Pink Humanist December 12

thepinkhumanist
ISSUE 5, VOLUME 2
DECEMBER 2012
Published quarterly by the
Pink Triangle Trust – a
registered UK charity
CATHOLICISM? ARE YOU
OUT OF YOUR MIND?
The Vatican steps up its War on Gays
– see centre pages
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE • Toasting Obama’s triumph with a can of Coors beer, p2 • Victory for
Russian gay rights campaigner, p3 • Remembering anti-apartheid humanist Steve Biko, p6 •
No Mincing
Words!
thepinkhumanist
pinkhumanist
editor
BARRY DUKE
W
hen Barack Hussein Obama became
US President in 2008, it was a promising indication that America was
changing for the better. His second victory in
November showed that things have changed far
more dramatically than libertarians like myself
could ever have hoped for.
Now I know this will raise eyebrows, but for
me, one of the most significant manifestations
of a more tolerant America lies in beer. Or,
more precisely, Coors beer, a company started
in 1873 in Golden, Colorado, by German immigrants Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler.
Ever since I can remember, Coors was portrayed as the beer of choice of right wing, racist, homo-hating rednecks, and it was shunned
by the gay community. No gay bar anywhere
would stock the stuff.
Coors’ image as a nasty, homophobic company was reinforced in the song “A Case of Coors
Beer” by the Austin Lounge Lizards, a satirical
America bluegrass group that exuberantly takes
the mick out of right-wing, American conservatives with songs like “Jesus Loves Me (but He
Can’t Stand You)”.
Here are the opening lines of the Coors song,
which featured in their 1991 album, Lizard
Vision:
Sitting in the sun with a case of Coors beer,
Cooling its heels and strategically near.
They tell me he’s a fascist;
It’s true; I don’t care –
I’d follow a cold can of Coors anywhere.
So pop in a can, and don’t cut your thumb
if you’re politically aware and conveniently dumb.
The company fully deserved to be boycotted.
Incredibly, as late as the 1970s, the brewery put
prospective employees through a lie detector
test to determine, among other things, if they
were homosexual, and it was only through a
federal lawsuit in 1975 that Coors agreed not
to discriminate against blacks, Mexican-Americans, and women.
Then, in 1978, it made minimal concessions
by dropping the sexual orientation question
from the polygraph test and announced a nondiscrimination policy. 1995 Coors gave domestic partnership benefits to its gay and lesbian
employees – a perk already enjoyed by unmar-
ried heterosexual workers living with a person
of the opposite sex – and actively began to
court lesbian and gay consumers.
But so deep was the antipathy towards the
brand that, as late as the 1990s, Scott Coors, the
openly gay scion of the family, discovered he
was unable to buy a Coors in San Francisco.
At issue for those leading the boycott were
the pious, self-serving foundations established
by the Coors family to support obnoxious organisations intolerant of anything that smacked
of liberalism, especially gay equality.
The Adolph Coors Foundation and the Castle Rock Foundation both provided strong financial support to these hate-mongering rightwing groups.
Activist Morris Kight, who was among the
earliest proponents of the boycott, stated in
2001 that “the issue for us is that the money the
family makes off beer is funnelled into anti-gay
causes”.
The company then tried harder to rid itself
of its poisonous reputation, and hired Mary
Cheney, the lesbian daughter of former VicePresident Dick Cheney, as a marketing representative to promote sales in the gay commu-
nity. Coors, amazingly, also began donating to
gay causes and institutions and organisations
such as the Human Rights Campaign and the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
This, combined with some very sexy ads
featuring gays and lesbians (such as the one
above) helped Coors shed its image as cryptofascist company, and served as an object lesson
to others in corporate America. Indeed, just a
few weeks ago, United Parcel Service (UPS), a
major sponsor of The Boy Scouts of America,
announced that it was cutting funding to the
BSA because of its refusal to allow gays to join
its ranks.
The positive changes forced by market forces
on Coors had a snowball effect, and moves
away from discriminatory attitudes generally
soon began manifesting themselves in many
other sections of life in America.
There can be no arguing that this trend towards a far more tolerant US helped Obama
secure his second term in the White House.
Today, I’m more than happy to pop open a
can of Coors and toast Obama for his support
of gay marriage, and his overall push for a more
inclusive, contented and grown up society.
PTT Contact details
Pink Triangle Trust Secretary and Editorial Consultant is George Broadhead,
who can be contacted on: +44 (0) 1926 858450 (Email: [email protected]).
Proofreading by Andy Armitage. Contact The Pink Humanist Magazine by emailing
either [email protected] or [email protected]
• 02 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
Views expressed in The Pink Humanist are not necessarily
those of the publishers.
World View
Victory for gay rights
campaigner Irina Fedotova
Landmark ruling by the Human Rights
Committee slams Russia’s ‘promotion
of homosexuality’ ban
I
n 2009, a Russian lesbian couple Irina
Fedotova and Irina Shapitko angered the
Russian authorities when they shared a
kiss outside a wedding registration office
in Moscow. The very public kiss followed
the Moscow city government’s refusal to allow the women to marry. Gay activists then
stepped up their efforts to draw attention to
Russia’s rampant homophobia ahead of the
Eurovision Song Contest..
Irina Fedotova was then arrested, convicted, and ordered to pay a fine of 1,500 roubles
after she displayed posters declaring “Homosexuality is normal” and “I am proud of
my homosexuality” near a secondary school
building in Ryazan.
The Ryazan Law on Administrative Offences prohibited “public actions aimed at propaganda of homosexuality among minors”.
Fedotova lost her appeal to the district
court, and the Constitutional Court ruled
that the prohibition of information that was
“capable of harming health, morals and spiritual development, as well as forming perverted conceptions about equal social value
of traditional and non-traditional family relations” could not be considered a violation of
the right to freedom of expression.
The case – Irina Fedotova v Russian Federation
– was then taken to the UN Human Rights
Committee and on November 19 the Committee, in an historic decision, ruled that Russia had violated Fedotova’s rights to freedom
of expression. These rights are guaranteed by
articles 19 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The decision was welcomed by the International Commission of Jurists and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans &
Intersex Association (ILGA) welcomed the
decision “We are very pleased with the Committee’s Views in this case and in particular
with the recognition that expressing opinions and information about same-sex sexual
orientation cannot be limited in the name of
public morality,” said Alli Jernow, ICJ Senior
Russian lesbian couple Irina Fedotova, left, and Irina Shapitko kiss outside a wedding
registration office in Moscow in 2009. Photo: AFP/Dmitry Kostyukov
Legal Advisor.
“The decision is especially important because it effectively reverses the position taken
by the Committee in the 1982 case of Hertzberg v Finland, which upheld a ban similar to
the one in the Fedotova case,” Jernow added.
The Human Rights Committee ordered the
Russian Federation to reimburse the fine paid
by Fedotova as well as her legal costs and to
ensure that the relevant provisions of domestic law are made compatible with articles
19 and 26 of the Covenant.
Since the Ryazan law was adopted, a number of other regions in Russia have adopted
legislation banning “homosexual propaganda.” Activists across the country, including in
St. Petersburg, have been arrested and convicted under such laws.
In its decision, the Human Rights Committee emphasised that limitations for the
purpose of public morals, which are derived
“from many social, philosophical and religious traditions,” could not be based exclusively on a single tradition.
Furthermore, any such limitations “must be
understood in light of universality of human
rights and the principle of non-discrimination.” The Committee recalled that the “prohibition against discrimination under article
26 comprises also discrimination based on
sexual orientation.”
The Committee stated that Russia “has
not shown that a restriction on the right to
freedom of expression in relation to ‘propaganda of homosexuality’ – as opposed to
propaganda of heterosexuality or sexuality
generally – among minors is based on reasonable and objective criteria”.
Fedotova’s actions were not aimed at involving minors in any particular sexual ac-
(Continued on p4)
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 03 •
ILGA hopes this landmark decision
will send a strong signal to Russia to
abandon anti-gay discrimination
tivity. Rather, “she was giving expression to
her sexual identity and seeking understanding for it”.
“We hope this landmark decision will send
a strong signal to Russia to reconsider such
discriminatory steps and to abandon any
legislative proposals criminalising ‘homosexual propaganda’”, said Evelyne Paradis,
Executive Director of ILGA-Europe.
