Anger at new US restrictions on HIV+ visitors

New regulations issued by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which claim to offer a "streamlined," "categorical" waiver for HIV-positive people visiting the country have been criticised by American AIDS activists and immigration reform advocates.

Under current US immigration law, any foreign national who tests positive for HIV is "inadmissible," meaning he is barred from permanent residence and even short-term travel in the United States.

There are waivers available to this rule, but obtaining them has always been difficult.

The White House used World Aids Day last year to announce a change in the rules relating to people with HIV travelling into the USA.

The ban originates from 1987, when fear about the spread of the disease led US officials to require anyone with HIV to declare their status and apply for a special waiver visa.

This led to many people not declaring their status upon arrival. It also meant that no international AIDS conferences could be held on US soil.

President Bush announced that HIV+ people would be granted a "categorical waiver," similar to the 60 day automatic visas that UK business and tourist visitors receive.

Nearly a year later, the DHS has finally issued proposed regulations which Immigration Equality, an organisation that works to end discrimination in US immigration law, claims will make it even harder to get a short-term waiver.

The new regulations purport to speed up the waiver application process because consular officers would be empowered to make decisions on waiver applications without seeking DHS sign off.

However, by using this "streamlined" application process, waiver applicants would have to agree to give up the ability to apply for any change in status while in the U.S., including applying for legal permanent residence.

"Unfortunately, despite using the terms 'streamlined' and 'categorical,' in reality these regulations are neither," said Victoria Neilson, Legal Director of Immigration Equality.

"More than two decades into this epidemic, the United States continues to stigmatise people with HIV and treat this illness unlike any other virus.

"Creating insurmountable hurdles to travel does nothing to protect the American public from HIV."

Under the new rules, a visitor would need to travel with all the medication he would need during his stay in the US, prove that he has medical insurance that is accepted in the US and would cover any medical contingency, and prove that he won't engage in
behaviour that might "put the American public at risk."

The maximum term of the waiver would be 30 days.

United States is one of only 13 countries in the world, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, which ban travel for individuals who are HIV-positive.

"As written, the rule could leave individuals with HIV who obtain asylum in the U.S. in a permanent limbo; forever barred from obtaining legal permanent residence, and therefore cut-off from services, benefits, and employment opportunities," said Nancy Ordover, Assistant Director of Research and Federal Affairs for Gay Men's Health Crisis.

"It seems very disingenuous that the government is claiming to make things easier for people with HIV, but it's really compelling them to forfeit their rights."

In July the European Commission quietly approved an agreement which gives the DHS unprecedented access to the personal information of anyone on a transatlantic flight, including details of their sexual orientation.

The DHS insists on the right to use the information for disease control, and there are fears that gay passengers may be singled out as possible HIV risks.

The plans involve upgrading information which is already sent by airlines to the DHS on the 4-million-plus Britons who visit the US every year, including payment details, home address and the passengers in-flight meal choice.

The agreement adds 19 possible new categories, including information on ethnic origin, political and philosophical opinions, credit card numbers, trade union membership, sex life and details of the passengers' health.

The information will be provided by passengers when making bookings.

The US is not required to provide this information about its citizens.

Franco Frattini, vice president of the European Commission, said more sensitive information would be filtered out, and only used, "in exceptional cases, and to fight terrorism and other serious crimes."

Gay rights group suggests sending flowers to Ahmadinejad

The Iranian Queer Organisation IRQO is asking people to send two flowers to the President of Iran as a protest against the treatment of gay and lesbian people under his regime.

The idea grew out of the campaign to stop Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh being deported from the UK.

Her supporters sent thousands of bunches of flowers to her while she was in detention, which caused disruption and helped highlight her case.

Ms Emambakhsh is now out of detention and awaiting her application for ayslum to be heard by The Court of Appeal.

IRQO said in a statement:

"In Iran the courts continue to sentence women, political activists, young people, free thinkers and homosexuals to death.

"There is a need to approach the Iranian President, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and the judges and tell them, in a peaceful but firm way, that life is sacred in every part of the world and according to all religions - that always invite the faithful to be compassionate.

"It is for this reason that we are asking you to send a white flower (symbol of life) and a red flower (symbol of blood) to Ahmadinejad, asking him not to spill the blood of other innocent victims, and to abandon the path of terror and violence."

In September President Ahmadinejad said in reply to a question posed about homosexuality during his speech at New York's Columbia University:

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it."

Despite his claim, Iranian human rights campaigners estimate that 4,000 gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs came to power in 1979.

According to the gay rights group OutRage! "the Islamic Republic of Iran is qualitatively more homophobic than any other state on earth.

"Its government-promoted and religiously sanctioned torture and execution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people marks out Iran as a state acting in defiance of all agreed international human rights conventions."

The Islamic Sharia law followed in Iran makes gay sex illegal, with penalty of death for offenders as young as 14 years old.

Iran caused international outrage in 2005 when two Iranian teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari, 15 and Ayaz Marhoni, 17, from Khuzestan province, were witnessed engaging in homosexual activities in a semi-public area and were hanged for perverting Islamic law.

Singapore reverses ban on Xbox game with lesbian scene

Computer game Mass Effect will now be sold in Singapore with an M18 rating, it has been announced.

On Tuesday the deputy director of Singapore's Board of Film Censors said that because of "a scene of lesbian intimacy" the game has been "disallowed."

Now the board has said that some "highly anticipated" games will be allowed on sale in Singapore ahead of the introduction of a new ratings system in January.

