Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyFebruary 17th, 2010
The New Hampshire House resoundingly rejected two anti-gay measures. In a 210-109 vote, the House voted to reject a bill which would have repealed the state’s same-sex marriage law. That vote followed a 201-135 vote to reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would have redefined marriage in that state by restricting it to between one man and one woman. That vote fell far below the two-thirds majority needed to advance to the Senate.
February 17th, 2010
Nick Herbert, Britain’s openly-gay shadow Environment Secretary and member of Britain’s Conservative Party, urged American conservatives to embrace LGBT people or risk years in the political wilderness.
Speaking at a debate at the Cato Institute in Washington on gay marriage, MP Herbert said:
“I am not here to preach or to interfere in your affairs,” he said. “I am here neither to tea party nor to go clubbing. But I can tell you what happens to a party when it closes the door to sections of our society and is reduced to its core vote. It’s no fun being in opposition for thirteen years.”
Herbert spoke of the damage that prior anti-gay Conservative governments have inflicted on the party’s reputation and the lengths that party leader David Cameron has gone through to try to heal the breach:
And our party leader, David Cameron, has publicly apologised for Section 28, legislation introduced by a previous Conservative government which effectively prohibited the teaching of the validity of gay relationships in schools, a law which was deeply unpopular not just amongst gay people, but with those who saw it as a divisive and unpleasant sign of state intolerance.
We needed to say sorry for a stance that was wrong. The truth is that there are millions of people who we drove away but who share our values and want to join us.”
I have no doubt that there are millions of conservatively-minded people here in America which are being driven away from the GOP over its embrace of anti-gay politics as a wedge issue. Maybe someday the GOP will realize the mistake they are making. But with all the noise generated by the teabaggers — er, tea partiers — I doubt it will come anytime soon. Two years do not a wilderness make.
February 17th, 2010
February 17th, 2010
Veteran UK LGBT activist Peter Tatchell has issued a correction to yesterday’s assertion that Ugandan MP David Bahati, author of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, “is demanding the execution of all scouts and scout leaders who commit repeated homosexual acts.” In an email sent to BTB, Peter’s statement reads:
On 16 February, I issued a news release about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda and the Bill’s sponsorship by David Bahati MP, who is also Chairman of the Scout Board of Uganda.
I should have made it clear that Mr Bahati was not explicitly calling for the execution of gay scouts and scout leaders. His Bill proposes the execution of gay serial offenders, which could, of course, include gay scout members. But his Bill does not target gay scouts in particular and he has not specifically called for the execution of scouts who are gay. The threat to gay scouts in Uganda is implicit, not explicit.
Apologies for my lack of clarity. Below is a revised, corrected version of the news release, together with some new information about the Uganda Bill.
Peter Tatchell – London, UK
In his revised press release, Tatchell asks that UK readers write to their members of Parliament about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
February 17th, 2010
Anal cancer, a very rare condition, impacts gay men to a greater extent than heterosexuals (about 0.35% of gay men get anal cancer). The most significant contributor is infection with the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), the same virus that contributes to cervical cancer in women, causes genital warts, and is linked to some rare oral cancers in straight men. HPV is very common and most sexually active adults will be infected at some point in their life.
In October, the FDA approved the use of Gardasil, a vaccine, for males ages 9 through 26 for the prevention of genital warts. Now Merck has release testing results showing that the vaccine is significantly effective in the prevention of anal cancer in gay men.
Merck & Co., Inc. announced today that in new Phase III data, GARDASIL® [Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6, 11, 16 and 18) Vaccine, Recombinant] was 77.5 percent (95 percent CI: 39.6, 93.3) efficacious against anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN) associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6, 11, 16 and 18 in 16-to-26 year-old men who have sex with men.
…
In this PPE analysis, GARDASIL prevented 77.5 percent (95 percent CI: 39.6, 93.3) of HPV 6, 11, 16, and 18-related AIN and anal cancer. A total of 29 men were diagnosed with HPV 6, 11, 16 or 18-related AIN during the study, with 24 cases in the placebo group and five in the vaccine group. No cases of HPV 11 or 18-related AIN were observed in the vaccine group. No cases of anal cancer were seen in either the placebo or vaccine group.
Most sexually active adults have been or will be infected with HPV. In most cases, the infection goes away naturally. But Merck also found that the vaccine efficacious in preventing infection in women aged 27 to 45, a demographic that is not yet approved by the FDA. It is easy to surmise that the next step will be to test men in this age group with the eventual goal of marketing to everyone.
