By Kelly Jean Cogswell
Activists just won same-sex marriage in the megalopolis of Mexico City, giving equal rights to a couple of million lesbians and gay men. When the bill passed 39-20, supporters reportedly yelled, "Yes, we could! Yes, we could!"
It seems almost like a taunt considering U.S. queers that voted for Obama and the audacity of hope are stuck with mendacity and, "Oh no. Not at all the right time. Couldn't possibly. Nope." We get stonewalled even when issues don't require congressional votes or signatures.
Just in the last couple of months, Obama remained silent when LGBT activists fought to preserve same-sex marriage in New Hampshire. He ignored a proposed bill in Uganda giving the death penalty to queers until the Miami Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen had already spoken out, and even the homophobe Rick Warren had condemned the measure.
We should have known what was coming. He campaigned with the same anti-gay preachers as Bush during Democratic primaries, and then installed Warren at his inauguration, despite the reverend's years of destroying AIDS programs in Africa by preaching abstinence and hatred of lesbians and gay men.
Almost first thing, Obama set up his Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office instead of rescinding Bush's executive order allowing discrimination in faith-based programs which meant LGBT people could be summarily fired, and clearly not hired.
In February, when two different rulings extended the federal benefits of marriage to two gay couples, and hinted at huge weaknesses in the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama missed the chance to repeal the act as an unjust denial of rights to gay citizens. Instead, his people aggressively defended DOMA in June, using Bush administration arguments claiming gay marriage was bad for the federal budget, and encouraged incest and the marriage of underage children.
In a general attack on civil liberties, Obama's Justice Department also used Bush arguments in cases of torture, rendition, and spying. The first case was as early as last February, and in October, pressed to release a report on the "suicides" in Guantanamo, the administration went almost beyond Bush, according to The Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar, "insisting that there is no constitutional right to humane treatment by U.S. authorities outside the United States, and that victims of torture and abuse and their survivors have no right to compensation or even an acknowledgment of what occurred."
That's a year under Obama. Disenchanted American queers looking for leadership should forget the federal level and look to the states, or even abroad, for models of activism and signs of hope. Because we have had bright spots this year.
The phenomenal Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas, struck a blow against homophobia in sports last week by coming out at the age of thirty-five. In rugby, he's as much a legend as Derek Jeter in baseball, but with more influence since rugby is far more popular worldwide.
Likewise, this week's victory for same-sex marriage in Mexico City has a huge impact. Since the population of Greater Mexico City includes almost 21 million people, a stroke of a pen gives civil rights to a couple million queers.
Lesbian and gay couples in Colombia saw progress earlier in the year when a series of High Court rulings extended the rights of civil unions, giving same-sex partners almost the same benefits as heterosexuals, notably excluding those related to adoption.
Just two weeks ago, Houston, Texas became the largest city in the U.S. to elect an openly gay candidate. Annise Parker, running on a pro-neighborhood, tough on crime platform, found herself attacked as a dyke by her African American opponent Gene Locke who tried to create an unholy alliance of homophobic black pastors and white evangelical Christians. He failed, in part, because turnout was light, and strong support from the African American community didn't materialize. I'd like to think it was because his hateful message wasn't persuasive, though it may also have been because voters don't like the rain.
In November, it was nice to see Klaus Wowereit, a gay mayor of a much larger city, Berlin, get almost as much attention as German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the celebrations for the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mayor since 2001, he's rumored to have his eye on higher things.
He wouldn't be the first gay head of state. In January, that trail was blazed when open lesbian Johanna Sigurdardottir, Social Affairs Minister, was asked to serve as interim Prime Minister of Iceland after the coalition of the conservative government collapsed. A few months later she was officially made Prime Minister when her party won the election.
And in Iran, where there are neither entirely free elections nor open lesbians, and gay men are executed even in the midst of civil turmoil, we disillusioned Americans have the example of LGBT activists at work in university campuses, daring to demand their human rights alongside everyone else as Iranians push for change. That is audacity. That is hope.
