God, Satan and witchcraft
 

In February, the Federal High Court in Calabar, Nigeria, struck out the case brought by Helen Ukpabio and other members of the Liberty Gospel Church against Leo Igwe and other child-rights campaigners including the government of Akwa Ibom state. In November 2009, Helen and some of her church members went to court seeking to enforce their rights to believe in God, Satan and witchcraft. They claimed that the seminars and conferences organised in Nigeria by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and other child-rights groups to tackle witchcraft-related abuses infringed on their rights to spread the gospel. They asked the court to order the defendants to pay them two hundred billion naira (US$1.3 billion) as damages for unlawful and unconstitutional infringement of their rights.

Helen and her lawyers were not in court, so Barrister Madaki, the defence-team lawyer, asked the court to strike out the case due to lack of diligent prosecution. The court granted his request.

Afterwards, the executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement, Leo Igwe, commented:

The striking out of this case is a welcome development. It is a victory for justice, human rights and the rule of law in Nigeria. This decision by the court is a vindication of the child-rights campaigners and the great work they are doing rescuing and saving the lives of children abused and abandoned in the name of witchcraft in Nigeria. It is clear evidence that Helen Ukpabio and her church members have no case.

You can rest assured that the Nigerian Humanist Movement and its partner groups will continue to work and campaign to eradicate all forms of human-rights abuses in the name of witchcraft.

Igwe claims that Ukpabio and her Liberty Gospel Church instituted the court action to stop their own arrest and prosecution for their attack on him in July 2009 at the Cultural Centre in Calabar Cross River State. The Cultural Centre had been the venue of a public symposium on witchcraft and child rights organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and Stepping Stones Nigeria. You can also read a story about Leo Igwe and the Nigerian Humanist Movement in News Watch. To read Igwe’s full article about the symposium, go to G&LH, December 2009 .

Hatred and the need to change

Sometimes, hatred knows no bounds. Matthew Shepard was a young gay guy who became a victim of a hate crime in the US. In 1998, he died of his injuries after being tortured and left for dead in a vicious attack. Here is a video produced by Nicholas, a young man who came out in his junior year of high school.

To see more of Nicholas’s videos, go to his YouTube channel, demonickalfun.

Miliband’s faith

In 2008, on the Pink Triangle blog, Andy Armitage wrote this in relation to the UK:

Sounds attractive, doesn't it, to us nonbelievers, agnostics, secularists and whatnot? An atheist prime minister. A breath of fresh air after that religious nutcase Blair.

And it could just happen. David Miliband could just, one day, occupy Number Ten, and he's an avowed atheist. A C Grayling, the atheist philosopher and columnist, believes there are advantages to our having an atheist in the top job.

You might say, “Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?” Maybe so. But he gives some good reasons why a nonbeliever at Number Ten would be better for the country.

A C Grayling’s full article can be found at the Guardian online, here.

In the article, Grayling looked forward to the day Miliband occupied Number 10:

[I]f David Miliband becomes prime minister, the prospect of disestablishment of the Church of England will have come closer.

[The Church of England] has far too big a footprint in the public domain, out of all proportion to the actual numbers it represents: just 2% of the population go weekly to its churches. Yet it controls the primary school system – 80% of it – and a substantial proportion of the secondary school system, with dozens more academy schools soon due to fall under its control.

I wonder if he’s as disappointed as I am, therefore, that Miliband has decided to send his eldest son to … wait for it … a Church of England school!

Mrs Robinson

If the Facebook group “Here’s to you Mrs Robinson for number 1” is anything to go by, tens of thousands of people think Iris Robinson is a hypocrite.

The group was set up in “honour” of Robinson, the disgraced Northern Ireland politician, with the aim of getting Simon and Garfunkel’s 1960’s hit “Mrs. Robinson” (from the film The Graduate) to number one in the UK singles chart.

People were urged to purchase the track following revelations that Robinson, a homophobic bigot and self-proclaimed “born-again Christian”, had had an affair with a rather cute 19-year-old, Kirk McCambley.

Robinson has referred to homosexuality as an abomination and comparable to paedophilia, adding that: “Just as murderers can receive God’s forgiveness by receiving the blood of Christ, so can homosexuals.” Nice!

Meanwhile, Attitude magazine said it was trying to coax McCambley into doing a photoshoot for them. Matthew Todd, the magazine’s editor said:

Kirk is incredibly hot and we’d love to see him on the cover of Attitude. We think our readers would go as wild for him as Iris obviously did. We’d love for him to get in touch. We’ve put in a few calls to the Lockkeeper’s Inn [where McCambley works] but no one has answered the phone.

If they’re successful, we would have one thing to thank Mrs Robinson for!

Acting straight

Rupert Everett spoke to the Guardian in January about being an out-gay actor:

The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn’t work and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. You’re going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they’ll cut you right off.

Nevertheless, Rupert Everett, who is himself out, believes that he’s probably happier than his fellow, closeted, stars.

Men are from Pluto

If you’re gay and thinking about travelling to Asia anytime soon, or are just looking for general information, you should take a look at Utopia Asia, which has excellent coverage of gay and lesbian events and activities across Asia. Rice magazine described Utopia Asia as, “The Obi Wan Kenobi of the Asian gay cyber community. All seeing, all knowing. Drop by and feel the force.”

Also, take a free look at Pluto, which has become Asia’s largest gay media magazine by joining forces with Utopia Asia.