TMIG: This Month in Gay
I realize now that I'm just not disciplined enough to make the weekly report I promised a couple of months ago. But I think I can do this at least monthly.

Subtitle for this month: Why February was not the Love Month for us.

So here are some of the big stories reported largely in the LGBT community...though in some cases there might have been brief national coverage.

Hate Murder in Detroit
The night before Valentine's Day, 72-year-old, openly gay African-American Detroiter Andrew Athos was minding his own business riding a public bus home to his apartment building when an as-yet-unidentified young man on the bus began to taunt him, asking him if he was gay, calling him every slur in the book.

When Athos got off the bus, the young man followed. Shortly thereafter, neighbors heard the assault. The man, continuing his anti-gay diatribe picked up a metal pipe and began beating Mr. Athos with it, ultimately crushing his spine.

Mr. Athos lingered until last Friday. He was a man who was famous for his gentility of speech and his almost obsessive quest to have the Michigan State House lit in red, white & blue lights once a year to honor slain veterans and police officers.

This week, at least one member of the Michigan House of Representatives has decided that, even though expansion of hate crimes to include LGBT protections failed last year, perhaps this terrible tragedy will help people see the need for such a change. The same representative has also suggested that the legislature reconsider Mr. Athos' suggestion regarding lighting the state house.

Mr. Athos' funeral is this afternoon. May he rest in peace.


Why I won't ‘Make it Jamaica’ ever again

On Valentine’s Day, three men perceived to be gay had to be rescued by the police from an angry mob gathered outside a Kingston pharmacy where they had been holed up for almost an hour.

The approximately 2,000 people gathered outside the pharmacy hurled insults at the three men, with some calling for them to be killed. As the minutes ticked by, the three men and staff inside the pharmacy were visibly terrified as the mob demanded that they be sent out so they could administer their brand of justice. "Send them out!" screamed one man.

The men were described in press reports as having “bleached-out faces” and were wearing what the local paper described as “tight jeans and skimpy shirts.”

When the officers arrived and attempted to push the crowd back from the front door, they were greeted with some resistance and taunts. When they attempted to escort the men to a police service vehicle, one of the three men was hit on the back of the head with a stone.

The cops were forced to disperse the large mob by dispensing tear gas canisters and whisking the men away as the crowd scampered in all directions.

One woman’s comments were similar to others: “Jamaica has lost its way if men think they can openly flaunt being gay without any consequences. We don't want that kind of open gay life in this country,”

In Jamaica, men face possible jail sentences of up to nine years if found in a “sexually compromised position: with another man.

In a somewhat related move, Google pulled the plug on a Jamaican-based blog...killbattyman.org from its Blogger hosting service. The site mocked the recent action and called for the killing of specifically identified prominent gay men around the world, including designers Dolce & Gabana.

Grove, Oklahoma Teen Sues School District

For three and a half school years, from 2002 to the end of 2005, Michael Bullis was the target of what his lawyer calls “severe and pervasive verbal and physical harassment.”
What is undisputed is that while attending Grove High School, Bullis was routinely subjected to name-calling and threats of physical harm and death.

The final attack, but by no means the first, came in November of 2005, in the Grove High School cafeteria. While walking into the cafeteria, a student stepped out of a group of other students and began waling on Bullis. His teeth were broken, his lip cut and he was briefly unconscious. The attacker received a relatively brief suspension

In 2004, Bullis was jumped by a group of students as he was going to art class.

It is also not seriously disputed that Bullis was also subjected to repeated assaults of a sexual nature--including inappropriate and unwanted backrubs accompanied by verbal mockery and insults, inappropriate stroking of his neck and throat, also accompanied by blowing in his ear and touching, and rubbing and grabbing his genitals.

Time and again Bullis sought action by school officials and they refused to do anything, according to the complaint. Bullis eventually transferred to a local private school and graduated. He is seeking costs of tuition, an honors diploma from the high school and other damages of less than $75,000.

To understand the level of gay hatred present in that part of Oklahoma, one need only read the many hateful comments at the end of this news report. Thankfully, there are some saner responses.

And finally, at the end of the month....Some good news...from Cuba
(This was reported in USA Today, so perhaps it's not that exclusive a story.)

It was just a decade ago when Fidel Castro's niece, Mariela, the then new director of the National Center for Sex Education in Cuba, convinced him to all "Strawberry & Chocolate," a story of the oppression of gays in post-revolution Cuba, to be produced, and to be Cuba's entry in the foreign language Oscars (it was nominated).

This week, the head of the national assembly in Cuba and the head of the Cuban judicial branch both called for an end to discrimination against gay couples when it came to marriage or civil unions. A bill is being prepared which will allow gay couples IN CUBA, to register their unions and receive the same rights as married heterosexual couples sometime in the next few months.

Canada has gay marriage, a handful of Mexican states now have full civil unions, Cuba is about to have either gay marriage or unions.

My question...do we want to end up with Jamaica (and the Caymans) as the only backward major nation left in the nothern half of the Americas? Just something to think about.