Blanche’s character was written out of the soap after actress Maggie Jones who played her died late last year.

Her character was loved of gays and strays for her ginormous one-liners. You can relive some of her classic moments here: http://www.homovision.tv/roots-dark-soul-blanche-hunt-quotes

ITV1 7.30pm

Jack Frew, 16, was killed when he was attacked when walking along a cycle path in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire with a friend. It is thought Jack’s throat was slashed. His 17-year-old friend is still recovering in hospital.

Calum Murray, Jack’s friend, told The Daily Record: “We think it has been a homophobic incident. It is absolutely disgusting. There’s a lot of homophobia in Scotland and plenty of people that would take it further.”

He added: “Jack came out about a year or two ago. He was the nicest guy and so popular. I can’t emphasise that enough. He had so many friends, guys and girls.”

Last night, police said there was no clear motive and appealed for witnesses. A 17-year-old has been arrested and detained in custody in connection with the death.

They report that in the past two years, at least four men suspected of being gay have been exhumed by angry mobs in cemeteries in Senegal.

Last May, the body of Madieye Diallo was dug up after a few hours, spat upon and dumped in front of the home of his elderly parents. The incident was also filmed on a mobile phone and copies of the video were being sold in the local market.

Hours after he died, his family took his body to a mosque, where in Islamic tradition the body should be bathed and wrapped in a white cloth. But before the family could bathe him, news reached the mosque that Diallo was gay and they were chased out.

A local man who witnessed the burial said: “A man that’s known as being a homosexual can’t be buried in a cemetery. His body needs to be thrown away like trash. His parents knew that he was gay and they did nothing about it. So when he died we wanted to make sure he was punished.”

A campaign is underway for London to build a memorial for those who have died of AIDS. The campaign, organised through Facebook, hopes to have the space ready for World Pride in 2012, which takes place in London.

Gary Henshaw, campaign supporter, told HOMOVISION: “I personally think there should be something – particularly on World AIDS Day it would have been nice to have somewhere put flowers. I have had close friends die, and it would have been nice on the anniversaries of their death to have a place where I can go and remember them”.

Swarmite Ananda who set up the Facebook group said: “It’s clear from the posts left on our group that many feel that those who died of AIDS have been forgotten since combination therapies halted the speed of deaths in the late nineties. Over 18,000 people have died of AIDS in the UK and we feel they need to be honoured, respected and remembered along with the people left behind to pick up the pieces. Charities exist for those living with HIV, but very few focus on the aftermath and collective grief of the past 25 years, which is one of the reasons why we need a space to gather on special days and educate generations ahead.”

He added: “Manchester & Brighton have memorials, London has nothing – yet we bore the biggest brunt of the battle. Our aim is to be self-supporting, autonomous and diverse with the help of nearly 2000 members we have gathered in just 15 days, many offering experience and funding suggestions.”

In January organisers we will be getting a focus team together to focus on specialist areas. If you think you can help in any way, join Facebook: London AIDS Memorial or contact wakeup2@btinternet.com

Related articles:

• Brit Designer Backs World Aids Day (homovision.tv)
• HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: HOPE (homovision.tv)
• Gmfa: “Take Responsibility for Safer Sex” (homovision.tv)

Outrage is supporting a protest this Thursday 10th December against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that’s currently being debated in the Ugandan parliament. The bill proposes the death penalty for agrreavated and serial homosexual acts and extends the existing penalty of life imprisonment for anal sex to all other same-sex behaviour, including the mere touching of another person with the intent to have gay relations.

That means if you lived in Uganda you’d be one of the first people to go.

Outrage!’s Peter Tatchell adds: “Membership of LGBT organisations and funding for them, advocacy of LGBT human rights and the provision of condoms or safer sex advice to LGBT people will result in a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of seven years for “promoting” homosexuality. A person in authority who fails to report violators to the police within 24 hours will incur three years behind bars.”

“Astonishingly, the new legislation has an extra-territorial jurisdiction. It will also apply to Ugandans who commit these ‘crimes’ while living abroad, in countries where such behaviour is not a criminal offence. Violators overseas will be subjected to extradition, trial and punishment in Uganda,” he said.

