Modern Times: 'Dating' Apps

The Guardian.

What on earth did you expect, love?

Update: If you're looking for love, then go on a Guardian Blind Date.

2015: Can We Not?

Telegraph.

G?

In 2016, can we stop the inappropriate use of 'LGBT', pls?

Everytime I see or hear it, something in me dies.

Oh hang on, there's more happy clappy 'hurrah for us!' stuff here...

Did trans go mainstream, or were there just endless articles saying it's 'gone mainstream?

Simon Danczuk: Hahaha!

Well, this is wonderful news to end the year on - the self-appointed nonce-finder is a nonce!

2015: Goodbye To All That

Kim Davis, gaymarriage, trans in the military, Caitlyn Jenner, the bathroom bill, the blood donor ban, blah blah blah... yes Zach, it was a very dull year.

But the earth stood still, as the White House turned rainbow!

There won't be a backlash, love, unless you count us all dying of being boring.

PS My imaginary friend, Sean Faye, wrote an interesting piece about how obsessing over the blood donor ban is a gay bourgeois folly.

Slight paraphrase, but the prime movers behind this waste of time all seem to be in LGBTory.

EastEnders: I Don't Believe I'm Hearing This!

Actor Harry Reid wants his EastEnders character to be "honest with his sexuality" in 2016.
The 23-year-old star plays sexually confused Ben Mitchell in the BBC One soap and he is hoping his alter ego will finally be honest with girlfriend Abi Branning (Lorna Fitzgerald) about his secret sex sessions with Albert Square resident Paul Coker (Jonny Labey).
He said: "Expect more feelings to emerge between Ben and Paul. I'd like Ben to finally be honest about his sexuality.
"And I'd love to see how Abi would react - I think she'd hit the roof."...

Mirror. 

Cause you can never have enough tortured coming out storylines in British soaps...

Thatcher: Anal Sex

When Downing Street asked for the wording of the advert to be reconsidered, Sir Norman [Fowler] made it clear he felt the threat posed by the “grave and unprecedented problem” was not being adequately appreciated in Number 10.

He wrote to Mrs Thatcher: “Unless there is a reference to anal intercourse, which has been linked with 85 per cent of AIDS cases so far, the advertisement would lose all its medical authority and credibility...

The row ended when health officials suggested that the phrase “anal sex” be replaced with “rectal intercourse” and Mrs Thatcher, perhaps beginning to be persuaded of the scale of the emergency, declared the new language acceptable.

Despite a warning that she was being seen as “reluctant to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves”, the Prime Minister continued to be less than enthusiastic about the publicity campaign.

A series of leaflets and television adverts, famously showing a tombstone etched with the words “Don’t die of ignorance”, nonetheless followed...

The Independent.

See Fighting The Epidemic (The Truth About The Aids Panic), Don Milligan.

Much misunderstood at the time, but he was proved right.

Thatcher: Will Do Harm

Margaret Thatcher bitterly resisted calls for a major public education campaign to counter the threat of an Aids epidemic.

Papers released by the National Archives at Kew show how the prime minister repeatedly raised objections, warning that alerting teenagers to the dangers of “risky sex” could backfire and cause “immense harm”.

She only backed down after a series of stark warnings by advisers that hundreds of thousands could become infected by the Aids virus unless people - particularly gay men and drug users - were persuaded to change their lifestyles.

The first case of Aids in the UK was recorded in 1981 and by 1986 there was growing public awareness of the spread of the disease for which there was then no known treatment.

But when Health Secretary Norman Fowler proposed a newspaper advertising campaign setting out advice on “safe sex”, Mrs Thatcher was horrified.

In particular she objected to a section entitled “What is risky sex?”

“Do we have to do the section on risky sex?” she scrawled in a handwritten note. “I should have thought it could do immense harm if young teenagers were to read it.”

She suggested the advert could even breach the Obscene Publications Act and proposed a more limited campaign based on previous public information campaigns on “venereal disease”.

“I think the anxiety on the part of parents and many teenagers who would never be in danger from Aids, exceeds the good it may do,” she wrote.

“It would be better in my view to follow the ‘VD’ precedent of putting notices in surgeries, public lavatories etc. But adverts where every young person will read and hear of practices they never knew about will do harm.” ...

Mirror. 

Lest we forget, here's Pink News' legendary tribute, Margaret Thatcher, a controversial figure on gay issues, dies aged 87.

Gay: The Agony

THEY were dubbed the “demon children” and “Asbros” after racking up more than 40 arrests and a criminal record by the age of 12.

