Matt Damon Appears on ‘Ellen’ to Correct His Remarks About Gay Actors: WATCH

Actor Matt Damon appeared on Ellen and took the time to clarify his comments from a recent interview with The Guardian which angered quite a few people. Damon’s original comments seemed to suggest that gay actors should stay in the closet in order to be more successful:

“I think you’re a better actor the less people know about you period. And sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether you’re straight or gay, people shouldn’t know anything about your sexuality because that’s one of the mysteries that you should be able to play.’”

DeGeneres invited Damon on to clarify his comments. Damon explained that his comments were misconstrued by the media, citing the gay rumors that tabloids circulated in the past regarding Damon’s close working relationship with Ben Affleck as the media taking words, and actions, out of context.

“I was talking about actors are more effective when you know less about their personal lives. And was talking about it in the context of when Ben and I first started and people wrote all these articles, when Good Will Hunting came out, that we were gay because it was two guys who wrote the script. And feeling like oh, well we can’t even like then you have to address it and then it’s like well I’m not gonna throw my friends under the bus, who are gay, and act like it’s some kind of a disease. How do you even address it?”

He added:

“So you’re always in these kind of weird things. But in this day and age I said this thing to The Guardian and it got turned into… and I was just trying to say actors are more effective when they’re a mystery. Right? And somebody picked it up and said I said gay actors should get back in the closet. Which is like I mean it’s stupid, but it is painful when things get said that you don’t believe. And then it gets represented that that’s what you believe. Because in the blogosphere there’s no real penalty for just taking the ball and running with it. Ya know what I mean? You’re just trying to click on your thing.”

DeGeneres also adds some levity to the conversation. Watch:

The post Matt Damon Appears on ‘Ellen’ to Correct His Remarks About Gay Actors: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Anthony Costello

Matt Damon Appears on ‘Ellen’ to Correct His Remarks About Gay Actors: WATCH

After Three Years Jailed With Men, Ashley Diamond Speaks

Just two weeks after she was released from Augusta State Medical Prison in Georgia, Ashley Diamond finally heard some good news from a federal judge. She would be allowed to pursue her legal claim that the Department of Corrections in Georgia unlawfully discriminated against her because she is a transgender woman, not only denying her medically necessary transition-related care but allegedly failing to protect her from repeated rapes and assaults while she spent three years incarcerated with men.

“It was torture. I might be free now, but I am still struggling,” Diamond says in a phone interview with The Advocate. “Straight out of solitary confinement, but into another confinement here on parole. Parole stipulates that I must stay here in Rome [Ga.], and this town can be like a prison too. Yes, it’s a town in the Deep South, and down here you feel it even more that the transgender issue is the civil rights issue of our time.” 

The latest development in Diamond’s case, which epitomizes the struggles of transgender inmates nationwide, arrived just days after that call, when U.S. District Judge Marc Thomas Treadwell denied the state’s motion to dismiss in Diamond v. Owens et. al on September 14. Treadwell’s decision, while not a final judgment, does pave the way for Diamond’s case to proceed to discovery and trial, according to a court filing provided to The Advocate by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Diamond, 37 and originally from Rome, was released from Augusta State Medical Prison August 31 after facing a harrowing three years of incarceration at various Georgia prisons, where, she alleges, she was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted, interned at men’s facilities despite her female gender identity, relocated after receiving threats, denied medically necessary health care, and subjected to pronounced, near-daily verbal harassment. 

Originally given an 11-year sentence for a conviction of nonviolent burglary and theft, Diamond explains that her parole could last eight years. Her hometown of Rome is the largest town on the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. But, she explains:

“It’s still a small town in the Deep South, a former cotton-port town that has never been right to black or trans people or anybody different. Being raised in the Deep South, I have enough experience with prejudice to know that it still exists. Rome feels a long way from Atlanta. If you can’t make it to a big city, then you’re spinning your wheels here, and trying to make an income is hard so you get into trouble just to try to make it, and now I am back here on parole.”

