URGENT HELP REQUEST: People who harass LGBT Christians often get away with it because clergy/laity do not respond/UPDATED!

There is a murderous ¨anti-Homosexuality Bill¨ pending at the Parliament of Uganda and it is being LOUDLY and enthusiastically promoted by Fundamentalist Protestant religions and by The Ugandan Anglican Church .


Dear Friends, we are faced with a Homophobic INTERNATIONAL HATE CRIME Campaign that has been initiated by extremist hatedriven religious CLERGY leaders and wildly supported by their ill-informed and frightened puritan zealot followers.

It´s focus TODAY is in UGANDA and in the form of a deadly¨anti-Homosexuality Bill¨ pending in the Parliament of Uganda and promoted by Fundamentalist Protestant Churches and by The Ugandan Anglican Church. The pending ¨anti-Homosexuality Bill¨ in Uganda is JUST NOW being addressed by The Canadian and British Government at the Commonwealth of Nations Meeting in Tinidad and Tobago:

Britain and Canada today led Commonwealth protests against a law proposed by the Ugandan parliament which would introduce the death penalty by hanging for "aggravated homosexuality".

Gordon Brown expressed Britain's concerns about the parliamentary bill when he met Yoweri Museveni, the veteran Ugandan president, at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago Fury at Uganda proposal for gay executions, HERE


What Is Homophobia?

¨Homophobia is a word often used to describe a fear of homosexuals. However, it is more useful to consider the ingredients - it's created using societal norms of masculinity/femininity, gender roles and difference. For individuals, homophobia can lead to deep rooted low-self esteem, fear of familial and community rejection and various mental health issues; including feelings of isolation, depression and suicide. In the community and larger society, the impact of homophobia can mean increased violence in communities and increased rates of HIV. In all its forms, homophobia makes health education, HIV prevention and treatment extremely challenging. We must not let hateful and abusive treatment from others undermine our ability to care for ourselves and each other.¨

Be an Ally to Black Gay people:


¨When you see something, say something! People who harass LGBT people often get away with it because people in the community do not respond. Violence often happens against people who are most marginalized, whom an abuser feels like he/she can attack without reproach. If you witness this kind of verbal abuse, harassment, or physical violence you have the power to stop it by intervening, or calling someone in the community who the perpetrators know and respect and get them to stop.¨

Accept Diversity in the Community:

¨Open your doors! There are no LGBT centers in the Black Community. We often must travel outside the community to find places of support and care. You can open your home, apartment or community garden to provide a meeting or social space for people to find comfort and support in their own community. HERE


President Museveni, of Uganda, has not endorsed the private member's bill, which was introduced by a backbencher, David Bahati, in the Ugandan parliament. But Uganda's ethics and integrity minister, James Nsaba Buturo, welcomed the anti-human proposal, saying that he regards the demonizing bill "with joy" because it will "provide leadership around the world". Government ¨ethics¨ Minister Nsaba Buturo ¨thinks¨ his Homosexual Bill ¨executing¨ Homosexuals will provide ¨leadership around the world.¨ Leadership in murdering LGBT people and imprisoning our family and friends. Minister Buturo needs to ¨think¨ again.

BBC Radio 4's "Sunday" program has looked into the situation in the Ugandan Parliament with a bill promoting anti-gay measures and found more of the "deafening silence" within the Anglican Communion that has many asking for a voice of intercession or appeal.

Lowell Grisham of The Chicago Consultation and Colin Coward of the UK-based advocacy group Changing Attitude are among the interviewees in this week's edition of "Sunday."

Grisham:

We believe that the leaders of the Anglican church should speak out, especially to those who are frightened and threatened by this legislation in Uganda. This is a matter of justice and of compassion. We see this as legislation that violates Christ's command that we love our neighbors as ourself and his example to show compassion to vulnerable and marginalized people. HERE


·RESPECTFULLY CALL FOR COMPASSIONATE AND CLEAR STATEMENTS OF CONDEMNATION from Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Caterbury, The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu (a refugee from Idi Amins brutal dictatorship in Uganda who suddenly remains quiet at the desperate plight of LGBT Ugandans who, like him, may be forced to leave Uganda or be killed), Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church and Henry Luke Orombi, Primate of the Anglican Church of Uganda·

¨When you see something, say something! People who harass LGBT people often get away with it because people in the community do not respond.¨

UPDATED: Monday, November 30, 2009

¨The voices of lgbts of color must be heard,¨ HERE

UPDATED at NOON: Monday November 30, 2009

Americans must take urgent action to let the State Department know that it IS their job to prevent the misuse of taxpayers’ HIV/AIDS dollars to slaughter gay people, enrich evangelicals, and deny Africans access to condoms.

