Critics of Gay Rights Hurt Cause with Hateful Rhetoric

Paul Summers, of Rogersville, you and Duke McDonald make it very easy to be a gay activist in this area, because in effect, your own words speak volumes as to the need for discrimination protection for gay people in Springfield.

Paul, you exclaim your agreement with and commend Duke McDonald, a city lawyer, who spouts hate and denounces civil rights to a whole class of people, because he believes their sexuality is a sin. He justifies this by his book of faith and his religion. This is not teaching family values, as you so eloquently put it; this is absolute prejudice and discrimination.

Read the entire post at News-Leader!

Winds Of Change Are Blowing Gay Activism

There has been a paradigm shift in the movement following marriage defeats in California, Florida and Arizona — as well as an anti-gay adoption measure passing in Arkansas. From seemingly out of nowhere, people who have sat on the sidelines are now making headlines at rallies across America.

The leaders of what is being billed as Stonewall 2.0 are not coming from large, established organizations, but Internet savvy activists who can use a mouse to mobilize the masses. While Internet activism is nothing new, the fact that this huge outpouring of organic outrage is not being channeled through official organizational channels has enormous implications.

Up until two weeks ago, major GLBT groups instructed people to write a check and then essentially instructed donors to check their activism at the door. Sometimes, one was asked to take their commitment a step further by sending e-mail or attending a dinner. I think this week’s protests mark the end of the Passive Era of gay politics. A sign at protests, “No More Mr. Nice Gay”, highlighted this monumental change.

Read the entire post at truthwinsout.org!

The Passing of a GLBT Hero - Hank Wilson

On Sunday November 9th, while the California GLBT community was marching and protesting the passage of Prop 8, a fighter and hero for the GLBT community had died. Hank Wilson, an activist since the early 70’s, has passed.

Wilson is known as a champion for the GLBT community, for people with HIV/AIDS, and a thorn in establishments sides. He dedicated his life to preventing the spread of AIDS. Pushing lawmakers to acknowledge and fight the AIDS Epidemic. Stopping hate in it’s tracks. Warning and educating people on the dangers of “poppers”. Never has there been such an activist for gay men’s health and freedom.

Read more at badevan.com!

Margaret Cho: Political Activist and Satirist

From xtra.ca:

What does one get on mixing the puritanical, repressed culture of new immigrant Koreans with the bold, brash world of the liberated San Francisco gaybourhood, topped off with a potent dash of the comedy genes?

An unsurprisingly explosive result: the irrepressible, combative and hilarious Margaret Cho.

Cho seldom needs introducing, so we’ll make it quick. She’s the Korean comedian whose routines you know by heart (or should).

Read the rest by clicking here.

Human Rights Activist Tortured in Uganda

On July 25, 2008, at 3:00 p.m., Ugandan police arrested and tortured a key Ugandan human rights activist–one of three who had been detained slightly more than a month ago while peacefully demonstrating for access to HIV services. Usaam Mukwaaya was on his way back from Friday prayers when he was stopped by a police patrol car and taken off a motorbike taxi that he had hired to transport him. Three men in police uniform and a fourth in civilian attire put Mukwaaya in the patrol car. He was driven to a building where he was led through a dark hall to an interrogation room, and aggressively questioned about the Ugandan LGBT movement. Mukwaaya was cut around the hands and tortured with a machine that applies extreme pressure to the body, preventing breathing and causing severe pain.

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG)–a coalition of 3 LGBTI organizations in Uganda–and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) searched unsuccessfully for Mukwaaya from 3:00 p.m. on July 25 to the morning of July 26, 2008, inquiring as to his whereabouts at five police stations in Kampala. On July 26, 2008, at about 11:40 a.m., Mukwaaya was driven from the building where he’d been held for about 30 to 45 minutes and dumped. Shaken and bruised, he boarded a motorbike taxi to the city center and telephoned colleagues from SMUG who found him weak, filthy and without shoes and some of his clothing.

TAKE ACTION! The IGLHRC calls upon its partners and friends to join us in condemning the arrest and torture of Mukwaaya and the violation of LGBT human rights in Uganda by the government and its agents. Please send politely worded e-mails to the following Ugandan officials: museveni@starcom.co.ug.

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