As homophobic violence has intensified across the Middle East over the last two to three years, we have been hearing of increasing numbers of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender refugees and asylum seekers. This week, Gays.com kicks off a series of interviews with the founders of three non-governmental organisations that work specifically with LGBT refugees. We hope to shine the spotlight on some of the people that are working on the front line in this arena and help them gain support from within the community for the very important work that they do. First on the hot seat is Neil Grungras, founder and executive director of the San Francisco-based Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration (ORAM), which was mentioned a while ago on this blog.
Hi there! Thanks for taking your time off for this interview. First off, could you tell us a little something about yourself?
Pleasure to meet you! I’m an attorney-activist. Iwent to law school in San Franciscoover twenty years ago and immediately became interested in refugee law. At the same time, I became a grass-roots activist on LGBTI issues. From 1990 until 2000, Iran a private immigration law practice here in San Francisco where I represented several gay asylum applicants. I then took a position as a country director at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), one of the most venerable migration organizations in the world. I later became director for Europe & the Middle East at that organization and also ran a large facility for US-bound refugees in Vienna, Austria under the US State Department.
LGBTIand refugee rights have been lifelong passions for me. Working in both fields together is a kind of professional “nirvana.”
What inspired you to set up ORAM? When was this?
I’veknown thousands of refugees. Many have been terribly desperate and needy. But none like sexual and gender minorities have been so systematically shunned and persecuted in so many ways andin so manyparts of the world. None are so reviled in so many societies. Few like LGBTIs have to runfrom their own families. And none have been ignored by the international community the way LGBTI refugees have.If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, as they say. Several years ago, I began to actively incorporate LGBTI refugees into the client pool that I served at HIAS, my previous employer. The process that began five years ago culminated in my founding ORAM in June 2008.
What have you guys done so far? Any pet project that you’re most proud of that you’d like to share with us?
Our approach includes parallel tracks of client representation, advocacy and education. We’ve had enormous successin each of these three areas. On the representation front, we established the first project in the world dedicated to assisting LGBTI refugees abroad in partnership with Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Istanbul. Each LGBTI refugee in Turkeywho seeks our help receives it absolutely free. We’re now assisting 40 clients there.On the advocacy front, we’ve made inroads on severalinternational and domestic arenas, working to assure LGBTI refugees of the protection they deserve. In our education efforts, we’ve reached out to a host of academic, corporate, social, spiritual and other institutions and individuals, spreading the message that the international community can no longer ignore the plight of LGBTI refugees.
Of course, nothing can replace the exhilaration of saving a human life. Among our clients, there are a few I have a feeling would just not have made it without our help. Saving human lives will always be our greatest accomplishment.
What are your immediate plans for the year 2010?
2010 will be a watershed year for ORAM and for LGBTI refugees.We will expand our information network, reaching many more LBGTI refugees worldwide. We’ll also widen and deepen our education and advocacy efforts, with a goal of increasing awareness of the issues and admitting more LGBTI refugees to the US and other friendly countries. In 2010, ORAM will also build on its relationship with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, augmenting protection for those we serve. Lastly, we’re launching an enormously important international survey of assistance NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to identify and to begin to address the gaping hole in international protection of LGBTI refugees.
But our work with individual refugees will remain central to our mission. In 2010, our refugee clients will begin to arrive in the US, Canada and elsewhere. We must ensure their successful reception and integration in their new homes.
A number of organisations dedicated to helping LGBT refugees have sprung up over the past year. What distinguishes you from the rest?
Our central goal is to mainstream protection of LGBTI refugees among assistance organizations. It’s a wonderful thing that more of our colleagues are including LGBTI asylum seekers in their client pools. But we’re a very long way away from reaching our goal. Most of the organizations you’re describing assist only LGBTI refugees who have alreadyentered a safe country like the US. Yet 95 percent of LGBTI refugees can’t get into a safe country in the first place. They’re trapped in decrepit camps and in remote towns and cities mostly in the developing world, afraid for their lives and safety every day. Helping these refugees is inordinately difficult and sometimes dangerous. So far, ORAM is the only organization which has said to these refugees, “We dedicate all our efforts to you.” Not despite the difficulties of doing that, but because of them.
