Gay News

Jim Carrey black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris may not get a US cinema release because it contains an explicit gay sex scene.

Despite securing distribution deals in the UK and Europe, US firms are uneasy with a love scene between Carrey and Ewan McGregor's character Phillip Morris, reports The Times.

The depiction of the sexual activity was far more than I've ever seen in a mainstream film with a mainstream celebrity, said Lewis Tice, director of publicity and marketing for TLA Releasing: There's a graphic sex scene in the first 10 minutes that I was surprised to see.

Filmmakers are re-cutting the movie for US distribution companies in an attempt to secure a theatrical release. If no agreement is reached, the movie will go straight to DVD.

Mostly straight, multiplex-going audiences don't want to see a romantic comedy in which two dudes get it on; unless it is meant as a joke, commented Scott Stiffler, author of Why Hollywood Avoids Gay Movies.

Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo has told a conference organized to discuss the ways to fight Homosexuality that he will soon submit a bill on pornography and homosexuality for discussion in Parliament.

The conference that took place at Parliament was organized by Defend the Family International, an organization in the United States of America that was formed to fight homosexuality.

Buturo says pornography is partly a cause of homosexuality since it negatively affects the morals of the victims of pornography and makes them easily susceptible to the vice of homosexuality.

Buturo says the government will not only end at making laws against homosexuality but will also engage in sensitizing schools and churches in the fight against this vice.

The President of Defend the Family International, Scott Lively says it is good for the government of Uganda to criminalize homosexuality but the government should subject the criminals of homosexuality to a therapy rather than imprisoning them.

Lively says this is aimed at the criminals recovering from homosexuality which is the main objective of those fighting homosexuality and not to punish homosexuals through imprisonment. He says even schools should borrow this idea of therapy in dealing with gay students.

A demonstration thousands strong in Bujumbura, Burundi last week called on lawmakers to criminalize being gay..

It was the largest protest yet since President Pierre Nkurunziza came to power in 2005, attracting between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

The protesters were angry that senators had rejected an amendment that would criminalize being gay when voting on a new draft criminal code law on February 17. In November, Burundi's lower chamber of Parliament had voted in favor of the amendment that prescribes two years in jail for being gay.

Speaking to reporters at the event, CNDD-FDD Party Chairman Jeremie Ngendakumana said, The CNDD-FDD is protesting today to support the [view of the] majority of Burundians that homosexuality should be punished by law.

lThe second gay pride parade in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was called off at the last minute Feb. 21 following virulent on-site protests by 30 red shirted members of a group called Rak Chiang Mai 51.

Pride organizers said they feared the march would descend into violence, despite the presence of 150 police officers.

Rak Chiang Mai 51 spokesman Petchawat Wattanapongsirikul said pride events should be held in other cities, such as Phuket and Pattaya: Chiang Mai people cannot accept this and will stop the parade by all means, even violence.

Channel 4 has come under fire from Islamic leaders over a television documentary showing how gay and lesbian Muslims suffer under their laws.

Its director has already had death threats. Now station chiefs are bracing themselves for a backlash. Its digital channel More 4 will show A Jihad For Love tonight.

It lifts the lid on the battle gay and lesbian Muslims face as they struggle with their faith and their sexuality. The documentary not only shows gay Muslims daring to kiss, holding hands and talking about getting married, it also provides harrowing reports on the suffering they have faced under Islamic law. And it reveals the death threats and punishments handed out to gays in countries including Egypt and Iran.

Indian film maker Parvez Sharma – who spent six years making the programme – revealed: I have had death threats on my blog after making this film. Some countries have even banned it. I've been called an apostate because Muslims think I have insulted Islam but I think it will open up a debate.

Islamic leaders in the UK have attacked the documentary, saying it will offend, anger and shock. An Imam from Europe's largest mosque The Baitul Futuh based in Surrey condemned the film last night, saying: These people should not be confessing their sins to the television cameras. They should be doing it in private to God and seeking forgiveness.”

Last night a Channel 4 spokesman defended the documentary. She said: This is a sensitively made documentary that has played to critical acclaim at film festivals internationally and is a legitimate area for a documentary film-maker to explore.

True Stories: A Jihad For Love will be shown on More 4 at 10pm tonight.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week affirmed the Casper, Wyoming City counsels decision not to allow anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas to place an anti-gay monument in one of it's city parks, when the justices unanimously agreed that governments receiving monument donations for public parks are not compelled to take everything they are offered.

The city had placed a Ten Commandments statue, donated by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, in a plaza along with other monuments of historical significance and Phelps had sought to place his own monument in the Casper plaza condemning homosexuality.

