Multi-national News & Report 2005-06

Queer Peace International Initiative and Website Launch Queer Peace International is a consortium of gay, lesbian, trans-identified, questioning and straight allies identifying as Queer which aims to build peace and reconciliation through Queer communities around the world.

QPI is based in Toronto, Canada and represents a network of non-political organizations in 25 countries. QPI’s activities include consolidating efforts to address relevant concerns and issues addressing Queer citizens at international and world forums.

QPI will work with its international partners in facilitating fact-seeking and skills-building development missions; and acting as a global networking agent to further create positive and sustainable change for all.

Queer Peace International is pleased to announce the launch of its new website <www.queerpeace.org> which will further actualize international efforts for peace-building and raising the standards of living conditions for LGBT people across the globe.

To join or learn more about QPI, please visit our website or contact Robert Mizzi, Executive Director.

Robert Mizzi Executive Coordinator
Queer Peace International
297 Springbank Drive
London, Ontario Canada N6J 1G4
Robert@queerpeace.org www.queerpeace.org

Washington Blade
http://www.washblade.com/2005/7-1/news/national/unite.cfm

July 1, 2005

2
Proposed bill in U.S. Senate hopes to unite gay couples split by nationality--Measure would allow U.S. citizens to sponsor partners; Passage unlikely.

by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Joanne, an illegal immigrant from Poland, fell in love with an American woman in 2003 when she was 21. When her family found out she was a lesbian, they threatened to have her deported.

The threat was made more frightening because American citizens and permanent residents cannot sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration benefits the way that straight married couples can. The Defense of Marriage Act prohibits gay couples from receiving the federal benefits of marriage, including immigration rights, even if they are legally married in Massachusetts, Canada or elsewhere.

But Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) recently introduced the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), formerly the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, to allow same-sex "permanent partners" to stay together.
Leahy and Nadler were not available for comment this week.

The bill would create the new "permanent partner" category for immigration purposes only. Same-sex couples would be subject to the same evaluations that straight couples go through to verify authenticity of a relationship.

The current immigration restrictions have forced many "bi-national" gay couples - where the partners are from different countries - to move outside the United States to one of the 16 countries that provide immigration benefits for same-sex couples.

Gay citizens of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the United Kingdom can sponsor their same-sex partner for citizenship.

But Joanne and her partner want to stay in the United States. After her family's threat, they moved together to California, then back to New York, where they settled in Harlem. Joanne spoke to the Blade on the condition that her real name not be used.Living in the shadows

Joanne's status puts her at risk, like so many illegal immigrants, of exploitation and limited employment options. Employers won't sponsor her because she doesn't have enough years of training or education, she said. When Joanne worked at a laundromat in New York for $6 an hour, her boss withheld a week's pay when she told him she was quitting. She couldn't protest because of the familiar threat of deportation. " I basically don't exist in this country," she said.

For lower-income people like Joanne, the immigration restrictions on gays hit hardest, according to Adam Francoeur, program coordinator for Immigration Equality, a group that advocates on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered immigrants.
There are two ways to access the immigration system, through family or employment, he said. The family option is largely unavailable to same-sex couples, so that leaves them with employment, which carries training and education requirements, Francoeur explained.
" An immigration system without the family unification option can extremely favor higher income individuals," he said.

Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality, said the current laws rip families apart for no reason other than their sexual orientation. In fact, she said, having an American partner can be reason to deny a visa because foreign visitors have to show they do not intend to stay in the U.S. permanently. " It has a devastating impact on families," she said.

The bill's chances of passage are unlikely, its supporters say. It has been introduced every year since 2000 and has never come to a vote, although Francoeur said it enjoys bipartisan support.

Those who oppose the bill often say it is a backdoor to gay marriage, he said. Focus on the Family, a conservative group that usually opposes any pro-gay bills, was not available for comment.