Protest takes place this Thursday 10th December, 12noon- 2pm, Ugandan High Commission, 58-59 Trafalger Square, Charing Cross.

Matthew Hodson, Head of Programmes at gay men’s health charity GMFA, has spoken to HOMOVISION.TV about the recent criticisms of HIV health campaigns as well as the work and aims of the charity, their policy on bareback porn and the effect the internet and sex-clubs have on HIV prevention.

Hodson says that the main aim of GMFA is to provide clear, honest, accurate and accessible information, and stresses the need for a balanced approach towards HIV prevention:  “There isn’t one campaign, one booklet or piece of group work that will work equally with everyone,” he says. “We strive to give gay men information. The work we do works to empower gay men. We look at those issues like self-esteem and we do that with counseling, group work or mentoring. If gay men have the information, the ability and the resources for safer sex – that’s what we are striving for.”

In the interview, he also questions the results of the Soho Live Survey – featured in Gary Leigh’s article on HOMOVISION – stating that such research may simplify HIV prevention campaigns: “I think the problem with some of the criticism recently, is blame culture. I think this is the main problem with Gary’s research – it was asking people who’s to blame – and people could say it’s bareback porn, or the failure of HIV prevention agencies. But actually when people have unprotected sex, it’s not just because they saw a bareback porn film, it’s a whole range of different influences that go into that decision. That will be what their understanding of HIV is, what their understanding of HIV transmission is, how they feel about themselves, self-esteem, what they think their partner’s status is etc. These are really complex things. I think the problem with Gary’s survey is that it tried to make it really simple, and say there’s one reason why people are having unprotected sex, and I don’t think that relates to people’s experience.”

According to Hodson, most gay men now meet their first sexual partner online, which has lead to new challenges in the ways HIV prevention campaigns are developed: “Sixty percent of gay men meet their sexual partners on online dating websites. It’s the most significant place for people to meet. Ten years ago people were more likely to meet in cottages or cruising grounds,” he says. “There’s a real change in the way gay men organise their sex lives now, and this is something that HIV prevention agencies need to work with.”

Hodson is also admits that some advertisements for sex clubs in gay magazines are questionable: “I don’t think it’s up to me to say to a magazine who they should accept advertisements or not. I couldn’t name the club, but sometimes I have flicked through a magazine and seen an advert for a club and been quite shocked by the way its depicted because I think there’s a lot that does suggest that there’s sometimes quite hardcore and potentially dangerous activity.”

He adds: “I don’t think it’s damaging the work of GMFA, but I do think there are some things that make HIV prevention activity harder. But this is the environment we have to work in, and that’s why it’s really important that we put out our messages which are clear, unambiguous and honest.”

As to the future, Hodson admits that HIV prevention campaigns must be relevant: “There’s always new people to the scene and you’ve got to get information out to them,” he says. “We’ve got to look at new ways of using the Internet, which is a large part in which gay men organise their sex lives. And it is also about saying ‘We’ve got to take responsibility for our own behaviour’. I also think there’s new challenges which are presented by the fact that treatments are improving because it isn’t the death sentence it was 15 years ago and I think there is a real challenge because we can’t say “Don’t catch AIDS because you will die” because we’ve seen deaths drop by 80%.”

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

In the current PC climate of rising HIV infections, when health charities place the sensibilties of poz people above prevention, many say we need to go back to basics. When this gay plague started I was there, being tested at The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead in 1981. Doctors had flown from America because a mysterious virus had turned up in major American cities in gay men who were also chronic Hepatitis B Virus. I had recently been told that I had Cirrhosis of the Liver caused by the hep virus living in my body undetected for a decade. I was a Hep B super-carrier with an immune system unable to create the antibodies to fight the virus. I stopped drinking alcohol, dealing with my addiction to booze and drugs but my liver got worse and I continued to self-infect myself with Hepatitis B until 1996 when I cleared the virus through yogic breathwork and thousands spent on therapy, retreats and alternative approaches.

I was one of ten on the first human interferon drug trial in 1982 – there was, and there still is no cure, and I received no further medication except to manage liver failure. Everyone died on the trial except me. All gay men under the guidance of The Royal Free and St Mary’s in Paddington were tested by American doctors, hair, blood, saliva and semen, to see if we had the mysterious virus called GRID.

Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

In 1984 French & American Researchers came up with the same conclusion and called it the HIV Virus. I did not have the HIV virus and remain negative today – having survived one virus, why create another? Reading through the following quotes you will notice that nothing much has changed in 25 years. The only unspoken thread is that millions and millions of ££££’s are thrown at the AIDS Industry for 80,000 people in the UK when hardly anything is available from the Government for the University of Southhampton’s figure of 450,000 people in the UK living & dying with Hep C.

Poz gay guys who prefer to BB run a risk of becoming infected with Hep C as well as other STD’s, and the figures for gay men are rising.
Health Agencies insist ” HIV is a manageable disease with a few pills each day “. It isn’t. This is as much a scandal as those 450,000 Hep C carriers in the UK and 326,000 infected with Hep B in the UK who are left to wander in the wilderness without a day to rattle tins or gain support services. Worldwide more than 350 million people have chronic or lifelong Hepatitis B infections.

Centers For Disease Control, Atlanta, USA. 1984
“Four days later, researchers from the Pasteur Institute provided Don Francis with convincing proof that their virus, LAV, caused AIDS. In October, Francis had sent the French Scientists 30 blood samples, including 10 from the San Francisco Hepatitis B cohort of gay men who had developed AIDS, 10 from gay men with lymphadenopathy, and 10 from heterosexuals not at risk for AIDS. The samples were sent blind, marked only with code numbers. The French researchers reported to Don Francis their results : positive LAV antibody tests in 20 of the samples and negative tests in 10. Francis quickly paged through his notes to compare the code numbers. The French had accurately sorted the blood of AIDS and lymphadenopathy patients from the blood of uninfected people. Francis was elated. With the cause of AIDS found, scientists could now get on with the business of controlling the spread of the epidemic and finding a vaccine.” – AND THE BAND PLAYED ON / Randy Shilts

New York 1989
“First, I’d always been a little crazy, not clinically, just over-intense, compulsive, prone to a variety of erotic addictions and narcissistic mood swings – euphoria to despair in 3 seconds flat. Second, the backdrop of my breakdown – New York in the Eighties – was insane in itself. Third and most important, I was plugged into the epicenter of that insanity, working for Andy Warhol. the grand vizier of meaninglessness, and the most famous artist in the world. In the three years since I started working there, Andy had come to symbolize everything that was wrong with the world : hype and cleverness without soul, a Technicolor surface without depth, a glittering facade fashioned from fame, name and money; an inverted place where everything and everyone is reduced to an object and put on sale, where everyone has his fifteen minutes, where the serious is boring, the fluffy fabulous and behind this great mask of glamour and image, an abyss. It wasn’t always like this. For a long time, this world thrilled me. With every hoop my bosses held up, I jumped higher. New York was the big game and I adored it. I scheduled an appointment for the HIV test on March 30 1989. I was casual about it with friends, who warned me of my usual bravado” – SEX, DEATH, ENLIGHTENMENT / Mark Matousek

New York City 1994
“Even during the most repressive years of the AIDS crisis, a vibrant sexual playground survived in secret. The streets grew cold and scant, the neighbourhood bars thinned out, but if you knew the right someone you got taken to a place behind locked doors. Most gay men knew the right someone. The generation of gay men who have come of age in the era of AIDS are as fervent in desire as their disappearing Stonewall predecessors. In New York the night before the June 1994 Gay Pride Parade celebrating 25 years of gay liberation, the lineup of clean-cut, all -American men for a popular sex club stretched five blocks down the West Side Highway. The truth is that gay men like to have communal sex – or, as it’s called in the vulgate, orgies. Communal sex is to gay men what golf is to, well, other kinds of men: they find beauty and bonding in it. It defines the individual as part of a collective. By definition – because that is how history and social forces have conspired – “gay” is the construction of identity through sexual relations. The origin of the modern gay community arose in the simple act of two men picking each other up” – THE CRISIS OF DESIRE : AIDS AND THE FATE OF GAY BROTHERHOOD / Robin Hardy

London does not have anywhere to remember those brave souls who were struck down with AIDS. We are told that no-one dies of AIDS anymore, cancer, as example, has always reassured the family on a death certificate. If no shame exists around HIV/AIDS why not proudly proclaim on the Death Certificate: Cause of Death: Aids Related Infection.

