A celebration of gay pride in Riga, Latvia erupted in total chaos when homophobic fascists and anti-gay right wing extremists disrupted the parade, assaulted an openly gay pastor and surrounded a hotel trapping a dozen pride leaders for hours until being "rescued" by the government. (PageOneQ)
Reports from the Pride organizers indicate that police protection was nonexistant with little attempt to control the swelling crowds or protect the victims of the attacks. As in Russia, the fascists were joined in their hateful violence by a multitude of religious people. And as in Poland and Russia, the government banned the parade in open defiance of the human rights requirements of the European Union.
Eastern Europe is headed for a meltdown on gay civil rights.
In another story, the Gay WorldPride festival parade scheduled to be held in Jerusalem has been cancelled due to the looming all out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The organizers had to cancel because there aren't enough soldiers available to protect the marchers.
WorldPride proved to be the one thing in the universe capable of drawing together regional Jewish, Muslim and Christian flavored homo-bigots who insisted the parade be cancelled and threatened violence if it was not. What a nice display of ecumenism!
Other WorldPride activities will go on as scheduled including a film festival and interfaith worship service.
These are the kind of stories that should make every queer in Pittsburgh rethink our attitudes about our own Pride Parade. While we worry about parking, sun screen and grabbing the swag, our brothers and sisters throughout the world are pelted with rocks and physically assaulted. Our police officers protect us from crazy drivers and idiots who bring beer into the festival. Eastern European police seem to protect the fascists and women using their Bibles to smack down homosexuals. We are pursuing full civil rights while our counterparts in Nigeria struggle for the right to even exist.
We must be on to something if we are drawing such wrath around the world from our avowed enemies. And we here in Pittsburgh should take our existing civil liberties a bit more seriously rather than be lulled into a sense of complacency by the seeming peacefulness of our celebrations. We owe that to queers in Russian, Poland, Nigeria, Israel and Latvia ... we owe it to ourselves.
But, you say, PrideFest isn't until June. True, but the most important election of 2006 and absolutely the biggest electoral battle for gay civil rights takes place right here in Pennsylvania.
You remember James Loney. He was a Christian aid worker who was held hostage in Iraq by insurgents and freed by Coalition forces. He is from Canada. And he's gay. A fact his family and partner kept quiet for fear for his safety while imprisoned.
So he's freed by the troops and returned to Canada where his partner can end what could only be hellacious agony born in solitude without the "comfort" other spouses can seek from public support.
And he finds that his summer camp program has been de-funded by the Canadian Knights of Columbus b/c the curriculum might promote homosexuality to kids according to Loney.
The good Knights deny this was their agenda.
In an interview with the Toronto Star KC official Jack Clancey said Loney's allegations were "out of left field."
"We closed down that leadership camp because we needed to review the way we were going and the curriculum that we were teaching," Clancey told the Star
But of course. The timing, and the fact that the Knights support anti-gay marriage amendments EVERYWHERE has nothing to do with it. Its just business.
Just Catholic bigotry as usual.
However, some in the LGBTQ community aren't that thrilled with Loney. Particularly as he was engaged in "missionary" work in the first place. From the UK-Ireland edition of gay.com comes this perspective:
While Loney has obviously suffered trauma at the hands of his kidnappers, it's not hard to question his presence in Iraq, preaching Christianity on behalf of an unashamedly homophobic organization.
Aside from putting his own life at risk, Loney undoubtedly endangered the lives of beleaguered US soldiers, already overworked with insurgencies and bomb threats.
It?s also highly unlikely that war-torn Iraqi citizens are in need of God-bothering missionaries attempting to convert them as gore and missiles rain from the sky.
Loney seems to have learned little form the experience as he?s considering the possibility of joining a Christian Peacemakers Team project in Colombia or the Palestinian territory next year.
He acknowledged his experience in Iraq could make it a lot more difficult, but seems oblivious to the inherent selfishness of such an act.
During an early June interview with Al-Jazeera, Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, a leading Muslim scholar, emphasized that homosexuals are perverts who deserve punishment. In his mind, that's not open to debate.
He does concede, however, that there is debate over the best method to murder homosexuals:
The same punishment as any sexual pervert - the same as the fornicator.
The schools of thought disagree about the punishment. Some say they should be punished like fornicators, and then we distinguish between married and unmarried men, and between married and unmarried women. Some say both should be punished the same way. Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement.
The important thing is to treat this act as a crime.
Ah. Democracy is action? This is interesting:
Qaradawi is controversial: among Muslims he is widely considered a moderate conservative, while many Western critics regard him as dangerously radical or as a supporter of violence. Some Muslim opponents see him as lax and influenced by Western ideas.
