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Ian Baynham, who died 18 days after being attacked in London, was described as 'an honest, decent man, loved by his family'

An evening out in London for 62-year-old civil servant Ian Baynham and a friend ended horrifically in Trafalgar Square when he was attacked, stamped on and kicked by drunken teenagers screaming homophobic abuse. The incident led to a former private-school pupil and her ex-boyfriend being convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey today.

Baynham, who was gay, was pushed to the ground and then stamped on and kicked as he lay unconscious during the attack in September last year. He died in the Royal London hospital from brain injuries 18 days later without regaining consciousness.

The court was told that in a scene likened to Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange, Ruby Thomas, who was then 17, smiled as she kicked Baynham after he had been knocked down by another teenager, Joel Alexander, while tourists looked on in horror. Police later found Baynham's blood on her handbag and the ballet pumps she had been wearing.

A former boyfriend of Thomas, now 18, had told the jury she was not the type of girl to have carried out such an assault, but she had a previous record of violence, having been convicted of assaulting a bus driver in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, when she was 15.

Thomas is a former pupil of Sydenham high school for girls in south London, where day fees are currently more than £12,000 a year. The school says on its website: "We know our girls and they know us … their school is very proud of them." The Good Schools Guide states that pastoral care is "supportive and caring … but not cosy … girls are presented with opportunities; they must grab them and run".

Alexander, now 20, of Thornton Heath, south London, was convicted with her. A third defendant, Rachael Burke, 18, of Upper Norwood, south London, was convicted of affray at an earlier trial. They have been remanded in custody and will be sentenced in the new year.

The court was told that Thomas, of Anerley, south-east London, had been acting in a "lairy, mouthy way" and flirting with random passersby before turning on Baynham and his friend Philip Brown and screaming "fucking faggots" at them as they crossed the square.

When Baynham confronted her, there was a scuffle during which she hit him with her handbag. Alexander knocked him to the ground, causing a severe brain injury as his head hit the pavement.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told the court: "That did not suffice. There is evidence that the female defendants then began putting the boot into Mr Baynham, who was still prone on his back, clearly unconscious and in distress … shocked onlookers saw repeated stamping to his chest and forceful kicks to his head." He said the girls had been fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol.

After the conviction Baynham's sister Jenny spoke of her distress at learning of the homophobic abuse suffered by her brother, who was a team leader in the Home Office border control office.

She said: "My brother was an ordinary, honest, decent man, loved by his family, especially our mother, and his many friends. His only crime seems to have been to stand up for who he was and it is impossible to make sense of the dreadful event that led to his death. I am not normally angry but I just feel it is so wrong.

" It should never be. We should not be able to treat each other like that. It doesn't matter who you are, we should be able to give that to everyone, whoever we come across. I thought that we had moved on a long way and I am really surprised that this sort of thing is still thrown up and is still an issue.

"It is the general public's responsibility to do something about that and report more of these sorts of incidents. There is still a huge prejudice relating to homophobia … a lot more needs to be done. Everybody has certain feelings about different sections of society but it is about tolerance, that is important."

Detective Inspector Paul Barran, who led the police investigation, said: "Our investigation clearly showed a background of aggressive, drunken behaviour that led to hostile confrontations with others – decency and respect were nonexistent."

During the trial the prosecution rejected an application for Thomas to move from a Midlands bail hostel to return to the capital, adding: "London and this woman don't go together."

George Richardson, a close friend of Baynham, said: "In the case of Ian and Philip you are talking about two perfectly ordinarily dressed, ordinary men, doing nothing to attract this kind of abuse."

He described his friend as "a perfectly normal man who just happened to be gay … Ian's death resulted from an attack motivated by homophobia. Mindless violence generated by a total absence of tolerance and fuelled as we now so often see by alcohol, has pointlessly robbed myself and others of an excellent friend. Ian died because he was proud and honest about who he was."

Ben Summerskill, of gay pressure group Stonewall, said: "The perpetrators of this crime were educated in Britain's education system within the last five years, demonstrating how much more needs to be done to tackle homophobia in our schools before it festers into violence on the streets."

Kathryn Pullen, headteacher of Sydenham high school, said tonight: "We are a diverse community that promotes tolerance and individuality. We expect the highest standards of behaviour from our girls at all times."

