Saudi Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud: Guilty

It took just 95 minutes for Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud's jury to convict the 34-year-old prince of murdering his servant Bandar Abdulaziz (pictured, left) whom prosecutors (and common wisdom) claimed Al Saud had a sexual relationship with. Showing "no emotion" while the verdict was read, the royal Saudi prince will face sentencing Wednesday in the bizarre strangulation death of Abdulaziz, who, the state argued, was so indentured to his boss that he didn't even put up a fight when he was killed.

 http://www.queerty.com

German Gay Couple Wins Scandinavian Airlines' Love is in the Air Campaign

After moths of campaigning and 81,640 votes, German gay couple, Aleksandar Mijatovic and Shantu Bhattacherjee, will become the world’s first same-sex couple to get married in the air. It was arguably one of the most successful social media campaigns done by any airline—the "Love is in the Air" competition acquired 536,000 links on Google and press attention from around the world.

The couple will be married over Swedish airspace onboard Scandinavian Airlines’ flight SK903 on December 6 between Stockholm and New York and enjoy a beautiful honeymoon with all the fixings in both NY and LA.

These boys won over the hearts of many, mostly because of their unconditional love for one another.

"After seven years I still have butterflies in my stomach when I look at him. And I love the fact that I alway feel that I am in a team and that I can rely on him and trust him unconditionally.” Shantu says that “I love the fact that Alex completes me throughout and gives me the feeling that I don’t need anything else at all.”

Congrats guys! We wish you many years of sky-high, marital bliss.

passportmagazine.com

Johnny Weir Says He's Been Bullied; Called Ma'am Four Times A Day

 
PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 19, 2010

In noting that he's been bullied all his life, figure skater John G. “Johnny”
 Weir gave the example that he was called ma'am four times in one day.

The 3-time U.S. National Figure Skating champion with a knack for
drawing attention to himself guest starred Monday on CBC Television's
 Battle of the Blades, the live show that pairs former NHL players with
 female figure skaters in an ice skating version of Dancing with the Stars.

In an interview conducted before the show with EyeWeekly.com, Weir
discussed the recent rash of gay teens bullied to death.

“It's not an easy road,” Weir said, referring to being different. “I've been
 bullied nearly every day of my life. Today, how many times was I called
 ma'am today? I think four times today. Or, you know, constantly being
called 'faggot' in school. It's awful.”

“It's so distressing to see what's actually happening with these kids that
 feel so alone and so weak and it's so sad and I mean, I can relate in a
 way that I've been bullied.”

“But suicide is never the answer. If you want to send a message, live. And
live the way that you want to live. And let that be your statement to the
 world. You have to be strong. Suicide is an easy way out of a problem.”

Estrellita, Weir explained without prompting, was a woman who mistook
him for a lady.

“Oh, Estrellita was this lady who told me I was going into the wrong
 bathroom, the mens bathroom. It was a sixty-year-old – had to be sixty,
 unless she was really not aging well – a sixty-something Mexican lady
 yelling at me 'No, no, no!' So, literally, I had to point down and
 say 'hombre.'”

Weir has previously said he'll address the issue of his sexuality in a
 yet-to-be-published memoir.

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF

'Real Housewives' Star Jill Zarin To Support Gay Teens On Spirit Day

PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 19, 2010

Jill Zarin, star of Bravo's Real Housewives of New York City, has announced

 she'll wear purple on Spirit Day in support of gay teens.

“I will be wearing purple this Wednesday,” Zarin said.

The campaign encourages people to wear purple and turn their Twitter

 and Facebook profiles purple to remember gay teens who have been 

bullied to death.

“No child should be the victim of bullying, and as parents, we need to

 teach our children that everyone deserves to be accepted for who they 

are,” Zarin added.

The grassroots campaign has its roots in social media. Nearly a million 

and a half people at the Facebook event page R.I.P.;; In memory of the 

recent suicides due to gay abuse, wear purple have signaled their

 participation. A second event page,Spirit Day, A GLOBAL Day of 

Remembering, has also attracted thousands.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is also urging 

people to turn their Facebook and Twitter photos purple.

“I will be wearing purple on Spirit Day,” Jarrett Barrios, president of GLAAD, 

said in a statement. “The tragic suicides of our youth have started an

 important dialogue among Americans about the dangers of bullying, and

 now is the time to show our children that millions of Americans accept and

 value them regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF 

The Catholic Church's Dangerous Comments about HIV/AIDS

Officials with the Catholic Church have long found themselves in hot water when it comes to the subject of HIV/AIDS. A few years back, Pope Benedict XVI made the audacious claim that safe-sex doesn't help stop the spread of HIV, and urged people to give up condoms. For that position, Pope Benedict XVI was termed a global health nightmare, and drew a heaping pile of rebukes, including a scathing editorial in The Lancet.

