By Marke B.
Lat night, I attended the annual gala for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign (or IGLHRC) — last year’s gala feted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and this one, while considerably smaller, was also mega-inspiring. It was held mostly to honor Helem, an incredible and youthful gay rights organization based in Lebanon, but it also served as an introduction to IGLHRC’s new Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson. The intensely charismatic Johnson spoke of how he had just visited nine starving gay prisoners in Senegal, convicted of “engaging in acts against the order of nature” and ordered to serve eight years — the men in fact had simply gathered at an apartment to discuss AIDS education (and were therefore also convicted of conspiracy.)
He also spoke about how IGLHRC’s small ground team in Uganda was desperate to combat a huge new wave of creepy American religious right extremists (totally creepy — one horrid group of them is called “Extreme Prophetic Ministry!”), who were openly and vocally attacking Ugandan LGBTs and insisting they could be “cured.” Johnson also described IGLHRC’s role in assisting all the people who had been beaten senseless in the backlash against South Africa’s recent adoption of same-sex marriage laws.
The speech was pretty rousing and I was soon wiping my eyes on the bf’s sleeve as the emotions poured out for my persecuted peeps around the globe. Would there ever be any bright spots in the seemingly eternal struggle to get other people to fucking mind their own goshdarned business?