11/11/2012 This Way Out

Program #1,284

Hosted by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle

"NewsWrap": Following sharp criticism of her country's record on LGBT rights by Canada's Foreign Minister at an international conference, REBECCA KADAGA, Speaker of the Ugandan National Assembly, returns home to push for passage of the so-called "Kill the Gays" bill in Parliament [with brief comments by Kadaga]; a record crowd of some 65,000 people attend Taiwan's 10th annual Pride festival in the capital city of Taipei; 11 transgender people face up to a year in prison for violating Kuwait's law making it a crime to "imitate the appearance of a member of the opposite sex", while Egyptian police grill seven men for several days who are suspected of running gay "debauchery" sex parties in an apartment in a Cairo suburb; a judge in Chile assigns a public defender to 4 men charged with the brutal gay-bashing murder of openly gay 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio last year after their defense attorney abruptly withdraws from the case without explanation, but Jaime Prada's election to the city council in the Santiago suburb of Providencia makes him Chile's first openly gay man elected to a municipal government, while transgender councilmember Alejandra Gonzalez is re-elected in Lampa, also in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, transgender candidate Zuliana Araya wins a seat on the city council in the coastal Chilean province of Valparaiso, and Sicilian voters make Rosario Crocetta Italy's first "out" gay governor; the U.S. Supreme Court will reportedly announce on November 26th whether or not it will hear cases involving California's Proposition 8 and/or DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act; Hurricane Sandy devastates Fire Island, although the gay resorts of Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines suffer what is apparently the least catastrophic damage; and a homophobic Christian preacher and a Manhattan rabbi each call the super-storm God's "divine justice" for New York's enactment of marriage equality and Lower Manhattan being "one of the national centers of homosexuality" (written by GREG GORDON, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by SARAH SWEENEY and WENZEL JONES)

The UK's Greenbelt Christian Festival is an annual arts, faith and justice event with a nearly 40-year tradition of inclusiveness. But how would they handle a guy who says the Bible is full of transpeople, and that Jesus had two daddies? ROSE FRANCE of Bristol Community Radio's "ShoutOut" program (with transmital thanks to MARY MILTON) went backstage with PETERSON TOSCANO, the controversial "performance arts activist" with a complicated religious past .  [www.petersontoscano.com/]