Several years later, a senior Catholic official again finds himself in a firestorm of criticism over comments related to HIV/AIDS. This time it's the Archbishop of Brussels, André-Joseph Léonard, who was appointed to his position by Pope Benedict XVI. What does Archbishop Léonard think about HIV?

He thinks that people who contract HIV deserve it for their immoral actions. For Archbishop Léonard, HIV is "a sort of inherent justice" for people because of their sexuality. And he's completely serious.

"Maybe human love also responds when she is treated badly, without the need of a transcendent source," Léonard said, according to several journalists who have just released a book detailing several interviews with the Archbishop. "Badly handling physical nature causes it to treat us badly in turn, and badly dealing with the deeper nature of human love will ultimately always lead to catastrophes on all levels."

Same-sex love? That's a catastrophe according to the Archbishop. And HIV/AIDS? Just the Earth's way of taking vengeance out on gay people.

Somewhere, Pat "Gay people caused 9/11" Robertson and John "Gay people caused Hurricane Katrina" must be smiling, because they've got a new, fringe clergyman to join their ranks.

by Michael A. Jones

gayrights.change.org/

Top Gun II: The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Version

A sequel to Top Gun, the iconic 1986 film starring Tom Cruise as naval aviator Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, has been cleared for takeoff. New York magazine reports that Paramount Pictures has made offers to producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott of the original for a second Top Gun film. Tom Cruise might even reprise his character for a minor appearance. Given that I've been following the ups and downs of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal lately, however, I can't help but wonder about a mashup of these news items.

Imagine, if you will. . . .

Lt. Mike "Mustang" Stevens is a naval aviator who's just been assigned to U.S. Navy "Top Gun" training. He and his radar intercept officer, Lt. (j.g.) Kate "Duck" Johnson, are in contention to win the prestigious award for being first in their class — when his commanding officer has some bad news. He's being investigated under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," after fellow aviators spotted him singing "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling" to another man at a local bar. Does he try to fight the revelation and stay in the Navy, or does he finally decide to live truthfully? Does the military really want to lose another pilot it has spent millions to train?

Meanwhile, Lt. Johnson has problems of her own, and not just because she's one of few women assigned to fighter training. One of her two mothers — played by original Top Gun star Kelly McGillis in a new role — starts questioning her daughter's dedication to an organization so blatantly homophobic. (McGillis, as many of you know, came out as a lesbian in real life in 2009.)

Of course, at the rate DADT moves are happening, the policy could be a thing of the past before the movie airs. Here's hoping. If so, then maybe it's the backseat officer who is a lesbian — and married, like "Goose" in the original. When she dies ejecting from the plane, like Goose, the pilot goes up against the system to secure the military's extensive array of spousal benefits for his dead friend's spouse — something that won't come automatically as part of DADT repeal.

And there's a volleyball scene, of course, one that wouldn't need to change much from the original to appeal to a gay male audience — although I'd like to see the addition of Lt. Johnson in a sports bra for us gals. (Hey, most movies need a little sex appeal to draw an audience, gay or straight.)

Sigh. No, the Top Gun sequel won't be anything like that, I know. This is why I'm writing for Change.org and not penning Hollywood screenplays. But just try to tell me Melissa Etheridge doesn't have the perfect voice to do a reprise of the "Danger Zone" theme song. . . .

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Defense

gayrights.change.org

Military recruiters told to accept gay applicants

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Defense Department said Tuesday that it is accepting openly gay recruits, but is warning applicants they might not be allowed to stick around for long.

Following last week's court ruling that struck down a 1993 law banning gays from serving openly, the military has suspended enforcement of the rule known as "don't ask, don't tell." The Justice Department is appealing the decision and has asked the courts for a temporary stay on the ruling.

The Defense Department said it would comply with the law and had frozen any discharge cases. But at least one case was reported of a man being turned away from an Army recruiting office in Austin, Texas.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith on Tuesday confirmed that recruiters had been given top-level guidance to accept applicants who say they are gay.

Recruiters also have been told to inform potential recruits that the moratorium on enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell" could be reversed at any point, if the ruling is appealed or the court grants a stay, she said.

