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This Anti-Gay Group Probably Wishes It Had Used A Different Model For Its Billboard

18 February, 2015 - Portyanka | 0 Comments

In December, Kyle Roux, 37, was surprised to hear from a friend that his image had popped up on a controversial billboard overlooking a major highway in Richmond, Virginia. The billboard showed two pictures of Roux. In one, he was wearing a suit; in the other, a T-shirt. "Identical twins,” the caption read. “One gay. One not. We believe twin research studies show nobody is born gay."

The sign was put up by a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (or PFOX), a nonprofit organization that promotes the idea, unsupported by science, that gay people can change their sexual orientation through therapy or prayer.

Roux, an interior designer from Cape Town, South Africa, didn’t support the sign’s message. For one thing, he is not a twin. For another, he is gay.

“I’m a proud and openly gay man,” Roux told The Huffington Post in an email. “I’m no scientist, but from my own life experiences, and those of my peers, I do know that being gay is not optional.”

Roux thinks that PFOX, which has since taken down the billboard, purchased the photos of him from a stock photography site. Legally, he said, there’s not much he can do. But this week, he’s striking back in his own way.

On Wednesday, Planting Peace, a nonprofit organization based in Topeka, Kansas, erected a new billboard down the road from where the PFOX billboard once stood. The new sign, designed in the same color and style as the PFOX billboard and featuring new photographs of Roux, reads: “Dear PFOX: Identical twins? I’m not. I’m gay. Regardless of what you believe I was born gay. And I’m proud of who I am.”

PFOX did not make a spokesperson available to comment for this story.

billboard

Aaron Jackson, the president of Planting Peace, reached out to Roux after media reports surfaced that he was openly gay. Jackson was concerned about young gays and lesbians who might see the billboard.

The mainstream mental health community has roundly rejected the idea that therapy can change a person’s sexual orientation. Some reports have shown that attempting to change one's sexual orientation through therapy can lead to depression, increased anxiety and even suicide attempts. There is still no scientific consensus about what exactly determines sexual orientation.

“While we are seeing so much progress with LGBT issues like marriage equality, we still have a lot of work ahead,” Jackson told The Huffington Post. “It’s important that young LGBT kids know there are people who support them and accept them unconditionally for who they are.”

Jackson and his group have experience fighting anti-gay organizations. In 2013, Jackson purchased a house in Topeka directly across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church, in order to combat the group’s notoriously homophobic messaging. He painted the house in rainbow colors, and called it the Equality House. Since Jackson purchased it, the house has been the site of a same-sex wedding, a "Drag Down Bigotry" drag show and, perhaps surprisingly, a number of reportedly “cordial” conversations with the neighbors across the street.

“Part of our core philosophy at Planting Peace is to actively stand in peaceful protest of the actions of hate groups and to stand for the rights of those who are made to feel 'less than' by countering hurtful messages with messages of love, support and compassion,” said Jackson.

The group is currently accepting donations online to keep its billboard standing.

16 February, 2015 - Portyanka | 0 Comments

Sorry for delay I was wallowing in memes ;^)

(Reuters) - Sri Lanka's new government won a six-month delay on Monday in the publication of a report on alleged war crimes, after the U.N. human rights chief praised its willingness to open the country up to scrutiny.

Sri Lankan government forces have been accused of widespread human rights violations in the final stages of the civil war that ended in May 2009, including most of about 40,000 killings of Tamil civilians in the final weeks of the conflict.

The U.N. Human Rights Council voted last March to investigate war crimes in Sri Lanka, saying then President Mahinda Rajapaksa had failed to do so properly. The U.N. inquiry, advised by three experts led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, was due to report back next month.

U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said he had recommended deferral of the team's report until September, and the president of the Human Rights Council had agreed, given "the changing context in Sri Lanka, and the possibility that important new information may emerge which will strengthen the report.”

The new government had given clear commitments indicating it was prepared to cooperate "on a whole range of important human rights issues – which the previous government had absolutely refused to do – and I need to engage with them to ensure those commitments translate into reality.”

Zeid stressed it had been a difficult decision to allow the delay and he vowed not to let wrongdoers off the hook.

“I am acutely aware that many victims ... might see this is as the first step towards shelving, or diluting, a report they have long feared they would never see," he said.

A senior official of the U.S. State Department welcomed the move and pledges made by the Sri Lankan government.

The official, who did not want to be identified by name, said the United States was "encouraged that a way forward has been agreed upon that satisfies the concerns of all parties" and the delay would "allow space for the new government to demonstrate their willingness to cooperate on human rights issues".

A Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry official welcomed the deferral.

"This is timely and coincide with the new government's move to establish democratic process for accountability issues," the official said. "This will give space for the domestic investigation process."

Sri Lanka had said it needed the delay to give it time to establish a new judicial mechanism to deal with the allegations.

In a letter to Zeid seen by Reuters on Monday, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera set out reforms the government planned to implement within 100 days, including ensuring justice for war crimes.

Samaraweera said he had invited Zeid to Sri Lanka, and all media restrictions and blocks on news websites had been lifted.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in Colombo and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Marguerita Choy)