Others have criticized the measure because they claim it would open the floodgates and allow too many people entry to the country, Francoeur said. There are about 36,000 bi-national gay couples living in the U.S. according to a 2000 census, he said. Jack Martin, spokesperson for the conservative group Federation for American Immigration Reform, said his group would lean against the legislation if it increased the number of immigrants in the U.S. " Current immigration is too large, therefore any change that would have the effect of increasing immigration we would probably oppose," he said. "We haven't taken any specific position with regard to the specific bill."

'Two tough hurdles'
In today's conservative Congress, the UAFA has the double obstacle of being pro-immigrant and pro-gay. " It's a pretty anti-immigrant Congress [and] a pretty anti-LGBT Congress," Neilson said. "Two tough hurdles to overcome."

The post-9/11 crackdown on immigrants has made it harder for bi-national same-sex couples. While some laws have stayed the same on paper, student and work visas of the type many gay couples use to stay together are now the subject of much closer scrutiny, said Francoeur. Also, employers are more reticent to sponsor foreign nationals. " Extra scrutiny often leads to denial," Francoeur said. That is just what happened when Shane, a British citizen, tried to visit his partner, Jeremy, an American citizen, in Georgia. Shane spoke on the condition that the Blade not use his or his partner's real name.

Frustrated by U.S. immigration rules, Shane and Jeremy moved to Britain in 2004 where they can establish permanent residency. After a same-sex couple lives together for two years, a British citizen can sponsor his partner, Shane said. When they lived together in the U.S., Shane could only visit for 90 days at a time. " For two years, I lived as a third-class citizen," he said. "I could be taken away from [Jeremy] at any stage."

Earlier this month on Jeremy's trip to the U.S., he asked Shane to come visit him. Shane flew in to Atlanta and, to his shock, was denied entry. He was told that on a previous visit he overstayed by one day but was not provided more details, Shane said. He had the choice between being held in a detention center until a flight was available or buying a $5,000 first-class ticket home, he said. " I was searched, detained, fingerprinted, photographed, had my passport marked, and returned on the next flight back to the United Kingdom," Shane wrote in a letter to an Atlanta newspaper.

The following day, two U.S. federal marshals went to Jeremy's home, interviewed him and requested his banking and employment information, according to Shane. The next time Jeremy flew into the U.S., he was pulled into a second room and asked if he had "anti-American sentiments," Shane said.

When asked how his experiences have influenced his opinion of the U.S., he said, "I've been really careful not to bash the country because my partner is American." However, he added, "It astonishes me the way America acts like the freest country. We've struggled very hard just to stay together."

New Internationalist magazine
http://www.newint.org/

February 2006

3
Gays And Globalism: Homosexuality: Progress vs Polarization

by Jeremy Seabrook
In 2005 the Delhi High Court upheld article 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which outlaws homosexuality and any acts ‘against the order of nature’. The court stated: ‘Indian society is intolerant to the practice of homosexuality.’

There is, of course, a great difference between ‘homosexuality’ (a word coined only in 1869 by a Hungarian doctor) and same-sex relationships, which are universal and rooted in all cultures. This legacy of the Raj – rarely invoked – nevertheless remains; a signal that homosexuality is an alien concept contrary to Indian tradition, even though the practice is of great antiquity. One of the most sensitive and tangible monitors of the direction of human societies – whether they are becoming more progressive or more conservative – is their response to same-sex relationships between men.

In many countries – not all of them Western – there is a broad tendency to extend legal recognition to such relationships. Denmark was the first country to do so in 1989, followed by Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland. Britain followed suit at the end of 2005.

Much of Africa, and the Islamic world, are moving in the opposite direction.

The West makes much of its enlightenment in these matters. This is a relatively recent development. If it is widely cited as evidence of the advance of social justice in the West, it also defines us against cultures which regard homosexuality as a sin, punishable in certain states by death. The last execution for sodomy in Britain took place in 1836. It remained a capital offence until 1861. Just over a century later same-sex relationships between men over 21 were decriminalized. Until the 1950s homosexuality was branded as a ‘sexual deviation’ by mental health professionals.

In the United States the last lobotomy designed to ‘cure’ homosexuality was carried out in 1951, although aversion therapy continued into the 1960s and beyond. The American Psychiatric Association declared homosexuality no longer a medical disorder in 1973. The World Health Organization removed it from its list of mental illnesses only 15 years ago.

