Irresponsible Recommendation for Uganda from Lonely Planet

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
November 5, 2011

Well, this is pretty revolting!

Lonely Planet, the widely-respected travel information and guidebook company has chosen one of the world's most homophobic and gay-violent countries as their number one pick for "Best in Travel" listings for 2012 --Uganda, Africa. A country where human rights should more correctly be called religious fundamentalist rights or in-power political rights or corrupt police rights.

Surely the Lonely Planet committee that picked this country out of many other more humane destinations were aware of the abysmal violations of its citizens and especially the LGBT (gay) population. Uganda already criminalizes consensual adult same-sex behavior and more recently the Parliament is dithering with a new law that would penalize such behavior with the death penalty--including jail time for anyone who knows of homosexual behavior and does not report it.

Around the world, other countries have threatened to cut off foreign aid to Uganda if the bill passes. All major human rights organizations as well as the UN, UK Prime Minister Cameron, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu and President Obama oppose this egregious proposal.

Where is Lonely Planet's head to value human abuse over human dignity. With the abundance of knowledge that LP has about Uganda this is no mere oversight. Diminishing the horrors there by referring to them merely as "issues" in the abstract (as said in their blog) only makes LP seem more the blind fool who is indifferent to the wide-spread persecution and abuse going on there. Clearly wild animals and pretty waterfalls in Uganda--wonderful as they are--cannot count for more than human conditions there.

Lonely Planet says, "stability is returning and it won’t be long before visitors come flocking back." Not true. The appearance of stability is due to the stranglehold that President Museveni on political power. His presidency has been impaired by invading and occupying Congo during the Second Congo War (which has resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998) as well as conflicts in the Great Lakes region. Rebellion in the north of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army continues to perpetuate one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Museveni also manipulated the parliament to abolish presidential term limits in 2006 and has harassed the democratic opposition. (photo right, rural children)

Lonely Planet says, "Human rights abuses aren’t uncommon, and the country breathes a collective sigh whenever President Museveni thinks of another ruse to stay in power for a few more years." This is a myopic an distorted view of life on the ground. Human rights abuses are not "aren’t uncommon". This double negative mutes the real brutality that is launched on gay people, political opponents, tribal minorities and the impoverished. And only the military, religious right and the corrupt welcome more years of Museveni. as if 26 years in office are not enough repression and flawed elections. Human Rights Watch criticizes Uganda for unlawful prosecutions of civilians in military courts as well as health neglect, hard labor, and abuse in Ugandan prisons.

Lonely Planet needs to remove Uganda from it's list of favored tourist nations. At the very least, move it to the bottom of the list.

If anyone doubts this reasoning, let them read the following 55--and growing--news and reports archived by GlobalGayz.com; and these are only for 2011. The archive goes back to 2002:
Gay Uganda News & Reports 2011 Sep-Dec
Gay Uganda News & Reports 2011 May-Aug
Gay Uganda News & Reports 2011 Jan-Apr

How Far Away is Hope For LGBT People?

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
September 1, 2011

As I travel the world interviewing LGBT people about their lives, their cultures and countries I hear stories of effort, strategy, frustration and achievement. One question I have failed to ask these courageous activists, some risking their lives, is "how far away is hope?"

How far away is hope for equality, tolerance, acceptance, relationship recognition, political participation, religious compassion, social calmness...? And what is keeping it in the ever seemingly receding distance?

Another way to ask the question is how long will it take humankind to unlearn the teachings of religion against human sexuality. Indeed, can humanity unlearn something so ingrained in mind from religious prohibitions against sexuality--period. This most human of appetites is the most proscribed against.

The desire for another person is diminished by using the word sex; it reduces it to a genital activity when in truth there are more significant needs that are desired.

Even in the 'crass' exchange of money-for-sex , the so-called "world's oldest profession," there is good reason for that title. The desire for sexual intimacy has become hard-wired in our brains over milennia, beyond the instinct to procreate. With the developing mind becoming more learned by acquiring knowledge and sophisticated systems for survival, came also an increase in more sophisticated desire called intimacy, mental contact, emotional affection, nurturing, warmth, touch...

