Stephen Gately

A star-studded evening of music and tributes was held in memory of Stephen Gately.
Celebrities from the world of showbusiness including his Boyzone bandmates turned out for the memorial concert in London’s West End last night.
Crowds of fans gathered in the pouring rain for the event, organised by Gately’s civil partner Andrew Cowles.
Bandmates Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch looked solemn and did not stop to speak to waiting press as they went into the Palace Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.
Among the celebrities on the red carpet were pop stars Duncan James and Lee Ryan from Blue, Chesney Hawkes, actor Leslie Phillips, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ judge Bruno Tonioli and even Cherie Blair.
Gately’s family and partner also attended.
The 33-year-old died of natural causes due to a pulmonary oedema on October 10 at his holiday home on the island of Majorca.
Hawkes said he was still in a “daze” after Gately’s death.
He said: “I spent a lot of time with him over the summer, got to know him quite well.
“We worked together quite a lot writing songs.
“He has become a friend.
“I am just still walking around in a daze really – such a shock, so young, so vibrant, such a lovely guy. It’s just so sad.”
Tonioli said he had become friends with Gately through the showbusiness industry and paid tribute to what he managed to achieve in his short life.
“He was a very, very nice guy. He was the kindest, sweetest, most generous kid,” he said.
“He was a very, very nice guy. He was the kindest, sweetest, most generous kid,” he said.
“It’s very tragic what happened but nevertheless we are here to celebrate his achievements because in that short time he managed to achieve a lot.
“As sad as it is, he has done amazingly.
“We are going to remember the good things.”
TV presenter Kristian Digby said Mr Cowles had “gone through hell and back” and criticised “negative” reporting of the singer’s death.
“He has got so many people wanting to show their friendship and love,” he added.
“Both of them are lovely guys – Stephen was, Andy is.”
Of the concert, Digby said it was “amazing” and showed how much “emotion and feeling” there was for Gately.
“This is very much a public showing of support for Stephen and the gay community.”
Digby described Gately as a “really fun, charismatic, loving, really gentle guy”.
As well as fans, the audience also included comedian Alan Carr, model and radio presenter Lisa Snowdon and ice skaters Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill.
Shayne Ward, who won the second series of ‘X Factor’, sang ‘To Where You Are’ by Josh Groban, which he dedicated to Gately.
Other performers included Liz McClarnon and Beverley Knight while a string of stars including Graham Norton and Ian McKellen were lined up to say a few words in his memory.
The event was compered by Christopher Biggins.
from Ireland On Line

*

Related Post: Stephen Gately Of Boyzone Dies

A rare parasitic disease, which normally only is transmitted by contaminated water, has been shown to be transmitted by gay sex between hiv-positive men. In the industrial world the disease is virtually absent, but that could change.
For this observation, Taiwanese researcher Chieng-Ching Hung received a doctorate from the University of Antwerp and the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp.
Amebiasis, an infection with the single-celled amoeba Entamoebia histolytica, normally is very rare. You only catch it in a few developing countries where the amoeba is endemic, and where hygiene is somewhat substandard, leading to contact with contaminated water. It only becomes dangerous when the amoeba invades your intestinal lining and causes a bloody diarrhoea, or when it enters the bloodstream, where it, among other things, causes liver abscesses. All in all amebiasis takes some 70 000 lives a year, worldwide.
For some time now, physicians suspected the disease to be a bit overrepresented among HIV-positive male homosexuals. But it was difficult to come to conclusions from small numbers, and in addition the classical diagnostic test (putting the stool under the microscope) was not really dependable. Hung used modern molecular techniques, pinpointing the amoeba more precisely and, what’s more, showing which amoebas were closely related. In other words: who had got the infection from whom.
In Taiwan, seropositive (hiv-infected) gay men were shown to be infected much more often with the amoeba than the healthy population, and also than seropositive heterosexuals. Also, Hung found men from different regions nevertheless to be infected by closely related amoebas. The most reasonable explanation is that the infection happened through homosexual (oral-anal) contact.
In today’s mobile world this means that those people in turn can transmit the infection to regions where it normally is absent.
Not only amebiasis marches in the wake of hiv; Hung also confirmed in his Taiwanese cohort what is seen elsewhere: tuberculosis and hepatitis B and C are more virulent in combination with hiv, and more often present.
from Science Daily