Phelp's monument stated: Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning ‘thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination. Leviticus 18:22.

Matthew Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and subsequently murdered because he was gay.

The Casper City Council had denied Phelps' request in both 2003 and 2007.

Phelps had argued it was his First Amendment right to have his monument included.

Viewers across Asia saw a censored version of the Oscars after television chiefs removed gay references from Sean Penn's best actor speech.

The STAR satellite channel, which broadcasts to more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries, also cut the sound when Dustin Lane Black, who wrote the screenplay for Penn's film, Milk , addressed all the gay and lesbian kids. Milk is the story of Californian gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

Both Penn and Black backed gay marriage in their speeches and called for equal rights for homosexuals.

Gay Asians voiced their anger at the broadcaster, which censored its evening telecasts of the awards ceremony.

As a gay man, I am truly offended, Pang Khee Teik, a prominent Malaysian arts commentator, wrote in a letter sent out to several media organisations. Stop censoring the words that describe who I am. Pang said the move sent a message ... that gays and lesbians are still shameful things to be censored from the public's ears.

Jannie Poon, STAR's Hong Kong-based spokeswoman, stressed that the company had no intention of upsetting any viewers ...BUT... said it has a responsibility to take the sensitivities and guidelines of all our markets into consideration.

A Michigan television station in the United States has pulled a one hour programme paid for by a notoriously homophobic family group.

The American Family Association (AFA) had paid for airtime on WOOD-TV to screen Speechless: Silencing the Christians.

It claims to reveal the truth about the radical homosexual agenda and its impact on the family, the nation and religious freedom.

WOOD-TV General Manager Diane Kniowski said earlier this week that it would not run the AFA programme this Saturday as planned: Our station is being bombarded with calls and messages, and we find ourselves in the middle of someone else's fight.

The programme, which is available online, claims hate crimes laws target preaching what the Bible says about homosexuality, gays play a key role to play in the spread of all STDs and HIV/AIDS and employment protection based on sexual orientation will force churches to hire homosexuals.

The Human Rights Campaign, America's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organisation, had urged its members to contact the station and ask that they pull the programme.

More than $83 million was donated to support or oppose the ballot initiative that abolished same-sex marriage in California, according to campaign filings recently released.

Filings show that elected officials, businesses, churches and individuals poured more than $28 million into the campaigns during the contest's closing days. The final tallies show that opponents of Proposition 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year's end. The measure's sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

The race was the most expensive ballot measure on a social issue in the nation's history. Proposition 8 passed to outlaw same sex marriage with 52% of the vote. Gay marriage backers have asked the California Supreme Court to overturn it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the first time assigned a dollar value of nearly $190,000 to its role in getting the initiative passed.

Focus on the Family, the evangelical Christian media empire based in Colorado, reported giving $657,000 in cash and services to promote Proposition 8.

A mayor has declared his Mexican city the world's kissing capital - in a bid to refute rumours he wanted to fine people for kissing in public.

Eduardo Romero, leader of Guanajuato in central Mexico, has been forced to put on hold an anti-obscenity law after protests about its supposed anti-kissing stance.

And he has now unveiled huge adverts featuring a couple locking lips on one of the city's winding, cobbled streets - with the slogan: Guanajuato, the kissing capital.

His authority has denied wanting to ban public kissing, but agreed to suspend the new legislation to review its wording.

The new injustice bill contains a measure to protect people from incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

In May the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill created for the first time an offence of incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

However, an amendment by Tory peer Lord Waddington, a former Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, was added to the legislation.

His amendment to the offence of using threatening language with intent to stir up hatred on grounds of sexual orientation said that urging someone to change their sexuality should not count of itself as threatening or as intended to stir up hatred.

While he claimed his amendment was about free speech, in effect it gives people leeway to claim they were just following their religious beliefs when inciting others to hate gay, lesbian or bisexual people.

If Christians can argue that their faith gives them a get-out clause, it could make a prosecution more difficult.

The Coroners and Injustice Bill, part of the government's legislative programme for this session of Parliament, contains a clause removing the Waddington amendment.

A spokesperson for gay equality organisation Stonewall, told PinkNews.co.uk:

Last year, the House of Lords voted to retain an exemption to the new incitement to hatred protections. Stonewall believes this is unnecessary and could mean that a very small number of people of extreme views attempt to avoid prosecution by citing a 'religious defence'. Stonewall is pleased that the government is now seeking to remove this exemption. It will mean stronger protection for lesbian, gay and bisexual people from those who stir up hatred against them.

