UGANDA: We’ve been following the Uganda story pretty closely and were encouraged to hear that President Museveni has reportedly assured American authorities that he will veto Ndorwa West MP David Bahati’s proposed anti-gay law.
Reuters South Africa Reports:
“Uganda will soften its proposed anti-gay legislation, but the government denied on Wednesday that it was bowing to an outcry in the West over a controversial bill that could have seen homosexuals put to death.
Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo told Reuters that the revised law would now probably limit the maximum penalty for offenders to life in prison rather than execution: “There have been a lot of discussions in government … regarding the proposed law, but we now think a life sentence could be better because it gives room for offenders to be rehabilitated,” he said in an interview. “Killing them might not be helpful.”
Also check out this Ugandan paper’s piece on Understanding Homosexuality.
LAWSUIT: A fired lesbian lawyer (and Harvard Law grad) is suing her former firm for $50 million, saying she endured “repulsive harassment and discrimination” because of her sexual orientation and was not promoted because of her orientation. She says females were hired laterally rather than promoted from within. The whole thing is super confusing ’cause the specifics are vague, $50 million is a lot of money, and we don’t get why she wants to work there. We want to give her the benefit of the doubt … any legal eagles wanna make sense of it for us?
Julie Kamps, who wears men’s clothing and “does not fit into typical feminine stereotypes,” according to the lawsuit, claimed at least one partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson wrote “highly negative, gay-bashing and damaging comments” about her, according to The New York Post.
Also Julie we have lots of ideas for redesigning your website once we finish redesigning ours, so uh, give it some thought! (@abc)
THE BEAUTY MYTH: On a somewhat related topic — though women have made significant gains in all other areas of life, one thing just keeps getting worse: the standard of beauty – Are impossible beauty standards a subconscious cultural reaction against women’s growing political power?:
It’s fine for women to do everything men do — as long as they stay skinny, sexy, young, and soignée at the same time. The surveillance culture of the Internet and the tabloids sends a message to all women that to let oneself go for even a moment is to open oneself up to a psychotic Greek chorus of abuse.
RIP: 
Ann Nixon Cooper died Monday at the age of 107. In her lifetime, she saw women get the right to vote, the end of legal segregation, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 60’s, and more recently, Obama’s election to the presidency. You might remember Cooper from Obama’s election night speech, which highlighted the achievements America had made during her lifetime:
[Ana Nixon Cooper] was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
The president and first lady released a statement of condolence for Cooper yesterday, in which Obama said “It is especially meaningful for me that she lived to cast a vote on Election Day 2008.” Also, there’s an article over at NPR about Cooper before Obama’s victory. It’s a very touching look at her full life written by Karen Grigsby Bates, who helped Cooper compose her memoir A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name. (@nytimes, @npr)
GOOD LOOKING CORPSES: The 50 Hottest Dead People of the 00s. I don’t know how to feel about this. (@buzzfeed)
CENSUS: Next year, the U.S. Census Bureau will once again go about the task of counting everyone in the country. This time, the census will include gay married couples, but it doesn’t ask everyone about sexual orientation. One group wants that question included and will give you a big pink sticker to help get the point across to the bureau. (@queerthecensus)
TRANS 101: Feministing posted this interesting video that’s an overview of what it means to be transgender. You might know a lot of this already, you might not, but it’s still a refreshingly straightforward and educational look at trans issues. They should show this in grade school health classes, for real. (@feministing)
ATHLETES: The AP nominates two HORSES for female athletes of the year: Was it really so hard to find ten athletes who are women? (@feministing)
SWEDEN IS JUST SO MUCH BETTER THAN OTHER PLACES: More Swedish Women Having Sex With Other Women: According to The Local, an online study of 855 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 reveals that 31 percent of females 7 percent of males report that they are most often sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex, but sometimes they are attracted to people of their own gender. (@carnal nation)
INFLUENCE: Moyers, Moore and Maddow are the Most Influential Progressives. The three M’s — Bill Moyers, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow — scored highest in a recent AlterNet survey* asking more than 5,000 readers to rate the most influential progressive media figures. (@alternet)
10 responses to “Uganda: “Killing [the gays] Might Not Be Helpful.””
