Pope Benedict apologised to victims of sexual abuse today, saying paedophile priests had committed unspeakable crimes and brought “shame and humiliation” on him and the entire Roman Catholic Church.
Hours after the apology, up to 10,000 chanting demonstrators snaked through the streets of London to protest against his handling of the abuse crisis and his views on homosexuals and the ordination of women.
Pope Benedict (centre) hope the “chastisement” contribute to the healing of the abuse victims.
The US military rule banning openly gay people from serving in the armed forces violates constitutional rights to free speech and due process, a federal judge in southern California ruled yesterday.
US District Court Judge Virginia Phillips said she would issue an injunction barring the government from enforcing the policy, and that the Justice Department would have the opportunity to appeal.
A participant holds up a sign during a gay rights demonstration in Washington October 11, 2009.
Scandinavian airline SAS is planning the world’s first same-sex wedding in the air.
SAS, which is co-owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, said it hopes to host the wedding aboard an Airbus A340 between Stockholm and New York on December 6.
SAS is planning to take same-sex marriages into the heavens.
A boat filled with gay participants cruises the World Heritage canals during the annual gay pride parade in Amsterdam today, August 7, 2010.
Revellers attending Amsterdam’s annual Gay Pride parade nearly doubled the local population despite rain and an ongoing debate over how welcome the gay community remains among all sectors of Dutch society.
An estimated 500,000 party-goers turned out for the event, which was to feature around 80 boats sailing around the city’s Prinsengracht canal. The “Europe Pride”, a boat carrying members of the European Parliament, opened the rain-dampened parade.
Pink was everywhere in the city — pink hats, pink feather boas, pink shirts — as were groups clad in outlandish outfits including a boat full of Santas and scantily-clad men wearing angel wings.
Cover star: BBC weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker on the cover of Attitude Active magazine
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In the day job: Suited and booted at the BBC
It's all a far cry from the fusty respectability of Michael Fish and Bill Giles.
But this is current BBC weather presenter Tomasz Schafernaker as you have never seen him before.
He shocked corporation bosses after he turned up in a gay magazine in a pair of skimpy shorts.
It is understood that while someone at the Met Office had been informed of the article, BBC bosses were completely unaware.
he first thing they knew was when they were told by readers of Attitude magazine about the pictures of the toned-up meteorologist.
Mr Schafernaker's makeover stunned staff who were unaware of his impressive physique, which is usually kept well-hidden under his suit.
A weather centre insider said it was a question of 'minor hot water' for not informing the corporation of the magazine article.
The source said: 'Eyebrows were raised big time. You have to look to see that it is him. The boy was transformed into a swan.
'Let's just say that everyone is seeing Tomasz in a different light now. But we are worried that when people are watching the weather when Tomasz presents they will not be able to concentrate on watching the symbols.'
Attitude features both straight and gay men in the magazine.
Mr Schafernaker appeared as the cover star of Attitude Active, the health special which came with this month's magazine.
The article said that underneath his suits and shirts sported on TV, lay the secret - 'Tomasz Schafernaker is ripped'.
It also said 'undressed he is the specimen you see before you, all pecs and ripped abs.'
The Polish-born presenter, 31, usually fronts the weather reports on The One O'Clock News and has appeared across the BBC networks.
He famously had to apologise in 2007 when on BBC1 he referred to the Outer Hebrides and Western Isles as 'nowheresville'
Last summer on Radio 4 Schafernaker jumbled his words and accidentally said 'muddy shite' for Glastonbury instead of 'muddy site'.
He then giggled on and off throughout the rest of the forecast.
In his interview with the magazine he told Attitude Active: 'I get myself into trouble every now and then but the producers are very forgiving and I thank them for it. I love working with the team.'
Schafernaker was born in Gdansk but came to the UK as a child.
On the BBC's weather website is is said that he developed a 'keen interest' in weather and the natural sciences at a young age 'despite his strongest abilities in the arts and crafts'.
He obtained a degree in meteorology from Reading University. During his studies he spent a short time at Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences analysing tropical weather data.
The presenter joined the BBC in 2000 as a broadcast assistant and months later got his first go at presenting at the age of 22. This made him the youngest man to present on BBC Weather.
He gained more experience by working as a civil forecaster for a year at Met Office London as well as ITV before returning to the BBC.