Diamond’s experience of feeling trapped in a small town in the Deep South resembles that of Alena Bradford, another low-to-no income black trans woman whose story of living in Albany, Ga., gained attention following a July 24 article in U.K. newspaper The Guardian. Transgender people, be they incarcerated or not, face profound obstacles in Southern states, where there are still few laws that protect them from discrimination in housing and employment, few statutes to address hate crimes, and few avenues to obtain affirming, competent health care, as the Human Rights Campaign’s interactive Maps of State Laws and Policies makes clear. 

Speaking to The Advocate, Diamond details the excruciating, multifaceted harm she experienced while continually denied hormone therapy, which she had been on for nearly two decades before she was incarcerated:

“When they denied me [hormone therapy] I felt more than anxiety attacks. I felt physical pain, pain from watching your body morph, withdrawing, and those are medical problems. There were times I felt like I would die, when guards dragged me on pavement to solitary [confinement].”

And Diamond’s struggle for humane, adequate care isn’t unique to trans women housed in Georgia’s correctional system. The Advocate continues to follow the case of Ky Peterson, a black trans man from rural Americus, Ga., who is serving a questionably timed sentence for killing his rapist, has been repeatedly denied access to his own medically necessary transition-related care, and was often placed in solitary confinement.  

Diamond’s early release marked a breakthrough in her struggle against the Georgia Department of Corrections, prison reform advocates noted. Although her claims of discrimination and violations of her Eighth Amendment rights got a helping hand from the Department of Justice in April when the federal agency issued a statement supporting her claims, her early release was nearly unprecedented. 

“According to Georgia’s State Board of Pardons and Paroles, it is rare for inmates to actually be granted parole at their initial eligibility date, and even less common for inmates to be released early, as is the case with Ms. Diamond, who was released several months before her initial eligibility date in November 2015,” explains Chinyere Ezie, an SPLC staff attorney who is representing Diamond. “This date changed inexplicably to July earlier this month.”

When asked if Diamond’s early parole might be considered a tacit acknowledgment by the Georgia Department of Corrections that it cannot adequately and safely house trans inmates, Ezie is straightforward.

“Although the department has made statements to the contrary, that is precisely what we believe,” Ezie says in an email exchange with The Advocate. “It hardly seems like a coincidence that Ashley’s release came days after we filed papers with the court highlighting the Georgia Department of Corrections’ continued failings and unwillingness to provide Ashley and other transgender inmates safe and appropriate housing or adequate medical care, as the Constitution requires.”

Now,Ezie expects to take full advantage of Judge Treadwell’s rejection of the state’s attempt to dismiss Diamond’s case, pressing on with the lawsuit vigorously. “SPLC’s advocacy on behalf of Ashley Diamond and transgender inmates like her is far from over,” Ezie promises The Advocate. “Our lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections is still ongoing, and we are monitoring the experiences of other transgender inmates currently incarcerated in Georgia, who woefully remain without care. Because the abuses we are seeing are pursuant to patterns or practices within the department, we have not ruled out seeking further intervention — both from the court and the Department of Justice.”

For her part, even while her movement is limited in her small Georgia hometown, Diamond is clear about her mission. “Why is this lawsuit important?” she asks rhetorically. “So what happened to me never happens again.”

Cleis Abeni

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/9/29/after-three-years-jailed-men-ashley-diamond-speaks

Find out about Cincinnati’s new LGBTI marketing push

 

The Cincinnatti USA Convention and Visitors Bureau is launching a new LGBTI marketing plan to attract more gay tourism to the Ohio city.

According to the Cincinnati Business Courier, the organization has hired David Ziegler, a former ticketing director of the Cincinnati Reds, as its new national sales manager.

Ziegler, who started his new role in January, will oversee the city’s attendance at three LGBTI market conferences, and its first ‘Love Wins Weekend.’

