Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Religion Of Peace Poised To Criminalize Homosexuality In Indonesia, Where's The Liberal Outrage?
Indonesia has proposed banning gay sex – and the law could pass in the next two weeks.
The bill, which reportedly has support from all 10 of the country’s main political parties, would make gay sex punishable by up to five years in prison.
The Indonesian Supreme Court narrowly blocked a similar measure from passing last month, but it seems that was only a temporary reprieve.
The bill could pass as soon as Valentine’s Day, according to Kate Walton, an LGBT activist in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, who was speaking to ABC in Australia.
Arsul Sani, the secretary general of the PPP Party, helped to create the new criminal code.
He said: “It applies to people of the same gender who have sex, which is basically a forbidden act.
“It’s considered the same as adultery, where men and women having sex outside marriage can be considered a crime.”
The news comes just days after Indonesian police arrested 12 transgender women in Aceh and shaved their heads in an effort “to turn them into men”.
Aceh is the only part of the Muslim-majority country where gay sex is already illegal, as the region has Shariah law, having won this concession from the government as part of a 2005 autonomy deal.
The raid on salons was called “operasi penyakit masyarakat,” which translates as “community sickness operation”.
The police chief in Aceh said his officers also humiliated the trans women “by way of having them run for some time and telling them to chant loudly until their male voices came out.”
Gay hook-up apps have also been pulled from the Google Play Store in Indonesia amid a government crackdown on the LGBT community.
Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch said the new law “will create new discriminatory offences that do not exist in the current criminal code.
“It will slow down Indonesia’s efforts to develop their economy, society, knowledge and education … if law enforcement agencies are busy policing morality.
“It’s sounding like the Acehnese sharia code,” he added, according to Reuters.
In May, two men were caned 83 times in Aceh as a legal punishment for having gay sex.
The 20 and 23-year-old, identified only by their initials – MH and MT – were the first to be sentenced to punishment for gay sex in the region.
The father of one of the men, who requested anonymity, said that he was unaware that his son was not straight before he was arrested.
“This is an ordeal for our family,” the father said.
“After this problem is resolved, we will send him to an Islamic boarding school to be educated so he won’t be deviant anymore.”
Amnesty International has repeatedly urged Indonesia to stop its horrific treatment of LGBT people in Aceh
A report alleged that there had been attempts to ‘cover up’ the anti-LGBT oppression in the region by moving the floggings away from the public eye.
But it’s not just in Aceh where LGBT Indonesians suffer..
The caning punishment came the day after 141 men were arrested in Jakarta, the capital, for having a “gay sex party”.
And earlier that same month, eight men were arrested for holding a “gay party” in Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia.
It was also announced that the country’s government would clamp down on gay culture – instituting a ban on online “gay propaganda” after a request from the police.
Last year, Indonesian lawmakers gave the green light to a proposed law that would outlaw ‘LGBT behaviors’ on television.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Jamaica Bans Christian Terrorist From Entering Country
Jamaica has banned homophobic pastor
Steven Anderson from the Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona.
Anderson said in a video posted on
YouTube that he was told of the decision to bar him from entry as he
was about to board a flight in Atlanta to Kingston.
LGBT activists had called on the
government to deny Anderson entry. He has previously been denied
entry to South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom and Botswana.
“The decision was made by the chief
immigration officer because the pastor's statements are not conducive
to the current climate,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of
National Security is quoted as saying by The
Guardian.
Anderson was initially invited to speak
at the University of West Indies, but that invitation was also
rescinded.
Anderson first made headlines in 2014
when he told his congregation that an AIDS-free world is possible “if
you execute the homos like God recommends.” In various interviews
he added that the Bible commands the government to execute gays.
The following year, he cheered the
deaths of 49 people who died in a mass shooting in a gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida. “The good news is that at least fifty of these
pedophiles are not going to be harming children anymore,” he said
in a video. “The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar
are still alive, so they’re going to continue to molest children
and recruit people into their filthy homosexual lifestyle.”
Anderson said in a video this week that
he was surprised that Jamaica had denied him entry because it's “the
most homophobic nation” on the planet. He also blamed the U.S. and
U.K. for pressuring the Jamaican government to act. “The people of
Jamaica are not pro-homosexual at all, but apparently that agenda is
just going to be crammed down their throat, whether they like it or
not,” he said.
Only in America can a religious leader instruct his patrons to subjugate and murder minorities and maintain a tax free status while doing so.
Russian Gay Couple Whose Marriage Was Recognized By State Official, Flee Country Fearing Safety
News of the marriage between Pavel Stotsko and Evgennii Voytsekhovsky appeared over the weekend.
They married in Denmark on 4 January.
The couple thought a legal loophole would offer their marriage legally recognition in Russia.
Russian recognize marriages registered overseas so long as they don’t ‘contradict article 14 of the Family Code.’
