Gay, Bi, And Greek

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - Like dozens of Greek organizations at the University of Florida, a new Gainesville fraternity for gay and bisexual men selected members of its pledge class last week.
Of the 37 men who rushed to become part of the Gainesville fraternity Delta Lambda Phi's inaugural pledge class, nine were invited to a bid dinner that took place during the weekend.
"I never really considered myself a frat boy at all," said Daniel StClair, 20, a wildlife ecology and conservation major at UF who pledged with the group. "I still wouldn't."
After seeing a flier outside the Murphree Area this summer, StClair said he was intrigued by the group's aim to improve the treatment of gays.
The group aims to give gay and bisexual young men an outlet to be part of an experience that normally they would have been shunned from, said Paul Nichols, one of the founders of the local chapter-to-be.
The Greek organization is open to men at least 18 years of age from Santa Fe Community College, UF and Gainesville.
The organization is only the second branch of Delta Lambda Phi in Florida. The first was launched at Florida International University in Miami. Because of efforts by Nichols and others since December 2005, the fraternity's application to become a colony was approved.
"There have been at least two other efforts in the past to start this and they've fallen flat," Nichols said. "Its been the hardest work and the most rewarding work I've done yet."
Like Greek organizations at UF, Delta Lambda Phi has its own coat of arms and fraternity pin. Promotions included fliers on UF's campus and advertisements on facebook.com and other Web sites.
While a large pledge class was not a possibility this semester, the fraternity plans to admit 10 members each spring and fall semester.
"Keeping it small makes things easier," Nichols said. "Smaller classes means more bonding."
Wesley Scruggs, a 19-year-old accounting major at UF, said he always wanted to join a fraternity and hopes to gain a greater sense of the gay community in Gainesville through the fraternity. He heard about the organization in an online chat room last spring.
"I think it's cool you can hang out with people just like you," Scruggs said. "You can really identify with them."
Social activities such as movie nights, group dinners, road trips and chapter meetings are planned for this semester.
While much of the groundwork has been laid, a long-term goal for the group is to become a full chapter. It is a three-step process that requires three successful pledge classes and a petition to Delta Lambda Phi's national organization.
Nineteen-year-old UF religion major Evan Lauteria said he wants to see Delta Lambda Phi succeed as a fraternity and for people to recognize it by name.
"I'm just excited it's happening," Lauteria said. "I think it's a good step in the right direction."
The fraternity plans to reach out to other social groups to give the gay community of Gainesville an outlet to help others.
Plans include participation in Gainesville Pride in October, involvement with the Metropolitan Community Church and the Gainesville Aids Project.
"What we're building here is not only for us right here and right now - we're also building for future classes," Nichols said. "We want to bring something to the table that is going to be here on a long-term basis."
from The Gainesville Sun

Muslim Group Offended By Freddie Mercury Party

ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA - A huge beach party to honor late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury must be stopped because the Zanzibar-born rock star was gay, a Muslim leader said Thursday.
Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991, violated Islam with his flamboyant lifestyle, said Azan Khalid of Zanzibar's Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation.
"That's why he was branded a Queen," Khalid said, adding that anything linking Mercury with Zanzibar's Muslim population would be offensive.
He said that a waterfront restaurant's plans for a Sept. 2 party honoring Mercury's birthday would be stopped.
Mercury restaurant, which was named for the singer, will go ahead the party, manager Simai Mohammed said.
Mercury, who acknowledged being gay, was born in Zanzibar when the country was still a British protectorate. He was educated in India and moved with his family to Britain in 1964, after a bloody revolution that drove out many immigrants of Indian or Arab descent.
"Our main idea is to promote tourism and Freddie Mercury was from Zanzibar. It's part of our history," Mohammed said. "We are all Muslims and it's not our intention to offend any religion."
Last year some 500,000 tourists traveled to Zanzibar, bringing vital foreign currency to the Indian Ocean island. This semiautonomous part of Tanzania is mostly Muslim.
Zanzibar's government sent a letter asking state-owned media not to report on Mercury's birthday because of the tension between the religious group and the restaurant. The group's aim is for Zanzibar to be ruled based on the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Last year, the group broke up a gay man's birthday party in Zanzibar's Pemba island.
Mercury gained fame as the bravura singer for Queen, whose elaborate and occasionally bombastic songs made the group one of the favorites of the 1970s. The group's hits included "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Are The Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."
from The San Jose Mercury News

Britain To Ban Violent And Extreme Porn

BRITAIN - Downloading or possessing violent and extreme pornographic material will become a criminal offence in the UK punishable by up to three years in prison under proposed new laws, believed to be the first of their kind in a western nation.
The Government will legislate to make it an offence to possess pornographic images depicting scenes of extreme sexual violence and other obscene material. It is already an offence to publish and distribute such material.
To be covered by the new offence, material would need to be pornographic, explicit and real or appearing to be real. These will be objective tests for a jury to decide. It must also involve intercourse or oral sex with an animal; sexual interference with a human corpse; or serious violence (meaning violence that appears to be life threatening or likely to result in serious, disabling injury).
The proposals were published yesterday as part of the Government's response to a consultation last August. The consultation paper noted at the time: "We are not aware of any western jurisdiction which prohibits simple possession of extreme material."
The material to be covered by the ban is already illegal to publish and distribute in the UK under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) 1959 – but it is not illegal to view under current laws. The Government said its accessibility from abroad via the internet is increasing.
There will be defences where someone can prove he had a legitimate reason for having an offending image; where he had not seen it and did not know or suspect it to be illegal; and where it was sent to him unsolicited and he did not keep it for an unreasonable time.
The proposed offence outlines a maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment for possession of material depicting serious violence and a maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment for possession of material in the other categories to reflect the seriousness of the offences shown or depicted in the material.
The Government is also proposing that the maximum penalty for the offences of publication, distribution and possession for gain committed under the Obscene Publications Acts will be increased from three years to five years' imprisonment.
Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said the proposals had the support of various organisations, including women's and children's groups and police forces. In addition, a petition signed by around 50,000 people objecting to extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name of sexual gratification was presented to Parliament.
"The vast majority of people find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent," he said.
The petition presented to Parliament was started by Liz Longhurst after the brutal murder of her daughter. Thirty-one year-old Jane Longhurst, a special needs teacher, was raped and strangled with a pair of tights by a male acquaintance in 2003. Graham Coutts, an amateur musician, attacked her just hours after surfing the web to feed his alleged obsession with necrophilia and asphyxial sex. Coutts stored her naked body for 35 days before trying to burn it in woods. He was convicted in February 2004 and sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
The Government said it aims to legislate as soon as Parliamentary time allows. The new offence will apply to England and Wales, and plans are being made to extend it to Northern Ireland. The consultation last August was held jointly with the Scottish Executive which will announce its response in due course.
from Out-Law News

Officer Convicted Of Violating Transsexual's Rights

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - A San Antonio police officer was convicted today of violating the civil rights of a transsexual by raping and beating her during a traffic stop.
The jury found that Officer Dean Gutierrez violated Gabriel Bernal's rights through aggravated sexual assault.
Authorities say the felony carries a sentence of up to life in prison and as much as 250-thousand dollars in fines. A sentencing hearing is set for December 1st.
In the trial, prosecutors presented DNA evidence and the testimony of Bernal, 23, who consented to having her name made public. Prosecutors said 46-year-old Gutierrez stopped Bernal in 2005, ordered her into his car and drove her to a remote location where he physically and sexually assaulted her.
The defense argued in the trial that Bernal had consensual oral sex and was lying so she could win money in a civil lawsuit. Prosecutors said no suit had been filed.
from KTRK TV