We need more organizations to step up to the plate – to work toward the day when every refugee organization will include LGBTI refugees in its agenda.
What can concerned individuals do to help?
Fabled anthropologist Margaret Mead taught us to “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” You are one of those citizens. You can join our “Adopt-a-Refugee” program, reaching out to personally help an individual. While they’re waiting in a hostile environment to be legally recognized or resettled somewhere safe, or once they’restruggling to startover in their new country. You can work with us to organize a group of committed citizens to help LGBTI refugees in your community or you can help conduct advocacy and education. Lastly, because we’re a nonprofit, we rely on you for your donation. Please give in whatever way you can to ORAM so that we can continue and expand our life-saving work.
How have you been raising funds?
We’ve been very fortunate to receive a few generous grants from wonderful supporters,including the Arcus Foundation. We’ve also received donations from individual “angels.” These are not just LGBTI people, I’d like to add. As more people have come to know our work, more have understood that it’s purely about human rights.
But members of the community in particular understand that no matter how difficult economic times are here in the US, we must attend to the life-and-death struggles of our sisters and brothers worldwide. People are giving what they can, whether through direct donations to ORAM or through our “Adopt-a-Refugee” program. We accept all forms of donations, including online through PayPal.
Given that the nature of your work has to be mostly underground, what systems are in place to assure your donors/supporters of fiscal accountability?
ORAM is a non-profit organization registered with the US Internal Revenue Service. All our financial activities are recorded and reported in accordance with the law. True, our work has some “sensitive” aspects which we don’t advertise. But our financial records are an open book.
Anything else you’d like to tell the world to know?
We’re a worldwide family, and it’s time to begin acting like one. That means not only sharing good timeswith our sisters and brothers abroad, but also taking up their struggle to survive. Our motto,“None of us is safe until we’re all safe,” isn’t merely a platitude. It’s afact. Please stand with us today!
From NFB.ca: “This provocative documentary uncovers a lost chapter in Canadian military history: how the Armed Forces dealt with homosexual behaviour among soldiers, during and after World War II. More than 60 years later, a group of five veterans, barely adults when they enlisted, break the silence to talk about how homosexual behaviour “was even more unmentionable than cancer.” Yet amidst the brutality of war, instances of sexual awakening among soldiers and officers were occuring. Initially, the Army overlooked it, but as the war advanced, they began to crack down: military tribunals, threats of imprisonment, discharge and public exposure. After the war, officers accused of homosexuality were discharged. Back home in Canada, reputations and careers were ruined. For the young men who had served their country with valour, this final chapter was often too much to bear. Based on the book Courting Homosexuals in the Military by Paul Jackson.”
Check out the 11,000 Gays.com members in Canada [login required].
In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised to get Congress and the US military to finally repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve, without hiding their sexuality. Watch the cool reaction of top military honchos as people around them cheer the announcement.
Since Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni began to distance himself from a bill proposing execution for some gay people, the virulently anti-gay pastor and self-proclaimed human rights activist Martin Ssempa (some of you will remember him from our Uganda Hall of Shame) has been pulling out all the stops. See, for instance, his latest appearance in a talk show on Ugandan state-owned channel UBC where he goes on and on with his very graphic descriptions of rimming and fisting (which supposedly all gay people engage in) and the lie that homosexuality can be “spread around”. The show ends with Ssempa trying to cast out the “demons of unbelief” from the host Charles Musana when he was asked what he would do if the bill did not go through. After this talkshow, Ssempa went on to further plumb the depths of infamy by showing his audience a slideshow of scat porn in a press conference for local and foreign journalists where he was going to announce his plan to mobilise a million Ugandans to march in support of the Kill-the-Gays bill. If there really is a hell, we hope a special place is reserved there for this wanker.