The ICJ had submitted a legal opinion,
which the Committee excerpted in detail,
arguing that the law was discriminatory and
that limitations on rights could not discriminate. Earlier this year, the ICJ and ILGAEurope published a briefing paper entitled
Homosexual Propaganda Bans: Analysis and Recommendations.
The briefing paper states that the proposal
and/or adoption of “homosexual propaganda” bans is a growing and worrying trend in
Central and Eastern Europe. The trend began in 2006 Ryazan criminalised public acts
“aimed at promoting homosexuality among
juveniles” and in 2011 and 2012, similar laws
were introduced in other Russian regions,
while several city councils in Moldova adopted local ordinances against “propaganda
of non-traditional sexual orientations”. National legislation banning the “promotion of
homosexuality” is currently being discussed
in the Ukrainian, Russian and Hungarian national Parliaments.
Similar provisions were considered by the
Lithuanian Parliament in 2010-2011 and
eventually dropped, although the issue of
banning “homosexual propaganda” remains
on the legislative agenda in Lithuania through
different provisions.
The paper says claims that these laws and
regulations are already having an impact
on LGBT communities in the concerned
countries. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans
(LGBT) organisations and other human
rights organisations have documented cases
of arrests and subsequent prosecution of
individuals at public events, activists being
denied the use of a meeting venue, journalists refusing to cover LGBT events, and increased violence targeting LGBT people. In
addition, LGBT organisations are concerned
about the negative impact the bans may have
in other spheres of life such as education and
access to information.”
The International Commission of Jurists
(ICJ) and ILGA-Europe believe that these
laws are both impermissible restrictions on
everyone’s right to freedom of expression
and illegally discriminate against LGBT individuals. Under both the European Convention on Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, these
laws are blatant violations of internationally
guaranteed rights.
In some instances, the “homosexual propaganda” bans are becoming part of a political
rhetoric of extreme-right political parties (eg
Latvia and Hungary).
The paper states that “homosexual propaganda” bans are quite recent and that “in
many respects it is too early to predict with
certainty how these laws and regulations will
be implemented and the extent to which they
will impact on LGBT communities and their
allies. It is clear, however, that by adopting
such laws, public authorities inscribe discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in law and thus legitimise social
exclusion and stigmatisation of LGBT people. By enacting such laws, public authorities
condone homophobia and transphobia and
contribute to a climate that is conducive to
violence targeting LGBT individuals. In
some cases, the bans perpetuate deeply mis-
• 04 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
Madonna
leading and harmful stereotypes by linking
homosexuality and paedophilia in the same
provisions.
Another blow for Russian homophobes
came last month when a court St Petersburg
threw out a lawsuit in which nine claimants
demanded $10.7m from pop star Madonna.
Members of various conservative groups argued that Madonna’s pro-gay comments at a
concert in Russia violated the law banning
the promotion of “homosexual propaganda”
to minors and would lead to the destruction
of the nation.
According to a Guardian report last month,
during a day-long hearing the court examined
YouTube footage and was shown screenshots
of Madonna’s Facebook page as proof that
the “Material Girl” was crazy for gay rights.
“I am here to say that the gay community
and gay people here and all around the world
have the same rights – to be treated with
dignity, with respect, with tolerance, with
compassion, with love,” Madonna said during the performance in August, as concertgoers waved gay pride flags and flashed pink
wristbands the pop star had handed out as
symbols of support.
The claimants argued that Madonna’s performance would adversely affect Russia’s
birthrate and therefore its ability to maintain
a proper army. They cited posts on the Facebook page condemning the law as proof she
had prior knowledge of the potential criminality of expressing herself.
The judge in the case, Vitaly Barkovsky, deliberated for more than an hour before delivering his verdict, but appeared to treat the
case with scepticism from the start. After one
claimant, Vitaly Orlovsky, said Madonna’s
concert would prompt the divorce rate to
skyrocket, Barkovsky asked him why he was
suing no alcoholics, since alcoholism was a
well-known cause of divorce in the heavydrinking country.
Vitaly Milonov, a local MP who has led St
Petersburg’s anti-gay campaign, accused Madonna of showing no respect for the court
– she repeatedly refused to attend the hearing – and said of the star: “You can see what
kind of person she is – for her, Russia is a
cow from whom she can come and get milk
– that is, money – and then leave, while not
following our laws.”
World View
Lack of funding forces
Kenyan David Kuria out
of Senate election race
E
arlier this year the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans & Intersex
Association (ILGA) released a statement announcing that Kenya’s first
openly gay candidate, David Kuria, would be
running for the position of Senator in 2012
in Kiambu County, which has a population
of over 1.6 million people.
Said ILGA on its website: “While the gay
community is behind him all the way, Kuria
says his sexual orientation in relation to the
political office position he is running for is
likely to ignite a lot of debate in the entire
country as people discuss not just the viability of his candidature, but also issues related
to sexual orientation and gender identity.”
But Kuri’s hopes for a Senate seat were
dashed last month, and on November 30 he
sadly announced that insufficient funding
had forced him to withdraw from the election. There were also issues of “security”.
Earlier this year Kuria said that it was possible that a lot of people, instead of seeing
just David Kuria on the ballot paper, would
see the whole gay community and ask “how
dare they now attempt to run for political office”, but he said he was determined not to
back down.
“We must ensure that the principles of
equality and non discrimination are respected
for all people – not just in my own county
but also across Africa,” he said.
At the time, Kuria was General Manager
of Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya
(GALCK) and many many believed he was
is perfect candidate with interests of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex
(LGBTI) community at heart.
One person who will be delighted by Kuria’s withdrawal is Scott Lively, a viciously
anti-gay US activist who helped spur Ugandan homophobes to push for the infamous
“Kill the Gays” bill, which could be passed
this month (December).
Earlier this year an LGBT rights group in
Uganda filed a lawsuit against the evangelical
leader alleging that he conspired to persecute
people on the basis of their sexual identity.
Center for Constitutional Rights attorney
Pamela Spees, who is representing Sexual
Minorities Uganda, told Raw Story that group
is asking a federal court for punitive damages
from Scott Lively, but more importantly they
would like to see his actions legally classified
as persecution.
“Best case scenario, the client, Sexual Minorities Uganda, gets a judgement that what
this man has done is in violation of international law,” she explained. “That it recognises that [LGBT Ugandans] are subject to
the same rights as anybody else, and when
somebody tries to systematically deprive you
of those, they are committing persecution.”
One of Lively’s alleged contacts in Uganda,
Parliamentarian David Bahati, in February
2012 reintroduced the “Kill the Gays” bill
that he had first introduced in 2009.
On learning of Kuria’s intention to run for
Senate seat, Lively, writing on the Kenyans
Against Homosexuality blog, said “Kenyans
should take note here that this David Kuria quit his position in GALCK in order to
launch a political campaign for Senator of
Kiambu County. It’s instructive that the man
has already failed the first test of integrity by
not proclaiming on his website that he is a
proud homosexual and that he has been advocating for the legitimization of homosexuality in the country for many years. Kiambu
voters certainly need to know this.
“However, I believe his misguided political
campaign was just set-up to hoodwink white
foreign donors obsessed with the promotion
of homosexuality around the world. The guy
will certainly not stand a chance but he is
likely to make lots of money from European
and American donors.
“In fact I believe it’s a cheap way to obtain
political asylum in America or some European country once he starts claiming that his
life is in danger – presumably from ‘homophobic’ Kenyans.”
Lively also described Kuria as a “puppet”
hired by President Obama and UK Prime
Minister David Cameron.
• thepinkhumanist • December 2012 • 05 •
Remembering
Steve Biko, a
remarkable
South African
humanist
A tribute penned by Washington DC attorney LUIS GRANADOS
S
eptember 2012 marked the 35th
anniversary of the murder of a
remarkable humanist, whom the
world has sorely missed. Steve Biko
is remembered primarily as a black agitator
against South African apartheid, but there
was a lot more to him than that. By necessity, he dealt with profound issues of religion
and political power in ways that must never
be forgotten.
