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The UK’s Daily Mail is reporting that three Catholic priests were caught on tape having sex in Rome’s gay nightclubs.  The news has reportedly “shocked … the devoutly Catholic country”.

Video still allegedly showing a gay priest having sex in a Roman nightclub

A reporter for Panorama magazine, who works for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (who happens to own all Italian media), had a “gay accomplice” help him scope out Catholic priests in Italian gay bars.

Panorama said, “By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but, at night it’s off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital’s gay scene.”

Well, all except for one, whom the magazine called Carlo, who “willingly put on his cassock to have sex with the reporter’s gay accomplice.”

Now, if you can get past your initial knee-jerk repulsion to this revelation, consider this:  The Vatican, and the Catholic Church generally, has a long history of priest pedophilia, which is illegal, and which, for the most part, has been kept secret.  The majority of priests who have admitted having sex with young boys identify as heterosexual, not homosexual. Nevertheless, Pope Benedict XVI predictably decided to scapegoat the gays, announcing a “crackdown” in 2008, or “gay witch hunt”, if you will.

So why go out to gay nightclubs with the intent to bust gay Catholic priests, who were not doing anything illegal, and weren’t doing it inside the church?

Stay with me here before you condemn me to hell for all eternity.   I’m simply saying gay priests are people, and have just as much of a right to have consensual sex as anyone else, as long as it’s legal and it doesn’t hurt anyone.

Let’s rewind a bit.  The vow of celibacy was introduced in the Church of Rome in 1079 by Pope Gregory VII, a.k.a. Hildebrand of Sovana.  It took 60 years for it to be codified.  Prior to that, Catholic priests were free to have sex, and even marry and have children. Pope Gregory was despised by by many for his overreaching of papal power.  He excommunicated Henry IV, twice no less, and was described as a “rough and violent peasant, enlisting his brute strength in the service of the monastic ideal which he embraced.”  Gregory VII was so despised, he died in exile in the small Italian town of Salerno.

Now fast-forward about 1000 years to the present.  Despite the fact that Gregory VII was reviled and exiled, the Catholic church continues to cling to his rotten-to-the-core vow of celibacy.  Granted, Catholic priests know what they’re getting into when they take the vow, but they are also human, and as such, by nature they have basic needs.  Many of them have satisfied the need for sex illegally, with children, and it’s been covered up for God knows how long by the church.  I’m guessing around 1000 years.

I’m willing to bet you that if hidden cameras were placed in every priest’s quarters and every little hidden-away spot in the Vatican, Silvio Berlusconi’s head would explode when he saw the tapes and realized the Vatican is a hotbed of gay sex.   Is it wrong when grown men have sex with children?  Yes.  Is it wrong when two consenting adults have sex? No.

So before you go condemning the priests who were caught on camera in gay nightclubs having sex, think about who the Catholic vow of celibacy came from, and just how unrealistic it is, even to men of the cloth.  Isn’t it about time the Vatican wised up and stopped pointing the finger of blame at gay men for its own pathetic failures to fight human nature?

I welcome your comments, condemnations, and prayers for my soul.

Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, following a 15-hour debate that lasted into the early hours of Thursday morning.

The landmark Senate vote of 33-27 was carried live on Argentina national television.

The law tweaks the legal code which no longer will refer to husband and wife, but rather to “the marrying parties.”

The legislation, passed by the lower house in May, also gives same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexuals in terms of adoptions, social security and family time.

Argentina became the first country in Latin America to green light to same-sex marriage nationwide. It followed, around the world, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Iceland. Mexico City allows same-sex marriage.

Emilio Menendez and Carlos Baturin, partnered 30 years, became Spain's first gay couple to wed on July 11, 2005.

Happy 5th birthday to the equality movement in Spain.

This weekend in 2005, Spain passed a law to allow same-sex marriage, making it only the third member of the European Union, after Belgium and the Netherlands, to do so.

Since then, more than 15,000 gay marriages have been performed in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

And no heterosexual marriages were harmed in the process. (In fact, the biggest worry is among citizens in Spain is their economy and unemployment rates, not who is walking down the aisle.)

Vancouver police announced Thursday they have made four arrests in connection to two separate attacks on gay men recently, both incidents of which are being investigated as possible hate crimes.

Constable Jana McGuinness announced the charges against Parminder Singh Bassi and Ravinder Singh Bassi, two brothers from Richmond, BC, who were arrested Wednesday morning and charged with assault causing bodily harm in the June 13 attack on David Holtzman and Peter Regier.

