Complete list of civilised countries now available

Very interesting stuff: the UN (that beacon of hope for human rights - NOT) voted on a resolution demanding basic civil rights for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered (lgbt) people. Some 66 countries supported the resolution, and not unexpectedly, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, Old European countries with their respect for civil rights feature prominently on the list. No surprise, unfortunately, that thuggish places like Saudia Arabia, Russia, Jamaica and others are missing in action. No surprise either that the USA and the Vatican cannot be found on the list of supporters of the human rights of lgbt people. No surprise also that South Africa, sliding ever faster itself into a Zimbabwe type failed state, is absent among the signatories of the resolution, despite the fact that the country's progressive constitution binds the government of the day to recognize the rights of lgbt folks.

It's probably useful to reflect on this also in the context of high hopes that people have for the incoming Obama administration in the USA. This guy (leaving aside for a moment the fact that he doesn't even support the idea of universal health care in the USA) has announced today that a known homophobic evangelical preacher will hold the sermon during his inauguration ceremony.

Here then the complete honor list (keep em in mind, next time you plan a vacation!):

Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon,
Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The UN statement, which includes a call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality worldwide, was read by Argentina.

Here's a Background briefing from IDAHO, the organisation that launched a campaign to get this resolution off the ground:

On May 17 2006, the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), the IDAHO Committee launched a campaign « for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality », and published a list of the first signatories, which include several Nobel Prize winners: (Desmond Tutu, Elfriede Jelinek, José Saramago, Dario Fo, Amartya Sen), entertainers (Merryl Streep, Victoria Abril, Cyndi Lauper, Elton John, David Bowie), intellectuals (Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Bernard-Henri Lévy), and humanitarian organisations like ILGA, Aids International and the FIDH. On IDAHO 2008 (17 May this year) the French government announced that it would bring a LGBT human rights statement to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The text was read today in New York, and was supported by 66 countries in the world, and it clearly inscribes sexual orientation and gender identity as human rights.

The IDAHO Committee is the NGO coordinating the International Day Against Homophobia. This day is celebrated in more than 50 countries in the world, and is officially recognised by the European Union, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Costa-Rica, etc. These actions support international campaigns, like the call launched in 2006 "for a universal decriminalisation of homosexuality"
http://www.idahomophobia.org/

Iran - Open Letter to UN Secretary General

The Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji writes to the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, in a document endorsed by more than 300 leading intellectuals.

---

To His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

The people of Iran are experiencing difficult times both internationally and domestically. Internationally, they face the threat of a military attack from the United States and the imposition of extensive sanctions by the United Nations Security Council. Domestically, a despotic state has - through constant and organised repression - imprisoned them in a life-and-death situation.

Far from helping the development of democracy, US policy over the past fifty years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran. The 1953 coup against the nationalist government of prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the unwavering support for the despotic regime of the Shah, who acted as America's gendarme in the Persian Gulf, are just two examples of these flawed policies.

More recently the confrontation between various US administrations and the Iranian state over the past three decades has made internal conditions very difficult for the proponents of freedom and human rights in Iran. Exploiting the danger posed by the US, the Iranian regime has put military-security forces in charge of the government, shut down all independent domestic media, and is imprisoning human-rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy.

The Bush administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact being largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the US government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the US and to crush them with impunity. At the same time, even speaking about "the possibility" of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran.

No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran. Iranian democrats also watch with deep concern the support in some American circles for separatist movements in Iran. Preserving Iran's territorial integrity is important to all those who struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. We want democracy for Iran and for all Iranians. We also believe that the dismemberment of middle-eastern countries will fuel widespread and prolonged conflict in the region.

In order to help the process of democratisation in the middle east, the US can best help by promoting a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and pave the way for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the middle east.

Your Excellency,

Iran's dangerous international situation and the consequences of Iran's dispute with the west have totally deflected the world's attention and especially the attention of the United Nations from the intolerable conditions that the Iranian regime has created for the Iranian people. The dispute over the enrichment of uranium should not make the world forget that, although the 1979 revolution of Iran was a popular revolution, it did not lead to the formation of a democratic system that protects human rights.

The Islamic Republic is a fundamentalist state that does not afford official recognition to the private sphere. It represses civil society and violates human rights. Thousands of political prisoners were executed during the first decade after the revolution without fair trials or due process of the law, and dozens of dissidents and activists were assassinated during the second decade. Independent newspapers are constantly being banned and journalists are sent to prison. All news websites are filtered and books are either refused publication permits or are slashed with the blade of censorship before publication.

Women are totally deprived of equality with men and, when they demand equal rights, they are accused of acting against national security, subjected to various types of intimidation and have to endure various penalties, including long prison terms.

In the first decade of the 21st century, stoning (the worst form of torture leading to death) is one of the sentences that Iranians face on the basis of existing laws. A number of Iranian teachers, who took part in peaceful civil protests over their pay and conditions, have been dismissed from their jobs and some have even been sent into internal exile in far-flung regions or jailed.

Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions. Workers who ask to be allowed to form unions in order to struggle for their corporate rights are beaten and imprisoned. Iranian university students have paid the highest costs in recent years in defence of liberty, human rights and democracy. Security organisations prevent young people who are critical of the official state orthodoxy from gaining admission into university, and those who do make it through the rigorous ideological and political vetting process have no right to engage in peaceful protest against government policies.

If students' activities displease the governing elites, they are summarily expelled from university and in many instances jailed. The Islamic Republic has also been expelling dissident professors from universities for about a quarter of a century. In the meantime, in the Islamic Republic's prisons, opponents are forced to confess to crimes that they have not committed and to express remorse. These confessions, which have been extracted by force, are then broadcast on the state media in a manner reminiscent of Stalinist show-trials.

There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage-managed and rigged. And even people who find their way into parliament and into the executive branch of government have no powers or resources to alter the status quo. All the legal and extra-legal powers are in the hands of Iran's supreme leader, who rules like a despotic sultan.

Your Excellency,

Are you aware that in Iran political dissidents, human-rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners are legally deprived of "the right to life"? On the basis of Article 226 of the Islamic penal law, and note 2 of paragraph E of section B of Article 295 of the same law, any person can unilaterally decide that another human being has forfeited the right to life (mahduroldam) and kill them in the name of performing one's religious duty to rid society of vice. Over the past few decades, many dissidents and activists have been killed on the basis of this article and the killers have been acquitted in court. In such circumstances, no dissident or activist has a right to life in Iran, because, on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and the laws of the Islamic Republic, the definition of those who have forfeited the right to life is very broad.

Are you aware that, in Iran, writers are lawfully banned from writing? On the basis of note 2 of paragraph 8 of Article 9 of the press law, writers who are convicted of "propaganda against the ruling system" are deprived for life of "the right to all press activity". In recent years, many writers and journalists have been convicted of propaganda against the ruling system. The court's verdicts make it clear that any criticism of state bodies is deemed to be propaganda against the ruling system.

Your Excellency,

The people of Iran and Iranian advocates for freedom and democracy are experiencing difficult days. They need the moral support of the proponents of freedom throughout the world and effective intervention by the United Nations. We categorically reject a military attack on Iran. At the same time, we ask you and all of the world's intellectuals and proponents of liberty and democracy to condemn the human-rights violations of the Iranian state. We expect from Your Excellency, in your capacity as the secretary-general of the United Nations, to reprimand the Iranian government - in keeping with your legal duties - for its extensive violation of the articles of the universal declaration of human rights and other international human-rights covenants and treaties.

Above all, we hope that with Your Excellency's immediate intervention, all of Iran's political prisoners, who are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day, will soon be released. The people of Iran are asking themselves whether the UN Security Council is only decisive and effective when it comes to the suspension of the enrichment of uranium, and whether the lives of the Iranian people are unimportant as far as the Security Council is concerned. The people of Iran are entitled to freedom, democracy and human rights. We Iranians hope that the United Nations and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for Iran's quest for freedom and democracy.