This is hot off the press: Police in the Chinese capital of Beijing have forced a shutdown of the much-anticipated Mr Gay China pageant. AP breaks the news:
Organizers of China first gay pageant say police forced them to cancel the event just one hour before it was to start.
Event organizer Ben Zhang said Friday he was told by police that the event could not take place because he had not applied to stage the event “according to procedures.”
The Mr. Gay China pageant, featuring a fashion show and a host in drag, was set to take place in an upscale nightclub in Beijing.
Zhang had said he hoped it would mark another step toward greater awareness of homosexuals in a country where gays are frequently discriminated against and ostracized. Eight men were set to compete for the title and a spot in the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant, to be held next month in Oslo, Norway.
Awww shucks! Check out what we missed in the report below by Tania Brannigan of The Guardian:
You may have read about what is said to be China’s first public gay wedding, but you probably haven’t seen the pictures! We’ve found some for you! China Daily, the English-language mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, writes in a report on its FRONT page:
Zeng Anquan and Pan Wenjie married only 10 days ago but their honeymoon has been a long ordeal.
Ever since the gay couple made their relationship public in November and had a wedding ceremony on Jan 3, they have been the subject of revilement from family and friends.
“All the capital in my company has been frozen by my younger brother,” Zeng said in a dimly-it teahouse in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
“My sister warned me she would never call me her brother unless I break up with Pan; and I have answered hundreds of phone calls from friends and relatives, who say they feel ashamed of me.
“But we are deeply in love and will never desert each other,” Zeng, 45, told China Daily in an interview.
Same-sex marriages are not recognized in the country, and it is claimed that the Zeng-Pan wedding ceremony is the first such public event in the country. [read more]
This is the second known time that a gay story has found its way to the front page of the China Daily (the first report was one about the inaugural Shanghai Pride which happened mid last year). The very first Mr Gay China pageant will be held tomorrow evening in Beijing. More on that later, but check out these pics and tell us what you think! Follow the jump for more pictures: Read the rest of this entry »
Over the new year’s, our team has been hard at work to introduce a few new features that will help make it easier for you to find groups that meet your interests and like-minded people that will join the groups you have started.
Chief among the slew of changes we’ve introduced this time — you’re now able to invite people to join groups that you’ve started or joined! Now you can help the groups that you support to grow faster than ever before by inviting your friends! You will find this feature on the top right hand corner of each group page:
Group owners, you are now able to tag your groups with keywords related to your group, so remember to do that because doing so will help potential members to find you a lot easier! If you haven’t already done so when creating your group, you can always do that by clicking on “Edit Group” later on:
Groups that are tagged will show up under “Suggested Groups” for members with the same interests
You can now also follow discussionsthat you are interested in. By participating in any discussion, you will also be automatically following that discussion. This means that any time there is an update in the thread, you will receive a notification in your LiveFeed. Of course, at any time, you will be able to manually unfollow the discussion should you wish to do so.
Phew that was quite a whole load of changes, wasn’t it? Tell us what you think in the comment section below or feel free to ask a question in our Gays.com Support group (login required)! We’re looking forward to hear what you have to say!
Zenit.org has published the full English-language address that Pope Benedict XVI delivered in writing upon receiving the new ambassador from Uganda to the Holy See, Francis K. Butagira. The address is full of empty-sounding niceties and invocation of God’s blessings upon the people of Uganda, but the Pope’s silence on the Kill-the-Gays Bill is DEAFENING. The address draws attention to Uganda’s “steady economic growth”, “provision of clean drinking water for all”, its “struggle against corruption”, and the “campaign of violence in the north of the country has devastated large areas”. Unfortunately, nothing in the 690-word address mentions the violence of Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill which will subject LGBT Ugandans to a minimum sentence of life imprisonment, plus a death sentence if they are found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality”.
