Hillary Clinton To Address AIDS Conference

Joe.My.God. reports:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the opening session of the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC this Monday. Via press release from the White House:

The International AIDS Conference is the biennial gathering of AIDS scientists, international policymakers, implementers and people living with AIDS from around the world. AIDS 2012 will take place July 22 - 27 in Washington, D.C. The return of the conference to the U.S. after 22 years is the result of the U.S. government’s elimination of HIV-related entry restrictions. Secretary Clinton’s remarks will be streamed live here. Additional State Department officials will also participate in AIDS 2012 and related events, including Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who will speak at The Global Fund: The Next 5 Years on Thursday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m. Ambassador Melanne Verveer of the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and Executive Director of the Secretary’s Global Health Initiative Lois Quam will speak at an event on Turning the Tide for Women at the Museum of Women in the Arts on Wednesday, July 25 at 6:30 p.m.

Former President George W. Bush will also address the conference. While his record on HIV/AIDS was mixed, activists continue to praise Bush for the PEPFAR program, which now provides meds to over four million people around the globe.

USA: State Department Launches Donation Campaign For International LGBT Rights

Joe.My.God. reports:

The U.S. State Department has launched an unprecedented donation campaign in support of international LGBT rights. Via press release:

The U.S. Department of State has launched a text donation campaign that allows Americans to donate to the mGive International Response Equality Fund. Donations will help to further programs and initiatives aimed at advancing human rights, fostering equality, advocacy, protection and dialogue to ensure human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) persons around the world. To help, anyone can donate $10 by texting the word PRIDE to 80000.

The Global Equality Fund supports programs that advance the human rights of LBGT persons around the world. The Fund was launched by U.S Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Human Rights Day in December 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland, where she reaffirmed, “Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights.” The Fund is supported by the U.S. government. While providing tangible assistance to LGBT civil society groups around the world, the Fund also serves to underscore the U.S. State Department’s commitment to ensuring LGBT people worldwide are able to exercise their human rights with dignity.

The new campaign is being heralded today on the official website of the State Department under the heading “Global Equality Fund.” Learn more about the mGive campaign here.

USA: Secretary Clinton Delivers A Message To The LGBT Community For Pride Month 

USA: State Department Concerned By Liberia

Joe.My.God. reports: 

Last week Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who last year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, refused to consider decriminalizing homosexuality. The U.S. State Department said yesterday that it is troubled by Sirleaf’s position.

• State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. stood by its policy of aggressively promoting gay rights. But asked about Sirleaf’s statements, just two months after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Liberia to attend Sirleaf’s second inauguration, Nuland said the U.S. would be inquiring with Liberian officials to “find out whether the reporting is accurate and express some surprise and concern.” Nuland declined to specifically say how two bills on gays under consideration by Liberian lawmakers would affect U.S. assistance in the West African country, which was founded 165 years ago by freed American slaves. But she suggested that they could lead to a re-evaluation of certain programs.

Liberia is set to receive over $200M in U.S. aid this year alone.

US State Department Condemns Anti-Gay Legislation In Russia

Towleroad reports:

The United States’ State Department has strongly condemned odious new legislation in St. Petersburg, Russia, which criminalizes the “promotion” of homosexuality among minors.
From the AFP:

• “Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” the State Department said, repeating a declaration by top US diplomat Hillary Clinton.
• “We have called on Russian officials to safeguard these freedoms, and to foster an environment which promotes respect for the rights of all citizens.”

The St. Petersburg legislation certainly doesn’t respect “the rights of all citizens.” In fact, it leaves citizens guessing as to what their rights are, vis a vis the law. The legislation bans the promotion of LGBT lifestyles to minors, especially in public, but fails to explain what might constitute “promotion.” Anything — from pride parades to protests to  two women holding hands and appearing to enjoy it — could, in theory, be illegal, so long as it’s public and vaguely gay.
The New Yorker published an illuminating essay on the subject:

• The sponsor of the bill—it still has to go through two more votes to become law—is Vitaly Milonov, from the ruling United Party. He explained the legislation by saying, “children have to be protected from destructive information.” What that meant was subject to interpretation. According to Milonov, this information could be found in sex-education classes where such values were “advertised,” as well as in the works of that gay cabal—show business. This was not in any way meant to be an intrusion into the personal lives of Petersburgers, Milonov added, but what could he do when his city is drowning under “a wave popularizing sexual perversion”?
• Milonov’s colleagues chimed in, lumping sexual assault of a child in with consensual gay sex. “Children maimed by pedophiles jump out of windows, they take their own lives. Pedophilia is an attempt on a child’s life!” one of them said, adding that spreading such propaganda should be a criminal offense. Another deputy, Elena Babich, from the nationalist-crazypants Liberal Democratic party, agreed that the proposed penalties were too light. “What is a three-thousand ruble fine to a pedophile when they are supported by an international community?” (Did she mean show business?)
• The legislation, which was rushed through the local parliament, is not unique. A similar law was passed this summer in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, where legislators expressed concern about the effect of gays on the city’s already low birthrates, and in the Ryazan region. But those were the provinces.
• St. Petersburg, long Russia’s window to Europe and its bastion of high culture, is both a strange and logical place to pass such a law. For one thing, it was the first place with an L.G.B.T. organization: Kryl’ya (or “wings”) was founded in October 1991, having fought for its creation in the Soviet courts at a time when homosexuality was still criminalized and punishable by five years of hard labor. (That provision, the notorious Article 121, was repealed two years later, in 1993.) Moscow used to have a mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, who denounced homosexuality as “satanic.” St. Petersburg, in contrast, was in some ways the center of organized gay life in Russia: the Russian branch of the I.L.G.A., the international L.G.B.T. rights organization is run out of St. Petersburg; pride parades, long the subject of violent battles with the Moscow authorities (who won’t allow them), have passed through this city peacefully, until this year. Imagine passing an anti-gay law in San Francisco.