Yours sincerely,

Akbar Ganji

***

Akbar Ganji's letter is endorsed by:

1. Jurgen Habermas (JW Goethe UniversitC$t, Frankfurt)

2. Charles Taylor (McGill University)

3. Noam Chomsky (MIT)

4. Ronald Dworkin (New York University)

5. Robert Bellah (University of California, Berkeley)

6. Alasdair MacIntyre (University of Notre Dame)

7. Orhan Pamuk (recipient of the 2006 Nobel prize for literature)

8. JM Coetzee (recipient of the 2003 Nobel prize for literature)

9. Seamus Heaney (recipient of the 1995 Nobel prize for literature)

10. Nadine Gordimer (recipient of 1991 Nobel prize for literature)

11. Mairead Corrigan-Maguire (recipient of the 1976 Nobel peace prize)

12. Umberto Eco (novelist, Italy)

13. Mario Vargas Llosa (novelist, Peru)

14. Isabel Allende (novelist, Chile)

15. Robert Dahl (Yale University)

16. Michael Walzer (Princeton University)

17. Seyla Benhabib (Yale University)

18. Cornel West (Princeton University)

19. Michael Sandel (Harvard University)

20. Eric Hobsbawm (Birkbeck College, University of London)

21. Stanley Hoffman (Harvard University)

22. Nancy Fraser (New School for Social Research)

23. Philip Pettit (Princeton University)

24. Slavoj E=iE>ek (University of Ljubljana)

25. Daniel A Bell (Tsinghua University)

26. Nikki Keddie (UCLA)

27. Marshall Berman (City College of New York)

28. Hilary Putnam (Harvard University)

29. Robert Putnam (Harvard University)

30. Alan Ryan (Oxford University)

31. Zygmunt Bauman (University of Leeds)

32. Richard J Bernstein (New School University)

33. Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University)

34. Talal Asad (City University of New York Graduate Center)

35. Joshua Cohen (Stanford University and Boston Review)

36. Fred Dallmayr (University of Notre Dame)

37. Richard Falk (Princeton University)

38. Harvey Cox (Harvard University)

39. Stephen Holmes (New York University)

40. Andrew Arato (New School for Social Research / University of Frankfurt)

41. Jose Casanova (New School for Social Research)

42. Charles Tilly (Columbia University)

43. David Held (London School of Economics)

44. Joseph Raz (Oxford and Columbia University)

45. Steven Lukes (New York University)

46. Claus Offe (Humboldt University, Berlin)

47. Axel Honneth (JW Goethe UniversitC$t, Frankfurt)

48. Khaled Abou El Fadl (UCLA)

49. Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd (University of Humanistics)

50. Abdullahi An Na'im (Emory University)

51. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (American University of Cairo)

52. Abdulkader Tayob (University of Capetown)

53. Zakia Salime (Michigan State University)

54. Henry Louis Gates, Jr (Harvard University)

55. Charles S Maier (Harvard University)

56. Sara Roy (Harvard University)

57. William A Graham (Harvard University)

58. Elaine Bernard (Harvard University)

59. Alexander Keyssar (Harvard University)

60. Farid Esack (Harvard University)

61. Kwame Anthony Appiah (Princeton University)

62. Alexander Nehamas (Princeton University)

63. Anne-Marie Slaughter (Princeton University)

64. Jeffrey Stout (Princeton University)

65. Mirjam Kunkler (Princeton University)

66. Partha Chatterjee (Columbia University)

67. Todd Gitlin (Columbia University)

68. Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia University)

69. Saskia Sassen (Columbia University)

70. Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University)

71. Arthur Danto (Columbia University)

72. Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University)

73. Lila Abu-Lughod (Columbia University)

74. Gauri Viswanathan (Columbia University)

75. William R Roff (Columbia University & University of Edinburgh)

76. Alfred Stepan (Columbia University)

77. Timothy Mitchell (New York University)

78. Tony Judt (New York University)

79. Zachary Lockman (New York University)

80. Adam Przeworski (New York University)

81. Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago)

