Gov. Candidate Paladino Attacks Gays in Brooklyn Speech

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Carl P. Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor in New York, with Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, left, and another Orthodox Jewish supporter after his campaign stops at the K’Hal Aadas Kasho synagogue in Williamsburg on Sunday.

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Published: October 10, 2010

 The Republican candidate for governor, Carl P. Paladino, told a gathering in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sunday that children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking that homosexuality was acceptable, and criticized his opponent, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, for marching in a gay pride parade earlier this year. 

Addressing Orthodox Jewish leaders, Mr. Paladino described his opposition to same-sex marriage.

“That’s not how God created us,” he said, reading from a prepared address. “I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.”

And then, to applause at Congregation Shaarei Chaim, he said: “I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children.”

Newsday.com reported that Mr. Paladino’s prepared text had included the sentence: “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.” But Mr. Paladino omitted that statement when he gave the speech.

About an hour after Mr. Paladino’s remarks, Mr. Cuomo’s campaign released a statement condemning them.

“Mr. Paladino’s statement displays a stunning homophobia and a glaring disregard for basic equality,” it said. “These comments along with other views he has espoused make it clear that he is way out of the mainstream and is unfit to represent New York.”

Mr. Paladino declined a request to be interviewed after his appearance. His campaign manager, Michael R. Caputo, denied that Mr. Paladino was antigay, and noted that he employed a gay man on his campaign staff.

“Carl Paladino is simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic,” Mr. Caputo said in a telephone interview. “Carl Paladino is not homophobic, and neither is the Catholic Church.”

“The majority of New Yorkers agree with him,” Mr. Caputo added.

During his appearance at the synagogue, with reporters in attendance, Mr. Paladino said: “Don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie.”

A same-sex marriage bill was defeated last year by New York lawmakers. Mr. Paladino has said that, unlike Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, he would veto such a bill if he were governor. But Mr. Caputo said that if the same measure passed in a statewide referendum, Mr. Paladino would uphold the law.

Brian Ellner, head of the marriage initiative for the gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said that the Republican’s remarks were insensitive given a recent swirl of news about suicide in the gay community and antigay violence.

The New York City Police Department announced on Friday that nine men in the Bronx had lured three men they believed were gay and then tortured them, burning them and sodomizing one of them with a small baseball bat. Last month, a student at Rutgers University jumped off the George Washington Bridge after two classmates broadcast his sexual encounter with a man over the Internet.

Mr. Paladino’s statements in Brooklyn were first broadcast by Azi Paybarah, a reporter for WNYC, and Reid Epstein of Newsweek, on Twitter.

A recent New York Times/CNN pollfound that 58 percent of people in New York were in favor of gay marriage. Mr. Caputo said that the campaign had done its own polling.

NYTimes
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Belgrade Gay Pride: The March Went On Despite Of violence-photos

http://ukgaynews.org.uk

Gay-bashers thrive in modern-day Netherlands

If you think Amsterdam is the gay capital of Europe, you’re half-right, but 10 years out of date. Today it’s the gay-bashing capital of Europe.

Because Amsterdam isn’t just gay. Now it’s Muslim, too. A million Moroccans and Turks have immigrated to the Netherlands, and sharia law rules the streets.

If you doubt it, then you haven’t been paying attention. Actually, that’s not fair. Gay-bashing is front-page news only when it’s committed by a straight, white male.

The media is terribly uncomfortable writing about gay-bashing by minorities. It’s the same reason why Canadian feminists are so eerily quiet about honour killings of Muslim girls.

According to an “offender study” by the University of Amsterdam, there were 201 reports of anti-gay violence in that city in 2007 — and researchers believe for every reported case there are as many as 25 unreported ones. Two thirds of the predators are Muslim youths.

The violence couldn’t be more brazen. It’s not in the back alleys in the dark, it’s in the heart of the city, often in broad daylight. It’s a direct dare to the Dutch government to show who rules the streets.

In 2008, 10 Muslim youths broke into a fashion show, dragged gay model Michael du Pree off the stage and beat him bloody. Last month, several lesbians were hit by beer bottles thrown at their heads as they marched in a parade of thousands to protest violence against gays. There’s a gay community centre in Amsterdam — you’d think that would be safe. Wrong. It’s a target, with home-invasion style beatings. No one is immune. Last year Hugo Braakhuis, the founder of Amdsterdam’s gay pride parade, was attacked.

In 2005, Chris Crain, former editor of America’s leading gay magazine, Washington Blade, was swarmed by seven Moroccan youths. “I was really surprised,” Crain told reporters at the time. “I felt comfortable because it is San Francisco times 10.” Or it used to be.

This didn’t happen all at once. Ten years ago Pim Fortuyn rang the alarm. “I don’t hate Islam,” he said. “I consider it a backward culture.”

He wanted to halt Muslim immigration, at least until those in the country accepted Holland’s liberal values, such as its acceptance of him as an openly gay political leader. “How wonderful that that’s possible. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

Fortuyn was a Marxist professor, a champion of gay rights, women’s rights, liberal drug laws and euthanasia. Yet, because he opposed Muslim immigration, the CBC called him “right wing.”

Fortuyn was assassinated in 2002 by a leftist radical opposed to his views on Islam.

Next came Theo van Gogh, a descendant of artist Vincent van Gogh. He made a movie about Islam’s treatment of women, called Submission.

A 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri shot him eight times and tried to cut his head off. Then Bouyeri stabbed a knife into van Gogh’s chest with a letter threatening Western governments, Jews, and van Gogh’s collaborator, a liberal Muslim named Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Hirsi Ali was placed under police protection, until a judge ordered her out of her safe house. She now lives in the United States. Fortuyn, van Gogh and Hirsi Ali are gone from Holland, but the Moroccans and Turks aren’t.

Now comes Geert Wilders. Wilders is the leader of the Party for Freedom, the third-most popular party in Holland. The party joined the new government coalition in return for immigration cuts and a ban on burkas, the face-covering shrouds worn by some Muslim women.

His ideas are mainstream enough to become government policy. But this week, Wilders stood trial for “hate crimes” for those very same ideas.

Prosecutors say it’s a crime to compare the Qur’an to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as Wilders has done, and that he has caused too much of the human emotion called hate.

Mohamed Rabbae supports the prosecution. He’s the chairman of the National Moroccan Council. He wants a judge to order Wilders to apologize. “We are for correcting him,” he said.

Rabbae is for a coerced apology and forced political re-education. And the Associated Press calls Rabbae a moderate.

These days, in Holland, unfortunately that’s true.

Ezra Levant
Toronto Sun...

Australian Hottie Swimmer In India Causes Rush

When gays in the city, and elsewhere in the country, found out that homosexual Australian diver Matthew Mitcham would be in the city to participate in the Commonwealth Games, frenzied plans were made. Some wanted to meet him, some wanted to throw a bash for him, but all of them wanted to cheer for him during his competition. But sadly, the tickets fiasco has made that impossible. 

Gay rights activist Mohnish Kabir Malhotra tells us that he, along with a large group of others in the community, wanted to attend the diving event at the SP Mukherjee Aquatics Complex today, but there are no tickets available. He says, "When we got to know that Mitcham is coming, we decided to go in a big group to support him. But there are no tickets! We've tried everywhere – at the counters, online, through friends. We've been told that the tickets have been sold out, and yet, the stadiums are empty. That's strange. I may be able to arrange for a ticket for myself, but we wanted to go with many more people to support him." 

Hemant Sharma (name changed) says that at such a juncture in India's queer identity, Mitcham's presence can be used optimally. He says, "Gay athletes are very apprehensive about coming out of the closet during their careers. But Mitcham did that at the height of his career and has certainly faced problems because of that. But his performance has taken him beyond all of it. At this juncture, he's a great role model and we need to project icons like these in our community. Sadly, we've not been able to touch base with him." 

We also came to know that the queer community in Delhi also wanted to throw a bash for him, but couldn't put plans in place because of security restrictions. Gaurav Narang (name changed), says, "A friend mentioned that a very hot gay swimmer is coming for the games and when I looked him up on the net, I knew I wanted to watch his moves, rather literally! When I checked online for tickets, there were none. But I'm still trying through jugaad." 

Mitcham is... 
Twenty two-year-old Matthew Mitcham is an Australian diver and the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10m platform event, with the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. He was also one of the 11 openly gay athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of the total 11,028 athletes in the games. 

Garima Sharma
Times of India...

Portland's Gay Mayor Sam Adams Joins Effort To End Anti-Gay Bullying

PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 10, 2010

Portland's openly gay mayor, Sam Adams, has joined the effort to end

 the bullying of gay teens.

Adams, the first openly gay mayor of a top-30 U.S. city, shared his story

 in a video for openly gay author-activist Dan Savage's It Gets Better

 campaign, which benefits The Trevor Project, a national group centered

 on crisis and suicide prevention efforts for gay, lesbian, bisexual and

 tansgender (LGBT) youth.

“It was lonely. It was hard,” Adams says in the video. “Especially when the

 teasing term of the day included 'fag.' And I kept wondering, 'How do they know?'”

“I can tell you that it's not easy, necessarily, to get through those kind of

 tough times, but you must because you have your whole life in front of you.

” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

Adams fought back demands that he resign in 2009 after admitting that he covered up a sexual affair with an 18-year-old boy during his mayoral

 campaign.

Other openly gay celebrities who have also joined the campaign include

 Project Runway celebrity judge Tim Gunn, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres,

 How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris and former 'NSYNCer 

Lance Bass.

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF 

Shanghai Returns With China's Second Gay Pride Celebration

PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 10, 2010

Mainland China's first large-scale Gay Pride celebration, Shanghai Pride, 

had a shaky debut last year, but this year organizers promise a bigger

 and longer festival.

Several of last year's events were canceled at the prompting of officials.

A screening of the lesbian-themed film Lost in You and a staging of 

The Laramie Project were forced to close. The play reconstructs the 

gruesome 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming 

student beaten, shackled to a post and left to die in a field by two men

 he had met in a gay bar.

