Behind The Sun

Garçon Reports
a news compendium
with a gay bias

||| "My parents are super-Catholic and they come from a culture in Nigeria where there weren’t any visible gay people who were out and were happy. I left home when I was 20. My parents threw me out [for being gay]." Blighty's own Kele Okereke talks to Butt magazine. And in the spirit of said publication...

||| Scotland: Report on two African men smuggled into the country, imprisoned and forced to take part in pornography and sex acts.

||| The 7 craziest things blamed on gays.

||| Jesus Christ! Is that a six-pack, or are you just pleased to see me?

||| Are mixed race celebrities - like JLS and Leona Lewis - really the best of both worlds? Boffins collected a random sample of faces on Facebook (black, white, and mixed) and rated their attractiveness. "Despite people of mixed race only accounting for one in 33 of the population, they made up one in 10 of the 'very beautiful' category." Additionally, there was a "55% chance that mixed-race faces were regarded as being more good-looking than either black or white ones."

||| Vibe magazine licks Buju Banton's bucket ass.

||| 4th Annual Power 50: America's most influential gay men and women...

||| ...And performance artist, scenester and HIV activist Kalup Linzy makes the Beautiful People 2010 edition of Paper.

||| Is there a crisis in gay journalism? "An independent and professional gay press in decline is a serious threat to the well being of the gay community," Tim Vollmer writes.

||| Find a gay-friendly campus: Campus Pride, a national organization that promotes safe college environments for gay students.

||| Engorged gays.

||| Editing for the enemy: The gay staff at publishing houses making sure the words of right wing bigots get to a bookstore near you.

||| Should gay business owners out themselves when interviewing job candidates? You might wonder "Why?", but the rationale is that some staff quit when they discover they're employed by a gay-owned business. This results in lost time - and money...

||| Discrimination destroys the lives of older gay couple married for 20 years.

||| A Gay Officer at War: The journals of a 10-year armed services veteran and psychologist.

||| Barack Obama extends hospital visitation rights, other powers, to gay couples.

||| Next Magazine looks at St Vincent's Hospital (above), and its role in dealing with the "gay plague" in 1981.

||| Arkansas: Judge overturns ban on gay adoption.

||| Testimony: "The first openly gay student I ever taught."

||| The United Church of Christ embraces marriage equality and gay families in a new advert:

||| Vman Magazine's five hottest Hollywood men. They all look the same to me. (Wonder why that is?)

||| The New York Times looks at Skin Tight U.S.A., a costume-fetish party held at the Stonewall Inn (right).

||| Rufus Wainwright on 50 Cent: "I love, love 50 Cent. I think he's just the sexiest, and I know he's gay. That cute little voice of his. It's okay, 50 Cent. Feel free to call me anytime. My boyfriend and I are experts. You can come over for dinner. And maybe dessert."

||| Porn for the blind.

||| How gay teenagers took over TV.

||| Ricky Martin is officially gay, so girls are crying.

||| This is Madieye Diallo, a young gay man whose body was dumped on his parent's doorstep - following his burial. His body was exhumed by a degenerate mob on a homophobic witchhunt.

||| The anti-gay politics of South Africa's escalating race war. "Both sides are using gay panic to their benefit, tapping into South Africa's latent homophobia and showing their true colors: it's worse to be gay than a racist."

||| Africa's rampant homophobia is threatening the fight against HIV.

||| Malawi: Steven Manjeza seriously ill. "He has been held on remand in an overcrowded, squalid call for over three months, without proper food, sanitation or medical care," says Peter Tatchell of OutRage.

||| Uganda: US senate wants "kill gays" Bill withdrawn.

||| Uganda: Canadian bishops condemn the Bill.

||| Morocco gets it's first gay magazine, Mithly (gay, in Arabic).

||| Egypt's GBLT community finds a safe harbour in cyberspace.

||| This is Dr Srinivas Ramchandra Siras (right), who was driven to suicide following charges of homosexuality after a "sting operation by a television channel which exposed him having sexual relations with a rickshaw puller".

||| Argentina: The marriage of Alex Freyre and José Maria Di Bello has been annulled. The couple were the first men to be married in that country.

