Costa Rica lifts gay blood ban

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias recently signed an executive order lifting the ban on gay men donating blood.

Activist Alberto Cabezas, who led the drive to lift the ban in Costa Rica, said the action proved that the government “sees gays as humans [who] have the same rights” as others.

Earlier this year, despite a recommendation from the American Red Cross and other blood sources, the FDA refused to lift the ban in the United States on blood donations from gay people.

The policy has been criticized by the Red Cross as “medically and scientifically unwarranted,” but the U.S. government felt that the risk of introducing HIV and AIDS into the blood supply was still too much of a risk to repeal the lifetime ban.

Since the first outbreak of HIV in the 1970s, many countries have banned blood donations from gay men, even though any group is at risk and in some cases more at risk than homosexuals. Gay-rights groups have fought to lift the U.S. ban, stating that the practice was discriminatory.

Gay-rights advocate Peter Tatchell said the ban on gay blood donors “is based on the assumption that all homosexual and bisexual men are ‘high risk’ for HIV,” and that the “policy seems to reflect homophobic prejudices, not medical facts.”

Italian official: Purge gays

Nearly a thousand people turned out in front of the city hall of Treviso, Italy, recently to demand the resignation of deputy mayor Giancarlo Gentilini after he called for the ethnic cleansing of gays from the region.

The right-wing politician also recently told a local television station that he would order police to put an end to gay cruising, which he claimed was out of control.

“I will immediately give orders to my forces so that they can carry out an ethnic cleansing of faggots,” Gentilini told the station in an interview. “The faggots must go to other [places] where they are welcome. Here in Treviso there is no chance for faggots or the like.”

The politician’s remarks brought back memories of the Mussolini dictatorship where Jews, gays and other minorities were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

Many protesters wore pink triangles, the symbol gays in the camps were forced to wear.

The local prosecutor’s office is looking into Gentilini’s remarks to see if they violate Italy’s laws against promoting hatred.

Gentilini’s own party, The Northern League, has distanced itself from his remarks.

Tokyo Pride draws thousands

Nearly 3,000 people took to the streets of Tokyo Aug. 11 for the city’s sixth annual pride parade.

Attendance at the Tokyo pride parade has risen every year, but many still choose to refrain from marching in the parade for fear of being recognized as being gay or lesbian, according to the pride parade committee.

Because sexual minorities still experience difficulties coming out, the event called for visibility of gays and lesbians in society and promoted their presence in mainstream society.

This year marks the first time that the event received support from the government, namely the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Aki Nonaka of Tokyo Pride Parade said, partly because the government has recognized the group’s efforts to promote HIV prevention.

Gays face death in Nigeria

Eighteen Nigerian men could be sentenced to death after a judge in the Islamic northern part of the country found them guilty of sodomy. The men are currently awaiting sentencing.

The official government news agency Nan reports that the men were arrested in a hotel in northeastern Bauchi State, where homosexuality is punishable by death. Elsewhere in the country, engaging in gay sex carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

The government alleges that men arrested for being gay were dressed in women’s clothing and were attending or preparing to attend gay weddings.

More than a dozen men have been sentenced to death in recent years for alleged homosexuality. In most cases their fates are unknown.

If the men are sentenced to death, the court decision would need the approval of the state governor.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian government is proposing legislation that would deny civil rights to gays and lesbians. The bill, which started out as a ban on same-sex marriage, has been revised to make it a crime for more than two gay people to be in the same venue and prohibit GLBT social or civil-rights groups from forming. It would also be illegal to sell or rent property to same-sex couples, watch a gay film or video, visit a GLBT Web site or express same-sex love in a letter to one’s partner.

Violation of the proposed law would be punishable by five years in prison with hard labor.

These recent arrests will most likely derail Nigeria’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Mike Hooper, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation, said on Aug. 10 that Nigeria should be rejected on the grounds of its homophobic ideology.

Transsexuals to choose title

Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly is considering a proposal that would allow transgender men and women to choose how they are addressed, supporting an anti-discrimination provision in its constitution.

Wiroon Tangcharoen, an assemblymember who is also rector of Srinakharinwirot University, said he supported the move and did not believe it would affect room assignments in university dormitories, where students are segregated by sex.

Students wishing to live with members of their adopted gender would have to produce medical certificates proving they had undergone sex-change operations, he said.

“The university has nothing against male transsexual students staying in female dormitories on the campus,” Tangcharoen said.

Even though Thailand is widely tolerant of gays, transvestites and transsexuals, many face family pressure, social prejudice and domestic violence.

Altercation at gay art exhibit

A fight erupted Aug. 12 after a group of religious extremists tried to vandalize an exhibition in Sweden that portrays Jesus as gay.

The “Ecce Homo” photo exhibition, by Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, has been causing controversy ever since it was first unveiled a decade ago. In the town of Jönköping, protests against the exhibition turned violent.

When staff tried to stop a group of youngsters trying to set fire to an exhibition poster on the wall of Jönköping Kulturhuset culture center, a fight broke out.

Tony el Zouki, chair of the culture center, said around 30 people were involved in the altercation and the attempt to vandalize the exhibition appeared to have religious motivations.

Jönköping is known as the center of Sweden’s evangelical Christian movement.

“If this is some Christian group, then I really do not understand them. The message of Christianity is that people should understand and love each other,” el Zouki said. “I really can’t see how this can have a Biblical explanation.”

Larry Nichols can be reached at larry@epgn.com.