According to the publication, the CVB is also working with hotels in the region to make them TAG approved – meaning they meet certain LGBTI friendly criteria. So far, hotels such as the Westin Cincinnati, the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Center and the Cincinnatian have received the certification.

The CVB is also a member of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association.

The post Find out about Cincinnati’s new LGBTI marketing push appeared first on Gay Star News.

Jamie Tabberer

www.gaystarnews.com/article/find-out-about-cincinnatis-new-lgbti-marketing-push/

Don't Ask Matt Damon or Tom Hardy About Their Sexuality (Unless It Involves Their Wives)

Openly straight Matt Damon doesn’t think actors should talk about their sexuality. Meanwhile, Tom Hardy feels similarily, especially when the questions apply to him. 

During a round of press promoting Legend, Hardy’s new film in which he plays real-life gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, a reporter from an LGBT publication did the unthinkable — he asked Hardy if he found it difficult for celebrities to discuss their sexuality, obliquely referencing a 2008 interview in which Hardy said he had been intimate with men.

“What on earth are you on about?” Hardy snapped. “I don’t find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality. Are you asking about my sexuality? … Why?”

Hardy shut down the reporter and swiftly moved on to other questions. The exchange was uncomfortable and left many questions. So Hardy later explained why the question was off-putting.

“I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality — that’s nobody’s business but my own,” Hardy told The Daily Beast. “…It’s important destigmatizing sexuality and gender inequality in the workplace, but to put a man on the spot in a room full of people designed purely for a salacious reaction? To be quite frank, it’s rude. If he’d have said that to me in the street, I’d have said the same thing back: ‘I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?’”

It’s not incomprehensible that the reporter would ask about Hardy’s sexuality. After all, Hardy had said he had been intimate with people of the same gender (although he kind of took it back). Additionally, since one of the twins he plays in his latest film is portrayed as gay (some historians say both twins were in fact bisexual), it makes perfect sense that Hardy would be asked about his sexuality by someone writing from an LGBT publication. However, Hardy was having none of it. And that’s what’s truly off-putting.

Hardy responded as if he was asked a dark secret and the Internet wrongfully praised his response. There is nothing shameful about being LGBT, and by stating that the question is “rude,” Hardy is implying that sexual orientation, at least a nonheterosexual orientation, is something that should not be discussed. He’s implying that sexual orientation should remain hidden. Our sexual orientation is an integral part of who we are. Why is Hardy trying to hide it?

Few male celebs have opened up about being attracted to more than one gender. A few — like Alan Cumming — have proudly used the word “bisexual.” However, most of Hollywood’s leading men are, at least publicly, gay or straight. Few men are openly in between. Where are all the sexually fluid men in Hollywood?

Hardy never said he was heterosexual. He didn’t say it in the initial interview or in any of his follow-up comments He never fully took back his 2008 comments either. He just said that his past experiences as a young adult with people of the same gender shouldn’t be reflected over his current life choices.

Hardy may have experimented as a young adult and found that it wasn’t his thing. Or he could be bisexual and uncomfortable discussing his sexuality (especially since he’s currently married to a woman). Whatever the case may be — so what? Why can’t he discuss it openly? Is he uncomfortable discussing it? If so, why?

Sexuality is far from a private matter, even for ostensibly private people like Matt Damon, who often poses with his wife on red carpets. Heterosexuals are given spaces to publicly express their sexuality every day, from the rings on their fingers to holding hands in the street. Heterosexuality is prominently and fearlessly displayed, and queer sexualities should receive the same treatment. Straight men and women shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to have their sexuality be public.  

Asking Hardy a question on his sexuality — as opposed to his sex life — should not be offensive. But we seem to have a problem when things aren’t entirely gay or straight — or, in Damon’s case, not straight. When someone’s sexuality lands on the bisexual spectrum, almost all individuals fear saying too much.