After three years of starting fires, throwing stones, breaking fences and racially abusing neighbours, Danny and Ricky Oakley became Britain’s youngest recipients of anti-social behaviour orders.

But eldest brother Danny says it was not an Asbo he needed, just a loving family — and he thinks a secret added to his torment.

The 21-year-old believes that hiding his homosexuality was one of the main triggers for him wreaking havoc in his neighbourhood of Wolverhampton.

It is something he now deeply regrets...

The Sun.

The agony!

LOL!

That 'heart-warming' 'adorable' interview with Attitude surely awaits...

PS So how does he explain his straight brother's behaviour?

Zhou Enlai: Probably Not

A book to be published in Hong Kong in the new year says Zhou Enlai, Communist China's much-respected first premier, was probably gay despite his long marriage, and had once been in love with a male schoolmate two years his junior.

It is a contention certain to be controversial in China, where the Communist Party likes to maintain its top leaders are more or less morally irreproachable and where homosexuality is frowned upon, though no longer officially repressed.

The Hong Kong-based author, Tsoi Wing-mui, is a former editor at a liberal political magazine there who has written about gay-themed subjects before though this is her first book.

She re-read already publicly available letters and diaries Zhou and his wife, Deng Yingchao, wrote, including ones that detailed Zhou's fondness for a schoolmate and emotional detachment from his wife, to conclude that Zhou was probably gay.

Zhou was premier from the revolution in October 1949 that brought the Communist Party to power until his death from cancer in 1976, a few months before the death of his revolutionary colleague Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.

Reuters obtained excerpts of the Chinese-language book, called "The Secret Emotional Life of Zhou Enlai". It is published by the same house that put out the secret diaries of former Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, who was ousted after 1989's Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Tsoi re-read books published by the party in 1998 to mark the 100th anniversary of Zhou's birth that contained public essays and speeches by Zhou as well as his diary, letters, poems, novels and thesis from 1912 to 1924.

"Zhou Enlai was a gay politician who had the misfortune of being born 100 years early," Tsoi writes in her book.

She told Reuters the real meaning of the diaries had been hidden in plain sight, but no Chinese scholars had openly made the connection before as the subject of homosexuality was unknown to them.

"When mainland Chinese authors came into contact with this material, they would not consider the possibility of homosexuality," she said...

Reuters.

Small print: 'Gao Wenqian, a U.S.-based biographer of Zhou, said he was aware of speculation about Zhou's sexuality, but it was hard to say for certain if it was true. "There's actually not that much information about it in the records," Gao told Reuters. "There's no way to be sure."

Zhou seems to have had a bit of a pash for another lad when he was a student, that is all, and hardly remarkable. 

PS More inconclusion on BBC News.

Guardian: F Is For...

Less of this right-on wank in 2016, pls.

You're free to call yourself whatever you LGBTIQ* want, but most gay men are just 'gay' -  get over it!

Why do posh twats endlessly pontificate on these trifles?

Queer: People

Queer people of colour and trans actors have finally become visible - but hate crime is up, queer asylum seekers have been viewed with suspicion and sex education still fails to be queer-friendly 

Yawn!

Less of this right-on wank in 2016, pls, Indy Voices.

Anyone who still uses 'queer' in 2015 to suggest radicalism is a middle class twat.

And folk knows what that QAF photo is doing here.

Stephen Fry: Why?

In this documentary, Stephen Fry tells the story behind his success, after presenting the BAFTAs for more than ten years.

With an outstanding career in film and television which began with a chance meeting with comedy partner Hugh Laurie at Cambridge, he went on to create the outrageous Melchett in Blackadder and has become a firm favourite on BBC2 with the quite interesting quiz QI...

BBC iPlayer.

Bafta host, a walk-on part in Blackadder, and quiz show host.

Doesn't actually sound like 'an outstanding career'.

Still, bless...

Fagburn's Hysteria Of The Year: Chemsex

In which some maiden aunts reached for the collective smelling salts and clutched their pearls coz bumsex and drugz is so, so sad and bad!

Surely the most lunatic episode involving teh gayz and teh media since they were telling us Russia was a neo-Nazi state, with many gay deads.

Fagburn's Book Of The Year: Stalin's Englishman

Xmas present from my mum.

Gay, drunk, communist... but she still loves me.

PS Fagburn also liked Trigger Warning: Is The Fear Of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? by Mick Hume and So You've Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson.