Please write letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding a hold on PEPFAR funding until strict human-rights, privacy, and free-speech controls are imposed upon all PEPFAR aid. PEPFAR aid must not be given to sectarian religious interests, especially those with violent and inhumane intentions.HERE

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
PEPFAR AID VIOLATIONS
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-4000

EMERGENCY NOTE: The ANGLICAN UN, United Nations, HUMAN RIGHTS Observer, Mrs Hellen Grace Wangusa from Uganda, has an office provided by the Episcopal Church (USA) at the Church Center 815 Second Avenue, New York, 10017. The direct office line is (001) 212-716- 6263 and the email address unoffice@episcopalchurch.org

"reprehensible, vile and hateful"

¨The Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009), now before the House's Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, proposes life imprisonment for acts of homosexuality and introduces a serious crime called "aggravated homosexuality".

According to the proposed law, offenders must face death if they have sex with a minor or a disabled person, or are found to have infected their partners with HIV. The proposed law, if passed in its current shape, would also punish attempted homosexuality as well as the failure of a third party to inform the authorities of homosexual activity.¨

¨...In Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean nation that is hosting the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reportedly raised the issue with President Museveni. And the Canadian government, which is conservative, reportedly described the proposed law as "reprehensible, vile and hateful". HERE, from All Africa

LATE MONDAY EVENING NIGHTCAP:

U.S. Warns against International Efforts to Criminalize Homosexuality

Although her subordinate Eric Goosby seemed to defend no-strings aid to Uganda last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this afternoon said international efforts to criminalize homosexuality are “unacceptable.” HERE

Anderson condemns Uganda anti-gay law

Episcopal Church House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson has issued a statement condemning the pending Ugandan legislation that would imprison for life or execute people who violate that country's anti-homosexuality laws saying it would be a "terrible violation of the human rights of an already persecuted minority." HERE

·Thanks to Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, sidebar
·Thanks to We Are Part of You
·Thanks to Prime Minister Gordon Brown
·Thanks to Living Out Loud With Darian, sidebar
·Thanks to Episcopal Cafe, sidebar
·Thanks to Wikipedia
·Thanks to The Reverend Colin Coward
·Thanks to The Reverend Lowell Grisham
·Thanks to The Chicago Consultation
·Thanks to Gay Uganda, sidebar
·Thanks to Changing Attitudes, United Kingdom, sidebar
·Thanks to Truth Wins Out, sidebar
·Thanks to All Africa
·Thanks to U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
·Thanks to President Bonnie Anderson, TEC House of Deputies
·Thanks to Scott Gunn, Photo Peter Akinola (hiding his face/soul)
·Thanks to The BBC

ATTENTION ANGLICAN PRIMATES/BISHOPS: ¨None of us are exempt¨

Recently, while pursuing actions related to the VILE ¨Anti-Homosexuality¨ proposed law before the Ugandan Parliament I discovered a NEW BLOG ¨Living Out Loud with Darian¨ HERE . Darians blog I quickly added to my sidebar because the author spoke directly to my heart with clearcut sensibilities and STRAIGHT FORWARD reporting from the ¨frontlines¨ of everyday LGBT life. You know, the kind of words of ¨right vs. wrong¨ clarity that once we assumed only were owned and belonged to religious (appearing) heteroseuxals who PREACHED at us because we PRETENDED homosexuality didn´t really exist and we must not matter anyway if we did exist, we were mostly writeoffs as human beings, we had seeped through the cracks of society and lived on edge.

If ¨Gay existed ¨they¨ were a subject that wasn´t often discussed for FEAR of discovery and/or brutal consequences of the, discrimination/outcasting, HATE CRIME generating kind...or simply ¨they/Gay¨ were considered demented sinfilled clowns acting out in the ¨side show¨ of life...best to be ignored, whenever possible, by family and friends sort of like locking up a drunk aged aunt in the attic...except that we hung out at the local dark, really dark, Gay Bar.

Darian reminds me that LGBT people are part of EVERYONES everyday life. We aren´t weird or evil. We are your brothers, sisters, Moms, Dads, cousins, nephews, schoolmates, coworkers and everyday best friends and passing acquaintances. We are no more likely to be ¨sinfilled perverts or clowns¨ than our heterosexual counterparts. We are people just like YOU!

