When Intolerance Becomes Intolerable

Source: New York Times

June 2, 2008

When Intolerance Becomes Intolerable

By MARCI ALBOHER

Correction Appended

Many career shifts involve an “aha” moment. In Lisa Sherman’s case, the moment was not only the catalyst for a career change but also led her to tell her boss she was gay.

And her experience ultimately became memorialized in a case study for the Harvard Business School.

Phoenix TV, China, showcases a gay family

Source: A posting made on SiGNeL – People Like Us’ GLBT email group – by “Kris” on 1 June 2008, referring to a TV program that was made some months earlier

China is so much more enlightened than Singapore

Came across these videos on a documentary shown on China’s Fenghuang Dianshi (Phoenix TV) some time before March 2007.

Part 1 is here:
http://www.56.com/w26/play_album-aid-4902491_vid-MTYyODI3MzQ.html

Part 2 is here:
http://www.56.com/w26/play_album-aid-4902491_vid-MTYyODE5NDM.html

These were recorded from “Lu Yu You Yue”, or ‘A Date With Lu Yu – Tell Us Your Story’.  Lu Yu is a famous female talk show host in China. The show is in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles.  My apologies to those who do not understand Chinese/Mandarin…

Baiscally, the entire show focuses on the lives, love, trials and tribulations of Li Lunzuo and Ju Jiazhong.  Li was born into a farming family in Chengdu, while Ju was born in Chongqing.  Both of them were born 10+ days apart in March 1956.

Gay and Muslim in South Africa

Source: Radio Netherlands
30 May 2008

Gay and Muslim in South Africa

by Eric Beauchemin

Homosexuality remains a taboo in much of the vast Islamic world. Most Muslim clerics condemn homosexuality outright, citing several verses of the holy Qur’an. But one South African imam thinks that they are wrong.

Imam Muhsin Hendricks was born and raised in a deeply religious Muslim household in South Africa. He started discovering that he was different at the age of five, but it wasn’t until he reached the age of 12 that he actually realised that he was gay. He decided to study the Qur’an to clear up what he believed was a fundamental contradiction. He says:

“I was always told that homosexuality was completely wrong. So I needed to understand how my creator gave me all these feelings, while people kept on telling me that as a devote Muslim, I was going to go to hell.”

Homosexual friends: Let’s fight the hypocrisy

Source: Straits Times
1 October 2007

Homosexual friends: Let’s fight the hypocrisy

By Tessa Wong

While working on last week’s story about youth attitudes towards homosexuality, I found myself thinking about the time I went through a sea change in my own perceptions about this issue.

Until I entered university, I had always fancied myself as someone who could strike an adequate balance between reason and matters of faith.

But it wasn’t until I made my first gay friend, Mark, that I realised the unbridgeable gap between the two.