Although the odds are low of getting HPV related cancer, it is probably to the advantage of all women and gay men to reduce those odds even further by getting vaccinated, if possible. While this may not be covered by your insurance, the $360 for the three shots may save your life.
February 17th, 2010
I’ve been rather flabbergasted at how open-ended the wording in Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Law is, and how easily it can be abused should it become law. You can find the text of the bill here. Rob Tisinai demonstrates just how open to rampant abuse this abysmally-constructed bill really is.
It is fair to ask if this is what the bill’s authors and supporters really intend.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
February 17th, 2010
Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa only has one note in his repertoire, and he plays it loudly. Now that his planned march through Kampala in support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been banned by authorities, he takes comfort in his old reliable standby:
“The major argument homosexuals have is that what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms is nobody’s business but do you know what they do in their bedrooms?” the pastor asked. Ssempa then displayed a slide show of gay pornographic pictures.
MP David Bahati, the anti-gay bill’s author, was among the reported 300 who attended. Ssempa is pushing hard for the bill’s passage before April 4, as an “Easter present” to the nation. The bill was expected to be high on Parliament’s agenda when it returned from recess February 2, but there have been no reports of further action on the bill.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
February 17th, 2010
The anonymous blogger GayUganda discovered an e-paper only version of the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, which said, “Police yesterday blocked antihomosexuality activists who had planned a demonstration in Kampala in support of the antigays Bill.” The rest of the article reported on Monday’s Jinja demonstration.
It appears in the Monitor’s report that when police yesterday “blocked” the Kampala demonstration, they are probably referring to an announced meeting that was to have taken place Tuesday with Pentecostal pastor Martin Ssempa, an ardent supporter of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. That proposed bill would impose the death penalty on LGBT people under certain circumstances, and mandate life imprisonment for the rest.
Gay Uganda reconstructs a timeline and suspects that this means that Ssempa is “going rogue.” The real question is whether Ssempa will run afoul with Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, who controls more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament and is accustomed to breaking up opposition rallies, barring political figures from the airwaves, and shutting down radio stations he doesn’t like. Is Ssempa really going rogue, or is he simply acting out his part in a larger play of political gamesmanship? That’s the riddle we’re all trying to figure out.
Update: AFP reports that the Jinja rally took place after Ssempa obtained police authorization. And another tea leaf sinks to the bottom of the cup.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
February 16th, 2010
Admiral Mullen went to Jordan expecting troops in the field to have concerns over his decision to move in the direction of repealing the military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. He didn’t find any. (McClatchy)
Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was nearing the end of a 25-minute question and answer session with troops serving here when he raised a topic of his own: “No one’s asked me about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,'” he said.
As it turned out, none of the two dozen or so men or women who met with Mullen at Marine House in the Jordanian capital Tuesday had any questions on the 17-year-old policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military — or Mullen’s public advocacy of its repeal.
It seems that the soldiers had already moved on.
At Tuesday’s session, which included not only Marines, but members of the Army and the Air Force, both male and female service members explained why they were nonplussed by the issue: They’d already served with gays and lesbians, they accepted that some kind of change was imminent, and, they said, the nation was too engulfed in two wars for a prolonged debate about it.
February 16th, 2010
I didn’t like the whole “kill the gay Ugandan scouts” meme, and felt the need to set the record straight. But I have to admit that it appears to have gotten the attention of the world scouting headquarters in Geneva, according to a press release Peter Tatchell sent to BTB:
“The world scout headquarters in Geneva has written to the Chief Scout and the Chief Commissioner of the Uganda Scout Association concerning the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the sponsorship of this Bill by the Chairman of the Uganda Scout Board, David Bahati MP,” reports LGBT human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell of OutRage!
“This swift response came just hours after protests against Mr Bahati to the Scout Association UK by the London-based LGBT human rights group OutRage!.
“OutRage! is urging the disaffiliation of the Ugandan scout organisation from the world scouting movement, as a way of adding further pressure on the Ugandan government to drop the Bill.
“Our request for disaffiliation was immediately forwarded by the Scout Association UK to the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM) in Geneva.
“OutRage!\’s actions are an attempt to open up a new front in the campaign against the Bill and to graphically expose the ramification\’s of the proposed legislation on youth and civic organisations in Uganda (which has received little coverage so far).