Capote Returns To Big Screen With New Film, Gay Kiss

VENICE - Truman Capote returns to the big screen with a new star-packed Hollywood film about the brilliant but conflicted writer and an "abrasive" kiss between its two main male characters.
Douglas McGrath's "Infamous," presented at the Venice film festival, comes hard on the heels of Bennett Miller's critically acclaimed "Capote," which won Philip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar as best actor for his portrait of the fey, elfin-like author.
Both films, which were virtually shot at the same time, tell the story of how Capote came to write "In Cold Blood," the book that made him one of the most celebrated writers in America but ultimately destroyed his life.
McGrath picked British theater actor Toby Jones, who bears a striking physical resemblance with Capote, to play the writer alongside a cast including Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels and Daniel Craig.
The film chronicles the painful six years it took Capote to write "In Cold Blood," the tale of how two drifters brutally murdered a family of four in a Kansas farmhouse in 1959.
Capote spent months researching his book in Kansas, where his transparently gay manners and high-pitched voice initially met with widespread diffidence.
As he gradually became friends with many of those involved in the case, he developed an intense, tortured relationship with one of the murderers, Perry Smith, played in the film by Craig, the new face of James Bond.
At one point in the film the two kiss in a prison cell and Jones described the experience on Thursday as "slightly abrasive, ultimately rewarding."
KISSING JAMES BOND
"I've never dreamt that I would kiss James Bond, it's not something I have ever aspired to. Now I've done it, I can say that I hope I am the first of many," Jones told reporters.
McGrath said the emotional and ambiguous bond between Perry and Capote, who needed the murderers to be executed so that he could write the last chapter of his book, was eventually what eventually ruined him.
"Truman says in the movie 'All I ever wanted to do my whole life was to create a work of art'. I think he saw early on that that was his chance to be remembered and he was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen," he said.
"The bond he formed with Perry Smith and then having to see Perry Smith hanged was so shattering that he never really fully recovered from it and I believe he actually became desperate after that."
McGrath said knowing that "Capote" was being made just as he shot his own film did not have an impact on his work, and Jones said he had had little time to be intimidated by Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning performance as he prepared for the role.
"They'd only just wrapped when we started filming, so there was no element of being intimidated other than the fact that Philip Seymour Hoffman is a fantastic actor," he said.
"I had so much work to do on all levels, so much stuff to read and so much stuff to watch, to listen to and to imagine, that the idea of other people performing in anything was kind of a distraction from what I was doing."
After publishing "In Cold Blood," Capote never wrote another full-length work. In the 1970s and 1980s he drifted into drug use and alcoholism. He died in 1984 at age 59.
from The Washington Post

Doctor 'Involved In Drug-Fuelled Glasgow Gay Scene'

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - A doctor was today accused of being part of a drug-fuelled Glasgow gay scene after a man died in his upmarket flat following a two-day binge.
A General Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing in London heard David Steel, 30, was found dead in gay addiction psychiatrist Clint Tatchell's bed on September 21, 2003.
Dr Tatchell denies impairment by reason of misconduct and is accused of drunkenly writing a prescription for the tranquilliser Diazepam and then misleading police about events that preceded Mr Steel's death.
The hearing was told that Mr Steel was found dead by Dr Tatchell at 4am on September 21, after taking a cocktail of drugs including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and Diazepam in a binge that began on September 19, 2003.
Mr Steel died of an ecstasy overdose.
Mr Dafydd Enoch, for the GMC, told the hearing: "It would seem Dr Tatchell and friends were part of a socially active gay scene in Glasgow and this party represented a typical spontaneous event.
"The party was not just fuelled by drink, although there was vodka, beer, champagne and alcopops drunk, we say it was fuelled by drugs, certainly in Mr Steel's case.
"Dr Tatchell orchestrated a thorough tidy up of the flat before police arrived following Mr Steel's death. At the party there had been swimming, people crashing and then waking up, people had been wearing togas, and you may think police would come in and ask, what has been going on here?
"He had just found a dead body in his bed, he must have realised he should have touched nothing and let the police deal with it, what did he have to hide?"
Mr Enoch then told the hearing that in an interview with police following Mr Steel's death, Dr Tatchell admitted taking cocaine on a recent visit to his native South Africa.
During the party at his flat, Dr Tatchell had written a prescription for Diazepam for his flatmate Brian Hoolichan, on a plain sheet of paper, despite knowing Mr Hoolichan had his own regular GP.
Dr Tatchell drove another man, Gordon Smith, to collect the tablets, and police found the bottle open in his bedroom with 19 of the 28 tablets missing. Only a small amount of the drug was found in Mr Steel's system.
Dr Tatchell worked as an addiction psychiatrist for NHS Greater Glasgow between May 2003 and July 2004.
The hearing continues.
from 24Dash.com

Schwarzenegger Signs ProHomosexual Bill

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Shock and dismay -- that's how pro-family groups in California are reacting to news this morning that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that gives homosexuals new and far-reaching powers.
The bill, SB 1441, adds sexual orientation to already existing provisions in the state's law that prohibit discrimination on the basis of, among other things, race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, color, or disability. The measure was promoted by a lesbian member of the California legislature and is now the law in that state, a fact that has filled many family advocates with outrage.
Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), described the measure as not "even a veiled attempt at subtly advancing the radical homosexual agenda," but "an outright, blatant assault on religious freedom." She calls the bill "yet another attempt to prevent citizens with moral and religious principles from expressing their beliefs and educating their children according to those beliefs."
This legislation, a CRI press release points out, could potentially prevent parochial schools such as private, Christian, Catholic, Mormon, or other faith-based educational institutions from receiving student financial assistance if they also maintain a code of conduct that prohibits homosexual behavior as immoral based on their religious beliefs.
It is CRI's position that forcing acceptance of students engaged in behavior offensive to a religious school's moral code is a serious infringement of the institution's constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and free speech. Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for CRI, feels it is bad public policy to add sexual behavior to the state code's list of protected classes. As a California citizen and a person of faith, she says, "I am terribly disappointed in Governor Schwarzenegger."
As some pro-family opponents are interpreting the newly signed legislation, it requires any program or activity that receives any financial assistance from the state to support homosexuality, bisexuality, and trans-sexuality in effect or else lose that funding. The law allows no exemptions for faith-based colleges, university, or child-care centers that receive any amount of state money.
Activist Calls Governator Traitor to California Families
California activist Randy Thomasson, head of the group Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), charges Arnold Schwarzenegger with betraying the state's pro-family citizens.
In signing SB 1441 into law, the governor has "trampled religious freedom to satisfy hyperactive sexual activists," Thomasson contends. He says Schwarzenegger apparently "has two faces. He speaks at churches and says he believes in religious freedom and family values, yet he's stabbing pro-family Californians in the back."
Thomasson and CCF alerted thousands of the state's voters to SB 1441, which resulted in the governor's office being bombarded with thousands of phone calls, faxes, and e-mails voicing opposition to the measure. Multitudes of pro-family citizens, as well as representatives from several of the state's religious schools, sent urgent messages pleading with Governor Schwarzenegger to veto the legislation.
In ignoring those appeals, Thomasson asserts, the current governor is doing just as his predecessor, the recalled Governor Gray Davis, did -- that is, "trample religious freedom at the bidding of liberal activists from San Francisco and West Hollywood."
The president of CCF says members of California's religious community "are suffering under Arnold Schwarzenegger." And now that he has signed SB 1441, which the activist calls "an intolerant bill" that rides roughshod over the religious values of Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and other religious institutions, the religious community will undoubtedly suffer more.
"By importing these controversial sexual lifestyle definitions" into state law, Thomasson contends, this newly enacted legislation could easily harm the religious freedom of dozens of the state's faith-based institutions that accept financial aid for their students. "People of conscience are appalled," he says, at the governor's decision to sign this anti-family legislation.
Thomasson says this new state law will, among its other ill effects, force religious schools to either abandon their religious standards on sexuality or reject students who have been awarded state financial aid. Other kinds of faith-based organizations will be affected as well, he notes, including non-profits and community service organizations that contract with the state or receive any kind of state funding of their programs or activities.
More Sexual Indoctrination Bills to Come from California Legislature
And unfortunately for California families, a CCF action alert points out, a number of other radical, pro-homosexual bills are heading toward Governor Schwarzenegger's desk. One of these, a bill known as SB 1437, prohibits textbooks, instructional materials, and school-sponsored activities from "reflecting adversely" on homosexuality, trans-sexuality, or bisexuality.
Another bill, AB 606, authorizes the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to withhold state funds arbitrarily from any district deemed to be inadequately promoting homosexuality, trans-sexuality, and bisexuality in its school policies. This measure, CCF asserts, clears the way for curricula promoting these "alternative" sexual lifestyles to be forced on all the state's public schools.
And then, CCF notes, there is AB 1056. This bill, now on the California Senate floor, would spend $250,000 in taxpayer dollars to promote trans-sexual, bisexual, and homosexual lifestyles under the banner of "tolerance training" in ten school districts, thereby creating a model "pilot program" for the rest of the state.
from Christian News And Media Agency

