A gay rights campaigner in South Africa, Noxolo Nogwaza, has become a high profile victim of so-called “corrective rape”, and killed in South Africa. Along with homophobic laws and openly hateful politicians (often claiming a religious rationale to be as homophobic as they like), the vile notion of “corrective rape” is reaching “epidemic” proportions, according to Human Rights Watch.

Noxolo Nogwaza was killed last month after what appeared to be a so-called “corrective rape”, an increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbians to “turn” them straight or “cure” them of their sexual orientation.

The 24-year-old’s face and head were disfigured by stoning, she was stabbed several times with broken glass and evidence suggested she was raped. A beer bottle, a big rock and used condoms were found on and near her body.

Human Rights Watch noted that no arrests have been made and claimed homophobic violence is continuing unchecked in South Africa’s townships.

Dipika Nath, a researcher in the group’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights programme, said: “Nogwaza’s death is the latest in a long series of sadistic crimes against lesbians, gay men and transgender people in South Africa. The vicious nature of the assault is a potent reminder that these attacks are premeditated, planned and often committed with impunity.”

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/03/south-africa-homophobic-attacks

With reference to a report from Southall Black Sisters, Rahila Gupta last week pointed out the importance of secularism to ethnic minorities, in particular women, in a world where successive governments have done their utmost to turn religious identity into the primary defining attribute of people, especially minorities.

“Faith” has increasingly become the new way of constructing racial minorities, a trend that started under Tony Blair and continues under the Tory-led government. Secularism is seen as so intrinsically western that it is unimaginable for policymakers to conceive that it might be welcome within minority communities, especially the powerless among them.

A new report by Southall Black Sisters (SBS), called Cohesion, Faith and Gender, based on an in-depth survey of the women who use their centre finds that women, even those of deeply religious backgrounds, reject the limitations of that identity. They want a clear separation of their spiritual needs from their social needs. Most feel a primary loyalty to their gender identity and find that any attempt to assert their rights meets with the disapproval of religious leaders. They welcome an inclusive and secular space, such as the one provided by SBS because they carry memories of the gendered, caste-based and religious discrimination they had faced in their countries of origin.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/apr/19/secularism-minorities-faith-big-society

It’s a far cry from Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s astounding Easter sermon, in which he celebrates the life of Jesus (who is often thought of as a bit of a rebel against the church authorities, rendering unto Caesar and all that) by telling secularists that they are all evil.

The leader of the Catholic church in Scotland has used his Easter address to attack “aggressive secularism”, suggesting there were “those who would indeed try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square”.

He made the address as David Cameron publicly endorsed the “enormous contribution” of Christian values to Britain, days before he welcomes senior churchmen to Downing Street for an Easter celebration.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who is known for his outspoken views, eschewed traditional Easter themes of resurrection and hope and instead set his sights firmly on the “marginalisation” of Christianity in the UK.

He told the congregation at St Mary’s Cathedral; “Christians must be united in their common awareness of the enemies of the Christian faith in our country, of the power that they are at present exerting, and the need for us to be aware of that right to equality which so many others cry out for.”

In the church’s case, that would be the right to discriminate against gay people. Again. And nothing else. Over and over again.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/24/cardinal-keith-obrien-aggressive-secularity

Also see: the BHA response.

29-year-old Kate Middleton, who according to Hello! was “baptised at the age of five months but never took religion further”, has undergone a magic ritual which  instantly transforms her into a “committed Christian”. Lucky that such powerful rites are still available for princesses in the magic Kingdom.

* * *

A Catholic publication aimed at children  has been  slightly mistranslated, giving the impression that Catholics should use contraception. In a Q&A format on the subject of contraception the mistranslation accidentally rendered the text both laudable and reasonable (“a Christian couple can and must be responsible about their capacity of being able to give life”) forcing the publishers to withdraw it immediately.

* * *

Ricky Martin, a gay, is leading young people astray

Demonstrating astute moral sensitivities and a real sense of priority when it comes to the moral lives of young people, Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has told Ricky Martin that he should stop acting all gay, as his current persona will set a bad example for the yoof.

“Personally I admire Ricky for the great artistic gifts the Lord has given him,” the Cardinal opined, obviously a massive fan, perhaps obsessively so one might speculate, possibly attending his shows and putting up posters of ol’ Leather Pants on his bedroom wall, “but I implore him, for the love of his children …  to strive to be an example for our young people of the important values that we all share, including sexuality.” But not, apparently, including being true to yourself.

“In this way he will be thanking the Lord for the great gifts he has been given.” (God created Ricky Martin’s dancing abilities and singing talent, but had nothing to do with his sexuality.)

It’s okay though, because the Church “does not reject the homosexual person, but rather the actions and conduct that go against morality.” So being gay is okay in the abstract, it’s just acting gay or doing anything perceptibly gay that is wrong in the eyes of GOD Almighty.

* * *

Mental health is a personal attribute accruing to individual people. But is it possible for an organisation to be clinically insane? Bill Donohue’s “Catholic League” does it’s best to prove that it is. This week the League is very angry that the media-created sexual abuse scandal is still rolling on. The League complains that some of these so-called abuse claims go back years – shouldn’t these things just expire after a certain amount of time? – and has some excellent points to make on what’s really going on:

The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight—they weren’t children and they weren’t raped. We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents…

Yeh, take that, all you critics of the Vatican cover-up. It’s adolescent rape, not child rape. Get it right.

