Stonewall 40 years on

Queers for Justice recent arcticle Stonewall 40th and Pride Unveil NYC’s Shameful Priorities - highlights how there has always been a inherent tension in the queer communities.

The article discusses New York city spending money targetting gay tourists to New York but not providing funds to the poor and working class queers.

This isn't suprising and often I think the poor working class gays and lesbians are the ones who don't get acknowledged in the fight for queer rights. Often research highlights the spending power of gay men without acknowledging the hidden gay poor. Hopefully more research on Queer poverty will occur - and one day sexual orientation will actually appear on national census questions - without this simple change the Queer poor will always be lost.

India throws off imperial shackles at last - gay sex declared legal

Finally India is throwing off the last vestiges of British imperialism with the Dehli High Court ruling that homosexual sex between adults is legal.

The High Court has ruled that the 1861 Bristish law which made illegal "sex against the order of nature," which had been widely interpreted to mean homosexual sex in India, does not apply to consenting adults.

Sadly other British colonies in Africa and the South Pacific still have laws banning homosexual sex. Hopefully they will eventually remove this last vestige of imperialism - ironically a lot of these countries argue that they won't cave in to Western decadence whereas their pre European history often accepted gay men and women.

Hopefully the decision in India will encourage gays and lesbian in other countries to challenge the laws and remove these dangerous laws from every country in the world.