So tossing and burning are the moderate, Western influenced suggestions?
SheikAl-Qaradhawi attributes the electoral (or perhaps political) victories of George Bush to American perversion.
Kerry, who ran against Bush, was supported by homosexuals and nudists. But it was Bush who won [the elections], because he is Christian, right-wing, tenacious, and unyielding. In other words, the religious overcame the perverted. So we cannot blame all Americans and Westerners.
But unfortunately, because the Westerners - Americans and others - want to flatter these people on account of the elections, a disaster occurs. In order to succeed and win the elections, he flatters these people, rather than saying to them: No, you are sinning against yourselves, against society, and against humanity. This is forbidden. Instead of leveling with them, people flatter them to win their votes. This is the disaster that has befallen humanity.
Well, I suppose its a step forward to be linked with nudists instead of pedophiles and animal abusers. Still, I don't get where Bush and his religious whackos are "flattering" us -- how is amending the Constitution of the United States to make us permanent second class citizens flattery? I think its pretty consistent with telling us we are sinning against ourselves, society and humanity. Especially since they are telling us that in order to win votes ...
When I spoke with Mary Cheney on KDKA last week, I asked her what she is doing to help the homosexuals in Iraq. She acted stunned that she could do anything (ahem) and pointed out that homosexuals have bigger issues to worry about than gay rights.
Like worrying about tossed off a building or set on fire?
Activists and politicians are planning to march through Warsaw today (Saturday) as a show of solidarity for homosexuals throughout Eastern Europe. 365gay.com reports that gays are under increasing pressure from the left and right in Poland where communists and Catholics alike are exerting tremendous societal pressure to suppress homosexual activism.
Gay rights groups say they've suffered even more of a setback since the election victory last fall of Law and Justice, a conservative party whose leaders have openly denounced homosexuality. A new coalition formed last month has also raised concerns because it includes a right-wing party, League of Polish Families, with a youth wing that has attacked gay pride parades in Poland in recent years.
The group, All-Polish Youth, said Thursday it was canceling plans to rally this Saturday in hopes of preventing a "physical confrontation with leftist fundamentalists."
A member of the League, Wojciech Wierzejski, also caused a stir in past weeks for asking the interior and justice ministers to investigate gay rights groups to determine whether pedophiles and drug dealers were financing them.
Human rights monitors indicate that this latest in a series of clashes between homosexuals and those who would sanction discrimination is a reflection of a larger clash between the East and West.
Organizers expect a large showing of support from activists and politicians throughout Europe.
Saturday's march is expected to draw supporters from throughout Europe, including lawmakers from Germany and Sweden who are mobilizing in reaction to recent violence against gays in the region. A week earlier in Bucharest, Romania, passers-by threw plastic bottles and shouted anti-gay slogans at a gay rights demonstration.
During a march in Moscow on May 27, gay rights activists were pummeled by right-wing protesters and detained by police when they rallied in defiance of a city ban. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said gay parades "may be acceptable for some kind of progressive, in some sense, countries in the West, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, for Russia."
Several politicians from throughout Europe are also mobilizing to support gay rights. Members of Germany's Greens party plan to travel to Warsaw to take part in the march, including Volker Beck, who was beaten by nationalist youths during the Moscow rally, as well as Renate Kuenast and Claudia Roth.
The Campaign Against Homophobia said lawmakers from Sweden, France and the Netherlands would also attend in a sign of solidarity.
"This isn't just about gays and lesbians anymore," Biedron, the leader, said in an interview. "This march will be a big demonstration against fundamentalism and the violation of human rights."
These Russian gays are quite an intense bunch. After facing brutality at the hands of the skinheads, the Russian Orthodox faithful and the police, they plan to rally again next year.
"The 27th of May has been for us so far an anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1993 in Russia. But the gay parade in 2006 in Moscow and the situation in which it was held has given much more weight to this date," Nikolay Alexeyev told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.
Alexeyev, who was one of about 120 gays detained by police Saturday when they attempted to hold a pride parade after Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov refused to issue them a parade permit.
Members of an extremist national group and Russian Orthodox church members attacked the marchers. At one point a gas canister was tossed at a group of gays.
So the gays remain courageous under fire while the religious faithful turn violent? How is this a sign of Russian moral superiority a la Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov?
Shows what he knows. Here in America our religious thugs don't need to team up with skinheads b/c they are already in bed with the political powers that be.
As promised, gay activists converged on Moscow to hold the capitol's first gay pride rally in spite of the event being denied a permit and denounced by religious and political leaders throughout Russia.
