Posts made by leatherbear

Chicago, IL — When John Fliszar died last year in Chicago, his husband, Mark Ketterson, contacted the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) to fulfill his final wishes.

In a moving article, Sun-Times colmunist Neil Steinberg explains that Fliszar wanted his ashes interred at the USNA cemetery.

Ketterson described the moment the USNA asked him about his relationship to Fliszar.

"They were always polite, but there was this moment of hesitation," Ketterson told the Sun-Times. "They said they're going to need something in writing from a blood relative. They asked, ‘Are you listed on the death certificate?' ‘Do you have a marriage license?' "

Once Ketterson provided them with the marriage certificate, he said they were wonderful.

Ketterson was also named as "husband" in Fliszar's obituary in the USNA's alumni magazine.

At the memorial, the honor guard offered to present him with the flag from the coffin, but he told the Sun-Times that he deferred to Fliszar's mother.

"[Fliszar's] next of kin was treated with the same dignity and respect afforded to the next of kin of all USNA grads who desire interment at the Columbarium," USNA Jennifer Erickson spokesperson told the Sun-Times. "We didn't do anything differently."

:zing:

n NEW ZEALAND, 14/01/2011

Following complaints, McDonald's says it will allow access to a number of gay-related websites from its free Wi-Fi service but not a leading gay news website due to its sexually explicit third party advertising, as described in a McDonald's statement.

According to news site Stuff.co.nz, McDonald's says it will allow access to a number of gay-related websites from its free Wi-Fi service, but is sticking by its ban of a leading gay news website, GayNZ.com, which sparked the review when it published an open letter condemning McDonald's for "censoring" the free Wi-Fi access.

The service was introduced in McDonald's 132 restaurants in December last year.

In an open letter posted by GayNZ.com on Jan 10, it sought a clarification as to why the fast food chain has an "inconsistent" policy where NZ AIDS Foundation site is not blocked but others including Family Planning, Rainbow Youth, GayNZ.com, Agender and others are blocked.

"It begins to look as though your policy is: 'any site that is open and honest about dealing with sexuality matters and lifestyles is actually about sex and is therefore undesirable.' However, there is a difference between sexuality and sex. Perhaps your censors do not understand this?"

In an update, GayNZ.com reported that McDonald's will remove blocks from the NZ Family Planning and associated wwX.theword.org.nz; website, Rainbow Youth, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gay People (PFLAG) and Agender websites but not GayNZ.com.

Stuff.co.nz quoted communications manager Christine Dennis as saying: "McDonald's is struggling with some of the content, for example some of third party advertising. Some advertisements are sexually explicit and they do not meet our 'family or child friendly' criteria." The company had offered to meet with the website's editor "to explore whether there is a mutually acceptable way to move forward''.

GayNZ is a news and information site for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. It was a finalist in the "investigative journalism" section of the Qantas Media Awards last year, and was ranked the most popular Lifestyle-Gay and Lesbian site by Hitwise in its most recent survey.

in NIGERIA,

Humanist Leo Igwe shares his arrest tragedy

On Tuesday January 11-around 5pm, I was arrested along with my driver and a photographer in front of a bank in Uyo Akwa State in Southern Nigeria.

I arrived Akwa Ibom on Sunday, January 9 to rescue two alleged witch children abused and abandoned by their families.

One of the kids, an 8 year old Esther Obot Moses was living with a mad man who raped her several times.

On that ‘fateful’ Tuesday, around 5.40 am, I stormed a dilapidated building in Nsit Ubium where the lunatic lived with two police officers and successfully rescued the poor girl. We went to the police station, made an entry and got a police extract.

Esther started vomiting on our way back. I took her to a children’s hospital in Uyo where she was treated for malaria. I later handed the children over to the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Welfare. I ran short of money in course of doing this and rushed to a nearby bank to collect some cash. On leaving the bank, I couldn’t find my driver and the photographer who were waiting for me outside. I was accosted by a police officer who led me to where they were held and being questioned.

I identified them as those who accompanied me to the bank and they forced me to sit on the ground. The police officers were asking us questions indiscriminately in their effort to implicate us or to confess to crimes we never committed.

They accused us of planning to kidnap someone. All my explanations as to our mission at the bank fell on deaf ears. Later, a bus with some gun throttling and fierce looking police officers arrived. They removed our shirts and used them to tie our hands at the back. They pushed and
kicked us into the bus and took us to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit at the state police command in Uyo.

"Don't you know they are for sale?"

Meanwhile we were in pains due to the way our hands were tied. On getting to the police station we urged the officers to untie our hands. But they refused. After a while one of the officers came and untied the hands of my photographer and replaced it with chains. I asked him to replace my own too. And he retorted “Don’t you know they are for sale?” Of course I didn’t know or bothered to ask him how much the handcuffs were sold.

Another police officer said my hands were not properly tied. So he brought another shirt and tied my hands the second time. The pains increased. I literally lost all the sensations in my hands down to my fingers. I felt as if I had no hands or fingers at all. My hands were just
dangling at my back as if they were lifeless.

At this point the Officer in Charge (O/C) of the anti-kidnapping unit, a middle-aged man, who is fair in complexion came in and started interrogating me. Who are you? And where do you work? He asked.

I told him that I worked with the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). That I was in Uyo for an ongoing campaign against witchcraft accusations and to rescue victims.

Where is your organization based? He inquired. I said, London. As soon as I mention ‘ London ’ he hit me several times with a baton on my head and my legs. He said I was among those who used fake NGOs to make money in the name of campaigning against witchcraft accusations in the state.