Kerry Bell

BOUNTIFUL, UTAH – As a child, Kerry Bell dreamed of growing up to become a policeman — both a police officer and a man.
Becoming a cop was relatively simple — Bell joined the Bountiful Police Department 14 years ago. Becoming a man took more time.
Born female, Bell came out as transgender about a year and a half ago and started a transition to a new life as a man. He always had felt male, but did not think switching genders was a viable option until he saw transgender people gaining wider acceptance, along with advances in medical technology.
Surprisingly, the 42-year-old — working in what many perceive as a super-macho culture — says he did not fret about telling the police chief or his co-workers to start referring to him as “he,” not “she.”
“I wasn’t worried about coming out at work,” says Bell, who has had hormone treatments and surgeries. “I’ve worked for Bountiful for 14 years. I know everybody I work with.”
Although some employees have trouble remembering to use masculine pronouns, Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross says, “everyone’s done a great job of accepting Kerry and staying focused on why we’re here in the first place.”
Bell, a corporal and SWAT member, is a “well-rounded police officer,” Ross adds. “We’re glad that he works here.”
Some things about Bell’s transition were easy. He did not have to wear different clothes to work. Uniforms, he jokes, are exactly that –uniform. His first and last name also stayed the same, although he dropped a middle name, Ann, and changed the gender marker on his driver license.
His “only anxiety,” he says, was telling his parents, who divorced when Bell was 2 years old. But his mother, his father and their spouses were supportive.
“You have to accept your children for who they are,” says his dad, Terry Bell, who lives in Rockville near Zion National Park. “It’s a little difficult for me, after 40 years, to think of my daughter as a son. That’s hard. [But] it hasn’t changed a thing about how I feel about him as a person.”
Now, Kerry Bell works to increase understanding between his two worlds: law enforcement and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
The relationship between the two communities has had ups and downs. A police raid on a New York gay bar erupted into the 1969 Stonewall riots, launching the modern gay-rights movement.
Far less hostility exists today — homosexuality has been decriminalized — but many LGBT people remain wary of contacting the cops, Bell says. Some worry about whether they will be treated with respect. Others, who are in the closet, fear being outed.
Bell belongs to the LGBT Public Safety Committee, an informal group with police representatives from Weber County to West Valley City that has been working for nine years to bridge the gap.
The committee members help gay and transgender people understand police procedures. They coach police on how to respond to cases of same-sex domestic violence and gay cruising in parks. In fact, they helped launch a successful Salt Lake City program that steers those caught having sex in public places toward counseling, not jail. If the violators do not repeat the offense for a year — the vast majority don’t — the charges are dropped.
That many LGBT officers now serve openly at several Utah law-enforcement agencies speaks volumes to how far society has progressed, says Salt Lake City Capt. Kyle Jones, a founding member of the committee.
“Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have been [welcome],” says Jones, who was inspired to get involved with the LGBT community after his son came out as gay. “The current crop of officers, by and large, don’t give it a second thought.”
Jones, along with other committee members, recruits potential new officers at the annual Utah Pride Festival for the Salt Lake City Police Department.
“Our department has tried for years to recruit from the populations that we represent,” Jones says. “Anywhere from 8 to 12 percent of [Salt Lake City] is thought to be LGBT so we should have 8 to 12 percent of our cops who are LGBT.”
Bell hopes being out can help “demystify” what it means to be transgender.
As a Davis County kid, Bell says he always felt like a boy. It was something he didn’t know how to express to his family. At age 6, he gathered up all his dolls and gave them to a neighbor. He hated going to church on Sunday because it meant he had to wear a dress.
“I thought God had just put me in the wrong body, and one day I’d wake up and I’d be the way I was supposed to be,” says Bell, a Salt Lake City resident. “Of course, you reach an age where you realize that’s not going to happen.”
At 16, Bell told his parents he was attracted to women after they asked if he was gay. As a lesbian, Bell found a home in the LGBT community. He also learned more about people who are transgender. He looked into surgery at age 18 but decided the techniques were too “barbaric.”
More than 20 years later, he decided he was ready for the change.
“I’m a generally optimistic and happy person,” he says. But “I’ve probably felt better in the last year and a half than I have at any point in my life.”
His other joyful moments are similar to those for most police officers: helping someone in need, maybe even hearing a “thank you.”
from  The Salt Lake Tribune
*
*

Just One Look... #128

*

*

Submit photos for Just One Look…

justonelook@garibaldi-gay.com

Their refrain was as familiar to me as dining hall food, and equally as offensive. All too often, white liberal classmates at the University of Virginia would ask, “Shouldn’t blacks, more than any other group, support gay rights?”
I never understood my classmates’ need to align the historical struggles of blacks with those of homosexuals and then push their quadratic equation of oppression on me. Was not one point of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” a classic text for college seminars, that blacks deserve an existence free from an assigned role? That they should not be pawns in any social movement? And even if they hadn’t read the book, wasn’t it clear that stereotypical assumptions based on race are regressive?
Hearing that from my white peers was one thing — they and I often viewed race through different lenses, with mine being one shade darker than rose. But last month, one of our greatest civil rights leaders also sang the same cacophonous tune in an attempt to peg African Americans’ morals and opinions to our socio-historical identities.
“Black people, of all people, should not oppose equality,” Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, declared at the National Equality March in Washington.
To be clear, Bond has used this line several times, and when he says “equality,” he isn’t talking about the right to vote, the right to eat at a public restaurant, the right to attend an integrated school or the right to a fair trial. He is talking about the right to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.
With all due respect, which Bond certainly deserves, this black person doesn’t agree. And neither do two-thirds of black Protestants, according to an Oct. 9 Pew Research Center poll. Echoing President Lyndon Johnson’s words at the signing of the Voting Rights Act, Bond said, gay marriage “must come; it is right that it should come. And when it has, you will find that a burden has been lifted from your shoulders.”
He is right about that last point. If gay marriage is legalized, as it will be in the District this year barring congressional interference, blacks who have a moral aversion to same-sex marriage will no longer be tethered to expectations that don’t bind any other racial or ethnic group.
Perhaps Bond fails to realize that he is unfairly requiring another form of “two-ness” among African Americans. Already, being both an American and black is difficult, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote. But so is being an African American and a Christian. Asking those 66 percent of black Protestants to look at religion through the veil of race is not the place even of Martin Luther King Jr.’s comrade.
ad_icon
Plus, the “black guilt” tactic doesn’t work. If gay marriage were put to a popular vote in the District (where 55 percent of residents are African American) and failed, blacks would again take the brunt of criticism from gay rights activists. Yet no one is talking about blacks’ “understanding” since same-sex marriage was voted down this month in Maine, because no one is even sure whether black people live there.
Maine is the 31st state in which a majority of voters have chosen to uphold the traditional definition of marriage. There aren’t enough black people in America to hold responsible for all of those outcomes — we’re only 12.8 percent of the population.
The refrain will eventually have to change to pinpoint white evangelicals, 77 percent of whom oppose same-sex marriage. And here is the crux of the problem, the point at which we can’t deny the separate and unequal treatment of blacks: What race-based fire can activists put under white Americans who refuse a new definition of marriage? None.
At best, the message to black Americans is one of skewed motivation: You were once treated as secondclass citizens. You should feel flattered by the two movements’ similarities and compelled to join the fight. At worst, the message is insulting. In a recent column on same-sex marriage and those who would play the race card, the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby summed up the linkage as: “For if opposing same-sex marriage is like opposing civil rights, then voters who backed Proposition 8 are no better than racists, the moral equivalent of those who turned the fire hoses on blacks in Birmingham in 1963.”
I’m sorry, Julian. I wasn’t there with you in 1963 to fight, but I still can’t be your George Wallace today.
from The Washington Post