“By highlighting the particular threat to LGBT scout members, we have not intended to detract in any way from the wider issues and consequences of Mr Bahati\’s draconian legislation.
“LGBT scouts and scout leaders are, of course, only one section of the Ugandan LGBT community. All Ugandan LGBTs are at risk if this Bill becomes law. We are concerned about the danger to them all – and the threat to their straight families, friends, supporters and allies,” said Mr Tatchell.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
February 16th, 2010
As we noted on the 7th, the Military Times (of which the Air Force Times is a part), has conducted their annual polling about the attitudes or its readership on the issue of open service by gay men and women. While the readership of this publication is conservative and not representative of military personnel at large, trends between years are interesting, as are demographic breakouts.
Our presentation was initial analysis of raw data and we did not delve deeply into the subgroups in the survey. The Air Force Times has released an article which adds additional texture to the limited picture that this non-representative poll presents.
Service members\’ responses were similar when separated by age or rank. The Military Times survey showed opposition to open service was slightly lower among the junior enlisted paygrades of E-1 through E-4 — whose ranks account for nearly half of the armed forces — as well as among racial minorities.
But the difference in responses by gender were stark — more than twice as many women as men (55 percent to 27 percent) support allowing gays to serve openly.
The survey showed noticeable differences by service as well. Marines were the most likely to oppose open service by gays, according to the Military Times survey, with 64 percent holding that view, compared with 52 percent of soldiers, 48 percent of airmen and 45 percent of sailors.
The Times also spoke with personnel to see what concerns they had. Perhaps the most telling was that those who expressed support for repealing the policy has personal experiences in which they knew a gay soldier who served a function that was essential to their task.
Robinson\’s support for repeal goes back to his days as a lieutenant, when he was part of a 12-member team manning an observation post in Macedonia in 1996. They were out on the edge, self-sustaining, with resupply every three weeks. So they cooked their own meals.
But only one troop, a sergeant, could cook — and he was part of the patrol rotation. “We wanted that guy to be the cooking guy, and I got with my sergeant and I said, ‘What do you say we make old Sgt. X kind of the permanent cook?\'” Robinson said. “So he doesn\’t have to go on patrol, and when we come back, we eat well. And everybody was like, yeah, why didn\’t we think of this three months ago?”
The sergeant\’s cooking skills, however, were not the only thing that made him stand out in the minds of his teammates.
“We thought this guy was homosexual” because of the way he carried himself, Robinson said.
“Everybody kind of thought it, but nobody ever really talked about it. But I asked myself, as a lieutenant, ‘What would I think if he told me he was gay?\’ This was before people were talking about this openly in the military. This was a tank battalion.
“And I thought I\’d probably be uncomfortable with it for a minute, and then I\’d be like, oh, yeah, OK.”
He said it was a nonissue with everyone else in the unit as well because the bottom line was that “he was an effective soldier.”
February 16th, 2010
That’s what UK LGBT Activist Peter Tatchell said:
“The leader of the scout movement in Uganda is demanding the execution of all scouts and scout leaders who commit repeated homosexual acts,” reports human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell of OutRage!.
“Chief of the Scout Board of Uganda, David Bahati, is proposing that all serial homosexual offenders, including scouts and scout leaders, should be hanged – even children.
“Mr Bahati is a Ugandan MP. His Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which is currently before the Ugandan Parliament, stipulates the death penalty for repeat same-sex relations and life imprisonment for all other homosexual acts, even for mere kissing, touching or caressing.
“Scout leaders who fail to report gay scouts to the police will face three years in jail. Any scout leader who provides supportive advice to a gay scout will be jailed for five to seven years.
“This Bill is an expression of prejudice, intolerance, discrimination and violence, contrary to scout principles,” said Mr Tatchell.
That appeared on the Gays Without Borders website. I’ve been badly burned by them before and have learned that this is not a trustworthy source. This story is nevertheless starting to make the rounds on the web.
Uganda's top scout: MP David Bahati is honored during an East African scouting conference in Kampala. (Click to enlarge)
Since the information that Bahati is the head of Uganda’s Boy Scout movement appears to have come from BTB, I feel a special responsibility to correct the record. Last December, we received a tip from an anonymous reader in Kampala along with several scans of a newspaper clippings, including one identifying MP David Bahata as chairman of the Uganda Scouts Board. Since that was sent to us exclusively by someone who does not have a web site himself and this article did not appear online, I’m quite confident that this is where Tatchell learned of Bahati’s role in Uganda’s scounting movement. We were the only major website to report this and we are the ones who first posted this photo.
