By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com December 1, 2011 A November 16, 2011 Guardian newspaper report announced a new challenge in Belize to its anti-gay laws. The legal suit is the first contest by a new human rights organization that intends to overturn all post-UK former colonies that have laws criminalizing homosexuality. “The Human Dignity Trust (HDT), which launched its campaign in London on Thursday, is targeting the 80-odd states where consensual sexual activity between adults of the same gender is outlawed. More than half are Commonwealth countries which inherited their regulations from British colonial rule. In some like Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon and Ghana the laws are seen by some as justification for violent attacks on gay and lesbian people.” (photo right: for tourists Belize is a paradise; for gays it is less than that.) Not surprising, Belize’s Anglican, evangelical, and Catholic ‘spiritual leaders’ have united to oppose the effort. They will

As I travel the world interviewing LGBT people about their lives, their cultures and countries I hear stories of effort, strategy, frustration and achievement. One question I have failed to ask these courageous activists, some risking their lives, is “how far away is hope?” How far away is hope for equality, tolerance, acceptance, relationship recognition, political participation, religious compassion, social calmness…? And what is keeping it in the ever seemingly receding distance? Another way to ask the question is how long will it take humankind to unlearn the teachings of religion against human sexuality. Indeed, can humanity unlearn something so ingrained in mind from religious prohibitions against sexuality–period. This most human of appetites is the most proscribed against. The desire for another person is diminished by using the word sex; it reduces it to a genital activity when in truth there are more significant needs that are desired. Even in

Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com Mat 14, 2010 Hopefully some day coming out won’t be such a big deal and won’t be news–or do we gay (LGBT people) secretly like the rush of notoriety, the fuss, the ‘news worthy’ event, by appearing to win one more to our club, gaining over the homophobes and discovering the inside thrill of breaking into freedom. In Iraq or Palestine coming out will get you killed. But in the West it would appear that it’s no big deal. So why the headlines when an entertainer or movie star comes out: singer Ricky Martin and actress Cynthia Nixon (photo below left) recently announced publicly they are gay. Big deal or not? Greg Louganis, Matthew Mitcham (photo right) are famous athletes who came out, not with a bang but with whispers and gossip, not willing but not unwilling. Others were infamously outed in the press with some fanfare

Richard Ammon. GlobalGayz.com January 11, 2010 Someone recently reviewed my website, GlobalGayz.com, and thought it was not focused well. Was it a gay site? A travel site? A human rights advocacy site? A political site? A news reports site? My reply was short: being openly gay at the turn of the 21st is a political act that invokes human rights activity and generates much news around the world. I wish it were not so but so be it. Being born with a certain hormonal/genetic propensity—that has nothing to do with behavior or environment–toward same-sex attraction has always been a physiological occurrence within the humanoid species, like it or not. Just as left-handers or gregariousness or mental brilliance or genital endowment arise out of the mysterious ooze of prenatal fluids, tissues and embryos. As these few ‘different’ people (aren’t we all different?) get to be five or nine or thirteen or