We take umbrage with this particular line in the Pope’s address to the ambassador:
Likewise the climate of freedom and respect in your nation towards the Catholic Church has allowed her to be faithful to her proper mission.
This statement, now touted in the Ugandan press as the Pope’s commendation of Uganda, is a slap in the face to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens of Uganda!
Last week, the Vatican’s legal attaché, the Reverend Philip J Bene, told the press that the Pope is opposed to ‘unjust discrimination’ against gay men and lesbians. We think he must have been mistaken because if that were true, we saw ZERO evidence of it in the above-mentioned address. The Pope had an excellent opportunity to register his disapproval of Uganda’s Kill-the-Gays Bill, and he chose NOT to use it.
If and when the bill comes to pass, the Pope will have blood on his hands. Maybe we should have put him up on our Hall of Shame after all?
Our stomachs have been churning over the last few weeks over Uganda’s absolutely revolting proposed anti-homosexuality bill. If you still haven’t heard of it, you must be living in a cave somewhere. Under the new bill, anyone convicted of having gay sex will be subject to the minimum punishment of life imprisonment. If the accused is HIV positive, or a “person of authority” over the other partner, or if the “victim” is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty. Not only that, members of the public will be obliged to report any “homosexual activity” to police within 24 hours or risk three years in jail! And as if that were not enough, any Ugandan breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests!
If the law comes to pass, the list of people that follows will have blood on their hands. This Hall of Shame that we have put together is by no means exhaustive and if you think there’s anyone else that deserves to be on this list, we want to hear from you.
David Bahati, the Ugandan Member of Parliament (belonging to the ruling National Resistance Movement) who introduced the kill-the-gays bill, tops our list. He is a “born-again Christian” (here in italics because we believe him to be anything but Christian) who is said to have ties to The Family — a shadowy, secretive fundamentalist Christian organisation consisting of high ranking U.S. government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid organisations, as well as non-U.S. leaders and ambassadors. Bahati has gone on record in the Ugandan press describing his bill as a “nice piece of legislation” which “aims at holding the integrity of Ugandans high in the sky”. Homosexuality, according to him, is not a human right, but a “creeping evil” that threatens to undermine the moral fabric of Uganda. Yoweri Museveni, the dictator president of Uganda who has been in power since 1986, has backed the proposed bill, warning youths in Kampala that he had heard that “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa”. “We used to have very few homosexuals traditionally. They were not persecuted but were not encouraged either because it was clear that is not how God arranged things to be,” says Museveni. As much as Museveni would like us to think of him as Christian, the truth is that he is a vicious blood-thirsty warmonger, whose decision to invade and occupy Congo in the Second Congo War has resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998. And oh, did we forget to mention? Museveni has been described as The Family’s “key man in Africa”.
James Buturo, Minister of Ethics and Integrity (yes that’s a real title), is yet another “born-again Christian” associated with The Family (boy, are you beginning to see the pattern yet?) in the top echelons of power in Uganda, who oversees everything related to morality in the nation. Buturo has said he views the bill with “joy” because it will “provide leadership around the world”. Apart from promising to “find out which foreign organizations are funding the homosexuals in the country”, Buturo has also vowed to publish the names of sex workers in newspapers, on the internet and on television and to ban women aged 60 years and under from wearing miniskirts because, you know, the “mini-skirt can cause an accident when you are sitting with a woman in a car. Men while driving gaze out when they see these women and this causes accidents”. We wonder if that means women above 60 can start putting on their miniskirts in Uganda?