Londoners have never dealt with the critical mass of collective grief over Aids, we have nowhere to ponder on the friends we lost, a space to leave notes, flowers and acknowledgement. Gary Henshaw of KU Bar and myself have started a Facebook group today to correct this error, aiming to create such a space for WORLD PRIDE LONDON 2012. Please join our group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=180686542643&ref=nf

Every gay man has to consider HIV, has to manage the struggle between the desires for freely expressed physical sexual sensations, with the knowledge that unprotected sex can expose us to a virus for which there is no cure. For some there is an attitude of ‘get poz and get it over’, leading perhaps to a sexual liberation, to uninhibited free expression of lustful passions.

Other diseases, or overwhelming addictions to the chemicals that help us explore deepfeeling utterlyslutterly places within, often force men to slow down eventually. But many big city gay men are living life at such a pace that we take little time to reflect, slow down, and for example, think about how incredible it is that we have this global gay scene today where we can make friends, take lovers, party and play freely. We have embraced this gay existence as if it was our birthright, hardly considering that our kind have lived in secret, in shame, lived with persecution, been burnt and stoned – for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There must be some collective unconscious wounding going on here, leading perhaps to the self-destructive behaviours that blight the paradise of global gaytopia, and to the exaggerated emphasis in our gay scenes on sexuality over community, political or alternative expression of who we are.

It seems to me the craving for extreme sexually charged altered states of consciousness is due to our intense longing to really deeply feel and enjoy life. But so soon into the story of our sexual and political emancipation came an enormous shadow – HIV was for 15 years a diagnosis of premature and painful death. Nowadays it is still a lifelong condition that leads to mental and physical crises, and the need to adhere to sometimes challenging medication regimes. But HIV is the ultimate disease – it strikes at the very immune system itself, leads to failure in all parts of the body and mind. That ought to be enough to make us think, lead us to ask some deeper questions about our reality, and then maybe HIV could become a doorway into realisation of who we are and an invitation to explore the mystery of life and death

I am moved to declare that when I came to approach HIV in this way it gave me the gift of life. To raise funds for HIV projects we Walk for Life, we Dance for Life – HIV showed me that I had to wake up to the wonder that is life, look beyond the dream that western society is sold on, find myself, my passions, my creativity. To Live for Life. And I know that in the 90s there were a lot of men going through this awakening, this realisation that a life lived in the shallow end of sensation and soul is a life already half dead.

I was a young gay man excited to be out of the clutches of parents and education, racing to find pleasure and love in a big city. I just accepted life as it seemed to be. I dismissed religion and accepted a fairly bleak scientific worldview, avoided existential crisis as much as I could by not thinking about existence. But this changed when I was told in 1990 that I would die in seven years. The doctor seemed so certain, seven was the number. I accepted what he said and learnt to live with the thought echoing around my mind.

I still continued to avoid deeper thoughts about life and its impending conclusion for a few more years. When the symptoms of AIDS started to come along – KS, facial warts, digestive issues, depression. I began to feel anger, which became I guess the motivating fire that led to me open my mind to research for myself what is the nature of being human, when life is so short and easily cut off – what the hell are we all here for?

There was no shortage of research material. As much as modern society keeps this issue on the sidelines, and those who feel they have answers jealously guard their space and so often insist on their truth being the only truth, even to the extent of attacking those who believe different things… the question of who are we and what are we here for has been probably the main question of human history. Every culture asks it, great art and music is inspired by it, as are incredible acts of compassion and charity. I had refused to tackle spiritual questions since my early teenage years, but it was not lost on me that I had always been driven by a longing for love, to love and be loved, to share that feeling with friends and partners, plus to enjoy that love expressed through beautiful and wild sexuality. When I discovered that the one defining unifying aspects of faith, found in every description of the divine around the world is LOVE, I recognised that I HAD to drop all my mental phobias around spirituality and start some deeper thought.

Twenty years on I am utterly grateful for this turn around in my life. The expansion and joy it has brought is way beyond verbal description, it can only be felt. My life is filled with people I cherish and who cherish me. I constantly meet new people who are discovering layers to life, dimensions of love, who feel called to celebrate life rather than destroy it, who desire connection and communion of spirit rather than the old story of competition and division.