China persecuted gays under ‘hooliganism’ laws, which were scrapped in 1997 and in 2001 removed from its list of mental illnesses. Japan had done so in 1995, but Thailand, perhaps surprisingly, waited until 2002. While South Africa was the first country to enshrine equal rights for same-sex and heterosexual couples in its 1996 Constitution, other African states have fiercely resisted social – as against economic – liberalization.

It seems that a reaffirmation of ‘traditional’ values is a symbolic gesture against globalization and the powerlessness of many African countries to withstand it. There is a supreme irony here. While repudiating the onslaught of the second wave of globalism, the rulers of Africa use the unreformed legislation of the first wave – laws introduced by former imperial masters. Thus Zimbabwe, struggling with hunger, corruption and misgovernment, makes a stand against what Mugabe describes as ‘a Western cultural practice’. He has said: ‘I find it extremely outrageous and repugnant to my human conscience that such immoral and repulsive organizations, like those of homosexuals who offend both against the law of nature and the morals of religious beliefs espoused by our society, should have any advocates in our midst or even elsewhere in the world.’

In Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria illiberal laws are also invoked as a defence against what some see as forces of disintegration, even though common sense suggests same-sex relationships are scarcely the source of breakdown of traditional societies, which have been through the tempests of imperialism and globalization. The former President of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi, said homosexuality is ‘a scourge which runs counter to Christian teachings and African tradition’.

Nigeria is one of the most sensitive sites of conflict, since Sharia law exists in its northern Muslim states. In July 2005 a man was sentenced to death by stoning for a same-sex relationship. The sentence was suspended. In August 2005 two gay men who were facing the death penalty were bailed in the northern town of Katsina.

In Russia same-sex relationships were decriminalized in 1993. During the Soviet era these were outlawed and penalties were severe: the temptation to ‘blame’ homosexuality on a decadent capitalism proved too strong for the puritanical zealots of the Soviet state.

Brazil, too, has given de facto recognition to same-sex relationships by granting such couples the right to inherit each other’s pension and social security rights. A broader measure, tabled by Workers’ Party representative Marta Suplicy 10 years ago, remains stalled.

In the context of increasing polarization, should we regard the Indian decision as a re-assertion of a backward-looking social morality, out of keeping with the progressive temper of the age? Or is it a precursor of a new Puritanism, a re-assertion of tradition, under attack by the alien, invasive values of globalization?

The idea that ‘progressive’ views have prevailed is too optimistic. The death penalty for homosexuality or for acts ‘against the order of nature’ is still in force in Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Life imprisonment remains a possibility in Bangladesh, Uganda, Bhutan, India, Guyana, Nepal, Singapore and the Maldives.

In the West, too, liberal views have not gone uncontested. In 1992 the Vatican called homosexuality ‘an objective disorder’. In the United States about 70 million conservative Christians believe homosexuality and bisexuality are chosen preferences, that the former is unnatural and can be altered by means of prayer and ‘reparative counseling’.

In Sâo Paulo some three quarters of a million people joined the Gay Pride march in 2001, but scores of gay men are murdered every year in Brazil.

An Orthodox priest who married two men in Russia in 2002 was defrocked, and in April 2004 the MP Gennady Raskov tried to recriminalize homosexuality. The Russian People’s Party blames gay men for HIV/AIDS and ‘the disintegration of the traditional family’.

In Britain the homophobic murders in 2005 of David Morley and Jody Dobrowski received wide publicity, as did the murder of the 85-year-old great-grandson of the poet Tennyson.

It is generally assumed that the Islamic world has the greatest detestation of homosexuality. This is not the whole truth. Indonesia has no legislation against same-sex relationships, which have always been tolerated. In Bangladesh Article 377 remains but is almost never used.

