CELEBRITY FRIDAY: This is How Rihanna Walks Around Almost Nekkid!

Rihanna wore this get up for the 2014 CFDA Fashion awards! All I can say is "dayum!" I'm not straight but...

QUEER QUOTE: Barbados PM Responds Positively To LGBT Rights Inquiry

After the horrible news of the passage of virulently anti-gay legislation in Uganda that could lead to sentences of life imprisonment for homosexuality, it is nice to report some good news from another part of the world where people of color predominate.

In Barbados, which is one of the 77 countries which still has a sodomy law, Prime Minister Freundel J. Stewart has responded respectfully and positively to an inquiry from one of the few organized LGBT advocacy groups in the Eastern Caribbean country.

The following excerpt from his letter is today's Queer Quote:

I wish to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated November 5, 2013. In your letter,  you requested that Barbados, in the person of the Prime Minister, seek at this year's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka to have included in the agenda of the Meeting in 2015, an item on the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons. 

Although matters of State did not allow me to attend the 2013 meeting, I wish to assure you that Barbados remains committed to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and will continue, therefore, to lend its voice to calls both regional and international fora for the elimination of all forms of discrimination including discrimination against persons of differing sexual orientation.

This response is reminiscent of the letter the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago wrote last year expressing her "personal" support for LGBT rights.

Anyway, it is indicative of a modicum of progress on LGBT rights in the region. Perhaps in addition to calling for an end to discrimination in regional and international fora PM Stewart might want to insure that his country has enacted legal prohibitions against LGBT discrimination.

Jus' sayin'.

77 Countries Around The World Have Laws Banning Homosexuality

The disappointing news that India had recriminalized sodomy through a  court ruling yesterday has drawn attention to the fact that there are now 77 countries around the world that have laws banning homosexuality around the world. India's unfortunate action alone impacted over 1/6th of the world's population!

Business Insider has the full list of countries where LGB people are de facto (and de jure) criminals:

1. Afghanistan
2. Algeria
3. Angola
4. Antigua and Barbuda
5. Bangladesh
6. Barbados
7. Belize
8. Bhutan
9. Botswana
10. Brunei
11. Burundi
12. Cameroon
13. Comoros
14. Dominica
15. Egypt
16. Eritrea
17. Ethiopia
18. Gambia
19. Ghana
20. Grenada
21. Guinea
22. Guyana
23. India
24. Iran
25. Jamaica
26. Kenya
27. Kiribati
28. Kuwait
29. Lebanon
30. Liberia
31. Libya
32. Malawi
33. Malaysia
34. Maldives
35. Mauritania
36. Mauritius
37. Morocco
38. Mozambique
39. Myanmar
40. Namibia
41. Nauru
42. Nigeria
43. Oman
44. Pakistan
45. Palau
46. Papua New Guinea
47. Qatar
48. Samoa
49. São Tomé and Principe
50. Saudi Arabia
51. Senegal
52. Seychelles
53. Sierra Leone
54. Singapore
55. Solomon Islands
56. Somalia
57. South Sudan
58. Sri Lanka
59. St Kitts & Nevis
60. St Lucia
61. St Vincent & the Grenadines
62. Sudan
63. Swaziland
64. Syria
65. Tanzania
66. Togo
67. Tonga
68. Trinidad and Tobago
69. Tunisia
70. Turkmenistan
71. Tuvalu
72. Uganda
73. United Arab Emirates
74. Uzbekistan
75. Yemen
76. Zambia
77. Zimbabwe

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

80% Of British Commonwealth Countries Have Sodomy Laws

While progress on LGBT equality is accelerating at at an amazing pace in the United States we should not grow complacent about how homosexuality is treated around the world. For example, a new report indicates that 41 of 53 members of the Commonwealth declare homosexuality to be illegal.

Homosexuality is illegal in 41 out of the 53 Commonwealth countries, a report released on Monday reveals. Despite this, the forthcoming Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Sri Lanka has elected not to discuss the issue of anti-gay discrimination. Commissioned by the Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation and compiled by LGBT activists throughout the Commonwealth, the report calls for Commonwealth countries to repeal anti-gay legislation, with an immediate moratorium on enforcement. 

“If you look at the world as a whole, around about 40% of nations have state-sponsored homophobia,” said Kaleidoscope’s spokesman, Douglas Pretsell. “Half of those – about 54% – are in the Commonwealth. If you look at the rest of the world not inside the Commonwealth, it’s only 24.5% – so the Commonwealth has a big problem. “These are laws that make it illegal to be gay.”

The other half and I visted two of these Commonwealth countries earlier this year (Barbados and Grenada) and I can confirm to you that homosexuality may be illegal but there is most definitely homosexuality there!
Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Celebrity Friday: Karen Lord, Bajan Sci-Fi Author

Karen Lord, is a Barbadian science fiction author (probably the only one!?) and just happens to also be a longtime childhood friend of mine. (We're born one day apart, her in Barbados and me in Grenada. We went to secondary school in Barbados at the same time, she at Queen's College, same school as my sister, and I at Combermere.) I met up with her while I was visiting the Caribbean on my vacation from May 15-30 and caught up on what she has been doing in the last quarter century since I last saw her!

She's been busy. Karen has even more post-graduate degrees than I do (from various and varied institutions), including a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion from the University of Wales. However, what she is most well-known for is Redemption in Indigo, her debut novel first published in 2010 that has won multiple awards:

Her debut novel “Redemption in Indigo” won the 2008 Frank Collymore Literary Award, the 2010 Carl Brandon Parallax Award, the 2011 William L. Crawford Award and the 2011 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. It also was long-listed for the 2011 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and shortlisted in the Best Debut Novel category of the Kitschies Awards.

Karen has also recently published a new book, The Best Of All Possible Worlds, a sequel of which is already written and will come out within the next year. The new book has earned her comparisons to writers like China Mieville, Nalo Hopkinson and Ursula K. Le Guin, who are giants in the field of speculative fiction.

I am very proud to call her my friend and this week's Celebrity Friday!

MadProfessah Is On Vacation (Grenada and Barbados)

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It's that time of year again! Last year I went off to Europe in May. The year before that I went to Cape Town, South Africa. Starting Wednesday May 15th until Thursday May 30th, I am officially on vacation. I am going to be visiting the Caribbean (Grenada, where I was born, and Barbados, where I went to secondary school). My husband is going as well, and it will be his first time in the Caribbean.

It should be a great trip!

I will have access to wireless internet and will of course bring devices with me but blogging will definitely be lighter than usual, maybe one post per day. My biggest peeve is that I will have to wait until I get back to see (S3E08) "Second Sons" episode of Game of Thrones.