Scotland Issues Apology For Gay Sex Convictions In The Past

The government in Scotland has issued an official apology to gay men who were convicted of same-sex activity in the past. In doing so, the men or their families will be able to clear their names.

From Reuters:

"It is only right that we address this historic wrong," First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament.

"Discriminatory laws, although abolished, continue to have implications for people to this day," she added. "The wrong has been committed by the state to them, not by the individuals."

She added: "I categorically, unequivocally and wholeheartedly apologize for those laws and for the hurt and the harm they did to so many."

Watching from the gallery, same-sex couples wept, held hands and applauded.

Consensual homosexual acts between men aged over 21 in Scotland were decriminalized in 1981.

"(The) apology will give a great deal of comfort to many who were unjustly prosecuted and will help draw a line, once and for all, under a dark period in Scotland's history," gay rights group Stonewall said in a statement.

Chechnya: Gay Men Targeted For Arrest And/Or Killing By Chechen Police

Russian newspapers have confirmed that gay men are being targeted in Chechnya.

More than 100 gay men, between the ages of 16 to 50, have been arrested or killed by Chechen authorities, according to the New York Times:

While abuses by security services in the region, where Russia fought a two-decade war against Islamic insurgents, have long been a stain on President Vladimir V. Putin’s human rights record, gay people had not previously been targeted on a wide scale.

The men were detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such,” the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported, citing Russian federal law enforcement officials, who blamed the local authorities.

By Saturday, the paper reported, and an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed, that more than 100 gay men had been detained. The newspaper had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings.

“In Chechnya, the command was given for a ‘prophylactic sweep’ and it went as far as real murders,” Novaya Gazeta reported.

According to the report, the authorities set to finding and arresting closeted gay men, partly by posing as men looking for dates on social networking sites.

“Of course, none of these people in any way demonstrated their sexual orientation publicly — in the Caucasus, this is equal to a death sentence,” the newspaper wrote of those detained in the sweep.

“I got numerous, numerous signals,” about the sweep of gay men, said Ekaterina L. Sokiryanskaya,, Russia project coordinator for the International Crisis Group, and an authority on the North Caucasus. “It came from too many sources not to be true.”

Logo's "Gay Men In America" Study Reveals Some Interesting Statistics

Some interesting bullet points from Logo's recently released "Gay Men in America" study.

The survey of 1,000 gay men ages 18-49 revealed this:

• 61 percent of gay men in their 20s and 30s believe the gay community was more united in the past.

• 85 percent of gay men ages 18-49 agree, “even as gay people become more accepted, we should have places that are just for us” and that, “it’s sad to see gay neighborhoods and bars disappear.”

• 67 percent agree “my life is more interesting because I’m gay.”

• 75 percent agree that being gay “has had a positive effect on my life.”

• 55 percent of gay men in their 20s view being gay as extremely or very important to their identity, a sizeable increase compared to gay men in their 40s (40%).

* 88 percent agree “gay people shouldn’t have to conform to straight people’s norms and values.”

Documentary: "Desert Migration"

The new documentary Desert Migration screens this Summer at Frameline Festival in San Francisco and Outfest in Los Angeles.

Clip Description:

When HIV treatments improved and people stopped dying by the thousands, many gay men took stock and said, "So...now what?" Their peer group was decimated and they themselves had only escaped death by a narrow margin.

Retiring to California's Palm Springs seemed like a viable decision. Health services were great, housing was affordable, there was a large gay population and it was always sunny. The roads they took to get there were varied, but all promised a veritable Lost Horizon, where age, illness and sin were a thing of the past.

However, being left to your own devices in a town where the sun always shines has a way of exposing who a person really is. With no friends, no job, and traumatized by recent memories, the burden is entirely on the individual to make something meaningful grow in the dry, harsh desert.

Desert Migration examines the lives of these men; their history, their present, and their possible futures as they struggle to come to terms with the second chance they have been given. Faced with their own mortality and the inevitable wear and tear on their bodies from both the virus and the medications designed to save them, how do they strive to create a life of value? Their stories illuminate how people across the US and the world are struggling as they age with the virus and the damage it has caused.