I meet these people anywhere – at parties, on the street, online. I meet them in numbers at events such as radical faerie gatherings, Edward Carpenter Community events, queer pagan camps, gaylovespirit retreats, and there we take the time to slow down, talk to each other, LISTEN to each other, be sensual and intimate, discover from each other and learn. Usually the amazing discoveries we make creates an urgent need to celebrate.

But here comes my second observation…….

In the 90s many many men went through powerful transformations and transfigurations. A culture of opening to our internal truth and power existed for some. At HIV centres there were healing circles where we discovered that thought directs energy and learnt to think for health, to channel vibrations of light for healing and balance. There were poetic and artistic outpourings chronicling the emotional queer story that we were all part of. This culture of self discovery has just about vanished from queer life. Freed of the imminent threat of major illness and death gays have largely gone back to intense hedonistic embrace of our freedom to exist. By the age of 25 many gay men have experienced intensities of life that many of their older brothers did not, or are also chasing after now, they have questions, we all do, that are difficult to find ways to talk about in a very secular age. And should they become positive, they will probably not be encouraged to find within themselves deeper power and truth – which in the time when so many were dying was all we could do. Newly diagnosed are encouraged to live healthy (which they probably wont), take the tablets (which perhaps not EVERYONE needs to do) and continue to BE GOOD CITIZENS, working and contributing taxes etc.

HIV became for me a symbol – a push to recognise that HEALING IS VITAL. This is the human condition. We accumulate wounds during life (are maybe born with them already in place), and we die. Yet we are all pretty much driven to enjoy life – to love, to play, to celebrate – this is our nature. The wounds and fear of death prevent us from fully feeling and appreciating the love, the play, the celebration. Maybe we use drugs to cut through our wounded places and open us to ecstatic experience – all too often the comedown brings the wounds come back online. Though I would never dismiss the power of ecstatic heights to transform every aspect of our lives and heal some of the deepest darkest places. This may happen by chance, embraced consciously, ecstasy (the state of being) may turn out to be one of the most powerful healing practices available to human beings.

I was brought up in an educational and social environment where it was the accepted, normal and cool thing to dismiss religion and all things spiritual. I believe for the young since my youth this tendency has only increased. To break through this mindset and humble myself enough to ask questions of the universe and accept my ignorance on the subject was a second coming out. What I notice is, although I meet others all the time who are embracing the same journey, our collective gay life can get lost in the shallow end of existence. But swimming into the depths is even more fun. We are a people, a part of humanity, largely driven by joyful and creative lusts, but for all sorts of easily understood reasons one part of us is largely undeveloped – our spirits. Our potential in life as soul healers, peacemakers, radical thinkers and artists is still largely hidden in shadows of shame. Although there are many of us who are entertainers, or who work in healing and caring professions, and although we are famed for our ability to party, we also live with too much shallowness, drug and alcohol damage, and mental and physical disease in our urban communities. But on the outskirts of gay life, often in forests, on mountains or seashores, in castles, mansions or campsites – a few are meeting and taking our ability to connect and feel further. Taking the time to go beyond appearances, to hear new ideas, to discover the magic of life lived in an atmosphere of deeper community and respect. Most of us live in the cities and we return to our homes charged with energy from being connected to nature and to the loving hearts of other queers.

I have been positive twenty years. That is half of the 40 years that we have been free legally in certain parts of the world to explore and express who we are, and how we love. We could benefit from acknowledging that the tale of gay life is at a very early stage, and nothing should be taken for granted. There have been flourishes of gay liberty at previous points in history, they have never lasted long, we have been persecuted back underground. Our current freedoms should not be taken for granted, and of course those freedoms are not enjoyed by our kind the world over. And as a collective living openly in ways we choose, unlike at any other time in human history, we may have hardly begun to delve collectively into the magical, mysterious depths of our being, power and love.

Martin Lovestar is leading a World AIDS Day talking circle to talk about the impact HIV has had on the gay community. Details:

Related articles:

• Gmfa: “Take Responsibility for Safer Sex” (homovision.tv)

The New York Times today reports on the death of a 26 year old gay guy in Istanbul, the victim of what sociologists say is the first gay honour killing in Turkey.