According to the BBC website he lives in west London with his two housemates and enjoys jogging and his local gym.
Thomas Sabatino, facing right, of Yonkers, N.Y., consoles Robert Voorheis, his partner of 31 years, after same-sex marriage legislation was defeated in the New York state Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. Senators voted 38-24 against the bill. Supporters of same-sex marriage demonstrate outside the New York Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 after the Senate voted down a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
Jeff Friedman, of Rockville Centre, N.Y. holds a sign supporting same-sex marriage outside the New York state Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. New York lawmakers have rejected a bill to legalize gay marriage.
New York state Sens. Ruben Diaz, D-Bronx, left, and Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, shake hands after a debate over same-sex marriage in the New York state Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. The bill, supported by Duane and opposed by Diaz, was defeated 38-24.
Protesters react after the New York state Senate defeated a bill legalizing same-sex marriage at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. The bill was defeated 38-24.
New York state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, D-Bronx, right, consoles Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, following the defeat of same-sex marriage legislation in the New York state Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009.
Gay marriage in New York is all but dead for at least the next year after the State Senate on Wednesday defeated a bill legalizing same-sex marriage by a surprisingly large margin.
Just hours after the Assembly again passed the measure and with Gov. David A. Paterson ready to sign the bill into law, eight Democrats and all Republican senators voted against the measure, which would have put New York in the camp of five other states — New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa — that have authorized gay marriage. The vote was 38 to 24.
As gay marriage backers shouted, “Equal rights now” after the bill’s defeat, supporters insisted the measure will return another day. However, both sides said that chance is unlikely anytime soon, given the size of the defeat and the fact that 2010 is an election year for the Legislature.
Every Western New York senator except Antoine Thompson, D-Buffalo, voted against it.
“It’s as sad a day as I’ve had since I joined public service,” said Paterson, who came to the Senate floor to express his condolences to supporters following nearly three hours of at-times emotional debate and the vote.
The governor said the challenge will be to convince reluctant senators that voters won’t turn against them for backing marriage rights for gays.
“We have to make the climate safer for people who were sitting in this chamber who believe in gay marriage but didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to vote for it,” Paterson said.
In a rarity for the Capitol, where only bills that are certain to pass are even brought to the floor, the gay marriage bill proved to be the exception. That was made clear by intense lobbying and vote counting. Some spectators in the Senate gallery texted lawmakers on the floor during the debate. Meanwhile, a cross section of evangelical, Jewish and Catholic opponents and gay rights supporters worked the hallways before the final vote.
After the vote, gay marriage backers did not hide their anger.
“There was a contagious lack of backbone that occurred here today, and I’m angry about that and sad about that,” Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, who is openly gay and the bill’s lead sponsor, said.
The measure went down to defeat amid a climate of uncertainty in advance of next year’s legislative races and the rejection of gay marriage last year in California and, more recently, in Maine. A recent special congressional election in the North Country of New York, which saw a conservative candidate force the one-time GOP front-runner to drop out, also stoked fear among some lawmakers about voter backlash. Against all of this was the backdrop that both parties are already campaigning for control of the Senate in next year's elections.
“In the back of their minds, there’s that re-election effort, and we’re kidding ourselves if we say that isn’t part of the process,” the Rev. Jason McGuire, of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative religious group, said of the blanket rejection by Senate Republicans — even those in more left-leaning districts.
During the floor debate, only one opponent rose to address the packed chamber out of the 19 senators who spoke.
“If you put this issue before the voters in a referendum, it would not pass,” said Sen. Reuben Diaz, D-Bronx, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.
The most recent poll on the issue, released Wednesday by the Marist College polling group, found 51 percent of New Yorkers back gay marriage, and 42 percent oppose it. Meanwhile, 62 percent of Democrats support it, and 62 percent of Republicans oppose it.
As one Catholic Church representative called the defeat a “victory for the basic building block of our society,” gay rights activists vowed political revenge.
“The response in the community is everything from tears to absolute outrage,” said Kitty Lambert, president of Outspoken for Equality, a Buffalo group.
“This just speaks volumes that they are so out of touch with current affairs and with the need for New York to progress,” said Lambert, referring to the negative votes of local senators.
She said gay groups will work especially hard in 2010 to defeat the senators who voted no.
“Finally, we know who the real enemies are,” she said.
Senators who spoke to back the bill made highly personal appeals.