Former editor of the weekly Irish Catholic, David Quinn, commentates via an article in the Irish Independent on an issue of huge social severity that’s been tugging at his moral conscience.

Two guesses as to which great moral issues it’s about. No, not abortion, the other one.

The only other one…

The reaction of many ordinary people watching ‘The Late Late Show’ [a "propaganda platform" for gay marriage] the other night will have been, ‘Sure let them marry, they love each other, what harm can it do?’

But the harm [in calling same-sex partnerships 'marriage'] lies, as mentioned, in the complete denial of the value of motherhood and fatherhood.

You read that right. This comes after Quinn first stresses that he supported the introduction of civil partnerships, and names lots of places around the world which have also introduced the two-name system (marriage versus civil partnerships) of which he supposedly sort of approves, presumably because it accords more or less the same rights but does so with only a nominal difference. Hey, it’s just about what you call it, he opines. But if we were to call same-sex partnerships “marriage”, discriminating them with just that nominal difference – merely calling them by the same name  so that people aren’t made to feel irretrievably excluded from the “tradition” – well that’s the same as “the complete denial of the value of motherhood and fatherhood”.

It just follows doesn’t it? It’s the only possible derivation: I think we should use the same name for ‘marriage’ whether it’s same-sex or two sexes getting married, therefore I hate all your mums and dads.

The journo complains:

Every debate I have ever been in about the issue of same-sex marriage very quickly becomes a debate about the value to a child of having both a mother and father as distinct from two fathers or two mothers, or some other combination of adults.

That’s funny, I wonder why that keeps happening to the poor chap. It’s not as if his article on same-sex marriage turns out to hinge entirely on the subject of same-sex parenting, after all. Oh…

The crux of his argument (which completely ignores the fact that same-sex civil partners as opposed to same-sax marital spouses can adopt anyway) is this:

In order to justify same-sex marriage, its proponents must deny that uniting children to their mothers and fathers is a worthwhile goal of social policy. Therefore, they insist that two men can do the job of a mum and a dad just as well, as can two women. This means they deny the importance of sexual complementarity.

Of course, even if “sexual complementarity” could be shown to be a significant factor of significance in the upbringing of children, this would make it only one of many such factors. It would join the relative wealth of the parents, for example. What about the size of your extended family? That could have an impact on the well-being of children, one way or the other, couldn’t it? We know that people’s opportunities, health and happiness vary a great deal by postcode; if it turned out to be an effect on a par with “sexual complementarity” then should some streets be banned from marrying? Also, what if you have two parents of different sexes, but your dad is relatively effeminate or your mum is a little bit masculine? Would Quinn ban such couples from marrying, too?

There are so many possibilities, but no one including David Quinn gives much of a damn about those hypothetical correlations when it comes to whether or not actual real people should be allowed to get married, let alone whether it is called ‘marriage’, let alone whether they should be allowed to raise children. Only the one possible – hypothetical – factor of “sexual complementarity” gets a look in, and not only a look in, but a determining presence in the equation. This one factor is suddenly so important to David Quinn, that it mandates social engineering.

It’s almost as if he’s saying that if you support using the same name for dual-sex and same-sex romantic pairings, then you’re necessarily hating on parenting in general. Oh wait, that’s exactly what he’s saying:

So by all means support same-sex marriage, but realise that in doing so you will be denying the value of motherhood and fatherhood. Is that really what you want to do?

Oh good last rhetorical question, Quinn. Bravo, you’ve totally caught us out.

Link: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/couples-commitment-is-whats-important-2615364.html

There is at least one letter in reply.

And in other news… an Italian historian says homosexuality caused the collapse of the Roman Empire. Prof Mattei told Radio Maria, a Catholic radio station, that “The abhorrent presence of a few gays infected a good part of the (Roman) people”, making the population “effeminate” and thus susceptible to barbarians. Oh dear, lack of sexual complementarity can bring down whole civilizations, too!

Reuters reports:

People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the Roman Catholic Church deeply believed that human sexuality was a gift reserved for married heterosexual couples. But those who express these views are faced with “a disturbing trend,” he said.

“People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex,” he told the current session of the Human Rights Council.

“When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature … they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.

“These attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Tomasi said.

Link: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE72L4XU20110322

Archbishop Tomasi has also famously linked paedophilia and homosexuality and in response to the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church tried to argue that other religions were just as bad.

At the end of his speech Tomasi promised to spell out clearly and concisely in a future session exactly which “moral” beliefs and principles made is so abundantly and self-evidently clear why homosexuality is wrong.

Amazingly, only the immediately preceding paragraph of this post is made up.

Following last week’s not very disguised criticism from the Evangelical Alliance, another Christian rolls their eyes at the Christian Legal Centre’s ongoing attempts to exempt homophobic Christians from scrutiny. Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, takes the stand.

The attempt to wring a ruling from the court that certain church attenders are in principle suitable to adopt or foster in all circumstances was preposterous nonsense, as was the idiotic attempt to get a court to define the word “homophobic” so that it could not legally be applied to conservative Catholics.

So what does the case really show? First, that the customary paranoia of rightwing newspaper op-eds sounds silly in court. Courts will injunct in cases of real urgency, but they are, quite rightly, very reluctant to compensate people for wrongs they have not yet suffered, simply to make a point on behalf of a group of zealots, however sincere they may be. It is absolutely no part of a court’s job to enter into such antics, just to create a story for the press.

