Seniors’ Home for
Gays and Lesbians
Mount Pleasant in Vancouver could be the location of the
first seniors’ home in Canada that would specifically
target gays and lesbians (though heterosexuals can also
buy). If the proposal is approved, the construction
could start as early as 2010. This project would fill a
community need, for senior queers who wish to remain in
gay-friendly environments as they age. Two weeks after
the project was commercialized, 30 individuals have paid
a deposit! Such a seniors’ home already exists in New
Mexico.
Lindsay Lohan’s Lesbian Love Life
Well, after the MySpace messages that Lohan was sending
to Samantha Ronson, telling her she loves her, and no
one but her, how she wants to marry her and have kids
with her, apparently Samantha moved in with Lohan and
the love story is going more or less well. Hopefully, it
will help Lohan stay sober.
Gay Rights
Setback in Italy
When Italian politician and statesman Romano Prodi spoke
in favor of gay rights in Italy, a lot of people
cheered. But internally, Prodi’s stunt led to the
collapse of his coalition, reducing him to the status of
a caretaker prime minister till the new elections take
place.
Nigerian
Lesbian Marriage with an Ugly Twist
Two Nigerian women have been sentenced to 6 months in
jail and 20 lashes each for having a homosexual
relationship. Malama Hauwa married Hajiya Ai'sha five
years ago and even paid her a dowry. The couple remained
unnoticed by the police until Hauwa suspected that
Ai’sha planned to leave her, demanding her dowry back.
Buster Busted
Financed by the U.S government, a cartoon series
entitled “Postcards from Buster,” is supposed to promote
tolerance and acceptance. However, when the series
handled the itchy subject of homosexuality in its
episode “Sugartime,” it was instantly censored and the
episode was eventually canceled. The “controversial”
episode, which is not really controversial, portrays a
lesbian couple as the mothers of one of Buster’s
friends.
Australian
Lesbian Legend Will Not Attend the Olympics
Dawn Fraser, Olympic legend of the 50s and 60s, says
she will not be attending the Chinese Olympics in
protest of the government’s policies that discriminate
against women, disabled, as well as homosexual Chinese
individuals. She is also taking a stand against China’s
oppressive governing of Tibet.
The End of a
Lifetime Spent in Love
Judie Foster and Cydney Bernard have apparently ended
their 14 years old relationship, only four months after
Foster publicly admited for the first time the nature of
the relationship that bonds her to Bernard describing
her as "My beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through
the rotten and the bliss." Throughout the years, Foster
and Bernard have worn matching Tiffany eternity rings on
their wedding fingers. In addition, during the past 14
years, Foster gave birth to two sons and Bernard was
next to her throughout both labors, eventually adopting
both boys. Though this relationship lasted for such a
long time, it was never really public, as Foster was
notorious for her fear of media and stalkers. It is said
that she never hired any household staff just to prevent
any news of her private life leak out to the press. And
maybe she was right, afterall, when she did make her
relationship with Bernard public, it soon degraded,
right?
Ellen DeGeneres is Getting Married
Well Ellen always loved to live life out loud, even when
it didn’t serve her well. When she came out as a
lesbian, she jeopardized her career and her popularity.
Though some may argue that she wasn’t that popular in
the first place, time has proven that she is a woman of
talent and if she was not finding herself before coming
out, maybe it was because she had to pretend to be
heterosexual just to secure her popularity, something
that clearly damaged her work. And now that she has
finally come to terms with her audience and built a
solid base of loyal fans, she revealed yet another
surprise.
On "Ellen
DeGeneres Show" aired on March the 14th she declared to
the whole audience that she is to marry Portia de Rossi,
her partner. Will this revelation prove to be a risk for
her popularity yet again? Who knows, many are attacking
the couple, not only for being lesbian but also for
being interracial, a combination that clearly disturbs
some. But don’t get too excited, two days later
Degeneres declared that, though she plans to marry de
Rossi, she won’t be doing that right now and the whole
proposal on the show was actually a “joke.” Too bad, I
say.
The Human Rights Watch’s LGBTIQ Hall of Fame and Hall
of Shame
The Human Rights Watch has issued a report on the
commemoration of the International Day against
Homophobia, giving the names of the three most
disappointing attitudes towards the LGBTIQ and the most
inspiring ones. Surprisingly, the first on the Hall of
Shame was the United Kingdom. In spite of the long
history that the UK has with LGBTIQ rights’ respect, the
current administration has failed to respect its legacy
and took the first place in the Hall of shame, some of
the acts perpetrated against the Queer community was the
refusal of asylum cases of homosexuals attempting to
find refuge in the UK. In more than one case, the UK
sent back some homosexuals to their homeland where they
risk life threatening situation in native countries
where homosexuality is still punishable with death. The
most recent example of such attitude is the case of the
Iranian asylum-seeker Mehdi Kazemi, “who in 2007 faced
deportation from the United Kingdom to Iran – despite
laws imposing torture and the death penalty for
homosexual conduct in Iran.”
In second place
comes the Polish President Lech Kaczynski who has been
using the gay community as a political strategy to gain
more radical support. After years of campaigning
politically at the expense of the homosexual community,
Kaczynski’s brother and former Prime Minister made a
nationally televised speech in which he lobbied against
ratifying the European Union Reform Treaty, which would
adopt the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which
is a charter that prohibits discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation thus lobbying for the respect and
admission of family members of homosexual couples to be
treated equally and fairly. To prove his point, he gave
the example of the US couple Brendan Fay and Thomas
Moulton, illustrating their marriage in Canada as a sort
of warning sign of how Poland should not act.
In third position
came the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. In Uganda,
homosexuality is prohibited, but a coalition of LGBTQ of
Ugandan LGBTQ organizations launched a campaign titled
“Let Us Live in Peace”. In response to this campaign,
the Minister of Ethics and Integrity publicly called
homosexuality “unnatural”, at the same time denying
allegations of police harassment of homosexuals and
threatening the coalition that the authority “knows who
they are and has details about them.” But facing the
Hall of Shame, the Human Rights’ Watch listed a Hall of
Fame, giving credit to all those authorities that have
made improvements to their legal and social structure.
Pioneering in this field came the Colombian
Constitutional Court, providing protection for
homosexuals and granting same-sex partners equal (or
almost equal) rights, in terms of health care benefits
and pension benefits, condemning at the same time
discrimination against LGBTIQ community in Colombia. In
second place came Ireland, where the High Court finally
ended the ordeal of a transsexual woman and judged that
she should be granted the identity papers corresponding
to the gender identity she lived in. And finally, Nepal,
who has been struggling with civil war for quite a while
now. The Supreme Court, on December 17, 2007, mandated
legal and constitutional protections for sexual
orientation and gender identity. |