This want runs so deep that people will kill for it. Crimes of passion are a common occurrence in 'civilized' humanity, some resort to murder when it is frustrated , denied or betrayed.

The challenging question is, given this core aspect of human nature why is it that the religious/spiritual thought/belief systems that have emerged recently, over two or three thousand years, have become so antagonistic toward a human's fundamental need for intimacy and sexual desire? And why/where/when has come this fanatical obsession to reject, discriminate, punish or kill people whose desire for intimacy leans toward their own gender?

It is one of the greatest paradoxes that such an essential trait has become so stigmatized, sometimes to the degree that torture and murder feel justified in an effort to eliminate it.

How far away is hope? About as far away as modern human sexuality is from the human truth that people are different; people are born straight, gay and in-between.

Homophobes refuse to see this truth and prefer to cling instead to their hostile opinions; they refuse to see these opinions as imaginary fabricated beliefs made up by a (very) few tribal men and scribbled down--for what reason scribbled down?--despite their own inherent human desire for intimacy. Why would these early scribes 'legislate' or opine against their own nature? At the time, the reasons were likely less religious than political. Indeed, were they in fact writing about intimacy and sexuality at all or something more public--the various language translations and the inevitable changes of word meanings, in addition to the uncertain original meanings, have obscured the initial intent.

So the current anathema against homosexual desire continues unabated, unexamined, unintelligent and has little to do with any kind of divine source. Simplicity is dangerous in the minds of ignorant people who will not look beyond their own fears. Gay people are not some modern scourge; same-sex desire is not a recent 'problem'. Ancient attitudes about homosexuality are not authoritatively known. It's claimed the Bible is the 'word of god' without realizing there were many gods back then. Was there a God of gods who took a consensus and decided that sex had to be confined and controlled and homesex was a no-no? The questions into the past become ludicrous the further back we look and try to think clearly.

How far away is hope? Fortunately modern civilization has improved in certain countries--in fits and starts, stumbling along but for the better--so that things like democracy, equality and human rights have taken root and helped create an international judicial belief system that parallels the religious system. Judicial thought and action has begun to turn back the excesses and abuses of religion and forwarded human rights as an equal and better way of managing civilization. Slowly in one country after another, officially sanctioned legal decisions have blocked religious persecution (in the guise of discriminatory political statutes) from advancing further against homosexually-inclined citizens.

Slowly, gays rights have become part of the fabric of human rights as one bias after another is being taken down: gay relationships are legal, gay marriage is legal (and published in the New York Times); gays in the military will soon be legal; discrimination in jobs, housing, health care and inheritance are illegal; child adoption by gay couples is legal... All of which were opposed and prayed about by religious institutions. (Imagine praying to one's God on behalf of discrimination and bigotry!)

How far away is hope? In Zimbabwe or Iran it is far distant. In Holland, UK or, unevenly, in USA hope has already arrived.

Africa and Homosexuality: Is It Natural and Native?

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
April 10, 2011

On March 5 this year the British Broadcasting Company, always looking for unusual or controversial subject matter to entertain its audience, found spice in sponsoring a debate about homosexuality in Africa. It's a topic that is guaranteed to stir up dissonance and disagreement and, true to form, the televised 'discussion' indeed did just that. With a hand-picked audience of pro-gay and anti-gay activists from across Africa the stage was carefully set to hear rational and emotional arguments about same-sex orientation and behavior.

To me it felt rather like a staged carnival show with pre-set performers revealing (and some shouting) their reasons and biases for or against an imagined 'gay agenda' in Africa.

(Photos: protests outside the BBC studios during the debate)

The official title of the debate was "Is Homosexuality Un-African?" With five panelists (listed below), three pro-gay and two anti-gay, the underlying message was pre-set, appropriately in my mind, to help enclose gay rights into a larger frame of human rights. The moderator, Zeinab Badawi , made an effort to be polite to the homophobes--including panelist David Bahati, author of Uganda's proposed death-to-gays legislation.

Despite anti-gay comments from certain audience members who repeated the usual 'unnatural--man4woman--sinful--child-recruitment--procreation' arguments against homosexuals, the slant was clear. Leading African lesbian and gay activists in the audience were given turns to speak against the anti-gay arguments--including Monica Tabengwa whose group LeGaBiBo in Botswana is suing the government for its alleged unconstitutional statutes against homosexuality.

