Human Rights Campaign Applauds Obama Administration for Supporting UN Declaration Affirming Human Rights of LGBT People

Some amazing news is coming off of the HRC wire. This is the change we can believe in:

Human Rights Campaign Applauds Obama Administration for Supporting UN Declaration Affirming Human Rights of LGBT People

Bush administration had previously refused to sign



WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, issued a statement today on the Obama administration’s announcement that it formally endorsed a United Nations declaration calling for an end to discrimination and other human rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The move is a reversal of the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the statement, which made the United States the only western nation not to support the measure when presented by the U.N. General Assembly in December.



“This is a welcome step forward as it signals to the world that, after years of a hostile administration, the United States recognizes the humanity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people at home and abroad,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “We applaud the Obama administration for joining the other 66 member nations that have officially recognized that basic human rights include the equality of LGBT people.”



“The United States supports the U.N.'s statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity and is pleased to join the other 66 U.N. member states who have declared their support of the statement,” the State Department said in a statement released today. “The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world. As such, we join with other supporters of this statement, and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora.”



In December, HRC was a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the declaration. Nearly 2,500 HRC members called the State Department urging it support the declaration. HRC also released a joint statement denouncing the Vatican’s opposition to the declaration. The statement, which was signed by faith program directors from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and National Black Justice Coalition, can be found read online by visiting, http://www.hrc.org/news/11728.htm.

South Africa: 'Corrective Rape' Spreads To 'Fix' Lesbians

The Huffington Post is featuring a story by The Guardian on the rise of sexual violence against lesbians in South Africa:

The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs.As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigners and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

You can find the rest of the article after the jump...

American gay rights advocate dies in Scotland

Sad news of a student activists death has crossed the Atlantic. 365gay.com reports:

(Edinburgh) Cody Lavender, an American exchange student, has fallen to his death from a dormitory room window at the University of Edinburgh.

Police are investigating but say there is nothing to indicate foul play.

Lavender, 20, had been watching television with friends when he suddenly plunged through the window witnesses said.

He was to have returned this week to the US for Christmas.

Lavender was raised in southern Arizona and in 2006 headed east to Dartmouth College to major in women and gender studies . He became co-chair of the student LGBT group Gender Sexuality XYZ and was an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.

Earlier this year he went to Edinburgh as a part of Dartmouth’s foreign study program to take a religious studies course.

For the rest of this tragic story jump here...

Faith Leaders from LGBT Groups Issue Joint Statement Denouncing Vatican, Supporting UN Resolution

The Vatican has taken a position against decriminalizing homosexuality as the UN moves to encourage such a measure in countries around the world that hold on to such draconian laws. HRC has just released a statement about the Vatican's decision:

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organization, along with faith program directors from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and National Black Justice Coalition today issued a joint protest over the Vatican's recent decision to oppose an initiative to decriminalize homosexuality. Advocates are pushing the U.S. State Department to support the initiative and urging media to cover this life and death concern.

The following joint statement was issued on United Nations Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“For far too long people around the world have been ostracized, imprisoned, tortured and denied basic rights to housing, health care and employment simply because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). In more than 70 countries people can be imprisoned for homosexuality and in several countries same gender love is a crime punishable by death.

“This is why the French government, backed by 27 European Union nations, put forward a proposal, on Human Rights Day to recognize that LGBT rights are human rights and to decriminalize homosexuality. Such a statement simply affirms the most basic of rights for LGBT people: that they be allowed to live in dignity and safety. As faith leaders who work every day with LGBT people who feel the stigma of discrimination, this UN initiative speaks to our core belief that we show our love for God when we care for our neighbors, particularly those who are shunned and marginalized.

“As faith leaders we were shocked by Vatican opposition to this proposed initiative. By refusing to sign a basic statement opposing inhumane treatment of LGBT people, the Vatican is sending a message that violence and human rights abuses against LGBT people are acceptable. Most Catholics, and indeed most Catholic teachings, tell us that all people are entitled to live with basic human dignity without the threat of violence. The Catholics we know believe that Scripture asks us to be our brother and our sister's keeper. Many are speaking out against this immoral stance in the name of religion.

“Compounding the Vatican's opposition is the inaction to date of the government of the United States. As faith leaders and citizens of the United States, we call on the U.S. government to join the 50 countries throughout the world that have officially supported this U.N. proposal. We urge U.S. leaders to stand against discrimination. It is time to let the teachings of the world's great religions guide us toward justice rather that encouraging prejudice, fear and violence. It is time for the U.S. to stand as a moral leader for LGBT people and to help create a more just world for all of us.”


Harry Knox, Director
Religion and Faith Program
Human Rights Campaign Foundation

The Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, Director
Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force



Dr. Sylvia Rhue, Director
Religious Affairs
National Black Justice Coalition

Ann Craig, Director
Religion, Faith & Values Program
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)

Guide for victims of hate crime

By the BBC 8/22/08 06:43 UK

Victims of homophobic hate crime are being encouraged by police and a gay rights group to report attacks on them.

