"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for
the society that tolerates homosexuals."



Religion, Politics a Potent Mix for Jerry Falwell (1933—2007)
[NPR, June 30, 2006]

Mel White spent many hours with the minister while ghostwriting his autobiography.

"Jerry Falwell is a person you like immediately, up close and personal," White says. "He doesn't take himself seriously. He enjoys life. And even while he says some of the meanest things, it's hard to not like him."

White recalls when Falwell was accosted by gay protesters.

"Jerry grinned and said to me, 'Thank God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn't have them, I'd have to invent them. They give me all the publicity I need.'"

Years later, White became one of those gay protesters. Falwell's ghostwriter came out of the closet, and moved to Lynchburg. He attends Falwell's church, and stands in silent protest if Falwell attacks gays.

"I believe Jerry Falwell will change and I believe it'll be in my lifetime," White says. "And if he doesn't change, I'm gonna die trying."

White says he'll be at the front of the line to attend the new church's opening. "I want to get a front seat, so that if he talks about gay people, I can stand up and protest there just like I did in the old church."

Falwell acknowledges that his controversial remarks about homosexuality and other issues are designed to get attention.

"A pastor has to be media-savvy if he's going to reach everybody," he says. "I don't mean to be ugly and harsh, but to be forthright and candid. And the result is that people that don't like you start listening."

[Continued here]

• Jerry Falwell index [New York Times]

Guard happy with child sex killer [Saul Betesh] transfer
[CNews, September 16, 2011]

Sadistic child killer Saul Betesh has been rewarded with a prison transfer despite being accused of having child porn on his computer and sexually assaulting another inmate.

Ain't our system grand?

But it doesn't surprise the Warkworth guard who has had the displeasure of dealing with Betesh until his transfer two weeks ago to Dorchester in New Brunswick.

"They cry the blues and the system kisses their ass and tries to appease them," says the frustrated guard, who doesn't want his name used. "If taxpayers ever found out how this place runs, the government would have a hard time explaining it.

"But we can't say anything or we get fired."

Betesh, 61, is serving a life sentence for the brutal rape, torture and murder of 12-year-old shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques above a Yonge St. body rub parlour in 1977. We wrote a story Wednesday about this killer's freedom to solicit pen pals on an American website where the lifer misleads potential correspondents by saying he's only in prison for assault. His domicile is listed as Warkworth Institution in Ontario, but the guard called to update us on Betesh's recent transfer east after years of hunger strikes and bad behaviour.

They are happy to see him go.

"Betesh has been a problem child all the way along," the guard said. "He doesn't take any responsibility for what he's done. He wasn't sorry for anything. Instead, it was always cries of 'Woe is me.'

[Continued here]

• Infamous child killer Saul Betesh makes bizarre threat [CanCrime, March 7, 2011]

Betesh has been a thorn in the side of prison officials since he was sent to prison. In 2002, he sent me a letter, explaining that he was on a hunger strike because of the refusal of Corrections to allow him to practise his religion, Wicca. He also was demanding a transfer to a prison in western Canada and he wanted CSC to recognize that another male inmate is his same-sex partner. It was just one of a number of hunger strikes by Betesh, a once svelte man who ballooned to over 200 pounds while behind bars. ...

Betesh was convicted in 1978, along with Robert Kribs and Josef Woods, of the sexual torture and murder of 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, a boy that Betesh plucked off the street. Betesh offered him $25 to help carry camera equipment. Instead he took Emanuel to a flophouse above a seedy body rub parlour on Yonge Street, where he was forced into vile sex acts. Betesh confessed the details to investigators and even agreed to return to the apartment and re-enact the murder. He explained that he and his cohorts were gay predators who regularly snatched boys off the street and forced them into sex acts. Betesh said he and Kribs, Stretcher as he was known on the street, took turns violating the boy for about two hours.

After they had raped Emanuel, they fed him sleeping pills. They planned to release the drugged boy in a park, but Betesh said, in his confession that was read in court, that the pills didn't work, so he tried to strangle him with a cord. ...

Betesh drowned Emanuel in a sink. They wrapped his body in two plastic garbage bags and a plastic curtain and hit it behind a pile of lumber on the roof of the building. The conspirators were caught within a few days. A fourth man, Werner Gruener, was charged but was acquitted of first-degree murder at trial.

• Although a quarter century has passed, retired police detective Bob McLean has not forgotten the day he discovered evil [Kingston Whig-Standard, August 3, 2002]

It was on Monday of the holiday weekend in July, 1977. McLean and his homicide squad partner were called to the roof of a Yonge Street massage parlour, where the body of a missing 12-year-old boy had been found.

Emanuel Jaques had been sexually abused, tortured and drowned before his body was wrapped in plastic garbage bags and hidden under a mound of debris on the rooftop.

"It was horrible," McLean says, in a low, almost reverential voice. "I had a son the same age."

Emanuel had been missing for three days, since the day he left his Cabbagetown home bound for Yonge Street with a small box of shoe-shining equipment. He hoped to earn a few dollars for a coming family trip back to their native Portugal.

Instead, he met Saul Betesh.

• Pampered Betesh, other 3 shared interests despite backgrounds [Globe & Mail, March 11, 1978]

Saul David Betesh had everything going for him when he was adopted at the age of six days by a well-to-do Jewish family living in Forest Hill.

The three other men who stood trial for almost eight weeks for the murder of Emanuel Jaques didn't have such easy childhoods. They were from working-class families and couldn't get everything they wanted at their every whim.

Destiny, however, brought the four together. Mr. Betesh and Robert Wayne Kribs have met the same end: both are convicted of first-degree in the killing of a 12-year-old shoeshine boy. Josef Paul Woods has been convicted of second-degree murder and Werner Gruener has been acquitted. If Mr. Betesh ended up the high-profile character of the trial, it was probably because the 27-year-old wanted it that way.

He was the one who went to police after he had been seen last with Emanuel on July 28. He was the one who spilled the whole story in shockingly vivid detail.

Mr. Betesh craved attention. He craved power, a feeling of self-importance. He admits it, impassively, without shame. And anyone who has had close contact with the man is quick to point it out.

Saul never liked himself as a person, said Arthur Yonger, a 25-year-old who worked with a homosexuals' rights group in Toronto, where Mr. Betesh often went.

Mr. Betesh is described as a chronic liar, he was an aggressive and vicious child who would take a straight razor to classes at Forest Hill elementary school and threaten his classmates.

Paul Babeu's Mexican Ex-Lover Says Sheriff's Attorney Threatened Him With Deportation
[Phoenix New Times, February 16, 2012]

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu - who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration - threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times.

[Continued here]

• Edward Wyckoff Williams: The Cognitive Dissonance of Being Gay and Republican: Paul Babeu Speaks But Cannot See [Huffington Post, February 22, 2012]

But Babeu had a secret, and one he seems to have been all too happy to keep until forced to admit. Publicly, Babeu supported conservative, Republican dogma, which is all too often anti-gay-rights in general and anti-gay-marriage in particular. Privately, he has been perusing gay dating websites and engaged in romantic relationships with other men. This wouldn't be newsworthy except for its inherent hypocrisy and political significance amidst a Republican presidential primary race defined by culture wars. Abortion, women's contraceptive rights, and gay marriage have each become fodder for Republican debates and policy proposals, all in the name of Christian ideals and American exceptionalism.

In a recent interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Paul Babeu naively suggested that the Republican candidates would agree with him that his personal life should not be infringed upon by the government. This is where the wave of cognitive dissonance presents an overwhelming tide. Either Babeu has no idea how aggressively far-right the modern Republican Party has become in the Age of Obama, or he has chosen willful ignorance, like too many openly gay Republicans.

• Babeu ran private boarding school with history of physical abuse [ABC, February 27, 2012]

While Babeu ran the school, the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services launched an investigation into repeated allegations of abuse.

The ABC15 Investigators traveled across Massachusetts and tracked down reports that have never been released.

The documents show that during Babeu's tenure the school was not licensed. Other allegations include detailed instances of physical and sexual abuse. ...

Several students we spoke with say they also knew a secret about Babeu.

It was a secret that Babeau's older sister said she discovered one day after visiting his home.

Lucy Babeu told the ABC15 Investigators she confronted her brother after finding a student from DeSisto school living with Babeu.

"I said what is this student from Desisto doing here? He says, 'Lucy, he's my boyfriend. I love him'."

Lucy Babeu told us her brother was having a relationship with the male student. ...

Babeu left the school in 2001. Three years later, the state investigation forced DeSisto to shut down.

• The DeSisto School used a variety of controversial disciplinary techniques [ABC, February 27, 2012]

The ABC15 Investigators uncovered physical and sexual abuse allegations at a boarding school run at one time by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

The DeSisto School used a variety of controversial disciplinary techniques.

Many of the practices were deemed to be "dangerous" and a "threat" to students by the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services, or OCCS.

Did [Richard] Nixon have a gay affair with a Mafia fixer? (1913—1994)
[Daily Mail, December 26, 2011]

Given everything that Richard Nixon has been accused of, it's difficult to believe there could be any more skeletons left in his cupboard. But it seems there are.

A new biography by Don Fulsom, a veteran Washington reporter who covered the Nixon years, suggests the 37th U.S. President had a serious drink problem, beat his wife and - by the time he was inaugurated in 1969 - had links going back two decades to the Mafia, including with New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello, then America's most powerful mobster.

Yet the most extraordinary claim is that the homophobic Nixon may have been gay himself. If true, it would provide a fascinating insight into the motivation and behaviour of a notoriously secretive politician.

Fulsom argues that Nixon may have had an affair with his best friend and confidant, a Mafia-connected Florida wheeler-dealer named Charles 'Bebe' Rebozo who was even more crooked than Nixon. ...

Bebe Rebozo was a short, swarthy, good-looking Cuban-American businessman with a history of failed relationships with women and close alliances with Miami's Mafia chiefs.

[Continued here]

• Richard Nixon [Wikipedia]

South Floridian's quest for beauty goes horribly awry
[Miami Herald, December 31, 2011]

She was known as "The Duchess,'' someone who could perform cosmetic magic on a massage table using a syringe and silicone. For more than a decade, her name was whispered in South Florida's transgender community, having performed perhaps hundreds of procedures that transformed men's breasts into double Ds or dainty derrieres into curvy wonders.

Authorities now say "The Duchess,'' a transgender woman whose real name is Oneal Ron Morris, may have practiced her black market plastic surgery not just in South Florida, but across the country.

Twenty to 30 people from as far away as Indiana have come forward, saying they were victims of Morris' elusive scam, according to Miami Gardens police Detective Michael Dillon.

So far, Morris and an accomplice, Corey Eubanks, face felony charges in connection with just two South Florida cases where women nearly died from her injections, which were actually a toxic brew of substances found in the tire repair product "Fix-a-Flat."