The uncertain status of the law has caused much confusion within an institution that has historically discriminated against gays. Before the 1993 law, the Defense Department banned gays entirely and declared them incompatible with military service.

Douglas Smith, spokesman for U.S. Army Recruiting Command based at Fort Knox, Ky., said even before the ruling recruiters did not ask applicants about their sexual orientation. The difference now is that recruiters will process those who say they are gay.

"If they were to self admit that they are gay and want to enlist, we will process them for enlistment, but will tell them that the legal situation could change," Smith said.

He said the enlistment process takes time and recruiters have been told to inform those who are openly gay that they could be declared ineligible if the law is upheld on appeal.

"U.S. Army Recruiting Command is going to follow the law, whatever the law is at the time," he said.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, who had ordered the military to stop enforcing "don't ask, don't tell," was expected to deny the administration's request to delay her order. That would send the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

After Phillips' ruling last week, Omar Lopez - discharged from the Navy in 2006 after admitting his gay status to his military doctor - walked into an Army recruiting office in Austin and asked if he could re-enlist. He said he was up front, even showing the recruiters his Navy discharge papers.

"They just said, 'I can't let you re-enlist because we haven't got anything down from the chain of command,'" Lopez, 29, told the AP in a telephone interview. "They were courteous and apologetic, but they couldn't help me."

Smith was unable to confirm the account. She said guidance on gay applicants had been issued to recruiting commands on Oct. 15.

____

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Associated Press Writer

Associated Press writer Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.

Between Paladino, the Bronx tortures, and the suicides, are things really getting better?

Illustration by Dienstelle 75

Afew weeks ago, I found myself wondering whether the Logo reality show The A-List—in which a handful of vapidly handsome men make fools of themselves in the playground of Manhattan—would be “bad for the gays.” That this would even occur to me as a concern shows just how blissfully easy it can be to be a gay man in New York.

How embarrassingly silly that worry seems this week, with the news of the torture of three young gay men in the Bronx. That came on the heels of a string of gay-teen suicides nationwide, including one young man at Rutgers who felt so humiliated by his roommate that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge. And in the midst of it all, this state’s Republican nominee for governor declares that homosexuality is not a “valid or successful” option. As we were trying to process all of this, the Washington Post allowed Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, to write a thuggish op-ed inspired by those suicides, as though his bigoted gay-conspiracy theories are legitimate.

It has been, at the very least, confusing. We live in an America where public outcry can make a major movie studio remove a gay joke from a trailer for a Vince Vaughn comedy, but also in an America where a movie studio felt it was okay to make the joke in the first place. After Carl Paladino’s remarks, Rudy Giuliani, who leans further right with each passing year, surprised us by calling his remarks “highly offensive,” and the usually boorish New York Post strained to take Paladino to task for it.

Meanwhile, judicial momentum is on the side of gay rights. Recently, federal courts have ruled against “don’t ask, don’t tell”; California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay couples there from marrying; and the Defense of Marriage Act. And yet—disconcertingly—the Obama administration, which says it favors repeal of DADT and DOMA, is appealing both.

Of course, this confluence of events feels more significant than it is: The court rulings are parts of legal processes set in motion months or even years ago. Paladino is an unhinged man who’d already alienated his party by saying whatever was on his bitter and unsympathetic mind. The Bronx assaults, which riveted the nation—even Glenn Beck railed against them on his show—were, sadly, not unprecedented. Yes, the half-dozen suicides in the past few months among gay kids, or kids who were bullied for seeming gay, are a devastatingly high number—but I suspect if we knew the real number of kids who kill themselves as a result of these pressures, year round, devastating wouldn’t even describe it. Which is why it’s such a good thing that these tragedies have brought bullying and the preponderance of depression among gay youth into the national conversation.

As kids come out at younger and younger ages, they face resistance and even hatred. Progress always is met with resistance, and as gay people appear more and more in the mainstream, blowback is inevitable from those who don’t want to see them. These aren’t just people who don’t want to watch The A-List. These are people who don’t want to watch gays and lesbians living in their neighborhoods, or teaching in their schools.

So even though it feels like something is happening—because people are talking, because headlines are being written, because rage and sorrow are being expressed—in reality, progress is just a very long, winding path. It’s one that often seems to double back and take us through some scary places.