It’s 2015, and men who have been with other men as well as women still have a nearly impossible time discussing it. There is an idea with heterosexual men that once you are intimate with a man, your attraction to women is no longer valid. Obviously, this idea is false and deeply rooted in biphobia. Men who have experimented with men should be able to talk about their sexuality as well as men who realize they’re attracted to both men and women.

Hardy admits he could have handled the situation better, by addressing the question head on. He could have answered that he’s straight, that he’ bi, or that his experimentation with men was just that — experimentation. Sexuality should never be subject that is avoided out of privacy, or worse, shame. Society will only accept sexually queer folk once celebrities like Hardy are forthcoming when asked questions about their orientation or people like Damon truly understand their privilege. But when people like Hardy deflect, it perpetuates the idea that being anything other than straight is in some way private and shameful.

Hardy messed up because there is only one wrong answer when asked about your sexual orientation: silence.

ELIEL CRUZ is a contributor to The Advocate on bisexuality. His work has also been found in Religion News Service, The Huffington Post, Mic, Sojourners, The Washington Post, Patheos, Everyday Feminism, Details, Rolling Stone, Vice, and Slate. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Eliel Cruz

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/9/29/dont-ask-matt-damon-or-tom-hardy-about-their-sexuality-unless-it-involves-their

Tunisia’s Justice Minister backs repeal of gay sex ban

A case where a 22-year-old student was sentenced to a year’s jail after his same-sex relationship was uncovered as part of a murder investigation has prompted Tunisian Justice Minister Mohamed Salah Ben Aissa to comment on the future of the country’s anti-sodomy law.

The unnamed student was arrested on 6 September in the resort city of Sousse after his number was found on the body of a man he had been sleeping with.

He denied any involvement in the killing but confessed his relationship with the deceased to explain his connection to him.

Authorities believed his story after subjecting him to a medical examination but handed him over to prosecutors as a result of his confession.

The case provoked outcry by human rights groups both inside and outside Tunisia including Human Rights Watch (HRW), prompting the group’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director Eric Goldstein to call out the Tunisian Government over the continued use of the law.

‘The Tunisian government should not be prosecuting people for private and consensual sexual acts,’ Goldstein said on Monday.

‘If Tunisia truly aspires to be a regional leader on human rights, it should lead the way in decriminalizing homosexual conduct.’

Goldstein also warned against the use of so-called medical tests to ‘prove’ a person’s homosexuality.

‘Medical professionals who participate in forced anal examinations of people suspected of homosexuality violate medical ethics and facilitate serious miscarriages of justice,’ Goldstein said.

Reacting on a non-state owned radio station, Justice Minister Mohamed Salah Ben Aissa addressed the issue, saying he was personally in favor of scrapping the law.

‘My problem is Article 230 … Nothing can justify infringement on private life,’ Ben Aissa said, according to reports.

Consensual sex acts between males in Tunisia can attract sentences of up to three years in prison.

The post Tunisia’s Justice Minister backs repeal of gay sex ban appeared first on Gay Star News.

Andrew Potts

www.gaystarnews.com/article/tunisias-justice-minister-backs-repeal-of-gay-sex-ban/

Meet The 2015 MacArthur Fellows

Once a year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announces its roster of MacArthur Fellows, a designation frequently referred to as the “Genius Grant.” The fellowship bestows upon its recipients a $625,000 prize, along with an accolade that manages to celebrate innovative minds across fields, from science to poetry to painting, and just about everything in between. 

This year, the list of MacArthur Fellows ranges from a celebrated writer to an environmental advocate to an inorganic chemist, varying in age from 33 to 72 years old. In total, there are 15 men and nine women represented. The recipients were aware of their award before the 12 a.m. announcement by the MacArthur Foundation this Tuesday. Nonetheless, the winners are celebrating publicly now that the news is out.

“These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways,” MacArthur President Julia Stasch explains on the MacArthur Foundation website. “Their work, their commitment, and their creativity inspire us all.”

