LGBT – praag.org

US ambassador to Vietnam promotes gay marriage

Since their December arrival in Vietnam, U.S. Ambassador Ted Osius and his mulatto husband have become the most prominent gay couple in the Southeast Asian country.

Osius and Clayton Bond landed with their toddler son shortly before the government abolished its ban on same-sex marriage. Now the couple, who recently adopted an infant girl, find themselves promoting the LGBT rights movement across the country.

“A lot of young people have reached out to me on Facebook, to say: ‘We are happy to see somebody who is gay and is happy in his personal life but also has had professional success’,” Osius said in an interview. “I don’t think of it as advocating as much as supporting Vietnamese civil society in doing what it is already doing.”

The Communist government’s revised marriage law, and while not officially recognizing same-sex marriage, potentially opened up opportunities to attract the tourist “pink dollar”.

Yet young gay Vietnamese say they can be ostracized in a patriarchal society in which heterosexual marriage and parenthood are seen as the path to happiness. The legal changes also sit oddly in a country that more broadly curbs political dissent, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in an e-mail.

Osius, 53, and Bond frequently appear together at official government gatherings and media events. Osius — who is on his first posting as ambassador and has also worked in Indonesia and India — always introduces his husband and often talks about their children, who are 19 months and five months.

“This is a core interest of ours with regard to human rights,” said Bond, 39. “People see us as an openly gay couple with kids serving our country. I hope people find that inspiring.”

While a small number of celebrities have held same-sex weddings, Osius and Bond are the most prominent gay couple in Vietnam, said Tung Tran, director of ICS, a Ho Chi Minh City-based group that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. They are also embraced by the larger population, reflecting the closer relationship being forged by Hanoi and Washington.

Osius and Bond plan to renew their vows before U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her visit to Hanoi later this month.

“They are the full package,” Tran said by phone. “They are married. They have a family. They are successful. They are our role models.”

Osius, a career diplomat, co-founded GLIFAA, a U.S. association for LGBT employees and families in foreign affairs agencies, in 1992. There are now six openly gay U.S. ambassadors, including Osius, Ambassador to Australia John Berry and Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford, said Regina Jun, president of the group.

Osius’ posting to Vietnam comes amid improved relations between Vietnam and the U.S., former enemies that have shared economic goals and strategic concerns about an increasingly assertive China in the region. Vietnam’s civil society is relatively robust, Osius said, even as its human rights record in other areas remains a hindrance to even warmer ties.

In most parts of Southeast Asia including Thailand, the push for gay rights has stalled. Countries such as Brunei and Malaysia punish those who engage in gay behavior.

In Singapore, sex between men is illegal. The city-state banned a song and video by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai’s about same-sex relationships, the Straits Times reported May 26.

Source: Bloomberg

GLAAD fails Sony, Disney on gay films

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters may be showing up on American television with increasing regularity, but not enough, according to GLAAD.

In its third annual report about LGBT representation on film, the gay advocacy group GLAAD, found that of the 114 releases from the major studios in 2014, only 20 of them, or 17.5 percent, included characters identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Grading the individual studios on their performance, GLAAD awarded a “good” to Warner Bros, an “adequate” to Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount and Universal and “failing” grades to Sony and Disney. No studio earned a grade of “excellent.”

The figure represented a slight increase from 2013, when 16.7 percent of studio releases were found to be inclusive. But many of the gay characters who appeared on screen in 2015 made only fleeting appearances.

“Of the 20 films we found to be inclusive,” the report, which was released today, said, “10 of those contained less than five minutes of screen time for their LGBT characters — with several being less than 30 seconds — while three others contained less than 10 minutes of screen time.

In the case of several films, audiences may not have been aware that they were seeing LGBT characters if they did not read outside press coverage or were unaware of the real-life LGBT person a character was based on.”

Among the inclusive films, the report found, 65 percent of them featured gay male characters, less than a third featured bisexuals and about one tenth included lesbian characters.

There was a slight increase in racial diversity with 32.1 percent of the characters being people of color, compared to 24 percent in 2013. Of the 28 characters GLAAD counted, 19 were white (67.9 percent), three were black/African-American (10.7 percent), two were Latin (7.1 percent), and four were Asian/Pacific Islander (14.3 percent).

“LGBT people were largely shut out of the genre films (action, sci-fi, fantasy), where Hollywood film studios commit the majority of their capital and promotional resources,” GLAAD said. Additionally, three of 13 animated/family films (23.1 percent), six of 33 dramas (18.2 percent) and none of the three documentaries contained LGBT characters.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Vatican turns down gay French ambassador

Three months after appointing an openly gay diplomat as France’s ambassador to the Vatican, Paris is still waiting for the green light from Rome.

While the Vatican usually declares it has accepted a candidate around a month after an appointment is made, it makes no public statements at all if the answer is no.

Paris appears determined to stick with seasoned candidate Laurent Stefanini, a 55-year-old practising Catholic whom the foreign ministry described as “one of our best diplomats”.

“That’s why we appointed him. We are waiting for a reply to our request,” it said.

Sources close to President Francois Hollande said his appointment was “the wish of the president” and the cabinet of ministers.

The French cabinet approved Stefanini’s appointment on January 5 but has not yet received a reply.

“A delay of three months like this is not normal,” a well-informed source in Rome told AFP.

“Homosexual people are rejected in the Vatican, despite their merits (and) indisputable qualities,” said Flavio Romani, who heads the Italian gay rights group Arcigay.

Accusing the Holy See of failing to implement its “teachings of openness”, he blasted the Vatican as acting “like Uganda”, where gays are unwanted.

Source: AFP

Gulf states to introduce medical testing to detect gays

Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE already outlaw homosexuality, but are toughening their stance.

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to detect homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official.

GCC member countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – already deem homosexual acts unlawful.

This stance is being toughened, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.

He told Kuwait newspaper Al Rai: ‘Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries. However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.’

Those taking part in homosexual acts in Kuwait, if they’re under 21, can receive a jail sentence of up to 10 years.

Earlier this month Oman newspaper The Week was suspended over an article that was deemed to be sympathetic to homosexuals, according to the BBC.

It’s illegal to be gay in 78 countries, with lesbianism banned in 49. Five countries mete out the death penalty to gay people – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Mauritania.

Iran: Since 1979, the government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. A non-adult who engages in consensual sodomy is subject to a punishment of 74 lashes.

Saudi Arabia: Although the maximum punishment for homosexuality is execution, the government tends to use other punishments – such as fines, prison sentences, and whipping – unless it feels that homosexuals have challenged state authority by engaging in social movements.

Sudan: For homosexual men, lashes are given for the first offence, with the death penalty following the third offence. 100 lashes are given to unmarried women who engage in homosexual acts.For lesbian women, stoning and thousands of lashes are the penalty for the first offence. Today, the issue has divided some religious communities. In 2006, Abraham Mayom Athiaan, a bishop in South Sudan, led a split from the Episcopal Church of Sudan for what he regarded as a failure by the church leadership to condemn homosexuality sufficiently strongly.

Yemen: Homosexuality is still illegal in Yemen in accordance to the country’s Shari’ah legal system. Punishment ranges from flogging to death.

Mauritania: The Shari’a law applies in Mauritania. The penal code states that, since 1983,any adult Muslim caught engaging in an ‘unnatural act’ with a member of the same sex is punishable with the death sentence by public stoning.

‘Western promotion of LGBT values a concern’

South African artist Steven Cohen — South African gay artist Steven Cohen

A senior Russian diplomat has blasted as unacceptable the ongoing attempts of Western nations to impose their values on other countries, while at the same time infringing on the socio-economic rights of their own citizens.

“The urge of Western countries to impose their neoliberal system of values on the other members of the international community as a universal basis of living can only cause concern. This is especially noticeable on the background of their aggressive promotion of the sexual minorities’ rights,” said the Foreign Ministry’s plenipotentiary for human rights, Konstantin Dolgov, while addressing the International Human Rights Forum, currently underway in Beijing.

Attempts to force other nations into accepting homosexuality and same-sex marriage as some natural social phenomenon which deserves support at a state level cannot be tolerated, Dolgov emphasized.

He added that such an approach was met with resistance not only in countries that hold to traditional values, but also those that have always had liberal attitudes to people of non-traditional orientation. He recalled the protests held in France after same sex marriage was legalized earlier this year.

In addition, Dolgov noted that the aggressive advertising of neo-liberal values is often done at the same time with frequent infringement of socio-economic rights and liberties inside the countries that pursue such politics.

The speech was made against the backdrop of the massive international campaign against a Russian act that outlaws the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors. LGBT activists around the world dubbed the act ‘the gay propaganda ban’ and called for protest measures ranging from a boycott of Russian vodka to a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi.

Russian sponsors of the ban and senior officials have repeatedly noted that the law is not discriminatory and only seeks to protect children.

The Russian Olympic Committee at some point issued a special address assuring that LGBT athletes had nothing to fear in Sochi and that people of all orientations would be welcome in Sochi as contestants and guests.

Russia has also addressed the International Olympic Committee with a request to help stop the relentless campaign of speculation and protests over the issue, noting that LGBT activists often distort the meaning of the Russian law in their addresses.

In a recent TV interview, President Vladimir Putin also described the ban as non-discriminatory and said he was ready to meet with leaders of the LGBT community to discuss their problems, but had not yet received any suggestions.

The ban on the promotion of non-traditional sex to children has also caused some protests and a great deal of public discussion inside Russia. However, the majority of Russians support it. In March this year, the Levada public opinion center released the results of the poll that said that about 85 percent of adult Russians were strongly against same sex marriage and 87 percent oppose the idea of gay pride events in their cities. – RT

Another gay rights activist killed in Africa

A prominent gay rights activist in Cameroon was tortured and killed just weeks after issuing a public warning about the threat posed by “anti-gay thugs,” Human Rights Watch said.

Friends discovered the body of Eric Ohena Lembembe at his home in the capital, Yaounde, on Monday evening after he was unreachable for two days, the rights group said in a statement Tuesday.

One friend said Lembembe’s neck and feet looked broken and that he had been burned with an iron.

Lembembe was among the most prominent activists in one of Africa’s most hostile countries for sexual minorities. First as a journalist and later as executive director of CAMFAIDS, a Yaounde-based human rights organization, he documented violence, blackmail and arrests targeting members of Cameroon’s gay community. He was also a regular contributor to the Erasing 76 Crimes blog, which focuses on countries where homosexuality is illegal, and he wrote several chapters of a book released in February on the global gay rights movement titled “From Wrongs to Gay Rights.”

Lembembe is the most high-profile African gay rights activist to be killed since 2011, a year that saw the deaths of Uganda’s David Kato and South African lesbian activist Noxolo Nogwaza.

Homosexuality is punishable by prison terms of up to five years in Cameroon, and the country prosecutes more people for gay sex than any other in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a statement, a U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman deplored Lembembe’s murder. “We condemn this terrible act in the strongest terms and urge the Cameroonian authorities to thoroughly and promptly investigate and prosecute those responsible for his death,” Marie Harf said.

Lembembe was among the first activists in the country to mobilize following a sharp increase in anti-gay prosecutions beginning in 2005, said Yves Yomb, executive director of Alternatives-Cameroon, a gay rights group based in Cameroon’s largest city, Douala. A local office of the group was set on fire June 26, Harf said in her statement. – AP