However, in Saudi Arabia executions for homosexuality are frequent, while in Moshhad, north-east Iran, at the end of July 2005 two teenagers were hanged for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality. One was 18, the other a minor. They had been held for 14 months in jail and were given 228 lashes before being executed. This suggests that the younger one had probably been under 16 at the time of the ‘offence’. MPs from this very conservative part of Iran directed their anger at the domestic and foreign media for reporting the ages of the ‘criminals’. ‘The individuals were corrupt. Their sentence was carried out with the approval of the judiciary, and it served them right.’ Article 152 of the Penal Code states that if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge’s discretion. Human rights organizations estimate that as many as 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

As greater economic integration is accepted as inevitable, it seems social and cultural differences come to bear all the more weight in defining the social values and independence of countries. Gains are fragile and impermanent, and maintaining them requires vigilance. The global response to homosexuality, far from showing signs of convergence, demonstrates clear divisions, ranging from the very liberal to the violently intolerant.

As greater economic integration is accepted as inevitable, it seems social and cultural differences come to bear all the more weight in defining the social values and independence of countries.

On this issue, as on almost every other, a deeply divided world is further polarizing; a process in which the most impoverished are also the most prejudiced. This is, perhaps, difficult to acknowledge, since many prefer to see poor people as victims of prejudice rather than as perpetrators of it – yet another contradiction in the awkward complexity of globalism.

Jeremy Seabrook’s Second thoughts will appear regularly on the NI website.

From: GlobalGayz.com

March 23, 2006
4
Modern Gays in Modern Eastern Europe

by Richard Ammon
Owner, GlobalGayz.com

Beginning quote:
“ As greater economic integration is accepted as inevitable, it seems social and cultural differences come to bear all the more weight in defining the social values and independence of countries. Gains (in progress) are fragile and impermanent, and maintaining them requires vigilance. The global response to homosexuality, far from showing signs of convergence, demonstrates clear divisions, ranging from the very liberal to the violently intolerant.”

From: Gays And Globalism: Homosexuality And Progress
by Jeremy Seabrook http://www.newint.org/second-thoughts/18-01-06.htm

The progression of gay rights in Eastern Europe since the collapse of the communist Soviet Union has been fitful, erratic, uneven and punctuated with hope and grief. For every step forward there is a setback somewhere else.

A small step in the right direction was recently take by the Czech lower house of parliament voted to override a presidential veto of gay civil unions (March 15)

In the opposite direction, we read, from Moldova, of a high ranking police officer declaring (March 2006): "For me, the main law is the Law of God, according to which homosexuality is a sin and those who commit it shall die."

In Poland, arguably eastern Europe's most progressive and prosperous state, gay groups have played cat-and-mouse games with the government for several years as the authorities have tried to suppress gay parades and festivals. Yet, in recent years, gay marchers have taken to the street in spite of the rulings. The recent election of Lech Kaczynski, 56, as Poland’s president and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, as behind-the-scene advisor, is not a step forward for LGBT rights in Poland. The two men portray themselves as pillars of Poland's conservative social values against what they see as too much liberalism of western Europe.

Both Kaczynskis have been verbal critics of gay rights, positive abortion laws and want the proposed EU constitution to refer to God and Christian origins. President Kaczynski claims his views are conservative but mainstream: “Contrary to what some people say, I am not for the discrimination against gays. They have the right to participate in public life. However, I am against the public display of their sexual preferences," he said in an interview. When Kaczynski visited Berlin in March 2006 he was picketed and heckled by gay rights activists. Ignoring their purpose, he ambiguously and foolishly declared, “I do not plan to persecute homosexuals or to hinder their careers. But there is no reason to encourage it because it would mean that mankind would slowly die out.”

Against such Polish resistance two government recognized organizations KPH (Campaign Against Homophobia) and Lambda Warsaw strive to change homophobia slowly but steadily through political lobbying and . They are supported by NGO’s and people in academia. In small increments their efforts show, for example, as commercial banks regularly provide loans to gay and lesbian couples without problems.

