India can close its eyes and miss the global gay tourism bus, an international gay tour promoter said in Panaji on Friday even as the Goa government unceremoniously dropped a session on lesbian gay bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) tourism from a state sponsored travel and tourism mart.
Rika Jean-Francois, a representative of the ITB Berlin – a renowned tourism and travel mart – and Thomas Bomkes, managing director Munich based Diversity Tourism, who were to participate in a discussion on LGBT tourism at the Goa International Travel Mart (GITM), also issued a joint statement protesting accusations that LGBT tourism was equivalent to “paedophilia practices, sex tourism, sex tourism or escort service”.
“India can close its eyes, but gay tourism is going to be there. It is up to India to see if they can tap this sector. Gay tourists globally will go elsewhere,” Bomkes said.
The decision to drop the LGBT discussion from the three day GITM was taken after rightwing groups and the Goa church criticised the government’s decision to endorse LGBT tourism mart, claiming that the state government was endorsing “perversity”.
Francois, whose ITB Berlin had tied up with the GITM for a session on LGTB tourism, said that India with ayurveda, culturally rich cities, beach tourism was an ideal destination to promote gay friendly tourism and that they were disappointed that the discussion on the LGBT segment was dropped in face of protests.
“We did not want to hurt any feelings or promote anything sleazy or non decent. We respect cultural diversity,” she said. “We have never promoted Goa as a special LGBT destination…. It’s a misunderstanding of the subject and a prejudice to think and express that LGBT tourism has anything to do with drugs, sex tourism, escort service or paedophile practices,” Bomkes said.He further said that the average gay tourist spent more money than the average straight traveller.
“In the US alone, there the LGBT market is worth $ 65 billion,” he said.
from Daily News & Analysis
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Tyler Clementi & Dharun Ravi

Dharun Ravi, 19 is charged with bullying his roommate Tyler Clementi for being gay by loading images of Clementi’s romantic encounter with another man on a friend’s computer.
Clementi killed himself a few days later by jumping off the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010.
If convicted of the most serious charges in New Jersey’s Middlesex County Superior Court, Ravi could be sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison.
Under the proposed plea agreement, originally made in May, prosecutors would have sought a three- to five-year prison sentence if Ravi pleaded guilty to six of the 15 charges against him. The charges include bias intimidation and privacy invasion.
Ravi, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and black striped tie, spoke at the hearing on Thursday only to say he understood the plea offering.
His attorneys said he was not interested in taking the deal, and Judge Glenn Berman set a trial date of February 21, 2012.
The judge also ruled that Ravi should be allowed to learn the identity of the other man in the romantic encounter. Ravi’s attorneys have sought that information, saying they need to know in order to defend their client fully.
Prosecutors have not made the man’s identity public, and he is referred to in court documents only as M.B.
In court papers, M.B., who apparently met Clementi online, said he has an “overwhelming” fear that release of his identity will lead to a “total invasion” of his privacy.
Clementi’s suicide has drawn widespread media attention as a tragic example of bullying and gay teenagers killing themselves.
The judge placed tight restrictions on the disclosure of his identity, ordering that M.B.’s name and date of birth be given only to Ravi, his attorney and his attorney’s investigator, who are bound not to disclose these details to anyone else.
“An innocent young man doesn’t want to be involved in this situation but is,” M.B.’s attorney Richard Pompelio said after the hearing.
Prosecutors say Ravi, along with some friends, maliciously spied on Clementi using a webcam attached to his computer in the room they shared and bullied Clementi for being gay.
Ravi’s defense has said his client had no problem with Clementi’s homosexuality, and the webcam images were never put online or stored.
The defense has also suggested there is evidence that Ravi’s actions played an insignificant role in the despair that caused Clementi to kill himself.
from Reuters
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George Michael

George Michael insists gay men don’t have to “stop dancing by 48.”
The former Wham! singer is experimenting with dance music on his new album.
George has announced that he will be releasing an album full of house tunes aimed at the gay community.
I’m writing new material. I’m writing dance music “even if I am on the cusp of being too old to be taken seriously to make that music!” He told the UK edition of Hello! Magazine. “As a gay man, you don’t have to stop dancing by 48, there’s plenty more years to go.”
George revealed that the dance album he is working on will feature lots of remixes of his old hits. Some will be original house tunes that the singer has created.
George’s previous hits have been either pop or R’n'B. He is thrilled to be working on something new.
“All that’s important to me now is that it’s a new direction, because lyrically I want to address issues that gay people face,” he explained.
“The point about house music and dancing with the gay community is you don’t stop doing it, because you don’t have children to get up for in the morning.”
George has experienced difficulties in his personal life. The singer has battled with drink and drugs and even had a short stint in prison.
George claims this is all in the past now.
I’ve got two things in my creative life which I’m equally passionate about “one is this, as it’s something brand new, and as a singer and an interpreter of songs it’s the most honest thing I can do,” he explained.
from Music News