"The statement (from the board) said that 'this will allow such games to enter the market with immediacy and give the industry and members of the public a better understanding of the benefits of the proposed games classification system,'" reports the Straits Times.

The furore about the game seems to have passed the UK censors by, as the game has been given a 12 rating by the British Board of Film Classification.

"The violence is undetailed and takes place in a futuristic setting," according to the BBFC classification information.

"The single sex scene is brief and undetailed, although there is breast nudity in one version of the scene.

"The sex scene is triggered by the player making a series of choices about becoming more than friends with a colleague.

"If playing as a male character the scene can take place between him and a human woman or a humanoid female alien.

"If playing as a female character the scene can take place between her and a male human or a female humanoid alien.

"The game also contains use of the word 'bastard' and at least one aggressive use of the word 'bitch'. Both of which are acceptable under BBFC Guidelines at '12'."

Gaming site Joystiq had previously questioned why BioWare, the creators of Mass Effect, have allowed lesbian sex but not gay male encounters between characters.

"The game allows for alien lesbian sex, but not any type of male-on-male sex," wrote Alexander Sliwinski.

"Furthermore, all non-alien sex has to be heterosexual.

"The same-sex love issue is by now well-tread territory for BioWare.

"Most fans know by now that Juhani from Knights of the Old Republic is a lesbian and Jade Empire allowed same-sex romance for both genders.

"So why should it be different in Mass Effect?

"Does BioWare think that their audience will clamour for girl-on-alien-girl action while recoiling from man-on-man love?

"And why is lesbian sex only OK if it involves another species? This odd double standard makes us wonder if the game will be a step forward or back for sexual politics."

To watch a clip of the lesbian scene click here.

Tutu hits out at Church of England over treatment of gays

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has criticised the Anglican church for being "obsessed" with homosexuality, in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast on Tuesday. He said that if he believed that God was homophobic, he wouldn't be a Christian.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, said he was ashamed of his church because of its treatment of gays. He said that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican communion, has not demonstrated the attributes of a "welcoming God" to homosexuals.

"Our world is facing problems -- poverty, HIV and AIDS -- a devastating pandemic, and conflict," Tutu said.

"God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another.

"In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality."

He said that the Church acted in an "extraordinarily homophobic" way during the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Asked if he still felt ashamed, he replied: "If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes.

"If God as they say is homophobic I wouldn't worship that God."

"It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race infected society."

During his visiting Professorship at Kings College, London in 2004, he spoke out against homophobia

Nicaragua to decriminalise gay sex

Consensual gay sex will no longer be a criminal offence in Nicaragua under a new civil code due to come into effect on March 2008.

The surprise news was announced earlier this week by the Nicaraguan National Assembly, reports La Prensa.

Under old legislation passed in 1992, "anyone who induces, promotes, propagandises or practices sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex commits the crime of sodomy and shall incur one to three years' imprisonment."

This article criminalises not only gay men, lesbians and bisexual people in same-sex relationships, but is vague enough to permit the prosecution of individuals for activities such as campaigning for LGBT rights or anyone providing sexual health information or services.

Nicaragua's new code removes all reference to this, reflecting changing social mores in a country which Amnesty International targeted this year for contradicting numerous provisions in international human rights law.

The vast majority of countries throughout the Americas have abolished their sodomy laws.

Josй Pallais, president of the Nicaraguan Parliament's Commission of Justice and Legal Issues, said the changes marked a modernisation, placing legal rights over the state's moral code.

He added: "We are not creating a code of the Catholic Church here, we are creating a democratic code under modern principles and principles of legality."

Abortion will remain illegal, however, after insufficient legislative support to change the law.

Anti-gay church vows to take control of Microsoft

An evangelical Christian pastor has vowed to take over Microsoft, one of the world's largest companies by packing it with shareholders who will vote against their policy of advocating gay rights.

The Reverend Ken Hutcherson, a former Dallas Cowboys player is the self proclaimed head of the Antioch Bible Church, based in Redmond, the home of Microsoft's headquarters.

Microsoft has a strong diversity policy and LGBT staff enjoy a well-funded employee group.

Mr Hutcherson told a shareholders' meeting that he would be the company's "worst nightmare", threatening that he has the support of not only the 3,500 members of his church, but perhaps also millions of evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews.

"There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda," he told the Daily Telegraph. "I consider myself a warrior for Christ. Microsoft don't scare me. I got God with me."

"I told them that you need to work with me or we will put a fire-storm on you like you have never seen in you life because I am your worst nightmare. I am a black man with a righteous cause with a whole host of powerful white people behind me."

Asked why he as a black man grew up during segregation could advocate discrimination, Mr Hutcherson said: "How many homosexuals have you ever seen had to ride on the back of a bus? I haven't seen one. I know that many blacks have in the past.

"I've never seen an ex-black. Michael Jackson couldn't even achieve that. But I've seen ex-gays. We minister to them every day. We talk to them about how to get out of that sin."

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft is no stranger to the LGBT community. In July, a company that invests his wealth purchased a major stake in PlanetOut, the publishers of the Advocate and dating website Gay.com

Cascade Investments LLC joined with a number of other private equity vehicles including Special Situations Funds, SF Capital Partners, PAR Investment Partners LP and Allen & Company LLC to fund a rescue buyout of PlanetOut stock, collectively making them the largest shareholders in PlanetOut.