82. Fred Donner (University of Chicago)

83. Manuela Carneiro da Cunha (University of Chicago)

84. Avi Shlaim (Oxford University)

85. Richard Caplan (Oxford University)

86. Alan Macfarlane (University of Cambridge)

87. Mary Kaldor (London School of Economics)

88. Paul Gilroy (London School of Economics)

89. Richard Sennett (London School of Economics)

90. Leslie Sklair (London School of Economics)

91. Sami Zubaida (Birkbeck College, University of London)

92. Veena Das (Johns Hopkins University)

93. William Connolly (Johns Hopkins University)

94. Richard Wolin (City University of New York Graduate Center)

95. Stanley Aronowitz (City University of New York Graduate Center)

96. Adam Hochschild (writer, US)

97. Rabbi Michael Lerner (editor, Tikkun)

98. Cherif Bassiouni (DePaul University)

99. Benjamin Barber (University of Maryland)

100. Ashis Nandy (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi)

101. Ariel Dorfman (Duke University)

102. Ziauddin Sardar (City University, London)

103. WJT Mitchell (editor, Critical Inquiry)

104. Howard Zinn (Boston University)

105. Stephen Lewis (McMaster University)

106. Michael BC)rubC) (Penn State University)

107. Steven Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

108. Ernesto Laclau (University of Essex)

109. Chantal Mouffe (University of Westminster)

110. Eduardo Galeano (writer, Uruguay)

111. Achille Mbembe (University of the Witwatersrand)

112. Robert Boyers (editor, Salmagundi)

113. Joe Sacco (graphic novelist)

114. Adam Shatz (The Nation)

115. Arjun Appadurai (New School for Social Research)

116. Dick Howard (Stony Brook University)

117. John Esposito (Georgetown University)

118. Ian Williams (Guardian, online columnist)

119. Ronald Aronson (Wayne State University)

120. Mark Kingwell (University of Toronto)

121. Azyumardi Azra (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta)

122. Norman Finkelstein (author, US)

123. David Schweickart (Loyola University)

124. Marcus Raskin (Institute for Policy Studies)

125. Juan Cole (University of Michigan)

126. Carlos Forment (Centro de InvestigaciC3n y DocumentaciC3n de la Vida PC:blica)

127. Ronald Beiner (University of Toronto)

128. David E Stannard (University of Hawaii)

129. Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader)

130. Stephen Eric Bronner (Rutgers University)

131. Katha Pollitt (The Nation)

132. Charles Glass (writer, Paris)

133. John Keane (University of Westminster)

134. Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive)