The positive flavor of the program was not unexpected since the UK (home of the BBC) has become one of the most pro-gay countries in the modern world, along with South Africa. The UK requires its world-wide ambassadors to advocate equality and human rights. (It should, as penance, since it was the 19th and early 20th century British Empire laws that criminalized homosexuality and set the stage for today's world-wide homophobia to take root in many former colonies.)

At the end of the debate Bahati said he was leaving the debate and South Africa "with a bleeding heart" meaning he was disheartened by hearing opposing views; he is not going to be dissuaded from his arch-homophobic attitude or his legislation no matter what reasoned or personal testimony he encounters. So the social disease of homophobia continues to be spread.

Someone should have said to him "now you know how gay hearts bleed in Uganda under your governance."

The debate was broadcast on the BBC system on March 12 and 13 and the video was released to the media. The video is available free and the link is posted here. It lasts 47 minutes.

See the debate here.

Debate panelists were:
Paula Akugizibwe - Human Rights Activist, Rwanda
David Bahati - Member of Parliament, Uganda
Eusebius McKaiser - Writer & Lecturer, South Africa
Festus Mogae - President of Botswana, 1998-2008
Sideeqah Tunde-Lawal - Muslim Youth Leader, Nigeria

Man`s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Ayn Rand

Lady Gaga's 'Gay Anthem'

There are moments and people who stand high and brave against discrimination and bigotry. Without such courage and integrity the blind and ignorant continue their distorted and contemptuous beliefs about the truth of sexuality. They refuse to understand the fundamental truth that homosexuality is a natural form of human nature.

Our shining star Lady Gaga has risen to fight the ignorance among our 'righteous' enemies who would have gays and lesbians continue to be denied equal rights in this land of equality before the law.

Here is her new song that carries the message, again, that we are here, we are naturally queer, we are equal in love and we are beautiful:

"There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are"
She said, "'Cause he made you perfect, babe"
"So hold your head up, girl and you you'll go far,
listen to me when I say"

I'm beautiful in my way,
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was Born This Way

Don't hide yourself in regret,
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby
I was Born This Way

Don't be drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen
You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're lebanese, you're orient
Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby, you were Born This Way

No matter gay, straight or bi
Lesbian, transgendered life
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to survive
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to be brave.

Thank you Lady Gaga for your anthem of love.

Absurdity at the Highest Levels: The UN

By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com

Take note of this absurdity:
On Monday, December 20th, the United Nations General Assembly will vote on whether to include protection for LGBT people in a crucial resolution on extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings. This resolution urges States to thoroughly and promptly investigate all killings committed for any discriminatory reason, even on the basis of sexual orientation.

It is the only UN resolution ever to include explicit reference to sexual orientation.

The resolution passed successfully for the past ten years. However in a UN committee just last month, a number of States proposed to remove the reference to sexual orientation.

Shockingly, this proposal to delete passed: 79 States (mostly Muslim and African) voted to remove the reference to sexual orientation, 70 supported its retention, and 43 States abstained or did not vote. This amounted to a serious defeat for LGBT rights at the UN.

Do these opponents of integrity and human rights think they lack a sexual orientation?

Will homophobes never learn!? Their ignorance and blind bigotry, in government and in the streets, is killing countless people--due to AIDS as well as bigotry--from Asia to Africa and beyond.

This insane prejudice against sexual diversity goes beyond all human reason and 'common good'--despite religious pretensions of most faiths toward neighborly love and compassion toward those who are afflicted.

Pray to some higher power that the opponents of the UN resolution will see some light, dim as it might be.

Homophobia Kills--Looking Deeper Into Tyler's death

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
October 3, 2010

I find it strangely ironic that the two Rutgers University students charged with invasion of privacy that led to the death of a gay student, Tyler Clementi (photo right) are both from ethnic minorities in America. Dharun Ravi is of Indian (Asia) descent and Molly Wei is from a Chinese family.

