-The Southern Baptist Convention decrees that member churches must explicitly and actively condemn homosexual behavior to remain in good standing.
-US Defense Secretary Robert Gates considers ways to ease enforcement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
-OK State Rep. Sally Kern introduces a resolution blaming the recession on “debauchery.”
-Anti-gay Christians use child abuse allegations as an excuse to smear gay parenthood.
-A Superior Court strikes down efforts to block the District of Columbia from recognizing gay marriages performed in other states.
-Dan Savage weighs in on the police raid in Fort Worth, Texas.
-A Marvel Comics title features the first same-sex kiss to be depicted in a mainstream comic book.
-David Alex Nahmod encourages the gay community to take better care of its own.
–India’s The Delhi High Court strikes down India’s anti-“sodomy” laws.
The India case is huge! That’s 1/6 people in the world. India has a million transgender people alone.
I don’t know much about India–and unlike so many of the people we discuss, I usually let a lack of knowledge stop me from talking–but I know something mega when I see it.
The Southern Baptist Convention must have decided to shrink their congregations to match their narrow little minds.
As for Sally Kern, well, sorry about the economy, y’all!
Happy Independence Day to all the Americans!
I’m a little conflicted about the unveiling of the two Marvel Comics characters as a romantic item. I’m a huge comics fan, specifically when it comes to the X-Men titles of which those characters (Rictor and Shatterstar) are a part. They’ve been around since the 80s and they’ve typically been portrayed as two young men with a particularly close–almost brotherly–bond.
On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see a gay couple in comics (rather than simply a token gay character who never seems to have any romantic interests or sexuality at all). On the other hand, I’m always concerned about story arcs in media that suggest if two unrelated men or women share a strong and loving emotional bond, then they must be gay.
Jay, I have that same kind of conflicted thought – about straight characters. It seems that if the two unrelated straight characters share a close bond they are destined to eventually have sex with one another, even if they end up “going back to being just friends” afterwards. Not sure why this is.
On the one hand it’s nice to be represented in the comics. On the other, can’t we do better as a whole when it comes to storytelling? I think so.
Comic book first? So we ignore Runaways, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Strangers in Paradise? Or is this the first male gay kiss? Or are we very narrowly defining Mainstream?
I think an X-Men title is more mainstream than those, even though the two characters in question are relatively minor. Plus, I really can’t recall any other on-panel kiss between two male characters, so it is significant. Comics have a mostly male fan-base, so a kiss between two attractive super-heroines (like Karolina and Xavin in Runaways) is less risky than two male characters.
Northstar has been an openly gay member of the X-Men since the late 90s, I believe, but as I complained, he hasn’t had any sort of romantic relationships at all, just an unrequited crush on a heterosexual team member, Iceman.
I certainly think having a gay male couple is good for the X-Men universe, especially since that series has often been about combating prejudice and intolerance. They’ve even tackled issues of religious tolerance towards homosexuality, since the character Nightcrawler (a devout Catholic) had problems when the openly gay Northstar joined the team.
It’s just that using these two characters doesn’t seem that helpful to me. At the very least, like Emily said, it’s just not that great of storytelling.
Also, it seems likely that the ruling in the Delhi High Court applies across the entire country!
Isn’t India the world’s largest democracy? This is big news.
TRiG.
@Timothy
India is >80% Hindu. There are nearly as many Christians in India as Muslims.
I studied Islam a great deal and discovered that the term “scholar” is thrown around often to refer to positive PR spin. There was a gap in the time between when I studied Islam and gay/transgender issues, but my immediate response is that it’s easy to make a case of criminalizing homosexual acts in Islam – extra-marital sex like pre-marital sex and adultery are criminalized and lesbian and gay couples can’t marry, so all their sex is extra-marital and thus criminal. I suggest reading this article: Islamic law and its punishments for homosexuality
Off the top of my head, is there any country 50%+ Muslim where homosexuality is not criminalized?
@Everyone else
Seeing the way women are portrayed in comics by (I assume, mainly) heterosexual men, I’m extremely surprised there have been many, many lesbian kisses already.
It is an encouraging way of thinking. Let’s hope it spreads.
TRiG.
Off the top of my head, is there any country 50%+ Muslim where homosexuality is not criminalized?
Indonesia (except for Muslim residents in Aceh, 85% Muslim). The largest Muslim nation, but also largely secular despite a rise (and recent fall) in Islamic extremism. I don’t think it’s ever been illegal — at least, probably not since 1811 when the laws were dropped in the Netherlands itself.
Turkey (99%, legal since 1858). Secular.
Jordan (95%, legal since 1951)
Tajikistan (97%), Azerbaijan (95%), Kyrgyzstan (75%), Kazakhstan (55%) — all former USSR.
and Iraq.
That said… none have any anti-discrimination Acts, and in several places extra/non judicial violence is a serious problem (including honour killings); especially in particular areas dominated by religious cranks. I wouldn’t recommend Iraq to GLBT tourists. Yet.
(Indonesians are fairly tolerant as a whole — better than many areas of the USA I dare say — but you need to be aware of your surrounds when in, say, the city of Solo which is home to the thugs from Jemaah Islamiyah.)
You can add Mali, Niger and Tchad to the list.
Also, Guinea-Bissau and Albania, both of which signed the UN Declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality.
City debates gay rights: One of ‘Chico’s five’ files complaint with police
By Darren Meritz / El Paso Times
Posted: 07/10/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT
(brief overview of article)
EL PASO — A kiss between two men that got them and three friends thrown out of a Chico’s Tacos restaurant has become the backdrop of a citywide debate on gay rights.
The men, all gay, were at the Chico’s Tacos on Montwood on June 29 when a contracted security guard saw two of them kiss, then used a pejorative before forcing them to leave, said Carlos Diaz de Leon, one of the five.
Diaz de Leon said police exacerbated the conflict when they arrived and threatened to charge the men with a state statute prohibiting homosexual conduct, even though the law was declared unconstitutional years ago.
Making matters worse, an El Paso police spokesman later said the restaurant can refuse service to anyone and the men could have been charged with criminal trespass.
The men were told to leave by restaurant security guards as several people, including one of the guards, called police. An officer arrived about an hour later and told the men it was illegal for them to kiss in public, citing the Texas law on homosexual conduct the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 2003.
(COMPLETE ARTICLE)
Jay, I think you might be interested in this discussion: Has homophobia ruined straight male/male bonding?
TRiG.