Two great guides through our modern afflictions of manufactured outrage, make-believe 'offence', and mass hysteria.

Fagburn's Fillum Of The Year: Best Of Enemies

Gore vs Buckley!

Fight! Fight!! Fight!!!

PS It's on YouTube now. Ssshhh...

Fagburn's Albumen Of The Year: Robert Forster

Songs To Play.

Fagburn's Tellybox Show Of The Year: Cuffs

Down The Bushes again, Jake? *sighs*

Fagburn's Funny Man Of The Year: Peter Tatchell

Thanks for all the larfs, you vainglorious lunatic! x

PS Can you retire in 2016, pls?

Fagburn's Journalist Of The Year: Anyone?

Hey, maybe next year you might see a silly fantasy story like this and ask 'Is this true?'

Surely the first duty of any journalist?

But you do it every fucking day.

Oy vey...

Fagburn's Radio Programme Of The Year: Wireless Nights

Thank you, Jarvis!

Fagburn's Fave Wank Of The Year: The Biebs

Urrgghhh....

Fagburn's Worst Gay Media Of The Year: Gay Star News

I mean, where do you even begin...

Verily, 2015 was the year of the gay media's wanky wet liberal transmania.

Lemmy: 1945-2015

That's the way I like it, baby
I don't wanna live forever 

I love you, Mr heavy metal anarchist.

It's a bummer. x

Obama: Gay

The Taliban soldiers who were holding American soldier Bowe Bergdahl captive wanted to know if Barack Obama was gay, he said.

Sgt Bergdahl, 29, fled his Afghanistan base in 2009 and was held by the Taliban for five years.
 
Now facing a court martial for desertion and misbehaviour, he has spoken to filmmaker Mark Boal, who produced The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, and the interviews are being broadcast as part of the podcast Serial.

In the latest instalment he tells of how he twice tried to escape, and how the Taliban guards were curious about America.

“They ask you, is Obama gay and sleeps with men?” he said... 

The Telegraph. 

PS Bowe Bergdahl is as mad as a lorry.

Marc Almond: In Search Of Vadim Kozin

Marc Almond travels to Moscow in search of the marvelous Russian tenor Vadim Kozin, tango-singer and superstar. The darling of the Soviet Union, Kozin melted hearts by the tens of millions in the 1940s, playing to packed concert halls and rallying Red Army troops in World War 2. 

Kozin made dozens of hit records and lived the high-life of a celebrity in the most rarified circles around Stalin. But he vanished one day in 1944 when the secret police arrested him and sent him to the GULAG for homosexuality. * His records were pulled from the shops, his voice from the radio. The public thought him dead, but Kozin would spend the next 50 years in Siberia, still singing and performing in the strange looking-glass world of internal exile.

BBC World Service. 

The producer, Monica Whitlock, writes about Vadim here.

* Possibly not really for homosexuality. He was released in 1950.

Gender Fluid: Pop Pap

First things first: don’t call it a trend. Gender fluidity found its way into more headlines than ever in 2015. But regardless of the moment it’s having in both music and pop culture at large, to dismiss it as a passing fad or, worse, gimmickry is a mistake – one with echoes of that damaging and all too familiar phrase that queerness is “just a phase”...

Guardian online - oh do fuck off!

This is the sort of inane bourgeois tripe Independent Voices publishes.

What the fork is 'queerness'?

No more balls about 'gender fluidity' 'being a thing' in 2016, pls.

Update: Satire klaxon!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Jesus was gender fluid! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) December 25, 2015

Andy West: Comment

Pink News.

As the BBC News presenter, Clive Myrie, said live on air of Tyson Fury, 'you cannot be a dickhead and win Sports Personality of the Year', and was not reprimanded, one has to wonder if there's more to Mr West's suspension than he claims.

Hic!

Andy West, pictured more recently.

Gay Dad Watch: Enough

Oh, please, by the name of Allah and all that is holy, may I never read about sodding gay dads in 2016!

Pink News: Epic Fail

Pink News has now become its own parody site.

Sake.

Only right-wing people care...

Fagburn: Merry Christmas Everybody

See ya.

Fagburn will be spending the next 72 hours at one of them deadly chemsex parties you read about endlessly in ver media this year.

x

Tweet Of The Day: Chelsea Manning

In 2015 @Caitlyn_Jenner ws the grinch who stole (& sold out) the trans movement. All I want 4 Xmas is Universal Trans Lib. #ChristmasEve2015

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) December 24, 2015

In prison, the holiday season is grim - but I won't lose hope, Guardian.

