::: A referee for the
Turkish Football Federation lost his job and was forced to go into hiding after he came out on a television program. “I have not committed a crime, I have not defamed my profession. I’m only a homosexual,”
Halil Ibrahim Dincdag, 33,
told AFP from Istanbul, where he was on “self-exile” after leaving his home in Trabzon, a conservative bastion on the Black Sea coast. “I have inadvertently become a standard-bearer of the homosexual struggle,” he told the news service which doesn’t explain the circumstances of his public coming out. Dincdag has become a hero to KAOS-GL, the increasingly outspoken group for gay and lesbian rights in Turkey, where the referee's case is hailed as a step forward for the movement. AFP explains that unlike many Muslim countries, homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, but prejudice against LGBT people remains strong. “While an openly homosexual mayor is running Paris, we are still at the point of discussing whether a homosexual can run a football match,” grumbled Murat Soylemez, Dincdag’s lawyer.
::: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed an out gay man as a San Francisco Superior Court judge. Ronald E. Albers is believed to be the first appointment of an out LGBT judge by Schwarzenegger. Albers was a co-founder of National Lesbian Gay Law Association in 1984, and of AIDS Legal Referral Panel, and Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom – an LGBT group. Judges in California must run for election, but it’s rare for an incumbent judge to lose an election, making an appointment by the governor to a vacant seat is the best way for a lawyer to get onto the bench. Albers twice ran for seats on the Superior Court, but lost in both elections.
::: Rights groups say a law passed this week by Lithuania’s parliament makes LGBT people second class citizens and breaches European conventions on human rights, but worry that it could be difficult to challenge the measure. The law bans any discussion of homosexuality in schools and any reference to it in public information available to children. Rights groups say the discriminatory law will make gay youths more vulnerable, because teachers and other students will be unable to provide information to them about homosexuality, or could be afraid to help them if they are bullied or attacked by peers.
Headlinks:
politics: President Obama has not betrayed the gay community [Salon]
Seattle: Identities of gay city employees to remain private for now [KING5.com]
dadt: Gays in the Military: Let the Evidence Speak by Gen. John M. Shalikashvili [Washington Post]
India: India's gay community fights for dignity [Globe and Mail]
Laos: Laos tackles transgender taboos [BBC]