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As a straight person, and as a Christian I believe that homosexuality is wrong. However, that does not give me the right to discriminate against gays in the workforce or anywhere else. My past experiences with gay men have been both positive and negative. The positive experiences have been due to the fact that the men in question were always professional, the negative was due to the fact that the men in question put their sexuality over and above their professional beings. The most insulting of these men was one with long hair – enough to say that he left a sour taste in my mouth when I had to deal with him. That was definitely not the case with the other men that I have dealt with during my professional career.

However, when I read a story like this one, I have to object to what took place, and not only object, I find it necessary to speak up on behalf of the gay men who fear for their lives.

THIES, Senegal (AP) — Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in this corner of the world any more.

Madieye Diallo’s body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.

The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.

“I locked myself inside my room and didn’t come out for days,” says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo’s who is ill with HIV. “I’m afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?”

A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries.

In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for ‘repeat offenders.’ And in South Africa, the only country that recognizes gay rights, gangs have carried out so-called “corrective” rapes on lesbians.

The crackdown also coincided with spiraling food prices. Niang says political and religious leaders saw an easy way to reach constituents through the inflammatory topic of homosexuality.

“They found a way to explain the difficulties people are facing as a deviation from religious life,” says Niang. “So if people are poor — it’s because there are prostitutes in the street. If they don’t have enough to eat, it’s because there are homosexuals.”

Imams began using Friday sermons to preach against homosexuality.

“During the time of the Prophet, anytime two men were found together, they were taken to the top of a mountain and thrown off,” says Massamba Diop, the imam of a mosque in Pikine and the head of Jamra, an Islamic lobby linked to a political party in Senegal’s parliament.

“If they didn’t die when they hit the ground, then rocks would be thrown on them until they were killed,” says Diop, whose mosque is so packed during Friday prayer that people bring their own carpets and line up outside on the asphalt.

Sermons like Diop’s were carried on the mosque’s loudspeakers as well as in Senegal’s more than 30 newspapers and magazines.

Around this time, in May 2008, a middle-aged man called Serigne Mbaye fell ill and died in a suburb of Dakar.

His children tried to bury him in his village but were turned back from the cemetery because of widespread rumors that he was gay. His sons drove his body around trying to find a cemetery that would accept him. They were finally forced to bury him on the side of a road, using their own hands to dig a hole, according to media reports.

The grave was too shallow and the wind blew away the dirt. When the decomposing body was later discovered, Mbaye’s children were arrested and charged with improperly burying their father.

In the town of Kaolack three months later, residents exhumed the grave of another man believed to be gay. In November 2008, residents in Pikine removed a corpse from a mosque of another suspected homosexual and left it on the side of the road.

The grave-robbing has shocked even hardened gay activists, such as Nigerian Davis Mac-Iyalla.

“People have done horrible things (in Nigeria). I have seen people spit on coffins and people spit on graves,” he said. “But it stopped there.”

Among the people who appeared in the photograph published from the gay wedding was a young man in his 30s from Thies. He was an activist and a leader of a gay organization called And Ligay, meaning ‘Working together,’ which he ran out of his parents’ house.

He was HIV-positive and on medication.

When the tabloid published the photograph, Diallo went into hiding, according to a close friend who asked not to be named because he too is gay. Unable to go to the doctor, Diallo stopped taking his anti-retrovirals. By the spring of 2009, he was so ill that his family checked him into St. Jean de Dieu, a Catholic hospital in downtown Thies, says the friend.

He was in a coma when he died at 5:50 a.m. on May 2, 2009, according to the hospital’s records. Although the hospital has a unit dedicated to treating HIV patients, the young man’s family never disclosed his illness, according to the doctor in charge.

Several gay friends tried to see Diallo in the hospital but were told to stay away by his family, says the friend.

When the AP tried to speak to Diallo’s elderly father at his shop on the main thoroughfare in Thies, his other children demanded the reporter leave. One sister covered her face and sobbed. Another said, “There are no homosexuals here.”

Hours after he died, his family took Diallo’s body to a nearby mosque, where custom holds the corpse should be bathed and wrapped in a white cloth. Before the family could bathe him, news reached the mosque that Diallo was gay and they were chased out, says the dead man’s friend. His relatives hastily wrapped him in a sheet and headed to the cemetery, where they carried him past the home of Babacar Sene.

