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NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2008
Queer Notes
by Elise
The weekend of Aug. 16 witnessed the first ever Gay Pride Parade in India including a protest of sodomy laws and calling on Britain to apologize for enacting them during its rule over India. Sodomy laws are regularly enforced and those found guilty can spend up to 10 years behind bars. The protesters may find encouragement if India's Supreme Court does hear a case challenging such laws.
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Lesbian Guadalupe Benitez cannot be denied in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the California Supreme Court ruled that medical care is a civil right no matter a person's sexual orientation. Doctors attempted to deny Ms. Benitez the promised IVF treatment due to their fundamentalist religious beliefs that gay and unmarried partners having children is immoral.
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A memorial to the 50,000 GLBT victims of the Holocaust, unveiled in Berlin in May, was vandalized in mid-August. Concentration camp survivor Rudolf Brazda said, "To see such a thing today after all the suffering and horror we had to go through, it is cruel," and Christian Democrats (a conservative group) member Frank Henkel commented, "This cowardly and shocking act is an attack on the image we have of ourselves as a tolerant and open city" (The Advocate, Aug. 20, 2008). Germany continues its investigation.
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