I was hoping this would happen ~ mgr is such a sweetheart !!!

FROSTED!!!!!!

No frost backs and wipe your face off!

:thankyou: for the add!!!

He is so hot …....just my kind of bear :jaj:

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:drool2:

:cheesy2: when I can go 8 weeks with out sex  :cheesy2:

I wish I did know ???  :cry2:

Joint Chiefs Split on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal

As expected, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, recommended against repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces.

Testifying Friday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Amos said he could not "turn my back'' on the 45 percent of Marines who expressed negative views of repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" in a year-long Pentagon survey.

"The young men and women who volunteer to be Marines do so with honorable and patriotic intensions, and even vast differences in background, beliefs or personalities can be bridged,'' Amos told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But among Marine combat arms units, 56 percent said allowing openly gay or lesbian Marines to serve would have negative impacts on fighting effectiveness and cohesion. He said that view was held almost uniformly across all ranks.

"We asked for their opinions and they gave them to us. Their message to me is that the potential exists for disruption to the successful execution of our current combat mission should repeal be implemented at this time.''

But, he added, "based on what I know about the very tough fight on the ground in Afghanistan, the almost singular focus of our combat forces as they train up and deploy into theater, the necessary tightly woven culture of those combat forces that we are asking so much of at this time . . . my recommendation is that we should not implement repeal at this time.''

Amos and the other three military service chiefs were testifying at the second of two days of hearings into potential repeal of DADT.

Of the four chiefs, two not only said their troops could accommodate serving with openly gay service members, but they outright urged that Congress act to repeal the law: Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz.

The Army's chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey, did not recommend repeal. But he told the committee that after weighing all the evidence, "I don't envision that repeal would keep us from accomplishing our worldwide missions, including combat operations.''

However, both Casey and Schwartz said they believed the law should not be repealed immediately.

"I don't believe the presence of a gay or lesbian service member creates an unacceptable risk to good order and discipline – and from the survey it appears a large number of our service members don't believe that either,'' Casey said. "But it's a question of timing. I would not recommend going forward at this time given everything the Army has on its plate.''

Schwartz said immediate implementation would be "too risky . . . perhaps full implementation in 2012 at the earliest.''

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged Congress Thursday to lift the ban on gays in the military. That would allow, they said, for an orderly process of implementation. In the legislation that would repeal the law is a provision requiring that the president, defense secretary and joint chiefs chairman -- with the advice of the service chiefs -- certify that all steps have been taken to ensure an orderly implementation of repeal and that the change would not negatively affect military effectiveness.

Should Congress fail to act, they said, the risk is that the courts will order the ban to be lifted immediately, throwing the military into chaos.

Senate Republicans Block 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal

Senate Republicans blocked repeal of "Don't ask, Don't tell" Thursday, significantly dimming prospects that the ban on gays serving openly in the military will be lifted during this lame-duck session of Congress.
The 57-40 vote came on a motion to bring the giant defense budget bill, which included repeal of "Don't ask, Don't tell" (DADT), to the floor, with Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid unable to muster the 60 votes to launch debate.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had pinned his hopes on the Senate for an orderly implementation of the change in military policy. The House voted this fall to repeal the 17-year-old law, and a positive Senate vote would have allowed the Pentagon to begin a lengthy process to actually lift the ban.
Unless the Senate acts this month, it is likely the courts will order an immediate repeal, an outcome Gates has said would lead to chaos and precisely the kind of disruption of morale and combat readiness many critics of repeal have feared.

Reid and Maine Republican Susan Collins had tried this week to reach a deal to allow debate on the defense budget legislation. Collins was one of three Republicans, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who had said they would vote for repeal of DADT. But Brown and Murkowski joined other Republicans in voting to bypass debate on the defense legislation until after the Senate considers extending the Bush-era tax cuts and other matters.
The vote coincided with the release of a new Gallup poll showing that two-thirds of Americans want the DADT law off the books.