APA Supports Therapy For Unwanted Homosexual Tendencies

Advocates of psychological counseling for people experiencing unwanted attraction to members of the same sex say the American Psychological Association may be softening its position on their services. But a spokesman for the APA says it still questions the validity of reparative or conversion therapy for homosexuals.
During its recent annual convention in New Orleans, the APA issued a statement to Cybercast News Service in response to a protest and petition by members and supporters of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). The group supports licensed psychologists who use therapy to help people experiencing unwanted same-sex attractions.
"The APA's concern about the positions espoused by NARTH and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science," APA Public Affairs Manager Pamela Willenz wrote in the emailed response. "There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed."
But Willenz apparently did not discuss her comments with APA President Gerald P. Koocher, who addressed convention attendees on the same subject.
"APA has no conflict," Koocher said, "with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction."
Alan Chambers is president of Exodus International, a group of Christian ministries focused on outreach to those who have unwanted same sex attraction. He participated in the New Orleans protest and told Cybercast News Service Monday that Koocher's remarks signal a change in the APA's stance on homosexuality.
"I believe that they are under increased pressure by people like me, the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have successfully overcome their homosexual attractions and us putting pressure on them along with members of their own organization," Chambers explained, "saying we are helping a client in their autonomy and their right to self-determination."
That pressure, Chambers said, is not going away.
"We are going to keep putting pressure on the APA until they publicly affirm [us] via a resolution that states that therapists should be able to help a client who presents a conflict with their sexuality," Chambers added.
But Clinton Anderson, director of the APA Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns Office, disputed Chambers' assessment.
"There is no change in the APA's stance on homosexuality or related issues," Anderson said. "The issue is not whether sexual orientation changes. We know that the issue is whether therapy changes sexual orientation, which is what many of these people claim."
Anderson claims that there is "no evidence" that reparative or conversion therapies work and asserted that "they may in fact cause harm for many people."
But Chambers identifies himself as part of the "evidence" that Anderson claims does not exist.
"If they've done any kind of study that's proven that reparative therapy [does not work] or that change isn't possible," Chambers insisted, "then they've obviously not interviewed those of us who have successfully overcome homosexuality."
Anderson conceded that it is the motivation of many therapists involved in reparative and conversion therapies, rather that the effectiveness of the programs, with which he takes issue.
"The APA, of course, recognizes the issue of client autonomy to set their goals," Anderson said. "But we also still see that people who promote reparative therapy are promoting a prejudicial attitude toward homosexuality."
Anderson complained that while some psychologists using reparative or conversion therapies claim to agree that homosexuality is not a mental illness, "everything they do indicates to me they still believe it is a mental disorder."
Chambers believes that position is politically motivated.
"I don't think it has anything to do with science," Chambers said. "I think it has everything to do with politics."
from Cybercast News Service

India's Gay Prince Wants To Adopt

MUMBAI, INDIA - India's first openly gay royal, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, has announced that he would like to adopt a child. The 40-year-old prince was publicly disowned by his family after he came out as a homosexual in an Indian newspaper. He has since been stripped of his title and inheritance.
According to reports, Manvendra's decision to adopt comes after his family made efforts to repair relations with him.
His father, Raghubir Singh Gohil, recently told The Times of India newspaper that he regretted disowning him out of anger.
"I did it in anger. I was pressurized by various people. He has been a good son," he said.
Manvendra has expressed a desire to adopt a teenage child and he plans for the child to be educated abroad.
Homosexuality is banned in India and punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
Although Manvendra came out to his family in 2002, his family had not expected him to go public about his sexuality. Only two months ago his mother issued a statement stating his sexuality was "unsuitable in society."
Manvendra, who is the chairperson of the AIDS charity organization Lakshya Trust,
said, "I came out as gay to a Gujarati daily because I wanted people to openly discuss homosexuality since it's a hidden affair, with a lot of stigma attached."
from All Headline News

Man Awaits Sentence For Fondling Friend's Penis

NORTH BATTLEFORD, CANADA - A North Battleford judge is mulling over the appropriate sentence for a man who fondled a buddy sleeping on his couch after a night of drinking.
Thomas Earl Ziegenbein, 61, pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault for touching another man's penis while he slept on Oct. 7.
At a sentencing hearing Monday, Crown prosecutor Mitch Piche said the victim has suffered as a result of the incident.
"He feels like less of a man," Piche said. "He was embarrassed by it, and had feelings of worthlessness on occasion."
Piche said the two, who were acquaintances, had been drinking together at a North Battleford bar that October evening when Ziegenbein invited the victim to sleep on his couch for the night. The man fell asleep at about 4:30 a.m. and awoke at 5:30 a.m. to find Ziegenbein touching his penis, Piche said.
The victim froze, hoping the assault would soon stop, Piche said. Moments later, Ziegenbein's wife called out to him, and the assailant left the room, Piche said.
"He appears to be normally heterosexual, so that's a little unusual," Piche said in an interview. "So that's why the judge wants to think about it, I guess."
Ziegenbein also pleaded guilty to breaching a court order in May not to drink alcohol.
Ziegenbein apologized in court Monday for the assault. The tall man, who had matted grey hair and wore a red and green checkered shirt, said he hasn't had a drink since he was charged with breaching the May court order.
"I'd first like to say I'm very sorry, again," he told Judge Dan O'Hanlon. "I'm trying to rectify the situation."
Kevan Migneault, Ziegenbein's lawyer, told the judge his client has an alcohol problem and is unemployed, and the assault wouldn't have happened if he was sober.
"It isn't something that someone wants to go through," he said.
Piche asked the judge for a conditional sentence of 18 to 24 months, which would be served at home. Piche also wants Ziegenbein's name added to the National Sex Offender Registry and asked the court to order him to stay away from the victim.
Migneault asked Ziegenbein be allowed to leave the house for medical appointments for migraine headache treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
O'Hanlon reserved his decision Monday, saying he needed to look at other cases before sentencing Ziegenbein.
He'll back in court to hear his sentence Sept. 11 in North Battleford.
from The Star Phoenix

Camel's Milk, The New Viagra

JAIPUR, INDIA - There is new-found respect in the region for the resilient ship of the desert. Ever since 88-year-old Barmer farmer Virmaram Jat, who fathered a boy a few weeks ago, said camel milk was the secret of his sexual prowess, the demand for this "aphrodisiac" has shot up.
Inquiries have been pouring in. Local demand has shot up to the extent that the few vendors who stock camel milk have hiked its price, capitalising on the demand.
Sangram Singh, who sells camel milk in Jodhpur's Jalori Gate, has now priced it at a whopping Rs 40 per litre, instead of the Rs 20-25 a litre that he was charging only a month ago.
Others too have followed suit and there seems to be a race to procure camel milk. To the extent that people are ruing the fact that while in countries like Dubai and UAE preserved and packaged camel milk is available, this is not the case in India.
However, Jat's claim has not sunk in well with doctors in Bikaner and Jaipur. Doctors feel that Jat's sexual prowess has nothing to do with drinking camel's milk. They say he is one of the few individuals who have managed to retain their sexual urge despite advancing age.
Doctors in fact are lauding his 43-year-old wife, Gammo Devi, who had the will to deliver a child after 40. The scientific community too feels Jat's claims have no base. Director of the National Research Centre on Camels, M S Sahani, said there was no scientific base to his claim.
He said research on therapeutic properties of camel's milk on patients suffering from diabetes and T B had been carried out by scientists of NRCC and doctors of PBM Hospital, Bikaner. It was found that patients on a regular dose of camel's milk were cured faster than those on bovine milk.
Senior scientist at NRCC, Raghvendra Singh said camel milk had higher anti-oxidant properties and its fat content was low. "The fat profile of camel's milk shows that small chain fatty acids are present in smaller amounts than large chain fatty acids. The shelf life of the camel's milk is also more than that of bovine milk," he said.
Israeli scientist Reuben Yagil, who was in Bikaner recently, said all efforts should be made to increase the yield of camel's milk, as it is nature's gift to mankind. Reuben said camel milk ice creams would soon be available in Russia.
He said an institute in Israel carrying out research on camel milk had found that it could be used as a cure in many diseases.
from The Times Of India