This is not a racist blog but rather the opposite: I am puzzled that two students with different foreign-culture backgrounds--who certainly understand they are 'different' and are aware of minority-bias in America--could have turned on another minority person, even if jokingly, in an attempt to humiliate him. Was his homosexuality more marginal, of lesser status, or 'worse' than their ethnic difference to the degree they felt impelled target him for public mockery? Minorities turning on minorities of lesser status? Like blacks picking on Puerto Ricans picking on Mexicans, picking on Guatemalans, picking on native Kuna indians?

I do think Ravi and Molly's (photos left) behavior smacks of homophobia, perhaps not overtly intentional but distinct nevertheless. Would they have videoed anyone having sex? A straight black person with a white one? An Asian with an African? Or just a 'regular' guy and a girl? I doubt it. There was something about Tyler's sexuality that intrigued-attracted-excited--titillated them, even baited or repelled them enough to draw them in to commit what they knew to be an ethical and social breach of decency--and a legal offense of privacy invasion. Their 'joke', their thoughtless wickedness, was a homophobic crime of debasement with intent to cause emotionally injury to a gay man, not unlike the irrational homophobia that plagues most of the world. (In many places the debasement includes physical injury or murder.)

Behind this intent to injure I think there was a prurient sexual urge behind their desire to watch two guys getting it on. It is a researched fact that fantasy plays a strong role in people's sex lives. Straight men get off on watching two lesbians, as revealed in statistics from the porno industry. Many gay men like heterosexual sex videos. The industry serves every variant of sexual desire. In this case, two (presumedly) straight people wanted to oogle two homosexual men having sex.

Why? Why would they even give a second thought to two consenting adults behind closed doors? Let along want to spy on them? Let alone video them and knowing, at least, the likely college dorm consequences (and obviously blind to further repercussions).

The explanation for their trespassing moves into the subconscious, a huge morass of human desire, fantasy, hunger, emotion, symbolism, unmet needs and vague sprawl--a place that few people want to understand. Yet ignorance of such motives leaves us at to the door of darkness about their (and our) behavior. Ravi and Molly operated in the dim fog of their own separate desires. When questioned they will say they were just goofing around, having fun, or "I dunno…it just happened." Hardly.

There is now a public outcry against bullying and harassment resulting from this and other recent gay suicides. The focus will be on outward behavior, learning respect and tolerance and kindness, as it should be. Dealing with the hidden desires of perpetrators to hurt others unfortunately will take deeper insight. Homophobia is fueled by many sources in our society--religion. politics, sports, corporations, family bias, personal fear, government, military, schools…

I doubt it will ever be eradicated since its deepest source of fuel is hidden in the recesses of our unconscious souls where tribal conflict, nationalistic wars, territorial rage, sexual confusion and fear of 'differentness' lurk.

For now, perhaps Tyler's and the other six recent gay suicides may at least cause a tiny light to shine into that darkness and evoke a bit more tolerant behavior toward other students and neighbors.

-------------------
Last week, columnist and adviser Dan Savage and his husband, Terry, sat down before a camera and talked about their experience with bullying and how good their life became once they left school. "We wanted to show them that happiness was possible in the future," Savage said in a phone interview. He asked people to submit similar videos to a YouTube channel, It Gets Better. More than 200 videos have been uploaded to the site. "It's not a solution; it's not a magic curative," Savage said, but it is a small step to counteract the bullying, to give the teenagers an idea that they are not going through this alone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo&feature=player_embedded#!

Support and other resources for gay young people:
The Trevor Project Hotline: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/ 866-488-7386

Campus Pride. Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Read more.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call these Helplines:
(USA) 1-888–843-4564 (4pm to mid-night Mon-Fri, 12-5pm Saturday) (Gay and Lesbian)
(USA) 1-800-784-2433 (National Helpline, Los Angeles, California; 24 hours, 7 days week)
(UK) 1-800 18 45 27

My Family - A Hundred Years Later

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
June 25, 2010

A hundred years ago today my grandparents, Francis and Cora, were married and our immediate family began. I have no family memory beyond that--photos and stories yes but no memories. My paternal great-grandfather died in 1915. My maternal great-grandmother lived to 1938, before my birth. But starting a hundred years ago with the wedding I have living memory because I knew these two people for almost 30 years before they died. I knew them and I know four generations that came from them: Francis and Cora, my father, my siblings and my nephew and nieces.