The Defense Department had reached a similar finding with a yearlong study which surveyed 255,000 of the 2.5 million service members, as well as their families. It found the majority would not oppose serving with gays or lesbians and did not think it would disrupt combat readiness or unit cohesion.
In urging the Senate to take up repeal of DADT, Reid said the law banning gays from serving openly in the military was "obsolete, embarrassing and weakens our military … repealing it will make our country stronger.''
The vote was taken without debate.
Advocates of repeal say there is less chance the new Congress, which takes office in January, will act favorably on repeal. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which supports repeal, urged Reid to keep the Senate in session to try again for a vote.
"While difficult, realistic options still exist for advocates and senators to move repeal this year,'' said Aubrey Sarvis, an Army veteran and executive director of SLDN.
A U.S. District Court judge has already ruled the gay ban unconstitutional and ordered an immediate worldwide lifting of all Defense Department regulations providing for investigation and discharge of gay and lesbian service members. The 9th District Court of Appeals is currently weighing a Justice Department appeal to stay that order and overturn the lower court decision. A ruling from the appellate court is expected in March.
The Pentagon has prepared an 86-page plan to rewrite regulations and educate the troops before repeal of the law is implemented. Defense Department officials said the process would take months, in part because 97,000 military personnel currently serving in Afghanistan could not receive the training until they return home after their tours, which last from four to 12 months.
Language in the legislation that failed Thursday would prohibit any change until the president, defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs certify that implementation would not harm morale or readiness.
"I believe it would be unwise to push ahead with full implementation of repeal before more can be done to prepare the force -- in particular those ground combat specialties and units -- for what could be a disruptive and disorienting change,'' Gates told reporters Nov. 30.
Similar reservations were expressed by the military chiefs in a lengthy and contentious Senate hearing Dec. 3, during which they expressed much the same reservations as Gates. Of the four military service chiefs, the Marine commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, was most outspoken: " My recommendation is that we should not implement repeal at this time,'' he told the committee.
Some 14,000 gay and lesbian service members have been discharged in the 17 years since the gay ban was enacted during the Clinton administration.

Congress took a small step toward allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military Wednesday as the House voted, again, to repeal the 17-year-old ban on military gays.
The action now moves to the Senate, where a similar bill awaits consideration in the frenzied final days of the lame-duck Congress.

The House vote of 250-149 came after heated debate on the arguments that have echoed across the Capitol for months: how risky to combat readiness would it be to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, and how fair is it to continue to ban them from military service? Critics threw aside the judgments of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the troops are ready for the change.

California Republican Buck McKeon, incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, held that repeal would shatter the morale and cohesiveness of small, all-male combat units. "I don't think it's worth the risk to put them in further jeopardy than they are in now,'' he said. "I implore our members to reject this . . . ''
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged members to repeal the "fundamental unfairness'' of the law banning gays from openly serving. She said repeal would honor "the values they fight for on the battlefield.''

Repeal of that law, and the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy implementing it, are widely supported by senior Defense Department officials and by a broad majority of military service members as well as by the public. But repeal has been buffeted by a series of unrelated political and legislative maneuverings that have kept its supporters on edge for months.
Pending in the Senate is a bill introduced last weekend by mavericks Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Susan Collins of Maine. Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts, elected last January to fill the late Ted Kennedy's seat, told me over the weekend he also intends to vote for repeal. Approval would send it to the White House for President Obama's signature. As a presidential candidate and as president, Obama had vowed to work for repeal.
The Lieberman-Collins bill came after Senate Republicans refused to end a filibuster aimed at preventing the DADT measure and the rest of the mammoth defense budget bill, from coming to the floor for debate. The House had approved repeal as part of the defense budget package last May.
Opponents of repeal took heart from the testimony earlier this month of the military chiefs, three of whom told the Senate Armed Services Committee that they needed more time to prepare their troops to get used to serving with openly gay or lesbian military members.
Unless the Senate acts this month, it is likely the courts will order an immediate repeal, an outcome Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said would lead to chaos and precisely the kind of disruption of morale and combat readiness many critics of repeal have feared. He has urged Congress to repeal the law now, giving the Pentagon time to implement the change in an orderly fashion.
If courts order an immediate repeal, the Pentagon would be required to allow gays to serve openly in front-line infantry combat units, where the resistance is expected to be the highest.
Gates acknowledged greater resistance to repeal among those units. But he cited evidence from a year-long Defense Department study which found that troops who have served alongside a gay or lesbian service member said they experienced little or no impact on their unit's cohesion or performance.
Gen. Jim Amos, the outspoken commandant of the Marine Corps, this week repeated his opposition to repealing the current law, arguing that it would distract Marines in the midst of combat. "Distractions cost Marines lives,'' Amos growled in a session with reporters.