One spoke of a gay brother who chose to live in France. Another spoke of gays who have been shunned by friends and family. Many likened comments made by some gay marriage opponents to the treatment that blacks received in states that had banned interracial marriage.
Sen. Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn, recalled warnings in Virginia only four decades ago of “pollution” by allowing interracial marriage.
No Western New York lawmaker spoke on the floor.
Afterward, Sen. William Stachowski, D-Lake View, said, “My position all along is if we can find a way to get people civil rights, I can do that. But to vote for [gay] marriage, I can’t do that.”
“I believe in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. That’s what I believe,” Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, said.
Some supporters blamed Democratic leaders for not working harder on the issue.
Jeff Cook, legislative adviser for the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, said Democrats needed to provide more votes to get on-the-fence Republicans to vote yes. When it became clear Democrats lacked votes, Republican sympathizers of gay marriage said privately that there was no point to vote yes at this point.
“There’s no doubt there would have been a different result if Democrats had gotten to a range where Republicans could make the difference,” Cook said.
The gay rights community has struggled in recent months over whether it was a good idea to bring the issue to a floor vote with the outcome uncertain or leaning towards defeat. Some said it risked setting their movement back years if such a big and liberal state as New York defeated the bill.
But Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights advocacy group, said there were no regrets with a decision to push for a clear up or down vote. "It gives us, certainly, a clear road map in 2010 about who stood up for our community and who didn't,'' he said of the legislative elections next fall.
"We wanted to put people on the record about where they were,'' he added.
A drag queen performer is seen at a bar in Dali, Yunnan province, November 23, 2009.
A drag queen performer applies makeup at a bar in Dali, Yunnan province, November 23, 2009.
Zhang Jianbo, a bar manager, blows up a condom as part of an event encouraging condom use by homosexuals in Dali, Yunnan province, November 26, 2009.
A drag queen performer has makeup applied at a bar in Dali, Yunnan province, November 23, 2009.
Drag queen performers talk at a bar in Dali, Yunnan province, November 23, 2009.
Drag queen performers dance at a bar in Dali, Yunnan province, November 23, 2009.
A Chinese city with one of the nation's highest rates of AIDS has opened a government-funded gay bar in an outreach effort that has stirred debate over the use of taxpayers' money.
The health department in Dali, a picturesque city on a lake in southwestern Yunnan province, funded the bar to reach out to China's increasingly open gay community. Dali is one of the 10 cities in China most affected by AIDS.
Same-sex transmission accounts for about one-third of new HIV infections in China, the minister of health said this month.
"Some readers think that it's a waste of taxpayer money, or an indirect endorsement of homosexual behavior," the Beijing News said in an opinion piece on Monday, citing letters to the editor after it ran an article on the bar over the weekend.
"They think if there were another way to reach out to the gay community, it wouldn't be necessary to open a bar."
Founder Zhang Jianbo hopes that the bar will be a public gathering place for gay men, especially from rural villages, who used to gather in a patch of woods near the historic town.
The bar offers sex education and free condoms, in addition to companionship, Zhang said in an interview with the newspaper.
Though funded by the government, the bar is staffed by volunteers from a local non-government organization that works to prevent AIDS.
"Each year, the Dali city government spends 20,000 yuan ($2,929) on treatment drugs for AIDS. So if our bar succeeds in reducing transmission, our 120,000 yuan will be well-spend," Jiang Anmin, deputy director of health in Dali, told the paper.
China's gay community for decades lived in fear of discrimination and prejudice, with the earliest gay bars often the targets of police raids and closures while homosexuals often married women to avoid family and social pressures.
China now has about 100,000 known AIDS cases, but some health experts worry that HIV could spread easily among migrant workers and other hard-to-reach sectors. The government has switched to a strategy of outreach to the gay community, as part of efforts over the past few years to fight the spread of HIV.
"In the past the government relied on NGOs to reach out to the gay community," Bing Lan, director of outreach organization Aibai, told Reuters.
"Now there's a change, in that some local health bureaus feel they are able to reach out to the community themselves."
But one unintended consequence of outreach efforts in parks, bars and bathhouses frequented by gay men, Bing said, is that some gay men now avoid those haunts for fear of being found out.
"Today I saw a blog, saying that when the bar in Dali has its official opening on World Aids Day, no-one will dare to go because there will be too many reporters there," he said.