This case was the fourth bite at this particular cherry by the barrister Paul Diamond and his chums in the Christian Legal Centre. There is now nothing more legally to be said on this subject than various judges, especially Lord Justice Laws, a devout Christian and churchwarden, have said so far. Rightwing Christians must establish their views on their merits, not expect courts to do the job for them.

How does orthodox Christian teaching relate to the views that were seeking legal protection? When Mrs Johns averred, for example, that “having a different sexual orientation was unnatural and wrong”, she put herself well beyond what either the Church of England or the church of Rome are prepared to say on the matter of orientation. The Johnses are entitled to their views, but cannot expect them to be unquestioned insofar as they could affect the welfare of a child.

With any luck the idiocy will stop here, although a combination of hysterical young things, big money and silly old men may be unable to resist the lure of further days out in court to grandstand their views.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/05/views-on-homosexuality-children-welfare

For some years now the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) has brought a steady trickle of supposed discrimination cases on behalf of a handful of Christians who, in most cases, have lost a job, or in some way been prevented from manifesting belief.  And the courts have determined time and again that the action taken in the first place was lawful because the Christians in question were trying to discriminate against others. And by “others” we pretty much mean gay people.

The cases have been magnified by inflationary press releases and a sometimes eager conservative media into a tale of uniform persecution of Christians by rabidly secular judges. But the obvious truth – that it is not Christians per se being in any way singled out by the courts, but only a tiny handful using Christianity as a means to discriminate against others (gay people) – is sinking in. Witness Deborah Orr in the Guardian today. She misses that the string of cases she lists basically all get backed by the CLC, but the nausea caused by their repetition is evident:

Goodness, they keep on coming – an adoption agency, a registrar, a couple running a bed and breakfast, and now a couple wishing to be respite carers. Is there no end to the supply of out and proud, actively homophobic Christians? Eunice and Owen Johns earlier this week became the latest in a long line of people seeking to establish that their religious beliefs should trump the law of the land. They, like so many others before them, want the legal right to advertise their belief that homosexuality is wrong, and to make their disapproval an open and formal part of their professional dealings with others. They keep being told that it’s not on. But they simply won’t accept that empty prejudices are empty prejudices, whether sanctioned by religious belief or not.

For Orr the line between being freely able to worship as one sees fit – good thing – and on the other unlawfully frustrating the normal lives of others (gay people) based on a weak metaphysical argument – bad thing – is quite clear:

I’m not religious. But I strongly believe that people should be free to worship as they please (within the law). These endless petty cases, in which people attempt to justify their desire to vilify others who do them no harm as “Christian”, make me wonder why I bother.

The fact that the CLC’s cases sometimes seem to revolve almost entirely around trying to establish a right to discriminate against gay people by citing religious grounds is beginning to look like a blunder even to supporters of the overall aim. Witness the Evangelical Alliance:

The Evangelical Alliance expresses doubt about the wisdom in bringing such cases to the High Court in the first place. While there is no doubt that equality laws appear increasingly controversial in the way they seem to disproportionately impact against Christians, there is a clear need for a more cautious and strategic approach when deciding to take matters to court.

Dr Don Horrocks, Head of Public Affairs at the Alliance, said: “We all need to be more clued-up in deciding if and when to fight legal battles. Of course there are occasions when defending religious liberty in the courts is entirely appropriate and if there is evidence of fundamental unfairness in the interpretation of equalities legislation then this needs to be addressed by government.

“However, it is counterproductive to provoke the courts into unnecessary and unhelpful rulings – especially when a case is weak and evidence is lacking. There may also be risks that Christians will be viewed as deliberately engineering conflicts with the courts or pleading privileged treatment.”

Deliberately engineering conflicts with the courts or pleading privileged treatment?! Gosh, who could have thought such a thing was going on.

A court found on Monday that a Christian couple who said they would expose children to anti-gay beliefs could be lawfully prevented by Derby City Council from fostering. The British Humanist Association commented on the decision, saying it shows that “prejudices and preferences come second to the needs and rights of vulnerable children”.

Not everyone was so welcoming of the decision, however. No one’s been burned at the stake yet but both the Telegraph and the Spectator labelled the ruling part of an  ”Inquisition”.

The Spectator misrepresents the ruling by pulling the usual switcheroo. The Johns, the High Court decided, would be liable to push an anti-gay view on children, but the Spectator interprets: “Their crime is simply to believe it is wrong to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a child”. As if promoting homosexuality to children is what Derby City Council want! No, it’s that the Johns said they would actively tell children that expressing homosexuality (whether “lifestyle” or indeed intrinsic characteristic) was morally wrong, in their eyes, and in the eyes of God. Pish and posh, says the Spectator, They’re just good Christians who believe that “sex outside marriage is wrong”. Critics of the ruling do tend to fall back on that line: it’s sex outside marriage the Johns object to, and – the commentators want to add – morally conservative Christians don’t object to homosexuality per se… but they can’t quite say that because that’s obviously not the case and if actual gay marriage was fully legal the so-called “moral objections” (whatever they’re meant to be) would obviously become objections to gay sex inside marriage, or to gay marriage itself. Obviously. Really, really obviously.

Ironically, in one article the Telegraph headlines the quote “Our Christianity is our lifestyle”. Again the implication is that all evangelising anti-gay parents would be doing is influencing the lifestyle of the children, just as all parents do, so why does their Christian lifestyle fall foul of children’s possible future “lifestyle choices”. That the actual lifestyle choices of the religious parents are in conflict with what the law regards as potentially innate characteristics of children, no more changeable than race or sex, is beyond the critics’ ken.

