LGBTI News – Page 2 – news.lgbti.org

Domestic Violence Occurs with Same-Sex Couples Too

Same-sex couples are very much like heterosexual married couples. Once the hoopla of the wedding is over and the honeymoon phase has shifted away, they also have to work and invest a lot into keeping the spark alive.

Gay couples have an added incentive that can also bring more weight down on the shoulders of the relationship. The need to prove to the world that same-sex marriages are just as valid and can work just as well as straight ones. Still, one famous same-sex relationship has shed light on something completely different, that domestic violence occurs with same-sex couples, too (Denver Post.com). Enter Johnny Weir, ice skating Olympian, and TV commentator at the Sochi Olympics winter Olympics. To no one’s surprise, Weir came out as gay in 2011 and only one year later married his boyfriend, Victor Voronov. Weir had filed for divorce secretly. He returned home to find Voronov furious. The two engaged in a fight where Weir bit Voronov, who in turn filed criminal charges. Voronov decided to drop the charges and Weir and he tried to reconcile. Still, they could not make it work. TMZ and other tabloids followed the case and made a laughing stock of them.

But this case did bring to light that there is a lot we don’t know, and not a lot of research has been done regarding same-sex marriages.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated in a 2013 report that, “little is known about the national prevalence of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking among lesbian, gay, and bisexual women and men in the United States.” We do know that gay men have a 50% higher chance of being a victim of gay violence than straight men. Gay on gay violence is often portrayed as a joke in the media. Lots of silly movies and TV shows show gay men chasing each other about. But when it comes to actual cases of gay on gay violence, will the criminal justice system, the media and the general public stand up and take notice, or will it as the famous figure skating Olympian and his ex-spouse become the joke of the day?

Co-counsel on a landmark Adams County lawsuit challenging Colorado’s statutory and constitutional bans on gay marriage and University of Denver law professor, Tom Russell, says “Our conversation about marriage equality is incomplete unless we equally protect the rights of gay spouses once they enter a marriage.”

The London Gay Teachers Group

The London Gay Teachers Group, known as Schools’ Out, was co founded by the late Paul Patrick, who came out in 1969, before he became a teacher, and some colleagues. The organisation became an effective campaigning organisation which published a series of ground breaking discussions and booklets, including “Aids Hysteria” in 1987 and “Schools Out” in 1989.

In 2004 Paul Patrick and Sue Sanders of Schools Out founded the UK Gay History Month.

Paul Patrick was born on July 23rd, 1950 and died on May 22, 2008.

The Hall-Carpenter Archives at the LSE hold some archive material for the London Gay Teachers Group.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a colourful and distinctive charity, protest, and street performance organization of Queer Nuns who fight sexual intolerance with drag and religious imagery. They also satirize gender and morality issues.

The movement started in 1979 when a group of gay men in San Francisco began wearing habits in visible situations to draw attention to social conflicts and problems in the Castro District. The original three men procured habits from a convent in Iowa pretending to be putting on a a performance of The Sound of Music!

They are an international organisation, and there are around 600 Nuns in Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

It was a time when religious participation in politics was growing, and Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell were crusading against the acceptance of the gay life style. The Castro District as a major gay neighborhood was targeted by several dozen church members who took to its streets to preach about the immorality of homosexuality.

The name of the group became familiar in 1980. The nuns held their first fundraiser, and a write-up in The San Francisco Chronicle by Herb Caen printed their organization name, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The benefit was for San Francisco’s Metropolitan Community Church Cuban Refugee Program.

The community was then hit with the AIDS crisis and the Nuns played a major part in organising awareness, and are thought to have produced the world’s very first Aids awareness literature.

Members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who have died are referred by the Sisters as “Nuns of the Above”.

LGBT Denmark

LGBT Denmark is the Danish National Organisation for Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Trans people and was founded in 1948, originally becoming known as “The Circle of 1948”. It was founded by Axel Axgil, who was Chair until 1952.