135. Anthony Barnett (openDemocracy)

136. Murat Belge (Bilgi University, Istanbul)

137. Michael Tomasky (editor, Guardian America)

138. Thomas McCarthy (Yale University)

139. Daniel Born (editor, The Common Review)

140. DuE!an VeliDkoviD (editor, Biblioteka Alexandria, Belgrade)

141. Chris Toensing (Middle East Research and Information Project)

142. Frank Barnaby (editor, The International Journal of Human Rights)

143. Douglass Cassel (University of Notre Dame)

144. Nelofer Pazira (president, PEN Canada)

145. MartC-n Espada (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

146. Douglas Kellner (UCLA)

147. William Shepard (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

148. David Ingram (Loyola University Chicago)

149. Enrique Krauze (editor, Letras Libres, Mexico City)

150. Gavin Kitching (University of New South Wales, Australia)

151. Joel Rogers (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

152. Martin Shaw (University of Sussex)

153. Carl Boggs (National University, Los Angeles)

154. Ahmed Rashid (journalist, Lahore)

155. Thomas Keenan (Bard College)

156. Rafia Zakaria (Indiana University)

157. Michael Thompson (Logos)

158. Shadia Drury (University of Regina)

159. Courtney Jung (New School for Social Research)

160. Simon Critchley (New School for Social Research)

161. Hussein Ibish (Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation)

162. Christopher Norris (Cardiff University)

163. Vinay Lal (UCLA)

164. Chris Hedges (The Nation Institute)

165. Simon Tormey (University of Nottingham)

166. Melissa Williams (University of Toronto)

167. Sandra Bartky (University of Illinois at Chicago)

168. Thomas Sheehan (Stanford University)

169. James Tully (University of Victoria)

170. Asma Afsaruddin (University of Notre Dame)

171. Pankaj Mishra (writer, India)

172. Martin Beck MatuE!tC-k (Purdue University)

173. Stephen Zunes (University of San Francisco)

174. Stephen Kinzer (Northwestern University)

175. Rick Salutin (The Globe and Mail)

176. James Reilly (University of Toronto)

177. Ayesha Jalal (Tufts University)

178. Ismail Poonawala (UCLA)

179. Elizabeth Hurd (Northwestern University)

180. Michael Mann (UCLA)

181. Patricia Springborg (Free University of Bolzano, Italy)

182. Henry Munson (University of Maine)

183. Charles Kurzman (University of North Carolina)

184. Rohan Jayasekera (associate editor, Index on Censorship)

185. Stathis N Kalyvas (Yale University)

186. Mary Ann Tetreault (Trinity University)

187. Robert Jensen (University of Texas at Austin)

188. Rashid Begg (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)

189. Roxanne L Euben (Wellesley College)

190. Peter Mandaville (George Mason University)

191. Edward Friedman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

192. Ingrid Mattson (Hartford Seminary)

193. Muqtedar Khan (University of Delaware)

194. Duncan Ivison (University of Sydney)

195. Danny Postel (author, US)

196. Mariam C Said

197. Michaelle Browers (Wake Forest University)

198. Tariq Modood (University of Bristol)

199. Ronald J Hill (University of Dublin)

200. Gregory Baum (McGill University)

201. Tamara Sonn (College of William and Mary)

202. Saba Mahmood (University of California, Berkeley)

203. Mark Juergensmeyer (University of California, Santa Barbara)

204. Lucas Swaine (Dartmouth College)

205. Charles Butterworth (University of Maryland)

206. Carole Pateman (Cardiff University)

207. Amrita Basu (Amherst College)

208. Fawaz Gerges (Sarah Lawrence College)

209. Yong-Bock Kim (Asia Pacific Graduate School for Integral Study of Life)

210. Ann Norton (University of Pennsylvania)

211. Cecelia Lynch (University of California, Irvine)

212. Susan Buck-Morss (Cornell University)

213. Aristide Zolberg (New School University)

214. Craig Calhoun (president, Social Science Research Council)

215. Hagit Borer (University of Southern California)

216. Dennis J Schmidt (Penn State University)

217. John Ralston Saul (author, Canada)

218. Corey Brettschneider (Brown University)

219. Timur Kuran (Duke University)

220. Paul Chambers (University of Glamgoran)

221. Robert R Williams (University of Illinois at Chicago)

222. Nicholas Xenos (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

223. WD Hart (University of Illinois at Chicago)

224. Louise Antony (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

225. Rama Mantena (University of Illinois at Chicago)

226. Judith Tucker (Georgetown University)

227. Sam Black (Simon Fraser University)

228. Genevieve Fuji Johnson (Simon Fraser University)

229. Shelley Deane (Bowdoin College)

230. Craig Campbell (St Edward's University)

231. Samer Shehata (Georgetown University)

232. Mona El-Ghobashy (Barnard College)

233. Jacque Steubbel (University of the South School of Theology)

234. David Mednicoff (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

235. Zeynep Arikanli (Institute of Political Studies, Aix-en-Provence, France)

236. RE Jennings (Simon Fraser University)

237. Walid Moubarak (Lebanese American University)

238. Nicola Pratt (University of East Anglia)

239. Ulrika MC%rtensson (Norwegian University of Science & Technology)

240. Jillian Schwedler (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

241. Robert D Lee (Colorado College)

242. Alice Amsden (MIT)

243. Stephen Van Evera (MIT)

244. Joanne Rappaport (Georgetown University)