Regier and Holtzman were returning home from a concert and found two men drinking outside their building, one of them urinating near the door.

The two men turned on them, repeatedly calling them “fucking faggots” and “cocksuckers,” according to Holtzman.

Holtzman said he and Regier were attacked without provocation. He received about 50 punches to his head and body and was twice bitten by his attacker.

The Bassi brothers have been released on bail, and are set to appear in court on July 5.

The arrests were announced at the same time as police revealed another “possible hate crime” that occurred Thursday morning in which a 30-year-old man was allegedly punched and beaten by two 21-year-old men.

Alexandre Tchernychev and Aaron Alexander Hahn of Vancouver were arrested in connection with the attack and charged with assault causing bodily harm.

Sigurdardottir

Sigurdardottir, 67, married writer Jonina Leosdottir on Sunday, the day a new law took effect defining marriage as a union between two consenting adults regardless of sex, reports MSNBC.

The two had had a civil union for years and changed this into a marriage under the new law, which was approved by parliament earlier this month.

Photo credit: AFP

Russian police on Saturday detained at least five gay rights activists in a public courtyard in St. Petersburg, allegedly for holding an unsanctioned gay pride rally, reports AFP.

Using similar tactics to a gay rights protest in Moscow last month, the protesters tried to outwit the security forces by only revealing the location of the demonstration at the last moment.

Around 30 activists staged the protest in the inner courtyard of the world famous Hermitage Museum — the area where visitors queue for tickets — brandishing slogans in favour of gay rights.

“Equality without compromise”, “homophobia is an illness” and “homophobia — the country’s shame” were among the slogans.

Russia, where homophobia remains rampant and homosexuality became legal only in 1993, forbids gay pride marches.

Regier (left) and Holtzman.
(Photo: theprovince.com)

Peter Regier and his partner David Holtzman were returning home from a concert and found two men drinking outside their building, one of them urinating near the door, Xtra.ca reports.

“David objected and said, ‘Do you really need to pee there? I live here, this is my building,’” Regier recalls.

The two men turned on them, repeatedly calling them “fucking faggots” and “cocksuckers,” Holtzman says.

Holtzman said he and Regier were attacked without provocation. He received about 50 punches to his head and body and was twice bitten by his attacker.

Regier said the men eventually fled because a couple of witnesses moved closer as the attack unfolded.

Both Holtzman and Regier suffered concussions, with Regier beaten so viciously he was taken to hospital, where surgical staples were put in his head to close a wound.

So far, no arrests have been made in connection with the incident. Full story at theprovince.com.

Iceland, the only country in the world to have an openly gay head of state, passed a law on Friday allowing same-sex partners to get married in a vote which met with no political resistance, reports Reuters.

The Althingi parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between “man and man, woman and woman,” in addition to unions between men and women.

Iceland, a socially tolerant island nation of about 320,000 people, became the first country to elect an openly gay head of state in 2009 when Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister after being nominated by her party.

“The attitude in Iceland is fairly pragmatic,” said Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland. “It (gay marriage) has not been a big issue in national politics — it’s not been controversial.”

Althingi members welcomed the move after the vote, saying it was a great day for everybody everywhere involved in the struggle for gay rights and human rights generally.

The bill will go to the President for ratification; but that is a formality as the Icelandic President has only twice sent a bill to public referendum in the history of the Republic of Icelandic.

Also, public opinion polls suggest the marriage bill is extremely popular.

Monjeza (left) and Chimbalanga

President Bingu wa Mutharika announced his pardon of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga after meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, according to the country’s solicitor general, Anthony Kamanga.

Monjeza, 26, and Chimbalanga, 20, were jailed last week, prompting an international outcry.

Mutharika said he would release the men on “humanitarian grounds only.”

“These boys committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws,” Mutharika said. “However, as head of state, I hereby pardon them and therefore order their immediate release without any conditions.”

But he added, “We don’t condone marriages of this nature. It’s unheard of in Malawi and it’s illegal.”

Earlier this month, a judge convicted and sentenced the two men on charges of unnatural acts and gross indecency, both colonial-era laws. They were arrested in December, a day after they celebrated their engagement.

Homosexuality is illegal in at least 37 countries in Africa, including Malawi.

Monjeza (left) and Chimbalanga

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were arrested on December 28 after their symbolic wedding and accused of violating “the order of nature,” and were told by a judge they would also serve 14 years hard labor as a warning to other gay people in the country, the maximum sentence under the penal code.

“I will give you a scaring sentence so that the public be protected from people like you, so that we are not tempted to emulate this horrendous example,” said magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa, the Associated Press reported.

In unusually graphic language, Usiwa Usiwa convicted Monjeza of “having carnal knowledge of Tiwonge through the anus, which is against the order of nature.”

Chimbalanga was found guilty of “permitting buggery”, which the judge said was similarly contrary to the natural order.

Homosexuality is illegal in Malawi and most other African countries.

The Malawian minister of information, Leckford Mwanza Thotho, said the government was pleased at the conviction.

Amnesty International called for their immediate release and said their rights have been “flagrantly violated.”

Earlier this week, a lower court outlawed the parade after the chief prosecutor argued that anti-gay groups could cause violence.

As in many other former Soviet republics, gay rights is a sensitive issue in Lithuania, which has repeatedly been criticized by human rights groups for widespread intolerance toward sexual minorities.

No major gay pride events have been held in the largely Catholic country of 3.4 million since it regained independence in 1991.

The Supreme Administration Court rejected the lower court’s decision, and ruled that the state must ensure the right to peaceful assembly.

The Baltic Pride event in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, is expected to draw 350 participants and an even larger crowd of opponents.

IraqiLGBT is an organization that operates as a modern-day Underground Railroad to provide safe houses for LGBT Iraqis who would otherwise face certain death in the country.  So why do the United States, the United Kingdom, and France continue to ignore its pleas for help?

Ali Hali, founder of IraqiLGBT.com

More than 700 gay Iraqi men have been brutally murdered by roaming death squads since the U.S.-lead occupation of the country began in 2003.  The violence has escalated in recent years, and there have been reports from inside Iraq that American soldiers are turning a blind eye towards the situation, and have even been involved in some of the killings.  Some Iraqi gays have said they enjoyed more freedom under Saddam Hussein’s rule.

The latest crisis facing Iraqi LGBT is securing asylum in France for 21-year-old Anwar Saleh, who was arrested by Iraqi police in 2009  for coordinating a safe house in Baghdad. He was badly beaten up, tortured and suffered post-traumatic stress after his detention and the abuse he was subjected to.  He was put under investigation and interrogated  about his role as an LGBT activist and his involvement in the running of the safe house.

Iraqi LGBT has issued an urgent appeal for support or housing in France (particularly Paris) for Saleh.  After Iraqi LGBT paid authorities $5000 for Saleh’s release in Iraq, he fled to Paris and lived on the streets, eventually making his way to the Netherlands, where he applied for asylum, but was told it was up to French authorities whether or not to grant him refugee status.  As a result, Saleh must return to France.

Iraqi LGBT has also been attempting for three years to secure asylum in the UK for it’s founder, Ali Hili, who has been been living in exile in London since receiving a fatwa from inside Iraq as well as numerous threats in London which have forced him to move.  He is currently under police protection at an undisclosed location.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has consistently decided not to give priority to Ali’s application, which is a direct violation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  Hili has received many requests to speak internationally, but he has been unable to pursue them because he cannot travel outside the UK until he is granted asylum. His solicitor wrote to the UK Border Agency in August 2009 that: “he desperately wishes to do this [travel] in order to further the aims of Iraqi LGBT -  that is, supporting lesbians and gay men in Iraq and bringing the world’s attention to their plight.”

As for the United States, who started this whole mess in Iraq, there has been nothing but all talk and no action to help LGBT Iraqis.  U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin spoke last month of their concerns for LGBT both in Iraq and as refugees, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,which was co-signed by 64 other Congresspeople.  Hooray.

Please visit IraqiLGBT and do what you can to help these brave souls.

Sheehan

A retired U.S. general has apologized for saying that Dutch troops failed to prevent the Srebrenica massacre because openly gay soldiers were included in their UN peace-keeping force.

In testimony at a Senate hearing on March 18 on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Ret. Gen. John J. Sheehan said that the liberalization of the Dutch military and subsequent enlistment of openly gay soldiers combined with poor military leadership contributed to its failure to hold off Serb forces in Srebrenica.

In a letter sent Monday to a Dutch military general, Ret. Gen. John J. Sheehan apologized for inaccurately reflecting their conversations.

“I am sorry that my recent public recollection of those discussions 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military,” Sheehan wrote.

Sheehan was referring to the 1995 attack on Srebrenica by Bosnian Serbs, who killed approximately 8,000 people while Srebrenica was under protection from Dutch forces.

Levin

Dr. Aubrey Levin, who was arrested in Calgary, Alberta, after he was secretly filmed sexually abusing a male patient, had previously been accused of gross human rights abuses for his treatment of gay soldiers and conscientious objectors in apartheid-era South Africa.

Dr. Aubrey Levin was arrested after a patient secretly filmed the psychiatrist allegedly making sexual advances.

The police say they are investigating similar claims by nearly 30 other patients.

Levin has a long history of homophobia. His treatments often consisted of strapping electrodes to the upper arm of gay soldiers, showing them pictures naked men and encouraging them to fantasize. He then subjected the patients to severe shocks.

Dressed in a sleeveless white wedding gown, Nikhil Sharma married his companion of six years, Sandip Soibam, in Manipur’s first public gay wedding since the Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality last year.

According to The Hindu, police summoned the couple on Friday morning on the basis of complaints lodged by their family members, none of whom attended Thursday’s ceremony.

Reports said senior police officers and parents of the couple prevailed upon them to get separated, and they had agreed to live separately and remain friends. Officials said the marriage was not legally tenable since all the couple did was exchange rings and not marriage vows.

The marriage should have been solemnized according to the Hindu Marriage Act or any acceptable convention, it was pointed out.

However, the couple’s close friends maintain that the actions of the police and the parents are illegal since Nikhil and Sandip are above 18 years of age.

Sheehan

In testimony during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans gay people from openly serving in uniform, former NATO Commander John J. Sheehan, sparked outrage Thursday when he claimed gay soldiers weakened the Dutch army.

Srebrenica, in Bosnia, was a safe haven for Muslims and was under protection from Dutch forces. However, Bosnian Serbs attacked it in 1995, killing 8,000 people.

Sheehan said that having gay soldiers at Srebrenica had sapped morale and contributed to the disaster.

“The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them. That was the largest massacre in Europe since world war two.”

Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told Sheehan he was “totally off-target.”

“Did the Dutch leaders tell you it (the fall of Srebrenica) was because there were gay soldiers there?” Levin asked.

Sheehan replied: “Yes. They included that as part of the problem.”

Dutch defense ministry spokesman Roger van de Wetering refuted Sheehan’s claims: “It is astonishing that a man of his stature can utter such complete nonsense.”

In a statement, Dutch Ambassador Renée Jones-Bos said, “The military mission of Dutch U.N. soldiers at Srebrenica has been exhaustively studied and evaluated, nationally and internationally. There is nothing in these reports that suggests any relationship between gays serving in the military and the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims.”

The Armed Services panel has held a series of hearings to explore repealing the military’s ban on gay service members.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced a bill this month to repeal the ban.

Tourism is one of the main drivers of the Nepalese economy, and the government hopes to double the number of visitors next year to one million, by getting its share of the multibillion-dollar gay tourist market.

Nepal is banking that gay tourists will be far more lucrative than the backpackers who stay in cheap hotels and travel on shoestring budgets.

”They do have a lot of income … they are high-spending consumers,” said Aditya Baral, spokesman for the Nepal Tourism Board. ”If they behave well, if they have money, we don’t discriminate.”

A growing segment of the gay tourism market craves adventure travel and exotic locations, especially to places seen as hospitable to gay travelers, said John Tanzella of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association.

Everest, the highest mountain on Earth above sea level at 29,029 ft., is part of the Himalaya range in Asia, located on the border between Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal, and Tibet, China.

From CNN:

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was on hand to witness four of the five couples signing their marriage certificates at the end of a 20-minute ceremony, Mexico’s official news agency reported. A fifth couple, flying in from another state to take advantage of the new measure, arrived late and was married after the others.

“Today is a historic day,” Civil Registry Judge Hegel Cortes said at Thursday’s ceremony, according to the Notimex news agency. “It solidifies the evolution of one of the most important rights.”

Mexico City’s legislature gave same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children last December. Although same-sex ceremonies are only legally performed in Mexico City, the marriages themselves are recognized anywhere in the country.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the law, but didn’t delay today’s marriages.

In Mexico’s capital city, the measure also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

According to Associated Press, throngs of gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses in Mexico City Thursday, the day Latin America’s first gay-marriage law took effect.

The first gay weddings will take place within a week to 10 days, after the paperwork is processed.

Mexico City’s legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December.

The change will also allow same-sex couples to apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.

The Catholic Church has slammed the same-sex marriage law; Cardinal Norberto Rivera called it “perverse” and an attack on the family.