“A man that’s known as being a homosexual can’t be buried in a cemetery. His body needs to be thrown away like trash,” says Sene. “His parents knew that he was gay and they did nothing about it. So when he died we wanted to make sure he was punished.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/11/even-after-death-abuse-against-gays-continues/#ixzz0ksJgfmfd

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The death of Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president and dozens of his high-level countrymen in a plane crash, and the purpose behind the journey, laid bare the deep divisions that remain between two nations still struggling to be more than uneasy neighbors who watch each other with skepticism and suspicion.

Saturday’s planned visit to the Katyn forest was somber in purpose but underscored his suspicious eye of the massive neighbor and former taskmaster to the east. The memorial service was to mark the 70th anniversary of the killing of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet secret security during World War II.

Katyn. The site of the massacre of Polish military officers, priests, shopkeepers. Men shot in the back of the head by Josef Stalin’s NKVD, the precursor of the KGB.

“It is an accursed place,” former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24 after the crash.

Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that Saturday’s crash has put Katyn at the center of Polish-Russian relations.

“It brought to the forefront again an event that Moscow would like to forget or, if not to forget, to sideline,” he said, noting that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took a significant step by attending the Katyn commemorations last Wednesday with Polish counterpart Donald Tusk.

The ancient city of Smolensk has long played a significant and somewhat symbolic role in Russian-Polish relations.

Russian and Polish rulers fiercely fought over it for centuries, as well as over other contested territories in today’s Ukraine and Belarus, and the Russian takeover of the city in the mid-17th century preceded Moscow’s takeover of eastern Polish lands.

Earlier this week, Poles took deep satisfaction in Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presence at the memorial for the 22,000 killed there.

It is so sad to hear about yet another child who has been forced to marry, and who ends up dead. Who knows what took place after she was “married” to a 26 year old. What ever it was that happened this 13 year old child ended up in hospital bleeding from her genitals. She bled to death.

The point about this story is that there are some who are trying to stop the child bride practice, but there are others amongst the clerics who have proclaimed these people as apostates, and they have declared the legislation raising the age of marriage for a girl to 16 as unconstitutional.

Yemen is a very poor country… I could say that I can understand why there is so much poverty…. regardless, the people have been clinging to very old tribal customs including the bride price. These young girls are sold into marriage and even girls as young as 8 have been forced into these relationships.

I acknowledge that in the Medieval period it was accepted that little girls and young boys were betrothed to each other. The woman that we know as Mary Queen of Scots was married to the Dauphin of France at a very young age, but from what I have read I do not believe that the marriage was consummated. Unfortunately for these little girls, their marriages are consummated and they end up injured or dead, either from being forced into having sexual intercourse, or from attempting to give birth when their bodies are just not mature enough for the job. What is worse though, is that these girls will likely die when trying to give birth because of the lack of modern medical facilities that are needed for girls as young as 12 – the poor child in that story probably needed either a caesarian operation or she needed to have her waters broken. The poor child was probably exhausted from the effort, causing her unnecessary death.

It is a shame that the feminists continue to turn their backs on this situation. Screaming about abortion and contraception is not going to help these child brides. What is needed for these girls is a voice that will be strong in battling for their right not to be married off at such a young age.

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It was in the early to mid-1970s when the Hare Krishnas were all over the streets in Melbourne. At the time I was a student at Melbourne University, and after classes I would often walk from the university to Flinders Street station (sometimes I used to catch the tram). On one particular occasion as I was making my way towards the station, after being in some shops, I was approached by some Hare Krishnas. They started by handing out a hard bound book and at the end of the conversation they wanted a donation. In those days I did not earn much in the way of money, only getting some from babysitting jobs. I would have no more than about $5 for the week upon my person. Anyway, my donation was a very small sum,something like 20 cents because I really did not have any money. The next part of the conversation went along the lines of “is that all you have? I was expecting about $5″.  Then he wanted to take back the book, which was fine by me, leaving me with a tract.

During that time the Hare Krishna used to come out into the streets, singing and dancing and making a lot of noise. Their target in the centre of Melbourne was Flinders Street Railways station but they used to harass shoppers outside of the Myer store as well.

This particular story about the Hare Krishna losing their case to seek donations at LAX reminded me of that episode in my life. The Supreme Court in LA made the correct decision to keep the Hare Krishna from seeking donations at LAX, especially in the present climate of tighter security.

Now, using LAX is a very interesting experience indeed. Last year when we flew to the USA for a month long visit in USA and Canada, we arrived early at LAX. After arrival we had to go through security, then wait to pick up our luggage before finishing the security checks and then head out of the airport to Marina del Rey where we stayed for the remainder of the day and overnight and then headed back to the airport to catch the flight to NYC.  We found that we could not leave our luggage to go to the toilet or even wait for each other without being told to move on by a guard!!