Male homosexuality was a crime in Denmark until 1933, under the 1683 law which stated: “Relations against nature is punishable by execution”. By a law of 1866, the death penalty was replaced by a sentence of prison labour. In 1933 sex between adult men aged over 18/21 was de-criminalised.

LGBT Danmark is a co-founder of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

Axgil exchanged vows with partner in 1989 as Denmark became the first country to allow gay people to enter into civil unions.

Eigil Axgil died in 1995

The Irish Same Sex Marriage Referendum

The Republic of Ireland held a referendum on same-sex marriage on May 23, 2015.

Dublin crowds celebrated the referendum result on 24 May 2015

The electorate voted to amend the constitution to permit same sex marriage.

The final result was:

Yes – 1,201,607 (62.1%)
No – 734,300 – (37.9%)

The turnout was 60.5%.

COC Nederland

COC Nederland is a Dutch organization for LGBT+ men and women which was founded in 1946, and it is understood to be the longest established continuing gay organisation in the world. It was founded in Amsterdam on 7 December 1946 under its original name of “Shakespeareclub”, then in 1949 the organisation was renamed Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum (Center for Culture and Leisure).

Its history goes back to before the second world war, however. The founders were a number of gay men who were active in producing a magazine called “Levensrecht” (Right To Live), which was founded a few months before the German invasion in 1940. The first edition of the magazine was published in March 1940 (pictured). The magazine re-appeared after the war and continued until 1947. when they could not get a permit for the paper to print it on. The magazine was written by Jaap van Leeuwen under the pseudonym Arent Santhorst and Niek Engelschman under the pseudonym Bob Angelo. The magazine was backed by Han Diekmann.

From its beginning in 1946 until 1962, the chairman was Niek Engelschman. In 1962 Benno Premsela took over and in 1964 the organisation “came out” by changing its name to “Nederlandse Vereniging voor Homofielen COC” (Dutch Association for Homophiles COC).

One of COC’s first objectives was to get article 248-bis in the Wetboek van Strafrecht (the main code for Dutch criminal law) revoked. This 1911 law made sexual contact with someone of the same sex between 16 and 21 years old punishable by up to one year imprisonment. For heterosexuals, the age of consent was 16. Article 248-bis was revoked in 1971.

COC is one of the few LGBT+ organisations that has a special consultative status with the United Nations.

Official website of COC: https://coc.nl

Turkey withdraws from Istanbul Convention

Turkey withdrew from a European treaty on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, according to the country’s Official Gazette early Saturday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention that was signed in 2011.

What is the Istanbul Convention?

The Istanbul Convention is the first convention in international law that emphasizes that violence is the result of inequality between women and men and discrimination against women.

The Istanbul Convention is the first convention that includes four basic approaches consisting of “Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Support Policies” on combating all forms of physical, sexual, economic and emotional violence.

The Istanbul Convention is also the first binding convention that has an independent monitoring mechanism to combat violence and has the power of enforcement.

LGBT+ Flag Case: 2 Students Released

Two detained defendants were released in the trial in which seven students were tried for a collage work in which LGBT+ flags were placed on the image of the Kaaba at an exhibition at Boğaziçi University.

Two students, Doğu D. and Selahattin U., who were convicted of inciting hatred and enmity, were released due to the exhibition of an anonymous collage work on the image of the Kaaba at Boğaziçi University with the Shahmaran figure and LGBT+ flags.

The hearing of the case in Istanbul 21st Criminal Court of First Instance, where seven people, two of whom are under arrest, was held at the 12th High Criminal Court due to the large number of audiences.

All the defendants, including Doğu D. and Selahattin U., who have been under arrest for 47 days, were present in the courtroom. Among those who came to watch the hearing were politicians such as CHP’s Özgür Özel, Ali Şeker, Sera Kadıgil, Canan Kaftancıoğlu, TİP MP Barış Atay and Independent Deputy Ahmet Şık, as well as students’ friends and academicians.

In the case, which was held on the grounds that an anonymous collage work with a Shahmaran figure and LGBT+ flags were placed on the image of the Kaaba in the protests inside the campus, the students are tried with a prison sentence of one to three years on the charge of “publicly denigrating the religious values adopted by a section of the people”. In the case where two of the seven students were put on trial, one defendant is under house arrest.