Forgetting to imagine what it might be like as a child to have your nascent sexuality besmirched by your parents isn’t as bad as it gets, though. In an extraordinary feat of experimental narrative art, Cristina Odone manages to pen an entire eight paragraph long opinion piece about the case – in which she finds time to complain that Christianity itself is being “eradicated”, that laws are “taking apart” tradition (the tradition of homophobia?) and that secularists want to “scrub Christianity from public life” – without once even mentioning the crucial anti-gay views on which the case actually turned.

A hateful newspaper article outing gay Ugandans with the headline “Hang them” prompted a landmark ruling on the right to  privacy and dignity. Plaintiff Kasha Jacqueline tells her story.

Freedom and Roam is Uganda's exclusively Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender women’s rights organisation

On the 4th of October, I woke up as usual, with my niece sleeping near me. She was put in my bed every morning so that when I awoke, the first thing I see is her smiling face. I was flying to Geneva that evening for a Human Rights conference where one of the topics of discussion would be Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill. Everything seemed normal about that morning, until I checked my e-mail. In addition to the normal e-mails, I found one from a man named Josh Kron, a reporter from the New York Times, in New York. The subject was: “Is it true?”

The body of the e-mail consisted of a few simple questions asking whether or not a Ugandan tabloid called The Rolling Stone had written about me, naming me as a lesbian. I had never even heard of the The Rolling Stone and wrote him back to tell him I wasn’t aware of ever having spoken with such a publication. Shortly afterwards, Frank Mugisha, a friend of mine, who had also been listed by the tabloid as a gay Ugandan, sent me an e-mail with a scanned copy of the tabloid newspaper. There it was: my picture, my name, and the headline: “100 PICTURES OF UGANDA’S TOP HOMOS.” Beneath the headline were the words, “Hang Them!”

I panicked. But the full article was worse. When I read it, my heart almost stopped. The article claimed that I threw parties and orgies for homosexuals at my house and that I wanted to brainwash children into being homosexual. They even quoted me as saying, “We are targeting those as young as 12 years old, as they are easy to persuade to join gay groups.”

Uganda's Rolling Stone magazine offers a truly hateful headline

I have never said such a thing, I have never even thought such a thing – and if someone was throwing homosexual orgies at my house, they never invited me. But I couldn’t do anything right then, I had to fly to Geneva, where as a leading voice of the human rights movement for sexual minorities in Uganda, I was presenting a report on Uganda to a UN committee. But every time I checked my e-mail, I found more and more requests for a comment from reporters about my supposed quote. I didn’t know how to respond. I had never faced a lie so ugly and so huge. I had never imagined a call for me to be hanged. And I had reason to fear, because in addition to their lies, Rolling Stone had published my home address and workplace. Anyone who decided that he should take Rolling Stone’s advice to hang me knew exactly where I could be found.

When I got a full copy of the paper that night, I passed it around, and began to shout, “Enough is enough! These guys can’t get away with this!” But for the next two weeks, I felt too scared to do anything. I was afraid that if I spoke up, someone would hurt me. The following week, Rolling Stone printed more photos, and I knew that if I didn’t do something to stop them, eventually, someone would get hurt. All the news I got from home was terrible. People who had their photo published had been attacked, had rocks thrown at them, and some had to leave their homes. They were too afraid to even file police reports. I decided I had to stand up for them. I was a known human rights defender, I could risk my name. I contacted many people around the world who supported me and pledged to help me throughout the whole process of suing the Rolling Stone.

Coming back in November, I talked to my colleagues David Kato and Pepe Onziema, and learned that they were also planning to sue, so we teamed up to lodge a case against The Rolling Stone. We sued them on grounds that should be important to all Ugandans, whether gay or straight: Our right to privacy and the safety we all have against incitements to violence. Let me be clear: I have never at any one time in my affidavit denied my sexual orientation. Our issue concerned the rights that Ugandans should have to be protected from the incitement of violence and violation of our privacy. No one should ever wake up and see a call for violence and his home address published in a newspaper.

During the case, I spent all the little money I had to have safe transport, and stopped moving to my local open places because of fear of what could happen to me in case someone identified me. Because of my human rights work defending sexual minorities, it’s always my face that is flashed on TV every time someone talks about homosexuality.

In November, the judge placed an injunction against The Rolling Stone that prohibited them from publishing any more photos of people. But, in December, the court case grew very ugly. The court proceedings were postponed five times, and each time incurred expenses and allowed for many ugly acts of harassment outside the court. Once, the anti-gay pastor Solomon Male ambushed me outside the court to engage in a very ugly public argument with me about Pastor Kayanja and how we (homosexuals) had taken over all government posts and cannot be touched – which is ridiculous, as I had just been pushed around by court security not five minutes before.

Finally, on January 3, 2011, the judge offered his ruling in our favour. The ruling was virtually ignored by the local press, but the international media covered it extensively because of its farreaching implications for Ugandans. The ruling clarified an important nuance of the law: while certain homosexual acts may still be illegal (a penal code act which we are currently fighting), maintaining a homosexual identity is not. In Uganda, a person is free to identify themselves however they please, and cannot be persecuted for it. Therefore, a newspaper like The Rolling Stone cannot incite violence against innocent citizens, and cannot invade their privacy.

On my own behalf, and on behalf of my two fellow plaintiffs – David Kato and Pepe Onziema – as well as the entire LGBT community of Uganda, we would like to welcome the verdict of this case. It has taken courage and bravery to stand up for justice. The support from the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, from our families, and from allies near and far cannot go unnoticed.