Alan Bennett: May Days

8 May. A feeling of bereavement in the streets. I shop for supper and unprompted a grey-haired woman in the fish shop bursts out: ‘It means I shall have a Tory government for the rest of my life.’

In the library they say: ‘Good morning, though we’ve just been trying to think what’s good about it.’

I wanted a Labour government so that I could stop thinking about politics, knowing that the nation’s affairs were in the hands of a party which, even if it was often foolish, was at least well-intentioned. Now we have another decade of the self-interested and the self-seeking, ready to sell off what’s left of our liberal institutions and loot the rest to their own advantage. It’s not a government of the nation but a government of half the nation, a true legacy of Mrs Thatcher. Work is the only escape, which fortunately moves along a little.

9 May. My birthday. A nice woman in a leopardskin coat who always speaks wishes me a happy birthday. I say that I wish it was. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ ‘Last Thursday. The election.’ ‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about that. They’re all the same.’ At which point (we are in Shepherd’s grocers) I hear myself as very rarely shouting at the top of my voice. ‘No, they are not all the same. This lot are self-seeking liars, the cabinet included, and we’re landed with them for another five years.’ She tries to calm me down but I tell her not to bother, with other customers peeping round the shelves to see who is making all this din.

She is waiting outside the shop with a cake she has bought me for my birthday and I kind of apologise. But as I walk back home I wonder how long it will be before this crew turn their attention to the BBC.

From Alan Bennett's diary, London Review Of Books.

The drawing is an old one he unearthed of Miss Shepherd, the lady in the van.

PS Alan writes about recording the Christmas edition of Private Passions for the BBC World Service, which you can hear here.

Fagburn: Countdown To Christmas

Nothing of much interest today.

Might be gone for a while. x

 Mirror: She looks made-up!

A Christmas message from Cliff! x

Remember, before donating to any 'needy cause' this xmas, always check their accounts.

PS Think it might be what is known as a 'slow news day'. No, hang on! Deffo loads of serious shit going down in the papers today.

PPS But it's not all bad news, according to The Sun, ITV have finally decided to put Vicious out of its misery. Yay!

PPPS I'm presuming this is a real public information festive fun warning about cock rings and handcuffs from the London Fire Brigade.

Telegraph: The bastard!

Tim Cook: Apple Watch

Pink News.

Are they the suicidal workers in your Chinese sweatshops?

Kenneth Partridge: 1926-2015

The interior designer Kenneth Partridge, who has died aged 89, was an influential 1960s tastemaker best known for creating outlandish, proto-psychedelic homes for two of the Beatles and for their manager, Brian Epstein, who was his friend. Partridge’s work straddled the worlds of design and fashion; he also created showrooms for Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell.

His exuberant aesthetic was ahead of the curve: in the early 60s, it was vibrant and extrovert long before the late-60s advent of psychedelia. Partridge’s outré style was a direct expression of his ebullient, often outrageous personality and showmanship. An anecdote from the late 50s points to his chutzpah: working then as chief window-dresser for Jaeger on Regent Street, London, one of his displays, based on the rough-hewn wooden sculptures of Louise Nevelson, prompted accusations of plagiarism from her agent. He cheekily turned the tables, insisting his design was a homage to a great artist...

The Guardian.

Elton John: She's Lost Control

In the past year the singer has also been publicly humiliated by a series of PR gaffes.

And friends and music insiders are now firmly pointing the finger at Furnish, who they blame for the disasters.

A source close to the couple said: “Elton is looking for a quiet life and has handed control of his life to David.

“But David is behaving like a control freak with little idea how to run Elton’s financial or domestic affairs...

The latest associate rumoured to be forced out is fiercely loyal and deeply private PR man Gary Farrow, who has resigned after 35 years service.

In a statement, he simply cited “directional differences between Elton’s new management and myself”. Last night he refused to comment further.

Elton has suffered a string of public disasters, with insiders blaming Furnish for the damage to his image...

The Sun. 

The heartless bastards - Reg and Dave celebrated their tenth civil partnership anniversary yesterday!

Hmmm, Fagburn wonders who could possibly be the source of this story, Gary?

Those 2015 PR disasters in full!

The hoax call from Putin!

Elton photographed carrying a D&G bag after saying he was boycotting them over their 'synthetic IV babies' comment!

Revelations of his 7 year rift with his 90 year-old mum!