The MacArthur Fellowship, founded in 1978, is given out annually to a group of high-achieving individuals in disciplines as diverse as dance, computer science and adaptive design. What was once a $50,000 award has since morphed into a six-figure prize. Past winners include author Cormac McCarthy, photographer Cindy Sherman and astrophysicist Joseph Taylor.

Check out a full-list of the 2015 Fellows below.

1. Patrick Awuah (Education Entrepreneur) 

The 50-year-old founder and president of Ashesi University College was chosen for his efforts in building a new model of higher education in his home country of Ghana. He was an engineer and program manager at Microsoft before he began the university in 2002.

2. Kartik Chandran (Environmental Engineer)

An associate professor in the Earth and Environmental Department of Columbia University, the 41-year-old New York native integrates microbial ecology, molecular biology and engineering to update the process of wastewater treatment.

3. Ta-Nehisis Coates (Journalist)

The MacArthur Foundation praised the 39-year-old national correspondent at The Atlantic in Washington, D.C., for bringing “personal reflection and historical scholarship to bear on America’s most contested issues,” namely through his longform essay titled “The Case for Reparations,” as well as his two books The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me.

4. Gary Cohen (Environmental Health Advocate)

The 59-year-old co-founder and president of Health Care Without Harm focuses on the environmental impact of American hospitals. The Virginia resident engages environmental scientists, medical professionals and institutions in discussions of sustainability and climate change as they are related to health care.

5. Matthew Desmond (Urban Sociologist)

The 35-year-old associate professor of sociology and social studies at Harvard University studies the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor. The Massachusetts-based creator of the Milwaukee Area Renters Study looks specifically at the low-income rental market in the largest city in Wisconsin, noting “that households headed by women are more likely to face eviction than men, resulting in deleterious long-term effects much like those caused by high rates of incarceration among low-income African American men.”

6. William Dichtel (Chemist)

A 37-year-old associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University in New York, he is celebrated for his work assembling molecules into high surface-area networks that are beneficial in the fields of electronics, optics and energy storage.

7. Michelle Dorrance (Tap Dancer and Choreographer)

The 36-year-old founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance in New York has been heralded for combining traditions from tap dance with the choreographic nuances of contemporary dance in works like “SOUNDspace,” “The Blues Project,” and “ETM: The Initial Approach.” 

8. Nicole Eisenman (Painter)

The 50-year-old painter from New York explores themes like gender and sexuality, family dynamics, and the inequalities of wealth and power in her narrative and rhetorical works that span from painting and sculpture to drawing and printmaking.

9. LaToya Ruby Frazier (Photographer and Video Artist)

The 33-year-old assistant professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago mixes self-portraiture with social narrative to construct visual autobiographies that emphasize the connection between her notions of “self” and “space.”

10. Ben Lerner (Writer)

A 36-year-old professor in the Department of English at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, Lerner’s work moves between fiction and nonfiction in an attempt to investigate the “relevance of art and the artist to modern culture.”

11. Mimi Lien (Set Designer)

The 39-year-old set designer from New York creates architecturally dramatic sets for theater, opera and dance, such as her full-scale Tsarist Russian salon in “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.”

12. Lin-Manuel Miranda (Playwright, Composer and Performer)

The 35-year-old playwright, composer and performer from New York has been honored for expanding the possibilities of musical theater for individuals and communities new to Broadway stages, particularly in his work “In The Heights,” which tells the story of an immigrant community losing its neighborhood to gentrification.

13. Dimitri Nakassis (Classicist)

An associate professor of in the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto, the 40-year-old classicist is transforming our understanding of prehistoric Greek societies, challenging the long-held view that Late Bronze Age Mycenaean palatial society (1400 to 1200 BC) was a highly centralized oligarchy, distinct from the democratic city-states of classical Greece.

14. John November (Computational Biologist)

The 37-year-old associate professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago is discovering news ways of viewing human evolutionary history, population structure and migration, and the etiology of genetic diseases.

