Smoking boys, ugly dogs and toxic shopping

ka-os|theory
a news compendium

with a gay bias
issue 69 | July 2010

||| So gays undermine military discipline? Nigel Barber, Ph.D. writes in Psychology Today, the "best armies practice homosexuality". More: "Homosexual love was a recognized custom in Sparta and... part [of] the education of adolescent boys. A boy's lover suffered credit, or discredit, by the boy's actions. Once when a boy cried out because he was hurt in fighting, his lover was fined for the boy's cowardice."

||| Gay soldiers subpoena President Obama. Novel...

||| Does the Bible really call homosexuality an "Abomination"? Jay Michaelson asks at Religion Dispatches. "This word, used for centuries to justify an anti-gay posture, has been badly translated and even more poorly understood."

||| Childlike, doe-eyed - and sexy. And straights say we're messed up.

||| Gay citizens seek residency for foreign spouses. Right, Juan Carlos Galán and Greg Nardi of Miami Beach, who would like to get married.

||| The movement out of gay enclaves is a sign of rising social tolerance, says The Globe. "The integration of gay men into wider society is not unlike the pattern of the gradual dispersion of ethnic ghettos."

||| Hold the front page! Gay's smoke more than straights.

||| The last person out of the closet? The bisexual male.

||| NYC Pride 2010: Storme DeLarverie, a Stonewall veteran, 89, misses the parade.

||| NYC Pride 2010: In pictures. Official Pride gallery here. NY1 has video.

||| NYC Pride 2010: Another extensive gallery at BrooklynVegan, and more from Flickr user asterix611.

||| NYC Pride 2010: Take Back Pride

||| NYC Pride 2010: ka-os|theory favourite Taylor Siluwé was there too, with some familiar faces. There's video at SGL Café.

||| What's really the deal with The Marin Foundation? Genuine, or a trap for the GBLT community?

||| Google provides extra benefits for gay employees.

||| The New Civil Rights Movement commemorates the first anniversary of the death of Navy Seaman August Provost III (right): "The 29-year-old sailor from Houston, who gay and out to family and some co-workers, was brutally murdered at the sentry station at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, on June 30 2009. Provost was shot three times, had his hands and feet bound, his mouth gagged, and body burned. The shack also was set on fire."

||| Crisis in the GBLT community: We are losing our history. David Mixner writes: "Those individuals who fought in the trenches in the period from the 1950's through the 1980's are soon to become endangered species as more and more die from natural causes. As with World War II veterans, time is rapidly running out to capture their stories."

||| CNN looks at True Colors, a mentoring group in Connecticut for at risk gay youth.

||| London Pride 2010: One million strong party on the streets of London town.

||| London Pride 2010: BBC News. Video report here.

||| London Pride 2010: In pictures, via The Guardian.

||| London Pride 2010: In pictures, via UK Gay News. Best gallery at The Best of Men, shot by Urban Shotz Photography.

||| London Pride 2010: GBLT Christians cheered by crowd. More: Ultra-conservative anti-gay Christians are a just a noisy minority, Symon Hill writes for The Guardian. "That's why this coming Pride, the rest of us should raise the roof".

||| London Pride 2010: It's the first time a top cabinet minister hasn't attended a Gay Pride march in five years, Barbara Ellen writes. But "Labour achieved so much that all the coalition has to do now is embellish existing legislation and try not to mess it up."

||| London Pride 2010: And in sharp contrast to their American counterparts, the Scout Association turned out, in a public bid to attract GBLT volunteers.

||| London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games creates Pride pin badge, combining the London 2012 logo with a rainbow flag.

||| Beyond gay and straight. After 40 years of gains on homophobic law repeal, Peter Tatchell writes for The Guardian, is there any more need for a separate identity?

||| British Medical Association declares so-called conversion therapy "discredited and harmful".

||| The leader of "ex-gay" group Exodus International, Alan Medinger, is dead.

||| As Rugby club Castleford is fined for fan's homophobic chants, Emanuele Palladino asks if it's "time for a gay footballer to follow [openly gay RFL player] Gareth Thomas's lead".

||| "They should do top and bottom, not just half." Transsexual Miranda Lee protests at being left "half man, half woman" by the NHS.

||| British soap Hollyoaks to get transgender teen character. Coronation Street has had a transsexual character for many years, but Hollyoaks is aimed at a younger audience.

||| Prison officers accused of homophobia.

||| Why doesn't the GBLT community want to be judge?

||| Gay couple attacked by mob in northern England.

||| Pædophilia and homosexuality go hand in hand, Conservative MEPs told the European Parliament last week.

||| Scottish Adoption Association calls for recruitment drive within the GBLT community to solve adoption crisis.

||| But: Children of gay couples pay high price for our prejudice.

||| The number of male victims being helped by the government's Forced Marriage Unit has surged dramatically in the last year - and official figures barely scratch the surface.

||| Ireland: Civil Partnership Bill passes...

||| ...Becoming "one of the most important pieces of civil-rights legislation since independence".

||| The new Australian Prime Minister (left) doesn't believe in God - but she still doesn't want gays to have the right to marry.

||| The Sydney Morning Herald rightly points out, "Her opposition to gay people marrying is inexplicable. She is an atheist. She has no children." And she isn't married either.

||| European Court of Human Rights moves closer to requiring member states to recognise same-sex marriage.

||| But what of the homophobia on the EU's doorstep? Nikolai Alekseev writes, "Oppressed citizens in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus long for the political support given to their eastern EU counterparts".

||| Slovenian man accused of extorting friar over gay affair.

||| Serbia: Negative and positive attitudes towards GBLT community increasing, neutral responses declining. Right, Mr Gay Serbia 2006.

||| Denmark: Outgames profits will fund GBLT cultural centre.

||| Turkey: Istanbul celebrates 18th LGBTT Pride Week, in pictures.

||| Spain: Madrid Gay Pride 2010, in pictures. Video:

||| Spain: Madrid to get first gay Christian church to celebrate marriages between same-sex couples; the US-based Metropolitan Community Churches is behind the move.

||| And Madrid has one last delicious nugget for us today...

||| Gay Chinese man suing Beijing Red Cross for rejecting his blood donation.

||| Vietnam: Researcher says, "Homosexuals add social diversity, deserve fair treatment".

||| India: Mumbai, the gay capital of India.

||| India: Being gay no longer a novelty. "We are becoming normal and boring," student Arit Sen laments.

||| India: French couple first residents at old age home for the gay community.

||| Mexico: Thousands celebrate Gay Pride in Mexico City (below right). Six months ago, the city became the first in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage.

||| Mexico: BBC News has a video report from the parade.

||| Guyana: Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Baha'is unite against GBLT film festival. And predictably they trot out our old favourite, "homosexuality as a new form of Western colonisation".

||| Terrifying: The rise of Christian fundamentalism in the Horn of Africa.

||| Uganda's "kill gays" Bill hasn't gone away.

||| Vanity Fair reports on gays under siege in Uganda.

||| Nigerian gay footballer deported from Austria living in fear in Lagos slums.

||| Zimbabwe: Homophobia crippling HIV research efforts.

||| Zimbabwe: A woman strangled her 18-month-old baby son, and sold one of his ears for $US20 to a witch doctor.

||| "The black community has to look at itself and say that, at the end of the day, these figures suggest we are heavily – not casually – involved in violent crime. We are also involved in crime against ourselves – and we regularly attack each other." Tory election candidate comments on figures that "suggest the majority of men held responsible for gun crimes, robberies and street crimes [in London] are black". The figures also show that black men are also "disproportionately the victims of violent crime in the capital".

||| Buy a DIY flatpack log cabin from Tesco - for a mere £9,999.

||| Cockney to disappear from London within 30 years.

||| The Big Picture: Afghanistan, June 2010 (41 more pictures). Grief, and loss, many of us will never know, as body after body is returned home.

||| White Australians still working on the genocide of the continent's rightful owners.

||| Terrifying: Heads of state and world leaders go for a stroll during the G20 Summit. See the original picture (without my additions) at The Big Picture.

||| And it's these idiots who are leading us into the Third Depression.

||| How to get arrested in Dubai - it's much easier than you thought!

||| Bedbugs bite at Hollister.

||| Take the Tube, lose weight: Public transport has unexpected benefits.

||| Not that that matters much, because our genes dictate how long we'll live, apparently.

||| Tibetans fastest-evolving humans.

||| Shopping really is bad for men. Boffins say a toxin found on till receipts can make men impotent. Really.

||| And reusuable shopping bags are the latest health terror. They'll kill ya dead.

||| How long does it take to identify a man's sexual orientation? About 50 milliseconds, apparently...

||| HIV transmission risk during anal sex 18 times higher than during vaginal sex.

||| In the US, economic woes have crippled Government aid for HIV drugs.

||| Animal pictures of the week (30 more pictures).

||| The World's Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California (12 more pictures).

||| Facial recognition, faster start-up and inspiration from Apple: Windows 8 leaked.

||| Google to launch a Facebook killer?

||| Smart: Australian Government demands magazines to carry "airbrush warning".

||| Kele Okereke on the many late ballroom personalities in Paris is Burning. "I watched it again a few years ago on YouTube. As soon as it finished started crying. You go to Wikipedia and all bar one are dead. And they died in such sad circumstances. But you watch the film and they all have so much love." The interview appears in gay mag Attitude. More pictures here.

||| CDSea: An art installation comprised of 600,000 CDs.

||| And just because: Liza Minnelli on a home shopping channel. God love her, as my dear Grandma used to say about that toothless drunk woman in the gutter...

||| Vibe interviews Nelsan Ellis - that's True Blood's Lafayette to you and me.

||| Bad news: Ofcom, the media regulator, is to allow US-style product placement on British television.

||| "You're an embarrassment to me. You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault." That's Mel Gibson's way of telling his ex-wife things ain't what they used to be. An Australian using vile racist abuse? Surely not!

||| Gay Sex in the '70s - reviews: Telegraph, Evening Standard.

||| Taylor Siluwé goes to the circus - and the animals are hungry.

||| What a .XXX suffix might mean for an already bruised industry.

||| Well whadaya know? Plastic boy slut's gone out and bought himself a Mini-Me! Who says money can't buy everything?

||| Lebron James - and Thug Porn!

||| Hot model boys in Rio! One of the lusty triumvrate is Pablo Moraes, who you'll recall was no.22 on the ka-os|theory 30 Sexiest Men of 2009.

||| This (second from left) is Jon Secada, and he's 47. Depressing, innit?

||| Isaiah Mustafa is back for the sequel. And it ain't a patch on the original.

||| 10 things you should never buy new.

||| Only in America: This fantastic contraption is the Finnjet - a... er, car (?) built from pieces of more than 40 other vehicles.

||| Bouncy castle Titanic. Just wrong.

||| Stuff no one told me.

||| Nicolas Hayek, the self-styled Mr Swatch, is dead. He was 82.

||| AT-AT a boy.

||| And finally, a PSA from Leggo: Top Three Gay Websites...

||| READ THE LAST EDITION: ISSUE 68

||| ka-os|theory, ONE YEAR AGO: 05.07.09

||| Access any back issue of the ka-os|theory news compendium from the back|issues menu in the sidebar.

||| Contact me with tips and suggestions for next week's copy!

_____________________________________________________

Issue 69 covers 26 June - 04 July 2010

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