A century of a family is a sizable chunk of heritage, with countless events and vivid memories of long ago and last week. As I reflect on this time and the people who brought me here I feel connected to 1910, moving back through through real personalities, specific historical events including my parents' wedding in 1937, their subsequent four child births and countless daily images--collected, as if leafing backward through a photo album to that particular nuptial occasion during Teddy Roosevelt's administration.

I have a couple of photos of Francis and Cora (photo right) on their wedding day, standing under a tree in rural Pennsylvania looking very posed in their Sunday best with Cora holding a modest bouquet of flowers, no doubt hand picked from her parents garden. (There's another photo of the newlyweds standing with her parents who appear even more posed and rather disheveled.) I look at the young faces and I fast-forward them into their eighties having weathered the storms of personality differences, six children, two world wars (Francis' only brother was killed at the end of WWI.), the 1918 flu epidemic, frugal living, chickens, vegetable gardens and painful secrets that no one talked about (until I inquired many years later).

When my generations passes in mid-twenty-first century, my particular line of ancestry name will end--no dynasty, no Ammon descendants. Two of the four of us are gay, one sister had one child and my brother has two girls neither of whom intend to have children. (There are Ammon cousins in Switzerland who are having Ammon babies.) But I expect, in my hoped-for healthy nineties, in 2030 to remember back across twelve decades to long passed people whose lives I think were mostly prescribed to conform to social standards in order to survive. Some of them, I know, longed to break out of those prescripted tracks and live closer to their hearts' desires, but were caught in looking 'normal'.

My grandfather wanted to sing opera, my father wanted to play the violin and make art. Both, I believe, wanted to love other men or at least other women and men. Such truths will never be known, and don't need to be known now. (By the time I grew up, loving other men was acknowledged and in the public.) Cora liked kids, the ones she was schooled for and could teach, but she was fertile and her classroom became confined to home. My own mother achieved more adventure; she felt she was more than a maker of things beyond diapers and dinners. To cure her depression a wise doctor told her to get a job. She did, and did well. After my father died by his own hand, she traveled to Europe, married twice again, opened a real estate office and drove a Winnabago around the country and a volunteer ambulance at home.

My own life is exponentially different than any of theirs, partly because the social world has become more permissive, more open, more technical and more prosperous. My predecessors (some) would love to be with me flying in huge jets to different continents with money to spare for computers, real estate properties and books. Both Francis and Roger (my father) would have loved to help me build or renovate the houses Michael (my life partner of 21 years) l and I have lived in. And the jobs would have been done well since we were all perfectionists.

I reminisce across the span of my family's years, a century, and I find much quiet satisfaction, some inner mystery, a love of Beethoven and Brahms, tool skills, a diligent work ethic, a desire to learn more than we know, kindness to others, a certain joy of sex, a mild curiosity about the Divine, and a loyalty to this odd vine called the family tree that began, for me a hundred years ago. It seems a good tree to hug.

The Disease of Homophobia

Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
Mat 14, 2010

Hopefully some day coming out won’t be such a big deal and won’t be news--or do we gay (LGBT people) secretly like the rush of notoriety, the fuss, the ‘news worthy’ event, by appearing to win one more to our club, gaining over the homophobes and discovering the inside thrill of breaking into freedom.

In Iraq or Palestine coming out will get you killed. But in the West it would appear that it’s no big deal.

So why the headlines when an entertainer or movie star comes out: singer Ricky Martin and actress Cynthia Nixon (photo below left) recently announced publicly they are gay. Big deal or not?

Greg Louganis, Matthew Mitcham (photo right) are famous athletes who came out, not with a bang but with whispers and gossip, not willing but not unwilling. Others were infamously outed in the press with some fanfare and scandal: “did you hear about Ted Haggard!?”

The Wall Street Journal considers coming out as noteworthy news: When Your Teenager Says She's Gay.