15. Christopher Ré (Computer Scientist)

The 36-year-old assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University is “democratizing” big data analytics using his training in databases and expertise in machine learning to ultimately create an inference engine dubbed DeepDive.

16. Marina Rustow (Historian)

The 46-year-old professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in New Jersey is notable for her work using the Cairo Geniza texts to draw new conclusions about Jewish life in the medieval Middle East.

17. Juan Salgado (Community Leader)

The 46-year-old president and CEO of Instituto del Progreso Latina in Chicago is praised for his work helping low-income immigrants succeed in the workplace and participate in education programs that equip workers with the skills they need for higher-paying employment.

18. Beth Stevens (Neuroscientist)

The 45-year-old assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts studies microglial cells and the origins of adult neurological diseases.

19. Lorenz Studer (Stem Cell Biologist)

Studer is the 49-year-old director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York who’s credited with a breakthrough in dopaminergic neurons that could provide treatment for Parkinson’s disease, and possibly other neurodegenerative conditions.

20. Alex Truesdell (Adaptive Designer and Fabricator)

A 59-year-old executive director and founder of Adaptive Design Association, Inc., the New York resident creates low-tech and affordable tools that help children with disabilities in everyday activities in their homes, schools and communities.

21. Basil Twist (Puppetry Artist and Director)

The 46-year-old puppetry artist from New York is known for his 1998 production, “Symphonie Fantastique,” which consisted of an hour-long performance of feathers, glitter, plastics, vinyl, mirrors, slides, dyes, blacklight, overhead projections, air bubbles, and latex fishing lures.

22. Ellen Bryant Voigt (Poet)

 The 72-year-old poet from Virginia has published eight collections of poetry that challenge “will and fate and the life cycles of the natural world while exploring the expressive potential of both lyric and narrative elements.”

23. Heidi Williams (Economist)

The 34-year-old assistant professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focuses on the causes and effects of innovation within health care markets, revealing how the timing and nature of intellectual property restrictions can affect change in the field.

24. Peidong Yang (Inorganic Chemist)

The 44-year-old Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, specializes in semiconductor nanowires and their practical applications, such as in the conversion of waste heat into electricity.

 

Also on HuffPost:

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Matt Damon clarifies comments about gay actors on Ellen

Matt Damon has said his recent comments about gay actors were taken out of context.

The 44-year-old Martian star told Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show that he never said gay actors should stay in the closet.

‘I was just trying to say actors are more effective when they’re a mystery,’ he said. ‘And somebody picked it up and said I said gay actors should get back in the closet.

‘It’s stupid but it is painful when things get said that you don’t believe. And then it gets represented that that’s what you believe because in the blogosphere there’s no real penalty for just taking the ball and running with it. You’re just trying to get people to click onto your thing.’

The openly gay host then quipped: ‘It shocks me that you and Ben are not gay. But if you want to deny it and keep your mystery and your marriage and your daughters…’

Damon had told the Guardian that as an actor, ‘people shouldn’t know anything about your sexuality because that’s one of the mysteries that you should be able to play.’

He also cited Rupert Everett as an example of how coming out could hurt an actor’s career.

Watch a clip from the interview, which will air on Tuesday night, below:

The post Matt Damon clarifies comments about gay actors on Ellen appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/matt-damon-clarifies-comments-about-gay-actors-on-ellen/

John McNeill, Catholic Advocate for LGBT Rights, Dead at 90

John McNeill, a Roman Catholic theologian and priest who fought for acceptance of LGBT people in his church even though it resulted in his expulsion from the Jesuit order, has died at age 90.

McNeill died Tuesday while in hospice care in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., The New York Times reports. His death was announced by the LGBT Catholic group DignityUSA; he had helped found Dignity’s New York chapter in 1972.

He authored the 1976 book The Church and the Homosexual, in which “he argued that a stable, loving same-sex relationship was just as moral, and just as godly, as a heterosexual one and should be acknowledged as such by church leaders,” the Times reports. The Vatican initially gave its stamp of approval to the book but soon withdrew it, as McNeill had come out as gay on national TV and become widely known as a gay rights activist.