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – Crimes motivated by hate decreased slightly in Los Angeles County last year compared with the previous year, according to a report released Thursday.
But despite the fact that hate crimes dipped to 729 in 2008, the report by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations noted it was still the second-highest number of hate crimes reported in the county since 2002.
“Clearly, these recent horrific events are evidence of the major human relations challenges that we face,” said commission President Sandra Thomas. “It is our hope that the knowledge disseminated by this report will assist all of us in meeting that challenge.”
South Bay figures, which include Long Beach, remained fairly stagnant. In 2007, there were 87 hate crimes reported; in 2008, the number rose slightly to 92.
Countywide, the report found that while crimes motivated by race decreased by 16 percent, crimes based on sexual orientation grew by 21 percent and religious-based crime climbed 14 percent.
“Hate crimes targeting African-Americans, whites, Asians, Armenians, Middle Easterners and transgender people declined, but those targeting gay men and lesbians increased,” according to the report. “The number of crimes targeting Latinos and Jews remained virtually the same.”
Overall, the number of hate crimes in 2008 represented a 4 percent decrease from 2007, when 763 hate crimes were reported.
The report also noted that the San Fernando Valley had the largest number of hate crimes – 200 – followed by the metro area, with 147.
Accounting for population, the Antelope Valley had the highest rate of hate crimes, at 11.8 per 100,000 residents. The east side of the county had the lowest number of hate crimes and the lowest per capita rate, at 2.2 per 100,000 residents, followed by the South Bay at 5.8 crimes per 100,000 residents.
According to the report, hate crimes occurred most frequently at residences, followed by public places, businesses, schools and religious sites.
“As a general pattern, hate crimes have historically occurred more frequently in public places, such as a street, park or beach, than at residences,” according to the report. “This change is a disturbing development because many people assume that they are safest in their own homes.”
The state of California defines a hate crime as one in which evidence shows “bias, hatred or prejudice based on the victim’s real or perceived race/ethnicity, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation.”
Amanda Susskind, director of the Pacific Southwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League, said she was concerned that crimes against Jewish people accounted for one out of 10 hate crimes in the county, and comprised the majority of crimes targeting religious groups.
“We encourage people to report such attacks and specifically to share with law enforcement and ADL any information that could lead to an arrest,” Susskind said.
from The Daily Breeze

Adam Lanbert

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert defended his sexually-charged performance at the American Music Awards on Sunday, saying his goal was to promote “artistic freedom” rather than upset the television audience.
Millions of viewers saw Lambert simulate oral sex with a back-up dancer, plant a passionate kiss on the mouth of a male keyboard player and gesture to the audience with his middle finger during the closing act of the live music awards show.
Broadcaster ABC cut away from one moment in which Lambert rubbed his crotch for its U.S. West Coast version that aired later on Sunday evening. But by then, the singer’s racy rendition of his debut single “For Your Entertainment” was already on its way to becoming the talking point of the show.
“Female performers have been doing this for years — pushing the envelope about sexuality — and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out,” said Lambert, who publicly declared he was gay after “American Idol” ended in May.
“We’re in 2009; it’s time to take risks, be a little more brave, time to open people’s eyes and if it offends them, then maybe I’m not for them. My goal was not to piss people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom,” the singer, 27, told Rolling Stone magazine after Sunday’s show.
Lambert’s performance — the day before his debut album “For Your Entertainment” was released — may be the most provocative TV moment in the music industry since Madonna and Britney Spears exchanged a passionate kiss live on the MTV Video Music Awards show in 2003.
Lambert told CNN that much of his sexual energy was “in the moment.”
“Adrenaline is a crazy, crazy, crazy feeling. Some of the things I love most about performing is when you’re up there and all of the sudden you just have these feelings, this rush that comes over you,” he told CNN afterward.
Entertainment Weekly music reporter Michael Slezak wrote that Lambert’s first major TV outing since the “American Idol” show “felt less like a genuine expression of his high-octane sexuality…and more like a carefully planned stab at dominating the post-AMA blogosphere/water-cooler discussion.”
An estimated 14.2 million viewers watched the “American Music Awards” telecast — the largest audience since 2002, ABC said on Monday, based on preliminary viewing figures.
Many viewers were shocked at Lambert’s sado-masochistic theme, which featured male and female dancers in bondage costumes.
“His face in the guy’s stomach and the kiss was over the top for my 12 year-old. I didn’t expect that from a guy who was on ‘American Idol!’” wrote N Smith on the Rolling Stone.com message board.
from Reuters