This verdict has shown that indeed, justice is possible in this world and more so in this country. Coming from a marginalized community, many people have taken advantage of our oppression to satisfy their political, economic, and social greed and bigotry. We are victims of oppression in so many ways. And for being just who we are, many have turned us into targets of oppression. But we refuse to be silent. The stories of people fighting against injustice have always been about a minority, because social justice struggles are fought by a minority for a majority.

The court verdict reminded us all that Uganda is no place for hatred and impunity. Irresponsible journalism has no place in this country. The Rolling Stone tabloid and its editors may not have anticipated that they would be victims of their own actions but we would never wish for or call for them to be “hanged.” A media that is based on untruthfulness is an enemy of the nation. Let this be the beginning of responsible journalism for justice and equality.

On December 10, 2010, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called on all countries to decriminalize homosexuality during his key Human Rights Day address. Mr. Ban Ki Moon said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December. 10, 1948, “is not called the ‘partial’ declaration of human rights. It is not the ‘sometimes’ declaration of human rights. It is the universal declaration, guaranteeing all human beings their basic human rights – without exception.”

But one verdict does not mean that we have won the struggle. We still have a lot of sensitizing to do, especially to the people in rural areas, before people fully understand just how big a lie The Rolling Stone published. We have to know that we are all different in many ways and that we cannot all be the same. My hope is that we can learn to live together in this beautiful country of ours without stigma and discrimination but with respect and tolerance.

Again, I would like to thank all those who continue to walk the journey to freedom with us. You are the true heroes and sheroes. Let justice reign.

Kasha Jacqueline is founder and Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, the country’s only exclusively Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender women’s rights organization, founded in 2003.

This article was originally published by Dispatch and was written before the murder of David Kato at the end of January.

In an article for gay magazine Attitude, Johann Hari lays bare the rhetoric of Christian Voice’s Stephen Green and delineates the “right to speak”, including “the right to say despicable things” –which even homophobes should have – from “choosing to give him a platform”.

Do you deserve to be killed for being gay? Should you be hanged, or shot, or electrocuted? In Britain today, a man who believes you should be – and who actively supports the on-going campaign to hunt down and kill gay people in Africa – is being given prime-time TV slots by the BBC and Channel Four. When Elton John had a baby, he was given the main response on the flagship Six O’Clock News. He is in the rolodex of all the “moral discussion” programs, wheeled on whenever we inch closer to equality for gay people. He is Taken Seriously, and treated as a neutral commentator by shows like Question Time and newspapers like the Daily Mail. His name is Stephen Green, and if he had his way, you’d be reading this from death row.

… Imagine if the BBC, Channel Four and Daily Mail were giving prominent platforms to a man who believed all Jews should be killed, or all black people, or all Muslims. It would – thankfully – be unthinkable. Yet Green is doing precisely that with gay people. On his website earlier this year, he noted the moves in Uganda to execute people for “aggravated sodomy” – and complained they didn’t go far enough. He wrote: “The Bible prescribes precisely the penalty [MP David] Bahati is proposing for sodomy in any situation, whether or not ‘aggravated.’” Kill all the “sodomites.” Not in theory. Now. That’s his response to hearing that innocent gay people are about to be put to death.

Full article: http://johannhari.com/2011/02/09/why-do-our-broadcasters-keep-giving-a-platform-to-a-murderous-homophobe

Moralising evangelical lobbyist, Stephen Green, campaigner against abortion, against gay rights, and in favour of the death penalty, is accused by his ex-wife of subjecting her to a premeditated physical attack and “mental bullying” against her and their four children.

Stephen Green and his almost synonymous “Christian Voice” group rose to prominence in recent years after a “blasphemy” campaign against Jeremy Springer the Opera and court appearances for handing out anti-gay literature.

The media have been obscurely eager to report Green’s every decree in minute detail for years now. But they seem to be letting the offences alleged in the Daily Mail, with lengthy quotes from Caroline Green, go by without so much as a whiff of a comment. Google News currently has the original article in the Daily Mail from three days ago, picked up only by Pink News and by blogger PZ Myers. Despite the latter’s guess (“Next big item of non-news: the media continues to flock about Stephen Green, flogging his sensationalist hatred to the public, despite his patent hypocrisy”) the accusations are in fact being left well alone by the BBC and all the British press which usually repeats “Stephen Green of Christian Voice” stories with endless fascination.

From the Daily Mail article:

Caroline Green was often punished by her husband Stephen for failing to be a dutiful, compliant wife, but his final act of violence against her — the one that prompted her long-overdue decision to divorce him — was all the more chilling because it was coldly premeditated.

Stephen Green wrote a list of his wife’s ­failings then described the weapon he would make to beat her with.

‘He told me he’d make a piece of wood into a sort of witch’s broom and hit me with it, which he did,’ she recalls, her voice tentative and quiet. ‘He hit me until I bled. I was terrified. I can still remember the pain.

‘Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn’t loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn’t giving him his ­conjugal rights.

‘He even framed our marriage vows — he always put particular emphasis on my promise to obey him — and hung them over our bed. He believed there was no such thing as marital rape and for years I’d been reluctant to have sex with him, but he said it was my duty and was angry if I refused him.

‘But the beating was the last straw. It ­convinced me I had to divorce him.’

…

It is hard to overstate the extent of his control. We were shut off from the world. The children weren’t allowed to watch TV unless he approved of the programme; they were only allowed to mix with other Christians. They could only listen to Christian music.’