Meanwhile, next door in Bucharest, Romania, a major news story appeared March 9, 2006 in the Bucharest Daily News
http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=21830 The story was surprisingly progressive in its upbeat coverage of the apparent 'glam' gay scene in Bucharest. “ A city once puritanical and narrow-minded, has managed to offer its gay community all the necessary means for a hedonistic existence...the big cities of Romania, once stodgy and ashamed of sexual diversity, have recently witnessed a flowering of gay culture. Gay bars and dance clubs have sprung up since 2001, when homosexuality stopped being a criminal offence.” The story went on to quote happy clubbers and describe their thrilling night lives of dancing, drinking and hob-nobbing with friends.

Alluded to but not clarified was the other side--the day life--of LGBT Romanians who live in the closet out of fear of scandal, family rejection, personal shame, public exposure or being fired from their jobs and losing their homes--fears echoed throughout all of eastern Europe. The scene described in the news report is a shadow world that happens after dark when cautious, straight-appearing workers shed their coats and ties and don flashy dance outfits.

As a balance between night and day the article included a voice that not did not agree with this analysis of the flashy gay scene. In Bucharest, Florin Buhuceanu, the leader of ACCEPT, the largest and most visible LGBT advocacy organization in Romania, offered his view: "I know many stable gay couples, who have a beautiful quiet (gay) family life. The above opinions (of hedonism) cannot be used in reaching a viable conclusion about all gay and lesbian persons, as these opinions legitimize the prejudices against the gay community.”

Across the border in Russia, Moscow’s autocratic mayor, Yuri Lushkov--deciding that homosexuality is “an unnatural act”--denied a permit for Moscow’s first-ever Gay Pride march, festival and conference that had been in planning for 2006. Lushkov told reporters the LGBT activities will be “severely repressed.” Perhaps worse, some religious leaders, lead by the chief Muslim mufti, called for the use of violence to prevent the march: “The parade should be allowed in no circumstances. If they go into the streets, they should be thrashed.” As well, a leading Russian Rabbi, Berl Lazar, said that a gay parade “would be a blow for morality”. A cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church called such a Pride Parade "the propaganda of sin".

Against such daunting prejudice, there is no Russian gay group with enough presence or courage to stand up, resist repression and advocate for change. There is one modest LGBT organization in all of Russia--Together, which runs a website (http://www.gay.ru/english/)and offers support and information about homosexuality and HIV. (Wisely, they claim to be apolitical.) In the absence or weakness of native LGBT organizations in eastern Europe the international LGBT and human rights ‘community’ has often stepped in to denounce such overt bigotry and persecution.

In response to the Moscow ban, Human Rights Watch (HRW) vigorously denounced the ban: “Mayor Luzhkov is giving prejudice a veto over the rights to peaceful expression and assembly,” said Scott Long, director of HRW’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program. “Human rights are not a popularity contest,” said Long. “Letting this march proceed is an international obligation. If prejudice is allowed to trump the rights that all citizens should enjoy, then everyone’s freedoms are endangered.”

The protest was echoed by the Belgium-based ILGA—International Gay and Lesbian Association—as well as by New York-based IGLHRC—International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Amnesty International’s Gay and Lesbian division also concurred in the protest. (It should be noted that a generous amount of funding for eastern European gay projects and events comes from western European countries such as Holland and Scandinavia.)

Clearly demonstrated in Russia is the sad truth that virtually no eastern country has substantial LGBT organizations with sufficient financing and clout to counteract ‘old world’ thinking.

Such groups as Croatia’s Iskorak (Step Forward), Slovenia’s DIH (Assoc. for Integration of Homosexuals), Bulgaria’s Gemini, Latvia’s LGLYSG (Latvian Gay and Lesbian Youth Support Group) and Hatter Support Society in Hungary—all are run by small groups of dedicated, courageous and vigorous volunteers who run some risk of exposure. Some groups offer phone hotlines, print newsletters, organize sporting events, sponsor film festivals (that get threats) or send representative to international LGBT meetings to learn strategies for effective lobbying. Clearly none of these organizations can remotely afford to mount a national anti-homophobia or pro-gay media campaign in the press or on TV to counter embedded sentiments against them.