Coming out, regardless how it’s done, willing or unwilling, is a kind of rebirth from fear and hiding into truth and honesty. It’s a gay version of a bar/bat mitzvah going from child to adult; a step away from shame toward integrity. Even Haggard can be more honest—even while trying to affirm his “heterosexual side.”

Coming out is no small event; it’s a major rite of passage to declare oneself different from one’s family tradition, from hetero society, from religious conservancy. The world shifts for a person when they come out. There’s no going back to ‘normal’. The cut is made and can’t be undone. It’s an irreversible stage of growing up, from victim to victor.

But unlike other natural changes (voice change, crevice hair, height growth, sexual awareness) this one takes courage to embrace in most cases because of toxic social homophobia that muddles nearly all cultures with a historic pale of forbidding and cursing from long-ago, mostly based on vague religious origins that fundamentalists
now take as ‘gospel truth’.

Such blind belief, buried in mystery and codified into sanctimonious absolutes and legal codes--without close examination of the validity of the sources--is another wonder of human nature: to believe that myth is truth, that fiction is fact, that sexual varieties don’t exist, that women are less; that Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha had direct links to the Divine. All are myths solidified by habitual unquestioned retelling and surrounded by officious systems.

Human sexuality is probably one of humanity’s most mysterious and fearful forces because it exposes in overt behavior the deepest covert feelings and hidden urges of an individual. Sex reveals secrets. Observe the numerous fundamentalist male preachers who are caught with their pants down with an escort. Observe the Catholic priests imposing sexual pleasure on under-age parishioners. (photo left Cynthia Nixon with fiancee Christine Marinoni)

And it’s not just the church folks who protest too much. Homosexuality is being portrayed as a disease by notable people featured in this week’s tabloids. Anti-gay Christian activist George Rekers who has been ‘involved’ with a younger man is vehemently denying such charges: “I will fight these false reports
because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been...” (He should bite more than dust for his hypocrisy and also should be pitied for the soulful anguish his internal homophobia is causing him to suffer.)

Followed today by Elizabeth Taylor’s verbal offense against Michael Jackson’s former doctor who outed Jackson.

Such use of sexual orientation as a weapon of hostility and derogatory slander are pathetic in their shallowness and ignorance. It’s like trying to degrade a person for having freckles. Ridiculous.

Sexual desire trumps just about everything—wealth, religion, race, fame, power. Where are these predators coming from in their deep souls to fabricate such facades or auras of lies about their essential craven truth? Hiding sexual desire behind the mask of religious garb is a most shameful form of toxic internal homophobia. (Hate who you are but don’t hate others by victimizing them.)

Coming out would ‘cure’ the abuse and hypocrisy of closeted clerical cravings. Something like ‘the truth will set you free’. What do we lose by coming out? We lose a lie, a false identity, an ill-fitting mask of conformity.

In these modern times, we are seeing that the great trauma is less about revealing who we really are and more about the disease of social homophobia. We are highly social creatures and sometimes that’s not a good thing; society can kill gays, spiritually and physically. (See also how homophobic-tinged ("Hey, Speedo-boy...!") bullying drove UK Olympic diver Tom Daley to quit his school.) (photo right)

Another aphorism underlies the integrity of coming out: to thine own self be true...and it follows thou canst not be false to any man. No need to lie; how good does that feel!

An Appreciation of Gay Rights Advocates and Ellen DeGeneres

Westhampton, MA - August 18, 2009
Richard Ammon - GlobalGayz.com

This blog is a note of greeting and appreciation to the many LGBT activists - some whom I know - who made the July 2009 Copenhagen World OutGames Human Rights Conference a profound success:

I was delighted and my heart was warmed to see your faces, but more importantly I continue to be deeply appreciative of your continued gay human rights advocacy on behalf of our worldwide community. From the happy victories of Denmark's registered partnerships and the out loud support from the government for the Conference to the fearsome political defeats in Burundi and violence in Guatemala, you continue undaunted against all odds to confront ignorance and bigotry. It gets heavy and hard along the way but you are no longer alone; there are now more of us in the 'trenches' and there is more funding each year for this humanitarian work.

So to lighten your day with another victory I am enclosing a YouTube video of Ellen DeGeneres, the lesbian queen of comedy, giving a commencement speech at Tulane University in New Orleans in June of this year. She is witty and also poignant in her playful comments to the graduating students and their mostly straight families and the conservative faculty.

But there is a greater wonder here: her completely 'out' presence at a major American university talking freely and comfortably about homosexuality for all to hear. She talks about coming out as a lesbian on television and the consequent discrimination she faced as well as her ultimate public rebirth as a popular talk show hostess now broadcasted across the country. She an inspiring and fearless pioneer for gay rights--as you are.

Thank you for your devotion and courage.

Here's Ellen on YouTube.

Leading Spiritual Teacher in India Discusses Being Gay as it Applies to Spirituality

Copenhagen, Denmark - July 26, 2009
Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com

Many years ago, I attended a couple of seminars offered by this "guru" when he was little known. Today he is one of India's most respected spiritual teachers, and I came across an article about what he recently said about being gay.

So much has been written about homosexuality since the Delhi High Court judgment to strike down Section 377, which the British imposed on the Indian legal system in 1861. Here is what Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had to say in a recent interview on the subject.

Question: The new Pontificate (Vatican) is expected to take a rigid stance on issues like those of gay relationships. What do ancient scriptures say about these matter?

Guruji: As far as the ancient scripture is concerned, there is neither mention nor prohibition of it. One thing the ancient scriptures say, as far as I know is that every human being is made up of both Mother and Father - half-female, half-male. The male tendency may be dominant; sometimes the female tendency may be dominant. It is a biological phenomenon. So if people are bound to have sunch tendencies, they should acknowledge it.

Question: Are you approving of gay marriages? Would you conduct gay marraiges?

Answer: Conducting marriages is not part of spirituality at all. It is a religious thing. Spirituality simply makes you aware that you are spirit and it uplifts you from all tendencies, whether you are for, or against, or paranoid about the sexuality of other people. All this is not concerned with spirituality. Spirituality makes you realize that you are not just flesh. You are light. So there is a gender equality in spirituality. Religion will not give you gender equality, whereas in spirituality, whether you are a mother, or father, it doesn't matter - you are equal.

Question: But here we are not talking about parenthood.

Answer: I am talking about the male and female tendencies in a person. Depending on whatever tendencies are strongest in the system, biologically, this will accordingly reflect in one's life and sexuality. So, I think, one should see that one is not just flesh because it's a temporary thing. Tendencies are temporary, but the spirit is much more than tendencies. You are the spirit, which is all light, all love, wisdom and knowledge. Your identification must shift from gender to spirit... and this is exactly what spirituality means - to rise above the tendencies that are impermanent.

We have seen that many straight people "get" gay tendencies, sometimes... and this creates fear in them. They are so scared about what is happening to them. When they start meditating, they rise above this, and become natural and loving. Even people, who brand themselves as being gay, suddenly find themselves being attracted to opposite sex... and it creates big confusion. This is why I say that you should not label yourself. You are much more than your tendencies. You are the beautiful spirit, and if that is also a label, it is better to have this label, than any other.

As a gay person, this is lovely to read. But it certainly is not new insight. Living inside the skin and spirit of the gay psyche, virtually all LGBT people feel the essential "purity" of their sentient self. (I'm not talking about closeted or self-hating homosexuals who deny their truth.) Different as our sexual orientation may be from the majority of people, we are not living in any "separate reality". We are all far more similar than different as human beings. What Guru Shankar is talking about is human essence, not human psychology or human behavior.

When we allow our minds to go into a higher level of awareness, sexual orientation becomes irrelevant. Ram Dass spoke about the experience of coming from a higher plain of awareness as well. Using tantric yoga breathing techniques infuses the body with an energy that offers a lighter view of sexuality that is neither maleness or femaleness. It is "is-ness", and I think this is what Shankar is talking about, not carnal issues or gay identity or sexual orientation.

Homosexuality not a Taboo in Jharkhand Tribe (India)

Westhampton, MA - July 18, 2009
Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com

Well, here is some fine news, for a change, from the July 6, 2009 Hindustan Times, that is not full of oppression, homophobia, anti-gay sermons or discriminatory political statutes.

