Queer Musings

A Queer Museum - Proud Heritage

Proud Heritage is off to a good start of a three year project to create a national museum of GLBT history in the UK.

They've included a map showcasing GLBT establishments, and well as other sites that may be of interest to GLBT travelers.

via: [the chaser blog]

GLBT Fear Pink Ceiling

A recent UK survey found that the majority of gays and lesbians feel that being out will hurt their career.

Given that the corporate world is still male dominated, I would expect similar results here in the US.

Catholic Bishop Says Gays Use Holocaust as Political Tool

I am outraged by the Right Rev. Joseph Devine's claim that gays only use the Holocaust to further our political agenda. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Motherwell made these claims to a Glasgow audience. It was titled 'Sectarianism and Secularism: Bugbears for the Catholic Church in Scotland'.

"It is ever present at the service each year for the Holocaust memorial - as if to create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution," he told the audience.

"I want to ask you if you are able to see the giant conspiracy that's taking place before our eyes? It's a very small group of people, but very active and organized, and extremely indulgent."

This from a representative of the Church that has dioceses going bankrupt from child molestation charges.

Then the Bishop also had the nerve to attack Oscar-winning actor Sir Ian McKellen.

"In this New Year's Honours List, I saw actor Ian McKellen being honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals. A century ago, Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail."

Maybe Devine would like to open Auschwitz or Chełmno again.

Sadly I can't name one member of the GLBT community that faced persecution and death at the hands of the Nazis. I can, however, name a Catholic priest that suffered the worse fate possible at Auschwitz. Prisoner #16670, better knows as Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe was murdered with an injection of carbolic acid.

Not to belittle the honors bestowed upon Kolbe, because heaven knows he did more for the persecuted than Pope Pius XII did. Pope Pius XII didn't have much to say publicly about the Holocaust when it was happening. But, let's look at some facts. St. Maximilian was a member of a very large group of people, politically/socially active and organized, and extremely indulgent.

I'm sorry, but to me that sounds like the potato chip calling the pretzel salty.

As a gay man one of the most difficult things for me watch was Paragraph 175, which dealt with the legal code that sent many gays and lesbians to the camps. The first hand accounts of gay and lesbian survivors of the Nazi camps was horrifying.

Many of their stories mirror those of Jews and other groups that were victims of Nazi persecution. Through their stories, it made me feel that their legacy to me is the right to attend a yearly service for the Holocaust memorial if I so choose.

Their suffering and deaths gave me the right the visit the Anne Frank House, and openly weep at not only the fate of an innocent child, but also the fate of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who were held at the Nazi camps.

Ultimately it boils down to this. The GLBT community has every right to use the facts of the Holocaust as a political tool. We have every right to use any discriminatory policy or law as a political tool. We have the right to use the fact that gays and lesbians are still put to death in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and United Arab Emirates as a political tool.

For Devine to say otherwise makes me feel that he condones the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazis.

GLBT Polish Fleeing the Country

The Polish government has sanctioned persecuting the GLBT community, resulting in some fleeing the country. Many of them have fled to German and the UK.

Robert Biedron, head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said thousands of gays have packed up and left - many to Germany and the UK.

It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution, Biedron told The Daily Mail.

Most of the people I know are now in England because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals going on here.

Biedron said that Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK.

One would think that the country that was home to Auschwitz would have learned a thing or two about persecution.

Technorati Tags: Auschwitz, Gay, GLBT, Poland, Queer

Evidence of 258 Year Old Gay Rights Book Found

A University of Manchester academic found evidence of a 258 year old book dealing with gay rights. All of the books have probably been destroyed, the evidence was found in a court indictment of the publisher of the book.

Dr Hal Gladfelder from the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures was the one to find reference to the book.

This must be the first substantial treatment of homosexuality ever in English.

The only other discussions of homosexuality were contained in violently moralistic and homophobic attacks or in trial reports for the crime of sodomy up to and beyond 1750.

Not much is known about the author Thomas Cannon who wrote the book in 1749. It is known that he had to leave England to avoid prosecution. Also his father was Dean of Lincoln Cathedral and his grandfather was Bishop of Norwich and Ely.

Car Bomb in Madrid

A car bomb exploded at Madrid's as International Airport this morning. Some of us at work were wondering if al-Qaeda had anything to do with the explosion. Right now it appears to be the work of ETA. I think working for an airline, it will probably be a natural reaction for us to first think about al-Qaeda when things like this happen.

Given the current state of the aviation industry, this is definitely not something we want to hear.

Technorati Tags: Car Bomb, ETA, Madrid, Terrorism

Alleged Plot to Destroy German Plane

Germany detained suspected terrorists that were allegedly going to blow up a plane.

Several of the accused last summer approached a person with security clearance at an unidentified airport, the statement said. That person said he or she was prepared to load a case or bag containing explosives onto a plane in an exchange for an unspecified payment, it added.

I don't doubt that Germany does some type of back ground check on airline employees that have access to sensitive areas of an airport, but even that can't be 100 percent fool proof. Having flown in and out of Frankfurt, I know that security within the airport is just as tight as here in the U.S. However, it just takes one employee that is angry with his employer over something, or financially in a hard spot that could allow terrorists a way into an airport.

Thankfully it looks like the alleged plot has been foiled. All we can hope is that nothing like this actually is completed. We've already seen something like this happen once over Lockerbei with Pan Am flight 103.

Technorati Tags: Airlines, Germany, Terrorism

Gay Holocaust Memorial

Vienna is building a memorial for GLBT Europeans that had been sent to Nazi concentration camps. I saw the one in Amsterdam, and was touched by its simplicity. I hope that by having such memorials built in remberance of everyone (GLBT, Jewish, or political disedent to name a few) that was sentenced to the concentration camps will help prevent future atrocities.

I'm amazed how little most Americans know about the people sent to the camps. When I visited the Anne Frank Museum, I overheard somone talking about how they thought only Jews were sent to the camps. I could see if that person didn't know that GLBT people had been sent to the camps. But come on, shouldn't they have at least known that the handicaped, gypsies and just about anyone that Hitler felt was impure was sent to the camps?

I wonder what children in Europe are taught about the concentration camps. Do they learn that Jews made up the majority of the camp population, but there were other people sent to the camps? Do they learn about the horrible experiments that were conducted on adults and children in a perverted belief that it was in the name of science?

Technorati Tags: Amsterdam, Anne Frank House, Europe, Gay, GLBT, Holocaust, Memorial, Queer, Vienna

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Sadly Too Late

We all know the old saying, better late than never. Well, what are we supposed to say when things happen too slowly?

While doing my morning scan through my RSS feeds, I ran across this post at Gay News Bits about GLBT victims of the Holocaust being able to apply for compensation in Austria.

The full press release can be found here.

We fear that there may not be any gay and lesbian survivors still alive who could file an application under the new provision. All those homosexual victims that had filed applications in the past but were turned downed have meanwhile died and, therefore, cannot submit new applications.

Now how sad is that? Innocent men and women that were tortured and imprisoned by an insane individual could not receive any compensation that other people were entitled.