According to prosecutors Ahmet Yildiz, an openly gay man, was shot five times as he left his apartment. His killer allegedly his father, who travelled 600 miles from his hometown to Istanbul. Yildiz’s body remains unclaimed by his family.

Yildiz was the only son of a deeply religious Kurdish family. His father wanted him to see a doctor and an iman in order to cure him of his homosexuality.

Gay rights groups argue that there is an increasingly open homophobia in Turkey. The military, which is the guardian of Turkey’s secular state, regards homosexuality as a disorder.

Last year, a local Istanbul court ruled in favor of disbanding the offices of Lambda, the country’s leading gay rights group, after a complaint that it offended public morality, although the decision was later overturned.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/world/europe/26turkey.html

Gay rights campaigner and Green Party human rights spokesperson Peter Tatchell has accused Commonwealth leaders of a “systematic, persistent failure to condemn homophobic discrimination and violence.”

He’s urged Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma to speak out against “widespread homophobic persecution that exists in most Commonwealth member states, in violation of the Commonwealth principles of equality, non-discrimination and human rights”, in particular Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and “serial offenders.”

“Anti-gay persecution in Commonwealth countries includes discriminatory laws that criminalise same sex relations, with maximum penalities ranging up to life imprisonment. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Commonwealth citizens are at risk of arrest, torture, rape, imprisonment and extra-judicial murder,” said Tatchell.

He has written to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, urging him to speak out against the victimisation of lesbian and gay people at the up-coming summit meeting of the 53 member states of the Commonwealth association of nations taking place in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend, 27 – 29 November.

You can read the letter here.

Kamalesh Sharma
Commonwealth Secretary-General
Marlborough House, Pall Mall,
London SW1Y 5HX
020 7747 6500
secretary-general@commonwealth.int

19 November 2009

Your Excellency,

I am writing to inquire what the Commonwealth is doing to defend the human rights of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Commonwealth citizens who are sufffering great persecution on account of their sexuality and gender variance and identity.

Sadly, I can find no evidence that senior Commonwealth leaders are doing anything significant or public, despite the fact that many Commonwealth member states are actively persecuting their LGBT citizens with oppressive, discriminatory laws, which result in grave human rights violations, including arrest, torture, rape, imprisonment and extra-judicial murder.

This homophobic and transphobic persecution is in breach of international human rights law.

As Comonwealth Secretary-General, you are entrusted to defend and promote the Commonwealth’s humanitarian values.

What action do you propose to take at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago from 27 to 29 November, to address the issue of homophobic and transphobic persecution by Commonwealth member states?

I appeal to you to take a stand for justice and equality – to show true leadership and make your mark for human rights.

During your keynote speech, and in other CHOGM forums, I respectfully request you to:

1. Make it clear that the Commonwealth’s commitment to human rights includes respect for the human rights of LGBT people, and that persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity violates the Commonwealth principles of equality and non-discrimination and violates the principles of universal human rights, as enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. Call on Commonwealth member states to end the criminalisation of homosexuality, protect LGBT people against discrimination, harassment and violence, and recognise and consult with LGBT welfare and human rights organisations.

3. In particular, I request you to lobby the government of Uganda to withdraw the new Anti-Homosexuality Bill and cease its attacks on the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

I regret that I need to make these requests. I realise that you have not been long in your post. But I hope that having had these issues drawn to your attention you will rise to the challenge and pursue them.

Some of the key principles of the Commonwealth are equality, non-discrimination, opportunity for all, liberty of the individual and human dignity.

http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/191086/191247/the_commonwealth/

http://www.thecommonwealth.org/files/36123/FileName/harare.pdf

In the case of LGBT people, these principles are routinely violated by nearly all Commonwealth countries. They are violated with impunity and without rebuke by the leaders of the Commonwealth.

I am surprised that the Commonwealth’s most senior figures, such as yourself, are not, as far as I know, doing anything serious to dissuade the many member states which continue to outlaw consenting adult same-sex relations, which take no action against homophobic and transphobic violence, which deny gay and bisexual men safer sex education and HIV advice, and which fail to give LGBT people protection against discrimination in jobs, housing, education, health care and provision of good and services.

It is extremely disappointing that the Commonwealth leadership appears to not regard LGBT rights as human rights and that it has neglected to protect LGBT citizens in the Commonwealth family of nations. This inaction is de facto collusion with victimisation.

Around 80 countries worldwide continue to outlaw homosexuality, with penalties ranging from one year’s jail to life imprisonment – and even execution. More than half of these countries are former British colonies. Most are members of the Commonwealth.

Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, over 40 still criminalise same-sex relations, mostly under anti-gay laws that were originally imposed by the British government in the nineteenth century, during the period of colonial rule.

These homophobic colonialist laws, which were retained after independence, are wrecking the lives of LGBT people throughout the Commonwealth. They criminalise otherwise law-abiding citizens and contribute to a hostile social atmosphere which demonises LGBT people as unnatural, abnormal and criminal.

This renders LGBT people liable to blackmail, imprisonment, mob violence, rejection by their families, excommunication from their faith, eviction from their homes, dismissal from their jobs and this makes them high risk for depression, mental illness and suicide. Such rampant bigotry and ill-treatment of other human beings is a stain on the Commonwealth.

One of the worst current examples of a homophobic Commonwealth country is Uganda.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, currently under consideration by the Ugandan parliament, proposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality…(and) serial offenders,” including same-sex acts by people with HIV.

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/697859

http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/09/Nov/Bill-No-18-Anti-Homosexuality-Bill-2009_Uganda.pdf

It imposes a sentence of life imprisonment for merely touching a person with the intent to have homosexual relations. Membership of gay organisations and funding for them, advocacy of gay human rights and the provision of condoms or safer sex advice to gay people will result in up to seven years jail for “promoting” homosexuality. Failing to report violators to the police within 24 hours will incur three years behind bars. Astonishingly, the new legislation will also apply to Ugandans who commit these ‘crimes’ while living abroad, in countries where such behaviour is not a criminal offence.

See this appeal against the bill by Human Rights Watch and other human rights defenders:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/15/uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill-threatens-liberties-and-human-rights-defenders

See this briefing by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission:

http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/globalactionalerts/989.html

The Ugandan bill violates the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Uganda is a signatory. These breaches of international humanitarian commitments set a dangerous precedent which undermines the right to privacy and to individual liberty and thereby sets a dangerous legal precedent which threatens the human rights of all Ugandans.

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists and the World AIDS Campaign.

This legislation is, however, merely the latest in a series of state-sponsored persecutions of LGBT Ugandans, often at the behest of Christian leaders who are aided and funded by right-wing evangelical churches in the US.

Typical is what happened to gay rights advocate Kizza Musinguzi. He was jailed in 2004 and subjected to four months of forced labour, water torture, beatings and rape.

Any Ugandan who speaks out against anti-gay violence faces dire consequences. A heterosexual former Anglican bishop of the West Buganda diocese, Christopher Senyonjo, was denied the right to preach and denied his pension by the Church of Uganda after he defended the human rights of LGBT people.

In recent years, the Ugandan government has passed a law banning same-sex civil marriage, fined Radio Simba for broadcasting a discussion of LGBT issues, and expelled a UN AIDS agency director for meeting with LGBT campaigners.

Similar homophobic persecution is happening in other Commonwealth nations, including Nigeria and in The Gambia, where President Yahya Jammeh has called for sexual cleansing. He has promised “stricter laws than Iran” on homosexuality, and has begun his witchunt by ordering gay people to leave the country and threatening to “cut off the head” of any homosexual who remains. It is truly shocking that the Commonwealth leadership has not condemned such murderous threats.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7416536.stm

While I realise that you are very busy, I would be most grateful if you could respond to my appeal for your intervention before the commencement of CHOGM.