No Sex for Gays at Qatar World Cup? Was FIFA Chief Joking?

(Dec. 15) – Gay soccer fans unsure about attending the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal, should rest assured that they can attend the games ... as long as they refrain from sex, that is.

That's according to FIFA chief Sepp Blatter, who stuck his foot in his mouth at a press conference in Johannesburg when he suggested jokingly that gays would be welcome at the games but should "refrain from any sexual activities" while in Qatar.

Blatter did say that he wanted the World Cup to be inclusive. "We don't want racism, we don't want any discrimination. What we want to do is open this game to everybody, and to open it to all cultures, and this is what we are doing in 2022," he told reporters Monday. But his off-color attempt to make gay spectators feel welcome didn't win Blatter any fans, or laughs either.

On his blog, John Amaechi, the former NBA star who is openly gay, said he was "enraged" and planned to file a complaint with FIFA. "This is yet another case where the epic, archaic, neanderthal ignorance of someone who wields the power to summon kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers to bid at their pleasure uses that power not to foster positive change but to further entrench bigotry," he wrote.

Most found the remarks seriously unfunny. "Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. It is not a joke. It is not tolerated in the Muslim state and carries a prison sentence of five years," CBC Sports' Nigel Reed wrote today.

Others, though, said it wasn't all that clear whether Blatter, who has a history of making awkward and insensitive remarks, was kidding at all. "Not exactly known for his discretion, Blatter brushed this off as a joke. That's always the line when someone of prominence makes a stupid or hateful remark -- as if jokes weren't often the most honest things we said," Alexander Nazaryan wrote at the New York Daily News.

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Blatter's remarks about, well, the African continent, didn't win him any fans, either.

Monday, he praised the effect of the 2010 World Cup on Africa. "A new era of Afro-optimism has swept across the continent and the world," he said in Johannesburg. "Africans have always believed in themselves. Now the world believes in them, too. The World Cup contributed a great deal to this change of perception."

"Excuse me while I vomit in the nearest available bucket," Jonty Mark wrote at IoL Sport in South Africa.

FIFA could not be reached for comment today, because it is located in Switzerland, where it's offices are closed.

(Dec. 15) – A leading activist fighting to end the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military was involuntarily committed to a Veterans Affairs psychological ward this weekend after a nervous breakdown, AOL News confirmed today.

Lt. Dan Choi, who was arrested three times this year for chaining himself to the White House fence to urge the Obama administration to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, informed close friends via e-mail Tuesday night that he had been in the VA hospital since Friday in Brockton, Mass.

Choi, reached by phone by AOL News at the facility, acknowledged that the e-mail was from him but said, "I'm not talking to reporters right now."

The 29-year-old Iraq war veteran and West Point graduate was discharged from the U.S. Army in July after coming out in March 2009 on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." Since then, he has been a ubiquitous presence on TV talk shows and at protests demanding the end of the military policy.

In the e-mail to bloggers Pam Spaulding and Rex Wockner, Choi wrote: "I was involuntarily committed to the Brockton MA Veterans Hospital Psychiatric Ward on Friday morning after experiencing a breakdown and anxiety attack.

"I did not initially want to publicize this but I now realize it is critical for our community to know several things: Veterans, gay or straight, carry human burdens. Activists share similar burdens, no activist should be portrayed as superhuman, and the failures of government and national lobbying carry consequences far beyond the careers and reputations of corporate leaders, elected officials, high-powered lobbyists or political elites. They ruin lives.

"My breakdown was a result of a cumulative array of stressors but there is no doubt that the composite betrayals felt on Thursday, by elected leaders and gay organizations as well as many who have exploited my name for their marketing purposes, have added to the result."

Choi's last post to his Twitter feed before his hospitalization bemoaned the failure last week by the U.S. Senate to proceed with a vote to end the gay military ban: "Today is a very painful day. I simply advise you to never stop fighting."