i’ll be back to read this but guys please support pedro or idk keep him in ur prayers or spirit, he’s a gay guy thats disabled that people on the internet are making fun of…
click here to read and see http://www.lez-behonest.com
brb
“Also Julie we have lots of ideas for redesigning your website once we finish redesigning ours, so uh, give it some thought! (@abc)”
Lmao did you throw that in there or did someone else say that?I went to her site and yeah it pretty much is blah but lmao @ saying that
UGANDA: “Killing them might not be helpful.” – Helpful to what exactly? I’m no one to question ones logic but really? i mean REALLY? Offenders? Rehabilitated?! they make it sound like we’re psychopaths…like we’re pathological killers.
Since they feel compelled to make everyone and everything “normal” maybe they should focus on “straightening out” their priorities…I’m sure homosexuals are the least of their problems
Yeah, the gays are really not harmful at all. We’re generally a peaceful people, I swear, Uganda! I guess they’re taking the AIDS angle w/r/t the dangers of homosexuality. But HIV is perpetuated by unsafe sex, which can be had by anyone of any sexuality.
Why am I even continuing to analyze this? LOGIC DOES NOT APPLY.
lol it clearly does not apply at all when it should. i mean if they are making a decision like this they should actually sit and think about it instead of doing what “feels right” to them
i hate to call them stupid but…
I hate to break it to you you Mr. President, but the West (and surely some other countries in the East and South America) isn’t protesting your anti-gay bill just because it enforces the death penalty upon homosexuals. They’re protesting it because it criminalizes homosexuality, PERIOD.
“good looking corpses” er… #creepy
also why the fuck are horses “athletes of the year”. i don’t think winning that means anything to them. surely there are more than 8 female athletes who accomplished things this year?
I remember the last time the AP listed a horse in the top female athletes list (like….last year?) I got pretty mad, but then I looked into it a bit. Turns out over 30 years ago the sporting community decided to count horses as athletes because technically they run the races not the jockeys. Male horses have won plenty of “man of the year” awards, so I don’t think this was an intentional slight against female athletes just a very odd form of inclusiveness. I guess what I am saying is on the one hand I sure as hell couldn’t beat Zenyatta or Rachel Alexandra at the Kentucky Derby, but on the other hand, not having opposable thumbs and all, neither of them would really last a set against Serena Williams so maybe that’s why she ranked higher…..
At the end of the day, after reading about all the anti-gay hoopla, all I’ve been able to say (and I just did, out loud) is: “People are fucking retarded.”
I actually did learn a little more from the Trans video.
Horses. Really, AP?
Re: Julie Kamps
If the question is why she wants to continue working at Fried, Frank, the simple answer is that she won’t be able to make partner anywhere else.
The longer answer includes an explanation of law firm dynamics (or, at least, how law firms used to be structured): basically, under a lock-step model, every “year” of associates was advanced a level after a full calendar year, and by the time those associates got to year 8 (or thereabouts), they became viable candidates to become partner. So, Ms. Kamps spent her time at Fried, Frank working her way up until she was considered for partner, which is where all the trouble began (apparently, Ms. Kamps was already arbitrating an earlier claim when she was fired in January, after which she filed a claim with the EEOC). The general problem, though, is that because she never made partner, she most likely can’t be laterally hired into another firm as anything but an associate–one who hasn’t taken the partner track at that specific firm. So, essentially, she’d have to start all over again, and in this economy, no less.
There’s also the issue of her having put so much of her life into this one firm, and I’m sure she’d also like to hold onto her clients, especially any of the ones she managed to bring in.
I hope that makes some sort of sense.