McNeill came out in an interview with Tom Brokaw in 1976 on the Today show. “He’s the first priest to come out on national television,” Brendan Fay, who made a 2011 documentary film about McNeill, Taking a Chance on God, told the Times.

At the time, McNeill described himself as celibate, in keeping with his priestly vows, but he was actually living with Charles Chiarelli, his partner since 1965, the paper notes.

McNeill had been ministering to gay and lesbian Catholics and advocating for gay rights since the early 1970s, but with his increasing fame, in 1977 the Vatican ordered him “not to speak or write publicly on the subject,” the Times reports. He complied, although he privately continued his ministry to gays and lesbians.

In the 1980s, motivated by the AIDS epidemic and an increasingly hard-line antigay stance from the Vatican, he decided he had to speak out. He publicly condemned a 1986 Vatican document that called homosexuality “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a high-ranking Vatican official who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, “responded by ordering him to keep silent on the subject, and to cease his pastoral work with gays and lesbians, or risk expulsion from his order,” as the Times puts it.

McNeill opted for expulsion from the Jesuits, the order in which he had been ordained a priest in 1959. He technically remained a priest but could perform few duties related to the position. He devoted himself to a psychotherapy practice focused on LGBT clients, along with activism, teaching, and writing. In 1987, the year of his expulsion, he was grand marshal of New York City’s Pride parade.

Many LGBT rights advocates praised McNeill’s efforts. “It is not an overstatement to say that any of the pastoral, political, theological, and practical advances that LGBT Catholics have made in recent years could only have been brought about because of John’s groundbreaking work,” Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, told the National Catholic Reporter.

“John was really the first major prophet of the Catholic LGBT movement,” noted a statement from DignityUSA executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke. “Every DignityUSA president has consulted him for insights into the emerging issues of the Catholic LGBT community. His groundbreaking bravery in daring to question official church doctrine was truly liberating to so many people.”

“He was a gay man who was a Jesuit priest — and being a gay man who is a Jesuit priest, by the way, is not an unusual thing,” Mary E. Hunt, a Catholic feminist theologian and friend of McNeill’s, told the Times. “The difference is that John McNeill was honest, and he was honest early. And being honest early meant that he paid a large price.”

McNeill was motivated to go into the priesthood partly because of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany in World War II — starving, he was furtively given food by a fellow captive who made the sign of the cross. He continued to consider himself a priest until the end of his life. During his final hospital stay, he asked that a sign be posted on the door of his room reading, “I am a Catholic priest.”

He is survived by Chiarelli, whom he married in 2008 in Toronto, and several nieces and nephews. His family has established a memorial fund to preserve his writings for use by scholars and activists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/religion/2015/9/28/john-mcneill-catholic-advocate-lgbt-rights-dead-90

Mugabe shocks UN: ‘We are not gays’

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe shocked the UN General Assembly on Monday (28 September) when he announced he and his countrymen ‘are not gays.’

The 91-year-old, who once said LGBTI people are ‘worse than dogs and pigs,’ used his evening address as an opportunity to rant against ‘new rights.’

‘Respecting and upholding human rights is the obligation of all states and is enshrined in the United Nations charter,’ he told world leaders in New York, including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

‘Nowhere does the charter abrogate the right of some to sit in judgment over others.’

Mugabe continued: ‘In that regard, we reject the politicization of this important issue and the application of double standards to victimize those who dare think and act independently of the self-anointed prefects of our time.

‘We equally reject attempts to prescribe “new rights” that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions, and beliefs.’

‘We are not gays,’ he then said matter of factly to a mixture of gasps, laughter and applause.

‘Cooperation and respect for each other will advance the cause of human rights worldwide. Confrontation, vilification and double-standards will not.’