Stonewall Cymru believes attacks on gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Wales are underreported.

The gay rights group has worked with North Wales Police to produced a guide for victims of homophobic hate crime.

A spokesperson said: "It's essential for victims of homophobic hate crime to understand that criminal justice agencies are there to help them."

The guide is launched at the Inter Change, Old Colwyn, at an event to be attended by North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom and Social Justice Minster Brian Gibbons.

The event includes a theatre piece written by Gruffudd Jones based on a true life experience of homophobic hate crime.

Rachel, who has lived in small village near Swansea for the past seven years, said her experience showed people can benefit from reporting hate crime.

She said: "At times I think were seen as an easy target who can be picked on. I suppose the presumption is that nobody will stick up for us and that we're fair game.

"To begin with, I didn't go to the police about some of these things. It didn't occur to me there was any law against the name-calling. I didn't think I would get a sympathetic hearing from the police.

"A lot of my friends who are lesbian and gay told me of negative experiences that they've had when they tried reporting crime. There tends to be this negative idea in the community and it puts people off."

She said she had no response from the police one winter when young boys began throwing snowballs with stones in them at her windows.

She said: "The same boys came and did 'mooning'. Then, again, they were throwing stones.

'Arson attack'

"They put some handfuls of potential flammable rubbish through the letterbox. The local secondary school was burnt to the ground not very far from where we were living and it made me very frightened at that time that we might be at risk of an arson attack.

"It was at that point that I involved the hate crime officers. From that point on, I felt as if the service we were receiving from the police improved enormously.

"The fire service came and assess the fire safety of the house and the police started to take us more seriously, really and to pursue the culprits more effectively.

"A number of Asbos were issued. It has sent out a very strong clear signal to the young people in the community. We're treated with much more respect these days."

Jamaican lesbian, facing homophobia, will not be deported

By 365gay Newscenter Staff
08.08.2008 3:00pm EDT

(Miami, Fla.) In what is regarded as a landmark ruling, an immigration judge has stayed a deportation order that would have sent a lesbian back to Jamaica because of homophobic violence in the Caribbean country.

”The general atmosphere in Jamaica is a feeling of no tolerance towards homosexuals in general, and as such. . . the respondent’s life is definitely at risk,” Immigration Judge Irma Lopez-Defillo said, according to court documents obtained by the Miami Herald.

The 29-year old, identified by the paper only as “Nicole,” originally had been ordered deported by Lopez-Defillo, but stayed the order based on the climate toward gays in Jamaica.

She was ordered to check in regularly with immigration officials in Miami. The woman is staying with family in South Florida.

Although a number of people facing deportation have claimed they would be subjected to homophobic abuse if returned to their homelands, the argument is seldom accepted. In several cases, immigration judges have ruled the person could avoid trouble in their countries if they remained closeted.

Even though though “Nicole” has avoided deportation for now, she could still be removed from the country by the Department of Homeland Security, leaving her status in the U.S. in limbo.

Sodomy is illegal in Jamaica, with a sentence of 10-years in prison on conviction.

The country has been described by human rights groups as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians.

Homophobic attacks are seldom pursued by police and even when charges are laid there are few convictions.

One of the most recent attacks occurred on January 29, when a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville. They demanded that the residents leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims.

Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles.

Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15 to 20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants.

Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists, said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house – 90 minutes after the men first called for help.

One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby.

The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged.

There have been no arrests.

The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007, when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man.

According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.”

Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived.

Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation.

A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, “It’s full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys.”

The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said.

More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.

Arrests, however, have been made in several cases which received international attention.

In 2004, Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading LGBT civil rights advocate, was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25-year-old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder.

In December 2005, Lenford “Steve” Harvey, who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, was killed.

Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later.

In 2006, the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.

Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom.

The same year, a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets.

In February 2007, three men in “tight jeans” and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of “kill them” along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out “to face justice.” Police had to fire tear gas into the crowd to rescue the three.

Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia in that country. Reggae star BujuBanton’s hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye which threatens gay men with a “gunshot in ah head.”

Possible Gay Genocide in Gambia

The Gambia's president is at it again. President Yahya Jammeh was once notorious for his insane policies on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention or, more accurately, lack there of. In a recent decree, Jammeh takes his next steps as a hate mongering dictator. According to the Afrol News, the official lunatic is seeking a crackdown on homosexuals harsher than Iran's acts of genocide. On Thursday, Jammeh announced that gays, lesbians, and "criminals" have 24 hours to leave the country or face death. He also ordered landlords and hotel owners to evict homosexuals or else they will have to endure mass searches, which the United States would deem unconstitutional by our own standards. Queer people have seen their fair share of genocide in the past. I can only hope the international authorities are working to prevent this guy from joining lists with names Milosovic, Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong Il.




More on Jammeh and HIV - http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2007/02/05/5
Read more on Jammeh's threats - http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid54768.asp