photo collage via After Elton

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A longtime Washington, D.C., liberal Internet activist has founded a Web site that he says will collect accounts of homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood–accounts he will use to “encourage” them to change their views on homosexual marriage and other issues.
“Outing” the priests–publicly revealing their homosexuality–is “not off the table,” Phil Attey, founder of the Web site ChurchOuting.com, told CNSNews.com. The site will also collect information on straight priests who have broken their vow of celibacy, using the information to “encourage” those priests to go against their Church’s teachings on homosexuality as well.
“This is a campaign to collect information about closeted gay Catholic priests, as well as heterosexual Catholic priests who secretly engage in romantic or sexual affairs, yet are unwilling to speak out against the church leadership’s anti-gay political campaigns,” the Web site says.
Attey, a former Obama campaign organizer and Internet organizing pioneer, said the goal of his site was not to “out” the priests, but to end what he called the “spiritual abuse” inflicted by Catholic priests who teach against homosexual marriage and the homosexual lifestyle.
“The goal of this site is not to out priests,” Attey said. “It’s to end the cycle of spiritual abuse that has gone on for generations within the Catholic Church, demonizing what it is to be gay. Closeted gay priests spiritually abusing young gay kids and giving them the alternative of going into the clergy and into the priesthood.”
Priests who refuse to come out after being confronted may be publicly exposed, according to Attey.
“We’re not taking that option off the table,” he said.
Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, strongly condemned the plan.
“There’s a word for this–it’s ‘fascism.’ They’re just out to publicly destroy people,” Donahue told CNSNews.com.
“Are they going to start harassing, intimidating, stalking priests?” Donahue asked. “This is a religious cleansing; this is a witch hunt. This is simply beyond the pale.”
Focusing on Washington Archdiocese
Attey’s campaign is focused on the Washington, D.C., archdiocese, where Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, who has spoken out against the D.C. City Council’s move to recognize gay marriage.
“For the archdiocese and Catholic Charities, two core tenets of our faith are at the heart of our concerns: our understanding of the nature of marriage and our commitment to expressing Christ’s love through service to others,” Wuerl wrote in a Nov. 17 Washington Post op-ed.
“Under the legislative language before the D.C. Council, the archdiocese would be forced to choose between these two principles. The archdiocese has long made clear that all people have equal dignity, regardless of sexual orientation. But marriage is reserved for husband and wife because of its essential connection with the creation of children.”
Wuerl noted that if the D.C. City Council moves to redefine marriage to include homosexuals his church may not be able to continue partnering with the city on other charitable projects, such as feeding the homeless.
“(T)he District requires Catholic Charities to certify its compliance with city laws when applying for contracts and grants. This includes contracts for homeless services, mental health services, foster care and more. Since Catholic Charities cannot comply with city mandates to recognize and promote same-sex marriages, the city would withhold contracts and licenses,” Wuerl explained.
According to Attey, homosexual and non-celibate heterosexual priests who support these and other positions of the Washington archdiocese are “hypocrites,” whom his Web site would work to bring out of the “closet.”
“The dream of this site is to collect enough stories about enough priests so that we can go to them and say ‘Listen, this Web site has collected enough stories about enough of you in the archdiocese to where the archbishop can’t seek retribution against you or retaliate against you if you all come out at once. And if you do that there aren’t going to be any stories floated about you (to media outlets.)’ ”
After that, where a homosexual or non-celibate priest stands on gay issues is up to him, Attey explained, saying he doesn’t care so long as “everyone knows the priest is gay.”
“Where they stand on LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) issues after that is totally fine with me. If they want to be an openly-gay priest standing up as an openly-gay person standing up in front of their parish supporting whatever ideology the Catholic Church wants them to support, that’s fine.”
Attey said he will use “rigorous scrutiny” in investigating any tip he receives about a potentially gay priest, pointing out that people who wish to leave tips on his web site cannot remain anonymous and must be able to provide the names of other witnesses that can corroborate the stories.
(more…)

Dear Amy: My fiancé, “Rob,” and I are getting married. Our wedding party has three attendants on each side, with his brother “Ted” as best man.
Ted has been out of the closet as a gay man for a few years and is supported by his family. Rob, Ted and I frequently see each other outside of family gatherings and enjoy a nice friendship.
Recently, Ted told us he refuses to serve as best man or even attend the wedding because he does not want to be part of a ceremony that he cannot personally enjoy.
Rob and I tried to reinforce how important it is to us to have Ted as a part of our wedding, but Ted told us it was selfish of us to ask him in the first place. We asked Ted months ago, and until recently he never indicated that he was anything less than flattered. Should we ask someone else to be in our wedding party or wait a bit in case he changes his mind?
Rob is incredibly hurt by this decision.
Bashed Bride

