Anti-Gay Law In Indonesia's Aceh Province Forces LGBT People Into Hiding

By Gayatri Suroyo and Charlotte Greenfield
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia/JAKARTA, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Overwhelmed by fear, members of the main gay rights group in the Indonesian town of Banda Aceh started burning piles of documents outside their headquarters in late October, worried that the sharia police would raid them at any moment.
Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh had weeks earlier passed an anti-homosexuality law that punishes anyone caught having gay sex with 100 lashes. Amnesty International criticized it, saying it would add to a climate of homophobia and fear.
“We are more afraid, of course,” said a 31-year-old transgender person who, along with three other members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group, Violet Grey, burned the pamphlets, group records and other papers.
“As an institution, Violet Grey went as far as removing all documents related to LGBT. We burned them all,” said the group member, who declined to be identified out of fear of being arrested.
The province’s tight-knit gay community, estimated by some at about 1,000 people, has become increasingly marginalized since Aceh was allowed to adopt Islamic sharia law as its legal code.
Aceh was granted special regional autonomy as part of a 2005 peace agreement ending a three-decade old separatist insurgency.
After the anti-homosexuality law was passed in September, Violet Grey began warning its 47 members to keep a lower profile and for gay and transgender people to avoid going out together as couples in public.
No one has been arrested under the law, which Aceh officials say will not be enforced until the end of 2015 to allow residents time to prepare for it. But this has not eased the fear in the gay community.
Even before the law, life was not easy for gay people in the most religiously conservative part of Indonesia, the north of Sumatra island where Islam first arrived in the archipelago.
The gay community is a target of regular harassment from sharia police and residents. Transgender people are particularly vulnerable because of the difficulty of concealing themselves in public.
In 2011, a transgender make-up artist was stabbed to death in Banda Aceh after she held up a stick in response to a man’s taunts.

OTHER PROVINCES TO FOLLOW?
Aceh authorities defend the law, saying it does not violate human rights because gay people are free to live together but just can not have sex.
The law also sets out punishment for various acts apart from gay sex including unmarried people engaging in displays of affection, adultery and underage sex.
“It is forbidden because in the sharia context, the act is vile,” Syahrizal Abbas, the head of Aceh’s sharia department, which drew up the law, told Reuters.
“It brings unhealthy psychological impact to human development, and it will affect the community.”
Outside Aceh, Indonesia is generally tolerant of gay people, particularly in urban areas like Jakarta.
Engaging in homosexual acts is not a crime under Indonesia’s national criminal code but remains taboo in many conservative parts of the country, which has the world’s largest Muslim population.
Gay rights groups fear other conservative provinces, such as South Sumatra and East Java could follow Aceh’s lead if Indonesia’s new president, Joko Widodo, does not step in and overturn the law.
Widodo’s administration is reviewing the law to see whether it violates human rights but it can only request changes and cannot overturn it, said Teguh Setyabudi, the home ministry’s head of regional autonomy.
The Violet Grey member hopes the law will eventually be overturned so she can walk home without watching her back in fear.
“Being like this is our fate, not a choice,” she said.
“What makes people wearing a jilbab and peci feel so righteous that they can condemn other people as sinful?” she asked, referring to a woman’s veil and a traditional Muslim cap worn by men.
(Additional reporting by Reza Munawir in Banda Aceh; Editing by Randy Fabi and Robert Birsel)

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/28/indonesia-aceh-anti-gay-law_n_6385720.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Michael Sam Discusses Coming Out In Documentary
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Michael Sam says in a TV documentary airing Saturday night that coming out as gay was the right thing to do.

The Oprah Winfrey Network said in a release that the 90-minute program followed by a one-on-one with Winfrey and Sam was the player’s first TV appearance since being cut by the Dallas Cowboys in mid-October. After one day of filming last spring, the Rams pulled the plug on the network’s plans for a Sam documentary during training camp. In a transcript released by the network, Sam called the NFL draft “the longest three days of my life.” The St. Louis Rams drafted Sam late in the seventh round.

Sam said the reassuring hand of his boyfriend, Vito, on his shoulder during the wait to get picked affirmed the decision last February to reveal his sexual orientation. Sam, a defensive end who was the SEC co-defensive player of the year.

“In that moment, I was like ‘I don’t care what happens. I made the right choice to come out,'” Sam said.

In a voiceover promo for the show, Winfrey questions whether Sam got a fair shot. Sam kissed his boyfriend as a national television audience looked on.

“Some say the kiss, the cake, it was all just too much,” Winfrey said. “Some say he wasn’t good enough. Others say he should have never come out.”

The Rams made Sam, the co-defensive player of the year at Missouri, the 249th overall pick out of 256 in the draft. He was among 21 players waived by the team to reach the 53-player limit before the season opener.

Echoing his remarks after drafting Sam with the 249th overall pick out of 256, coach Jeff Fisher said several times it was purely a football decision. The Rams were well-stocked with pass rushers, and undrafted Ethan Westbrooks grabbed the final defensive end spot.

“I will tell you this: I was pulling for Mike,” Fisher said then. “I really was, and I don’t say that very often. Mike came in here and did everything we asked him to do.”

On Twitter, roughly an hour after he was cut, Sam thanked the Rams and the city of St. Louis. He also wrote “The most worthwhile things in life rarely come easy, this is a lesson I’ve always known. The journey continues.”

Sam spent seven weeks on the Cowboys’ practice squad before being released and is a free agent.

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AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/27/michael-sam-coming-out_n_6385390.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices