James Wharton, soldier

Gay serviceman James became the first homosexual soldier to appear on the front cover of the Armed Forces’ magazine in 2009. The Household Cavalry Regiment trooper was featured in the monthly Soldier publication to celebrate diversity in the Army, nine years after it lifted its ban on homosexuality within the ranks. During his eight-year career, the Lance Corporal says he has experienced just two uncomfortable moments, but neither was serious enough to make him quit.

“I came out to the Army before I told my parents, so that says a lot for the Armed Forces,” he recalls.

James went on to wed air steward partner Thom McCaffrey in 2010. And in April this year, he raised £4,000 for Stonewall by completing the Brighton Marathon.

Number 5 on the DS list of the "50 Most Influential Gays", 2011

The Saga of the Toronto Gay Penguins

In a bizarre move, a zoo is splitting up a male pair, to force them to breed. 

Queer Politics for the Birds: The Saga of the Gay Penguins

Toronto’s zoo is splitting up a pair of same-gender penguins. These Happy Feet males, Pedro and Buddy -- jokingly referred to as "Brokeback Iceberg" -- have been nesting with each other for a year.

The reason for the boys’ split-up, a zoo official says, is because African penguins are an endangered species.

The pair has what’s known as a "social bond," but it’s not necessarily a "sexual bond," Tom Mason, the zoo’s curator of birds and invertebrates told the Associated Press.

"Penguins are so social they need that...company. And the group they came from was a bachelor group waiting for a chance to be paired up with females," Mason stated. "They had paired up there, they came to us already paired, and it’s our job to be matchmakers to get them to go with some females." 

SheWired 

The argument they have used to justify this, is the old one that they aren't "really" queer, just doing it in the absence of females. This is nothing more than homophobia directed at the animal world, used to avoid facing the fact that sexual activities between members of the same biological sex are commonplace in nature - for some species, and for some individual animals, more common than the heterosexual kind.

Bruce Bagemihl, in Biological Exuberance, has described this avoidance strategy, and several others, in his book "Biological Exuberance" - together with accounts of the extensive scientific evidence now emerging to rebut them.

As scientists, the curators at Toronto zoo really should know better. 

Books:

• Bagemihl, Bruce: Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity
• Roughgarden, Joan: Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
• Sommer, Volker and Vasey, Paul: Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective
• Poani, Aldo:Animal Homosexuality: A Biosocial Perspective

Related articles

• "Unnatural" Nature, Immoral Butterflies: The Great Cover-Up of Animal Homosexuality
• Breaking up is hard to do - even for vultures
• Aquinas, and "Nature" 
• Is Exclusive Heterosexuality Unnatural?
• Our Queer Primate Cousins
• Animals Use Sex Toys, Too
• Same Sex Parents, Furred and Feathered
• Natural Law, Laysan’s Albatross, and the Question of Evidence
• Queer Bonobos: Sex As Conflict Resolution
• Bighorn Rams: Macho Homos, Wimpish Heteros

Related articles by Zemanta

• Canada's same-sex penguin pair to be split apart (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Is it homophobic to split up gay penguins? (guardian.co.uk)
• The Gay Side of Nature (time.com)
• Divorcing Tradition: Freedom, Equality and Marriage (3quarksdaily.com)
• 15 Bizarre Animal Mating Rituals (popcrunch.com)
• Sexual Fluidity Is Natural in Animals (gayrights.change.org)

"Unnatural" Nature, Immoral Butterflies: The Great Cover-Up of Animal Homosexuality

Back in 2000, an eminent and otherwise respectable biologist declared that except for a few instances observed among primates, there was no evidence of homosexuality among animals:

When animals have access to the opposite sex, homosexuality is virtually unknown in nature, with some rare exceptions among primates."

-G. Barlow, 2000

This was breathtakingly inaccurate. Just the previous year another biologist, Bruce Bagemihl,had published a book summarizing previously published scientific papers which described homosexual behaviour in over 300 species of animals and birds (listing dozens of papers for each), and also listing additional species of reptiles, amphibians, fish and even insects - over a thousand species in all, and tens of thousands of peer-reviewed articles. The first recorded observations of animal homosexuality were two millenia ago, by the ancient Greeks. In modern times, the first formal publication of scientific observations go back over 150 years. Photographic evidence of male swan couples has existed since the mid-nineteenth century.

