President Obama Calls Uganda ‘Kill Gays’ Bill “Odious” in Speech at The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast

WASHINGTON, February 4, 2010 – The top two people in the United States government slammed the Ugandan “Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009” at The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast the morning – and President Barack Obama described the Bill as “odious”. And an American gay group described the President’s remarks as “bold” and “a huge victory for human rights”. “We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it’s unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, whether it’s here in the United States, or … more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda,” the President said. Earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had condemned the Ugandan Bill, in which the secretive The Family is said to have had an involvement. “In the Obama administration, we are working to bridge religious....

Members of Congress Call on Boy Scouts of America to End Its Discrimination against Gays and Lesbians

WASHINGTON, February 2, 2010 – Twenty-six Members of the United States Congress last night urged the Boy Scouts of America to end its discriminatory policy of not accepting gays and lesbians. A letter initiated by U.S. Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), sent to the Chief Scout Executive of the Scouts, was sent in response to the Boy Scouts’ rejection of Cate and Elizabeth Wirth, a couple in Vermont who were told they could not volunteer for their 10 year old son’s Cub Scout pack after it was revealed that the women are lesbians. In explaining the Boy Scouts’ national policy of excluding gays and lesbians as volunteers, their district director suggested that the Wirths would “push their lifestyle on the boys”. “Regrettably, the current, discriminatory policy of the Boy Scouts of America has denied opportunities for young scouts, community-oriented citizens, and loving parents,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Robert Mazzuca, the Chief Scout Executive of the...

Are Gay Iranians Being Deported from European Countries on ‘Erroneous Information’?

UK GAY NEWS COMMENTARY: Published earlier this month, a new report on information used by the UK Border Agency to make decisions on asylum cases found that reports on the situation for gays in Iran are “sub-standard or erroneous”. And in the case of deporting gays back to Iran, and a few other countries, any mistake could well be lethal. The report deals with the situation in the United Kingdom. But one wonders if there is a similar flaw in the Norwegian system where 40-years-old gay Iranian Asghar Hedayati could well be on the brink of deportation following his application for asylum six-and-a-half years ago. From what he claims, he has had a number of appeals to the immigration department turned down. But he has not, he says, had his day in a court of law. Certainly, he has no access to a specialist immigration/asylum lawyer, he...