Alicia Keys Urges Teen Girls 'Not To Sleep' With Condom Liars

LONDON - Singer Alicia Keys has some words of wisdom for teen girls whose partners whine against practicing safe sex.
Keys, a staunch supporter of HIV/Aids awareness among youth, has urged young ladies to refuse to sleep with their first loves if they don't use condom considering that it impedes sensation.
"That 'doesn't feel the same' thing is garbage... Just don't have sex then because then he doesn't know what he is doing and you don't need to have sex with him," Femalefirst quoted her, as saying.
"Anyone who says a condom doesn't feel the same is lying," she added.
The R&B star also insists there are so many varieties of condoms on the market there's no excuse for men who want to avoid them.
"There are so many different types of condoms and so many things and ways. (They're) thinner and prettier and extra-friction action (sic). They got everything," she said.
According to earlier reports, Keys herself kept a lock on her goods for a year, before moving the relationship with boyfriend Kerry 'Krucial' Brothers to a sexual level.
from SAWF News Connect

Homophobia At UK's Corporate Law Firms

Some of the UK's top corporate law firms are fostering "an undertone of homophobia", according to report.
Big City law firms are still encouraging a culture of heavy drinking and visits to strip bars, which could drive away gay men and discourage women from joining them, research by the Law Society found.
The "constant trips to Spearmint Rhino, rugby matches and drinking sessions" meant many were afraid to come out as they thought it would hinder their career.
"Gay male interviewees working in large cities commented on the heightened sense of heterosexual machismo that they found in the larger, and particularly corporate, firms," the report said.
Law Society president, Fiona Woolf, called on employers to "ensure a climate of acceptance and inclusivity".
The report recommended firms recognise same-sex relationships for the purposes of staff benefits and the Law Society said it would establish a confidential helpline for gay and lesbian employees.
from Personnel Today

Saddam 'forced to watch South Park cameo'

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is being forced to watch his appearance as the Devil's gay lover in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut "repeatedly", according to the cult cartoon's creator Matt Stone.
Hussein is currently being held in prison by US Marines while he stands trial on genocide charges.
South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut was banned in Iraq on its release in 1999 for portraying the leader as a homosexual.
Stone says: "I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie.
"That's really adding insult to injury. I bet that made him really happy."
from The Evening Echo

Mayor Makes Time For Pride Parade

OTTAWA, CANADA - Mayor Bob Chiarelli's decision to join the gay pride parade for the first time in his nine years as mayor had the hollow ring of political opportunism for his political opponents.
"It's amazing what elections will do," said Bay Coun. Alex Cullen.
Chiarelli rode with the paramedics in a modified John Deere Gator. The mayor said he was too busy in previous years to join the parade.
"The other years, I was occupied. All the events take place in a very short time frame," he said. "I participate in most activities, but every year I can't participate in them all."
RAISED PRIDE FLAG
Chiarelli said he has contributed to the gay movement's cause by the raising of the Pride flag at City Hall.
"I have always participated in my municipal career with the celebration of Pride Week," he said.
Cullen, however, said the public will see through his election year photo-op.
"You can't win people's support by showing up for one parade," said Cullen, who supports mayoral candidate Alex Munter. "It is in stark contrast to his absence over the last 13 years."
Munter took a restrained swipe at Chiarelli.
"It has taken him awhile to get here. He is nine years late. But better late than never," said the openly gay politician who mingled with parade spectators while his supporters carried a banner emblazoned with his website address.
Mayoral candidate Larry O'Brien also showed up for the event, but bowed out of the march because he had several, water-logged barbecue events to attend.
from The Ottawa Sun

Different Colors Of The Rainbow

MEADE, KANSAS - This quiet town turned into an unlikely flashpoint in the gay rights movement Sunday, with picketers from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church facing off against a contingent of rainbow-flag wearing gay rights activists and their backers.
The events - which stem from the controversy caused by a local hotel operator's decision to fly a rainbow flag outside his business - unfolded without incident. But they made for an atypical display in this small farming community of 1,600, best known as the hideout back in the late 1880s for the notorious Dalton brothers gang of bank robbers.
"It's not your everyday occurrence," said Cliff Alley, a local who watched the protesting unfold amid a contingent of Kansas State Troopers called in to help maintain order. He termed the hoopla "kind of ridiculous," but withheld further judgment.
"Everybody's got their own opinion," Alley said. "It's sure not up to me to tell anybody how to live."
On the front lines, meanwhile, the two sides weren't shy about voicing their thoughts.
Nearly 30 picketers from the Topeka-based Westboro church, which says the United States is unraveling because of acceptance of homosexuality, stood on the south side of U.S. 54 at Fowler Street in Meade's city center. The gay rights supporters, about 50 of them from all over Kansas, faced their critics from the north side of the highway.
"God loves fags, God loves all," the gay rights supporters chanted.
"Today God has cursed this nation," answered Shirley Phelps Roper, daughter of the Rev. Fred Phelps, the Westboro leader.
The Westboro church, which earlier Sunday had picketed five Meade churches, zeroed in on Meade because of the controversy swirling around the rainbow flag flying outside the Lakeway Hotel here. Proprietors J.R. and Robin Knight received a rainbow flag early last month from their 12-year-old son and they put it up on a pole that fronts the business to remember the boy, now living in California.
However, some didn't like such a symbol in their midst - the rainbow banner represents gay pride, among other things - and two local boys clandestinely cut that original down, later confessing to the deed. Then, someone tossed a brick with the word "fag" scrawled on it through a plate glass window at the hotel, adding to the controversy.
Despite such reaction, Jonathan Phelps, another Westboro member who picketed outside St. John's Lutheran Church here, said Meade, including its churches, is just like any other small town in terms of tolerating homosexuality. But with the flag flap, he said, the city becomes "a forum" to tout the Westboro message, delivered mainly of late by church members at funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.
Meade is "a typical American farming community, (it) hates God, (it) hates his word," Jonathan Phelps said. As he spoke, he flipped through the brightly colored, strongly worded signs denouncing homosexuality that are a Westboro trademark - "AIDs is God's curse," read one - and stood on a U.S. flag.
Churchgoers declined comment as they made their way into Sunday services, but other locals said they weren't happy to see the Westboro contingent, or the gay rights activists, for that matter.
"I just want to put a stop to it because Meade is a nice, quiet town," said Matt Hensley, a 10th-grader who held a sign reading "Go home" opposite the contingent of Westboro and gay rights protestors.
The gay rights activists and their supporters, meanwhile, remained insistent that the controversy boils down to their right to live free from discrimination. The regular monthly meeting at the Lakeway of the Kansas Equality Coalition, a gay rights group, was the ostensible reason for the activists' presence, though some protestors said they wanted to face off against the Westboro group.
"We're basically trying to stand up for the right to coexist with others without having a brick thrown through the window," said Dennis Russell, a Wichita State University student sporting a rainbow flag over his shoulders and a rainbow wig on his head.
Sherry Coles of Coldwater, a coalition member whose son died of AIDs, called the Westboro showing "a good opportunity to let people see hate masquerading as religion." She said the Topeka church represents "pure evil" and, in touting the rights of gay people, said "all men are created equal," alluding back to the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
For its part, the Lakeway, adjacent to the protest site, took on a bustling, festive air. Tunes like Macho Man by the Village People and Ballroom Blitz from the Rocky Horror Picture Show movie soundtrack blared from the hotel as the activity unfolded.
from The Hutchinson News

States Addressing Gay Domestic Violence

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - Even though his scalp would be bloodied from getting slammed against a door or his neck splotched with fingerprint-shaped bruises, Patrick Letellier's injuries were often dismissed as nothing more than rough "sex play."
Back then, there were no shelters for battered gay men or domestic violence services for homosexuals. And police were often not inclined to get involved in household disputes involving same-sex couples.
"I got really good at hiding things and wore long pants and long-sleeve shirts," said Letellier, a 43-year-old journalist from San Francisco.
Nearly 20 years later, as gays and lesbians have achieved greater recognition, so too has the darker side of same-sex relationships.
After years of fighting what one service provider called an "invisible epidemic," lawmakers and government agencies are taking steps to abandon the assumption that spousal abuse does not occur in couples of the same gender.
The California Legislature is considering a law requiring gays and lesbians who register as domestic partners to pay $23 toward domestic violence programs aimed at same-sex couples. If it passes as expected, the measure would be the first of its kind in the nation.
The proposed fee mirrors a similar surcharge on California marriage licenses that funds battered women's shelters and other domestic violence services. The measure also would require the state to train law enforcement and social service agencies on gay domestic violence, and to make sure that gay representatives are included on committees that dispense domestic violence grants.
In New York state, where same-sex couples do not have domestic partner or civil union status, advocates are pushing a bill to dedicate money for domestic violence programs that serve a gay clientele.
They also want to win same-sex couples access to family courts, making it easier for battered gays to obtain restraining orders against their abusers, said Clarence Patton, of the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
In the absence of government mandates, a growing network of nonprofit agencies that specialize in same-sex domestic violence has sprung up in cities like Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Houston; Kansas City; and Tucson, Ariz. Many police departments also have started training officers to know how to respond to gay or lesbian victims.
A 2003 survey by Patton's organization of 10 U.S. cities and Toronto reported 6,523 cases of same-sex domestic violence, including six homicides. That was a 13 percent increase from the year before, but the number is assumed to represent a fraction of the true number of incidents.
Like many victims, Letellier took years to summon the courage to recognize himself as a victim of domestic violence.
"It's not supposed to happen to men - or it doesn't happen to men - is still the thinking about it," he said.
Matthew Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said tales like Letellier's show that police and government officials are not alone in their tendency to minimize or misunderstand domestic violence when it occurs in gay relationships.
"There is enormous stigma attached to all domestic violence, but if you are a gay man and want to talk about it with friends, they will say, 'Why didn't you hit him back?' or 'How come you can't protect yourself?" Foreman said.
"And since women are perceived to always be the victim of domestic violence in heterosexual situations, there is a stereotype of, 'How could two women be living in a domestic violence situation?'"
Susan Holt, who runs the domestic violence program at The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said the program serves 400 clients a month, including batterers and their victims.
Yet Holt still feels she's fighting "an invisible epidemic," noting that Los Angeles County has 150 abuse prevention programs geared toward heterosexuals, compared to a handful designed for gay men and lesbians nationwide.
"Domestic violence, on some level, is so amazingly unoriginal," said Letellier, who has counseled other survivors, both gay and straight. "It's so the same everywhere, so painfully the same."
from The Associated Press / Lisa leff

Twins Help In Sexual Orientation Study

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS - Researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., are working on theories that nature and not nurture is the determining factor in sexual orientation.
Psychology Professor Michael Bailey says nature is the only plausible explanation for the differences between a set of 9-year-old twins named Adam and Jared, CBS reports.
While Jared prefers military toys, Adams likes dolls and sports pinkish-purple nail polish.
"To me cases like that really scream out, "Hey, it's not out there. It's in here,' There's no indication that this mother is prone to raise very feminine boys because his twin is not that way." says Bailey.
Bailey and his colleagues at Northwestern conducted one experiment in which they videotaped gay and straight people sitting in a chair talking and then reduced them to silent black and white figures.
Volunteers were asked if they could tell gay from straight based on physical movement only. In most cases they could.
The researchers also studied the way gay and straight people talk and they found differences there, too.
from UPI

Lily Tomlin Slams Gay Laws

AUSTRALIA - Actor Lily Tomlin has criticised the United States and Australian governments over their opposition to same-sex marriage, saying everyone should have the right to wed.
The openly-gay Hollywood veteran, 66, has been with her female partner, Jane Wagner, a writer and producer, for 35 years.
While she and Wagner have no plans to marry, Tomlin feels all people should have the choice.
US President George W Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard have both spoken out against same-sex marriage, and the Federal Government recently quashed ACT legislation allowing homosexuals to create civil unions.
"I am happy for anybody who wants to get married and I think they should have every right to," Tomlin said today. "It is an aggressively negative rejection," she said of the governments' responses to the issue.
"You have had an amendment here against same sex marriage. We have, too, in many of the states (in the United States) and I expect it will get more."
Tomlin, most recently known for her role as Deborah Fiderer in the Emmy-award winning political drama The West Wing, suggests the gay community could even create an alternative arrangement to marriage.
"It would be a profound thing if it was done (same-sex marriage was legislated for) because, basically, in the eyes of most people, it is a religious fundamental issue," she said.
"I am not a religious person and to me it is a kind of imitation of straight society.
"If anything, we could be more forward thinking and we could maybe create something different."
Tomlin, originally from Detroit, has been acting since the early 1960s when she scored a spot on Laugh In with her character Ernestine the telephone operator.
She's been nominated for an Academy Award, won a number of Emmys and Tonys and been in countless films, including Nashville, Nine to Five and Big Business.
from News.com.au

Wanted: Gay Football Fans

UNITED KINGDOM - Manchester City Football Club has signed up to a scheme to help it attract more gay fans and staff.
The club has paid a four-figure sum to join the Diversity Champions scheme, run by gay rights group Stonewall.
It is the first professional club to join the scheme, which focuses on a range of gay-friendly initiatives.
The club said it wanted to send a welcoming message to gay, lesbian and bisexual supporters, be inclusive and be a progressive employer.
Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill described Man City's decision as a "significant step" for English football.
He said: "Manchester City should be congratulated for putting their head above the parapet and moving into the 21st century."
In the next few weeks, the organisation will be looking at specific areas to target and work on with the club.
Mr Summerskill said: "The work can range from looking at recruitment processes to what's already going on in the workplace, to developing marketing strategies.
"It is mainly about Manchester City wanting to be an exemplary employer."
Mr Summerskill said he believed that a more gay-friendly environment would attract more straight fans, as well as homosexuals, because families were more likely to attend an atmosphere free from homophobic abuse.
He added: "If we help to get the club more supporters, more money and better staff, then they will have better training, better facilities, and it is all part of a virtuous circle of success."
from The BBC News