Looking back, she says: ‘I suppose we survived by being devious. When he was away on Christian Voice ­business, they were allowed to play by my rules.’

By now Stephen was immersed in Christian Voice, which allowed him the autonomy and freedom to express his increasingly bizarre views unchallenged. As its founder and director, he was answerable to no one.

…

‘My middle and youngest sons have been almost suicidally depressed because of his mental bullying. They still bear the scars.

‘When I see my ex-husband on television quoting the Bible, I think: “Please let this all end”.

‘If people were able to know the real Stephen Green, my hope is that at last it will.’

Full story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351585/Stephen-Green-rails-immorality-voice-Christian-Britan-private-wife-beater-says-partner.html

It might not be at Ground Zero, or a mosque, as has been endlessly pointed out, but an imam closely associated with the “Ground Zero Mosque” project – otherwise known as the Park51 Muslim community center (two whole blocks away from the World Trade Center site) – has caused controversy by describing homosexuality as being caused mainly by emotional and/or sexual abuse in childhood, and that those who leave Islam should be jailed and maybe killed. Nice guy.

Park51 is supposed to be “a platform for multi-faith dialogue, to promote inter-community peace, tolerance and understanding locally in New York City, nationally in America, and globally”… except for gay people and anyone who decides Islam isn’t for them.

During one of his frequent online lectures, Abdallah Adhami, 44, stated that being gay was a “painful trial” which results from past trauma.

He went on to say that “An enormously overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling because of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life.

“A small, tiny percentage of people are born with a natural inclination that they cannot explain. You find this in the animal kingdom at some level as well.”

Furthermore he urged gays to fight this “propensity”.

He goes on to say that apostates should be jailed, the New York Post reports, and is quoted as saying “If someone preaches about apostasy or preaches their views, they’re jailed . . . Many jurists have said they have to be killed.”

Full article: http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory/4759/1/02/2011/ground-zero-mosque-leader-says-gay-people-were-abused-as-children.aspx

David Kato knew he was a marked man.

As the most outspoken gay rights advocate in Uganda, a country where homophobia is so severe that Parliament is considering a bill to execute gay people, Mr. Kato had received a stream of death threats, his friends said. A few months ago, a Ugandan newspaper ran an antigay diatribe with Mr. Kato’s picture on the front page under a banner urging, “Hang Them.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Kato was beaten to death with a hammer in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood. Police officials were quick to chalk up the motive to robbery, but members of the small and increasingly besieged gay community in Uganda suspect otherwise.

“David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009,” Val Kalende, the chairwoman of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, said in a statement. “The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”

Ms. Kalende was referring to visits in March 2009 by a group of American evangelicals, who held rallies and workshops in Uganda discussing how to turn gay people straight, how gay men sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” intended to “defeat the marriage-based society.”

The Americans involved said they had no intention of stoking a violent reaction. But the antigay bill was drafted shortly thereafter. Some of the Ugandan politicians and preachers who wrote it had attended those sessions and said that they had discussed the legislation with the Americans.

After growing international pressure and threats from a few European countries to cut assistance — Uganda relies on hundreds of millions of dollars of aid — Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, indicated that the bill would be scrapped.

But more than a year later, that has not happened, and the legislation remains a simmering issue in Parliament. Some political analysts say the bill could be passed in the coming months, after a general election in February that is expected to return Mr. Museveni, who has been in office for 25 years, to power.

Continues: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/africa/28uganda.html

Towards the end of an emotional ceremony to mourn Kato, who was bludgeoned to death on Wednesday, Anglican pastor Thomas Musoke launched into a homophobic tirade, shocking the dozens of gay men and women as well as foreign diplomats in attendance.

“The world has gone crazy,” Musoke said. “People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man.”

Witnesses said that Kato’s former colleagues at Sexual Minorities Uganda, where he worked as an advocacy officer, quickly shouted Musoke down.

“We have not come to fight,” one woman screamed. “You are not the judge of us. As long as he’s gone to God his creator, who are we to judge Kato?”

The microphone was away grabbed from Musoke, and a scuffle ensued. Police were forced to intervene, escorting the pastor away from the funeral.

…

A statement from US president Barack Obama praising Kato as a “powerful advocate for fairness and freedom” was read out. In her address, Sylvia Tamale, dean of the law school at Makerere University and a prominent critic of the harsh anti-homosexuality bill currently before parliament, called on the government to speak out against injustice in the country.

Following the pastor’s departure, Kato’s friends completed the burial, before quickly returning to Kampala due to threats from some local villagers.

Full story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/28/gay-activist-david-kato-funeral

Human rights campaigner David Kato has been murdered after his name and photograph appeared in a homophobic newspaper with the headline “Hang Them”. The newspaper, government officials and US evangelicals spreading hatred, all come in for criticism for creating a poisonous and inflammatory atmosphere of hatred.

David Kato, the activist, was one of the most visible defenders of gay rights in a country so homophobic that government leaders have proposed to execute gay people. Mr. Kato and other gay people inUganda had recently warned that their lives were endangered, and four months ago a local paper called Rolling Stone published a list of gay people, and Mr. Kato’s face was on the front page.

He was attacked in his home Wednesday afternoon and beaten in the head with a hammer, said Judith Nabakooba, a police spokeswoman. But police officials said they don’t believe this was a hate crime.

“It looks like theft, as some things were stolen,” Mrs. Nabakooba said.