Martin Ssempa (screenshot above taken from his website) is the pastor of the Makerere Community Church in Kampala who claims to be on the frontline of Uganda’s battle against AIDS. His message? Abstinence is the only way to fight the disease. Ssempa has close ties to the First Lady of Uganda, Janet Museveni, and some of his public stunts have included a 2007 rally against “homosexual agents and activists” who he said were “infiltrating Uganda”, burning condoms in the name of Jesus and listing the names of Ugandan LGBT activists, contact details and addresses on a website, denouncing them as “homosexual promoters”. Martin Ssempa has close ties to conservative Christian leaders in the US and has been invited several times to Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church to speak on the AIDS issue. Rick Warren has now severed all ties as controversy over Ssempa grew.
Red Pepper is a daily tabloid in Uganda that is known for its sensationalist reporting of scandals and frequent nudity. In April this year, the paper published a list of Uganda’s “top homosexuals”, giving details of their names, where they live and their physical appearance (click above image to enlarge). It described the article as “a killer dossier … that largely exposes Uganda’s shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the western evils to our dear and sacred society.” This would not be the first time the tabloid has done something like this. In August 2006, it published its infamous “Homo Terror” article which sought to ‘name and shame’ 45 homosexual men in the country. The next month, it published a list of 13 “notorious lesbians”. The Red Pepper’s reporting has led to increasingly vigilante campaigns which have resulted in people being arrested, tortured, fired, and driven into hiding and exile. Ben Byarabaha, editor of the tabloid, has shown no regret for the paper’s stories and has vowed to continue on its campaign to expose homosexuals.
Stephen Langa is the director of the conservative Family Life Network which put together an anti-gay conference in March which featured three American ex-gay / anti-gay activists: Exodus board member Don Schmierer, Scott Lively, author of the ridiculous book The Pink Swastika, and Caleb Lee Brundidge, the right-hand man of Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation which claims to be able to turn gay people straight. Backed by the American ex-gay “experts”, Langa was able to influence Ugandan parlamentarians to strengthen Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexuality law, culminating in the introduction of the latest bill. The above video shows the fearmongering of gay people that goes on in Langa’s conferences. In it, he reads A Gay Revolutionary, a 1987 satire written by “Michael Swift” (a pseudonym), as though it were a real manifesto of gay activists. This essay has been regularly taken out of context by anti-gay activists as proof that there is a “hidden gay agenda”.
Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi wields great power in Uganda as the leader of the 8.8 million strong Anglican church which accounts for almost a third of the population. While the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the death penalty, Orombi has “not taken a position on this bill” and so if the bill does come to pass, he will be complicit in the murder of Ugandan gays and lesbians. This is no surprise as Orombi has a track record of being one of the most anti-gay archbishops on the African continent. He has boycotted Lambeth conferences over the issue of homosexuality and made the ludicrous claims that he fears for his life and can’t wear his collar out on the streets because gays want to kill him. Enough said.
Don Schmierer is a board member of Exodus, the world’s largest Christian ex-gay ministry committed to spreading the lie that it is possible to “pray the gay away”. By his own admission, he has been to Uganda “many times” to speak about his book An Ounce of Prevention: Preventing the Homosexual Condition in Today’s Youth(including at Stephen Langa’s aforementioned conference). David Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced on 13 October and it was not until 16 November when Exodus sent a letter to President Museveni opposing the bill. Don Schmierer’s name was starkly absent from that letter and it took another two weeks for his name to be added to that letter. Now Schmierer pleads ignorance, saying he had no idea where things were heading throughout his many visits until he read of the anti-homosexuality bill in the news a few months later. His excuse, of course does not hold water. Countless people have been traumatised, depressed and even led to suicide by joining Exodus’ programmes and some are now stepping out to tell their story. If this bill comes to pass, Schmierer will no doubt have blood on his hands, and his organisation too, for sending him there. Oh, did we mention that Exodus once linked to Scott Lively’s Nazi revisionist views on their website?