Conservative President Felipe Calderon has also challenged the law, and filed a suit with the Supreme Court to overturn it on the grounds marriage should be between a man and a woman. The court has not yet decided whether to take up the case.

Digby

A popular British television host has been found dead in an apparent solo sex game gone wrong.

The ex-partner of openly gay BBC presenter Kristian Digby found the 32-year-old dead in his east London home on Monday.

A post-mortem examination is expected to determine that Digby, host of daytime property show To Buy or Not to Buy, died of suffocation after deliberately restricting his oxygen supply, London’s Daily Telegraph reported.

According to reports, a belt and a bag were removed from the property for forensic tests.

Auto-erotic asphyxiation, which has been condemned by medical experts as a dangerous practice, is said to heighten sexual arousal.

A BBC spokesman paid tribute and said: “Kristian was a much-loved and talented presenter for BBC Daytime. He brought a real sense of energy and warmth to all the shows he presented for us and will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his family at this very difficult time.”

(Image: NBC)

A gay Vancouver man wants to know what the Olympic organizing committee is going to do about the 20-minute verbal and physical homophobic onslaught he endured at the Feb 8 opening ceremonies rehearsal.

Tyler Sheppard says a woman who incorrectly insisted he and his friends were sitting in her seats repeatedly called him and his friends “fucking faggots.”

Sheppard says the abuse continued even after ushers determined Sheppard and his friends were in the right seats.

Sheppard is still waiting for somebody from Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics (VANOC) to return his calls about the incident.

VANOC has a duty to ameliorate such situations, said David Eby of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

Gosling

Veteran BBC broadcaster Ray Gosling was released on bail today following an arrest Wednesday after admitting he had once killed his lover as he lay seriously ill in hospital “in the early period of AIDS.”

Police began their investigation Tuesday after Gosling’s admission on BBC’s Inside Out program Monday night that he carried out a mercy killing on his lover, who was dying of AIDS, to end his suffering. (Video here.)

Gosling, 70, has not revealed where or when the incident took place, although it has been widely speculated to have occurred more than 20 years ago.

So far, Gosling has also refused to name the man during repeated interviews by police, and would not tell detectives the circumstances, in honor of a pact with his former lover.

Asked whether he had any regrets, he replied: “None whatsoever, I did the right thing.”

Gosling, 70, made his revelation on BBC East Midlands’ Inside Out program.

Strolling through a graveyard for a segment of the show about death, he broke down as he recalled the day he took his lover’s life.

“Maybe this is the time to share a secret that I have kept for quite a long time. I killed someone once… He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got AIDS. In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said, ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ and he was in terrible, terrible pain.

“I said to the doctor, ‘Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead.

“The doctor came back and I said, ‘He’s gone.’ Nothing more was ever said.”

It is understood that the killing took place sometime in the 1980′s.

Van den Berg

Charl Van den Berg, 28, who runs a restaurant in Cape Town, won after four days of competition finished with a walk down a fashion runaway in an Oslo nightclub dressed in skimpy swimwear and various costumes, reports AFP.

The competition is aimed at “finding a leader who can take on the responsibility of being a spokesman for the community and who can also speak out on equality and human rights on the world stage,” a statement said.

Xiaodai Muyi, 26, from China and who took fourth place, competed despite Beijing’s attempts to prevent him doing so.

Apart from in South Africa, homosexuality is illegal across Africa.

A police official said two of the men had been found with wedding rings, attempting to get married, in the Kikambala beach resort, according to the BBC.

The other three men were handed to the police by members of the public; two of them had reportedly been beaten.

Crowds gathered outside the police station where the men were taken into custody, and continued to protest the presence of alleged homosexuals.

The wedding was reportedly due to take place at a private villa in the resort, but locals heard of the plans and alerted the police, who raided a house and arrested the men.

“We are grateful to the public for alerting the police. They should continue co-operating with the police to arrest more,” according to George Matandura, a police official.

“It is an offense, an unnatural offense, and also their behavior is repugnant to the morality of the people,” he added.

Matundura said the five — aged between 20 and 35 — will “undergo a medical examination before we charge them with homosexuality.”

A member of a Kenyan gay rights organization condemned the arrests and said it had appealed to the Human Rights Commission to step in.

On Thursday, two other men abandoned their plans to get married at a seaside villa in the same area; the couple and their guests fled when word spread that the police and members of the public were looking for them.

Apart from in South Africa, homosexuality is illegal across Africa.