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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