245. Douglas Allen (University of Maine)

246. Sharon Stanton Russell (MIT)

247. Matthew Gutmann (Brown University)

248. Louis Cantori (University of Maryland)

249. Catherine Lutz (Brown University)

250. Azzedine Layachi (St John's University)

251. Katarzyna Jarecka (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)

252. HC Erik Midelfort (University of Virginia)

253. Edmund Burke, III (University of California, Santa Cruz)

254. Michael Urban (University of California, Santa Cruz)

255. Susan Moeller (University of Maryland)

256. Laurie J Sears (University of Washington)

257. Margaret Levi (University of Washington)

258. Ebrahim Moosa (Duke University)

259. Robert Ware (University of Calgary)

260. John Entelis (Fordham University)

261. Juan Linz (Yale University)

262. Malise Ruthven (writer, Scotland)

263. Charles Derber (Boston College)

264. Matthew Evangelista (Cornell University)

265. Adam Michnik (editor, Gazeta Wyborcza)

266. Norman Birnbaum (Georgetown University)

267. Hamza Yusuf (Zaytuna Institute)

268. Carol Gould (Temple University)

269. Nubar Hovsepian (Chapman University)

270. Colin Rowat (University of Birmingham)

271. Bettina Aptheker (University of California, Santa Cruz)

272. Jan Nederveen Pieterse (University of Illinois)

273. Udo Schuklenk (Queen's University)

274. Alistair M Macleod (Queen's University)

275. Nancy Gallagher (University of California, Santa Barbara)

276. Jamie Mayerfeld (University of Washington)

277. William A Gamson (Boston College)

278. Michael Goldman (University of Minnesota)

279. Jan Aart Scholte (University of Warwick)

280. Koen Koch (Leiden University, Netherlands)

281. Morton Winston (College of New Jersey)

282. Michael Perry (Emory University)

283. Tony Smith (Tuft University)

284. W Richard Bond (Brock University)

285. Adrie Kusserow (St. Michael's College)

286. Nissim Mannathukkaren (Dalhousie University)

287. Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)

288. Csta SveinsdC3ttir (San Francisco State University)

289. Feyzi Baban (Trent University)

290. Elzbieta Matynia (New School University)

291. Beverley Milton-Edwards (Queens University Belfast)

292. Awad Halabi (Wright State University)

293. Arthur Goldschmidt (Penn State University)

294. Peter Railton (University of Michigan)

295. Naomi Klein (author, Canada)

296. Paul Aarts (University of Amsterdam)

297. Thomas Mertes (UCLA)

298. Samuel C Rickless (University of California, San Diego)

299. Emran Qureshi (Harvard University)

300. Donald Rutherford (University of California, San Diego)

301. Terry Eagleton (University of Manchester)

302. Mujeeb Khan (University of California, Berkeley)

Singapore being funny again

Singapore's legislators reportedly changed legislation that until recently threatened to punish perverse (in the non-reproductive sex act sense) sexual activity with jail of up to two years. So, a married couple enjoying oral-genital intercourse, if caught (somehow...) could end up in the slammer. Well, I'm sure that was just those Singaporeans being funny (different, 'Asian values' and all) again. You know, it's the same crowd that prohibited the sale of chewing gum because it messed up their subway. Reportedly Singaporeans are conservative - as if conservatives didn't do such things, but hey, I suppose they don't talk about it.

Anyway, Singapore, with this move came frighteningly close to the civil rights type legislations we take for granted in other democracies. To me it seems as if Singaporeans are kind of keen to continue to be sniggered about behind their backs, much like in the chewing gum case. So they decided that oral-genital is cool whenever it's male to female, but that it's totally unacceptable (and must be punished with jail of up to two years), when, you guessed it, two blokes engage in the same conduct. They even managed to legislate the same spiel for anal intercourse. So, if you're married and you engage in anal intercourse Singapore's legislators don't think any longer two years jail is a sensible response, but if you're a guy doing it with another guy, hey presto, Singapore's jail is waiting for you. One of its psychiatrists discussed in a local medical journal a couple of years back the question of whether one should offer a genetic test (prenatal) for homosexuality if one came about, in 'the absence of treatment'. At the time homosexuality had long been eliminated from any known classification of diseases, but then, he probably didn't know, being conservative and all.

In the real world, of course, nobody is likely to ever go to jail because of this legislation. How would any policewoman ever find out what's happening in any of a zillion flats in Singapore's high-rises? No, this really is a means to say straight sex that isn't reproductive is cool, while gay sex that isn't reproductive isn't.

Inequitably treating like things not alike? Sure thing. Unjust? Sure thing. Bit silly? Sure thing. But hey, what's new about Singapore? One the one hand the city state professes its version of Asian family values. These seem to require that homosexual activities (ie a victimless activity conducted among consenting adults) be criminalised. On the other hand, the professed Asian respect for conservative moral values doesn't seem to prevent the place from being one of Burma's dictators' favorite trading partners. Hypocrisy - I think so.