That said, it must not be forgotten that the brave folks from Warsaw’s LPH (Campaign Against Homophobia) mounted a public billboard program in 2003 called “Let Them See Us” in which life-sized photos of gay and lesbian couples were shown holding hands. (See their website to view the photos: http://www.niechnaszobacza.art.pl/index_en.htm)

Negative reactions to gay presence in eastern Europe are inevitable. Neo-Nazi, racist, anti-Semitic, skinhead nationalist groups appear to be the most visible and violent groups who grab headline news by their physical assaults on gay events, as happened most vehemently in Belgrade, Serbia in 2002 when squads of skinhead goons attacked not only the gay marchers but also the few police present to guard them.

Lost in the hysteria and shouting and club wielding of the moment were the thousands of citizens who were appalled by the attacks. Although they might not have approved of homosexuals in their society, most (not all) did not condone such brutality—perhaps recoiling from the memory of the killing fields across the Balkans in the mid-90s. Few have forgotten the massacres and assassinations that happened between ethnic groups and the extreme pain of those years. Most people want no more of violence, but young militants, ten years later, are roused by their own resentment—of poverty, lack of job opportunities, murdered relatives, homophobia and a fantasies of a new white-supremacist social order—continue to rage against ‘outsiders’, including gypsies, immigrants and gays.

One activist from Slovenia claimed that much of the homophobia in the east comes not from religious sources, since the atheistic communists ruled for most of the 20th century. Rather, the prejudice comes from, first, the strong influence of the Soviet criminal laws against homosexual acts; second, from a more general resistance to change. “People still think in the monolithic way—one system for all people. They are not used to diversity. They like the idea of freedom but not too much, especially if it includes ideas that move away from the old social ways.”

The desire to join the European Union, with it distinctly pro-gay regulations and standards, has had an ambiguous influence on eastern societies as they entered or prepared to enter the Union. Turkey, on one hand has softened it’s hard stand against gay groups and demonstrations and parades (by the courageous KOAS-GL organization). But other new Union members or members-to be like Macedonia or Lithuania have yet to offer any window of expression for organized LGBT organizations. In Macedonia, fear rules the public behavior of gay and lesbian citizens; at the same time some Lithuanian members of parliament are trying to collect signatures as part of a drive to ban gay marriage in the constitution.

Another threatening force against gays emerging in eastern states are the moderately successful attempts to re-assert religious values onto the once-secular authoritarian atheistic political stage. From Slovakia’s Roman Catholic Church to Serbia’s Orthodox Catholic clergy and Bosnia’s Muslim communities to Ukraine’s Russian Orthodoxy, the slow re-emergence of anti-gay religions presents a growing threat to gay liberation. In reality, religious fervor never really died during the Soviet years. Rather it went dormant and was allow to exist within the state as long as it appeared to sleep.

As one lesbian activist in Serbia put it, during the communist regime “political communist myths and rigid socialistic programs imposed on the various ethnic populations demanded fearful compliance and a semblance of order in daily affairs, from selling cooperative potatoes to systematic regulated housing. People were poor but not impoverished, religion was suppressed but beliefs ran deep, ancient ethnic feuds were quieted but seethed in silence.” Communism stigmatized homosexuality and everyone learned that as well.

The major exception to this daunting eastern European homophobia is the former East Germany. It has been spared a similar gray fate because it rejoined with western Germany, which has ‘redeemed’ itself from the horrors of the Nazi years. Gays and lesbians in modern reunified Germany are protected by numerous federal laws that fully legalize homosexuality and forbid anti-discrimination specifically against gay citizens (as well as other categories such as gender, age, race and religion).

Further, there is legislative recognition of LGBT couples that gives them the same rights and responsibilities as non-gay married couples. And in early 2006 the government approved a public monument to be built in Berlin in memory of the thousands of homosexuals murdered and tortured by the Nazis.

So the story of modern gay life in eastern Europe is, so far, a halting and stumbling progression toward more freedom and expression. The way forward is littered with religious and political and social prejudice. However, when measured longitudinally, the gay rights movement is less than two