That article outlaws the marriage of close relatives, people under the age of 18, between adoptive parents and their children, people with certain mental health issues and people already married. The article does not say anything about same-sex marriages.
Upon their return to Moscow, the couple went to the multifunctional service center (MFC) to register their wedding.
The claimed the civil servant stamped their passports as married ‘without additional questions, or any change in his facial expression’.
When they posted news of the civil servant’s action on social media, several news outlets reported on it. This led to swift action from authorities, with the MFC denying it had stamped the men’s passports and calling it ‘fake news.’ (remind you of someone?)
On Saturday, the men were visited by plainclothes officials, including the Moscow deputy police chief, Andrey Zakharov. Officials demanded the ‘damaged’ passports be turned over to them and said the men would have new passports issued. The Interior Ministry says they will be fined for damaging them.
Stotsko and Voytsekhovsky say electricity to their building was turned off at the same time as the visit.
They also said Stotsko’s mom, Zenya, received threatening phone calls.
The Moscow Times today reports that the men have temporarily fled the country, with the assistance of the Russian LGBT Network.
‘The police officers declared openly that they could not protect the pair from attacks from homophobically-minded citizens and organizations. This was a hidden threat,’ said human rights activist Igor Kochetkov.
‘Therefore the decision was made that for now, they must leave Russia.’
Stotsko posted to his Facebook yesterday a message saying: ‘LGBT network today saved our lives! We’re going for a few days, but we’re still fighting!’
Monday, January 29, 2018
Gay Mormon Who Promoted Marrying Women Is Now Divorcing And Asking The LGBT Community For Forgiveness
Josh Weed announced on his blog that he and his wife Lolly are to divorce.
The couple had previously said their marriage was proof that a straight woman and a gay man could marry.
“Today, we need to let you know that Lolly and I are divorcing,” the blog reads.
The couple found attention in the media after Josh announced that he was gay.
Tweeting this week, Josh wrote: “I wish we could sit down with each person who sees this and explain why Lolly and I are getting divorced. Since we cannot, this post will have to do. <3" The couple said on Thursday in the blog post that their platonic love was not the same as a romantic pairing.
Lolly added: “And that is what human beings need to be healthy. All of us. Romantic attachment. It’s one of the main purposes of life!”
Going on, Josh said the three reasons for his realisation that he wanted to divorce were his love for the LGBT+ population, love for himself as a gay man and the death of his mother.
The couple also issued an apology for various reasons to the LGBT+ community.
They wrote: “We’re sorry, so incredibly sorry, for the ways our post has been used to bully others.
And we’re sorry if our story made it easier for people in your life to reject you and your difficult path as being wrong.
“We’re sorry to any gay Mormon who received criticism, backlash, or hatred as a result of our story.
“We’re sorry to anybody who felt a measure of false peace because of our story.
“We’re sorry to any LGBTQIA person who was given false hope by our story.”
Josh added that his stance on homosexuality had changed, as it had previously been aligned with the Mormon Church
“I have spent my entire life conforming to every standard of the LDS faith because I believed it was what God wanted me to do,” he said.
“I believed this because every mentor, every exemplar, every religious teacher, every therapist, every leader I ever grew up listening to and trusting told me that that was the only way I could return to live with God. There was an emphasis on ‘perfect obedience’ and yet, over the course of my lifetime, the list of things said by these trusted leaders about my sexual orientation was profoundly inconsistent and confusing.”
Going on, Josh said that some of the “inconsistent and confusing” he had believed had included:
“My sexual orientation wasn’t real, My sexual orientation was evil, My sexual orientation was an abomination, My sexual orientation was tantamount to bestiality and just shy of murder, My sexual orientation could change in this life if I had enough faith, My sexual orientation was a “trial” to bear, My sexual orientation maybe couldn’t change in this life after all, My sexual orientation could be managed with faith, My sexual orientation could be endured.”
Lolly wrote that her friends and members of her community had empathized her and said she should be with someone who has a romantic connection with her.
“The thing that’s so interesting to me is how few people think of Josh in this way. How few people in his life have ever thought these things about him—things that are so obvious, so clear, so emphatic when talking to another straight person. I mean, isn’t the same true for LGBT people? Shouldn’t we feel the exact same intuitive injustice at the thought of them deserving to be “loved like that”?
“When the tables are turned and we are talking about LGBTQ individuals, somehow people don’t see the parallels. Why am I, as a straight person, entitled to reciprocal, requited romantic love while an LGBTQ individual is not?”
The couple added in the blog that their children would remain close to them both and that they would still love each other.
“We can continue to be the family we have always been, and we can add to that family,” they wrote.
Josh added in a statement to KUTV: “In posting, we hoped to let those who followed our story five years ago know the reality of our situation. We also wanted to apologize to the LGBTQIA community and to anybody who was hurt by our story over the last five years.”
Thursday, January 25, 2018
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