[Continued here]

• 'The accusers are ruining my life': 'Fake doctor who injected her victims with toxic stew of cement and tyre sealant' goes on TV to deny everything [Daily Mail, December 1, 2011]

Morris was born a man but now lives as a woman. Her arrest photographs show an apparently enhanced rear, which police say is her own work.

But last night the alleged phoney doctor hit back at accusers saying: 'It sounds bizarre, but how could America feel like a person would even put cement in somebody's bottom?

'You know, it's just these allegations,' Morris said. 'I didn't do any of these things to these people. Just know these people who are lying are ruining my life. That's all I have to say.'

Theo Fleury criticizes justice system after former junior coach Graham James pleads
guilty to sexual assaults [Calgary Herald, December 8, 2011]

Former Calgary Flame Theoren Fleury lashed out at politicians and the Canadian justice system for failing to protect children, after disgraced coach Graham James pleaded guilty to charges relating to sexually assaulting the ex-NHL star and an unnamed victim.

Fleury told reporters at a Calgary news conference Wednesday that he "feels great" but expressed disappointment with the ongoing sexual abuse of children.

"When are we going to finally take a look at this and say, 'Enough is enough,' " he said.

"Are our children worth nothing? Is their safety worth nothing? Then we have politicians that stand on podiums asking for our votes, and what are they doing about protecting our children? Nothing.

"This is a call to action on behalf of the eight million survivors of childhood rape, and to all Canadians, this epidemic has to stop now."

[Continued here]

• Graham James guilty pleas little comfort for Gilhooly [CBC, December 8, 2011]

Corporate lawyer and former hockey player Greg Gilhooly says he had hoped to find some closure with the guilty pleas of former coach and sexual abuser Graham James, but knows now that's unlikely.

James pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting two of the players he coached in the 1980s and early '90s - former NHL star Theoren Fleury and another player protected under a publication ban. As part of the arrangement made with Crown prosecutors in Manitoba, charges related to a case involving Gilhooly were dropped.

Crown counsel Colleen McDuff asked that two charges related to Gilhooly be stayed. She said no plea deal was struck with James, and the Crown will be asking for penitentiary time when he is sentenced. The decision to stay the charges came after consultation with Gilhooly, she said, and "having regard to the pleas that Mr. James was prepared to enter and avoid a protracted number of trials."

• Graham James sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing Theo Fleury and Todd Holt [Toronto Star, March 20, 2012]

A spectator in the courtroom shouted "Yay," then spat out an expletive as James shook his lawyer's hand and was led away in handcuffs and taken into custody.

"Goodbye, you piece of (expletive)," the man said after Judge Catherine Carlson handed down her sentence.

• Graham James's sentence to be appealed [CBC, April 12, 2012]

The two-year sentence handed to former junior hockey coach Graham James for sexually assaulting ex-NHLer Theoren Fleury and onetime junior player Todd Holt will be appealed, Manitoba justice officials announced today.

Hate Crime: Life Sentence For Teen Who Killed Gay Black Man For Fun
[The New Civil Rights Movement, March 22, 2012]

Deryl Dedmon pled guilty to hate crime murder charges after he was caught on video in June 2011 driving over a black gay man with an SUV multiple times in a Mississippi parking lot. Dedmon, now 19, who has also been identified as Daryl Dedmon, got drunk with a half-dozen friends and reportedly said, "let's go fuck with some niggers." The fact that the victim was gay was not known to the killers at the time of the murder, it is believed. Dedmon received two life in prison sentences without the possibility of parole.

[Continued here]

Barcelona landlord arrested for 'drugging death of Dartmouth student, 20' who was studying abroad — as two DOZEN naked photos of other 'drugged' people are found in landlord's
apartment [Daily Mail, February 13, 2012]

A 41-year-old Spanish landlord was arrested Wednesday in conjunction with the death of Dartmouth student Crispin Scott, a 20-year-old math major who was studying abroad.

Though early autopsy results suggested that the Seattle native died from an accidental drug overdose, new evidence shows a massive amount of a powerful barbiturate in his system.

The landlord oversaw the same apartment complex in Barcelona where Scott's body was discovered in January.

According to Spanish newspaper El Periodico, police searched the apartment where Scott was found, as well as another apartment in Barcelona during the arrest.

The officers found shocking photographs of young people - in the two dozen pictures recovered, many of them were naked or scantily clad.

[Continued here]

Ronald Reagan's Real Legacy: Death, Heartache and Silence Over AIDS
[LGBT|POV, February 6, 2011]

For LGBT people, Ronald Reagan's presidency was the far different "mourning in America." And unlike Nixon who was forced to resign for covering up the political Watergate scandal, Reagan didn't even bother covering up his cold disdain, his deliberate neglect, his abject refusal to help gay men stricken in 1981 by a strange new communicable disease that turned out to be AIDS. But there was no "AIDSgate" for Reagan; the White House agreed with the Religious Right that gays deserved what they got - they deserved to die.

Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority, said, "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Patrick Buchanan, Reagan's Press Secretary, said AIDS was "nature's revenge on gay men." Antigay Gary Bauer, Reagan's domestic policy advisor, kept Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (selected because he was an anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist) away from Reagan:

        "[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop's evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer [Reagan's chief advisor on domestic policy] . was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them."

In his extraordinary book And The Band Played On about the early history of the AIDS epidemic, gay journalist Randy Shilts, who later died of AIDS, wrote that two events dramatically changed the course of AIDS in America. The first was the announcement that closeted gay movie star Rock Hudson had AIDS and the second was the report by Koop.

[Continued here]

• Reagan's AIDSGATE [ActUp New York, 19871]

After years of negligent silence, President Ronald Reagan finally uses the word "AIDS" in public. He sided with his Education Secretary William Bennett and other conservatives who said the Government should not provide sex education information.

On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: "How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons." ...

I told one of my students that the most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, "I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died.

(excerpts from The Truth About Reagan and AIDS by Michael Bronski, November 2003)

Admiral Duncan pub [Wikipedia]

The Admiral Duncan is a pub in Old Compton Street, Soho in the heart of London's gay district. It is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797.

On 30 April 1999, the Admiral Duncan was the scene of a bomb blast when the Neo-Nazi David Copeland, who was attempting to stir up ethnic and homophobic tensions by organising a series of bombings, detonated a nailbomb which killed three people and wounded around 70.

[Continued here]

• Two [later three] dead in London nail bomb [BBC, May 1, 1999]

Two people have been killed and more than 80 injured in a nail bomb blast at a gay pub in Soho, central London.

Police said the bomb had been placed next to the bar at the Admiral Duncan in Old Compton Street, exploding at around 6.35pm.

One witness described the scene as "absolute carnage", with several people blown out of the pub into the street. No warning was given.

• Nail bomber convicted of murder [The Guardian, June 30, 2000]

Nail bomber David Copeland, 24, an engineer from Cove, Hampshire, has received six life sentences after being found guilty of three murders in an attack on a Soho pub in April last year. ...

Judge Hyam told Copeland: "Nothing can excuse or justify the evil you have done and certainly not the abhorrent views which you have embraced.

• London nail bomber must serve at least 50 years [The Guardian, March 2, 2007]

The neo-Nazi nail bomber David Copeland, who killed three people in a series of attacks, will stay in prison for at least 50 years, a high court judge ruled today.

• Bomb attack play with social impact [The Guardian, May 13, 2009]

"When people first meet me, I'm not expected to have a sense of humour," chuckles Jonathan Cash. "You seem to be defined by what's happened to you."

It will come as a surprise to some, then, that Cash's fictional play, The First Domino - based on the bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, London, which he survived - raises more than a few laughs.

• Remembering the Admiral Duncan bombing 12 years on [Pink News, April 29, 2011]
• Gay murder victim survived Soho bomb [The Guardian, November 2, 2004]

Crybaby senator going to jail: Kruger & beau admit $450,000 Albany bribery scheme
[New York Post, December 21, 2011]

Disgraced pol Carl Kruger wiped away tears yesterday as he pleaded guilty to taking nearly half a million dollars in bribes with the aid of his gay lover - in a deal that calls for at least nine years in the slammer.

The veteran Brooklyn Democrat quit the state Senate shortly before striking his plea bargain in Manhattan federal court, where he struggled to contain his emotions before finally losing it.

"I apologize if I'm a little emotional over this," Kruger, 62, told the judge as he choked up.

Also pleading guilty was Kruger's boyfriend, gynecologist Michael Turano, who faces up to five years for depositing the nearly $500,000 in payoffs into his own business accounts.

"I understood that part of this money was paid because Carl Kruger, acting in his official capacity as a member of the New York state Senate, sought to benefit those individuals or entities making such payments," Turano said through tears.

Turano, 50, then fell apart even worse than Kruger, bowing his head and weeping, his sobs amplified through the courtroom by a nearby microphone.

[Continued here]

• Senator, 62, blubs as he faces 50 years in jail for taking $500,000 bribes with aid of gay lover [Daily Mail, December 21, 2011]

New York State Senator Carl Kruger, 62, bought a Bentley and a beautiful mansion, where he lived with gynaecologist boyfriend Michael Turano, with his ill-gotten gains.

He quit his political post on Tuesday shortly before striking a plea bargain in Manhattan Federal Court, and has been told he now faces up to 50 years for his crimes.

A pitiful Kruger, who has never admitted he is gay and once publicly opposed same-sex marriage, told the judge as he choked up: 'I apologise if I'm a little emotional over this.'

Jörg Haider, an Austrian populist, died on October 11th, aged 58 (1950—2008)
[The Economist, October 16, 2008]

IF YOU wanted to see a Nazi in Jörg Haider, it wasn't difficult. The tanned, cold, Aryan good looks, the liking for black leather, the taste for extreme sports and fast cars, all hinted at it. So did the youthful membership of pan-Germanic mock- duelling clubs, the black-cross flags, the foggy Remembrance Day trysts with SS officers and the band of crop-haired followers who were liable to break out in a chorus of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". His father had been an illegal Nazi long before the Anschluss, and his mother a local leader of the League of German Maidens; their de-Nazification after the war, with Robert made to dig graves and Dorothea banned from teaching, struck their son (though he did not remember it) as brutal injustice.

Then there were the remarks, few enough, but indicators of a certain current of thought. Hitler's employment policies had been "orderly", he said, unlike the modern Austrian government's; words that forced him to step down briefly in 1991 from the governorship of Carinthia. The SS veterans he mixed with were men of "character", "honour" and "conviction". The phrase Überfremdung, foreigner overrun, which crept into his immigration-talk, had not been heard since Nazi days. And though he once picked a Jew as his deputy at the top of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), he could not help wondering aloud how the head of the Jewish community, Ariel Muzicant, apparently named after a soap powder, could have such dirty hands.

[Continued here]

• Obituary: Joerg Haider [BBC, October 11, 2008]
• Leader says Haider was his lover [The Guardian, October 23, 2008]

The successor to the Austrian rightwing populist Jörg Haider, Stefan Petzner, has shocked the staunchly conservative country by revealing in a tearful interview that they shared a "special relationship".

Petzner, 27, who was confirmed yesterday as the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZO) after Haider's death in a car crash two weeks ago, made the admission on Austrian radio, effectively confirming long-standing rumours that he and Haider were lovers.

Attempts by the party to stop repeats of the broadcast failed after the state broadcaster ORF insisted it would not be gagged.

Petzner, who met Haider five years ago when he was working as a beauty correspondent, said he felt a "magnetic attraction" to the firebrand politician, who was 31 years his senior. He said that Haider's main worry was that their relationship would not withstand the age gap.

Petzner said: "We had a relationship that went far beyond friendship. Jörg and I were connected by something really special. He was the man of my life."

• Extreme right emerges as strong force in Austria [The Guardian, September 29, 2008]

Austria was shaken by a political earthquake yesterday when the neo-fascist right emerged from a general election as a contender to be the strongest political force in the country for the first time.

The combined forces of the extreme right took 29% of the vote, with Jörg Haider almost tripling the share of his breakaway Movement for Austria's Future to 11%, while his successor as Freedom party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, saw his party soar to 18%.

The far right's vote doubled compared with the last election in 2006, putting it within less than a point of overtaking the poll victor, the social democrats.

The two big parties, which have run Austria since the second world war, slumped to their worst ever election toll. The Christian democrats (ÖVP), fared particularly poorly at around 26%, down 8%. The social democrats (SPÖ), under a new leader, Werner Faymann, took around 30% and laid claim to the chancellorship.

    

Erica Butts And Shanita Cunningham Collapse In Courtroom After Receiving Life Sentences
[Huffington Post, November 7, 2011]

A wild scene unfolded in a South Carolina courtroom on Thursday when two former lovers became hysterical after receiving a pair of life sentences for the murder of a three-year-old girl.

Shocking video shows court officials struggling to assist a distressed Erica Mae Butts and Shanita Latrice Cunningham, both charged with homicide by child abuse in connection to the death of Serenity Richardson.

Following Circuit Judge Deadra Jefferson's announcement of the life sentences, both Butts and Cunningham collapsed to the floor on Thursday as emotional screams came from family members watching from the court room gallery. Authorities proceeded to individually wheel both women out of the court room.

The defendants, both 25, were living together as a couple in 2009, when police discovered the toddler covered in cuts and bruises, the Charleston Post and Courrier reports. Butts, identified as the child's godmother, was caring for Serenity while her mother, Ieshia Richardson, moved from Detroit.

[Continued here]

• 2 get life terms in child's death [Post and Courier, November 4, 2011]

Larry Craig (1945— ) [Wikipedia]

Larry Edwin Craig... is a former Republican politician from the U.S. state of Idaho. He served 18 years in the U.S. Senate (1991-2009), preceded by 10 years in the U.S. House, representing Idaho's first district (1981-91). His 28 years in the Congress rank as the second-longest in Idaho history, trailing only William Borah, who served over 32 years in the Senate. In addition to serving in Congress, Craig has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association since 1983. Craig has also been selected for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame. Although he was selected in March 2007, the announcement was made in October 2007.

On August 27, 2007, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call revealed that Craig had been arrested for lewd conduct in the men's restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on June 11, 2007, and entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct on August 8, 2007.[7] Despite firmly stating that he was not gay and never has been gay, Craig announced his intention to resign from the Senate at a news conference on September 1, 2007, but later decided to finish the remainder of his term.

Craig was not a candidate for re-election in 2008. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor and former Governor Jim Risch who won the seat in the November 2008 election.

[Continued here]

• Men's room arrest reopens questions about Sen. Larry Craig [Idaho Statesman, August 28, 2007]

In an interview on May 14, Craig told the Idaho Statesman he'd never engaged in sex with a man or solicited sex with a man. The Craig interview was the culmination of a Statesman investigation that began after a blogger accused Craig of homosexual sex in October. Over five months, the Statesman examined rumors about Craig dating to his college days and his 1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with underage congressional pages.

• Larry Craig Investigation index [Idaho Statesman]

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo)



Iris Robinson's gay outburst leads to street protests, official complaints
and calls to quit [Belfast Telegraph, July 22, 2008]

There were calls for Iris Robinson to resign from public office last night after she was accused of waging a "crusade against the gay community".

The Belfast Telegraph yesterday revealed the latest controversy surrounding the wife of the First Minister after she stated to a parliamentary committee that homosexuality is "viler" than child sex abuse.

A Westminster watchdog last night said that a number of complaints have been made about DUP MP Iris Robinson following her controversial comments on homosexuality, but admitted that no action can be taken.

[Continued here]

• Police probe Iris Robinson's 'gay' remarks [Belfast Telegraph, June 3, 2008]

Northern Ireland's new first lady has found herself in further hot water after it emerged police were investigating a complaint made about her second anti-gay outburst in a week.

Iris Robinson sparked outrage when she claimed during a BBC radio debate that homosexuals could be 'cured' through psychiatric counselling.

It came on the back of her comment the previous week that homosexuality was an "abonimation".

• Iris Robinson 'hypocrite' — gay campaigner Tatchell [BBC, January 7, 2010]

Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has described Iris Robinson as a "hypocrite" for having an affair.

Mrs Robinson, a born-again Christian, caused controversy in 2008 for calling homosexuality "an abomination".

Mr Tatchell said although he was "sorry for the pain" Mrs Robinson has suffered, "she is sad and two-faced".

"Even now, she expresses no regret for her harsh, judgemental moralising against gay people. Iris seems as unforgiving as ever," he said.

• Iris Robinson's lover, Kirk McCambley, becomes instant gay pin-up [Belfast Telegraph, January 9. 2010]

Iris Robinson's young lover Kirk McCambley has become an unlikely icon for the gay community.

Members of the homosexual community were left outraged when Mrs Robinson described their behaviour as "an abomination".

The UK's best-selling gay magazine Attitude has asked the 21-year-old to pose on the next edition of its front cover.

• Iris Robinson's gay cure therapist reported to GMC [Pink News, February 25, 2010]

A psychiatrist who worked with shamed former MP Iris Robinson has been reported to the General Medical Council for his work in trying to "cure" gay people.

Dr Paul Miller, who has a private practice in south Belfast, was the therapist referred to by Mrs Robinson when she made her now-infamous remarks about gay people in June 2008.

Speaking after a gay man was beaten up in Northern Ireland, she said she knew a "lovely psychiatrist" who worked with her and was able to turn gays straight.

Dr Miller runs the Abeo umbrella organisation for therapists who try to cure homosexuality, believes that "same-sex attraction" in men stems from "core un-met needs" such as the lack of a father figure.

• Iris Robinson to resign as an MLA on Monday [Belfast Telegraph, January 14, 2010]

The formal resignation of Iris Robinson from the Assembly is set to be announced on Monday.

Yesterday at Westminster the Treasury also announced that the scandal- hit politician had formally announced her resignation as MP for Strangford.

It is understood that her resignation letter has been received and accepted by the Assembly.

Mrs Robinson will also be standing down from Castlereagh Borough Council. Her resignation was announced by the council's acting chief executive.

Man sues Jerry Sandusky for alleged sexual abuse (1944— )
[The Guardian, December 1, 2011]

Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach at Penn State college, sexually abused a boy more than 100 times and kept him quiet with threats to harm his family, according to a lawsuit filed by a new accuser who is not part of the criminal case.

The 29-year-old, identified only as John Doe, had never told anyone about the abuse he claims he suffered until Sandusky was charged this month with abusing other boys. His lawyer said he filed a complaint with police on Tuesday and a day later became the first plaintiff to sue Sandusky personally.

Sandusky has acknowledged that he showered with boys but denies molesting them. His lawyer did not immediately return a message about the civil lawsuit, which claims Sandusky began abusing the then 10-year-old in 1992 and continued until 1996.

"I am hurting and have been for a long time because of what happened, but feel now even more tormented that I have learned of so many other kids were abused after me," the plaintiff said in a handwritten statement his lawyer read out at a news conference.

[Continued here]

• Lee Woodruff: Horsing Around in the Shower [Huffington Post, December 5, 2011]

I've watched the Penn State story unfold with the same dark stone in my throat that other parents feel. The fact that is was allowed to go on, that it was pushed under the rug and covered up is beyond inexcusable. But authority figures have faces and voices. They have credibility and influence. They can have superpowers. Finding a voice against that kind of might and celebrity is a big deal. It requires tremendous strength.

• Center of Penn State Scandal, Sandusky Tells His Own Story [New York Times, December 3, 2011]

As for Mr. Paterno, Mr. Sandusky said the two never spoke about any incidents, not the episode in 2002 or an earlier complaint of child molestation made against Mr. Sandusky in 1998 that was investigated by the Penn State campus police.

"I never talked to him about either one," Mr. Sandusky said of Mr. Paterno. "That's all I can say. I mean, I don't know."

• Larry Cohen: Lifting the Veil of Secrecy: Stopping Sexual Abuse in Sports and Every Institution [Huffington Post, December 6, 2011]

"When you have a veil of secrecy, you have the potential for abusive behavior whether it's in the Catholic church, a school or whatever, and that applies to all of us, not just the NCAA," NCAA President Mark Emmert told reporters Monday in Indianapolis.

As I've been watching the child rape headlines on TV over the last few weeks, I've become increasingly discouraged. The events are horrible, but at the very least, they have made public and visible the need for change in the norms of community institutions.

• Former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy urges U.S. lawmakers to change sex abuse protocol [Globe & Mail, December 13, 2011]

Sheldon Kennedy urged American lawmakers to "empower" anyone who suspects children are being sexually abused to speak up in an impassioned plea to a congressional hearing delving into allegations against the Penn State football program.

Pedophiles count on the fact that most people have trouble believing trusted adults in their fields - coaches, teachers, priests - would ever abuse children, Kennedy told a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.

"Senators, you need to give all adults working with youth and all parents the tools to recognize and respond to abuse when it first arises," he said.

"Empower the bystanders and you'll be taking an important first step in breaking the silence on child abuse."

• Joe Paterno Dead: Penn State President Says Ex-Football Coach Will Be Honored [Huffington Post, January 22, 2012]

The winningest coach in major college football was fired from Penn State on Nov. 9 amid a child sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant. Critics say Paterno should have done more to stop it.

• Prosecutors: Ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky abused boys ages 8 to 17 [Globe & Mail, March 1, 2012]

Sandusky was arrested in early November, along with Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and vice-president Gary Schultz. Curley, now on leave, and Schultz, who has retired, were accused of failing to properly report suspected child abuse and lying to a grand jury investigating Sandusky.

• Report: Sandusky called 'likely pedophile' in 1998 [Globe & Mail, March 24, 2012]

NBC obtained a copy of the campus police department's investigatory report on an encounter in which Sandusky was accused of having inappropriate contact with an 11-year-old boy with whom he had showered naked on the Penn State campus.

The police file includes the report of State College psychologist Alycia Chambers, who interviewed and providing counseling to the boy.

"My consultants agree that the incidents meet all of our definitions, based on experience and education, of a likely pedophile's pattern of building trust and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a `loving,' `special' relationship," Chambers wrote.

"Dustin got mad, started hitting me on the head with a steel-toed boot."



Dustin Paxton's Prairie torture trial over
[CBC, December 2, 2011]

The defence team in the Dustin Paxton trial wrapped up its final arguments Friday after three days of trying to poke holes in the testimony of more than 40 witnesses.

The date for judgment will be set on Dec. 16.

Paxton, 31, is on trial for the physical and sexual assault and forcible confinement of his former roommate and business partner. He has pleaded not guilty.

Defence lawyers took aim at the alleged victim Friday in their closing arguments, saying he may have come across as credible but his testimony should be considered unreliable.

A month ago the alleged victim - who cannot be identified due to a publication ban - arrived at Calgary court and told a story of horrifying abuse. Permanently disfigured, and shielded from the accused, he testified that he was physically and sexually assaulted by his friend from October 2008 to April 2010.

But Paxton's lawyer Jim Lutz told the court the victim was unable to say when or where the attacks occurred. He said the victim replied several times under cross-examination, "I don't know, I can't recall."

Lutz said that makes it "extremely difficult for the court to assess the reliability of the victim's testimony."

The alleged victim, weighing less than 90 pounds, was dropped off at a hospital in Regina in April 2010.

As for his claims that he was sexually assaulted, the alleged victim testified that Paxton always made it clear what he wanted. Lutz countered by saying the alleged victim admitted that Paxton never touched him and he never asked the victim for sexual acts.

[Continued here]

• Paxton's alleged victim didn't want to 'be a sissy' for leaving [Calgary Herald, November 1, 2011]

Dustin Paxton's alleged victim says he never left the clutches of his tormentor because he had "big dreams" and didn't want to "be a sissy."

With his stepfather by his side and a white projector screen blocking Paxton from his view, the man who was allegedly beaten, starved and held captive by Paxton started telling his side of the story on the stand Monday.

The scarred 28-year-old man, who cannot be identified because he is an alleged victim of sex assault, is slated to take the stand for the next three days.

• Testimony from Dustin Paxton's victim draws 'moral support' from community [Calgary Herald, November 2, 2011]

The man on the witness stand is also riveting. He continues the testimony begun the day before, in which he outlines a harrowing litany of daily beatings and sexual abuse.

"My lips were basically punched off, my ears were cauliflowered," he tells the Crown prosecutor of those last days in the spring of 2010, before he woke up from a coma in a Regina hospital, weighing just 90 pounds and beaten, almost literally, to a pulp.

What's most disturbing isn't what is said but what is clearly seen: a face that despite more than a year of rehabilitation still shows multiple marks and swelling, his ears so permanently mangled they more than live up to his cauliflower reference.

[Note: The 'gay press' in Canada should be all over this story; but they're obviously not. Strikes too close to home, I guess.]

• Paxton evidence surfaced late, lawyer testifies [CBC, December 13, 2011]

Dustin Paxton's lawyer admitted Tuesday that the Crown disclosed "voluminous" evidence to the accused torturer's defence team but said not all of it arrived in a timely fashion.

Jim Lutz was cross-examined by the Crown as a hearing continued in Calgary into a defence application for a stay of proceedings.

• Dustin Paxton faces two new charges, lawyer back in court [Vancouver Sun, December 24, 2011]

One day after Dustin Paxton's torture trial ended, with the exception of the verdicts, the 31-year-old's lawyer was back in court as his client faces two new charges relating to an alleged assault last month on a remand centre guard.

Defence lawyer Jim Lutz appeared Friday on behalf of Paxton, whom he said was in the building but excused from attendance for his first appearance on charges of common assault and assaulting a peace officer.

Crown prosecutor Frances Turner said Paxton "wasn't happy" with having been denied something he wanted and chopped with his hand on the guard's arm.

• Dustin Paxton found guilty of aggravated assault [CBC, February 6, 2012]

Justice Sheilah Martin still has to rule on the charges of sexual assault and unlawful confinement in connection with the man who was dropped off at a Regina hospital in April 2010 weighing 87 pounds, suffering from numerous broken bones and a mutilated face.

Martin said she accepts that the man, who cannot be identified under a publication ban, was repeatedly assaulted by Paxton in Calgary and Regina and that the list of injuries is lengthy and grotesque.

Paxton was also found guilty of assault with a weapon and uttering threats against his former roommate Abraham Chutta.

Chutta alleged Paxton beat him with a dog leash and baton.

"Reasons would get smaller, the arguments would get bigger," Chutta testified. "The slaps started turning into punches."

Gay man acid attack on cheating boyfriend
[Gay Star News, January 24, 2012]

A gay man in Quezon City, Philippines, slit his wrist and tried to jump from the window of a 16th-floor apartment after pouring acid on his boyfriend.

Wearing only his underpants, English teacher Joseph Fedelin, 44, hugged a pillow as he contemplated leaping from the high rise yesterday morning, distraught after breaking up with 32 year old call center agent Jefferson Quitaleg.

Quitaleg said they had just had sex when Fedelin poured the muriatic acid on him.

[Continued here]

• Cops stop jilted man from suicide jump [Philippine Star, January 24, 2012]

When Fedelin was brought down, the jilted man said: "Kaya kayo'ng mga lalaki, maging tapat kayo sa aming mga bading na lover (You men, be faithful to your gay lovers)." He even said he was ready to go to jail for what he did.