Caleb Lee Brundidge is a “sexual reorientation coach” at the International Healing Foundation (IHF), a group founded by the controversial Richard Cohen (more on him later). Like Don Schmierer, Brundidge believes that nobody is born gay and that therapy can help you become heterosexual. The IHF, however, has some of the most controversial therapeutic technics, even among the ex-gay movement, to help people turn straight. Some of these techniques include touch therapy and hitting a pillow with a tennis racquet (you can see Brundidge work his tennis racquet here). Brundidge also works with a Christian ministry called Extreme Prophetic which has some odd practises you don’t see in other Christian groups (like visiting mortuaries to raise the dead). He also DJ’s at so-called “Extasis Worship” events (hear his creepy talk about the “ecstasy of God” here). Professor Warren Throckmorton, who has reported extensively on the Ugandan ex-gay conference, has a report from an unidentified person who attended the event that indicates that Brundidge supports the continued criminalisation of homosexuality. While the IHF has issued a press release denouncing Uganda’s anti-gay bill (two months after its introduction), Brundidge himself has been all but silent since the saga exploded in his face.
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The following people are not included in our Hall of Shame but we thought it was important to highlight them here.
Richard Cohen is the controversial founder of the aforementioned group International Healing Foundation, and an unlicensed therapist who developed such ridiculous techniques as touch therapy and hitting a pillow with a tennis racquet to make gay people straight. Stephen Langa has been taking some of the appalling ideas espoused in Cohen’s books as science and promoting them to his audience. And what are some of these ideas? In his book Coming Out Straight, Cohen has a bold claim, “Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals; homosexual teachers are at least 7 times more likely to molest a pupil; homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults are made by those who engage in homosexuality.” In an interview with Rachel Maddow, Cohen has backtracked from this statement, saying he will take this line out in the new edition of his book. In another book Gay Children, Straight Parents, Cohen identifies several factors which he says lead to homosexual desires: divorce, death of a parent, adoption — and listen to this — religion, or race. When questioned by Maddow, Cohen appeared surprised this was in his own book! Watch the interview here.
Rick Warren, the megachurch pastor who shot to fame when he was chosen to deliver President Obama’s inaugural prayer, has also been mired in this controversy. While Cohen provided some of the pseudo-psychology that suited the needs of Uganda’s anti-gay politicians, Warren has provided some of the theological foundation that Ugandan pastors found convenient. In March 2008, when Uganda’s Anglican bishops threatened to leave the Church of England for a perceived tolerance of homosexuals, Warren flew straight to Kampala and proclaimed, “The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda on the boycott.” Declaring homosexuality to be unnatural, Warren added, “We shall not tolerate this aspect [homosexuality in the church] at all.” Two whole months after shit hit the ceiling, Warren has finally issued a message to the pastors of Uganda urging them to oppose the bill. He has also stepped out to say, “I oppose the criminalization of homosexuality” — better late than never, we guess. Now if only he would repeat that everywhere he went.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is another latecomer among religious leaders to make a statement and we say this is a huge shame considering that one in every three Ugandans identifiy as Anglican (there are 8.8 million Ugandan Anglicans, four times as many Anglicans in the US). Only two months after the anti-gay bill was proposed did Williams step out of the woodwork to say “the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades… Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.” In stark contrast, when the diocese of Los Angeles elected its first lesbian bishop, Williams’ condemnation was swift and warned of “very important implications” if Episcopal church leaders did not block her appointment. We say, shame on you, Williams.
Would you believe it? Houston, Texas — the fourth largest city in the US — is now the first major American city to have an out gay mayor. Annise Parker received 53% of the vote, edging out her opponent Gene Locke, who was pitching to become the city’s second black mayor. While Parker avoided making her sexual orientation an issue during the hotly-contested election (as she has in the last twelve years in elected office), her opponent’s campaign was marked by anti-gay rhetoric as activists and conservative religious groups sent out mailers condemning Parker’s “homosexual behavior.” Fortunately, the Houston electorate did not buy into the lies and went on to elect her anyway. Good on them! Here’s Parker’s victory speech last night.
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