Other events – art exhibits, food events and panel discussions – went off

 without a hitch.

This year's celebration has been moved from June to October and will

 take place over 3 weeks. The festival gets started on October 16 with its

 official party. Added this year is a queer film festival that will take place

 over 5 days.

Twenty-eight-year-old Shanghai Pride spokesman Kenneth Tan told

 Time Out Shanghai that the Internet has fostered the burgeoning gay

 community in conservative China.

“Pride took so long to get here because everyone was still in the closet,

 but the Internet has changed all of that,” he said. “A certain 'ecosystem'

 has to develop before the elements are in place for Pride to happen.

 This process took a while here in China.”

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF 

8th Alleged Scum-bag Arrested In Anti-Gay Gang Torture In NYC

Law enforcement officials escort several purported members of the “Latin King Goonies” gang on Oct. 8, 2010, following their arrests in an alleged series of anti-gay attacks in the Bronx. (Photo: CBS 2)

(AP) — Police say an eighth suspect is in custody in the horrific anti-gay gang attack on three men in the Bronx.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters at City Hall that the man turned himself at a police precinct in the Bronx Saturday afternoon.

Investigators are still seeking a ninth suspect.

The abandoned home that served as a clubhouse — and allegedly a torture chamber — for a street gang accused of trapping and brutalizing three gay men sits in a neighborhood where homosexuality is both common and tolerated, residents said.

Gay men and women lived openly, and while neighbors were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the group of young men alleged to have been involved in the attacks, some said they hadn’t previously targeted homosexuals.

“I was friends with all of them,” said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the Bronx neighborhood.

“They were chill. There was no beef,” she said. “I had no idea they had no heart.”

New York City leaders continued to express outrage Saturday over the attacks, which police say took place over several hours on two nights.

Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay.

Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.

Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.

Five City Council members and other elected officials visited the block Saturday and stood outside the empty brick townhouse where the attacks had taken place.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the two suspects still being sought. She and her colleagues were joined by area ministers, civic leaders and residents, who marched in solidarity with the victims.

“People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individulas do not represent their neighborhood,” said Quinn. “They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated … could happen here.”

The first of the attacks happened in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. The next two began the next night, and lasted into the early hours of Oct. 4th.

Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place Saturday, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.

The girls said the young men, who ranged in age from 16 to 23, were “the nicest ever.” Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.

Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened. Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack, “the next day,” but said that, like other young people in the area, “We don’t talk to cops. We don’t like them.”

The victims, authorities said, didn’t call the police either.

Residents on the block said they were shocked by the violence.

“How can people do something like that?” asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.

He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.

A spokesman for the Bronx District attorney said the seven suspects in custody were awaiting arraingment Saturday on charges that would include abduction and sodomy as a hate crime.

'Family' Honored For Portrayal Of Diverse America

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EnlargeAssociated Press

Actors Rico Rodriguez, left, and Nolan Gould pose together at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

Associated Press

Actress Jeanne Tripplehorn arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

EnlargeAssociated Press

Rob Reiner arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

EnlargeAssociated Press

Actress Florence Henderson arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

EnlargeAssociated Press

Actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

EnlargeAssociated Press

Actress Sofia Vergara arrives at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's Respect Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, Oct. 8, 2010.

 

BEVERLY HILLS October 9, 2010

It was a night to celebrate, but the mood was subdued on the arrivals line at the GLSEN Respect Awards, presented by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

ABC's Emmy-winning sitcom "Modern Family" was honored Friday night for its portrayal of a diverse America, including a family headed by a gay couple, played by actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet.

And yet some of the event's celeb attendees said the recent string of widely reported bully-inspired gay-teen suicides is proof that acceptance still has a long way to go.

"I do have the same sort of mixed feeling, in the light of everything that's happened," noted Ferguson, who is openly gay. "However, I think an event like this echoes the sentiment that we need to change. This cannot continue happening."

The Emmy-nominated Ferguson, 34, said he was "very bullied" in school.

"I actually had to leave eighth grade and go to another school because it got so bad, so I certainly sympathize with these kids," he noted, adding that bullied students should keep reminding themselves that school won't last forever. "Honestly, back at my 10-year reunion, I didn't even remember any of those bullies' names. Frankly, they weren't doing nearly as good as me. So, it was very vindicating."

Ferguson's Colombian-born co-star, Sofia Vergara, said acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Latin community "is very hard, because it's very taboo," she explained.

"The Latin community is a very Catholic community," continued Vergara, 38. "So, it's always a problem for people to accept it, and they live in denial for many years, the parents, and prefer not to address the problem. And that's when tragedies and things happen. And, you know, it's hard. You're not going to change things in one day."

Others in attendance included the event's host, director Rob Reiner, as well as actresses Chloe Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin from "Big Love."

Actress Florence Henderson walked the red carpet with her "Dancing With the Stars" partner Corky Ballas, and discussed her big gay fan base. "Well, 'The Brady Bunch Variety Hour' was enough to seal me with the gay community forever," Henderson said, with a laugh.

Online: http://www.glsen.org