European MPs have passed a resolution that will support gay marriage

Italian Communist Giusto Catania tabled the pro-abortion, pro-gay resolution with the aim of improving Europe's fundamental human rights.

The motion called on each of the 27 member states to legally guarantee access to sexual and reproductive rights.

The resolution is based on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, part of the Lisbon treaty, which have yet to be passed into law.

Much of the resolution deals with xenophobia, and the rights of children and refugees but one part stressed the need to raise public awareness of the right to reproductive and sexual health, and calls on the member states to ensure that women can fully enjoy these rights, to put in place appropriate sex education, information and confidential advisory services, and to facilitate access to contraception in order to prevent all unwanted pregnancies and illegal and high-risk abortions.

It said public funds should be made available in every EU country to ensure that ethnic minority women, in particular, can have full access to such services. It also calls on all EU member states to recognise same-sex civil partnerships equally with heterosexual marriage.

The resolution will have go before the EU's Council of Ministers before becoming law.
But even before it is rubber stamped it will act as a soft law used to put every EU government under pressure to abolish any existing restrictions in their laws on abortion.

Censors at Facebook social networking site have removed the cover image of the Sep 11, 2008 issue of the Canadian gay magazine, Xtra, with only a vague explanation: Facebook was trying to protect children from viewing the image.

Julia Garro is the associate editor of the Toronto gay and lesbian newspaper. She uploads each issue's cover image to the Friends of Xtra Facebook group.

But this week, she received a message from Facebook, warning her that one image had been deleted from the Friends of Xtra group:

Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence, or other violations of the Terms of Use. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children who use the site.

Facebook declined to answer Xtra.ca's repeated attempts for an interview, so we are unable to clarify how the sight of naked breasts might create an unsafe environment for youth.

The social-networking site recently came under fire for deleting pictures of women breastfeeding their children. Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told the New York Times that the company has no plans to change their strict no-nudity policy: Certainly we can agree that there is context where nudity is not obscene, but we are reviewing thousands of complaints a day.Whether it's obscene, art or a natural act — we'd rather just leave it at nudity and draw the line there.

Worse yet, there's no transparency in Facebook's decision-making process. Facebook typically refuses to elaborate or engage in discussion after it censors an image.

 

The Vatican envoy to the Netherlands has been called to a meeting to defend the Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage by the Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister.

At the request of homosexualist activist groups, Maxime Verhagen, a Christian Democrat, has demanded that the Papal Nuncio to the Netherlands, Monsignor Fran็ois Bacqu้, respond to accusations that the Church opposes gay rights.

Verhagen said, The Netherlands is unpleasantly surprised by the opposition of Pope Benedict XVI to a UN declaration on human rights and homosexuality.

Verhagen noted that although there were points of agreement with the Vatican statements, the judgments of the Pope on homosexuality are cause for concern because they are unnecessarily offensive, as can be seen, and do not contribute to a worthy debate.

In December, the Vatican was attacked in the international press for refusing to endorse the UN motion claiming to decriminalise homosexuality. The motion, which is not legally binding, was introduced by Verhagen and by his colleagues from France, and has been signed by only 66 of the UN’s 192 member states. Thus far, although the United States, Russia, China, Guatemala, El Salvador and some African countries have also refused to endorse the resolution, only the representative of the Vatican has been publicly called on the carpet by Verhagen.

Nine men were handed unusually harsh sentences of eight years in prison after being tried on charges of conspiracy and unnatural acts, a term used to criminalize homosexuality, according to their lawyers and gay rights groups in Senegal.

The men were arrested on December 19 at the home of Diadji Diouf, a prominent gay activist who works with AIDS organizations to prevent the spread of the disease in the largely clandestine gay community in Senegal, according to Joel Nana, a program associate for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Diouf, who was among those arrested and sentenced, runs an organization that provides condoms and counseling to gay men in Senegal, a largely Muslim country that has become increasingly intolerant of homosexuality in recent years.

A Christian relationship counsellor who was sacked after he refused to give sex therapy to homosexual couples has lost his case for unlawful discrimination.

An employment tribunal ruled that the national counselling service Relate was entitled to dismiss Gary McFarlane after he said that encouraging gay sex went against his devout religious beliefs.

The decision prompted Christian groups to demand a rethink of religious discrimination laws, following a string of other high-profile cases in which courts have found against Christians who claim they have suffered as a result of standing up for their beliefs.

Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported McFarlane in his claim, said the religious discrimination law was in danger of becoming a dead letter , while the Christian Institute said there was a growing feeling among churchgoers that religious discrimination laws only applied to Muslims and other minority faiths.

McFarlane brought his claim for unfair dismissal after he was sacked in March 2008. In 2006, after he qualified as a psychosexual therapist, he made it clear to his employers that his strong Christian beliefs meant he did not feel able to give sex therapy advice to homosexuals. Fellow counsellors objected to his stance and claimed his views were homophobic, and in March 2008 he was sacked.

An employment tribunal panel unanimously rejected his claim, though the panel decided McFarlane had been wrongfully dismissed as Relate had not followed the correct dismissal procedures. The panel said McFarlane's claim had failed because: The claimant was not treated as he was because of his Christian faith, but because (Relate) believed that he would not comply with its policies and that it would have treated anyone else of whom that was believed, regardless of religion, in the same way.

A 79-year-old man from the Netherlands has been found guilty of indecency with several Gambian men.

A court sentenced Frank Boers to pay 100,000 Gambian dalasis (ฃ2,500) in lieu of a two year prison sentence.

Boers was arrested at the city's international airport when officials found he was in possession of nude pictures of himself and some Gambian men and other pornography.

Gambia, a mostly Muslim country of 1.7 million people, punishes homosexual acts, even in private, with up to seven years in prison.

oers conviction follows the President Jammeh's pledge to crack down on gay people in the country. The Daily Observer reported that the President had issued: An ultimatum to homosexuals, drug dealers, thieves and other criminals, to leave the Gambia or face serious consequences if caught. Any hotel, lodge or motel that lodges this kind of individuals will be closed down, because this act is unlawful. We are in a Muslim dominated country and I will not and shall never accept such individuals in this country.

In the wake of their arrests the Foreign Office updated its guidance for British visitors.

Although there are no laws specifically covering homosexuality in the Gambia, the Gambian Criminal Code states that any person who has, or attempts to have, "carnal knowledge" of any person "against the order of nature" is guilty of a felony and could face imprisonment.

The Gambian courts may interpret homosexual acts as falling under this part of the Code.

The Code also states that gross indecency between men, whether in public or private, is a felony and anyone committing this felony could face imprisonment.

We have received reports that the police are actively enforcing this Code.

Half an hour after the 9pm watershed adult film actor Ron Jeremy – captioned on screen as a porn legend – described in graphic detail lewd acts that he wanted to perform on Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan and her lesbian lover.

Nutter politicians and lobby groups reacted in supposed anger to the segment on the programme Most Annoying People 2008 .

It was first broadcast on December 29 but repeated over the New Year period and is still available to view online.

Another guest on the BBC3 show, Radio 5 Live presenter DJ Spoony, referred to lesbians as munters and mingers, prompting supposed fury from gay rights activists.

Nutter MP Anne Widdecombe has demanded to know who sanctioned broadcast of the programme: What was their reasoning behind choosing a porn star as an interviewee at all – and why was the pre-recorded show screened?

You would think that following the debacle with Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, they would have gone out of their way to ensure anything going out was within the limits of decency. This was a holiday period when children tend to stay up later and there is a strong risk that children would have seen it.

Indecency is just ingrained at the BBC. They are institutionally indecent.

Jeremy, who has appeared in almost 2,000 hardcore movies, said of Lohan and Ronson: ‘These two girls are very good-looking. I would love to be in the middle of that: They will do each other, do me, do each other, do me, back and forth. Jeremy also said of Lohan: Men are wishing they could be with her and change her mind, thinking “Yeah, she is a lesbian now because she never met me.”

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Spoony, 38, said of lesbians: Let the munters and mingers get each other. That's cool because nobody wants them. But referring to Mean Girls star Lohan and Ronson, he added: When they're hot and fit - Hollywood superstars - they should be saved for the guys.

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell branded the remarks by Jeremy and Spoony gratuitously sexist and homophobic. The BBC should have never broadcast them and should issue a public apology. Spoony should be suspended by the BBC and only be allowed to continue presenting his Radio 5 Live programme after he has apologised on air and promised not to repeat his homophobic garbage.

Ron Jeremy's comments were needlessly offensive. He's a sexist pig, which no right-thinking woman, lesbian or straight, would want to meet, let alone have sex with.

The BBC today said that it had received 13 complaints about the programme to date.

A spokeswoman said: Most Annoying People 2008 is a light-hearted and comedic look at people and events that have annoyed, amused or appalled us over the last 12 months. The contributors to the programme are expressing their own views and opinions, which are meant in a light-hearted way with no malicious intent.