gay marriage can adopt out of Russia. The third is the propaganda. The fourth law which was not passed which is rumored by the press to have been ready to be passed was one that said that children would be removed from gay and lesbian households.”

Hayes protested, “There are horrible laws discriminating against LGBT folks everywhere in the world.”

“You remember when the AIDS crisis first hit,” Fierstein said, “I would have people say to me, why are we spending so much energy on AIDS, there’s cancer too? One doesn’t negate the other.”

Fierstein went on to offer Hayes a history lesson.

“You must fight injustice wherever that injustice is,” he said. “You cannot just ignore evil. When evil shows its face you have to answer. When you don’t answer, look what happens. You were talking about Hitler, so we went to the Olympics in Germany, right? Yes, they took down the anti-Jewish posters for two weeks, and what happened? Owens won a gold medal and then 6 million Jews were killed.”

Guess who has gay rights in its constitution?

Even if you have gay rights  written into a country's constitution you don't necessarily have protections for gay people.

This truism is well understood in South Africa, where the constitution which came in with the ANC famously has sexual orientation as a protected class. Yet South Africa also has high levels of violence against LGBT and strong societal hostility. You can get gay married but your likelihood of getting gay bashed is higher there than, say, in Mississippi, where unless the Supremes rule otherwise is likely to be the last US State to go for equal marriage (according to Nate Silver).

I just learned something which double underlines this point. Another African country has sexual orientation in its constitution, you'd be shocked to read (I was) that it is -- drumroll: The Republic of The Congo, also known as Congo (Brazzaville). Gasp.

They've had it since 1995, when the constitution was rewritten following the introduction of multi-party democracy.

I learned this from 76 Crimes, a website I've praised before which covers LGBT rights outside the 'West'.

This factoid comes from the US State Department's Human Rights Report which, 76 Crimes notes, shows that life for gay people in Central Africa is that little bit better than elsewhere in Africa.

It is a slight stretch because I've read reports about gay life in other African pockets being slightly better (written one, here's Côte d'Ivoire). Something notable is the connections loosely between CAR, Chad and the Congos being that they're the bits Britain didn't colonise.

The French haven't criminalised homosexuality since the 18th Century, so they didn't impose criminalisation on their colonies, note.

Here's the State Department note, which makes the constitution thing sound even more bizarre in the detail and explains further on how the constitution thing apparently makes b'all difference (and yes I did look to find out how it ended up there in the first place, got nowhere so I can only guess they just copied the then new South African one and no religious nutters noticed what was in it).

Republic of the Congo

The constitution prohibits discrimination based on, sexual orientation. There was a small openly gay or lesbian community due to the social stigma associated with consensual same-sex sexual conduct. A law promulgated during the colonial era and still in force prohibits homosexual conduct and makes it punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment; however, the law was rarely enforced. The most recent arrest under this law was in 1996.

There were no known cases of violence against gays, lesbians, or transgender individuals during the year. Although homosexual activity is generally stigmatized by society, overt intimidation was not believed to be a factor in preventing reports of incidents of abuse.

There was no known advocacy group or organization representing the interests of gays, lesbians, or transgender individuals in the country, and homosexuality remained a private subject.

The full reports on human rights in those countries are available at www.humanrights.gov.

The heroine of French marriage equality

French lesbians and gays have a new heroine and her name is Christiane Taubira.

The French Minister for Justice is widely regarded as the person most responsible for pushing marriage equality through its fiery passage through the French parliament.

Her work has won her wider accolades too but it wasn't always thus, once she was regarded as a joke, if not a traitor to the left.

Taubira is that rarest of things, a black French politician. She has represented French Guiana, part of South America best known as the location for Europe's space launches and actually a department, part of metropolitan France, since 1993.

From a poor family and from the left she stood as a Presidential candidate for the Radical Party in 2003 to ensuing boos when the Socialist Party candidate came third, behind the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen. Her tiny vote was looked at as creating a national French embarrassment. Left wing allies have also called her a bully and authoritarian.

Made a Minister by Francois Hollande she has come back into favour, pushing forward a law last year that categorises the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.

But it is her full-throated and eloquent push for marriage equality in the face of not just fierce, sometimes violent, opposition but also as well as tepid support of her own President and party, that has turned her into a modern day Marianne, the symbol of 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité'.