Conscientious objection to gay adoption

There's a lot of irony in this. Much to the chagrin of some of my gay friends I have always maintained that arguably gay people have a moral obligation to contribute to the welfare of children (often gay couples have the resources and the time to do so, frequently more so than heterosexual couples). In view of large numbers of orphans both in developed as well as in developing countries I think it would be only sensible if more gay people who find themselves in the fortunate situation to be able to resource the upbringing of such orphans should do so (eg adopt them). So, rather than thinking about gay adoption as a right that needs to be fought for, I believe it is a moral obligation that sufficiently resourced gay people have toward orphans. While I was saying 'duty' and 'obligation' as opposed to 'right' ('gay' preferably) my gay compatriots were not exactly taken by my views.
Well, thankfully there's always a religious person around working hard to stuff these matters up. You know, some bloke who had a chat with his 'God' the other day, and who then 'feels' strongly enough about it to campaign against gay adoption (the 'right' and, weirdly the 'duty'). The fascinating bit to me isn't that sort of conduct in itself, as to my mind organised monotheistic religions are about little other than this kind of activity. No, it all comes full circle to my other favorite topic, 'conscientious objection'.
63 year old Andrew McClintock is some kind of professional. His job as a Magistrate in Sheffield is to get kids into adoption. Well, you guessed it, Mr McClintock is part of God's squad, so he knows that it's 'wrong' to place orphans with adoptive gay parents. He wants that the place where he works excuses him from having to give orphaned children to gay adoptive parents. Conscientious objection as an idea holds much sway in health care professions. There members of God's earthly team also want a special exemption when it comes to certain types of medical services. The weird bit about the conscientious objection stance is, of course, that it's not about any kind of actual truth of the belief held by the objectors. So, it's not at all about whether they can show that their God exists and that the views they ascribe to their God are truly God's views, basic stuff like that. Rather, it's about the fact that they feel so very strongly about the issue. Well, what if Mr McClintock had joined an Aryan Nation type religion that would prevent him from given orphans to families from an ethnic group that he doesn't like, because his God etc etc, would that also fly as a reason for racial discrimination?
Given that conscientious objection, as we have seen, is not about the truth or otherwise of the God related claims, to me at least it seems that accepting a right to conscientious objection is close to saying 'anything goes' as long as the objector feels strongly enough about it. This absurdity is truly incompatible with professional conduct, and for that reason alone we should do away with any supposed right to conscientious objection.
You don't want to deliver services that we as society can reasonably expect of you by virtue of your professional status ... frankly, then take a hike and get yourself some other job that you're able to fulfill.

Barbarians in Iran get away with MURDER - the liberal West is silent

I am not a great fan of right-wing news outlets like the WELT newspaper in Germany, but at least they can reasonably reliably be trusted to inform us about murder committed by Iran's President Mr Ahmadinejad and his fellow Muslim compatriots. While the political left has been busily wringing its combined hands over the botched hanging of secular mass murder Sadddam Hussein, there is an eerie silence from that crowd when Islamic states engage in the slaughtering of the innocent. No wonder, one doesn't want to be seen sitting in the same boat as US President Bush and other religious Christian fundamentalists in their condemnation of anything not Christian. Well, frankly, I think this won't do.

In this lengthy blog entry journalist Stefan Wirner reports about the barbaric public hanging of 16 Iranian (innocent) citizens. In the same week 2 journalists critical of the regime were sentenced to death. Funny enough, there have been no demonstrations in front of Iranian embassies the world all over reported. Presumably 'progressive' people were too busy decrying the force-feeding of Islamic prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. To be clear, the very existence of Guantanamo Bay is unacceptable, and so is the force-feeding of prisoners in that facility. Surely, however, the execution of 16 Iranians whose only crime has reportedly been that they were homosexuals (or were assumed to be homosexuals) should have led to a substantially larger international outcry, yet there has been near-complete silence.

There is still time to do something about the two journalists, Abdolwahed Bohimar and Adnan Hassanpur. They were reportedly condemned to capital punishment because they were found guilty to be 'enemies of God'. This suggests that my blog entry just below, if I were unfortunate enough to be a citizen of Iran, could put me comfortably in the very same situation as Bohimar and Hassanpur. As always, one hasn't heard from the ever-growing number of Islamic human rights organisations, usually busying themselves with fighting for women's alleged 'right' to wear complete veils, as well as decrying cartoons of their respective God while displaying silence on cases such as those just described. A s soon as this sort of double-standard is pointed out (usually by someone conservative - which, incidentally I am not), invariably someone (liberal) will come to their defense and mumble something about besieged religious minority and stuff like that. My honest take on this is that a lot more people would take Islamic human rights activists seriously if they became active in such matters, too. After all, as Muslims their protests would likely have a bigger impact on a regime such as the Iranian than my biased bickering. So, may I suggest that civil rights are indivisible and everyone playing in this political arena should go out of his/her way to ensure that he/she is seen to treat them like that.

