Cuba’s gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday.
The meeting at a convention center in Havana’s Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of [...]
Cuban government backs calls to combat homophobia
CA Same-Sex Marriage Ruled Constitutional
It truly is a beautiful day.
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Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.
In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the “fundamental constitutional right to form a [...]
Brazil’s unprecedented action plan to combat HIV/AIDS
An interesting post from gay persons of color.
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On 25 March 2008, the Brazilian Ministry of Health launched an unprecedented action plan aimed at containing the incidence of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among gay men, men who have sex with men (MSM), and transvestites. The plan, which prioritizes issues, such as the reduction of [...]
HRC Campaign College 2008
Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to be a part of history in the making? If so, join us for Human Rights Campaign’s 2008 Campaign College!
This is an exciting time for HRC and the GLBT community. This year, elections will occur for a new president, all U.S. House [...]
Egypt Sentences 5 Men for Homosexuality
An Egyptian court convicted five men Wednesday on charges of homosexual behavior and sentenced them to three years in prison, officials said.
Defense lawyer, Adel Ramadan, said the judge found the men guilty of the “habitual practice of debauchery” — a term used in the Egyptian legal system to denote consensual homosexual acts.
The convictions were confirmed [...]
Op-Ed: Hot gay sex is for homophobes
It happens every time I innocently go to the neighborhood grocery store for soy milk. You see, I live in the Castro, in San Francisco, and everyone knows what that means.
The streets are teeming with homosexuals. It’s just like in those horror-movie fundamentalist videos: Everyone’s in leather with their bits and butts on display; murderous [...]
Florida Group Launches HIV Awareness Campaign for Minority MSMs
Chris Lacharite never thought that in 2008 he would be asking an assembly of gay men to get the word out about the AIDS epidemic.
The HIV prevention manager for Compass thought that message was delivered a long time ago.
“I don’t know when it stopped, but it stopped,” he said last week.
The occasion was a “town [...]
Philanthropists ensure gay community’s future
On a recent Thursday morning, Joseph Rosenthal, 77, drove from his barn-red, four-story house on Buena Vista Terrace to a lawyer’s office in the Castro, where he quietly transferred a substantial part of his estate to the endowment fund of the Horizon Foundation, a grant-giving organization for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
“I have [...]
Kennedy Drops Transgendered From Senate ENDA
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is jumping into the middle of an uproar within the gay community whose causes he has long championed.
The Massachusetts Democrat is leading a push in the Senate for a federal ban on job bias against gays, lesbians and bisexuals - but not transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance doesn’t match [...]
When Girls Will Be Boys
It was late on a rainy fall day, and a college freshman named Rey was showing me the new tattoo on his arm. It commemorated his 500-mile hike through Europe the previous summer, which happened also to be, he said, the last time he was happy. We sat together for a while in his room [...]