Apartheid was a creature of Protestant
religion, through and through. Its roots lay
in the Calvinism of the Dutch Reformed
Church, which taught that God had chosen
his elect from the beginning of time, and
there was nothing anyone could do about it.
When Dutch colonists founded Cape Town
in the 17th century, their God experts quickly
leapt to the implication that God had chosen
certain races as well as certain individuals,
and had no doubt that God preferred them
over the filthy black natives. Aside from the
fact that slavery was God’s will, it made life
far easier and more pleasant, and soon there
were more South African slaves than whites.
Slavery disappeared after the humanisttainted British took control, but the conviction that God favored the white race over the
black did not. In 1948, a former Protestant
minister named Daniel Malan swept into
power on a platform of “apartheid”, or strict
separation of the races with the whites on
top; as he put it, “We want to make sure that
South Africa remains a white man’s country.”
At its peak, Malan’s apartheid consigned the
black 80 percent of the population to 13 percent of the land, and the poorest land at that,
with whites retaining all subsurface mineral
rights. Some 3½ million blacks were forcibly uprooted from their homes and jammed
into overpopulated “homelands” to carry out
God’s will.
Steve Biko, born a few months before Malan took power, upon reaching manhood determined that the only way 20 percent of the
population could so thoroughly dominate
the remaining 80 percent was because the 80
percent let them do it; and they let them do
it because they had, in countless ways from
birth, been brainwashed with their own inferiority. This logic led Biko to the extraordinary conclusion that blacks needed their own
political organizations, without involvement
of well-meaning but condescending white
liberals; thus the black consciousness and
black power movements were born.
Precisely because the principal justification
for apartheid was religious, Biko focused at
length on issues of religion. For someone
who already had quite a bit on his plate in
bucking the white establishment, by far the
easiest course of action would have been
for Biko to leave religion alone, or to say (as
some God experts did) that “God is against
apartheid, so I am too”. Yet take it on he did;
for as Biko put it, “Too many are involved in
religion for the blacks to ignore.”
Clearly, he was not a simplistic atheist;
just as clearly, though raised as an Anglican
altar boy, he did not accept the main tenets
of conventional Christianity, eg, the divinity
of Jesus. “The most unbelievable aspects
of organised religion,” he wrote, “are to
do with the advent and subsequent role of
Christ on earth.” He condemned Christianity for its role in instilling the black sense of
inferiority that black consciousness sought
to erase:
The acceptance of the colonialist-tainted version
of Christianity marked the turning point in the
resistance of African people ... Because the white
missionary described black people as thieves, lazy,
• 06 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
sex-hungry etc, and because he equated all that was
valuable with whiteness, our Churches through our
ministers see all these vices I have mentioned above
not as manifestations of the cruelty and injustice
which we are subjected to by the white man but inevitable proof that after all the white man was right
when he described us as savages.
It wasn’t just the Dutch Reformed Church
that was bad; it was organized religion in
general:
I’ve also grown to question in fact that very need
for worship in an organised way. In other words do
organised churches necessarily have a divine origin
or should one view them as man-created institutions
probably in the same category as soccer clubs? …
I can reject all Churches and still be Godly. I do
not need to go to Church on Sunday in order to
manifest my Godliness.
So what did he mean by “Godly”? Like
Tom Paine, Biko accepted the idea of a God,
but believed man could know nothing about
it, other than through examination of the
universe itself:
I find it completely unnecessary for me to even
contemplate the nature of the God I believe in;
whether he is spiritual, human or plant-like, I find
completely irrelevant to the issue. … Suffice it to
trace back to him all that happens around us and
out of this to begin to understand somewhat his
powers.
Though man knew nothing about God,
man could still have “religion”:
If one takes religion as nothing else but what it
is – ie, a social institution attempting to explain
what cannot be scientifically known about the origin
and destiny of man, then from the beginning we can
see the necessity of religion. All societies and indeed
all individuals, ancient or modern, young or old,
identify themselves with a particular religion and
(Continued on p7)
when none is existent, they develop one.
In other words, religion as a moral code.
Biko’s campaign to build an integrated culture with blacks as “co-architects” extended
to building a new religion as well.
If the white God has been doing the talking all
along, at some stage the black God will have to
raise His voice and make Himself heard over and
above noises from His counterpart.
Specifically, the black contribution to the
religion/moral code had a powerfully humanist overtone:
One of the most fundamental aspects of our culture is the importance we attach to Man. Ours has
always been a Man-centred society. … We believe
in the inherent goodness of man. We enjoy man
for himself. We regard our living together not as
an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God
to make us a community of brothers and sisters
jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer
to the varied problems of life. Hence in all we do
we always place Man first and hence all our action
is usually joint community oriented action rather
than the individualism which is the hallmark of
the capitalist approach.
Most importantly:
God is not in the habit of coming down from
heaven to solve people’s problems on earth.
Biko’s final arrest occurred on August 18,
1977, when he and a friend were stopped at
a roadblock. What happened after that is not
clear in every detail, but the apparent plan of
his captors was to persuade Biko that he was
not fully human, after all. He was kept completely naked at all times, chained to a wall,
and allowed no books, papers, communication, or exercise. He was repeatedly interrogated by police with a deserved reputation
for using more than verbal traps to extract
information.
Biko may or may not have tried to fight
back during his interrogation on the morning of September 6, as police decades later
claimed he did. What definitely did happen
was that Biko received a severe injury to the
head, and for the rest of that day and several
succeeding days drifted in and out of consciousness, all the while naked, manacled and
chained to a grill. Doctors were brought in
to look at him; having been informed by the
police that he was simply “shamming”, they
did nothing.
On September 11, Biko took a turn for the
worse. His jailers responded by tossing him,
still naked, into the back of a van, which set
out on a grueling 700 mile journey to Pretoria. Biko died in his cell a few hours after
arrival. Shortly afterward, the government
attempted to erase Black Consciousness by
outlawing all of Biko’s organizations.
The minister of justice, Jimmy Kruger, insisted that Biko had died of a hunger strike.
Mourners gather to pay their last respects as Steve Biko’s body lies in state in his home
before the funeral, attended by 20,000 mourners at King William’s Town in 1977.
Photo: Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online
Biko on Christianity
BECAUSE the white missionary described
black people as thieves, lazy, sex-hungry,
etc, and because he equated all that was
valuable with whiteness, our Churches
through our ministers see all these vices...
not as manifestations of the cruelty and
injustice which we are subjected to by
the white man but inevitable proof that
after all the white man was right when he
described us as savages. Thus if Christianity in its introduction was corrupted by
the inclusion of aspects which made it
the ideal religion for the colonisation of
people, nowadays in its interpretation it
is the ideal religion for the maintenance
of the subjugation of the same people.
– Steve Biko, in a paper given to the
Conference of Black Ministers of Religion, South
Africa, 1972 (quoted from
Steve Biko’s, I Write What I Like.
He poured salt on the wound by saying of
Biko’s death that “it leaves me cold”, then
chuckled that black and white alike were given “the democratic right to starve themselves
to death”.
An inquest revealed the true cause of death
as brain injury; a highlight was the jailer who
testified that “No assault charges have ever
been laid against my assaulting team”. He
was allowed to correct his statement to “interrogation team”. Curiously, even after the
results of the inquest were made public, Kruger continued to stick to the hunger strike
line – mere facts never bother those doing
God’s will.
The government would have been better
off simply murdering Biko in an untraceable
manner, as it did when it killed SASO leader
Abram Tiro with a parcel bomb. As Biko had
predicted:
You are either alive and proud or you are dead,
and when you are dead, you can’t care anyway. And
your method of death can itself be a politicizing
thing ... So if you can overcome the personal fear for
death, which is a highly irrational thing, you know,
then you’re on the way.
His death provided decisive impetus to the
anti-apartheid movement worldwide. Over
20,000 mourners attended his funeral, where
they were attacked by police who fractured a
number of skulls.
Two months later, the United Nations,
which had previously labeled apartheid a
“crime against humanity”, slapped an arms
embargo on South Africa. Ronald Reagan,
the darling of America’s Christian right, opposed sanctions on South Africa while disingenuously remarking that South Africa had
“eliminated the segregation we once had in
our own country”. But in 1986 Congress
overrode his veto and slapped full economic
sanctions on South Africa.
