Ahead of next year's census, if it's still going ahead, we've just had what amounts to one of the largest surveys in the UK. Extrapolating the figures the stat-folk have come up with a figure that shows that just 1.5% of the population identify as gay or bi. This is considerably less than the 6% figure used in planning local government services a few years ago. I'm rarer than I thought. I hope I am not an endangered species. Even more depressingly 79% of the population seem to admit to a religious affiliation. So much for the secular wasteland caricatured during the pope's recent visit. We've obviously got a long way to go

1.5% of Britons say they are gay or bisexual, ONS survey finds | World news | guardian.co.uk

who are your Celebrity Crushes



Jason Stathm

Grard Butler

Jeremy Renner

Julian McMahon

Billy Ray Cyrus

and
Hugh Laurie

:biggrin:

I was sitting around watch G4-TV, an my brother shows up an asked if he can use my Laptop to look up bus schedules. I was like sure, I opened my laptop put in my password and started to hand it to my brother.
This is my matrix slow motion moment, as I’m handing my brother the computer I look down at the laptops screen. It’s my gayspeak.com profile I notice this pretty much rip the computer out of my brothers hands quickly close the window an delete all my bookmarks than hand the laptop back to him.

OH! Man!….that’s completely normal unsuspicious right….FRAK ME!

March and rally tomorrow in London.

Despite the odd construction of the catchphrase, see you there!

Protest The Pope

And, just in case anyone is still wondering why ...

Quote:The diverse groups who support this campaign have many different reasons for not approving of the State Visit to the UK by the Pope in September 2010. They all however share the following view:

• That the Pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country.
  
• However, as well as a religious leader, the Pope is a head of state and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for:
  
  1. opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of AIDS
     
  2. promoting segregated education
     
  3. denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women
     
  4. opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people
     
  5. failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.
     
  6. rehabilitating the holocaust denier bishop Richard Williamson and the appeaser of Hitler, the war-time Pope, Pius XII.
     
  
  
• The state of which the Pope is the head has also resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties (‘concordats’) with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states.
  
• As a head of state, the Pope is an unsuitable guest of the UK government and should not be accorded the honour and recognition of a state visit to our country.
  

If you believe, as we do, that the Pope should not come to the UK without hearing from the millions of people who reject his harsh, intolerant views and the practices and policies of the Vatican State please get involved.

Russia's most well-known gay activist Nikolai Alekseev was arrested yesterday evening as he was about to board a plane to Geneva on a trip to give evidence at the European Court of Human Rights on the illegal ban of Gay Pride in Moscow.

The flight was delayed while his belongings were removed. He was taken to a secure room at the airport, but it is now feared he is in the hands of the FSB (the former KGB). No one seems to be admitting to knowing where he is.

more

So I went grocery shopping this weekend and right before I entered the store, a homeless man said to me "Nice hair, ma'am" before asking me for change. My hair is green and shoulder-length and was wearing a T-shirt, gym shorts, and flip flops. Oh yes, I'm also a guy. Seriously, even a kid at Target knew I was male a couple days ago Anyone have a similar experience?

A few days ago, I was walking with my brother to a 7-11 type place. It's in my vacation home's area. As we walk back, a guy on his bike past by me and he said "hey hot stuff!" He went by too fast and I knew that the guy was possibly gay. I didn't get a real good look at him. I remember that he was a bit muscular and he had bleach blond hair. I saw him at that 7-11 type place the next day. It looked like he was gay. He was not my type at all. I just wonder why he called me "hot stuff"... oh well! I am flattered by it.

Malaysia's Gay Community Begins to Push the Limits

AFP - Thursday, September 2

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2, 2010 (AFP) – When Malaysia's only openly homosexual pastor announced he was establishing the nation's first gay church, the proposal was met with a torrent of outrage and criticism.

Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng faced down threats to block the plan by government and religious leaders who said it would encourage homosexuality -- still a crime punishable by 20 years in jail in the Muslim-majority nation.

The church he co-founded has however been operating quietly in suburban Kuala Lumpur for the past three years, drawing a group of gay Christians for Sunday services and bible studies.

Ouyang's battle is part of a campaign being fought on many fronts in Malaysia, where there is a growing sense of activism among the gay community which is beginning to mobilise to fight for its rights.

"We are working on encouraging more people to join the church, for Christians to come out and live authentic lives," says the pastor, who was married for nine years until he "came out" publicly in 2006.

"Whether one is gay or straight or bisexual, they are sexual orientations, it is not something we do that makes us gay."

Ouyang says the church, which also embraces bisexuals and transsexuals as well as welcoming heterosexuals to its services, wants to help the community know they are not "alone in fighting the battle".

"When I was young, how I wished someone who was good, highly admired and respected in the society could come out and tell me 'I am gay too,'," says the 40-year-old.

Homosexuality remains a social taboo across the racial and religious spectrum in Malaysia, a conservative country which is also home to large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

Gay men and women are a visible presence out in public, and on the Internet where they are connected through online forums.

However, authorities periodically crack down on the thriving gay scene, carrying out raids at gay-friendly bars or massage parlours, leaving some with a constant fear of persecution.

Few feel they can declare their sexuality openly, and there was a dearth of groups representing the community until 2008, when the first "Seksualiti Merdeka" or "Sexual Independence" festival was held.

Organiser Pang Khee Teik, an art gallery owner, said he was inspired by rising activism in the region.

India and Nepal have de-criminalised homosexuality in recent years, in Thailand the annual Gay Pride festival is being revived, and even in conservative Indonesia there is an annual gay film festival.

"We thought the time was right to replicate something similar in Malaysia," Pang says. "We are trying to tell people: you have sexual rights whether the state recognises it or not."

"The long-term goal could be the repeal of laws against sodomy and oral sex for instance," says Pang, adding that anti-discrimination laws are also needed.

The annual festival, which includes talks, music performances and film screenings, has seen the number of participants double from 400 in 2008 to about 800 last year.

It will be held for the third time later this year and has managed to avoid any action from protesters or the authorities, partly due to efforts to keep it low-key.

But religious figures who have an influential role in Malaysian society remain vehemently opposed to the new mood. A top religious body in 2008 also issued a "fatwa" or Islamic religious ban on lesbian sex.

"Homosexuality is going to destroy the world as we are not thankful to God's creation and we are going against His wishes," says outspoken Islamic cleric Harussani Zakaria.

"Homosexuality is a very bad thing. God has created men and women, how can it be man with man, and woman with woman?"

The gay community takes heart from small steps, including a recent Malaysian Film Censorship Board decision to reverse a ban on the depiction of homosexuality and allow gay characters to be featured in films.

But in an indication of the distance campaigners still have to go, the new guidelines also stipulate that gay characters must repent or go straight before the credits roll.

"They recognise that we do exist and that is a something positive, at least," says Azri, who has a boyfriend of five years, as he sips coffee at one of Kuala Lumpur's upmarket shopping malls.

"My ideal world is to be recognised as a couple and enjoy the rights just like any other heterosexual couples," says the boyish-looking 28-year-old.

"We can't rush, we are slowly building the momentum."

Quote:
Funding has been granted to two projects which will preserve New Zealand's gay and lesbian history.

Broadcaster/documentary maker Gareth Watkins and historian/ activist Dr Alison Laurie and have each received an Award in Oral History ... continues

This is an interesting piece of historical revision. It always puzzled me that, despite Cuba's advances in education and medical care, attitudes towards glbt people in the revolutionary years were so anti.

In this interview Fidel Castro admits that he dropped the ball and was distracted by more weighty matters such as the US embargo and the missile crisis.

Fidel Castro takes blame for 1960s gay persecution | Reuters