Showing posts with label warren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warren. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Obama's First Gift to Africa: Rick Warren
By Kelly Jean Cogswell
If you want to foster AIDS, and kill queers in Africa, Rick Warren's the man for you. While Warren's characterization of queers (and Jews and Muslims) as godless perverts fuel bigotry in the U.S., the real effects of inviting Warren to preside over Obama's inauguration will be felt in sub-Saharan Africa.
He has missions all over the place, and he's rolling in dough and influence built on the best P.R. campaign I've ever seen. He hobnobs with Bono and Melissa Etheridge while liberal journalists regurgitate his press releases, crowning him a moderate evangelical and touting his AIDS campaign which is little but a thinly veiled mask for his proselytizing work. The last thing he needs is more power.
In case you actually care, his campaign for AIDS prevention, in a region decimated by the disease, sneers at condoms, needle exchange, and sex education. He claims all those efforts merely slow the spread of AIDS when his plan can stop it flat. The secret -- abstinence before marriage, religious conversion, and not included on his website, that perennial favorite, queer-baiting.
One of his closest allies in Uganda in his so-called fight against AIDS is Martin Ssempa, an evangelical preacher who blames queers for the disease, makes a show of burning condoms, and this spring organized a rally with the theme, "A Call for Action on Behalf of the Victims of Homosexuality" where he spent most of his time railing against queers.
As far as treatment goes, Ssempsa offers faith healing in his Pentecostal services if only victims believe enough, and make a nice donation. In general, the bulk of his anti-AIDS activism seems to be legal battles to ensure that homosexuality remains illegal and the media continues to portray queers as sexual predators.
He's getting it done. Homosexuality is still illegal, and queers face increasing harassment and violence from the government to their next door neighbors. Newspapers sometimes print lists of people suspected of being lesbian or gay, opening them up to job loss, and physical violence. Several activists are arrested every year.
Though a Ugandan judge recently ruled in favor of LGBT activists protesting an illegal raid in 2005, it's more likely you'll get government officials like Deputy Attorney General Fred Ruhinde and Minister of Ethics and Integrity Nsaba Butoro who in 2007 actually joined a coalition of conservative Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Bahai congregations, "the Interfaith Coalition Against Homosexuality" calling for the arrest, deportation, and even murder of gays and lesbians.
And where's the sanctified Rick Warren in this delightful hate fest? Where's the man The New Yorker's Hendrik Herzberg complacently characterized as "much, much less of a jerk than, say, Pat Robertson or James Dobson" and whose inclusion in the inauguration he actually applauded as "another of Obama's brilliant chess moves"?
Well... when the Ugandan Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi announced his aim to "purify" the Anglican Church by driving out gay and lesbian Christians and their supporters, Warren got right on board. When they announced their boycott of the global Anglican conference in March last year, he told the press, "The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda on the boycott." Warren further declared that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all."
Terrible for queers, Warren and his pals are almost worse for AIDS. Uganda's HIV infection rate, which had dipped from its height in 1986, has been climbing back up in recent times. The problem? Advocates like Warren and Ssempa dumping sex education and condom promotion in favor of abstinence-only programs which study after study show actually increase risky sex.
Homophobia and HIV/AIDS go together in Nigeria, too, where thanks to people like Rick Warren, UNAIDS estimate that only 18 percent of women and 21 percent of men between the ages of 15 and 24 correctly identify ways to prevent HIV. After South Africa, Nigeria has the second largest number of people living with HIV in Africa.
The most vulnerable of all are gay men. Warren has supported figures like the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, who in 2006 and 2007 campaigned ferociously for anti-gay legislation which stipulated five years' imprisonment to anyone who had anything to do with a same-sex marriage ceremony, participated in gay organizing, or frankly have anything to do with anything gay of any kind "directly or indirectly in public and in private."
And if hate-mongering is a habit, in 2005, Akinola was implicated in the massacre of more than 650 Muslims by a Christian mob tied to the Christian Association of Nigeria. He was president of the group at the time. For all this, Akinola earned praise from Warren in an April 2006 Time Magazine article lionizing him as a defender of the faith, a "Nelson Mandela", and "a model for Christians around the world."
Where's a lightning bolt when you need one?