In preparation for the rally, over 1000 police in riot gear met the activists in Red Square along with hundreds of anti-gay protestors. In response, police arrested over 120 of the gay activists as they attempted to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
What the police didn't do is protect the peaceful activitsts from the hate-fueled violence of the counterprotestors.
From Pink News
Volker Beck, a Green member of the German parliament was attacked by 20 religious protesters and punched in the face whilst he was giving a television interview.
?There was no aggression from our side, we were simply there,? Herr Beck told the DPA press agency. ?It is unacceptable that the police offer no protection to gays on the streets.?
Around 100 religious and fascist extremists dressed in black kicked and punched gay activists. ?Moscow is not Sodom!? shouted a group of Russian women clutching religious icons.
"We are Russians. We are Orthodox. These soldiers died so we could live like Russians, not so these people could come here and tell us what to do," one Christian protester told Reuters.
Yet another fine example of the damage of the hate-rhetoric flowly so freely from pulpits around the world. I wonder how long it will be until Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola teams up with the skinheads to beat down the homos?
UPDATE: While this story has not caught the attention of the mainstream media (surprise!), you can follow it through the Washington Blade vis a vis live coverage from Scott Long, Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights program for Human Rights Watch
At the beginning of the month, we reported on ties between Russian skinheads, the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian Muslims in the Russian ant-gay movement. Police had to hold back protestors from the three groups trying to disrupt a gay event at a local nightclub. Meanwhile, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov refused to issue a permit for a gay pride march, scheduled for this Saturday.
Now a Moscow court has upheld Luzhkov's decision. And Luzhkov freely acknowledges that the real reason Moscow is the only major world capitol without a pride parade is for morality:
?I believe that such a parade is inadmissible in our country above all for moral considerations. People should not make public their deviations," he said
Well, that's a nifty bit of advice.
Not content to just verbally demonize homosexuals, Muscovites have taken anti-gay hatred to a level that must be giving Fred Phelps multiple orgasms.
Organizers of a weekend LGBT conference say they intend to march on Saturday despite the ruling. The conference has attracted gay leadership from throughout Europe.
Russian Patriarch Alexy II has denounced the planned festival and parade, and the leader of Russia's Muslims has called for a "violent mass protest" if gay leaders go ahead with Pride celebrations.
This is an excellent moment to point out that the Christian faction appears to be less violent than the Muslims, a fact that I'm sure many of our wonderful wingnuts here in the US would be quick to exploit. That's utter bullshit. The Patriarch should be denouncing those who promote VIOLENT protest, not those who want to conduct a march. But he doesn't. Because he is just as much a part of the anti-gay violence as those who are more open about it. Welcome to the slippery slope of religious based hatred. Watch your mitre on the way down.
Just for good measure, a group of extreme nationalists attacked an LGBT conference on Friday (remember the time zone difference). They invaded a speech given by Oscar Wilde's grandson, pelted him with eggs and sprayed an unidentified gas in the room. There were no reported injuries. And the conference resumed.
From Raw Story comes news that Iraqi police accused a 14 year old child of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. His punishment was to be dragged from his family's home and shot more than 4 times.
The child's name is Ahmed Khalil.
According to international lgbt rights group OutRage! Ahmed, like too many children in our world, was prostituting himself for money to help his impoverished family.
OutRage reports that the police have been infiltrated by the Shia paramilitary Badr Corps which has been violently enforcing Sharia law. The Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issed a fatwa against homosexuals.
Ahmed was being sexually exploited by adult men in his community. To feed his family. And, so, he was executed.
Local Iraqi gay activists are working to rescue children forced by poverty into selling their bodies and documenting the increase in homophobic executions.
From 365gay.com, we find this morning that marchers in a Polish gay tolerance parade (Equality Days) were attacked by youth "counterprotestors" (thugs). Dozens of the parade's 1,000 marchers were injured. Media sources indicate that there is a link between this particular group of thugs and Polish President Lech Kaczynski who has a history of oppressing gays.
The Polish government is under warning from the EU that it may lose its voting rights if it continues to oppose gay rights.
A celebration of gay pride in Riga, Latvia erupted in total chaos when homophobic fascists and anti-gay right wing extremists disrupted the parade, assaulted an openly gay pastor and surrounded a hotel trapping a dozen pride leaders for hours until being "rescued" by the government. (PageOneQ)
During an early June 
These Russian gays are quite an intense bunch. After facing brutality at the hands of the skinheads, the Russian Orthodox faithful and the police, they plan to rally again next year. 
