Why No Front Page For Michael Causer?

It seems like every day there's another murdered teenager on the front page of the newspapers. Young boys stabbed to death by other young boys have dominated the news for weeks now. We're told that "something must be done!" about it.

On Saturday an 18 year old boy, Michael Causer, died in hospital a week after receiving serious head injuries in what police are describing as a homophobic attack, yet a glance through the newspapers this morning has no sign of it. Is it because he wasn't stabbed to death, therefore it isn't a fashionable crime or is it because Michael came from Liverpool and well, we expect that kind of behaviour up there?

Or maybe it's because Michael was a young gay man and homophobic crimes are really quite acceptable. If a young black man had been beaten to death it would have been front page news, and rightly so. But not for Michael. All crime is an act of hatred but we also have crimes motivated by nothing but hatred of the victim because of their race, religion, sexuality or disability. It isn't enough just to fight crime, we have to recognise where hate crime is taking place and face it head on. Admit that it is going on and work on ways to educate people about our differences and challenge them to accept the differences as a good thing rather than as an excuse to attack others.

Please don't let Michael Causer's death go unreported and unknown. He and every other victim of homophobic hate crime (and every other victim of hate crime) deserve better than to be ignored in favour of more "newsworthy" crimes.

George Galloway - Human Rights Champion

If anyone thought George Galloway was a defender of Human Rights or some sort of harmless kook then all you need to do is read this story from the Pink News where he claims that gay men in Iran are not executed for being gay.

I would say exactly what I thought of George Galloway but I'm sure that saying that I consider him a scumbag of the highest order would lead to me being sued. So I'll just keep quiet.

Ban on Gay Men Giving Blood

A few weeks ago I signed yet another petition on the 10 Downing Street website. This one was calling for the ban on gay men donating blood to be over-turned. On the day after International Day Against Homophobia to receive the following reply just summed up why the day is needed and why we can't claim that the UK is quite there with equal rights:

"The Government has a duty to ensure that any rules applied to blood donation by the National Blood Service (NBS) achieve a balance between risk reduction and security of supply. The self exclusion criterion concerning gay men has been reached through a close analysis of the epidemiology of confirmed HIV and Hepatitis B positive tests among blood samples from people donating blood at United Kingdom Blood Service sessions.

The Government has been advised that every year from the analysis of nearly three million donations collected by the United Kingdom and Irish Blood Services, about 40 donations are confirmed to be positive for HIV. Of these, a third to a half are given by men who, following further enquiries by the NBS, reveal that they are gay men. Some are donating for the first time but some have given at least once in the previous two years and tested negative on the previous occasion. These figures indicate that some gay men are still giving blood in spite of the current rules.

Although safer sex campaigns have had an impact, it is still considered that the risk of gay men being infected with HIV remains sufficiently high to include the criterion that they should not donate blood. Unfortunately, this means there will be healthy gay men who would be suitable for giving blood but who are excluded by the rule.

However, it is not practical to expect donor session staff to be able to differentiate between gay men with lower or with higher risk lifestyles, so all gay men have to be excluded."

So - because 0.006% (or 0.0006 - it's 6.666667e-4 for you maths geeks) of blood transfusions are affected approximately 7-10% of the population are stopped from giving blood. And who are the other two-thirds to half of the donors whose blood is contaminated?

This is institutionalised homophobia dealing in ridiculous stereotypes of the worst kind. And its shameful coming from a government which claims to be commited to equality

International Day Against Homophobia

Today is International Day Against Homophobia

There are still 80 countries in the world where it is illegal to be gay and many more where homophobic attacks are common place and not taken seriously by the authorities.

If we want to live in a civilised world Homophobia - and all other forms of discrimination - have to be eliminated.