Even this illustration, of male beetles doing it, was published as long ago as 1896:

Male Scarab Beetles, 1896

Did a Republican member of Texas' State Board of Education just come out as gay?:

A Texas state board of education Republican seeking re-​election has come out as gay, and immediately lost the endorsement of a prominent conservative political activist known for her homophobic and religious views.

George Clayton, a Republican member of the State Board of Education from Richardson, sent an email to several news organizations last week that appears to confirm he’s gay.

Clayton is an academic coordinator at North Dallas High School, according to his bio on the Texas Education Agency website. He won the District 12 SBOE seat in 2010, when he defeated longtime Republican incumbent Geraldine “Tincy” Miller in the primary.

Clayton sent out his email in response to an apparent whisper campaign about his sexual orientation among Republicans in the district, which covers all of Collin County. Miller is trying to unseat Clayton and recapture her old seat in 2012."

Dallas Voice

The Dallas Voice says the e-mail "appears" to confirm he is gay. There's no need for this caution: Clayton's words are clear and unambigous - he has a live-in, male partner:

“So as to avoid the tyranny of misinformation and innuendo in this political race, I wish to say that I, in fact, do have a male partner who lives with me in my home in Richardson, Texas. I hope this frank announcement satisfies Tincy Miller and the ladies associate with the Golden Corridor organization. All of us can now move on with discussions concerning education instead of being overly occupied with my personal life.”

Clayton is paying a political price for his honesty. Since the announcement, he has lost the endorsement of a homophobic political activist:

Clayton’s email confirming that he’s gay has already prompted one right-winger, Donna Garner of Waco, to withdraw her endorsement of his re-election bid.

“If Clayton is indeed a homosexual, then we as voters must be concerned about re-electing him to the SBOE since the Board will soon begin the process of writing and adopting Health curriculum requirements for all Texas public school students,” Garner wrote.

Will this cost him? Garner is clearly hoping so, but the evidence so far is that most voters are no longer concerned about sexual orientation. Character, integrity and the ability to do the job are far more important. 

Labour's first transgender candidate tells of bullying hell at hands of police colleagues - The Daily Record

AN ex-cop who is Scottish Labour’s first transgender election candidate told last night how she was hounded out of the police.

Carol Mapley, 53, revealed how her time in the British Transport Police became a “living hell” after colleagues discovered her desire to become a woman.

Carol, who has a female partner and lives near Newton Stewart, Dumfriesshire, will fight the Castle Douglas and Glenken council seat next May.

And the trainee social worker then plans to stand for election as an MSP."

- The Daily Record

Gay adoption, New Zealand: It "will happen" -Shelley Bridgeman

"A recent Herald-DigiPoll survey found that 54 per cent of people think gay couples should be allowed to adopt children while 36 per cent disagreed. Two years ago a Herald website poll had 41 per cent in favour and 59 per cent against, according to Derek Cheng's article Majority back gay adoption.
Our collective attitudes towards the rights of gay people are clearly becoming more liberal. Most of us see this as a simple human rights issue. The fact that adopting a child isn't an option for same-sex couples is discriminatory and doesn't sit well with our aims of achieving an egalitarian society."

full report at NZ Herald News 

Massachusetts approves transgender rights bill

The Massachusetts Senate has joined the House in passing a bill that would prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals.

The measure was approved by the Senate Wednesday morning on a voice vote. No senator spoke against it.

Some House Republicans had argued that the measure was unnecessary and could hurt small businesses that have transgender workers.

Proponents of the bill agreed to drop a public accommodations section of the bill that critics warned would lead to a breakdown in privacy in bathrooms and other single-gender facilities.

The bill still needs routine final approval votes in both branches.

The House passed the bill Tuesday night but only after Democratic leaders moved to limit debate to one hour, cutting off many of the 50 or so amendments that had been filed by opponents."

- BostonHerald.com"