||| Mexico City: As the capital grows more liberal, conservatives are rallying elsewhere.

||| The New York Times looks at gay Prague.

||| Italy's highest court rejects marriages for gay couples.

||| Homosexuality, not celibacy, causes pedophilia, says Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

||| ...But the Vatican seems to think he went a bit too far.

||| Peter Tatchell welcomes a statement from English and Welsh bishops rejecting the claims.

||| Catholic Church in Malta "as devious as the Mafia in covering up years of sexual abuse against orphans".

||| Six psychiatrists debunk the cardinal's link between homosexuality and paedophilia.

||| Back into the closet: gays find few friends in aged care.

||| Former Olympic medal-winner Daniel Kowalski comes out.

||| More on George's antics in Australia.

||| Nearly all UK GBLT asylum claims refused; Border Agency "cruel and discriminatory".

||| Marriage equality in the United Kingdom a "developing area", government minister says as Labour launches its GBLT manifesto.

||| Relentless Peter Tatchell: the reluctant national treasure.

||| Róisín Ingle takes a historical walking tour of gay Dublin, as The George - Dublin's best known gay bar - celebrates 25 years.

||| Gay age of consent case reveals "simmering constitutional tension" between Britain and Gibraltar.

||| A pack of 15 teenagers held in connection with the homophobic attack on trainee police constable James Parkes (right) won't face charges.

||| Manchester United players share a celebratory kiss on the pitch.

||| Gay swans.

||| Campaign posters from over the years (25 more pictures). Mostly Conservative targeting Labour - but this is the Telegraph we're talking about...

||| JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, speaks out against David Cameron and his "nasty" Conservative party. Make sure you read the ka-os|theory dossier on Tory homophobia.

||| Muslim doctors and nurses can ignore NHS hygiene rules, introduced to restrict the spread of superbugs like MRSA and Clostridium difficile...

||| ...And "persecuted Christians" join forces to end "discrimination" at work.

||| The man who killed himself after being suspended over non-PC joke.

||| Some things are too awful to contemplate: The bestiality farm.

||| Was the New York Post racist for cropping this picture?

||| Dolce & Gabbana are up to their old tricks, coaxing out another pride of mostly-naked Italian footballers. I don't think much of this lot - where are their tits?

||| Those loveable Aussies! Recipe book calls for "ground black people"! The wags!

||| "We have learned our lesson: black people cannot run a country. They inherited a priceless jewel and made it worthless. They have not got the wisdom – they will never have the wisdom – to run a country. We have tried to teach them, but they have not learned and they are not grateful for what we gave them. They wanted the whole cake, and now there are only crumbs left." Afrikaners want a separate homeland, and a new separation of whites and blacks. I've a better solution: how about a separate planet? No one else wants them within earshot.

||| Zimbabwe's 30th birthday: How did Robert Mugabe turn hope into misery?

||| Rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo kidnap a Spanish doctor and harvest his body hair, allegedly in the hope it will "give them magic powers in battle".

||| Caste discrimination against India's 'untouchables' an international issue; Dalits continue to suffer discrimination.

||| The Big Picture: Earthquake in Yushu, China, below (35 more pictures).

||| Say what you like about their human rights record, but the Chinese have the right idea when it comes to population control. Shame governments in the west don't have the balls to restrain uncontrolled breeding.7ft10in by 4ft capsule apartments (left) to solve China's housing problem.

||| This is a lamp (left).

||| This is an iPod dock (right).

||| Double dose of good news for all my fellow alcoholic chocoholics: "Dark chocolate reduces damage to the blood vessels in patients who have suffered scarring on the liver due to excessive drinking or disease, new studies have found. It also reduces blood pressure in the liver as it contains high levels of anti-oxidants which mop of damaging particles from the body."

||| Cancer danger of night light.

||| Animal pictures of the week (30 more pictures). Above, trapped red fox pups in Connecticut.

||| Dog meets iPad...

||| Where have all the whales gone?

||| Toad sausages dropped from the sky to help save the quoll.

||| Earthworms form herds and make group decisions.

||| Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy.

||| Microsoft using slave labour to build Xboxes in China. 16 and 17-year-olds paid 37 pence an hour for 15 hour shifts.