Condoms Stay Faithful When Prevention Is The Goal

In a perfectly safe world, everyone who is not sexually abstinent would have sex with only one other person, who in turn is also monogamous for life. But, as we all know, the world is far from perfect. Most people have, in the course of their lives, more than one sexual partner. Hence, we have a worldwide epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, and the most disastrous is AIDS.
“A condom can keep you from dying,” said Dr. M. Monica Sweeney, author with Rita Kirwan Grisman of “Condom Sense: A Guide to Sexual Survival in the New Millennium” (Lantern Books, $10). “The health of the world depends on condoms.”
“My candidate for the greatest technological invention of the past 2,000 years is the condom,” said Dr. Sweeney, a clinical assistant professor at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center and the vice president for medical affairs at Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Health Center.
Getting Double Value
Compelling statements indeed. But there is more truth than poetry to the claims. And while they stem primarily from Dr. Sweeney’s fight against H.I.V./AIDS (she is a member of the President’s Advisory Council on H.I.V./AIDS), they apply equally to increasing concerns about other sexually transmitted diseases, some of which can rob women of their fertility.
And the value of condoms goes far beyond disease prevention. Recent studies have proved that their consistent and correct use provides excellent protection against unwanted pregnancy, with no advance preparation required. In other words, you get double value for your money.
Dr. Sweeney and Ms. Grisman recount the many proven advantages of condoms, both for contraception and disease prevention.
Condoms are ready when you are. It’s easy to keep them nearby for the moment they’re needed.
Condoms are 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy if used from start to finish every time you have sex. The contraceptive effect of condoms is limited to the time of use. Fertility returns as soon as you stop using them.
Condoms, again if used properly and consistently, greatly reduce the risk of acquiring most sexually transmitted diseases, including H.I.V., gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes simplex virus, trichomoniasis and chlamydia, in men and women.
The newest study shows that condoms can prevent infection by human papillomaviruses that cause cervical cancer. Another recent study showed that among women already infected with H.P.V. who have early signs of developing cancer, the use of condoms can lead to regression of their cervical lesions.
Condoms reduce disease risk during vaginal, oral and anal sex. Unlike oral contraceptives, condoms are safe even if you smoke. And they do not cause weight gain. And unlike IUD’s, condoms do not cause heavy menstrual bleeding.
Condoms are not messy, like spermicidal creams and jellies. Condoms need not disrupt sexual spontaneity. Rather, they can be easily incorporated into foreplay. Condoms are inexpensive, require no prescription and are readily available in pharmacies and other retail venues.
And condoms can be used safely and effectively at any age, from the teens to the golden years, with no risk of harmful side effects.
Many people harbor misconceptions about condoms. The modern latex condom, the only kind that can prevent transmission of H.I.V., is much thinner than condoms of yore and can provide the wearer with more sensation while preventing pregnancy and disease.
Dr. Sweeney says, “For all those guys who posture and rant about the pleasure that condoms deprive them of, I have this question: Have you ever had an orgasm worth dying for?”
Another major misconception concerns the condom’s ability to prevent pregnancy. As typically used, condoms are associated with a pregnancy rate of 15 percent, which, as one expert put it, “suggests suboptimal use.”
This expert, Dr. Anita L. Nelson of the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “Pregnancy rates with correct and consistent condom use are only 2 percent.” This is no different from the contraceptive effectiveness of birth control pills.
So why this discrepancy? And why is protection against sexually transmitted diseases less than what experts say it should be?
Absence of Consistency
A study of 243 sexually active women by Dr. Nelson published in April in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported common impediments to the consistent use of condoms. The women were provided with free condoms and detailed information and demonstrations about how they should be used.
Nearly 44 percent of the women reported inconsistent condom use, with the least consistent use among those who were most sexually active. Thinking they were not at risk of pregnancy was the most common reason, followed by running out of condoms, disliking condoms, using withdrawal for contraception and forgetting.
Dr. Nelson suspects that because information about condom use depends on self-reporting based on recall, it “can overstate actual condom use, so that consistent condom use may be even less than reported.”
The highest risk of unprotected sex occurs among adolescent women. In addition to excuses like not expecting to have sex or being overcome by passion and desire, many teenage women with boyfriends say they are coerced into having sex they do not want.
The most common reason is fear of losing the boyfriend. In such cases, negotiating the condom use may be beyond most young women. They should be taught to say, “No condom, no sex.”
The Challenge of Negotiating
In a study of 1,843 men and women followed for 18 months, women had nearly twice the risk for getting a herpes infection as heterosexual men. Forty percent of the participants reported condom use zero to 25 percent of the time, and 29 percent reported using them more than 75 percent of the time. Those with the highest level of condom use had the lowest rates of herpes infections. The findings were published Nov. 15, 2005, in The Annals of Internal Medicine.
There is recourse for people exposed to H.I.V., but it’s not as simple as a morning-after pill. It involves a six-week regimen of antivirals.
Condoms are not perfect. They do sometimes, though rarely, break. And while they include instructions, few people bother to read them, especially in the heat of the moment. Dr. Sweeney urges men to practice in advance, learning how to open the package without damaging the condom and how to put one on and remove it.
Proper use of a condom requires putting it on the erect penis prior to any genital contact, withdrawing while the penis is still erect, holding the condom firmly to keep it from slipping off and using only water-based lubricants.
People with latex allergies can try using two condoms — one that is latex-free (but alas, not protective against AIDS) over or under a latex one, depending on which partner is allergic.
from The New York Times / Jane E. Brody

In The Ass: That's Got To Hurt!

BILBAO, SPAIN - A Victorino fighting bull impales Colombian matador Luis Bolivar during the fourth corrida of the Aste Nagusia bull fight festivities, August 22, 2006, at the Vista Alegre bullring in Bilbao, northern Spain.

Liza Minnelli Irked By Questions About Drag Queens

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Liza Minnelli, one of the most popular foils for drag performers the world over, was irked by questions about the craft during a mercurial interview posted this week on the Vegas celebrity chat show "The Strip."
The 60-year-old Oscar and Tony winner joked about her longtime status as a major icon for gay men but became suddenly irritated when asked about drag homages to her.
"What is this article about, honey?" Minnelli snapped at "The Strip" co-host Steve Friess, a national freelance journalist working on a profile of the entertainer for a Las Vegas magazine in advance of Minnelli's upcoming headliner gigs in Sin City. "What is this article's titled?"
When Friess said he didn't know, the performer eased up but went on to say she's never gone to see any of the drag performers who play her. "I'm usually working myself," she said with a loud laugh.
Friess posted the audio on the celebrity interview podcast he co-hosts with NBC producer Miles Smith, which can be found at www.thestrippodcast.com. The show is a member of the Podshow Podcast Network.
Minnelli was far more comfortable talking about her health, her recollections of visiting Vegas as a small child when her mother, Judy Garland, headlined there, and even about both her and Garland's status as gay icons.
"You name me a big female star who’s not a gay icon," Minnelli said. "Every major female performer I know is aware that they have gay followings and how sensitive they are. I just think gay people have better taste.”
from Press Release

11 Years For Defendant In Araujo Killing

The man who led police to the body of a transgender Newark teen apologized to the victim's family Friday before being sentenced to 11 years in prison in a case that focused the country's attention on violence against transgender individuals.
Jaron Nabors, 23, stood in a Hayward courtroom and told Gwen Araujo's relatives that he is sorry for his role in the 17-year-old's slaying in 2002.
"I had the misfortune to be around people with the character -- or lack thereof -- that I have," Nabors said as Araujo's relatives wept.
"I know that my words offer nowhere near a sense of consolation. I do not forgive myself. I do not see how I ever can," said Nabors, who during the murder trial testified against three of his friends.
At a hearing at the Hayward Hall of Justice Friday, Superior Court Judge Harry Sheppard agreed to delay by four weeks Nabors' entry into prison for security concerns. One of his co-defendants is still being processed at San Quentin State Prison, where inmates are taken before entering the state system.
Due to credit for time already served and other factors, Nabors will serve about five more years before being released.
Several of Araujo's family members delivered witness impact statements at the hearing. Nabors watched each speaker attentively but did not visibly react.
Araujo's mother, Sylvia Guerrero, told Nabors that her family is living in a prison of their own.
"When my daughter died, a part of me died, too, and the pain in my heart will never go away," she said.
Lupe Downing, Araujo's aunt, asked Nabors, "You still blame Gwen for her own death? Do you feel sorry for what you did, or are you sorry that you got caught?"
Downing said that part of her wants to sit down with Nabors and talk about what happened, but the other part feels "crazy for even giving you the time of day."
Attorney Gloria Allred read a statement on behalf of Araujo's uncle, David Guerrero, who was in tears in court.
"Mr. Nabors, you will have a second chance at life. Gwen will not," Allred said.
Outside court, David Guerrero talked to reporters. "Although he has accepted responsibility, I don't think he has accepted the fact that he has to pay for his consequences," he said.
Prosecutor Chris Lamiero, also speaking outside the courtroom, said he was satisfied with the case's outcome.
"On the whole, I think it's a very just end result," he said.
Referring to Araujo's family, Nabors' attorney, Anne Beles, told the judge, "One can only hope that they will be able to, as some family members said, move on in some semblance of peace that the people responsible are doing time for what they did."
Nabors pleaded guilty in February 2003 to voluntary manslaughter and promised to testify against his three co-defendants.
In 2004, a judge declared a mistrial in the first case after jurors agreed that the killing was murder but deadlocked over whether it was premeditated.
In September 2005, the jury in the second trial concluded that Michael Magidson, 25, and Jose Merel, 26, had beaten and strangled Araujo after learning that the person they had had oral and anal sex with was biologically male. The same panel deadlocked in favor of a second-degree murder conviction on Jason Cazares, 26.
In January, Magidson and Merel were sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder in Araujo's killing.
Cazares had struck a deal with prosecutors in December by pleading no contest to a lesser charge and received a six-year sentence.
Merel is the co-defendant who is still being processed at San Quentin.
Araujo was born Edward Araujo but lived and identified as a girl. The four men had known Araujo as Lida.
At both trials, Nabors testified articulately and provided the prosecution with a powerful witness who described discussions he had with his three friends in the days leading up to the slaying. But defense attorneys branded Nabors a perjurer who provided self-serving testimony that was full of holes and had falsely claimed to have an omniscient view of the case.
Nabors testified that in the week before Araujo was killed, the four friends debated whether Araujo was indeed female.
They discovered her gender after cornering her in a bathroom during a party at Merel's house in Newark in October 2002, prosecutors said.
Magidson choked Araujo, and Merel cried and said in disbelief, "I can't be f -- gay," Nabors testified.
Merel struck Araujo in the head with a vegetable can and skillet, Nabors said. Nabors said he and Cazares had then gone to Cazares' home to get some shovels.
Cazares said, "We're going to get some shovels. They're going to kill that b -- ," according to Nabors.
Araujo's last words were, "Please don't. I have a family," Nabors testified.
Araujo was buried in a shallow grave in the Sierra foothills east of Placerville in El Dorado County. Nabors led police to her body.
from The San Francisco Chronicle