Dear Bride: “Ted” loves the institution of marriage so much that he won’t participate in or attend one until he can partake of the privilege himself. By this reasoning, Ted won’t be attending any same-sex wedding ceremonies in states where it is permitted until everyone in every state can marry.
He’s driving a political stake through the heart of an institution he aspires to be a part of. Families contain all types of people, and as someone entering into a new family bond, you will see that sometimes the best you can do is be honest about your disappointment, accept someone else’s unhappiness and move on with grace.
Tell Ted you’re disappointed in his choice but that you accept it and have asked someone else to stand up with you.
from The Los Angeles Times
*
*

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – Two Argentine men who will soon wed in Latin America’s first legal same-sex marriage hope it will pave the way for other homosexual couples in Argentina to marry.
Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello were granted a marriage license last week by a judge who overruled a ban on gay marriages in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, arguing it was unconstitutional.
The couple are HIV positive and plan to marry on December 1 on World Aids Day.
“We’re very happy, but also very nervous because we feel an enormous responsibility,” Freyre told Reuters on Tuesday night. “It’s a historic accomplishment that recognizes gay rights and opens a judicial way to remove barriers.”
Argentina became the first Latin American country to allow civil unions by same-sex couples in 2002.
Civil unions in Buenos Aires and several other Argentine cities grant same-sex couples some legal marital rights, but not others such as the right to adopt. Elsewhere in Latin America, same-sex civil unions are allowed in Uruguay and Mexico City.
Freyre and Di Bello previously tried to marry in April, but were turned down by a separate judge. The new judicial ruling applies only to their case, but it will likely increase pressure on lawmakers to debate a gay marriage bill now deadlocked in Congress.
Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri has said he does not plan to challenge the ruling.
Gay rights groups said the decision was a victory they hope will set the heavily Roman Catholic country on the path to becoming the first to allow same-sex marriages in the region.
“Although the marriage law has not been changed, it sets a very important precedent,” said Cesar Cigliutti, president of the Argentine Homosexual Community group.
Argentina’s influential Roman Catholic Church criticized the judicial decision as “reckless” and urged authorities to reconsider the ruling.
Freyre said he hoped the marriage would enable him to enjoy rights granted to heterosexual married couples like tenants’ rights and the opportunity to adopt children.
“We’re starting a joint married life that wasn’t in our plans until recently because the law wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “It’s a wind of change. We’re boosting the confidence of millions of gay and lesbians in Latin America.”
from Reuters

via Blabbeando

Related Post: Suspect Arrested In Brutal Slaying Of Gay Man In  Puerto Rico

A lesbian who deserted the U.S. military and fled to Canada must be given another chance to plead her case for refugee status, Canada’s Federal Court ruled Friday.
Judge Yves de Montigny said the board erred last February when it rejected Bethany Smith’s bid for refugee status.
Smith says she fled the army because she was harassed and threatened by fellow soldiers over her sexual orientation. She told of hundreds of threatening notes pinned to her barracks door.
She testified she was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., the same base where a gay soldier was beaten to death with a baseball bat in 1999. She said she received a note that threatened her with the same fate.
The U.S. military has a policy of discharging openly gay members but Smith said the army shrugged off her confession, saying the paperwork to discharge her would not be ready until after her next rotation to Afghanistan.
After being denied a discharge, Smith, who was 19 years old at the time, drove to the border at Cornwall, Ontario, with another soldier two years ago. She adopted the name Skyler James upon settling in Ottawa, Ontario.
She took her case to Federal Court after being rejected as a refugee by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
The Federal Court ruled Friday that the board must reconsider her case because it unfairly dismissed evidence suggesting gays face harassment and brutality in the American military.
“It is true that the board member summarized at some length the evidence offered by the applicant, but he has by no means considered it, let alone analyzed it and provided reasons for dismissing it,” the judgment said.
He said the board had an obligation to assess whether American military law was discriminatory against gays or would be applied in a discriminatory fashion.
The judge accepted Smith’s assertion that she would fear for her life if she were deported and returned to the army.
“At the heart of the applicant’s claim is that she is a lesbian member of the U.S. army, who was harassed and threatened at the same base where a gay member of the army was beaten to death and who feels she could not rely on her superiors to secure protection.”
“She fears that she could be punished for leaving an environment where her life is in danger.”
In June 2008, Canadian Parliament passed a resolution urging the government to allow American military deserters to stay in Canada. The government has ignored the motion, which was passed by the combined opposition against the Conservative minority.
Most war resisters in Canada are U.S. military personnel who have refused to participate in the Iraq War on the grounds that it’s illegal and immoral.
There are thought to be about 200 American military deserters who have come to Canada to avoid service in Iraq.
Canadian immigration officials and the courts have rejected efforts to grant them refugee status, and several face deportation. At least two have already been deported to the U.S.
During the war in Vietnam, thousands of American fled to Canada to avoid the draft. Many were given permanent residence status that eventually resulted in citizenship.
from The Associated Press
*
*

Anthony Woods

He’s an Iraq-war vet, a West Point and Harvard grad, one of the first openly gay black men to run for Congress. And, now, in debt and out of a job. But that’s just the beginning of his story.
It’s just after ten on September 1, the end of another cloudless day in Fairfield, California, and Anthony Woods is sitting alone at the back of his campaign office. It’s a small room, ten by ten, with no window to the outside, only a sliding pane in the wall behind him through which he can hear his campaign manager and general consultant talk in low voices as they hit refresh every thirty seconds on the four different county Web sites posting election returns.
On the other side of the door is a headquarters in disarray: trash bags and pizza boxes piled in the corners, voter call lists and unused door hangers strewn over the tables and floor, and along the walls what few signs remain with his name and tagline emblazoned on them: ANTHONY WOODS, THE COURAGE OF CONVICTION.
He’s holding his slender, six-foot frame rigid in his chair, looking down at the notes for the speech he’s been trying all day to write, when a campaign aide knocks at the door to tell him that his mother, Carolyn, wants to speak to him. She’s across the hall with the crowd. But he doesn’t want to see her right now. He wants this time alone. So he calls her on his BlackBerry — she’s less than thirty yards away — and tells her he needs to gather his thoughts.
She understands, she says in her warm, worried voice. Though she knows it embarrasses him, she can’t help but be amazed at each of her son’s accomplishments given how close he came to death right at the beginning, drowning in her womb, not breathing for the first ten minutes of his life, the priest called in, her infant taken to intensive care, the doctors warning her he might have cerebral palsy or brain damage. Every accomplishment of his feels to her like the beating of some cosmic odds.
Even so, when Woods told her back in March that he planned to return to his Bay Area hometown and enter the primary for this special election to fill a vacant congressional seat, she did not approve. He was twenty-nine. She thought he was too young. The timing wasn’t right. He had just started a well-paying job as a consultant. How could he walk away from that in this economy? What would he do for work if he lost? For over twenty-five years she’d fought to make it on her own as a housecleaner and couldn’t understand her son giving up the security he’d only just achieved.
He told her he couldn’t let fear stop him. The chance to run for an open seat in the district where he grew up might never come along again. What he didn’t say was that his private-sector job bored him. That after the camaraderie of the Army and his excitement about public service in graduate school, he wanted to be back in action, fighting for something more than profit.
At 10:15 P.M., Todd Stenhouse, the rail-thin, speed-talking political consultant Woods hired to guide his campaign, walks into the room with a legal pad and sits down across the folding table.
From the beginning, Stenhouse recognized the potential in Woods’s story: a decorated Iraq-war veteran kicked out of the Army for being gay; a young African-American man raised without health insurance by a single mother, going on to West Point and Harvard. In the age of personality-driven politics, he knew he could get media attention for Woods that other first-time candidates, no matter how good their intentions, would never receive. And if the campaign could use the online organizing tools perfected by Obama to transform that attention into strong grassroots support, Woods might just surprise the establishment and come out on top.
(more…)

Just One Look... #127

*

*

Submit photos for Just One Look…

justonelook@garibaldi-gay.com