The next morning we arrived very early in readiness for our continuing flight to NYC. At that time of the morning it was not all that busy. However, it did not take long for the crowds to pick up. It would have been very inconvenient to be hassled by the likes of Hare Krishna!!

Then on our way home, our flight left after midnight, and we had to sit around in the airport for hours waiting for the flight to arrive and then depart an hour behind time. What is so annoying is that with all of the safety procedures getting to the flight lounge itself is a real hassle. Again, if we are called for boarding the aircraft, the last thing that we would want is to be hassled by the likes of Hare Krishna with their demands for donations.

From my point of view, it is a good decision, and I say good riddance.

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It has been many years since Dr. McBride in breakthrough research showed that thalidomide was responsible for birth defects, but he did not know what caused the actual defects.

Thalidomide was used as a morning sickness drug (and I am glad it was not around when I was pregnant and sick every day with my three sons). As a result of this use of thalidomide hundreds of children were born without limbs. It was Dr. McBride who determined that thalidomide was the cause of the defect. Of course years later, when he tried to do the same with another morning sickness drug, Debendox ( this is the one that I used and my children did not have any defects), he ended up being disgraced because of his desire to find in favour of the parents. By perjuring himself that there was a link, he did himself irreparable harm.

Now, however, researchers have taken the next step and they have discovered what causes the birth defects, and by making that discovery they now have the opportunity to find a safer alternative to thalidamide which is apparently useful in fighting some cancers.

As a woman though, I still see all of these drugs as dangerous to the unborn.

First of all my condolences to Poppy’s parents because they are the ones who have lost something very precious as a result of what seems to be the bullying of a very beautiful girl.

The Mail online reports that Poppy’s left the following messages online after Poppy could not take any more of the bullying and hanged herself:

Friends at 1,000-pupil Lowton High School, in Leigh, posted a series of messages on internet sites claiming Poppy was being picked on.

One, at the specialist sports college where former pupils include Ting Tings singer Katie White, said: ‘This poor girl was apparently being bullied at Lowton High School and has sadly ended her own life by hanging herself.’

Another said: ‘Why would someone want to bully her?? Apart from jealousy.’

Hannah Manley wrote ‘It’s so sad to see what caused your death a bunch of pathetic low lifes who had bullied you to make themselves feel better. You are soo pretty and I pray you’re so much happier up in heaven Poppy.

Kayleigh Midgley said: ‘You were stunning what a shame. Hope the b******s feel so guilty.’

Sue Higson said: ‘Poppy you are an angel, hope you are resting in peace, and smiling down to your family and friends, who are missing you everyday.

‘God only takes the best young, you are in Heaven, and this must be hell for your family without you, Someday you will all be together.’ 

Poppy was in foster care and living in Leigh, at the time of her death.

Nick Hudson, council executive director for Children and Young People’s Services, said: ‘Poppy’s untimely and tragic death has shocked and saddened many people.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256869/Schoolgirl-Poppy-Bracey-hanged-amid-claims-bullied-pretty.html#ixzz0hxKMXQMH

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I have not seen a lot about this case. I do not know if this woman had the same level or ability as Teri (even though the MCS of Teri was denied). Therefore, I cannot comment upon certain aspects of this case.

What the court did in this case is also wrong because unless this is a written request no one can say for certain that she would not want to be fed. Regardless, where I object to the proposals is the claim that once the tubes are withdrawn Miss Englaro would not feel a thing. That is an outright lie and it is one that needs to be consistently challenged until people understand the precise pain of someone who is healthy being forced to die in such a fashion. Forcing someone to become dehydrated is totally inhuman and expecting the person to last up to two weeks in that conditions is extremely cruel.

Well, the Italian government has stepped in again in an effort to stop the murder by cruelty of this young woman. This action will cause problems in Italy because the President is opposed to the action but the Parliament will continue to move to prevent the murder taking place.

If we have learned anything from the shabby way that Teri Schindler was treated by her adulderous, murderous husband it is the fact that death by dehydration and starvation is anything but pretty. It is a disgusting way to die and it should be opposed.

If this woman had been hooked to breathing apparatus and the removal meant a quick death because she could not breathe on her own then that would be a very different story.

You have to admit this is a very cute picture of a baby koala. The poor thing had been suffering from the heat. His mother had become disoriented and the baby was “abandoned”. The owner of the property gave him some water, and once he realized the source of the water he decided to hop into the tub.

Here are some other pictures of the same koala:

The strange thing about this story is that late last year a friend of mine was holidaying in Greece when she was struck with a sudden illness, and she died from speicaemia. My friend was over 60, and Mariana was just 20.