The number of gays and lesbians adopting children has nearly tripled in the past decade despite discriminatory rules in many states, according to an analysis of recent population trends.
“It’s a stratospheric increase. It’s like going from zero to 60,” said Miami attorney Elizabeth Schwartz who has coordinated more than 100 adoptions for gay and lesbian families in the past year. “I think many really dreamed of doing this but it wasn’t something they ever thought would become a reality.”
About 21,740 same sex couples had an adopted child in 2009, up from 6,477 in 2000, according to the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. About 32,571 adopted children were living with same sex couples in 2009, up from 8,310 in 2000. The figures are an analysis of newly released Census Bureau estimates.
New York-based Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute released a report Thursday culminating a four-year project surveying 158 gay and lesbian parents and their experience with the adoption process. Their researchers found the highest number of homosexuals adopted children from Massachusetts, California, New York and Texas.
Tom Bourdon, 35, and his husband interviewed more than a dozen private adoption agencies when they began the adoption process two years ago. The Massachusetts couple found some agencies “didn’t really have experience working with a same sex couple and didn’t how to treat us equally.”
Once they settled on an agency, the couple created a profile that was open about their sexual orientation and desire to create a family. The couple, who were married in 2005, were matched with a birth mother five weeks later. They adopted their son in 2009 and a daughter eight days ago. Both children were born in California.
“We just wanted to be treated like any other prospective parent out there. We didn’t want it to be an issue,” said Bourdon, who works in education.
Several states specifically prohibit same-sex couples from adopting jointly, while others have a patchwork of discriminatory policies that make it difficult for gays and lesbians to adopt either as individuals or as couples. But some states have eased restrictions on gay families.
Florida stopped enforcing its ban on gay adoptions last year following a decision by a state appeals court that the three-decade-old law is unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law, among the strictest in the country, on behalf of Martin Gill and his male partner, who adopted two young brothers from foster care.
In the past, adoption was often only an option for wealthy gay families who could afford to adopt internationally or to pay a surrogate. Allowing gay couples to adopt from foster care, where health care and college is paid for, opens it up to more people, experts say. The study estimates about 50 percent of adoptive gay families adopt children from foster care.
Earlier this year, the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected a voter-approved initiative that barred gay couples and other unmarried people living together from serving as adoptive or foster parents
Virginia allows married couples and single people to adopt or become foster parents, regardless of sexual orientation, but bars unmarried couples – gay or straight – from doing so. Earlier this month, hundreds of residents weighed in on proposed regulations that would allow state-licensed groups to turn down prospective adoptive and foster parents because of their sexual orientation.
According to the Adoption Institute, at least 60 percent of U.S. adoption agencies surveyed accept applications from non-heterosexual parents. Nearly 40 percent of agencies have knowingly placed children with gay families. About half the agencies surveyed reported a desire for staff training to work with such clients.
But some adoption agencies have been bucked the rules, saying it’s unfair to force them to go against their religious beliefs by coordinating adoptions for gay families.
Catholic Charities refused to recognize Illinois’ new civil unions law and allow gay couples and others living together outside marriage to be foster or adoptive parents. The state tried to end its multimillion dollar contracts but a judge temporarily allowed Catholic Charities to work with the state.
“If one agency doesn’t serve you and you’re gay, then another agency will,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Adoption Institute. “You don’t need 100 percent agency participation. The bottom line is if you’re a qualified gay or lesbian in America and you want to adopt, you can.”
About one-third of the adoptions by lesbians and gay men were “open,” and the birth families’ initial reactions regarding sexual orientation were very positive, according to the study.
At California’s Independent Adoption Center, executive director Ann Wrixon has seen a spike in LGBT couples adopting. In the past five years, gay families have consistently made up about one-third of the 200 adoptions a year.
Wrixon’s agency is licensed in seven states and works with adoption agencies all over the country to find baby matches for clients. Ten years ago, she estimates only 25 agencies nationally were willing to work with gay families.
“We would often struggle to find agencies that would work with our families,” said Wrixon.
Now she has a database with more than 125 agencies.
While the number of gay couples adopting is increasing, the overall number of same sex couples raising kids is actually declining, said Gary Gates, demographer at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law.
“The bulk of parenting among gay people is still people who had children at a young age with a different sex partner before they were out,” said Gates.
Now that many homosexuals are coming out earlier in life, they’re having fewer biological children and are more likely to turn to adoption to start a family, he said.
from The Associated Press