These past few years I´ve been following the progression of ¨out of the closet¨ activitism by LGBT citizens (often with worldwide scope and often at The Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion). I´ve discovered the very worst reactions that ¨deep down¨ I knew to exist, do exist amongst millions of folks worldwide. HERE I´ve noted time after time that danger lurks for LGBT Christians/citizens both now and in the decades long history of HORRORS at CHURCH HERE

In my own experience of ¨horrors¨ --both self-inflicted and not-- there have been times when I actually bought into the ugly stories generated about people like me. It took years for me to FULLY discover that Gods gift to me was the actual, authentic person of me! It took years for me to see that God simply wanted me to be me and that meant that I would have to become more responsible and accountable too...the hardest part was facing, and not running away from REALITY!

·I have always known that my College friend, Brad, need not have killed himself after his Father caught him with his arm casually draped over the shoulder of his male friend while sleeping over at his folks house in a doublesized bed one weekend after a football game. I went to the funeral, I saw Brad in his coffin and I looked at his expressionless Dad...I looked into his blank stare and I did not speak.

·I have always known that my College friend, Phil need not have killed himself after his first, and only, lover left him without a word, without a note but left him for another man. I went to Phils funeral, I saw Phil in his coffin. I saw him being buried at the Cemetery at Santa Clara. His former ¨loved one¨ was not there. But there were hundreds of bewildered family members and family friends present at the luncheon afterward who didn´t understand why musically very talented Phil died. They grabbed us, hugged us, looked deeply into our eyes with great joy to know that Phils ¨friends¨ were there...a Fraternity Brother and a female friend and I were the only ¨friends¨ in attendence but somehow we seemed to ¨grow into many people¨ like loves and fishes.

·I have always wondered why my dear Jose died. He was murdered in his own home execution style just two weeks short of being 35. He was a kind and gentle person who was not into drugs and always, yes always, HELPED everyone at all levels of society. Why did he die? His death is yet another act done by unthinkable madness. Jose was not a permiscous man but a man with a loving easy-going soul. Why was he murdered? I went to visit him at his tomb to honor him and tell him how I still love him on All Saints day. It´s over eleven years later now and I still don´t know why this good and loving man is dead.

·I think of the young suicides HERE that we´ve seen so many of (documented here at my blog) recently, within the past year. I think of the many and increasing brutal hate crimes generated in the name of a God HERE that I´ve never known.

I think of Archbishop Orombi of Uganda and Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria as they promote/instigate by endorsing ¨legalized¨ hate campaigns against Anglican, Christian and other LGBT FAMILIES. Families and people they will never know, and certainly never knew anything about their innermost character, hearts and/or souls of those whom they marginalized and damn to Hell. You see, Bishops Orombi and Akinola are amongst other grandstanding blowhards seeped in ignorance and feardriven bigotry who only ¨listen¨ to the sound of their own rationalized vicious voices and their ¨conservative¨ backers/accomplices in the United States HERE

Back to Darian and his ¨Living Out Loud with Darian¨ blog. This morning Darian greeted us with a THANKSGIVING FAMILY PORTRAIT including his very best wishes for us all during this Season of Thanksgiving, 2009...I immediately thought of my friends in Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Jamaica who I believe will find a measure of HOPE in Darians message from his family and most of us in the United States too...afterall, as Darian says ¨None of us are exempt¨ read it all, click HERE

Onward! I challenge Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ugandan (refugee) Archbishop John, Lord of York, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Primate of The Episcopal Church and ALL the Anglican PRIMATES and ALL the BISHOPS of The ANGLICAN COMMUNION to speak out immediately against the murderous anti-Homosexuality Bill pending at the Parliament of Uganda.. The faux religious slandering that promotes hate crime atrocities must STOP!

Lord have mercy

·Thanks to Darian
·Thanks to Living Out Loud with Darian, sidebar
·Thanks to Father Jake, sidebar
·Thanks to Brad, Phil and Jose (for being my friends)
·Thanks to The Reverend Colin Coward
·Thanks to Changing Attitudes, United Kingdom

Lord Hear My Prayer: For those who seek justice in OUR world and deserve a place in American Thanksgiving

The Most Reverend Martin de Jesus Barahona, Primate, Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America, The Anglican Communion



Dr. Louie Crew, Founder, Integrity, The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion




The Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Bishop Roskam served on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church as Chair of the International Concerns Committee and is a representative from the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Consultative Council, The Anglican Communion



The Rt. Reverend David Alvarez, Bishop of Puerto Rico and President Bishop of Province IX of The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion



The Most Reverend Mauricio José Araújo de Andrade, Primate, Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, The Anglican Communion



The Most Reverend Frederick J Hiltz, Primate, The Anglican Church of Canada, The Anglican Communion



Father Geoff Farrow, The Roman Catholic Church



The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, The Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, The Anglican Communion




The Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris (born 12 June 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was the first woman ordained a bishop in The Episcopal Church and at The Anglican Communion.