||| "The Internet makes it easy, being mean. Instead of shaking your Internetty fist at all that angers you though, what if you ignored it and discussed things that do work, things that are wonderful, and encouraged others to do the same?" Preach, sista, preach!

||| YouTube celebrates its fifth birthday.

||| Adobe vs Apple: War of the geeks.

||| How the internet has changed photography.

||| Free Lossless Audio Codec: Welcome to a world where MP3 is a byword for sh*t and vinyl is better than sex.

||| DListed reminds us of a time when Ricky Martin was "nekkid ass nekkid on a light table". This is a good thing.

||| Left: Singer, songwriter and model Steph Jones "glams it up and Tweets this pic from his photoshoot for TightRope Magazine".

||| Toni Braxton goes ballroom in new video Make My Heart. There's voguing galore as Toni and the children serve it!

||| Chris Brown is lensed by Kevin Amato for Flaunt magazine.

||| The provision for the lead actor in Doctor Who to change every once in a while - first done in 1966 - was based upon bad LSD trips, according to newly released internal BBC memos. More: Doctor Who's acid test.

||| Those same BBC documents reveal viewer reaction to each new incumbent in the role over the last 47 years.

||| Your correspondent is increasingly disenchanted with what Steven Moffat's doing with Doctor Who (plot? Who needs plot?), and Shadowlocked has 7 things I hope Steven Moffat leaves out of Doctor Who (decent scripts aren't on the list, but Moffat's so far ensured there aren't any, anyway).

||| Reaction to the second episode in the new series is patchy, too: "Light on plotting, heavy on modern parallels," The Guardian says. "Inconsistent, downright illogical, flat and emotionally uninvolving," according to IGN.

||| Comedian Griff Rhys Jones criticises 'ratings obsessed' TV bosses.

||| Speaking of which, the BBC has shown a monumental lack of respect for license fee payers by cancelling Survivors, just as it was hitting its stride. Looks like we'll have to rely on American snooze-fests like FlashForward and the painful Heroes, and an increasingly hollow Doctor Who for a science-fiction fix.

||| Six Eastenders have been axed by new incoming producer Bryan Kirkwood: Derek Martin (Charlie Slater), Cliff Parisi (Minty Peterson), Liam Bergin (the abysmal Danny Mitchell), Kate Williams (Liz) and Belinda Owusu (Libby Fox) - who follows her on screen sister, Tiana Benjamin's, upcoming exit. David Proud (slimey Adam Best) is also exiting. The departures of Preeya Kalidas (Amira Masood) and Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchell) have previously been announced.

||| EastEnders' gay Muslim plot is rapidly approaching its climax.

||| The fall-out from the cancellation of The Bill after 27 years on air continues: "The loss of The Bill will have a dreadful effect on the ecosystem of drama."

||| Tru: A XXX Parody. Yes, it's a porn version of True Blood. Without Mechad Brooks, I don't see how it could be hotter.

||| I Love You Phillip Morris, thought to have been shelved indefinitely, will now be released 30th July.

||| Stonewall Uprising, a new documentary chronicling the 1969 riots in New York's Greenwich Village:

||| Not content with abysmal remakes of successful films, Hollywood is now churning out new versions of films that were flops first time around.

||| Meinhardt Raabe, the munchkin coroner in The Wizard Of Oz, is really most sincerely dead. He was 94.

||| Kevin Prince-Boateng is all "all hunger and desire and passion", apparently.

||| Puma reinvents the shoe box.

||| Ryan Phillipe covers Men's Health, and DListed has something to say about it.

||| World's biggest rocking horse.

||| And finally, a little Tired Old Queen At The Movies to cheer us all up!

||| LAST WEEK'S EDITION

||| READ MORE GARÇON REPORTS, ONE YEAR AGO: 19.4.09

_____________________________________________________

Issue 61 of Garçon Reports covers the period

10-18 April 2010 - plus some stuff I missed!

(What do all the top headlines for each edition of

"Garçon Reports" have in common?)

ka-os|theory is not responsible for the content

of external websites.

POSTSCRIPT

"You know, we might just as well not have bothered to come.

The whole thing's been ridiculous."

© 2010