Her January 29 parliamentary speech, delivered without notes, was described as "fiery and lyrical". She laid into the right wing, who have used their opposition to marriage equality, a cynical coalition between the conservatives and the far-right National Front, as a way to bash the unpopular socialist President. She said:

What are gay couples’ marriages going to do to heterosexual couples’ marriages? Nothing. We are talking about the hypocrisy of those who to refuse to recognise homosexual families and the selfishness of those who believe that an institution of the Republic should be reserved for one type of citizen.

Your children and grandchildren already recognise these couples and families, and will do so more and more. You will be very uncomfortable when, out of curiosity, they read the transcripts of these debates.

In that speech she cited Guyanese writer Léon-Gontran Damas:

The act we will accomplish [in passing this law] is ‘as beautiful as a rose that the Eiffel Tower, at last, can see blooming.’ It is ‘as great as our need for fresh air.’ It is ‘as strong as a piercing cry in a long, long night’.

Throughout she has quoted literary heroes. In her final speech yesterday it was Nietzsche: Les vérités tuent, celles que l'on tait deviennent vénéneuses / Truth kills. And if you repress it, it will kill you.

Even her chief opponent, the conservative MP Jean-Frédéric Poisson, told Libération that he had "respect for [Taubira] as a fighter … and for her talent." Many ordinary French people have been won over by her ‘fou rire’ (crazy laugh), heard when she broke into uncontrollable laughter following yet another anti-gay statement in parliament by a right-wing MP during the often interminable and all-night manoeuvrings to delay passage of the law.

She is being compared to two previous symbols of the fight for social justice in France: Simone Veil, who, as minister of health, fought to legalise abortion in 1975, and Robert Badinter, a former justice minister who led the effort to abolish the death penalty in 1981.

In the absence of celebrity endorsement for marriage equality, a French curiosity compared to the US, Taubira has become the star for France's LGBT community.

Yannick Barbe, of news site Yagg, told France24:

You could call it Taubiramania. We were missing a charismatic figure in our fight for equal rights. Now we have one.

Yagg have been selling #TeamTaubira T-shirts.

There are a couple of constitutional hurdles but according to a promise from the Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, socialist mayor of the southern city of Montpellier, Hélène Mandroux, should officiate the first gay marriage "probably in late June or early July."

Watch video and read English translation of Taubira’s Speech to the National Assembly after the passage of the bill opening marriage and adoption to same-sex couples after the jump:

World Bank examining LGBT poverty globally

LGBT people in the West have an image of being a comparatively well-off group. Since the early 1990s, LGBT media and marketeers have promoted dubiously sourced statistics on supposed average earnings and created the idea of the 'Pink Pound/Dollar'.

Here's a recent corporate example promoted unquestioningly by Queerty: ' SURVEY: The Gays Earn More Money, Have Less Debt Than Average Americans.'

This idea has then been used by the opponents of LGBT rights, including in court cases, to portray LGBT people as a privileged and powerful group. It has "great long term costs", wrote the great Australian activist Rodney Croome back in 1996:

One cost is the way the anti-gay movement uses our claim to consumer power to portray us as greedy whingers. The hate rhetoric, designed so well to tap into lower middle class and blue collar economic insecurity, goes something like "they've got the jobs, they own the businessess, they've got all the money and they still want more". Another cost is when funding bodies use our supposed disposables as an excuse to leave us out in the cold. One of the chief reasons given by Tasmanian Legal Aid for refusing to help fund our current High Court appeal was that the gay and lesbian community is rich enough to pay for its own litigation. But worse of all, is the way the pink dollar has obscured lesbian and gay poverty leaving economically disadvantaged gays and lesbians a hidden and voiceless minority.

Actual studies of economic well-being for LGBT people are rare. It is hard to study a group of people whose boundaries are fuzzy and where many of its members are pretty invisible and practically no one has even tried.

Croome quotes an Irish study from 1995 which found poverty rates double that of the general population. It's not hard to imagine why this might be. Studies of homeless youth in the US has found very high numbers are LGBT. 320,000 to 400,000 is a conservative estimate of the number of American gay and transgender youth facing homelessness each year. Discrimination, job segregation, and subsequent issues like higher rates of drugs and alcohol abuse might have something to do with higher poverty rates. As might other health issues.

"The majority of people with HIV and AIDS in San Francisco are living in extreme poverty," says Brian Bassinger, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Housing Coalition:

There's this mythology that gay men are wealthy. The reality is that gay men living in poverty are twice the national average. We are poor. And poor people see marriage equality as a middle class and upper class issue.