Gay sex is illegal in Zimbabwe and laws passed in 2006 criminalize any actions perceived as homosexual – it is a criminal offense for two people of the same sex to hold hands, hug, or kiss in the African country.

Mugabe’s comments a day after the Saudi foreign minister told the UN his country had the right not to follow any ‘deviations’ in its definition of sex and family.

Watch the speech below:

The post Mugabe shocks UN: ‘We are not gays’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/mugabe-shocks-un-we-are-not-gays/

Obama Tells LGBTs at New York Fundraiser: ‘Religious Freedom Is No Excuse’

President Obama took off the gloves as he addressed LGBT attendees at a Democratic Party fundraiser Sunday.

“We need to reject politicians who are supporting new forms of discrimination as a way to scare up votes,” Obama said. He was introduced at Gotham Hall by Jim Obergefell, a plaintiff in the case that the Supreme Court narrowly decided June 26, establishing marriage equality throughout the U.S. 

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Democrats have long been a major source of political and financial support, and the president wasn’t shy about acknowledging that support and touting his accomplishments over one and a half terms.

“We live in an America where ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is something that ‘don’t exist,’” Obama said to a huge round of applause, with audience members recognizing the 2011 repeal of the ban on gays, lesbians, and bisexuals serving openly in the armed forces. 

“We’ve come a long way in changing hearts and minds so that trans men and women can be who they are — not just on magazine covers, but in workplaces and schools and communities,” said the president to cheers from the crowd.

“We live in an America where all of us — LGBT or not — are protected by a hate-crimes law that bears Matthew Shepard’s name. We live in an America where a growing share of older generations recognize that love is love, and younger generations don’t even know what all the fuss was about. And tonight, thanks to the unbending sense of justice passed down through generations of citizens who never gave up hope that we could bring this country closer to our founding ideals — that all of us are created equal — we now live in America where our marriages are equal as well.”

As the crowd frequently interrupted Obama with applause, cheers, and standing ovations, he also said it’s important to recognize that some Americans remain opposed to what he called the “world-wind” shift in values. “With change, with any progress, comes some unease. And as Americans, I think we have to acknowledge that. I think that it’s important for us to recognize that there are still parts of the country that are getting there, but it’s going to take some time.”

Yet in acknowledging that as Americans, “we cherish our religious freedom and are profoundly respectful of religious traditions,” Obama said that right must not be used to deny the constitutional rights of others.

“Even as we are respectful and accommodating genuine concerns and interests of religious institutions, we need to reject politicians who are supporting new forms of discrimination as a way to scare up votes. That’s not how we move America forward,” said Obama in a clear reference to several Republican presidential candidates.

“In their world, everything was terrific back in 2008, when we were in the midst of a spiral into the worst financial crisis and economic crisis since the Great Depression, when unemployment and uninsured rates were rising and when our economy was shedding jobs each month, and we were mired in two wars, hopelessly addicted to foreign oil, and bin Laden was still at large. Those were the golden years, apparently. And then, I came in and messed it all up.”

The president did concede there was still some division within his own party, saying, “I think we’re right on most policy issues,” and that the Democrats have not always been on the right side of history. 

“There have been times where the Democratic Party stood in the way of progress. And there have been times where Republicans, like Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen, stood on the right side of change.”

He made the point that federal contractors can no longer fire employees just for being gay, but he made no mention of the proposed Equality Act, which is stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. 

Obama also called for support of efforts to ban the use of so-called conversion therapy on minors. And he made a strong plea for those in attendance to act on what he called their “unique obligation” to stand up against bigotry in all its forms: 

“We speak up to condemn hatred against anybody — gay or straight, black or white, Christian, Muslim, Jew, nonbeliever, immigrant, because we remember what silence felt like when hatred was directed at us, and we’ve got to be champions on behalf of justice for everybody, not just our own.”

Dawn Ennis

www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/9/28/obama-tells-lgbts-new-york-fundraiser-religious-freedom-no-excuse