Which is why I’ve been fascinated with the popularity of the “It Gets Better” project on YouTube, in which grown-ups make videos to tell gay kids that things will be easier in the future, when they are out of school, or when they are simply older and more comfortable with who they are. “It Gets Better.” Not “Here, I’ll Make It Better.” The passive voice betrays the seeming helplessness of the situation. We really can’t do much to immediately ease the circumstances of bullied young people.

But still, I like the “It Gets Better” videos. I like their generosity. They make me tear up, even though I didn’t have such a rough go of it in school. I’m 29, and I know I’m fortunate; it has gotten better for my generation. But even I like to be reassured that the path is forward, if not straight.

http://nymag.com

Gays on the catwalk in Vietnam

Gays who are living in HCM City became models and showed their knowledge about safe sex at a competition held by an online forum for homosexuals in the evening of October 16.

By joining this competition, the competitors expressed their desire for their families and the society to accept their sexual orientation.

“When I was a child, I didn’t think that I was a boy. I’m healthy! I only want people to know that we are similar to them and we can contribute to society as well,” a contestant said.

According to statistics, around five percent of the population is homosexual, including both gays and lesbians. The ratio of gays is higher than that of lesbians.

Only several countries have recognized homosexuals. Generally, they are still discriminated in the society, an even in their families.

To please their parents, many gays get married but they always desire to live according to their true sexual orientation.

Vietnam Net...

Reframing The 'Gay Choice' Debate

Despite an ongoing recession, two wars and fleeting world power, our nation has recently found itself fascinated by a tired old question: "Is homosexuality a choice?"

Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and New York gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino both came under fire last week for saying that homosexuality is a choice. While Jarrett apologized for her remark, Paladino attempted to rectify his mistake by saying he "wasn't sure" whether same-sex love's a choice.

Even President Obama has gotten in on the action, and told an audience at MTV and BET's town hallthat he unequivocally believes the biology behind homosexuality: "I don't think it's a choice. I think that people are born with, you know, a certain makeup."

Republican Ken Buck definitely doesn't agree with the President: the Colorado Senate candidate yesterday likened homosexuality to alcoholism. "I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things,” he said on Meet the Press. “But I think that, basically, you have a choice." His campaign later tried to clarify, "[Buck] was just saying there's an element of predisposition there and an element of choice."

It's unclear why this question of gay choice has suddenly become a meme. Since it has, however, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to take this controversy and turn it on its ugly head.

As simple as it may sound, the argument over whether or not homosexuality's a choice fuels a bonfire of "heterocentric" sentiment. Those who oppose equality wrongly assume that gay people "choose" to be gay, and therefore aren't worthy of legal protections or, in many cases, dignity. We bring hate crimes on ourselves by pretending, right? Blame the victim and all that.

The entire debate becomes completely dehumanizing, and the objectification often becomes completely unbearable, as was no doubt the case in a recent series of gay suicides. This objectification, however, can easily be remedied with a little flip of the script.

Back in 2008, when much of the nation celebrated Obama's presidential victory, I asked a dear gay friend whether he was excited, to which he replied, "It's hard to be excited knowing that so much of the nation hates you." He was talking about Proposition 8, the bitter pill so many of us swallowed that Election Day.

Those remarks have echoed in my mind ever since, and sum up the collective agony so many gay people have felt or continue to feel while navigating a world that can seem so hostile.

At the same time, however, it struck me as a shortsighted idea. No one hated him, my friend; they hated the idea of gay marriage. Ah, that's it: the idea.

This collective pain LGBT people feel when told they're making the wrong choice comes from something that doesn't really exist -- it's based on an imaginary concept of gay people, one that's projected onto us and must be shaken off.

Being gay and having lived the lavender dream, I can say with certainty that being gay is a completely natural, biological thing. It's not a choice. Period. And plenty of science backs me up on that one. If one accepts this essential aspect of homosexuality, then the idea that we "choose" to be gay becomes, well, somewhat laughable, and entirely erroneous.

People who dislike or even hate gay people because they think it's a "choice" don't in fact hate you, the gay person. They hate their idea of you, their stereotype. Their "hate," then, is about them, and should be pitied, instead of internalized.

Rather than letting these projections of "choice" and "immorality" dehumanize us, LGBT people should realize that it's not about us at all. We're living our natural lives, and if people want to perpetuate false gay models, we need to be mentally and physically strong enough to stand up and say, "I'm being me, and if you want to obsess over some concept of me, or an idea of me, that's your business," because clearly our opponents need someone to set them straight.

Photo credit: Bioxid's Flickr

Andrew Belonsky is a journalist living in New York City.