Bassinger's clients, and those of LGBT homeless charities in cities like New York, are struggling for attention and support.

A 2009 University of California study of same-sex families -- reputedly a first -- found extremely high poverty rates in sub-groups like rural couples and African-American couples. But it also found that white urban gay couples had poverty rates similar to the general population. Perhaps this explains why certain LGBT issues have prominence and financial support and others less so?

Global LGBT poverty

As in Western countries, in the so-called 'Global South' LGBT people also suffer discrimination and marginalisation and hence higher poverty rates.

Albert Ogle reports on a new survey of almost 6,000 men who have sex with men (MSM) from 165 countries by MSM Global Forum.

20% of younger MSM surveyed had no income and 30% had no stable housing, which have both been linked to greater HIV vulnerability and reduced access to HIV services. Compared to older MSM in the 2012 GMHR sample, younger MSM experienced significantly higher levels of homophobia and violence. Among all MSM surveyed, homophobia was significantly associated with reduced access to condoms, lubricants, HIV testing and HIV treatment.

“This data shines light on our collective failure to ensure that YMSM have the resources they need to keep themselves healthy,” said Dr. George Ayala, executive director of MSM Global Forum. “Moreover, it is a powerful reminder that HIV among MSM is an international development issue, inextricably linked with housing, health, education, and security. Donors and policy makers must treat HIV among MSM of all ages with the same level of urgency afforded to other international development priorities, and they must take concrete steps to ensure that the unique needs of YMSM are accounted for.”

Ogle just attended a first, a meeting at the World Bank featuring international gay activists. It included Victor Mukasa, who founded the rights organisation Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) but has been forced to claim asylum in the US. A charity which Ogle in involved with, he writes, supports HIV testing for Ugandan gay men who are simply denied health services elsewhere -- services which are often funded by foreign governments and international bodies.

Meetings such as this one as well as the efforts of bodies such as MSM Global Forum and the pressure of activists on bodies such as USAID are beginning to change the approach of funders on discrimination such as that seen in Uganda. Writes Ogle:

Every institution from the family, the church, the World Bank and governments are failing the LGBT community right now. The presence of this panel was seen as a positive step to begin to address the appalling neglect of this community in heath, education and employment opportunities.

And Ogle reports that the World Bank is funding a ground breaking study on the 'economic impact of homophobia globally', to be published later this year.

The Bank is a controversial partner for any civil rights movement or for those promoting health, given its history. But given the paucity of basic research on LGBT poverty this study has to be welcomed.

Whether such a study can get any resonance in the international LGBT movement or the media is another matter.

Exporting American homophobia

One of the criticisms which you sometimes hear from 'global south', particularly African activists, about international LGBT activism as well as Western media is the failure to tackle Western religious groups and their interventions.

I thought of this whilst reading an extremely detailed post by Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian priest, and Jandira Queiroz, a Brazilian activist, about the activities of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). This multi-million dollar organisation, founded by US televangelist Pat Robertson, is actively funding and organising anti-LGBT efforts in Zimbabwe, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and now, the article reports, in Brazil:

Filipe Coelho, director of the newly formed Brazilian Center for Law and Justice (BCLJ) and a friend of the Sekulows from his time studying in the U.S., says ACLJ decided to open an office in his country after discovering last year "how strong evangelical power is within Brazilian politics." A well-connected evangelical in the rapidly growing Assemblies of God church, Coelho was able to arrange a meeting for Jordan Sekulow with Brazil's vice president on 48 hours' notice. With more than 40 million people identifying themselves as evangelical in Brazil, the world's second-largest predominantly Christian country (after the U.S.), it presents a tempting prize for ACLJ expansion.

Though Brazil boasts the largest Pride parade in the world, it may come as a surprise that same-sex couples cannot marry or adopt and lack constitutional protections. In 2011 Rev. Silas Malafaia, pastor of the nearly 20,000-member Victory in Christ Assemblies of God church and vice president of the Interdenominational Council of Evangelical Ministers in Brazil (CIMEB), mobilized thousands to march through the capital city of Brasilia against a bill that would have extended protections to cover sexual orientation. After the Pride parade the same year, Rev. Malafaia, a family friend of the Sekulows and Coelhos, told listeners of his television show that the Catholic Church should "beat [literally 'stick'] down those gay activists" for using saints' images on posters.

Facing language like this, for 11 years Brazil's LGBTQ movement has unsuccessfully promoted an anti-homophobia bill that would make discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity an aggravating factor in hate crimes and speech. Evangelicals perceive this as a threat to their "religious liberty" to preach on national television that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God. When Rev. Malafaia, who calls himself "public enemy No. 1 of the gay movement" and leads "crusades," asked his audience in 2009 to vote against the anti-homophobia bill, in a poll posted on the Senate's webpage, there were half a million "no" clicks in less than a week. His Twitter followers number close to half a million.

Brazil has some of the highest reported rates of anti-LGBT violence in the world. In 2011 I reported on how:

Thousands of Twitterers [are] expressing support for homophobic attacks on LGBT using the slogan "Homophobia? Yes!" (#homofobiasim, see English translation of tweets, some of which are explicitly pro-violence, pro-'corrective rape' of lesbians) or used the number of the proposed hate crimes law (yes=#PL122Sim, No=#PL122Nao).

Say Kaoma and Queiroz:

The ACLJ typically hires local staff for its international offices to mask the U.S. origins of their assault on LGBTQ and reproductive rights, while hypocritically using that façade to attack human rights advocacy as a neocolonial enterprise imposed on the country in question.

Warren Throckmorton has reported on another, similar organisation, Family Watch International (FWI). That group is particularly active at the United Nations, where LGBT activists have had a long presence and have been slowly gaining victories. FWI has worked with Islamic countries, including Iran, in opposition to UN resolutions calling for decriminalization of homosexuality and opposing violence against LGBT.

FWI President Sharon Slater has said that:

Iran is one of the strongest nations in standing up for family values at the UN.

Throckmorton reports that FWI has held conferences to "immerse UN delegates in U.S. right wing culture war talking points about homosexuality." This means working with discredited groups preaching the snake oil of conversion therapy like the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

American-sourced ideas that sexuality can be changed, so-called conversion or 'reparative' therapy, has gone around the world, popping up from Hong Kong to Ecuador.

Throckmorton, an evangelical who is professor at a liberal arts Christian college and has been a leading reporter on Uganda's 'Kill the gays' bill and 'reparative' therapy, had a message for fellow American Christians:

Social conservatives who generally support “pro-family” causes should take pause to consider what being pro-family means in a country like Uganda or Nigeria, where the conservative position is to detain gays on suspicion of homosexual behavior and then threaten them with jail or stoning.

A modest proposal on language

David Shariatmadari has an interesting piece 'The language of LGBT love' in the Guardian.

He looks at an update of a film made about young gay people in London in the 1980s for the current London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

That GLC-funded, Daily Mail provoking, three decade old film he found striking in its innocence of language, of how people described themselves and their lives. Whereas today ...

... what stood out was the way they talked.

Translated into 2013ese, the blunt vox-popping of shoppers ("D'you know any lesbians?") morphs into something more postmodern ("Do you know anyone who self-identifies as LGBT?"). This generation namechecks "genderfluidity" and appears to embrace "questioning" (the last word in the variant LGBTQ) as an identity, as opposed to a phase, or a state of mind. In spite of claiming they want to get away from definitions and labels, to avoid "putting people in boxes", they reflect an online culture that finds room for the asexual, the pansexual, the heteroflexible and the demisexual. The boxes haven't gone away, they've just got smaller. Personal definitions are listed, menu-like, in that vast banqueting hall of the self that is social media.

Someone should really do a timeline on when and how this overwhelming, alphabet soup of PC language descended on us.

A couple of things struck me.

'Queer' is a vile term. Much of my and earlier generations of gay men got killed off by Iris the Virus, so less around to complain then, but all those still standing remember what that term meant and it still sends a shudder up my spine. It seems a bit ridiculous to, on the one hand, hear today's activists paying tribute to those who went before and, on the other hand, hear this hideous word still used in polite company, let alone 'reclaimed', whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean (by whom? who for?).

Both Ellen (DeGeneres) and (Rachel) Maddow, two of the most famous lesbians in the word, to pick off the top of my head, refer to themselves as 'gay'. Everyone knows what they mean.

So here's the proposal, drop 'LGBTQIetc' and just use 'gay'. Everyone knows what you mean because we went through all that stuff which a timeline should be written about and now everyone knows that 'gay' does not mean just 'gay men' -- the reason this process started in the first place and why we now have the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. 'Gay' = that whole 'alphabet soup' plus 'heteroflexible' and whatever the next flavour-of-the-month term comes out of some University.

Simples.

HT: Fagburn
Image: Uly's Comics