Gay activists disagreed and said Mr. Kato was singled out for his outspoken defense of gay rights. “David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. Evangelicals in 2009,” said Val Kalende, the chairperson of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, in a statement. “The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood!”

Continues: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/africa/28uganda.html?_r=1

The BBC’s Kevin Mwachiro says it is unclear whether the death is linked to the Rolling Stone campaign.

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

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

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

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

Continues: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12295718

Also see the response from OutRage! in the UK and a statement from Sexual Minorities Uganda, in which Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, says:

“No form of intimidation will stop our cause. The death of David will only be honored when the struggle for justice and equality is won. David is gone and many of us will follow, but the struggle will be won Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the entire Ugandan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Community stands together to condemn the killing of David Kato and call for the Ugandan Government, Civil Society, and Local Communities to protect sexual minorities across Uganda.”

Ben Summerskill of Stonewall responds to the Christian “B&B” case ruling.

If the Bulls [the hoteliers] had a sense of humour, something they don’t seem God-blessed with, they might have spotted the irony of spending the Christmas season fighting for the entitlement to turn guests away from their inn.

During passage of the 2006 Equality Act, Stonewall fought hard to secure pioneering “goods and services” protections for lesbian and gay people, protecting them for the first time against discrimination in the delivery of public and commercial services. The preceding legal entitlement to deny gay people a service was every bit as offensive as the notorious signs outside guesthouses that once said: “No blacks. No Irish.” And people certainly took advantage of it, as lesbians denied smear tests and gay men refused holiday bookings were well aware.

…

If you allow businesses or public services to turn away gay people at will on trumped-up grounds of principle, as the Bulls would wish, then our public services will soon have to deal with the Jewish registrar with an ethical objection to marrying out, or a Muslim nurse who doesn’t wish to care for an unmarried mother. So the really important message from Bristol county court is simply that the appropriate “balance of rights” for modern Britain is one that keeps private prejudice out of the public space.

The Bulls’ shadowy supporter, the Christian Legal Centre, suggests it may turn to the law again. If so, it might reflect that, for the estimated £30,000 this court case has cost it, Oxfam or Save the Children could have vaccinated 100,000 people against meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa. Now that would have been a genuinely Christian way to spend its money.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/jan/18/christian-hoteliers-gay-couple-equality

Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled yesterday that a Christian couple running a B&B who refused a double bed for gay guests has drawn a limited response, mainly from the more morally ‘conservative’ end of the spectrum, viewing the case as a loss of religious rights… though the law seems abundantly clear that it’s only when you start discriminating against others that legislation may rightly come into play.

The Telegraph, short-sightedly, represents all the personal angst felt by the couple who were discriminated against as merely being “offended”. In the eyes of their editorial view, it’s as if the judge has censured someone over a passing comment, rather than what it actually as: a keenly felt, holiday-ruining denial of service by a business, based on the intrinsic characteristics of their would-be guests.

The right to hold religious beliefs, and to act in keeping with one’s faith, is being set against the right not to be offended – and is losing. This is a dispiriting trend in a free society. The views of the Bulls will seem to many to be old-fashioned, even distasteful – but they have every right to hold them.

Again, missing another point: the B&B owners weren’t just “holding a view”, they were running a public business and treating some people differently in a way which made them feel small and rejected for no good reason.

Andrew Brown is more analytical, though he  emphasises what appears to be his own view, that the case represents a “clash of genuine rights” in his Guardian blog:

Judge Andrew Rutherford’s ruling against the Cornish Christian couple who refused to offer a double bed to a gay couple treads a narrow line in deciding what counts as discrimination. It will no doubt delight the evangelical Christians who can use it to strengthen their own sense of being a persecuted minority, but the real point is a more subtle one, about the equivalence of civil partnerships with marriage. That may well increase the rage of conservative evangelicals, but it is unlikely to win them many converts.

… The important point about Peter and Hazelmary Bull, the couple who owned the Cornish hotel in question, was that they really believed that their policy did not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation. Their line was that no unmarried couples, whether straight or gay, could share a double-bedded room, and evidence was presented to show that they had previously been in trouble with heterosexual couples who had been turned away for this reason, as far back as 1996. … So it really does appear that the Bulls were attempting to run a policy that did not discriminate against gay unmarried couples any more than it did against straight ones. The judge is quite clear that this is a clash of genuine rights and sincere principles on both sides. His job is to balance them, or rather to discover how the law balances the two rights – to the free exercise of religious belief; and to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The crucial factor turned out to be the fact that the gay couple, Martin Hall and Steven Preddy, had entered into a civil partnership. The law says that civil partners are to be treated as married ones and in that sense the Bulls’ policy was direct discrimination, since there was no possibility of marriage, still less Christian marriage for any gay couple. That is why they won their case.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/jan/18/cornish-hotel-ruling-conservative-christians

And the Daily Mail embarrass themselves.

The British Humanist Association campaigns for full equality in marriage law for same-sex partners.

The Christian Legal Centre, who seem to run all those cases of alleged discrimination against Christians who have actually discriminated against gay people, which they eventually lose, is now backing Lesley Pilkington, a psychotherapist who claims to “cure” gay men and who faces being struck off in a disciplinary hearing this week after being stung by an undercover gay rights campaigner. Pilkington in turn accuses the campaigner/patient, Patrick Strudwick, of entrapment.

The case will expose the growing use of hugely controversial therapies, from the United States, which attempt to make homosexual men heterosexual.

The therapy has been described by the leading professional psychotherapy body as “absurd”, while the Royal College of Psychiatrists said “so-called treatments of homosexuality” allow prejudice to flourish.