If you want to foster AIDS, and kill queers in Africa, Rick Warren's the man for you. While Warren's characterization of queers (and Jews and Muslims) as godless perverts fuel bigotry in the U.S., the real effects of inviting Warren to preside over Obama's inauguration will be felt in sub-Saharan Africa.
He has missions all over the place, and he's rolling in dough and influence built on the best P.R. campaign I've ever seen. He hobnobs with Bono and Melissa Etheridge while liberal journalists regurgitate his press releases, crowning him a moderate evangelical and touting his AIDS campaign which is little but a thinly veiled mask for his proselytizing work. The last thing he needs is more power.
In case you actually care, his campaign for AIDS prevention, in a region decimated by the disease, sneers at condoms, needle exchange, and sex education. He claims all those efforts merely slow the spread of AIDS when his plan can stop it flat. The secret -- abstinence before marriage, religious conversion, and not included on his website, that perennial favorite, queer-baiting.
One of his closest allies in Uganda in his so-called fight against AIDS is Martin Ssempa, an evangelical preacher who blames queers for the disease, makes a show of burning condoms, and this spring organized a rally with the theme, "A Call for Action on Behalf of the Victims of Homosexuality" where he spent most of his time railing against queers.
As far as treatment goes, Ssempsa offers faith healing in his Pentecostal services if only victims believe enough, and make a nice donation. In general, the bulk of his anti-AIDS activism seems to be legal battles to ensure that homosexuality remains illegal and the media continues to portray queers as sexual predators.
He's getting it done. Homosexuality is still illegal, and queers face increasing harassment and violence from the government to their next door neighbors. Newspapers sometimes print lists of people suspected of being lesbian or gay, opening them up to job loss, and physical violence. Several activists are arrested every year.
Though a Ugandan judge recently ruled in favor of LGBT activists protesting an illegal raid in 2005, it's more likely you'll get government officials like Deputy Attorney General Fred Ruhinde and Minister of Ethics and Integrity Nsaba Butoro who in 2007 actually joined a coalition of conservative Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Bahai congregations, "the Interfaith Coalition Against Homosexuality" calling for the arrest, deportation, and even murder of gays and lesbians.
And where's the sanctified Rick Warren in this delightful hate fest? Where's the man The New Yorker's Hendrik Herzberg complacently characterized as "much, much less of a jerk than, say, Pat Robertson or James Dobson" and whose inclusion in the inauguration he actually applauded as "another of Obama's brilliant chess moves"?
Well... when the Ugandan Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi announced his aim to "purify" the Anglican Church by driving out gay and lesbian Christians and their supporters, Warren got right on board. When they announced their boycott of the global Anglican conference in March last year, he told the press, "The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda on the boycott." Warren further declared that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all."
Terrible for queers, Warren and his pals are almost worse for AIDS. Uganda's HIV infection rate, which had dipped from its height in 1986, has been climbing back up in recent times. The problem? Advocates like Warren and Ssempa dumping sex education and condom promotion in favor of abstinence-only programs which study after study show actually increase risky sex.
Homophobia and HIV/AIDS go together in Nigeria, too, where thanks to people like Rick Warren, UNAIDS estimate that only 18 percent of women and 21 percent of men between the ages of 15 and 24 correctly identify ways to prevent HIV. After South Africa, Nigeria has the second largest number of people living with HIV in Africa.
The most vulnerable of all are gay men. Warren has supported figures like the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, who in 2006 and 2007 campaigned ferociously for anti-gay legislation which stipulated five years' imprisonment to anyone who had anything to do with a same-sex marriage ceremony, participated in gay organizing, or frankly have anything to do with anything gay of any kind "directly or indirectly in public and in private."
And if hate-mongering is a habit, in 2005, Akinola was implicated in the massacre of more than 650 Muslims by a Christian mob tied to the Christian Association of Nigeria. He was president of the group at the time. For all this, Akinola earned praise from Warren in an April 2006 Time Magazine article lionizing him as a defender of the faith, a "Nelson Mandela", and "a model for Christians around the world."
Where's a lightning bolt when you need one?
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