He asked other officers to move me to another room for further interrogation. On getting to the other room, the officer started beating and kicking me. The O/C later arrived and asked him to stop. He ordered them to untie my hands.

I made a statement narrating how we were arrested. The O/C ordered us
to be detained.

The next morning, the O/C invited me to make another statement on IHEU.

He asked me to state where it was based, whether it had an office in Nigeria, how it raised its funds etc. which I did. They kept us in a squalid building where were held incommunicado- without food, water or access to our telephones. But we managed to smuggle out the telephone
numbers of our family members and friends through some visitors who helped us contact them.
We were detained along with 50 other persons suspected of kidnapping in a room with one door and four windows all on one side.

No fan nor electricity

The apartment had no fan or electricity. It used to be hot in the night so most inmates slept naked, packed like sardines. Most of them slept on the floor, a few slept on plastic bags. I couldn’t sleep and spent the night massaging my swollen head by pressing it against the floor.

All the detainees urinated, defecated, bathed and ate in the same room. Most of them had rashes, wounds and sores all over their bodies. They had no access to any medical care. And the police did not allow their families to bring them drugs.

The police did not care a hoot about the welfare of the detainees. They only opened the gate by 6 am and closed it by 6 pm, and of course extorted money from visitors who came to see their loved ones.

Even animals are treated the way detainees at the anti-kidnapping unit of the Uyo Police Command are treated. The police only arrest suspects and throw them into detention to languish and die slowly. Most of the detainees have been there for months awaiting trial. I had no doubt that some of the detainees were innocent citizens like us who were going about their business but were arrested and framed as kidnappers.

In the morning of Thursday, January 13, news reached us that the O/C had agreed to release only my driver and the photographer. I was a bit relieved.

Shortly after the news came, a humanist friend, Barrister James Ibor, arrived and we were all released without charge, after a short meeting with the assistant commissioner of police. It appeared that there had
been some pressure on the police authorities to release us. I still experience pains on my head, hands and legs. My left hand is still not functioning properly.

But I am undeterred by the arrest, torture and detention-whether it was politically motivated or not. I will continue to work and campaign against witchcraft accusations and related abuses in Akwa Ibom state and beyond.

in THAILAND, 25/01/2011

A newly launched Thai airline has adopted a policy of recruiting transsexuals as flight attendants in an effort to offer equal opportunities to the 'third sex,' company sources said Tuesday.

PC Air hired three transsexuals, 17 women, and 10 men in its initial recruitment drive Monday.

'Our initial quota was set at three transsexuals, but we will consider taking more in the future depending on their qualifications,' a PC Air spokeswoman said.

The transgender attendants will wear a special gold-coloured 'third-sex' name tag to help passengers and immigration authorities know what gender they are dealing with, she said.

Thanyarat Jiraphatpakorn, winner of the 2007 Miss Tiffany transsexual beauty pageant, was among the successful candidates to land a job on the new airline, which plans to launch flights on March 1.

'At first I thought they would just take applications but not actually recruit us, as has happened at other places before,' Thanyarat told The Nation newspaper.

Thailand has an unusually large and vocal transsexual community, which often complains of discrimination at the workplace and has lobbied in the past for 'third sex' bathrooms at universities and exclusion from military service.

These men can keep me warm any day of the year. Don't you just love when it gets so cold outside cuddling with a furry man is almost a necessity?

I thought some naked men in the sunshine for the dead of winter sounded nice….....

A few to add on here…..............

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27 January 2011

A Ugandan gay rights campaigner who last year sued a local newspaper which outed him as homosexual has been beaten to death, activists say.

Police have confirmed the death of David Kato but say they are investigating the circumstances.

Uganda's Rolling Stone newspaper published the photographs of several people it said were gay next to a headline reading "Hang them".

Homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda, with punishments of 14 years in prison.

An MP recently tried to increase the penalties to include the death sentence in some cases.

The BBC's Kevin Mwachiro says it is unclear whether the death is linked to the Rolling Stone campaign.

There has been a recent spate of "iron-bar killings" in Mukono, where Mr Kato lived, in which people have been assaulted with pieces of metal.

"We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them”

Giles Muhame Rolling Stone editor

Witnesses have told the BBC that a man entered Mr Kato's home near Kampala, and beat him to death before leaving.

His Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) group said Mr Kato had been receiving death threats since his name, photograph and address were published by Rolling Stone last year.

Frank Mugisha, the group's executive director, told the BBC's Network Africa programme he was "devastated" on hearing the news from New York.

"He was killed by someone who came in his house with a hammer, meaning anyone else could be the next target."

Mr Mugisha said Mr Kato had recently been concerned about the threats he had received.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for a swift investigation into his death.

"David Kato's death is a tragic loss to the human rights community," said HRW's Maria Burnett.

He had campaigned against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which appears to have been quietly dropped after provoking a storm of international criticism when it was mooted in 2009.
'Extra caution'

Following a complaint by Mr Kato and three others, a judge in November ordered Rolling Stone to stop publishing the photographs of people it said were homosexual, saying it contravened their right to privacy.

Several activists said they had been attacked after their photographs were published.

Mr Mugisha called on the Ugandan government to step up security for gay people.

"We're strongly asking every gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender person in Uganda to watch out for their security … [they] should take extra caution."

Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhame told Reuters news agency he condemned the murder and that the paper had not wanted gays to be attacked.

"There has been a lot of crime, it may not be because he is gay," he said.

"We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them."

"Iron-bar killings" were common in Uganda when former leader Idi Amin was in power in the 1970s.

A rapid response police team has been sent to the area and several suspects have been arrested over the killings.