It was unclear who committed Choi or under what circumstances. In Massachusetts, records related to commitment are not public unless a government entity such as the police file charges against a citizen. A clerk in the Plymouth County courts said there were no recent charges against Choi.

Choi's fellow activists were saddened but not surprised by the turn of events. Robin McGehee, a co-founder with Choi of the civil disobedience protest organization GetEQUAL, said the stress was clearly beginning to overwhelm Choi.

"He's been suffering from exhaustion and continual work on this, the emotional and physical toll of being in what feels like a battle since the very beginning of this year," said McGehee who was arrested along with Choi those three times in Washington, D.C., and once in Las Vegas.

"He's had highs and lows. Last week, with the debacle of what happened in the Senate, it was very tough."

In Las Vegas, Choi and McGehee halted traffic on the Las Vegas Strip in July, demanding that Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., take action on various gay rights efforts. Later that week, Choi also confronted Reid at Netroots, a conference of liberal bloggers, giving the senator his West Point class ring and discharge papers.

Reid vowed at that event to keep Choi's ring in a safe place until "don't ask, don't tell" is repealed. Choi shook Reid's hand and embraced the senator in the conference's most emotional moment.

The House of Representatives today is deliberating whether to pass a bill to repeal "don't ask, don't tell. Senate leaders, including U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have said they have enough votes to repeal the policy if it is in a stand-alone bill. The effort that failed last week would have added repeal to a defense appropriations bill.

Another fellow activist, openly gay and discharged Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, told AOL News that the pressure on Choi came not only from frustrations with Congress and the White House but also from some gay people who accused Choi of being a glutton for attention.

"Through all Dan's activism, he's been accused of trying to profit from his activism and they called him a media whore," said Pietrangelo, who was arrested with Choi at the three White House fence incidents. "The real truth is that Dan has gone through what Martin Luther King Jr. went through. It's been a real sacrifice to Dan, and he's put himself in the line of fire again and again. He's taken a lot of wounds. And he never complained about it."

(Dec. 15) – Doctors in Germany report they have cured an HIV-positive American of the AIDS virus after performing a stem cell transplant to treat his leukemia.

But experts caution that while the man's outcome seems promising, the risky procedure might not work on otherwise healthy people with HIV and probably won't yield an overall cure for AIDS. Still, if the patient's HIV doesn't resurface, this would mark the first time HIV has been wiped out in any patient.

In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown received a stem cell transplant to treat his leukemia, a cancer of the blood. The procedure involves destroying a patient's natural immune system with chemotherapy and radiation, then boosting it back up by inserting bone marrow or blood stem cells from a healthy donor.

Brown's donor was not only a perfect match for his blood and bone marrow type but also happened to have a rare, inherited genetic mutation that makes carriers virtually immune to HIV. The donor's cells took root in Brown's body and multiplied. Three years later, Brown's leukemia is in remission, and he's also HIV-negative.

The German doctors' findings were published last week in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. "Our results strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient," they wrote.

Other experts warn that HIV could still be present -- but dormant and undetectable -- in the patient's blood.

"'Cured' is a strong word. But this is very encouraging," Dr. David Scadden, co-director of the Harvard University Stem Cell Institute, told The Miami Herald. "From all indications, there was no residual virus. It's as good an outcome as one could hope."

But Jerome Zack, an HIV researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles, told MSNBC that "you can't eliminate the potential for there still being low-level virus in the body that's undetectable."

There's also a problem with replicating the same procedure in otherwise healthy patients who are HIV-positive but don't have leukemia. Plus, the genetic mutation found in Brown's donor, which makes patients resistant to HIV, is extremely rare.

"This probably is a cure, but it comes at a bit of a price," Dr. Michael Saag, professor of medicine and director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham AIDS Center, told CNN.

"For him to receive the donor cells, his body had to have all of his immune system wiped out" and then receive a bone marrow transplant, Saag said. "The catch-22 here is that the best candidates for a cure, ideally, are people who are healthy" and don't have leukemia, he said.

Stem cell transplants are very risky because they wipe out the patient's immune system to the point where they could die without an insertion of healthy donor cells. That process is "very hazardous," Saag said. "Even if somebody doesn't die from a transplant, there are complications that make it very unpleasant for people to live with."

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