'The Sun has revealed how he likes to party on yachts in the South of France with musclebound young men, as his Instagram and Facebook accounts reveal. And he has never publicly explained why one of those young men, Danny Williams, lives in a flat owned by Furnish.' *

And on those four non-bombshells...

* One might wonder if this one was leaked to The Sun by 'a source close to Elton'? Someone with a grudge, perhaps, Gary?

PS Elton's new PR is Fagburn's old showbiz mate Murray Chalmers!

2015: A Landmark Year For LGBT Rights

2015 has been a stellar year for the LGBT community.

With same-sex marriage being legalised in the US and Ireland, and countries like Mozambique decriminalising homosexuality, the year has seen many welcome legislative changes for gay couples.

But perhaps the most significant change is the growing media presence of LGBT celebrities who have been flying the flag for greater acceptance.

Here are some of the most famous names who have helped make 2015 a great year of LGBT rights...

Independent.

Caitlyn Jenner!

Ruby Rose!

'Justice Anthony Kennedy and the other Supreme Court Justices who legalised same sex marriage in the US'! (Media celebrities???)

Tillett Wright! (Who? etc).

Ellen Page!

Cara Delevigne!!

No gay men!!

Well, this must have taken minutes to research and write - Caroline Mortimer, I can't thank you enough!

A fitting tribute to the Independent's 'LGBT' coverage in 2015 - once again the most patronising and superficial in a British newspaper.

As ever, a school magazine would have rejected this infantile drivel.

Stellar!

2015: How To Get Ahead In Advertising

It’s often said that if you want to get a feel for the character of a nation, you should study the way it sells cars, soup and mobile phone plans. That’s not to say that glossy ads peopled by implausibly good-looking and cheerful people are an accurate reflection of real life in America; rather, it’s that the ads show an image of people that Americans are willing to tolerate. And this year that image changed fundamentally.

Marketing in America had long been moving towards including more lesbian and gay characters in advertisements, but 2015 will go down as the year that the US Supreme Court legalised gay marriage and that ads reflecting this sea change in the American idea of family went mainstream.

When a steadily rising number of leading American brands start producing ads depicting lesbian and gay couples, it’s fair to say that something significant is going on. This year the likes of Campbell’s Soup, Wells Fargo, General Mills, Chevrolet, Hallmark, Honey Maid, Kohl’s, Tylenol and even Allstate, an insurance group, have come out with LGBT-inclusive commercials and social media campaigns. A spot for Campbell’s Soup’s special-edition Star Wars cans, for example, depicts two fathers feeding their toddler son and taking turns to do their best impressions of Darth Vader’s “I am your father” line.

Of course, not one of these ads is revolutionary. Most are highly conservative and depict gay and lesbian people in the context of traditional family units. The storyline is not about their love for each other, but for their child. It’s almost as if brands are using same-sex relationships as a proxy for being modern... 

Corporate America Has No Option But To Join The March To Equality, The Times business section.

Quite perceptive, though the title says it all.

See also, A Momentous, But Conservative, Win For Gay Rights, Bloomberg on the US Supreme Court's equal marriage ruling.


PS Fagburn thinks all these gay dad ads are AMAZING and ADORABLE etc, obvs.

Update: Advertising Age choose their top 10 LGBT-themed ads of the year; 'Family values, transgender issues set the tone'. No surprises there, then.

When We Rise: Soon

ABC has ordered the gay-rights miniseries “When We Rise” from “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, according to media reports.

Gus Van Sant will also serve as executive producer and will direct the first two-hour episode of the eight-hour miniseries, reuniting him with Black after previously directing the 2008 Harvey Milk biopic.

Produced by ABC Studios, “When We Rise” chronicles the personal and political struggles, setbacks and triumphs of a diverse family of LGBT men and women who helped pioneer one of the last legs of the U.S. Civil Rights movement from its turbulent infancy in the 20th century to the once unfathomable successes of today.

The series will tell the history of the gay rights movement, beginning with the Stonewall Riots of 1969. It was originally put into development at ABC in 2013.

Laurence Mark and Bruce Cohen will also serve as executive producers on the miniseries.

The Wrap.

Confirmed by an excited DLB.

But will it be as good as Stonewall The Movie?

The Gay Word: Gay's The Word

Amy Ashenden's documentary, The Gay Word, is now on YouTube.

Made on her student overdraft, it's actually rather good - and, no, she doesn't just ask some students what they think about the word 'gay'.

It's hard not to conclude that most usage of the word 'gay' by young people has no conscious connection to the people gay, and it certainly doesn't mean they are being homophobic.

