Free speech flunks test tickle

At the University of Wisconsin (Madison) free speech is alive.

Enter Brother Ted who advises us we are all going to die and that God is going to grab "homosexuals by the testicles and cast them into the threshold of hell".

Here's the video:

CANADA: Gay prisoners to get married

It’s prison wedding bells up in Canada, where two convicted killers are getting hitched. Now, we 100% support gay marriage in and out of prison, but we’re not entirely convinced these two thought it through

they’ll be living in separate cell blocks, one gets out in less than ten years while the other may be locked away for life, and they’re more than likely to live completely separate lives. Actually, that sounds like it could be the perfect marriage…

Schwarzenegger signs Student Civil Rights Act

Sponsored by Equality California SB 777 will become law in January 2008.

The Student Civil Rights Act would create uniform nondiscrimination standards within the state’s education code so students, teachers and school administrators clearly understand the protections that are provided within California’s publicly-funded schools and programs.

USA supports Uganda homophobia

The United States should reconsider funding anti-HIV/AIDS strategies in Uganda, where recipients of such money violate the rights of homosexuals, Human Rights Watch has said.

The New York-based watchdog group said Ugandan officials and the media have intensified attacks on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, in a letter to US officials Thursday.

It said a prominent anti-condom and anti-gay pastor, whose church has received US funding for a so-called "abstinence and fidelity programmes" for the fight against AIDS, listed the names and pictures of gay rights campaigners on a website.

Also, a local tabloid last month published the first names, workplaces and other details of 39 alleged homosexuals -- all men -- under a banner headline "Homo Terror" and promised to "name and shame top gays in the city."

As in much of Africa, homosexuality is illegal, and in Uganda it is punishable by imprisonment up to life.

O'Reilly: foot in mouth disease (again)

Bill O'Reilly gets it wrong again.

However, being Catholic himself, one can understand the breadth of his ignorance (again).

http://romancatholicblog.typepad.com/roman_catholic_blog/2007/10/bill-oreilly-di.html

GAY HISTORY MONTH: Evelyn Hooker, Ph.D., 1907-1996

In Chicago, some 50 years ago, Dr. Evelyn Hooker presented the groundbreaking results of her initial research to a conference of psychologists at the Sherman Hotel. Having accepted a challenge in 1953 from a student, Sam From, to do research on healthy homosexuals instead of the patients and prisoners who were the subjects of most studies, Hooker found their psychological profiles indistinguishable from comparable heterosexuals.

Hooker, a native of Nebraska, received her master’s degree from the University of Colorado in 1930 ( where she first read The Well of Loneliness ) and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins. At the time she conducted her studies she was a research psychologist at UCLA. She was featured in an Academy Award–nominated documentary, Changing Our Minds, which also showed electric shock treatments for homosexuals and a gay man being lobotomized ( it destroyed his brain, but did not alter his sexuality ) .

Kinsey showed we were here by the numbers. Hooker showed we are no different from the rest of humankind. Many of us, especially the young, still need to hear that message.

GLAAD's "Be an Ally & a Friend" PSA Campaign

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation created public service annoucements in partnership with well-known television shows, actors and other allies who share our mission to promote and ensure fair, accurate and inclusive representation of LGBT people as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Some of the supporters/spokespeople:
Jerry O’Connell, T.R. Knight, Marlee Matlin, John Amaechi, Martina Navratilova, Rachel Griffiths, Ana Ortiz, Sara Ramirez, Rebecca Romijn, Eric Mabius, Kate Walsh, Michael Urie, Becki Newton and Dayanara Torres

Out Week at Ohio University

This week the student group Open Doors will celebrate coming out with more than 17 different speeches, forums and activities.

OUT Week, running from Oct. 7-14, is one of two weeks geared toward the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community, with PRIDE week in the spring, said Mickey Hart, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Center at Ohio University.

This year’s theme is “Come OUT! Get OUT! Stay OUT!” The week is anchored around National Coming Out Day, which is October 11, Hart said.