A Whisper of Beauty in Denmark

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz

Around the world are countless breathtaking photo-ops that get swamped with tourist cameras, including mine--the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, the Christus statue above Rio, China's Great Wall, and so on.

Then again, there are also countless small moments where unexpected images of beauty suddenly appear at unforeseen times and places. Sometimes they are intimate and quiet and whisper a message of subtle appeal.

Here is one such still-life moment from Helsingor, Denmark that I especially like. It's stillness, its stark yet colorful 'sound', it speaks of peace and ground, mankind and nature...



Another view of the same place:



Visit Denmark website

Gay Namibia Re-awakens From a Failed Past

Intro: a long drive around this seemingly endless and empty country reveals much natural beauty and on closer inspection a modest LGBT population struggling to re-invent itself and advocate for recognition and rights. They are spirited, courageous and determined to bring justice for LGBT citizens and education for the whole country.

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
March 2011

For most travelers the country of Namibia in southern Africa seems inaccessible and remote, hardly worth the effort to go that far, and for gay and lesbian (LGBT) travelers the place might seem to be a cipher, a vacuum.

But don't be fooled. In this huge country, the size of western Europe, the landscapes are stunning, the cities modern and clean, the main roads well paved and along the way an entertaining mix of wild animals: untamed horses, ostriches, gemsbok, springbok, zebras, lots of very dumb donkeys, exotic birds, flamingos... (see Namibia Tourism website)

One might expect such places and critters but a visitor will be surprised to find there is a modest flourishing LGBT community with no less than three national organizations. This is not just surprising; it's a victory for gay pride, identity and community over adversity and failure.

Last year saw the collapse of the country's only LGBT organization, The Rainbow Project, and for a while it looked as if gay rights, advocacy and participation in HIV education were finished. The situation and its remnants are complex and tangled.

However, to the delight and surprise of many nearly all gay citizens in Namibia, two 'phoenix' organizations have risen from the ashes to join a long-standing third to create the strongest LGBT presence Namiba has ever seen.

The new organizations are Out-Right Namibia, an activist association (logo photo left), and LGBT Network Namibia, a social group with human rights tendencies; both emerged in late 2010 and early 2011. They join the long-standing pro-gay feminist organization called Sister Namibia that has been around for 25 years. Together they represent a renaissance of gay pride in Namibia unlike anything before.

You can read about this inspiring reawakening on the GlobalGayz website.
Also see Gay Namibia News & Reports and Photo Galleries

Male Circumcision and HIV--No Correlation

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
March 23, 2011

In 2009 I wrote a blog about male circumcision and HIV in which I doubted the usefulness of removing the male foreskin to prevent or reduce HIV infection. I noted that virtually all Danish men are not circumcised (as I personally observed during the 2nd OutGames in Copenhagen) and yet the HIV incidence rate is very low. (view enlarged map of circumcision prevalence by country)

But African officials in 2008 and 2009 decided differently and urged men to get circumcised to reduce risk of HIV. I said I thought this was a bogus misreading of research and a useless (and painful) procedure that could lead to increased risky sexual behavior (men falsely thinking they were 'protected' from HIV).

Today, the following report came out based on more recent research revealing there is no correlation between circumcision and HIV infection:

From: International AIDS Society
http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/Abstract/2011/02200/Male_circumcision_and_risk_of_HIV_acquisition.14.aspx
20 February 2011
Volume 25 - Issue 4 - p 519–523doi: 10.1097/QAD.0b013e328340fd81
By: Sánchez, Jorgea,c; Sal y Rosas, Victor Gb; Hughes, James Pb; Baeten, Jared Mc; Fuchs, Jonathane; Buchbinder, Susan Pe; Koblin, Beryl Af; Casapia, Martíng; Ortiz, Abnerh; Celum, Connie, et.al.

Circumcision does not have a significant protective effect against HIV

Abstract:

Objectives:
To assess the association between male circumcision, insertive anal sex practices, and HIV acquisition in a cohort of MSM.

Methods:
Data were from 1824 HSV-2-seropositive, HIV-seronegative MSM, 1362 (75%) from Peru and 462 (25%) from the US, who participated in a randomized placebo-controlled trial of HSV-2 suppression for HIV prevention (HPTN 039). Circumcision status was determined by examination at enrollment. HIV testing was done every 3 months for up to 18 months. Partner-specific sexual behavior for up to the last three partners during the previous 3 months was analyzed.

Results:
There was no significant association between male circumcision and HIV acquisition in univariate analysis [relative risk (RR) = 0.84, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.50–1.42]. In a prespecified multivariate analysis that assumed a linear relationship between the proportion of insertive acts and effect of circumcision on HIV acquisition, the interaction between circumcision and proportion of insertive acts was not significant (P = 0.11). In an exploratory analysis that categorized behavior with recent partners by proportion of insertive acts, circumcision was associated with a nonstatistically significant 69% reduction in the risk of HIV acquisition (RR = 0.31, 95% CI 0.06–1.51) among men who reported at least 60% of insertive acts with recent male partners.

Conclusion:
Circumcision does not have a significant protective effect against HIV acquisition among MSM from Peru and US, although there may be reduced risk for men who are primarily insertive with their male partners. This association needs to be investigated across diverse cohorts of MSM.

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.

Freedom in Egypt--What it Means for Gays

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
February 13, 2011

Well, after eighteen days of protest and demonstration to bring down a corrupt dictator and allow free and fair elections, what will this mean for the LGBT (gay) citizens who were certainly present in Tahrir Square?

There was plenty of talk in the media about repression, corruption. imprisonment, beatings and killings of individuals politically and philosophically opposed to the regime. A great cry of relief went up when Mubarak quit. The talk turned to hope and freedom.

The constitution has been suspended and parliament dissolved. There is a great cheer and much hope for a democratic future. But will that relief and freedom extend to sexual minorities in Egypt?

Will homosexuality be decriminalized in the new constitution?
Will freedom to love be permitted?

I doubt it.

This was a political revolution not a religious one. No one protested against religious oppression or the tyranny of Islamic dogma that inhibits personal freedom of expression or freedom from the confines of the Muslim faith. No one remotely suggests suspending the Koran (or the Bible) until a revision has been written. These books that are 1500 years old, and older, are used to define modern virtuous behavior as well as condemn what it considers variant behavior based on ancient culture and society.

No one is suggesting a single word of change in these antique books that are filled with mythology and have been usurped by militants to kill, and misinterpreted by homophobes to punish and condemn homosexually oriented people.

How odd that a nation can cry 'freedom' in politics, law and government and yet subscribe to outdated scripture that inhibits freedom, that denies life, liberty and the rightful pursuit of love for millions of LGBT citizens who are as much Egyptian and Arab as anyone else.

Unfortunately, we cannot expect any change in attitude or law for gay people in Egypt anytime soon.

A great day of liberation is not really great as long as any segment of the society remains repressed and condemned.

A great day to laugh and cry in Egypt.

World's Largest Gay Party Boat Sails Today Into Caribbean Homophobic Waters--Bahamas

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
Feb 6, 2011

The world's largest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean sets sail with 5400 LGBT passengers in February 6-13 for a week of sun, fun, camaraderie and total validation. Anyone who is shy about publicly showing their affection to their same-sex partner, friend or a new acquaintance should board this Atlantis Gay Cruises ship to the Caribbean without hesitation. It is truly a gay world during this week.

Yet, for all the merriment and celebration on ship, LGBT citizens still live in a larger world of homophobia at virtually every turn. And this great party ship will make a port of call at one such place--Bahamas.

Although homosexuality has been legal in the Bahamas since 1991, active homophobia clearly makes its voice (and laws) heard on the islands there. "Two specific aspects of the criminal code still discriminate against gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Firstly, the legal age of consent Bahamas to engage in homosexual conduct is eighteen years, while the legal age of consent to engage in heterosexual conduct is sixteen years. Secondly, a special provision of the criminal code defines and prohibits "public" gay sexual conduct differently then it does for heterosexual conduct." Equality is not the rule here.

Further, the constitution of the Bahamas does offer prohibitions against types of discrimination but this does NOT does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. "Efforts to include sexual orientation in a new, revised Constitution have been blocked by members of the Government who oppose homosexuality on religious grounds."

"On 21 March 2006 the Constitutional Reform Commission, which had been reviewing the country’s unamended 1973 Supreme Law for three years, presented a preliminary report to the previous Progressive Liberal Party government. The Commission indicated that equal treatment be afforded to citizens regardless of sex and gender. However, despite recommendations, it did not regard sexual orientation as an attribute deserving of any protection from discrimination."

"The present Free National Movement government—voted into office on 2 May 2007—does not have the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution. It would have to include the Opposition, whose Constitutional Commission rejected LGBT discrimination protection."

"Discrimination in areas such as employment, education, housing, health care, banking and public businesses on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is not illegal. Likewise, there is no national hate crime law to address violence or harassment directed at LGBT people. In 2001, an Employment Bill was proposed which included a ban on discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation, but after much debate it was passed with that clause removed."

But the most offensive and public display of homophobia in the Bahamas happened during the 2009 murder trial of a man who was allowed to use the highly prejudicial 'gay panic' defense argument to justify his killing of another man whom he claimed attempted to rape him. Despite his crime, the defendant was acquitted. Although now discredited in the statutes of Western Nations, no effort has been made in the Bahamas to remove this irrational defense.

If Atlantis (and Royal Caribbean) is serious about valuing its LGBT fan base of passengers, not just for the profits involved but for the higher issues of human rights and equality, it should think about landing at a different port of call (there are plenty) and telling the government of Bahamas of its actions--that when LGBT citizens have full civil and political equality with all other citizens, Atlantis will return with its passengers and their pink dollars.

Links:
Rainbow Alliance of the Bahamas
Atlantis Cruises
Atlantis 20th Anniversary Cruise
Royal Caribbean Cruises
All quotes above from: Wikipedia-LGBT Rights in the Bahamas

Words Matter: They Breed Homophobia That Kills

From: Washington Post
February 2, 2011

In Uganda and America: Words Matter

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson (photo right)
IX Bishop of New Hampshire

Words can inspire good, and they can incite hatred. We're seeing a lot of the latter lately, and it's getting dangerous. Even deadly.

Last week, one of the only gay activists willing to speak out about gay rights in Uganda was bludgeoned to death with a hammer that fractured his skull. The authorities say it was a likely robbery. But David Kato's image had recently appeared in a daily Ugandan newspaper with the headline "Hang Them." His murder, regardless of its true nature, has sent palpable fear through the gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender community and their friends, colleagues and families. Because in Uganda, not only might you be murdered for being gay, there is formal legislation that may soon go for a vote before Parliament that would make being a gay "repeat offender," punishable by death. For others - life imprisonment. It proposes extradition for all LGBT Ugandans living overseas, and prison sentences for those who don't turn in their gay friends, colleagues, and even family members.

So what does this have to do with America -- a continent away?

An array of conservative American Christians have taken it upon themselves to "educate" those in Africa about the evils evils> of homosexuality. Appearances throughout Uganda and even before the national legislative body, by people claiming to be scientistsscientists >, warning about threats to their children from homosexual predators, and calling acceptance of homosexual people a Western plot to undermine the families of Uganda, had their effect.

But it is a member of "The Family" itself who used this extremist propaganda to create the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, bill: Uganda Member of Parliament David David> Bahati. "The Family" is the secretive group that organizes the highly influential National Prayer Breakfast that is being held this Thursday morning in Washington, DC. Among the most terrifying of the statements in the bill Bahati introduced is this line: "A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death." (photo left, David Kato)

Words do matter. While American conservative Christians feign shock that their words would lead to such draconian laws it's not nearly enough when their influence means that every moment of every day, members of Uganda's LGBT community fear for their lives. Why, they had intended no such awful thing!

In southern California, when someone is careless with a campfire, which then gets out of control and burns thousands of acres of land and countless homes, they are held accountable. Just because you didn't intend to burn down trees and homes doesn't mean you are not responsible for its happening. We hold them accountable for the very real damage that they've done, whether or not they intended that damage.

Similarly, words matter, because they can be as combustible as a match in dry underbrush. Incendiary words, whether spoken on TV, or in a town meeting, or halfway across the world, can incite hatred and even violence. When that violence occurs, it's not good enough for those who have incited it to claim no responsibility, because they never intended it. They need to be held accountable.

I know whereof I speak. I have been the target of such incendiary criticism. Dehumanizing someone - in my case someone who is gay -- is the first step in making it acceptable to "take them down." When Anglican archbishops called me and people like me "lower than the dogs" and asserted that when I was consecrated a bishop, "Satan entered the Church," it gives the crazies all the reason they need to take this to a violent level. I required full time security in 2003, and wore a bulletproof vest for my consecration. A year ago, state police arrested a man on his way to kill me - with Mapquest maps to my house, pictures from the Internet (across which the man had scrawled "Save the Church! Kill the Bishop!"), and a sawed-off shotgun and ammo sitting next to him in the passenger seat. These are not idle threats. Incendiary language has real ramifications, giving such imbalanced people the notion that such actions are warranted and acceptable.

So as a bishop in the Episcopalian Church who has been attacked for being openly gay, and as someone who has friends and colleagues in Uganda, I call on the National Prayer Breakfast organizers, as an act of good faith at this Thursday's Breakfast, to lead their roomful of influential politicians, religious leaders, and dignitaries in a prayer of compassion and concern for the family, friends and colleagues of David Kato, and pray for their protection from further harm.

People need to be held accountable for their words when their rhetoric incites people to go a dangerous step beyond verbal hyperbole. If you spread the sparks of dehumanization and hatred, then you have to own the wildfire you have had a part in causing -- in word, and let's pray, in deed.

------------------
The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson was invested as the IX Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and in 2009 gave the invocation at the opening of the Presidential Inauguration ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial, upon invitation by President-Elect Barack Obama.

He has recently joined with leaders at Auburn Theological Seminary who are gathering faith leaders committed to justice nationwide, across region, religion, demographic and issue, to represent the majority and stand with all those whom religious extremists shun in the name of faith.