A small group of counsellors believe all men are born heterosexual but that some choose a homosexual lifestyle which can then be changed through counselling.

… Mrs Pilkington says her method of therapy – Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) – is legitimate and effective. The therapy is practised by a handful of psychotherapists in Britain.

Mrs Pilkington, whose 29-year-old son is homosexual, said she was motivated by a desire to help others. “He [my son] is heterosexual. He just has a homosexual problem,” she said last week.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8261705/The-therapist-who-claims-she-can-help-gay-men-go-straight.html

Other cases supported by the Christian Legal Centre include that of Gary McFarlane (who refused counselling to a homosexual couple) and Lillian Ladele (who refused to act as a registrar for homosexual couples). Both cases were eventually lost. We should point out that the Christian Legal Centre is not homosexual. It just has “a homosexual problem”.

Westboro Baptist Church: not universally loved by its neighbours

The Westboro Baptist church has been picketing the funerals of innocent people for years, usually with the excuse either that the deceased were gay, or sometimes just that they served in the armed forces, which defend America, which is – as a country - too gay for the church’s liking.

The church’s nasty little games have been protected on “First Amendment” terms in the US, where in other countries their actions might have been classed as harassment or incitement to hatred years ago.

But at last, as the Church announced plans to picket the funeral of a 9-year-old girl following Saturday’s mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, the law and the will of the people have swung against them, and a US state has finally decided that the Westboro clan has overstepped the mark.

Funeral protest plans by Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, have been met with defiance in Arizona. Tuscon residents say they’ll block the protesters from getting to the mourners of Saturday’s mass shooting. The state legislature has also passed a law to help.

… State lawmakers Tuesday passed legislation that makes protests illegal within 300 feet of any home, house of worship, cemetery, or funeral home just before, during, or after a ceremony or burial.

Tucson residents also sprang into action when news of the planned protests spread. Many intend to meet the picketers with human barricades and some say they will wear oversize “angel wings” to shield mourners from seeing the protesters along the funeral routes.

… The controversial church, which is comprise mostly of the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his family, believes that God is punishing America for its growing acceptance of gay rights by killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The group also protested the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards.

The US Supreme Court is considering a case against the church’s practice of protesting funerals, brought by the father of a US marine killed in Iraq.

Full story: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0111/Funeral-protest-Arizona-rallies-to-foil-Westboro-Baptist-Church

A homophobic crank possibly vaguely familiar on US religious TV programming blames mass bird die-offs and other disasters on, you guessed it, equalities legislation for gay people, in serious and concerned tones that chime completely hollow.

Cindy Jacobs, a “respected prophet,” says birds and fish may be dying off en masse because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In other words: buttsecks kills.

“From Pokemon cards and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to Marilyn Manson and psychic hotlines, this nation is under siege,” she warns in her new book.

Via http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/10/whats-causing-the-my.html

In a somewhat unusually direct move today the Pope called on Pakistan to reverse its blasphemy laws. The call may be welcome but it is somewhat undermined by less well-reported items in his speech, which specifically put religion above all other considerations in law. An extraordinary single paragraph from the Pope’s speech today, to ambassadors assigned to the Holy See:

…on this solemn occasion, allow me to state clearly several principles which inspire the Holy See, together with the whole Catholic Church, in its activity within the intergovernmental International Organizations for the promotion of full respect for the religious freedom of all. First, the conviction that one cannot create a sort of scale of degrees of religious intolerance. Unfortunately, such an attitude is frequently found, and it is precisely acts of discrimination against Christians which are considered less grave and less worthy of attention on the part of governments and public opinion.

On the one hand he seems to be saying that discrimination against any religion is as bad as any other, which is at least reasonable, but the ambiguity around collapsing the “scale of degrees of religious intolerance” plays into recent debates – partly prompted by the Pope himself – about “persecution”. It’s a word usually reserved for acts more severe than (for example) merely asking people to obey the law regardless of their religion, but which is losing a sense of severity thanks to those with an interest in collapsing the intuitive “scale of degrees” so that merely losing equality cases when you discriminate against others sits right next to actual persecution on the single point scale.

“At the same time,” the Pope continues in the same paragraph:

there is a need to reject the dangerous notion of a conflict between the right to religious freedom and other human rights, thus disregarding or denying the central role of respect for religious freedom in the defence and protection of fundamental human dignity.

So to translate, even though time and again the freedom of belief is found in law not to include the right to unlawfully discriminate against other people, no such conflict of rights is real, or rather my religious rights should trump all other considerations. For the Pope, the right to express religion, that is to act on beliefs we acquire in life, even by discriminating unlawfully against others, is more “fundamental” to human dignity than, for example, protecting people who want to live in accordance with the innate characteristics they are born with.

Even less justifiable are attempts to counter the right of religious freedom with other alleged new rights which, while actively promoted by certain sectors of society and inserted in national legislation or in international directives, are nonetheless merely the expression of selfish desires lacking a foundation in authentic human nature.

Translation: gay people who want to formalise relationships and adopt are being selfish and unnatural.

Finally, it seems unnecessary to point out that an abstract proclamation of religious freedom is insufficient: this fundamental rule of social life must find application and respect at every level and in all areas; otherwise, despite correct affirmations of principle, there is a risk that deep injustice will be done to citizens wishing to profess and freely practise their faith.

My beliefs come first, always and in all circumstances.

Full text: http://press.catholica.va/news_services/bulletin/news/26680.php?index=26680&lang=en