During the hearing, which lasted about four hours, the judge asked the students “Do you have an LGBTI membership?”, And Levent Pişkin, one of the students’ lawyers, objected to the question.

Stating that it is a constitutional crime to force anyone to explain whether they are LGBTI+ or not, Pişkin emphasized that there is no such organization as “LGBTI” and therefore there cannot be a concept called LGBTI member, “There is a kind of criminalization effort. LGBTI+ society is tried to be criminalized in this way. “There are gay Muslims. There are also homosexual pilgrims. There are also those who go on the pilgrimage among homosexuals.”

On the other hand, when the statement of the defendant Sena Nur B. was taken, the judge showed her in the official courtroom and said, “Is this the picture?” he asked the students.

At the hearing, the defendant’s lawyers stated that the exhibition containing the work in question was only accessible to school students and graduates; He pointed out that the incident was enlarged after the Yeni Şafak newspaper was targeted, and the students were targeted after the issue was reflected in the media.

The court has set the date for the next hearing as July 5, 2021

LGBTI: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex

Anti-LGBTQ+ Books will not be Sold on Amazon

Amazon, one of the largest online sales sites in the world and also seen as the most valuable company, has announced that it will not sell books that show sexual identities as diseases other than heterosexual identities.

Books showing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex identities as “mental illness” will no longer be sold on the Amazon.

Amazon recently stopped selling “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” by conservative academic Ryan Anderson, known for his opposition to same-sex marriage. Republican senators in the US Senate interpreted this decision as not respecting the views of American conservatives and asked why Amazon stopped the sale of this book. Amazon officials made the situation public in a letter they published.

In the letter first published in the Wall Street Journal, Amazon made the following statement: “As a bookstore, we provide our customers with access to products that contain a variety of perspectives, including books that some other customers may find objectionable. However, we reserve the right not to sell certain content. All retailers can decide what to offer their customers. As for your specific question about the book “When Harry Became Sally”, we report that we chose not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness. ”

Amazon also stressed that they had given advance notice to the publisher of the book and notified that the book was removed for “violating the content guidelines”. “It poses a danger to trans children” The fact that Amazon stopped selling the book is indeed a huge loss for publishers, as 52% of all books sold in the US and 80% of all ebooks are sold on Amazon, according to data from the mass research firm Codex Group. .

The Birmingham Lithuanian Community publicly stands for LGBTQ+

The Lithuanian Community in Birmingham United Kingdom is one of the first Diaspora communities which publicly supports Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, a member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the chairman of the Human Rights Committee, as the only homosexual of 141 members of the Seimas.

The Parliamentary elections were held in Lithuania on 11 and 25 October 2020 to elect the 141 members of the Seimas. 71 were elected in single-member constituencies using the two-round system, and the remaining 70 in a single nationwide constituency using proportional representation. Furthermore, the 4th party by elected seats were Liberal Movement and they received 13 seats in Seimas. Among these 13 elected people were Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius which spoken publicly about his sexual orientation and his presence as a member of LGBTQ +.

In 20 of November 2020 a members of the Human Rights Committee elected a chairman which was Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius who is the only one person from LGBTQ +.

However, the chairman of Human Rights Committee received a negative opinion, expression of hatred from the public, organizations, influencers, members of the Seimas and public figures. A Lithuanian liberal MP has been under attack for advocating pro-LGBTQ+ policies, with a petition, allegedly signed by 300,000 people, calling for his dismissal as a committee chairman. Critics of the initiative say the petition is clear discrimination.

The Birmingham Lithuanian Community publicly stands for LGBTQ+

So, we are The Birmingham Lithuanian Community in United Kingdom and we are the first Community from all Lithuanian’s Communities in the world which is going to hold 4th of March live meeting with Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius and we will speak publicly about our support to him and to continue to be as chairman of the Human Rights Committee.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/259551035762314

Source: E-mail Newsletter