Prison Condom Bill Sent To Schwarzenegger

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Public health agencies and nonprofits would begin distributing condoms to California prison inmates under a bill sent this week to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a measure modeled after similar programs in other states and cities.
Democrats who support the effort said making condoms available will help control the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
"Everyone knows that sex happens in prison, and short of solitary confinement for all ... inmates, the state is unable to prevent it," Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, said in a statement.
Various studies put the incidence of homosexual activity inside prisons at between 30 percent and 60 percent of male inmates, while the rate of HIV infection is at least five times that of the outside population, Koretz said.
Critics say the spread of sexual diseases could be prevented by enforcing state law, which bans sex between inmates. Republicans who oppose the bill said distributing condoms in prisons will only encourage sex between male inmates.
Sen. Charles Poochigian, R-Fresno, said the bill "sends entirely the wrong message."
"Prisons are to punish criminals. They shouldn't be sanctioning activities that are illicit," said Poochigian, who is running for state attorney general.
Instead, Poochigian said state prisons should clamp down on prison gang activity, which encourages sexual acts between inmates.
The bill's opponents also said inmates could use condoms as weapons or as devices to hide illegal drugs.
California prisons have an average of 1,240 inmates infected with HIV/AIDS, costing the department more than $18 million a year in health care, according 2003-2004 data provided by the state Department of Corrections.
Condoms are available in prisons in Vermont and Mississippi, as well as in jails in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and the District of Columbia, according to research by Koretz's office.
Australia, Canada, most of the European Union and parts of Latin America also allow condoms to be distributed in prison, according to the Koretz research, which was compiled from AIDS foundations and academic studies.
The Senate approved the bill Thursday 22-16 along party lines.
A Schwarzenegger spokesman said the governor had not taken a position on the bill.
from The San Jose Mercury News

Phillies Helping To Advance The Homosexual Agenda

PITTSBURGH, PHILADELPHIA - A Christian ministry says the Philadelphia Phillies organization is helping to advance the homosexual agenda while discriminating against those who express biblical views on homosexuality.
For the last four years, the Major League Baseball franchise in the City of Brotherly Love has been sponsoring "Gay Community Night" at the ballpark. In 2003 and 2004, the organization kicked out members of the Philadelphia-based Christian group Repent America for displaying a banner that read, "Homosexuality is sin, Christ can set you free."
This year, Repent America representatives distributed gospel literature and engaged in open air preaching outside Citizen's Bank Park. However, the Christian group's volunteers were not allowed to share their message within the stadium.
According to Repent America director Michael Marcavage, after pressure from homosexual activists last year, the Phillies changed their banner policy. According to the revised guidelines, the ballpark now prohibits all banners and signs that "bear a message that contains derogatory matter relating to ... sexual orientation," and also took steps to bar Repent America representatives from entering the ballpark.
"In fact," Marcavage notes, "the Phillies officials even went to the extreme of searching their databases for ticket purchases associated with Repent America to ensure that the access to us would be denied." In other words, he asserts, the Phillies organization has now declared that the biblical message of freedom from homosexuality through Jesus Christ is "derogatory," and those who conveyed that message in the past have apparently been declared unwelcome.
As a result, the ministry spokesman says, this year Repent America was barred from bringing its banner into Citizen's Bank Park on Gay Community Night. However, he questions whether the franchise's viewpoint-specific ban is lawful.
"Because this is a city-owned ballpark and they have a banner policy," Marcavage contends, "their banner policy should not be content-based in saying that some messages are okay and others are not." And he believes the policy's allowance of arbitrary distinctions between messages, permitting certain perspectives while disfavoring others, is exactly where the problem comes in.
"They're allowing one group of people to promote homosexuality," the Repent America director says, "so they should allow another group to say, 'No, this is not the way that God intended people to live.'" But instead, he charges, the Philadelphia Phillies organization is promoting homosexuality while censoring the free expression of Christian activists who oppose homosexual sin on the basis of their biblical beliefs.
Marcavage says he finds it heartbreaking that the Phillies franchise continues to expose children to "this perverse lifestyle" in what ought to be a family-friendly environment. Meanwhile, he adds, it is apparent the organization's promotion of homosexuality is not helping the Phillies' game any since they have lost to their opponents every year on Gay Community Night.
from Christian News and Media Agency

Advertisers Out Of The Closet With Gay-Themed Ads

Italian designer Domenico Dolce appears in a magazine ad, one hand perched affectionately on the shoulder of his design partner and former lover Stefano Gabbana, the other holding his stylish new Motorola phone.
Whether it's U.S. firm John Hancock featuring a lesbian couple in an ad for insurance or Altoids pitching two flavours of its "curiously strong mints" by asking readers if they are "bi-curious," big advertisers are storming out of the closet.
In part, the gay advertising boom reflects the lure of an underserved market: gay consumers are wealthier than average, and loyal to brands that they perceive as gay-friendly.
In 1994, just 19 of the Fortune 500 companies advertised their brands in gay media in the United States. Last year, 175 did, says Todd Evans of Rivendell Media, which places ads in gay U.S. newspapers and magazines.
And increasingly advertisers are also using gay themes to appeal to mainstream consumers.
"Most big agencies have looked at it," said Gordon MacMillan, editor of London's ad industry Internet newsletter Brand Republic. "One, they are targeting the gay market. And two, they are targeting the straight market as well, who perceive the gay market as having a certain style or cachet."
Advertisers have discovered that gay-friendliness is cool, said Michael Wilke, who tracks gay-themed advertising on a Web site, the Commercial Closet.
"They are looking to have a hip image, to say we are part of pop culture, and pop culture is increasingly inclusive of gays and lesbians."
IKEA BREAKS GROUND
Just a few years ago, before men's makeover show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and sitcom "Will and Grace," openly gay people were rare on television.
According to Wilke, the first U.S. television ad to feature an ordinary gay couple was a 1994 Ikea spot showing two men shopping for a dining-room table. The company ran it only at night and pulled it after getting bomb threats.
Insurer John Hancock ran a ground-breaking television spot during the 2000 Olympics and World Series baseball championships, showing a lesbian couple adopting an Asian baby.
"Can you believe this? We're a family," says one.
As the commercial ends, one says to the other: "You're going to be a great mom." The second replies: "So are you."
But those final lines were edited out after the ad was shown just once, allowing some viewers to think the couple are meant to be sisters.
That same year, tennis star Martina Navratilova began appearing in Subaru car ads. Although the ads didn't discuss her sexuality, hiring an openly gay celebrity to pitch a mainstream product to mainstream consumers was seen at the time as risky.
"If they wanted to reach gays only, they had no reason to spend hundreds of thousand of dollars to create a TV commercial to run in prime-time television," said Wilke.
Today, gay celebrity endorsements are common. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres pitches for American Express cards. Rock star Melissa Etheridge poses with her partner for Cartier jewellers, wearing interlocking bracelets designed for lesbian weddings.
"Queer Eye" in particular promotes its gay protagonists as style experts and is packed with grooming and fashion product placements. Its stars have appeared in mainstream TV ads for products ranging from home furnisher Pier 1 to Diet Pepsi.
SOPHISTICATED APPROACH
Advertisers are also getting more sophisticated in their approach to gay consumers. Rivendell Media says last year was the first time more than half the ads in gay U.S. magazines and newspapers were created specifically for a gay audience.
Osmosis Medialab, a New York-based boutique firm specialising in gay advertising, has created campaigns for products like Mercedes cars, Casio cameras and Philips flat-screen TVs. Co-founder Shawn Thomson says he no longer has difficulty explaining to clients why they need his services.
"We launched the agency about eight years ago and there was a lot of education involved in the early days. Advertisers do see the value in this market now. People do seem to get it."
With gays, as with straights, sex sometimes sells.
Breweries, notorious for using half-naked women to sell beer to straight men, have adopted a similar approach in targeting gay men. Budweiser has used visual puns on the suggestive shape of its long-necked bottle, with slogans like "nice package."
But increasingly, gays are looking for more serious messages of solidarity, expecting companies to support them by sponsoring gay community events or backing gay-friendly workplace policies.
Holiday Inn sponsored a gay pride event in Australia with an ad showing two pairs of men's shoes at the foot of a bed, and the tagline "Accommodating You." Avis advertises that it lists gay partners as extra drivers on car rentals for free.
"Showing that you're willing to take that extra step and actually support gay causes -- I think that's where advertisers really see a solid return on their investment," said Thomson.
Inclusive messages resonate not just with gays, but with a much larger gay-friendly audience, says Rivendell's Evans. He points to an Absolut Vodka ad in People magazine that depicted the brand's trademark bottle in rainbow gay pride colours.
"I'm the only gay person in my family. But that ad got someone like my mother to notice it."
from Reuters