The Most Reverend Barry Morgan, Primate, Archbishop of The Church of Wales, The Anglican Communion




The Reverend Terry Martin aka ¨Father Jake¨ The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion



The Right Reverend Eva Brunne, Bishop of Stockholm, The Church of Sweden



The Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion



Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum is since 1992 of New York City’s Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST), Sharon Kleinbaum is as immersed in politics as one can get. She is the openly lesbian leader of the world’s largest gay religious congregation, and is at the forefront of the movement to secure basic civil rights for lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.



The Most Reverend Carlos Touche-Porter, Primate, La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, The Anglican Communion


The Reverend Canon Mark Harris, Member Executive Council and House of Deputies, ¨Preludium¨, The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion



Lord hear my prayer

For ALL of us who seek, and attempt to speak, for justice and mercy in the world and deserve a place in American Thanksgiving.

Christ have mercy

Remembering those persecuted, marginalized and abused daily especially in UGANDA, NIGERIA and JAMAICA at The Anglican Communion and in everyday life elsewhere.
Amen


!FELICIDADES!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Sacatapequez, Guatemala, Central America
November 2009

ARCHBISHOPS WILLIAMS AND SENTAMU: ¨My country is sanctioning a gay genocide¨ TERROR at The Anglican Communion!

¨Fact is, my world, our world is always beautiful. And, always ugly. It is a struggle to reconcile the beauty with the ugliness. We cannot dwell too much on what is ugly. Yet we cannot forget that it is. Life is the flow of a stream, the course is not smooth, nor predictable.¨


·So, my country is sanctioning a gay genocide·

It is odd that such a terrible statement is true. And yet, the people who are behind it are also adamant that they love gay people. They are just fearful of the spread of the gay disease. Not AIDS. Homosexuality. They fear for themselves. They fear for their children. And, their fear has translated into a fight for life, for people like me. And, we are losing. What horrible things fear can justify!¨ Imagined fears are more portent than those which are not imagined.
HERE


·Harsh laws not answer to our sexuality·

¨In the present circumstances, young people and adults of Uganda need to be taught to love, treat and pray for homosexuals, hetero-sexuals, bi-sexuals, tri-sexuals and non-sexuals as they would do for any other person.

We need not be afraid of each other because our sexuality is not contagious! We don’t need to treat each other as freaks because of not understanding each other. We need not even to discuss someone’s sexuality except where the sexuality is a threat to their own and other people’s peace, health, wellbeing and prosperity. In the present circumstances, young people and adults of Uganda need to be taught to love, treat and pray for homosexuals, hetero-sexuals, bi-sexuals, tri-sexuals and non-sexuals as they would do for any other person.¨ The Reverend Canon Gideon B. Byamugisha, HERE

President Museveni, Uganda, wants YOU ¨Dead or Alive¨

·Uganda Proposes Death Penalty for Homosexuals·

¨The leadership of the country of Uganda, home once of the infamous Idi Amin, has proposed the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality." It's just life for touching someone with " the intention of committing the act of homosexuality”.

In prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality,” the bill would not only bar political activity on behalf of gay rights, but would also require anyone learning the identity of a sexually active gay person to report that information within 24 hours, or face a stiff fine or jail time.

Take the bad and make it better. But there are no maybes for the gay men of Uganda. There is only the prospect of brutal punishment. As long as those sanctions exist, as long as our brothers suffer, we are all Ugandans.¨ HERE

NOTE: The ANGLICAN UN, United Nations, HUMAN RIGHTS Observer, Mrs Hellen Grace Wangusa from Uganda, has an office provided by the Episcopal Church (USA) at the Church Center 815 Second Avenue, New York, 10017. The direct office line is (001) 212-716- 6263 and the email address unoffice@episcopalchurch.org


·American Evangelicals Play Role In Uganda Effort To ‘Wipe Out’ Gays·

¨In March, American anti-gay activists traveled to Uganda for a conference that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality HERE . Seven months later, a draconian bill has been introduced that pledges to make good on this threat. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009” is so severe that it is designed to shred the spirit and suffocate the soul of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans. If it passes, Uganda will become a predator state that actively hunts down GLBT people to destroy them.¨ By Wayne Besen, HERE


·The Anglican Church of Uganda lost ALL ¨Moral High Ground¨·


“I believe it is actually an opportunity for the Archbishop of Canterbury to take back the moral high ground from the Church of Uganda leaders. They have made it abundantly clear that they support the Bill. They support it in its terribleness. And now they have started back peddling. They are in a dilemma. It is almost impossible for them to recant, but the Bill is so terrible that they must recant! These guys have gone too far, and they realise it. They are on the back foot.