Man dismembered and cooked after sex games
[The Local, January 25, 2012]

The BZ daily reported on Wednesday that the deceased, Carsten Srock, was found with his limbs expertly carved off with either an axe or large knife. The body pieces were then wrapped fastidiously in plastic bags and cling-wrap, and left to sit in the two-room flat for around three weeks.

His head was found, partially cooked, by the police.

Prosecutors on the case told the BZ they believe the victim was "murdered for sexual pleasure."

Owner of the Mariendorf apartment is a 43-year-old man identified as Michael S., who was rescued by paramedics after trying to take his own life. The unemployed Berliner attempted to open a main vein, before calling the emergency services minutes after.

It was only upon the arrival of the paramedics that the gruesome truth began to come to light. The paramedics contacted the police, who arrived at the scene to find not only Michael S. bathed in blood, but the body parts of his occasional sexual partner Srock, dotted around the residence.

"Officials questioned the man in hospital," a spokesman for the state prosecutors told the paper. During questioning Michael S. reportedly admitted to the murder. An warrant for his arrest was issued on Tuesday.

Srock was reported missing by his partner January 2. According to the gay news portal queer.de the bank manager, who reportedly worked part-time at a Berlin gay sauna called "Boiler", finished his shift behind the bar on the evening of New Years Day.

[Continued here]

• Gay Man Missing [Disco Damaged, January 19, 2012]

Srock worked in a bank with a part time job at the Boiler sauna, where he worked until 10pm 1st Jan. After that, about 23:30, he drew a large amount of cash from the Sparkasse in Mehringdamm. He had told his boyfriend that he was meeting someone. The person is not known. Srock's mobile phone has been switched off since 2nd January.

Attorney: "John Gacy is the poster child for the death penalty."



John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (1942—1994) [Wikipedia]

John Wayne Gacy, Jr.... was an American serial killer also known as the Killer Clown who committed the rape and murder of 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978. Twenty-six of Gacy's victims were buried in the crawlspace of his home, three others elsewhere on his property and four victims were discarded in a nearby river.

[Continued here]

• I Do Rotten, Horrible Things [Time, January 8, 1979]

It was Elizabeth Piest's 46th birthday, and before a family party, she stopped by a pharmacy in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Ill., to pick up her 15-year-old son Robert. Just as Mrs. Piest and her son were about to leave the store, he said, "Mom, wait a minute, I've got to talk to a contractor about a summer job that will pay me $5 an hour." That was the last Mrs. Piest saw of her son.

• OPP to probe whether serial murderer John Wayne Gacy killed Canadians [Toronto Star, November 6, 2011]

Ontario Provincial Police will soon be poring over unsolved murders and missing persons from the 1970s looking for any possible connection with U.S. serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who is reported to have visited the province during his six-year killing spree, the Toronto Star has learned.

This revelation that Gacy may have visited Canada came to the attention of the Chicago-area Cook County Sheriff's office last month, when Gacy murders were reopened in an effort to put names to the eight unidentified bodies found in the crawl space of Gacy's suburban Chicago home.

Among other things, police turned up airline tickets and other documents prompting new inquiries into unsolved murders in 14 states and in Canada. According to reports, at least one Canadian family has responded to the sheriff's invitation to contact his office, along with scores of others from 28 U.S. states. ...

Until then, the question remains whether Gacy continued killing during his unspecified trips to Ontario or whether he lured any young Canadian men back to his Chicago-area home. It has not been revealed where or when he visited the province.

"How, conceivably, can you think of a guy that does these horrific acts, but yet he turns it off when he leaves town?" Dart told NBC News. "Actually, you would think the opposite. He's leaving town, he's even more free because people don't know who he is. He can move around even better."

• Closet Case Killer [The Advocate, November 17, 2011]

"He was a homophobic homosexual," says Sam L. Amirante of John Wayne Gacy, the infamous murderer he defended in court in the early 1980s. "He was a dichotomy." Amirante and fellow attorney Danny Broderick are the authors of John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster, a rare inside look at one of the nation's most horrific and fascinating serial killers - and the first with an openly gay slant. Or rather, openly closeted. While Gacy, a Chicago businessman and small-time politician, freely admitted to killing 33 young men between 1972 and 1978 and often teased his wife by dropping hints about his bisexuality, the authors say he went to his 1994 execution refusing to admit that he was, as he liked to call men who enjoyed sex with men, a "fruit picker."

• Serial killer John Wayne Gacy had accomplices, lawyers say [MSNBC, February 10, 2012]

Nearly two decades after Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed for torturing, raping and murdering 33 men and boys in the 1970s, two lawyers say they've unearthed evidence that indicates he didn't act alone in some of the slayings.

Criminal defense attorneys Robert Stephenson and Steven Becker, who are partners in a Chicago law practice, said they re-examined the circumstances surrounding the disappearances of some of the victims. Their conclusion: the so-called "Killer Clown" had at least three accomplices. ...

And, according to the Sun-Times:

        After he was arrested in 1978, Gacy told officers: "Who else do you have in the station? There are others involved." He was asked, "Directly or indirectly?" and responded, "Directly. They participated." He was asked, "Who are they?" and responded, "My associates."

        Also, Gacy told police he got the idea of putting his victims on a "torture board" from Elmer Wayne Henley, a Texas serial killer. Henley was an accomplice of Dean Corll, who killed at least 28 boys and young men. Henley killed Corll and is now serving a life sentence.

"Gacy was a copycat," Stephenson told the newspaper. "And he was copycatting a killer who used accomplices."