First Public Gay Wedding In Nepal

KATHMANDU, NEPAL - Anil Mahaju and Diya Kashyap met about a year ago, were attracted towards each other and, after going steady for some time, decided to tie the knot.
The wedding will be solemnised at a little party in Kathmandu on Saturday attended by friends and well-wishers - but no relatives.
Anil and Diya are not their real names but the names they have chosen for their future life together. Both the groom and "bride" are men and the wedding will be the first public gay marriage in Nepal where homosexuality is a crime, punishable with a year in prison and a fine.
"I am really excited and happy that they have dared to challenge (traditional) culture and family values, where the whole society is oriented towards heterosexual marriage," says Sunil Pant, president of Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's most prominent gay rights organisation that is offering its premises for the wedding.
"It is very courageous of them and I congratulate them."
As part of a gay rights organisation, Pant knows better than most the perils homosexuals face in Nepal's conservative, patriarchal society.
Blue Diamond Society has to routinely bail out gays and transgenders arrested by police on weekends, beaten up, detained without trial and even sexually assaulted inside police stations.
Blue Diamond Society had also informed human rights organisations about the murder of a teenager in southern Nepal, allegedly by his father, after his family discovered he was gay.
About six years ago, two women in the tourist town of Pokhara decided to get "married" in secret. But the local media got hold of the news and the ensuing blaze of publicity resulted in the women's families first throwing them out and then trying to keep them locked up forcibly.
Though the couple came to Kathmandu and tried to start afresh by opening a small grocery, they continue to be harassed by local toughs, including security personnel.
While Anil is a 28-year-old graphics designer, Diya is a 22-year-old working at Blue Diamond Society as an outreach worker counselling on the spread of HIV/AIDS through unsafe sex and other problems faced by the community.
Their wedding, according to Pant, will be a simple, semi-traditional affair in which they will exchange rings and garlands before witnesses, followed by a little feast for the guests.
However, there will be no priests chanting the traditional wedding mantras.
The "revolutionary" wedding takes place at a time Blue Diamond Society and two other organisations, Mitini Nepal and Shakti Samuha, are asking for gay rights to be included in the new constitution of Nepal.
They want changes in the citizenship law where tesrolingis, transgenders, would be recognised as tesrolingis in the citizenship card and other government certificates, which currently have just two genders, male and female.
They also want the fundamental right of equal wage regardless of gender and recognition of marriage or civil union between two individuals regardless of their gender and sexual orientation.
from The Times Of India

First US Gay Marriage Ends

BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT - A lesbian couple who entered into the nation's first same-sex civil union officially split up Wednesday.
Carolyn Conrad and Kathleen Peterson, both of Brattleboro, had entered a civil union shortly after midnight on July 1, 2000, the day Vermont's first-in-the-nation law went into effect.
Conrad, 35, filed to end the union in October and later obtained a restraining order against her partner, saying Peterson punched a hole in the wall during an argument and threatened to harm a friend.
A judge granted the request for a dissolution Wednesday.
"It's a heartbreaking situation for any couple," Conrad told the Brattleboro Reformer on Wednesday.
The couple had been in a relationship for five years before Vermont began offering same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage.
Beth Robinson, chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, said the union's end shows that the state's civil union law is working.
"One of the goals was to create a mechanism to protect people in a relationship and create a mechanism to help people dissolve relationships," she said. "Same-sex relationships are no different than heterosexual relationships. Sometimes they last, sometimes they don't."
More than 7,500 civil unions have been formed in Vermont since the end of 2004 and 78 have been dissolved.
from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Gay Beating Trial In St. Maarten Delayed

PHILIPSBURG, ST. MAARTEN - The trial of four men accused of attacking two gay American tourists has been postponed so that a victim can return to testify in a St. Maarten court.
In requesting the postponement, prosecutors said Tuesday that finances kept Ryan Smith, 25, from traveling to the Caribbean country in time for the trial. Chief prosecutor Taco Stein told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his office would help pay for Smith's return for the trial, which is scheduled to resume October 31.
"The government of St. Maarten has also stated its willingness to assist," Stein said by telephone. "After all, this case was not good promotion for the island."
Smith and his friend Richard Jefferson -- both employees of CBS News in New York -- were severely beaten as they left a bar April 6 in St. Maarten, the island's Dutch side. Smith suffered massive brain damage and was unable to speak properly for months.
Jefferson, 51, whose skull was cracked by a blow from a tire iron, recovered and returned to the island to give authorities his account of the attack, which he called a hate crime. He is not expected to testify in the trial.
The four suspects have been charged with attempted murder and manslaughter. Stein declined to identify them.
At the start of the trial Tuesday, Judge Rick Smid dismissed defense lawyers' request to release their clients from detention.
"We're talking here about a case of public violence that had very serious consequences," Smid said.
The island, a popular Caribbean tourist destination, is shared by France and the Netherlands.
from CNN

Same-Sex Bill Gets Nod From South African Cabinet

The South African cabinet has given the nod to the Civil Unions Bill — which effectively allows recognition of same-sex marriages and grants gay couples similar rights to heterosexual couples.
At a media conference at Parliament on Thursday, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said the Bill took into account the constitutional court judgment which found that the common law definition of marriage in the Marriage Act of 1961 was unconstitutional.
"Insofar as it failed to give the same status, benefits and responsibilities to same sex unions that marriage accorded to heterosexual couples".
Parliament was given until the end of the year to pass this legislation in terms of the court judgement.
Maseko indicated that the Bill — which would complement the existing Marriage Act — would also provide for the recognition of domestic partnerships between adults "whether same or different sex who had not concluded a marriage or civil partnership".
Asked if there were tensions in the cabinet of the matter and whether it had taken note especially of African clergy in objecting to same sex marriages involving boys and boys, Maseko said: "My understanding is that the issue of same sex marriages is not only boys — but girls marrying girls."
But he said there had been extensive discussion on the matter and he acknowledged that the issue may raise "a lot of emotion".
However, he added that the cabinet had to respect the constitution which had effectively imposed an order on parliament to change the marriage law to comply with the constitution.
"All South Africans should bear in mind the constitutional judgment on the matter," he said.
from iAfrica.com