Let the Archbishop just be gracious and negotiate with them. I am sure they don’t have a clue on how to retake their international standing. Besides now not having an 'official' stance on the bill, they are stopping the comments. On the day of the debate, the representative of the Church of Uganda who was supposed to support it did not appear. Yes, the pressure is working. Instead, his place was taken by someone else who was sadly funny. Except, the blood they are baying for is mine. They are not in danger!¨ HERE

Bill Number 18, The anti-Homosexual/anti-Human Bill, linked at Gay Uganda, ¨Denying the Facts¨, click HERE

·Thanks to Gay Uganda, right sidebar
·Thanks to The Monitor Online, Uganda
·Thanks to The Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugisha
·Thanks to National Gay News
·Thanks to The Reverend Colin Coward
·Thanks to Truth Wins Out, right sidebar
·Thanks to Wayne Besen
·Thanks to Changing Attitudes, U.K.
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing

LOVE SAVES US ALL: ¨Anger does not generally turn into hate among gay folk, but into activism¨

¨I grew up in the Washington D.C. suburbs and came out to myself in 1971, a couple years before the AMA removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.¨


¨Problem was, back then there was very little for me to read on mainstream bookshelves, other then horrible stereotypes of gays as sexual psychopaths or pathetic mincing lisping limp-wristed sissies.

Everything I could get my hands on in 1971 about homosexuals and homosexuality had been written by heterosexuals.

There wasn’t much that was positive, nothing other then the novels of Mary Renault HERE that I could read that spoke to my heart.¨

Mary Renault, English Author, The Last of the Wine, The King Must Die, The Bull from the Sea, The Mask of Apollo, Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, and The Praise Singer. In addition to the novels, she has written a biography of Alexander the Great, The Nature of Alexander.

¨Finding and connecting with the larger gay community outside my door was a struggle. The only gay gathering place I knew of was a seedy looking bar…not the best place in the world for a teenager. I stayed away. For years the only place near to where I lived in the suburbs where I could get copies of The Advocate and The Washington Blade was a little adult bookstore tucked in dilapidated strip shopping center.

There I had to walk a gauntlet of heterosexual pornography to get to where they had the gay newspapers and magazines. Don’t even try to tell me that gay people are sexually extreme in a way heterosexuals aren’t...¨


¨...And what we saw weren’t monsters or pathetic weaklings or deranged sexual psychopaths, but simply other human beings like ourselves. Neighbors. Some plain, some fabulous, some…well…a bit geeky like me...¨


¨...And never again could we be reliably taught to hate ourselves. Maybe somewhere, in some forsaken corner of the nation gym teachers still teach kids that homosexuals usually mutilate and kill the people they have sex with, but if they try that most places now the gay kids in their classroom won’t stand for it…and neither will their families and their friends.

When that weight of fear and shame is lifted off your shoulders, what follows? Relief. Serenity. Joy perhaps…if coming out means finding the arms of someone to love, and be loved by. But often it’s anger too. Anger that what should have been one of life’s most perfect joys, discovering love and desire, finding someone to love, and being loved by them, was turned into a nightmare, into someone’s stepping stones to heaven. Your heart had to bleed, so they could be righteous. When you see the bottomless cruelty of it, it isn’t hard to become enraged.

Here I think, love saves us all. Anger does not generally turn into hate among gay folk, but into activism. Rage sometimes…yes. Righteous glorious outrage. There is nothing wrong with that. We have every right to be outraged at what hate does to us...¨

¨...But always with that promise land in sight, where the those first stirrings of love and desire within us do not have to die mangled, so that others can feel righteous about themselves. We keep our sights set on that day when we are all free to love without fear or shame and hate will never consume us as it has, sometimes, other oppressed people...¨ read it all at Truth Wins Out, By Bruce Garrett, HERE

·Thanks to Truth Wins Out, right sidebar
·Thanks to Bruce Garrett
·Thanks to Mary Renault
·Thanks to Wikipedia
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing