Logo
Google
 
  Gay Republic Daily - international Gay news Hello unlogged user | [ Register | Log in ]  
Main Menu

Editor's pick
UK Gay News
Michael Petrelis
DIRELAND
Peter Tatchell
QueerSighted

Login




 


 Log in Problems?
 New User? Sign Up!

Topic: History

The new items published under this topic are as follows.


Apr 21, 2008# News: New Website Highlights Gay African Heroes
History (UK) - A new website highlighting African heroes and achievers has included three prominent Gay Africans. "Gay Africans make up a part of the landscape of the continent and any member of the Gay community who has achieved something of merit deserves a place on our site. We welcome the submission of their biographies," said the website's creator, Kadija Traoré Bush, who is of is Malian and Beninoise heritage.
# Read more...

Mar 17, 2008# Quickie Link: Nazi Persecution of Gays is Explored in Exhibit
History (USA) - A traveling exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum uses photographs, documents, and artwork to chronicle the Nazis' arrests and persecution of tens of thousands of Gay men from 1933 to 1945. The exhibit, on display through the end of the month at the University of Rhode Island, gives voice to what its curator describes as "one of the lesser-known stories of the Nazi era." The exhibit begins just before the Nazis rose to power, when an estimated 1.2 million Gay men lived in Germany and a Gay culture flourished in nightclubs and cafes. But after Adolf Hitler took power, the Nazis began closing Gay clubs, and in 1934 the Gestapo asked local police departments to compile lists of men believed to be Gay. A law known as Paragraph 175 that had previously prohibited "unnatural indecency" between men was reworked to dramatically expand the range of illegal behaviors. By 1938, even a perceived wayward glance or touch could be interpreted as criminal by the courts.
# Note: Read more on Boston.com

Feb 05, 2008# Quickie Link: Day Trip to Auschwitz for Pupils from Every School
History (UK) - Two sixth-formers from every school in England are to visit Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust, under a government-funded initiative to help to ensure that the lessons of the Nazi genocide live on with a new generation. Jim Knight, the UK Schools Minister, wants the teenagers who take part to educate their classmates and communities in turn by giving them their own accounts of the death camp in Poland where more than one million Jews, Roma, Sinti, Gay, disabled and black people were put to death. Teenagers selected for the visit will meet an Auschwitz survivor, be shown around the camp’s barracks and crematoria and see the registration documents of inmates, piles of hair, shoes, clothes and other items seized by the Nazis. They will also hear first-hand accounts of life and death in the camp and end the visit at a memorial service.
# Note: Read more on Times Online

Jan 31, 2008# Quickie Link: Memorial to Nazis' Gay Victims in Works
History (Germany) - A new Berlin memorial to the Nazis' Gay victims — including a video presentation showing same-sex couples kissing — should be ready within months, officials said Thursday. The $890,000 memorial to Gay victims will be located in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park, across from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said. Construction on another memorial to honor Roma and Sinti, or Gypsy, victims of the Nazis also is to begin this year. Homosexuality was banned under the Nazis. Tens of thousands of people — primarily men — were arrested and many were sent to concentration camps.
# Note: Read more on Washington Blade

Jan 27, 2008# Quickie Link: Nation Remembers Victims of the Holocaust
History (UK) - More than 1,600 people including survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides are attending a memorial service at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall. The annual event, held as Liverpool acts as European Capital of Culture falls on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Between 5,000 and 15,000 Gay men were held in concentration camps by the Nazis as members of an "anti-social group." Historians estimate that 60% of them died while incarcerated. After the war Gay men were not recognised as victims of the Holocaust and many were re-imprisoned by the authorities because of the sexuality. They were denied the reparations and state pensions available to other groups.
# Note: Read more on Pink News

Jan 09, 2008# Quickie Link: Exhibit Presents Czech Gay History
History (Czech Republic) - Minister in charge of human rights and minorities Dzamila Stehlikova (Greens) opened a touring exhibition mapping some 20 years of Czech homosexual movement in the House of Ethnic Minorities in Prague Monday. "The activists have not only achieved the recognition of their human rights, but they have also won respect of society," Stehlikova told CTK. The display, to be held until January 21, offers photographs, period documents, covers of gay magazines as well as recordings from the discussion on registered partnership of same-sex couples in the Chamber of Deputies. After Prague, the exhibition will continue in other Czech towns.
# Note: Read more on Prague Monitor