The most important event of 1986, though,
was that the Dutch Reformed Church finally
caved into decades of worldwide opprobrium and announced that God really didn’t demand the continuation of apartheid after all.
They neither apologized nor acknowledged
past error; they just admitted that things
weren’t working out well in practice.
Whatever; the critical point was that once
the moral underpinnings for a system that
was obscene on its face were yanked out,
the system could not possibly stand. Nor did
it; Nelson Mandela was freed from jail just
four years later, and four years after that he
became South Africa’s first black President.
Unfortunately, corruption and buffoonery
have plagued South African politics since
Mandela’s retirement. There is no certainty
that things would have been different had
Steve Biko lived – he would only be 65 years
old today – but it would be nice to know
what he would have done with the chance.
• This article was first appeared on Luis
Granados’ blog (www.luisgranados.com)
and is republished with his permission)
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 07 •
Despite the humiliation it suf
the Catholic Church just w
BARRY DUKE compares ‘intrinsically disordered’
T
he Roman Catholic Church is, in
many ways, like a belligerent drunk
who starts a fight with a stranger in
a bar, gets seven bells knocked out of him,
then snivels that he was the one who was
picked on. In short, the Church is a sucker
for punishment. And punishment is what
it got in spades in the aftermath of the
American Presidential election.
But rather than learn the obvious lesson
that it it is way, way out of step with public
opinion in regard to a whole range of issues, not the least being same-sex unions,
the Church’s response to its disastrous and
hugely expensive anti-gay campaign in the
US was to declare that it will keep throwing
punches – and good money after bad.
According to a report last month published by the Gay News Network, the Church
spent $2 million in its failed campaign
against marriage equality in the recent US
elections.
The campaigns against marriage equality
in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington are believed to have received a total
of $11.3million from the Church, its ally
the National Organization for Marriage
(NOM), and an affiliate, the Knights of
Columbus.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
produced a report, which suggested that
the parishioners who made the initial donations to the Church are likely to be unaware of how their money was spent.
“The Church and NOM can continue
pouring money into discriminating against
LGBT people, but the writing is on the
wall for their anti-equality agenda,” HRC
President Chad Griffin said in a statement.
“The Roman Catholic hierarchy should
be focusing on taking actions that actually
improve people’s lives, not spending precious resources on spreading malicious lies
aimed at tearing down an entire community of people.”
The push against same-sex marriage by
the Roman Catholic Church came despite a
recent poll by Pew Research Center which
found 52 per cent of US Catholics support
marriage equality while only 37 oppose it.
The Vatican’s response to the bloody
nose it received was to launch an aggressive media blitz which sought to portray
the monstrously immoral organisation as
a victim of “politically correct ideologies
invading every culture of the world”.
The anti-gay marriage media blitz came
immediately after three US states approved
same-sex marriage by popular vote in the
election that returned Barack Obama to
the US presidency.
More bad news was to follow. Spain upheld its gay marriage law, which had been
challenged as “unconstitutional” by mainly
Catholic homophobes, and France, despite
massive protests by Catholics and evangelical groups, pushed ahead with legislation
that could see gay marriage legalised early
next year.
In a front-page article in the Vatican
newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Holy
See sought to frame itself as the lone voice
of courage in opposing initiatives to give
same-sex couples legal recognition.
In a separate Vatican Radio editorial,
spokesman for Pope Ratzinger asked sarcastically why gay marriage proponents do
not now push for legal recognition for polygamous couples as well.
L’Osservatore Romano wrote that Catholics
were putting up a valiant fight to uphold
Church teaching in the face of “politically
correct ideologies invading every culture
of the world” that are backed by institutions like the United Nations, which last
year passed a non-binding resolution condemning anti-gay discrimination.
According to Catholic teaching, the
Church holds that homosexuals , whilst
“intrinsically disordered” should be respected and treated with respect and dignity. But respect and dignity are totally
alien concepts to Catholic bigwigs, who
really are “intrinsically disordered”. This was
made abundantly clear in the UK when the
LGBT rights group recently named Cardinal Keith O’Brien (pictured right), head of
the Catholics in Scotland, Bigot of Year.
• 08 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012
Terry Sanderson, President of the National
Secular Society, issued a statement in support of the LGBT rights group Stonewall,
which received considerable flak for bestowing the award on O’Brien.
Sanderson said: “Once again, the aggressive Catholic Church is playing its age old
trick of turning the tables on its critics and
making itself into the victim. It’s a familiar
technique which we’ve seen deployed repeatedly in the clerical child abuse scandal
“When the Church has been found out
not only to be enabling paedophiles within
its ranks, but then concealing their activities from the authorities, it has constantly
tried to shift the blame on to someone or
something else.
“The Church has nominated a whole raft
of villains as culpable for its crimes: an
American problem, irresponsible permissiveness, then it was the gay community,
then it was unfair reporters – and even
“secular values”.
“All have been made whipping boys by
the Vatican.”
Sanderson continued: “When Cardinal
Cormac Murphy O’Connor was found
to have covered the tracks of a notorious child abuser in his Arundel diocese,
all investigations suddenly ceased when
ffered after Obama’s victory,
won’t quit its War on Gays
Catholic leaders to belligerent bar-room brawlers
The Pope had a taste of things to come when thousands turned out in London in 2010 to
protest his visit to the UK
he claimed that he was being victimised by
the media. Now we have Cardinal Keith
O’Brien, who has said some vile and hatemongering things about gay people, all but
dehumanising them by referring to paedophilia and bestiality, being portrayed as a
victim of wicked gays because they dared
to speak back to him.
“But Stonewall is absolutely right. The
Cardinal is a bigot, and the award was appropriate and well-deserved.
“Let us not forget that it was the Catholic
Church who declared this war on gay people, not the other way round. Is the LGBT
community supposed simply to sit back
and take whatever abuse and defamation
the Catholic Church chooses to hand out?
“The Church, after all, is trying to
deny gay people their human rights. And
it seems it will stop at no dirty trick to
achieve its goal.
“We say, lay off Stonewall and turn a
more realistic spotlight on the scheming
and conniving of a highly politicised Catholic Church.”
The US election had been closely
watched at the Vatican because of the
strong divisions that erupted during the
campaign between the Obama administration and US bishops over gay marriage,
which Obama endorsed in May.
The administration and bishops also
vehemently clashed over Obama’s health
care mandate requiring nearly all US health
insurance plans to cover contraception,
which the Church opposes.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops said the contraception mandate, which
exempts houses of worship but applies to
faith-affiliated employers, is a violation of
religious freedom.
According to the website Edge on the
Net, for LGBT Americans, the election
“marked a watershed moment: For the
first time, a popular vote enshrined marriage equality. No, make that three votes:
Maryland, Maine and Washington State.
In Minnesota, voters refused to enshrine a
gay marriage ban in the state’s constitution.
And in Iowa, voters did an about-face and
rejected judicial interference by refusing to
recall the judge responsible for marriage
equality in the Hawkeye State”.
It added: “While union members, Latinos, blacks, liberals, women, LGBT voters and their supporters were all dancing
in the streets, ultra-conservatives across
the country have been busy throwing
hissy fits after being decimated on Election Day. Their constant mantra that, when
put to voters, marriage equality would
always go down in flames, well, went down
in flames.”
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 09 •
Arise, African skeptics!
LEO IGWE, recently appointed as a research fellow
by the James Randi Educational Foundation, has
issued A Manifesto for a Skepical Africa
T
he James Randi Educational Foundation recently announced the appointment of outspoken gay rights advocate and human rights campaigner
Leo Igwe as a research fellow. The appointment will support his work advancing skepticism throughout Africa and around the world.
Currently, he is researching African witchcraft accusations and their social impact at
the University of Bayreuth in Germany.
Igwe, in partnership with the JREF, will
work to respond to harmful and growing superstitious beliefs throughout Africa, including belief in pseudoscientific “medicine,”
and witchcraft.
Igwe will report on the state of superstition and paranormal belief in Africa regularly
at randi.org, with his column, “Skeptical Africa”. Through his work in the field and in
academia, Igwe aims to better understand the
causes of harmful and unfounded superstition across the continent, and to help combat
it through educating the public, both in the
US and abroad.
