Archive for the 'News Reports' Category

Two Topics

August 29, 2005 | News Reports

Supreme Court Will Consider Parental Rights for Former Lesbian Couple

This is notable primarily because it’s in Utah. However it also points out that lesbians can be just as hasty as straight people when it comes to rushing into things.

Gays Disappear From Network TV

Unfortunately this isn’t particularly enlightening as there are no titles or characters named, but the numbers are interesting.

British Observation List

August 24, 2005 | News Reports

Interesting admission: Britain’s Royal Air Force kept records on suspected lesbians during the 20th century. Radclyffe Hall, the famous author of The Well of Loneliness, was one of the earlier targets; in 1920 she was nearly charged with “obscene libel and corruption of minors.” The record-keeping continued all the way through to the 1990s.

Lesbians in Nepal

August 16, 2005 | News Reports

If anybody thinks life is tough for lesbians in the United States or western Europe, they should try checking out the lesbians of Nepal. Many regions and religions vilify sex between men but leave lesbianism untouched or uncondemned. In Nepal, though, society considers women to be unnatural and sick, forcing many to marry men and keep their true feelings secret. The Blue Diamond Society, a gay rights organization in that country, has started a lesbian support group. Hopefully increased recognition of same-sex relationships will slowly lead to increased tolerance.

International News

August 14, 2005 | News Reports

A couple of articles from around the world:

• Japanese Legislator Comes Out At Gay Pride - Kanako Otsuji’s announcement that she is a lesbian came after she heard the stories of hardships faced by closeted Japanese.
• Lesbian couple in bid for recognition - The British couple obtained a marriage license in Canada and they are seeking acceptance of it in the UK.
• Rally for gay marriage action - Activists across Australia protested the 2004 amendment to the country’s Marriage Act, which outlawed same-sex marriages and established that no foreign same-sex marriages could be recognized.

More on Cherokees

August 12, 2005 | News Reports

Okay, so, the news may not be so good for gay members of the Cherokee Nation after all.

Native American Marriage

August 8, 2005 | News Reports

This is a front I wasn’t aware of in the struggle for same-sex marriage in the United States - apparently Native American tribes (or at least some of them) have sovereignty, and thus the authority to grant or deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples if it so chooses. In Oklahoma, a Cherokee Nation court decided to reject an opponent’s appeal and ruled that a lesbian couple’s marriage certificate would remain valid. Normally, Oklahoma does not recognize same-sex marriage licenses from other states, but they are supposed to accept all Cherokee licenses. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Perception of Lesbianism in Korea

August 5, 2005 | News Reports

The social status of gays and lesbians varies widely around the world, but in South Korea ignorance about lesbians is alive and well. A television report claimed that lesbianism has only emerged in the past five years, despite historical evidence of homosexuality dating back to the thirteenth century in Korean literature. Although there is a Lesbian Counseling Center there, it seems the general public is misinformed about homosexuality through television reports like these. The Korean courts have not outlawed gays perhaps because they simply refuse to hear about it. More information on the situation is at Gay Korea and East Garden: South Korea.

Gay Blood Donations

August 2, 2005 | News Reports

Currently, gay men are banned from donating blood in a number of countries, including the United States. These bans date back to the early years of the AIDS crisis - they were established in 1985 in the United Statees - but they are now widely considered to be discriminatory. The prime minister of Sweden has now called to end the ban in his country, and a man in Tasmania has raised the issue in Australia. A search in Google for gay donate blood turns up a whole lot of results about the bans and the efforts to stop them.

As gay women, should we donate blood? Do we support our nation’s blood banks, or do we stand beside gay men and boycott donating? It’s not an easy question.

Queer Jews in Brazil

August 1, 2005 | News Reports

The next time I feel like I’m in the minority, I’m going to remember the queer Jews of Brazil. There is an article called In Brazil, gay and lesbian Jews struggle for Jewish acceptance from the JTA, a Jewish news service. Gays and lesbians in many parts of Brazil are free to be out - Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo both had gay pride festivities this year - but gay Jews are definitely in the minority; the only gay Jewish group in the country, JGBR, has just over 300 members.

Bias in Lesbian Fertility Case

July 28, 2005 | News Reports

A woman in San Diego received 11 months of fertility treatment but was denied insemination because she is a lesbian. The two doctors involved cited personal religious beliefs as the reason, and the California Medical Association has appealed a lawsuit on behalf of the doctors (who had originally lost the case). Here is a quote from the article:

The law seems quite clear that a sincere religious belief does not exempt you from otherwise applicable civil rights laws. Medical ethics are clear that it is improper to refuse care based on medically irrelevant personal characteristics of the patient.

And yet pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense the morning after pill based on their religious beliefs. What’s with that?