while we sit and bitch, gay human rights abuses continue

By Andy Harley

August 17, 2005: We sit in our comfortable homes and ponder whether we should go partying in a gay nightclub, or just go for a quiet drink in our neighbourhood gay pub or bar. Once a year we can frolic in the streets during our local "Pride" in a way that was unthinkable twenty years ago.

We can, in many countries, either marry or form a civil union/partnership with our loved one. And if we live in a country that offers same-sex partnerships or unions we bitch that it is not called marriage.

In the workplace, there are probably laws that protect us from homophobia - and laws that say employers can't discriminate against us on grounds of sexuality.

Yes, there is some way to go before we have full "equality".

But, if we are honest, we have, to coin a phrase, "never had it so good" when compared with those living in nations that are less enlightened.

There are many countries on this planet where, if one is gay, it is a question of being deeply in "the closet" with the door firmly locked and bolted. And our "brothers and sisters" are persecuted in many countries, often looking to us for compassion and help.

A month ago, news came through of the public execution of two Iranian teens who, depending on which human rights organisation you listen to, were hanged for being gay and having consensual sex right through to them having raped a 13-year-old.

But one thing virtually everyone agrees on is that they were teens at the time of execution - and were both under 18 at the time of whatever crime they were convicted. But we argued, loosing the fact that executions of those under the age of 18 at the time of the crime breaches TWO conventions of the United Nations.

Ten days ago, a United Nations news organisation, IRIN, released an article on how teenage boys were being forced into the gay sex trade in Iraq which this site published. The report started: "Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, has started a desperate new life since being forced into the sex trade in Baghdad, joining a growing number of adolescents soliciting in Iraq under the threat of street gangs or the force of poverty."

Then, in the second paragraph came the "killer quote" from young Hassan. "Every day I cry at night," he told the IRIN reporter.

Yet this powerful and shocking story of what is going on in Baghdad has been virtually ignored by the English-speaking media of the world. You don't believe us? The do a "Google News search" on Hassan Feiraz and you get a list of FIVE online English-language web publications that carried the article - and one of them was Reuters NewsAlert, an international news agency of some repute.

When one does a "Google Web search" on the name, there are 199 results, which include the many "bloggers" like Doug Ireland.

Today (August 17), a gay website in South Africa that specialises in gay news from all over the African continent - and not visited by the Google news "bot" - publishes an article on the "Yaounde 11" who have been languishing in jail for three months after being arrested in a bar when a fight broke out between two lesbians. [Regular visitors to this site might remember that we did link to the Behind the Mask report on the arrest on our "Latest" page towards the end on May.]

The men, said to be gay, have yet to be formally charged of a crime, though they are being held on grounds of homosexuality.

Of course, if you want to know more about this shocking state of affairs in Cameroon - and one case of many in Africa, then you can read the article on the Behind the Mask website.

But then you might want to get back to bitching about why your civil union cannot be called marriage �