Turns out that “among the Ho tribe of Jharkhand (a state in Eastern India ) homosexuality has always been socially accepted. Homosexual men are called Kothi Panthis in the region. There is no shame attached to being one.”

And it’s obviously known around that these men folks get conjugal with each other to the point where a survey was done about their behavior. An NGO called Citizens Foundation studied a 20 km area and indeed found that Chaibasa town has a higher incidence of homosexual activity. (Compared to what other finding? I wonder if the donors to Citizens realize their funds are used to study the consensual sexual behavior of adult men, as if it were some kind of rare exotic phenomenon!)

The men—apparently not in the closet about their desires-- are reported to have their own social network and meet in the evening at ten different gathering places to gossip and tell stories. Reportedly there are two couples who say they are married to their partners. (Now that would be an interesting story in itself. Who performed the ceremony? Was there a wedding? Were heterosexuals invited? And since is India, was a dowry given and from whom to whom?)

The Times story went on: “The numbers of Kothi Panthis has been constantly increasing. Some attribute this to the near total absence of women in and around the numerous mines in the area, where a large number of males are at work all day and night.”

But surprisingly, the same-sexers were not, as one might expect, all miners who were situationally gay because they lacked female access.

“Homosexuals here embrace all professions: some are farmers, some workers, some businessmen, some even government officials. If they are of the Ho tribe, they face no social censure.”

Of course, like any sexually active population there are medical problems in the form of disease: two Kothi Panthis have died of AIDS, while two others are known to have contracted the disease. Given the increasing numbers of this community as well the general poverty rate and low education among manual workers, issues such as safe sex are barely on the horizon of their awareness.

Citizens Foundation was called in last year to address this health issue and educate the men about the risks of unprotected sex and to intervene with treatment programs with assistance from Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society.

As the agency moved among the Ho tribe workers they noticed some unusual aspects of the homosexually inclined community.

Said one Citizens official, "most of them have developed relationships with their partners from their childhood... It's tough convincing them to stop practicing homosexuality because their tribal society has no hassles accepting gay marriages. It has been happening amongst them since decades."

Citizens encourages the men to come to monthly meetings to learn about health as well as financial matters and domestic conditions. “We even arrange bank loans for them to start business and lead dignified lives," said a staff member.

Most of the Kothi Panthis did not know about the recent historic Delhi High Court ruling that struck down the old criminal laws against homosexuality, but one of them did hear about it and said, "now maybe at least, the police will not harass us."

This is a remarkable ‘finding’ - a homophiliac culture where same-gender affectional behavior is a community norm. How is this possible, I wonder?

A bit of research reveals what I think are important contributing factors. First, over 90% of the Ho tribe subscribe to tribal ‘other’ religions than the mainstream ones, which means these people have been blessedly removed from the homophobic dogma of Christianity.

Second, the fact that most of the Kothi Panthis were unaware of the recent Delhi court decision (which was broadcast worldwide) suggests the remoteness and disinterest in contact with the larger Indian society, which has been polluted by 150 years of antique British laws that criminalized “unnatural’ behavior.
Third, the lower labor class in some cultures tends to be more tolerant of differences within their ranks; they don’t have status reputations to uphold as there is a feeling of ‘we’re all the same’ in their impoverished condition. Few if any feel better than their neighbors.

Fourth, of course, is that any number of the Kothi Panthis are indeed homosexually inclined, including bisexual males who, lacking other choices, shift comfortably toward same-sex affiliations both for social and sexual reasons.

Whatever the real ‘cause’’ of this Kothi culture’s easiness with variant sexuality, a veritable truth is that homophobia is clearly the ‘unnatural’ aspect of human sexuality, which, when not imposed on a society, is comfortably absent from their norms and allows truthful expression of self. It allows people to be themselves within a wide range of affection styles. No bible-thumpers need apply for jobs in Chaibasa town.
It makes me ponder how many native tribes in Asia, Africa and other continents could today be free of the disease of homophobia had not the European armies and god-fearing Christian missionaries not desecrated these tribal religions and societies.

At what cost does ‘civilization’ march allegedly forward?

Also see this report about Jharkhand Mining and the daunting lives of workers and residents.