He is also the author of the new A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa, a call to arms for
African skeptics. In his manifesto, he writes:
For too long, African societies have been
identified as superstitious, consisting of people who cannot question, reason or think
critically. Dogma and blind faith in superstition, divinity and tradition are said to be the
mainstay of popular thought and culture. African science is often equated with witchcraft
and the occult; African philosophy with magical thinking, myth-making and mysticism,
African religion with stone-age spiritual abracadabra, African medicine with folk therapies
often involving pseudoscientific concoctions
inspired by magical thinking. Science, critical
thinking and technological intelligence are
portrayed as Western – as opposed to universal – values, and as alien to Africa and to
the African mindset. An African who thinks
critically or seeks evidence and demands
proofs for extraordinary claims is accused
of taking a “white” or Western approach. An
African questioning local superstitions and
traditions is portrayed as having abandoned
or betrayed the essence of African identity.
Leo Igwe
Skepticism and rationalism are regarded as
Western, un-African, philosophies. Although
there is a risk of overgeneralising, there are
clear indicators that the continent is still socially, politically and culturally trapped by undue credulity.
Many irrational beliefs exist and hold sway
across the region. These are beliefs informed
by fear and ignorance, misrepresentations of
nature and how nature works. These misconceptions are often instrumental in causing
many absurd incidents, harmful traditional
practices and atrocious acts. For instance, not
too long ago, the police in Nigeria arrested
a “robber” goat which they said was a thief
who suddenly turned to a goat. A Nigerian
woman was reported to have given birth to a
horse. In Zambia, a local school closed temporarily due to fears of witchcraft. In Uganda, there are claims of demonic attacks in
schools across the country. Persecution and
murder of alleged witches continue in many
parts of the continent. Many Africans still
believe that their suffering and misfortune
are caused by witchcraft and magic. In Malawi, belief in witchcraft is widespread. Ritual killing and sacrifice of albinos and other
persons with disabilities take place in many
communities, and are motivated by paranormal belief. Across Africa people still believe
in the potency and efficacy of juju and magic
charms. Faith-based abuses are perpetrated
with impunity. Jihadists, witch-hunters and
other militants are killing, maiming and destroying lives and property. Other-worldly
• 10 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
visions and dogmatic attitudes about the supernatural continue to corrupt and hamper
attempts by Africans to improve their lives.
Even with the continent’s ubiquitous religiosity, many African states are to be found at
the bottom of the Human Development Index and on the top of the poverty, mortality
and morbidity indices.
Recently Africa was polled as the most devout region in the world, and this includes
deep devotion to the continent’s various
harmful superstitions. Devoutness and underdevelopment, poverty, misery and superstition co-exist and co-relate. It should be
said that the dominant religious faiths in the
region are faiths alien to the continent. That
means African Christians are more devout
than Europeans whose missionaries brought
Christianity to Africa. African Muslims are
more devout than Muslims in the Middle
East, whose jihadists and clerics introduced
Islam to the region.
Meanwhile, whatever good these foreign
belief systems may have brought to or done
in Africa can only be unfavorably compared
to the damage and darkness they have caused
and are still causing in the region. Some paranormal or supernatural claims of the two
main religions of Christianity and Islam are
part of the factors holding Africans hostage.
Most Africans cannot think freely or express
their doubts openly because these religions
have placed a huge price on freethinking
and critical inquiry. Because these belief systems rely on paranormal claims themselves,
Africans feel they cannot speak out against
superstition as a whole, or they will be ostracized or even killed by religious zealots. Belief in demonic possession, faith healing, and
the “restorative” power of holy water can
have deadly consequences for believers and
whole communities. Africans must reject superstitious indoctrination and dogmatization
in public institutions. Africans need to adopt
this cultural motto: Dare to think. Dare to
doubt. Dare to question everything in spite
of what the superstitious around you teach
and preach.
Africans must begin to think freely in order to emancipate themselves from mental
Leo Igwe is by no means the only person is currently focusing on the problems caused by witchcraft in Africa. Another is Vermontbased Norman Miller, who recently published Encounters with Witchcraft: Field Notes from Africa, much of which he researched in
rural Tanzania and Kenya. When he launched his book, Miller said he believed that witchcraft persists in Africa for several reasons.
“Witchcraft is a system of thought, a way of explaining unexplainable events such as death. It is a part of a heritage of beliefs. But
the core reason that witchcraft persists is that it is profitable and politically useful. The key people who profit are the millions of
indigenous or traditional healers who first, diagnose witchcraft as a malady, then sell the patient herbs, drugs, or medicines to cure
and protect them from further witchcraft. Market women—including herbalists, healers, midwives, marketeers—make profits selling
a wide range of herbs, drugs, amulets, and protective devices as curative and protective items. Witchcraft is also part of the belief system behind the killings for body parts that has plagued albino and elderly populations. Miller’s study shows that witch-hunting and
witchcraft-related crimes are found today in more than 70 developing countries.
slavery and generate ideas that can ignite the
flame of an African enlightenment.
The two dominant religions have fantastic
rewards for those who cannot think, the intellectually conforming, unquestioning and
obedient, even those who kill or are killed
furthering their dogmas. They need to be
told that the skeptical goods – the liberating
promises of skeptical rationality – are by far
more befitting and more beneficent to Africans than imaginary rewards either in the
here and now or in the hereafter. Today the
African continent has become the new battleground for the forces of a dark age. And
we have to dislodge and defeat these forces if
Africa is to emerge, grow, develop and flourish. To some people, the African predicament appears hopeless. The continent seems
to be condemned, doomed and damned. Africa appears to be in a fix, showing no signs
of change, transformation and progress. An
African enlightenment sounds like a pipe
dream.
But I do not think this is the case – an African Age of Reason can be on the horizon!
The fact is that there are many Africans who
reason well and think critically. There are
Africans who are skeptics and rationalists1.
But active African skeptics are too few and
far apart to form the critical mass the continent needs to experience a Skeptical Spring.
Nonetheless, the momentum is building
slowly and steadily. And one can say that an
African skeptical awakening is in sight. As it
is said: the darkest part of the night precedes
the dawn. So there is no need to despair for
humanity in Africa. There is every reason to
be optimistic and hopeful. After all, Europe
went through a very dark period in its history, in fact, a darker and more horrible phase
than that which Africa is currently undergoing. Still the European continent survived
to experience Enlightenment and modern
civilization. Who ever thought that the Arab
Spring would happen in our lifetime? So,
African enlightenment can happen sooner
than we expected. But it will not happen as
a miracle. African enlightenment will not fall
like manna from heaven. It requires – and
will continue to require – hard work, efforts,
sacrifice, courage and struggle by Africans
and other friends who are committed to the
values of enlightenment. In Europe, skeptics
spoke out against harmful superstition, and
unfounded dogma and caused the dawn of
a new awakening. African skeptics need to
speak out against the forces of dogma, irrationalism and superstition ravaging the continent. Skeptics need to organize and mobilize — online and offline — to further the
cause of reason, science and critical thinking.
They need to speak out in the media and to
politicians about the harm resulting from
undue credulity and challenge and confront
the charlatans directly to put up or shut up.
Skeptics can no longer afford to keep quiet
or remain indifferent in the face of a looming dark age. They need to campaign for a
reform of the educational system and encourage the teaching of critical thinking in
schools.
Many charlatans operate out there in their
communities. They ‘mine’ popular fears and
anxieties, exploiting desperate, misinformed
folks. We need to expose them and free our
people from their bondage. African skeptics
cannot remain passive and inactive and expect skeptical rationality to thrive and flourish or expect the forces of dogma and superstition to simply disappear. The situation
requires active engagement by committed
skeptics. That was how the much-talkedabout skeptical tradition in the Western
world was established and is sustained.
That is how we are going to build and leave
a skeptical legacy for Africa.
This is a call to duty to all African skeptics in Africa and in the diaspora. History has
thrust on us this critical responsibility which
we must fulfill. Let us therefore marshal our
will to doubt, to advance skepticism in the
interest of Africa. Let us marshall other intellectual resources and cause this new dawn
– this skeptical awakening to happen early in
this 21st century.
African skeptics arise.
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 11•
The global
struggle for
queer freedom
O
ver the last two decades, the impoverished South Asian nation of
Nepal has made an extraordinary
transition from monarchical tyranny to a
secular democratic republic. This progress
has included significant advances for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
people. Thanks to the campaigns of the
LGBT organisation, the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), there is cross-party consensus
on LGBT equality in parliament, and the
Supreme Court of Nepal ruled in 2007 that
the government must repeal all laws that
discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.
As a consequence, citizenship and ID
documents now include the option of
“third gender” to address the demands of
people who do not identify themselves as
either male or female; Nepal has opened
South Asia’s first LGBT community centre; MPs are considering the legalisation
of same-sex marriage; and the openly gay
leader of the BDS, Sunil Pant, was elected
to the Constituent Assembly in 2008 and
now hosts one of Nepal’s most popular TV
talk shows. Progress indeed.
However, in large parts of the world,
homophobic and transphobic oppression
remains rife. It is estimated that the global
LGBT population is somewhere between
250 million and 500 million people (5-10
percent of the world population aged over
16). Most of these people – hundreds of
millions of them – are forced to hide their
sexuality, fearing ostracism, harassment,
discrimination, imprisonment, torture and
even murder.
Some of this violence is perpetrated
by vigilantes, including right-wing death
squads in certain regions of countries like
Mexico and Brazil. They justify the killing
of queers as “social cleansing. Other homophobic persecution is officially encouraged and enforced by governments, police,
courts, media and religious leaders. MPs in
Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania, some Moldovan cities and several Russian regions have
proposed or passed laws banning so-called
homosexual propaganda and promotion.
Human rights campaigner
PETER TATCHELL reports that
despite positive
progress made in certain
countries, homophobia
remains rife in many others
In Russia, religious leaders have united
to denounce the LGBT community. The
Orthodox Church has called homosexuality a “sin which destroys human beings and
condemns them to a spiritual death”. The
Supreme Mufti of Russia’s Muslims, Talgat
Tajuddin, says gay campaigners “should be
bashed…Sexual minorities have no rights,
because they have crossed the line. Alternative sexuality is a crime against God.”
Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Berel Lazar, has condemned Gay Pride parades as “a blow for
morality”, adding that there is no right to
“sexual perversions”. Successive Moscow
mayors have repeatedly banned Gay Pride
marches. This violates Russia’s constitution and law, which guarantee freedom of
expression and the right to peaceful protest. LGBT people who have attempted to
march have been beaten and arrested.
Meanwhile, the total criminalisation of
homosexuality continues in nearly 80 countries – including most of Africa, Asia, the
Caribbean and the Middle East – with penalties ranging from a one-year jail sentence
to life imprisonment. Half of these countries are former British colonies and current
members of the Commonwealth – an association of nations that is supposedly committed to uphold democracy and human
rights. The anti-gay laws in these Commo
wealth nations were originally legislated by
the British government in the 19th century
during the period of colonial rule. They
were never repealed when these nations
won their independence from Britain.
As well as homophobic laws, British
imperialism imposed homophobic prejudice by means of the fire-and-brimstone
Christian fundamentalist missionaries who
sought to ‘civilise’ the so-called ‘heathen’
peoples of the colonies. They instilled in
these countries an intolerance of homosexuality that continues to this day. As a result,
in part at least, homophobia is rampant in
much of Africa.
In the last year, more than 20 men have
been arrested in Cameroon on suspicion of
homosexuality, often without any clear evidence that they had same-sex relations. Rog-
• 12 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
er Jean-Claude Mbédé has spent a year in
prison for sending an SMS text message to
another man: “I’m very much in love w/u.”
He is facing another two years behind bars
in a filthy, insanitary prison where he suffers
daily abuse from guards and inmates. In Nigeria, in 2005, six teenage lesbians, one only
12 years old, were ordered to be punished
with an agonising 90 lashes for consensual
same-sex relations. More recently, a Nigerian gay pastor from the House of Rainbow
church and another Christian gay activist
were forced to flee the country after receiving death threats. They were given no police
protection. Government ministers in Namibia, echoing the hatred of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, have denounced
lesbians and gays as “un-African”, as traitors
and as spreaders of HIV/AIDS.
However, homophobic oppression is
most extreme in the Islamist states that
impose the death penalty for same-sex relations, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen. In some regions of
other countries – such as Nigeria, Pakistan
and Somalia – shariah law is enforced and
LGBT people can be stoned to death. The
Iranian persecution of LGBTs continues
unabated. Twenty-two-year-old Amir was
entrapped via a gay dating website. The
person he arranged to meet turned out to
be a member of the morality police. Amir
was jailed, tortured and sentenced to 100
lashes, which caused him to lose consciousness and left his whole back covered in
huge bloody welts. He is just one of many
Iranian LGBTs who have been subjected to
lashings, torture and imprisonment – and
who are at risk of execution. In early 2006,
Iran’s Gulf neighbour, the United Arab
Emirates, imposed a six-year jail sentence
on 11 gay men arrested at a private party.
They were not imprisoned for sexual acts,
but merely for being gay and attending a gay
social gathering.
Iraq is an example of extreme persecution – LGBT Iraqis suffer even more today
than they did under the dictator Saddam
Hussein. A BBC investigation in 2012 revealed that the police have colluded with
the targeted murder of up to 1,000 LGBT
people by Islamist militias and death squads
who seek the total extermination of ‘sexual
deviants’. Gang rape, torture and detention
without trial are also commonplace. The
Iraqi government is denying or ignoring
this homophobic terror campaign. Francesco Motta, the representative of the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights in
Iraq, says the Iraqi government is in violation of international law and its failure to
take action against the killings makes the
state an accomplice to the crime.
Amid this gloom, in 2008 something truly
remarkable and historic happened: 66 countries signed a UN statement calling for the
universal decriminalisation of homosexuality and condemning homophobic discrimination and violence. Although the statement fell short of majority support and is
not binding on UN member states, this was
the first time the UN General Assembly
had addressed the issue of LGBT human
rights. Previous attempts had been blocked
by an unholy alliance of the Vatican and Islamist states.
In March 2011, a new version of the
statement was signed by 85 countries. Three
months later, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning antiLGBT discrimination and hate crimes, urging a UN report on the issue. The report,
authored by the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, was published in December 2011, and noted with
concern: “Homophobic and transphobic
violence has been recorded in all regions.
Such violence may be physical (including
murder, beatings, kidnappings, rape and
sexual assault) or psychological (including
threats, coercion and arbitrary deprivations
of liberty).”
Despite these breakthroughs, even today
no international human rights convention
specifically acknowledges love and sexual
rights as human rights. None explicitly guarantees equality and non-discrimination to
LGBT people. The right to love a person of
one’s choice is absent from global humanitarian statutes. Relationships between partners
of the same sex are not officially recognised
in any international law. There is nothing in
the many UN conventions that specifically
upholds LGBT equality and prohibits homophobic discrimination. Some UN members
and bodies have merely chosen to interpret
the general commitments to equal rights and
non-discrimination in the existing conventions as applying to LGBT people.
Likewise with regard to the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
It is only in the last decade or so that the
ECHR’s equality and privacy clauses have
been interpreted to outlaw discrimination
on the grounds of sexual orientation and
gender identity. In the late 1990s, British
LGBT citizens filed appeals at the European Court of Human Rights against the
UK’s then discriminatory, homophobic
laws. They cited the ECHR’s right to privacy and anti-discrimination clauses to successfully challenge anti-gay UK legislation
dating back centuries. These victories in
Strasbourg forced the British government
to repeal the unequal age of consent for gay
men, discriminatory sexual offences laws
and the ban on lesbians and gays serving in
the armed forces.
Despite these breakthroughs, even today no
international human rights
convention specifically
acknowledges love and
sexual rights as human
rights. None explicitly
guarantees equality and
non-discrimination to
LGBT people. The right
to love a person of one’s
choice is absent from
global humanitarian
statutes.
ECHR judgements also successfully pressured other countries, such as Romania
and Cyprus, to decriminalise homosexuality. The convention has thus played an important role in challenging and overturning
homophobic legislation.
Of the 193 member states of the UN,
only a handful have repealed nearly all major legal inequalities against LGBT people:
the Netherlands, South Africa, Belgium,
Spain, France, Brazil, Germany, Iceland,
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Canada, New Zealand and, more recently, the UK.
Britain’s record was not always so positive. Until 1999, when legislative reform
began, the UK had the largest number
of homophobic laws of any country on
earth – some of them dating back centuries. Thanks to an astute 20-year twin-track
campaign of direct action protest and parliamentary lobbying, today the UK is one
of the world’s most progressive countries
on LGBT rights.
Some supposedly liberal democracies
have been slow to grant LGBT equality.
The USA maintains a federal ban on samesex marriage and not all states have full
anti-discrimination protection. The Aus-
tralian parliament recently voted down a bill
to allow same-sex couples to marry, even
though such legislation has overwhelming
public support. Most of the emergent postcommunist Central and Eastern European
democracies maintain varying degrees of
legal discrimination – and harbour public
attitudes that are extremely homophobic.
Despite this discrimination, LGBT people have made huge strides forward in many
parts of the world. A mere four decades
ago, ‘queers’ were almost universally seen
as mad, bad and sad. Same-sex relations
were deemed a sin, a crime and a sickness.
It was only in the early 1990s that the World
Health Organization declassified homosexuality as an illness, and that Amnesty International agreed to campaign for LGBT
human rights and to adopt jailed LGBTs as
prisoners of conscience.
Nowadays, the global tide is shifting in
favour of LGBT emancipation. In 1999,
in New Zealand, Georgina Beyer became
the world’s first openly transgender MP.
Uruguay, once a military dictatorship, has
lifted its prohibition on gay servicemen and
women. History has been made in Lebanon
– the first Arab Middle East nation to allow
the open, legal establishment of an LGBT
welfare and human rights group, Helem.
While fundamentalist religion is still a
major threat to LGBT equality, campaigners also have allies in many faiths. The antiapartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu
has compared homophobia to racism, and
described the battle for LGBT freedom as
the moral equivalent of the fight against
apartheid. Eight countries now outlaw
sexual orientation discrimination in their
constitutions: South Africa (1996), Ecuador
(1998), Switzerland (2000), Sweden (2003),
Portugal (2004), the British Virgin Islands
(2007), Kosovo (2008) and Bolivia (2009).
In almost every country on earth, there
are LGBT freedom movements – some
open, others clandestine. For the first time
ever, countries like the Philippines, Estonia,
Columbia, Russia, Sri Lanka and China are
hosting LGBT conferences and Gay Pride
celebrations. Via the internet and pop culture, LGBT people in small towns in Ghana, Peru, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, Vietnam, St
Lucia, Palestine, Fiji and Kenya are connecting with the worldwide LGBT community. The struggle for LGBT liberation has
gone global. We’ve begun to roll back the
homophobia of centuries. Bravo!
• This article first appeared in the Global
International Briefing website (http://www.
global-briefing.org) and is reproduced with
the writer’s permission). For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights campaigns – and to make a donation – visit www.
PeterTatchellFoundation.org
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 13 •
PROPHESY
A short story by JACK HASTIE
I
t was late autumn in Lanzarote. Unseasonably, thunder cracked and growled
and lightning flickered over the lava
flows and ash fields of the interior. Down
on the coast two strangers cringed in the
shelter of a pool bar while sheets of hail
danced on the courtyard and machine
gunned the surface of the deserted pool.
The man from Glasgow pushed away his
chilled pint of San Miguel with a gesture
of disgust. “Didn’t expect this. Mind you,
nothing to what the New Yorkers had to
put up with recently.”
The other man sipped his glass of unfermented grape juice. “Them Noo Yorkers
sure had it coming,” he said in a slow Kentucky drawl.
“How?” asked the Scot. “Never had been
a storm like it. They took all the precautions
they could. Read that your President got a
lot of credit for the way he handled it.”
“They defied The Lord.”
“Eh?”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that all
the states hit by the hurricane – New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Vermont – recognise
same sex marriage in defiance of His commandments.”
The Scot laughed. “Well it’s going to get
a lot worse for you. I see Obama’s going
to write it into the federal constitution now
he’s got a second term.”
“What d’ya expect? That was God’s warning to us not to re-elect. But we’d already
outraged Him by choosing Obama in the
first place.”
“How come?”
“He’s a descendant of Ham; a Cushite of
the race accursed by The Lord; first cousin
to the Canaanite.”
“That so?” The man from Glasgow invited further elucidation.
“Don’t you read Scripture?” Kentucky
man produced something like an over sized
mobile phone. “Got the whole of the Bible
here.” He tapped the screen. “Genesis 9,
verse 25: And he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan.
A servant of servants shall he be.’”
“So you reckon God sent the super storm
to punish America for making Obama President?”
The other nodded. “And his judgement
fell upon the states that had already recognised same sex marriage. But it was also a
warning to us not to re-elect.”
“But it didn’t work; Obama won.”
“There will be a terrible reckoning, and
this time California will feel the force of
His wrath. They have the most votes of any
state in the Electoral College and yet they
ignored the warning and blasphemed them
• 14 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •
away for Cushite.”
“Look out for the San Andreas fault
then,” laughed the Scot. “But it’s supposed
to be stable now. Not been a big one since
whenever.”
“The Lord has told us.” Kentucky man
tapped the screen of his Ipad. “Isaiah chapter 19.” He intoned, “Behold, The Lord
rideth upon a swift horse and shall come
unto Egypt. And the idols of Egypt shall
be moved at His presence and the heart
of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.” He
paused, “And who are we to know what will
be the instruments of His wrath?”
The Scot tried his lager again. “What’s
Egypt got to do with it? Obama’s father was
a Kenyan negro.”
“Cush and Mizraim and Canaan; they are
all the children of Ham. And The Lord has
warned us through His prophet Isaiah that
Obama will be laid low and that we, the
Americans, of all people, will be grievously
punished for receiving him and his evil doctrines. You too. I guess you’re British.
“We British and Americans together, we
all have a special duty in those last days. The
Lord has preserved us against the coming
of the great Red Dragon with seven heads
and ten horns, which Saint John foretold
in the Book of Revelation. For we are the
true Children of Israel, the descendants of
the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.” He
tapped his Ipad again. “Isaiah chapter 13
verse 19: ‘And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees, shall be
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.’
“Know that Babylon is China. And Moab
which Isaiah tells us in Chapter 15 will also
be extirpated, is Iran. And the Red Dragon
whose instruments they are, is none other
than the serpent that deceived Eve. O, Lucifer, Son of the Morning, how art thou fallen! But first the Hamite in our midst is to be
destroyed.” He stopped for breath and took
another sip of his juice.
“You have listened with great patience.
Perhaps you would care to join me now in a
moment of prayer and worship?”
The hail had stopped now. Heaven’s artillery had died away, grumbling, behind
the mountains. A smiling sun shuffled out
of the clouds and the courtyard began to
steam. Two children dipped their toes in the
shallow end of the pool.
The other descendant of the Lost Tribes
took a long draft of his now warmed up
beer: “I’ve been interested in what you were
saying. I’m a journalist. Think I might get
a feature out of it. But worship ... I don’t
thinks so. What you’re saying is fascinating,
but, to be frank, sheer fantasy.”
“Dare you question the word of The
Lord?”
The last of the clouds evaporated, the
sun beamed down on the steaming courtyard and three more children joined those
in the pool.
The sceptic took another swig of San
Miguel; it was his turn to warm to his subject, and to show off a little.
“In the light of modern scholarship, both
scientific and Biblical, there is really no excuse, even for an American, to entertain
such preposterous nonsense.
“Have you never heard of Darwin, or
Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking?
Have you read David Hume? As a Bible
thumper you must know about the Higher
Criticism and what it makes of the Old Testament. Why pick Genesis and Isaiah? You
might as well quote from the Iliad or the
Rig Veda, and, as far as the Book of Revelation is concerned,” he permitted himself
a wicked grin, “from Hans Christian Andersen.”
“Blasphemer!” hissed the American. “Get
thee behind me, Satan!” He rose and kicked
his chair over savagely. “Prepare for the
great day of the coming of The Lord. He is
trampling out the vintage where the grapes
of wrath are stored.”
“Once upon a time,” taunted the sceptic,
“there were three bears.”
From the television set behind them at
the bar came the blast of a news flash from
Al Jazeera.
They both froze.
“Massive quake rocks San Francisco.
Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed.”
Catholic Church in Ireland is in
crisis, according to a new survey
A
new global survey on faith and
atheism has revealed that the Catholic Church in Ireland is a far bigger mess than previously thought.
According to the poll released by WIN-Gallup International, the traditionally Catholic
country has seen one of the steepest drops
worldwide in religiosity.
The poll – which was based on interviews
with more than 50,000 people selected from
57 countries – asked participants, “irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist”.
In Ireland, only 47 percent of those polled
said they considered themselves religious – a
22-point drop from the 69 percent recorded
in a similar poll conducted in 2005. In addition, 10 percent self-identified as atheist.
The only country that registered a steeper
decline in religiosity was Vietnam, which saw
a 23-point drop from 53 percent to 30 percent.
However, Ireland and Vietnam were not
unique in this dip in faith. According to the
global index, there has been a notable decline
in religiosity worldwide.
Current data shows that the number of
people worldwide who call themselves religious is now 59 percent, while 13 percent
self-identify as atheist.
According to a report in the Huffington Post,
religiosity has fallen by 9 points globally since
2005 and the number of people who identify
as atheist rose from four percent to seven
percent. Note that only 40 countries were
polled in both 2005 and 2012, so there are
two different sets of data available.
The US, France and Canada joined Ireland
on the top-10 list of countries to have experienced a “notable decline in religiosity” since
2005.
The number of people in the U.S. who selfidentify as religious dropped 13 points to 60
percent. In addition, 5 percent of Americans
declared themselves atheists, an increase of 4
points since 2005.
Yet, despite this global decline in faith, the
focus at the moment seems to be on Ireland,
where Catholicism has had a long and rich
tradition.
Since the poll results were made available
to the public, many have lamented the drop
in Ireland’s religious feeling, with one Guardian writer calling it “the end of Catholic Ireland.”
However, some Irish Catholic officials and
organizations are insisting that the poll may
not show the full picture and have cautioned
against taking the index as a comprehensive
indicator of Irish faith.
For example, a spokesperson for the Catholic Communications Office told the Belfast
Telegraph that the language used by the poll
may have been misleading.
“The word ‘religious’, if left unqualified, is
too general to be used as the keyword in a
survey questionnaire – especially in the Irish
context – where people prefer words such as
‘spiritual’. Being ‘religious’ is a very subjective
measurement,” he said.
Nonetheless, the Archbishop of Dublin,
Diarmuid Martin, said that the global index
has undoubtedly highlighted the challenges
facing the Catholic Church in Ireland.
“The Catholic Church, on its part, cannot
simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the
next or be lived to the full by its own members,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
Sinead Mooney, deputy managing director of RED C Research -- the company that
conducted the Irish poll – told Reuters that
there were two factors that likely contributed
to Ireland’s sharp decline in religiosity.
“Obviously, there were all the scandals in
the Church over that period – that was massive,” she said. “Also, as countries get richer,
they tend to lose some sense of religion. We
did become richer – at least at the beginning
of that period.”
According to the poll, the most devout region of the world is Africa – and the countries where most people self-identified as religious were Ghana (96 percent), Nigeria (93
percent) and Macedonia (90 percent).
• thepinkhumanist • december 2012 • 15•
Scene from Across the Pond
Photo credit: W WARBY
By Warren Allen Smith
FIRST, the old but bad news as of December
2012: President Barack Hussein Obama’s
political party (the Democratic) in November won the Presidency (by over three million
votes) and the Senate (53 of the 100 seats)
but the other party (the Republican) still had a
clear majority in the House of Representatives.
A possible result will be a continuation
of our country being so divided ever since
a black president was first elected. Following Obama’s re-election, bigoted tweets from
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Tennessee were recorded by the media.
Then the good news for those of us who
are GLBT’s: Voters for the first time have
approved equal marriage rights (with Maine,
Maryland, and Washington joining six previous states and the District of Columbia).
What’s unknown is when if ever we’ll have
the recognized rights now in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain,
and Sweden.
Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema (Democrat) became the first bisexual member of Congress.
Colorado Democrats elected its first gay
speaker (Rep Mark Ferrandino).
Maine voters, who three years ago rejected
a law to authorize same-sex marriages, tallied
over 53 percenr voting yes and 47 percent
saying no. The head of the National Organization for Marriage expressed disappointment and “we remain faithful to our mission
and are committed to the cause of preserving marriage as God designed it”
Maryland supporters in Baltimore cheered
that their Governor Martin O’Malley
(Democrat) said “that every child’s home deserves to be protected equally under the law.”
Voters 52 percent to 48 percent agreed. The
head of the state’s Family Alliance promised
the results did not mean “we’ll go away or
that people do not believe in natural marriage
between a man and a woman”.
Minnesota rejected a proposal to amend
the State Constitution to define marriage as
between a man and a woman, a defeat that
could lead to change in the law by the Legislature or the courts.
Wisconsin gay rights groups applauded
election of Representative, Tammy Baldwin, as their first openly gay female senator.
The Supreme Court had ten requests to address aspects of same-sex marriage laws. In
1967 when Lyndon B Johnson was President, the court unanimously struck down
bans on interracial marriage at a time when
only 16 states still barred such unions. The
big question is whether the court will, or
should, be influenced by popular votes.
Meanwhile, the Christian right failed to
sway voters on issues. The Rev Billy Graham all but endorsed Obama’s opponent, as
did Roman Catholic bishops and Ralph
Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition group.
The New York Times editorialized that, despite
predictions that President Obama would be
politically damaged by his support for samesex marriage, the predictions did not come
to pass. “Half of Americans believe their
states should recognize marriages of samesex couples.”
Note that that’s “half,” not “all.” Those who
think of paramount importance is our being
a republic, a government with a Constitution,
within which democracy can flourish. Others
feel democracy is the important goal. Others
look to how features of some foreign governments accomplish more in less time, with
less money, and without corporate guidance.
On December 17, members of the Electoral College (designed in 1787 to protect the
rights of smaller states, and criticized presently as being irrelevant) will formally meet
and elect the President and the Vice President, confirming the vote of 332 for Democrats to 206 for Republicans. On January
3, the 113th Congress will be sworn in. On
January 6, the electoral votes will formally be
counted at a joint session of Congress; on
January 20 at noon, the President and Vice
President will take office; and Inauguration
Day will be on January 20.
The media and related groups received
from $5 to $6-billion, resulting in some comics joking about the Party of Deceit (because the loser, Mormon Mitt Romney, was
caught claiming facts that were untrue) vs the
Other Party (that critics have complained has
not moved fast enough.) Online comments
covered the spectrum, but one proclaimed,
“Four more years? Of what? Same old shit,
no matter who wins.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning gay composer Virgil Thomson had tried peyote once during
his junior college days in Kansas City. His
supplier had been Dr Frederick Madison
Smith, whose grandfather had founded the
Mormon religion and who became head
of the church. Smith described his peyote
“highs” to Thomson, who told Times reporter Anthony Tommasini with their “characteristic excitation to feats of endurance
and to colored visions”, then supplied him
with “five bumpy little buttons, less than
an inch across and hard as wood” obtained
from Texas Indians. Although the Mormons
had prohibitions against alcohol and drugs,
as head of the church Smith reasoned that
peyote was a natural substance, not a drug,
an ancient means to tap one’s inner powers.
He had observed native American Indians
who ate the drug in pellet form and had seen
others, Catholic converts, who made from it
a tea for communion. Smith’s PhD dissertation, subsequently a book, was The Higher
Powers of Man (1918), an examination of ecstatic states, a phenomenon that some men
and, likely, that Jesus had experienced. After
further study at Harvard, Thomson became
one of America’s best music critics, a master
of the organ, and a composer with an international standing.
Readers who use Wikipedia may not know
about Philosopedia, the free online search engine that has over 4,800 mini-biographies and
subjects relating to humanities humanism
and philosophy. (Full disclosure: I founded
it in 2005 and it receives over 4.5-million hits
a month.) Examples: http://tinyurl.com/
brllqt6 http://tinyurl.com/bes6zo8
• 16 • thepinkhumanist • december 2012 •