By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com December 20, 2010 Since I posted this originally on October 2, there have been three more gay teen suicides, in Oklahoma, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In addition I have found out about other earlier deaths. So I’m re-posting this blog entry with the names and stories: Recent 2010 gay suicides and others
A Remarkable Week for Gay Dignity
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com It doesn’t happen often in today’s contentious culture wars, but our LGBT worldwide community has achieved–along with our allies–a double win this month against blatant homophobic forces that refuse to recognize our equality and dignity. First, highly symbolic and very real is the restoration of “sexual orientation” to a UN resolution
No Gay Pride in Bangkok 2010
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com December 7, 2010 Bangkok For the third year in a row there is no BKK Pride festival. Ask different people and get different answers: disinterest from local Thai activists; lack of police cooperation; no money; homophobia; frustration and withdrawal of foreign leadership. “There are just too many obstacles, resistance and petty
On Waking on a Bright Colorful Morning in October
Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com October 27, 2010 I awaken in the morning to a peaceful scene of the woods turning yellow, gold and rouge as October unfolds into November here in western Massachusetts. It is quiet except for the light rain that gives a shimmer to the colors outside my window. The moment is quite serene
Bullying of Gays–Fight Back!
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com October 25, 2010 In addition to raising consciousness about bullying, offering prayers and sympathies to families effected and writing supportive blog and holding vigils, we LGBT people also need to get tough and bully back to the criminals and idiots who want to hurt us. LEARN MARTIAL ARTS TODAY! There are
Yet Another Gay Teen Suicide
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com December 20, 2010 Since I posted this originally on October 2, there have been three more gay teen suicides, in Oklahoma, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In addition I have found out about four other earlier deaths. So I’m re-posting this blog entry with the updated names and stories: Recent 2010 gay suicides
How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth
By Bishop Gene Robinson (Gay) Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire; Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress October 15, 2010 An increasingly popular bumper sticker reads, “Guns Don’t Kill People — Religion Kills People!” In light of recent events I would add religion kills young people: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people.
The Great Diva Has Died–Joan Sutherland
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com October 13, 2010 Today would have been my father’s 98th birthday. Sadly he is long gone. One of his personal legacies to me was his love of classical music and opera. Together we listened to Toscanini conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra and listen to Maria Callas and Leonard Warren sing at
Yet Another Gay Teen Suicide
By Richard Ammon October 10, 2010 A 19-year-old gay man from Norman, Oklahoma has taken his own life, and his parents say a hate-filled recent City Council meeting he attended may have driven him over the edge. Zach Harrington was a talented musician who’d endured years of struggles due to his sexual orientation in high
Homophobia Kills–Looking Deeper Into Tyler’s death
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com October 3, 2010 I find it strangely ironic that the two Rutgers University students charged with invasion of privacy that led to the death of a gay student, Tyler Clementi (photo right) are both from ethnic minorities in America. Dharun Ravi is of Indian (Asia) descent and Molly Wei is from
Homophobia Does Kill—Here and Now It Kills
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com October 2, 2010 October 10, 2010 Eight recent gay suicides and four from recent years are tragic and shameful wounds on our culture where public homophobia is still legal with no national legislation to outlaw such hate speech and action–including school bullying and harassment. Public homophobia (in religions, politics, schools, corporations,
Dalai Lama Donates to Center for Healthy Minds. “It’s about changing habits of the heart.”
New York Times By Dirk Johnson September 26, 2010 Madison, Wisconsin, USA They say money can’t buy happiness — but it can finance the research. When Richard Davidson (left in photo) , then a psychology doctoral student in the 1970s, told his advisers at Harvard that he planned to study the power of meditation, the
Does Circumcision Prevent or Reduce HIV Infection?
Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com August 28, 2010 My sport is swimming and recently in Copenhagen, Denmark I went for a workout one day at a local pool. In the shower afterward, I noticed two things: one, how uninhibited male Danes are. No showers stalls or curtains here. Everyone from old to young and in between totally
The Most Profound Lesson of all Human Survival
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com September 25, 2010 Here is the latest on the front line of Russia’s gay rights struggle: Russia: Protest Over Gay Rights By Reuters News September 21, 2010 At least eleven gay-rights activists were taken into police custody on Tuesday at a protest calling for the arrest of Moscow’s conservative mayor, Yuri
Remembrance for 9/11
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com September 11, 2010 September 11 is clearly a day of remembrance and sorrow and reflection about the past events in New York, Washington and Virginia. Families, cultures and religions were ripped apart that should not have been. Inhumanity struck a blow to civilized life and the consequences still reverberate around the
Garden of Delight–Westhampton, MA and its Denizens
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com September 4, 2010 At 0655 this early September morning a few golden rays of the sun penetrated through the earth’s atmosphere, through the forest of summer trees into our cottage and landed on the stone fireplace in our bedroom. The stones lit up with flickering morning light, a bit like those
Gay Games 2010, Cologne, Germany
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com August 14, 2010 I’m back home from another stellar week of the Gay Games, my 7th, in Cologne, Germany (July 31-Aug 7). The Gay Games are the gay version of the Olympics but since we legally can’t called them that, Gay Games will have to do. Besides that name rings truer
My Uncle and Other Young Soldiers Who Died in War: from World War I to Iraq.
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com August 22, 2010 I usually watch the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. At the end of the the program the News Hour sometimes shows recently killed troops from Iraq and Afghanistan They are shown in silence with a photo of each and identifying information, some as young as 19. Since
My Family – A Hundred Years Later
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com June 25, 2010 A hundred years ago today my grandparents, Francis and Cora, were married and our immediate family began. I have no family memory beyond that–photos and stories yes but no memories. My paternal great-grandfather died in 1915. My maternal great-grandmother lived to 1938, before my birth. But starting a
Death for Gays in Iran Creates Underground Railway
By Arsham Parsi Executive Director Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR) www.irq.net Iranian queers have well-founded fears of persecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran, permits the punishment of queer people by lashing, hanging, stoning, cutting in half by a sword, or dropping from
What God and Dogs Have to Teach Us
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com July 3, 2010 People disappoint each other a lot, whether intimate partners or friends, whether for a moment or a lifetime. People aggravate one another for petty things (picture on a wall) or expansive beliefs (religion). The human condition, in addition to all its virtues and social values (companionship) which shape
The Days of My Life–What’s Worth Doing
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com July 1, 2010 This week I cut down a thirty-foot tree, scraped layers of old paint from window frames, pressure-sprayed a brick wall, ordered 3 tons of gravel for the yard, saw the film encore of the Metropolitan Operas‘ ‘Romeo et Juliette’ (Gounod), shopped twice for groceries and once for gasoline,
Fathers on Father’s Day 2010
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com June 20, 2010 There have been several fathers and grandfathers in my life, some known in person, others through family stories, others by name only. My father and his father were the only ones I knew in person. My mother’s father died before my birth. All my great grandfathers were long
Photo Memories as a Tapestry of My Life
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com June 20, 2010 For more than forty years I took photos wherever I went–local family and friends, distant lands, famous landmarks, oceans, landscapes, handsome people, unexpected moments… or myself in 1990 (photo right). Whatever came into view that appealed to my sensuous eye or aesthetic intuition. Hundreds, thousands of images accumulated
Opera at the Gym
By Richard Ammon GlobalGayz.com June 5, 2010 I joined a 24-hour Fitness gym last year. I thought I was buying into an exercise venue. That it is, complete with a 5-lane pool which I use almost everyday. But what they didn’t tell me when I put up my cash is that the fitness center and