Wishing you a successful CHOGM.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Tatchell

As we approach World AIDS Day, many gay men in their forties can’t believe they are still alive. They made it. They survived the collective grief of a virus halted in it’s tracks by combos. Gay Men lost their identity and faith to AIDS and didn’t know how to relate to a possible cure in the untold numbness of emotion. In May 1996 my client Paul had once again ended up in the Middlesex with an AIDS related infection four days before we were due to fly to Bodrum in Turkey and told by doctors that he was likely to die. I had worked with him preparing for death and completing his life goals. He wanted a last planned holiday so I was asked to go as his carer and agreed. For 2 years I exclusively worked with those HIV+ having a CD4 count under 50, Paul had a CD4 count of 10 for a year and now it was down to 2. I said in the hospital ” Paul, where do you want to die? Here or in Turkey? ” Turkey he said, quick as a flash. Come on then, discharge yourself, we’re off to Turkey, and so we did, hiding bottles of meds in cabin bags that needed fridge temperatures on the plane and hotel arrival. At the airport he bought GAY TIMES and intrigued to see his own doctors photo on the news page heralding some kind of combination therapy research. ” I’ll ask him about that on return if I get back in one piece” he said.

We had a drama-free health break in Bodrum, and highlighted by 3 buffed up gayers beach walking, one wearing very small speedos and a pair of new Timberlands with laces out, boot tongues up – we later learnt an american from Miami had sent them and proudly worn they were. Using beach gaydar we were spotted and they greeted us with handshakes and the words ” Hi we’re Sexy Gays “. Very scorchio Turkish Satellite TV use of english. LOL. If only UK guys were that forward. They took us sightseeing along the castle wall and what was like a gay bar with tranny drag. “Much better than a bed in the Middlesex wired up” Paul said. We returned to the UK with his 2 CD4’s intact and straight to his doc who soon guinea pigged him on combos. In November that same year I went on holiday and for the first time in 14 years no one had died when I got back. Hope had arrived. Pauls CD4 shot to over 100 on combos and lived another 3 years before the virus took his last breath in 1999.

So what happened after combos’s? Hope springs eternal. Eric Rofe, a longtime AIDS activist wrote DRY BONES BREATHE – Gay Men creating Post-AIDS Identities and Culture (published 1998) and feared a ” second wave ” of infection after combos. He wrote ” as the most intensive period of AIDS death occurred from 1989-1995 there was little room for alternative understandings of the event called AIDS. While the corpses piled up and discussions of a ” second wave ” of gay male infections became increasingly prevalent, the pep-rally campaigns launched in the mid-1980’s were amplified. We repeatedly reminded one another to “Be Here for the Cure”, “Practice Safe Sex Every Time”, and “ACT UP, Fight Back, Fight AIDS”.

Now in 2009, the hope we had then has drained away with attention fatigue, unimagined levels of recreational drug use compared to 15 years ago, facilitated by pc policies acted out by THT, GMFA & CHAPS to support the sensibilities of poz people and ignoring the needs of those remaining negative by employing conscious action EVERY time they have sex, within or outside a relationship. Young gayers were told the war is over – we have PEP. Check out Gaydar profiles and you will see that Safer Sex : Sometimes is more prevalent than ALWAYS. Do people really hope they wont get infected but BB anyway because they got away with it last time? Hoping a new relationship will work out is very different from hoping to escape infection, a new relationship you can always leave if it doesn’t work out, but HIV poz is for life, and over 30 years of immune system damage, alongside the ageing process and the effects of prescribed combos, side effects and recreational horse tranquiliser for fun does not make a good look. Wishin’ and Hopin’ is fools paradise.

Eric Roffes prophecy has come true – a second wave of infection – with a new devil may care sensibility. In the 80’s we were forced through fear to become always vigilant, it’s a pity that it’s just clothes and the eighties that have become retro fashionable – we badly need to swing away from the current ” manageable disease concept ” and return to more harder hitting messages of the Dynasty period to focus on prevention instead of BB and slings. If we don’t more gayers will be killed by their own arrows. I think of those three ” sexy gays ” in Turkey, who can’t flick through the gay press in Barcode, yawning at yet another THT Hot Sex campaign, what of them and gayers in other countries who can’t just pop into Dean Street for a 1 hour HIV test result with ease. In the early 90’s the UK was the mantle of HIV education for the developing world using our resources to bring HOPE to those affected by HIV/AIDS. When I think of Paul and all my friends & lovers who died I wonder how they would view the current climate, the apathy that medical advances has brought and why young gayers think taking pills for the rest of their lives adds up to some kind of freedom.

More Swarmite blog experience, strength and hope resides @ http://www.theswarmite.com

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