Dec 11, 2007# Quickie Link: Czech Gays' History on Display
History (Chech Republic) - A touring exhibition that describes the history of homosexual movement for equality in the Czech Republic was unveiled on the occasion of the day of human rights in the Hrzansky palace Monday, Jiri Hromada, a former head of the Gay Initiative in the Czech Republic, told CTK. The exhibition will be put on display at the Prague House of Ethnic Minorities between January 7 and 25, said Jiri Hromada, an assistant to the minister for minorities and human rights Dzamila Stehlikova. "We want to show to the public that Gays and Lesbians did not fall from the Mars. The older generation used to say there were no homosexuals in its youth," Hromada said. The first of the panels describes the position of homosexuals in the world from antiquity to the 19th century.
# Note: Read more on Prague Monitor

Dec 04, 2007# Quickie Link: A Breakthrough Towards NZ's Lesbian Museum
History (New Zealand) - Hundreds of artefacts and documents chronicling and showcasing New Zealand's Lesbian culture looking back to the early 20th century - how will this collection be preserved for the benefit and understanding of future generations? Dr Miriam Saphira's dream of a Lesbian Museum in Auckland is now a significant step closer to reality with the announcement of new headquarters for the Charlotte Museum Trust's activities. The office at 58 Surrey Crescent will open on Sunday 17 February 2008 - right in the middle of Auckland's HERO Festival. Shelving has been provided by the Gay Auckland Business Association, and volunteers are classifying and taking inventory on all the items in preparation for relocation.
# Note: Read more on GayNZ

Nov 21, 2007# Quickie Link: Mourning Losses and Honoring Transgender Heroes
History (USA) - “Today is usually reserved simply as a day to mourn the loss of our everyday heroes--those gender-variant people who chose to stand up for what they felt, rather than hide behind society’s norms,” organizer Jake Nash told the crowd assembled for Cleveland’s fourth commemoration of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. His plans for the November 18 event went far beyond mourning, instead becoming a three-part event. The first part, “Remembering Our Dead,” took people on a candle-lit march from the Cleveland LGBT Center to Cleveland Public Theater’s Old Parish Hall venue a block away. A solid wall of marchers carried candles and placard memorializing transgender people who died in the last year.
# Note: Read more on Gay Peoples Chronicle

Oct 18, 2007# Quickie Link: Jim Rivaldo - Political Consultant to Harvey Milk
History (USA) - From the time he walked into Milk's camera shop in the early '70s, Mr. Rivaldo was in the center of the city's Gay political awakening. With Milk and other young, politically active Gays, he helped found the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, now known as the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club. A talented graphic artist, he designed the posters and brochures for the successful 1978 effort to defeat the Briggs initiative, a ballot measure that would have barred Gays and Lesbians from teaching in California public schools. Mr. Rivaldo and Pabich were instrumental in getting Milk elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, making him one of the first openly Gay elected officials in USA.
# Note: Read more on SF Gayte

Oct 01, 2007# Quickie Link: Left Calls for Compensation for Gays Tortured under Franco
History (Spain) - Following the presentation of the new State Budgets in Congress on September 21, today the left wing green coalition, IU-ICV, has announced appeals on several fronts. Among them they are demanding that Gays who suffered from repression during the Franco era, be financially compensated. Observers contemplate that less than 100 such people could still be alive today, after Gays were jailed, tortured and had their assets seized, among other measures.
# Note: Read more on Typically Spanish

Sep 21, 2007# Quickie Link: How I tried to Coax Gielgud and Sir Alec Out of Closet
History In this era of civil partnerships and openly Gay celebrities, it is easy to forget there was a time when actors remained in the closet for fear of ruining their careers. Speaking in New York, where he is about to star as King Lear, Sir Ian McKellen offered a vivid reminder of those dark days. In a question-and-answer session in the auditorium of TheTimesCenter, the new home of The New York Times, the actor, whose roles have ranged from Shakespearean characters to Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Magneto in The X-Men, told the audience that he had tried to persuade his fellow thespians Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud to come out as Gay, but both declined.
# Note: Read more on Independent

Sep 07, 2007# News: Equality Forum Presents GLBT History Month 2007
History (USA) - Equality Forum, an international LGBT civil rights organization, announced 31 Icons to be featured during GLBT History Month in October. The 31 Icons achieved success within their respective fields of endeavor, were heroes or advanced LGBT civil rights. "The GLBT community has been uniquely disadvantaged by not being taught its history at home, in public schools or in religious institutions," said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of Equality Forum. "GLBT History Month helps teach our unacknowledged history, provides role models and celebrates contributions made by GLBT individuals to our country and internationally."
# Read more...

Sep 06, 2007# Quickie Link: "Free the Buggers"--Britain & the Wolfenden Report
History (UK) - In the autumn of 1953, British gays were the victims of what they called "The Great Purge" - a massive police crackdown on homosexuals in which nearly 5,000 same-sexers were arrested in the ensuing months - on charges either of "gross indecency" (the same law under which Oscar Wilde (right) was imprisoned), solicitation, or sodomy. This represented an increase of 850 per cent over the arrest rate for homosexuality in 1938, just before World War II. The Great Purge, which took place at the height of the Cold War, was provoked by the defection of the diplomats Guy Burgess (left), a notorious homosexual, and Donald Maclean to Moscow, and in the climate of the day homosexuality was virtually equated with treason in the minds of the police.
# Note: Read full article on DIRELAND

Sep 03, 2007# Quickie Link: A Brave Report 50 Years Ago Paved the Way for Change
History (UK) - Tomorrow marks the 50-year anniversary of the publication of the Wolfenden report on homosexual offences and prostitution. It emerged at a time of great sexual ignorance. In the 1950s there were no manuals for the young, and we had to do our best with baffling encyclopaedia entries. Our elders wanted to re-establish the imagined values of Britain's lost empire. They were full of warnings about VD and how Rome fell because of its tolerance of homosexuality. So as well as the disastrous Suez campaign of 1956, there was a tripling of prosecutions for homosexual offences after 1945.
# Note: Read more on Time

Aug 13, 2007# Quickie Link: School District Removes History Months From Calendar
History (USA) - A decision by the Philadelphia school district to nix Gay and Lesbian History Month from its 2007-08 calendar was met with criticism by a national organization working for gender equality in schools. In a world where presidential candidates make appearances on lesbian and gay cable networks, "you're telling me it's too controversial for the School District of Philadelphia? Come on," said Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. In an effort to be balanced, the district also removed calendar designations marking Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and others.
# Note: Read full article on Courier Post Online

Jul 27, 2007# Quickie Link: Gay ordeal before and after law
History (UK) - Gay men in Wales have recalled their experiences, on the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Leo Abse, who was MP for Pontypool at the time, says he piloted through the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to end the "cruel and savage" laws of the day. The law decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years and in private, but only in England and Wales. Campaigner Howard Llewellyn said that, despite the law, attitudes towards gay people had remained slow to change.
# Note: Read full article on BBC

Jun 24, 2007# Quickie Link: Coming Out Of The Dark Ages
History (UK) - Forty years ago in Britain, loving the wrong person could make you a criminal. Smiling in the park could lead to arrest and being in the wrong address book could cost you a prison sentence. Homosexuality was illegal and hundreds of thousands of men feared being picked up by zealous police wanting easy convictions, often for doing nothing more than looking a bit gay. At 5.50am on 5 July 1967, a bill to legalise homosexuality limped through its final stages in the House of Commons. It was a battered old thing and, in many respects, shabby. It didn't come close to equalising the legal status of heterosexuals and homosexuals (that would take another 38 years). It didn't stop the arrests: between 1967 and 2003, 30,000 gay and bisexual men were convicted for behaviour that would not have been a crime had their partner been a woman.
# Note: Read full article on Guardian

Jun 21, 2007# Quickie Link: 100,000 BC-1968
History It's impossible to know whether certain males and females crawled up out of the primordial sludge and immediately began making it with members of their own gender, but it's more than likely that they did. For despite what the Christian right would have you believe, homosexuality is not some recent phenomenon. And despite what most pop-gay histories suggest, homosexual Homo sapiens did not first appear on this planet in 1969, at a New York watering hole known as the Stonewall. So why all the focus on the events from 1969 onward? Why devote the following pages to an exploration of each year since the Stonewall riots?
# Note: Read full article on The Stranger

Jun 09, 2007# Quickie Link: Gay Rights Debate Rages on 30 Years After Miami-Dade Challenge
History (USA) - Thirty years ago, most people didn't think about gay rights, much less discuss the issue in public. A 1977 battle in Miami-Dade County between two local mothers changed all that, launching both the modern public debate about homosexuality and the emergence of politically powerful Christian conservatives. While voters cast a decisive ''no'' vote for gay rights 30 years ago this week, the discussion triggered by the divisive debate -- which ended the friendship between singing star Anita Bryant and then-Miami-Dade Commissioner Ruth Shack -- has not ceased. ''It was the beginning of two movements, the Christian Coalition and gay rights,'' Shack now says.
# Note: Read full article on Miami Herald