Zanna Don't

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT – When the fictional football quarterback shared a brief kiss with another male actor on stage in the Hartford Public High School auditorium, the sudden cacophony of cheers, screams and bits of dissent seemed to rocket to the roof.
Several hundred students witnessed the gay kiss last Friday afternoon, and a few dozen near the back got up and left the auditorium. Some wore the Owls’ school football jerseys.
Their reaction would eventually be known throughout the country and beyond the Atlantic.
Among the students who stayed to watch the rest of “Zanna, Don’t!” — an ironic musical in which homosexuality is not only accepted, but the norm — was a gay boy who wept at his seat because of the stark reality of his own world, said Adam Johnson, principal of the school’s Law and Government Academy.
Another spectator was 15-year-old Jordan Spruielle, the Owls’ starting quarterback.
This week, after a CBS News website wrote about the play following The Courant’s story, news outlets such as The Guardian of London and The Huffington Post posted their own online versions, drawing more than a thousand comments from readers around the world. The blog Gawker went with the headline “Jocks Walk Out of Musical Over Gay Kiss.”
The title of a blog post on NBCSports.com similarly began, “Football players walk out of school play …”
The controversy does not sit well with Spruielle, a sophomore in the Law and Government Academy who helped lead the Owls to a win against Manchester last weekend. The outcry over the musical has included calls and emails to the school system, mostly from conservative out-of-towners convinced of a homosexual agenda at the school.
Attendance for a second “Zanna” performance for students this Friday — reserved for Hartford High’s freshmen and those in the Engineering and Green Technology Academy — is now considered optional, school officials said. The musical was organized as an anti-bullying initiative by Leadership Greater Hartford’s Quest program in partnership with True Colors, a nonprofit group that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.
The self-described “fairy tale” is intended to expose prejudice.
Spruielle said Thursday that he had a few words for teammates who walked out. He believed that they had been disrespectful.
“I was like, you guys missed out on a good play,” Spruielle said. The musical “just shows that everyone is different in this world. You have to accept people for who they are. … I know people who are gay. They’re funny people. They are cool people to be around.”
Sophomore Richard Jernigan, 16, a punt returner for the Owls and a law and government student, said he was “shocked” because until Friday he had never seen two guys kiss.
“Open your eyes up, because stuff is real,” Jernigan said of the play’s message. He stayed for the whole musical. As for those who did not, “it shows people’s true character,” he said.
Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said the performance “hits on some core family values, so our students aren’t all going to be in agreement.” For those who choose not to watch or decide to “speak out, that reaction is appropriate,” she said.
What matters, Kishimoto said, is demonstrating that “we can be respectful in our disagreement.”
The first kiss between the play’s Heartsville High quarterback — who is later exposed as a closet heterosexual — and the most popular boy in school, a gay chess champion, amounted to a second-long peck on the lips.
Later there were other same-sex kisses on stage, some bolder. A lesbian smooch was cheered among students. The actors were from area high schools and Trinity College.
The Family Institute of Connecticut, a conservative group that opposed gay marriage in the state, sent a mass email Monday with the subject “Forced Pro-Gay Indoctrination at Hartford Public High School,” criticizing what it considered “an outrageous attack on parental rights.” Principals of the nursing and law and government academies decided against requiring permission slips for the opening performance.
That won’t be the case for Friday’s show. Jack Baldermann, the executive principal of Hartford High who also heads the school’s Engineering and Green Technology Academy, said that all the freshmen need an OK from their parents and that he expected more than half to attend. The sophomores, juniors and seniors in his academy can choose to opt out and work on assignments.
“We’re not going to force them to come,” Baldermann said, “for a lot of reasons. We don’t want them to disrupt the performance for other people.”
But Baldermann has told his students that he would like them there, explaining that “the most important lesson we can learn is to be compassionate toward each other.”
from The Hartford Courant
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