Scottish Nationalist (aka Bigotry) Party ...

You may or may not recall this item on this blog. I posted it awhile ago, arguing that the Scottish Nationalist Party is essentially lowering itself to a gutter driven political party. One of its MSP's proposed at the time that religious adoption agencies ought to be allowed to discriminate against same-sex potential adoptive parents. This was a clear attempt by the Catholic Church and its minions in parliament to undermine legislation designed to prevent unjust discrimination based (among other things) on sexual orientation. Despite public demands that the party take a stance on this issue, there was silence from the organisation's leadership.

I am 'pleased' to say that the party's efforts have finally paid off. It received a 500,000 GBP cheque in support of its election campaign from Brian Souter, a fundamentalist Christian and owner of transport company Stagecoach. Not a big surprise then that the party refuses to reply to queries from civil rights organisations demanding to find out what its stance is on equality related matters. This (very local, I know - apologies to readers slightly further afield...) is not completely insignificant as the SNP is set (according to virtually all opinion polls) to become the biggest party in the next Scottish parliament. So, a win for bigotry is quite possibly on the books. As the Romans said: Let the Buyer Beware.

Gay adoption

Public Obligations and Private Preferences

Just a few weeks ago the Scottish Parliament did the right thing. It permitted adoption agencies to allow gay couples to adopt children. Frankly, this being the 21st century, I didn't expect anyone to bat an eyelid in response to this decision. And not many eyelids were batted beyond the usual suspects belonging to various church hierarchies. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, our local representative of the Vatican, predicted entirely predictably our descent into a spiral of immorality. Explain that take on the issue to thousands of well-cared for AIDS orphans in Southern African who have been adopted over the years by gay couples. Even the Catholic Church knows that there is no evidence that children brought up by gay couples are any worse adapted than children brought up by straight folks. So, it's not its concern for the children's well-being that drives them. Its take on the matter at hand is that a fairly old, logically inconsistent booklet forming the ideological basis for much of Mr. O'Brien's statements, tells us that gay adoption is wrong. Why anybody in government should care is something I truly do not comprehend. The Catholic Church, when stripped of all the bluster of titles and robes, has long ceased to be a credible arbiter of morality. It knows little to nothing about human sexuality and tends to limp from one home-made sexual scandal to the next.

Enter Ruth Kelly. The Communities Secretary is not your average church going Catholic, far from that. She is a card carrying member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei is a particularly fundamentalist arm of the Catholic Church. Religious views, you might say, and I would certainly concur are private affairs. We all are perfectly entitled to believe in any particular God (and as you will know, there are plenty of them on offer out there) or none at all. The golden rule in this regard is that we basically are entitled to do in our private lives whatever we consider appropriate in that regard. That certainly applies to Ruth Kelly as much as my Polish plumber. The trouble really began when Ms Kelly decided to create a loophole in said adoption rules. She plans, supported by regular Pope chum Tony Blair to permit religious organizations to discriminate against prospective adoptive gay parents. I am not surprised she would come up with such a strategy. The last Opus Dei member I came across advised my gay office manager that she would pray for him so he would be able to become heterosexual. I wish I could say 'just made that one up', but I didn't.

Ruth Kelly should have recognized that she has a clear conflict of interest between her public responsibilities as a communities secretary and her private-preference religious views. In John Reid's famous words (uttered admittedly in a different context), she is certainly not fit for purpose and should be replaced by someone who is not abusing government office to achieve religious ideological objectives. – And spare me the nonsense about the grave danger to children's well-being if the Catholic Church really closed its adoption agencies, as it threatened to do if anti-discrimination legislation would be applied to its activities as they apply to everyone else's. Leaving aside this demonstration of the Church's prioritizing of its ideology over the children's well-being as well as its clear attempt at blackmailing the democratic state, surely it should not be overly difficult to channel the public funding the Church receives for its adoption agencies to a charity that has its eyes on the ball (the children as opposed to the book). – Still skeptical as to whether the Church and its government minister might have a point? Just imagine the book would have said that black orphans may not be adopted by white people. Would you still think the Church has a case?