Now, it’s true that his proposed bill would impose the death penalty on anyone who engages in sex with someone of the same gender under the age of 18, who are HIV-positive (disclosed and consensual or not), who is a “repeat offender” (so broadly defined as to include anyone who has had a relationship with more than one person, or who had sex with the same person more than once), or who had sex with a disabled person (consensual or not).
So, by this accounting it would appear that under certain circumstances, Boy Scouts could be convicted and hanged for “aggravated homosexuality” if they have sex with someone of the same gender and approximately the same age (under 18) — and if Uganda’s death penalty law allows for hanging people under the age of 18. So far, I have not been able to determine whether Ugandan law permits this. But more specifically, I can find no reports anywhere that Bahati is specifically “demanding the execution of all scouts and scout leaders who commit repeated homosexual acts.”
Focusing on Boy Scouts, while a nice trick, misses the larger point. This bill would impose the death penalty on Boy Scouts, altar boys, choir girls, soccer players, pastors, members of Parliament, chiefs, cooks and bottle-washers — everyone who falls into its trap. And it would impose criminal penalties to anyone else, gay or straight, who would help them in any way or fail to report them to police. The scope and breadth of this bill is beyond breathtaking. It’s almost impossible to exaggerate the depth of evil behind this bill. But it is easy to pretend the bill says something that it doesn’t say, whether someone opposes the bill or supports it.
With all due respect to Mr. Tatchell, who has put his own health and safety on the line in Russia, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere around the world on behalf of LGBT people everywhere — and he is due all the respect that bravery warrents — this trivial sideshow distracts from the larger point. David Bahati did not call for the execution of gay Boy Scouts in his capacity as chair of Uganda Scouts Board. He called for the execution of almost all gays in his capacity as a member of Parliament for the ruling party which hold more than two-thirds of all the seats in Uganda’s legislature. And all of this in what is effectively a one-party state, in which real power rests in the hands of President Yoweri Museveni. We must never forget that it is Museveni, who easily blocks opposition political rallys and shuts down radio stations he doesn’t like, who can stop this bill with a wave of a finger.
Since Tatchell’s remarks made the rounds, I am now happy to see that he has issued a clarification:
(Bahati’s) Anti-Homosexuality Bill does not, of course, specifically cite or single out LGBT scouts or scout leaders. But, like other LGBT Ugandans, scout members who commit repeat homosexual acts will be liable for execution – if Bahati’s is Bill is passed. The Bill does not specify from what age the death penalty will apply. I am told that it could apply to young LGBT people under 18. Does anyone know what the age of criminal responsibility is in Uganda? Is there any Ugandan law specifying the minimum age at which a person can be executed? Good news: The World Organisation of the Scout Movement is, as a result of OutRage!’s representations, considering action against the scout movement in Uganda.”
Learning the World Organization of the Scout Movement’s position would be very useful, as would discovering whether Ugandan law actually allows the execution of those under the age of 18. That’s a question I’ve been trying to discover the answer to myself.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
February 16th, 2010
The legalization of same-sex marriage in Portugal has now passed its second hurdle. (Vancouver Sun)
Portuguese lawmakers Thursday definitively adopted legislation legalising homosexual marriage, although President Anibal Cavaco Silva, a practising Roman Catholic, must give final approval.
The bill will now go to President Anibal Cavaco Silva for signature. It is expected that if he vetoes the bill, there will be an override.
February 16th, 2010
Those who are desperately looking for an excuse to continue supporting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the anti-gay military policy, are trying to downplay the efforts of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense as being an anomaly. They remind the public that the call for the repeal of a ban on open gay service men and women is their “individual opinion” and act as though it is non-representative.
But Admiral Mullen is not the only person to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Robert Gates is not our first Secretary of Defense. Nor are they the first to weigh in on this issue.
Not all such military leaders have public statements. And some have positions that can only be deduced from indirect statements. But here is what I’ve found:
Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Secretaries of Defense
It would appear that Mullen and Gates are closer to the rule than to the exception.
February 16th, 2010
Southern African bishops of the Anglican Communion met in Swaziland February 8-10 to discuss, among other things, Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The resulting statement forcefully denounces the bill, calling it “a gross violation of human rights,” and deplores “the violent language used against the gay community across Sub-Saharan Africa.” This marks a significant statement of opposition by religious leaders within Africa.
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