Russia's very own Section 28

Russia dismantles Steve Jobs memorial as 'gay propaganda' after Apple's Tim Cook comes out as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It may be noble to condemn Russian's anti-gay stance, for it is indeed ignoble. But I'm yet to see amidst the vituperation any reference to Britain's Section 28:

The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Thanks Wikipedia for this.  This amendment dates from as recently as 1988. 

bePROUD prize

MPs get bePROUD prize for supporting minority rights

A group of two dozen MPs from across the political spectrum received the 2013 bePROUD prize for supporting minority rights. The prize was awarded in recognition of their joint effort to push through legislation which would enable gay and lesbian couples to adopt their partner’s child. The draft legislation tabled shortly before the lower house was disbanded to open the way for early elections late last year failed to win approval. The 2013 anti-prize went to psychologist Jeroným Klimeš for “spreading stereotypes and homophobic statements about the gay and lesbian community”.

Czech Radio News: Saturday, May 17th, 2014

Jeroným Klimeš is the author of A homosexual husband needn't mean divorce

Smoking Healthier Than Gay Marriage

Australian Conservative Leader Jim Wallace Claims 

Smoking Healthier Than Gay Marriage

Full story from Queerty.

It's stupid enough to be funny ... almost.

Happy Birthday Alan. Pity you killed yourself. One of the most talented members of our family.

At least the BBC celebrates the big birthday: Alan Turing: why the tech world's hero should be a household name.

Get along to London's Science Museum's exhibition exploring Turing's life until June 2013. Once the London Olympics have come and gone ....

One reads that Leonardo is being tipped to play him in a new film. I wonder if he can eclipse his stunning performance of another gay boy, Arthur Rimbaud, in Total Eclipse.

This very interesting poster staring Alan Turing comes from Anarchoblogs, tho I don't know where they got it.

Not that many gals on my site

I don't know if it's necessary to comment. But for those of my thousands of readers who might be wondering why this vid deserved reposting, just let me say that the First Lady of the USA having such public fun with an uber-out lesbian on national (=international) TV gives the office of the president untold cache. Not in every nook and crany of this great nation, to be sure. But ....

We impersonate

From an article about the 2010 film Beginners: see trailer below. See also Wikipedia

I think if you’re a gay man who was born in 1925 and whose very first sexual feelings are towards other men, you have to learn an impersonation of a straight man, and he did that for a long time.’’ Heterosexuality wasn’t normal to him “and so he had to figure out the way it looked and play the part.

Gay rights are human rights

It's official - the US Secretary of State declared it so on Dec 7th 2011.
I demand an annual pubic holiday to mark her pronouncement.

Is it not strange that a country which has so many legislative incongruities regarding gay rights, should drop hints to less enlightened regimes. Why does the word 'regime' have such negative connotations, just BTW? It is not as though Hilary is unaware of her country's mixed record: As late as 2003, some states had laws that made gay sex a crime. And it was only this year that Obama signed into law a bill repealing the "don't ask don't tell" law and allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the US military. This info comes from the BBC website where this story was reported last week (7th Dec 2011).

There are well over 300 reader responses. I haven't read them all. Many of them have been deleted as the BBC's moderators found that they had broken the house rules. They must have been bad, given that the ones that are left are full of hatred, misunderstanding, misinformation, paranoia, nationalism, ignorance and bad grammar. Here's a tickler:

I think if we strengthen family in the west the way God wants us to have it, the number of homosexuals will simply dwindle." 

Admirable methinks is the absence of gays taking the bait. Sensible rational people don't even see the need to have this debate.

Key words from the reader responses that are available at the time of writing.
The bigger the word, the more frequently it occurs in the texts.

Gandhi was gay?

Another publication,
another ban,
another sales boost.
another law: please can we have a law that says Gandhi was not gay? or so they cry in India upon the publication of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India. (Joseph Lelyveld)

See India state bans book hinting Gandhi had gay loverwhere you will read:

It has become a fashion to tarnish the image of great Indian leaders for self publicity and sale of books,” said Sanjay Dutt, spokesman for the ruling Congress Party in Maharashtra. “The government should invoke a law to severely punish anyone who tarnishes the image of the father of the nation.

I, the author of this blog, would like to call for a law that banned people from equating outing someone with tarnishing their image.

As you will also read, the relationship with Kallenbach was platonic.
Oh, I get it. No sex = no gay. Feelings count for nothing.

I'm sure there are millions of teenage virgins around the world today and throughout the history and pre-history of mankind whose hitherto unfulfilled sexual desires doesn't mean that they are not gay. And don't get me started on the Papacy and all that flounders in her.

Is it time to add Gandhi to that great T-shirt, What a difference a gay makes?

Tom Robinson - Glad To Be Gay

Lyrics here.

Students use online tool when looking for gay friendly colleges

An interesting tho short article from 365 Gay news site. Fancy there even being registers of the gay friendliness of institutions. I wonder how my Czech faculty would rate. Last year, when I was visiting the Australian National University in Canberra, I took this photo on campus.

Gay issues are not listed on the poster, but the URL at the bottom leads the curious to a page called sexuality, where you will read student advocacy to fight homophobia within the university. I ask why there is homophobia on the campus of Australia's sleepiest capital. It also mentions 'Anything Goes' dance party and Queer Brunch, bisexuality day ... Tha'ts more like it!

NOM - Gathering Storm

---

WUGS ® World Union of Gay Scouting ®'s Profile - Windows Live

World Union of Gay Scouting

Having alluded to the nefarious notion of gay scouting in an earlier blog entry, it is a sheer delight to come across WUGS.

OMG ... what next?

As if it's not enough that the new captain of the world is a Black Man (Jan 20, 2009), but Iceland has just named a white lesbian as its new Prime Minister (Feb 1, 2009). I'm not even going to try to pronounce her name, Johanna Sigurdardottir. And I do look forward to the Poles inviting her to dinner ... not that anyone would want to eat Polish food. As this Sigurdardottir article from the BBC points out, Eastern Europe still has a long way to go in at least achieving a 20th century attitude to gay rights.

Equality in the Boy Scouts - NOT!

Boy Scouts of America Resolution

§7 is the one:
Yes, the national officers further agree that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the traditional values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law and that an avowed homosexual cannot serve as a role model for the values of the Oath and Law.