Saying 'That's so gay!' is as divorced from homosexuality as saying 'Oh bugger!' was a few generations ago.

Amy writes about the film for Guardian Students here.

Gay Star News: God Hates Free Ads

The ‘God Hates Fag’ church caused a ‘social media frenzy’ when it shared a picture of Ryan Zamo kissing his fiancé in front of The Equality House across the street from the churches headquarters in Topeka, Kansas.

As fellow church members commented on and shared the picture, it quickly started to trend on Instagram and resulted in a ‘massive influx of sales’ to Zamo’s online skincare business.

‘It really didn’t bother me that much. We thought it was actually funny that it was becoming so popular, but neither my fiancé nor I are the types to retaliate, it wasn’t anything to be up in arms about,’ said Ryan Zamo, CEO of Z Skin Cosmetics.

‘We actually sent them a package with some of our Z Skin Cosmetics anti-aging, acne and hair products, after all they did drive massive sales for our site, it’s the least we could do.’

Gay Star News. 

Sorry!!? Where was this picture posted? What 'social media frenzy'? How would anyone know who was in the photo? Or that they ran a cosmetics firm?

Here's the press release on PR News Wire GSN have cut-and-pasted.

It would be wrong to single out this story, when so much on GSN is just regurgitated press releases, but this really is first-class horseshit.

It's so shameless and pathetic I almost wish it was another example of their undisclosed paid advertorial.

Gay Star News, why do you have such utter contempt for your readers?

PS And Pink News too! (May have been removed from the main site, for shame).

Update: Irony craps its nappy as Queerty credit Pink News as the source and title it 'Free Publicity'!

If anyone needs reminding that the gay news media is systematically shit, this be the post!

Russia: Smiley Face

Russia has ruled that gay emojis are allowed to stay on iPhones, dropping the lawsuit against Apple.

Moscow’s City Court has thrown [out?] a lawsuit which claimed emojis showing smiling same-sex couples was a violation of the law that prohibits ‘gay propaganda’...

Pink News.

Hmm, I'm trying to think of a gay news media site daft enough to have first reported this as if there was any chance it could or would have happened... anyone?

PS It would be wrong to single out Pink News here. As per, all gay media went for the default 'Print any old bollocks about Russia' option.

Africa: First Do No Harm

Four years ago, the American government embarked on an ambitious campaign to expand civil rights for gay people overseas by marshaling its diplomats, directing its foreign aid and deploying President Obama to speak before hostile audiences.

Since 2012, the American government has put more than $700 million into supporting gay rights groups and causes globally. More than half of that money has focused on sub-Saharan Africa — just one indication of this continent’s importance to the new policy.

America’s money and public diplomacy have opened conversations and opportunities in societies where the subject was taboo just a few years ago. But they have also made gay men and lesbians more visible — and more vulnerable to harassment and violence, people on both sides of the gay rights issue contend. The American campaign has stirred misgivings among many African activists, who say they must rely on the West’s support despite often disagreeing with its strategies.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, the final passage of the 2014 law against homosexuality — which makes same-sex relationships punishable by 14 years in prison and makes it a crime to organize or participate in any type of gay meeting — is widely regarded by both supporters and opponents of gay rights as a reaction to American pressure on Nigeria and other African nations to embrace gay rights.

“The Nigerian law was blowback,” said Chidi Odinkalu, chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and the senior legal officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which supports gay rights on the continent. “You now have situations of gay men being molested on the streets or taunted. That was all avoidable.”

“I’ve said to U.S. diplomats privately as well — the risk is causing more harm than good,” Mr. Odinkalu added. “You don’t want an infusion of good will to actually do harm to the community that you think you’re protecting.”

Anti-gay sentiments are widespread across Africa. Same-sex relations remain illegal in most nations, the legacy of colonial laws that had been largely forgotten until the West’s push to repeal them in recent years.

Fierce opposition has come from African governments and private organizations, which accuse the United States of cultural imperialism. Pressing gay rights on an unwilling continent, they say, is the latest attempt by Western nations to impose their values on Africa...

Gay Africans are becoming increasingly caught in the American culture battles being waged in Africa, said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia who is a researcher at the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates.

“When two elephants fight, the grass will suffer,” said Mr. Kaoma, who has documented the ties between American evangelicals and the anti-gay movement in Africa. “This is what’s happening in Africa. African L.G.B.T. persons are just collateral damage to U.S. politics on both ends.” ...

New York Times.

An excellent piece on an empire too arrogant to listen to those it professes to help.