Will Hillary Clinton Speak Out On The "Kill The Gays" Bill In Uganda ?

Why isn't Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking about the Uganda "Kill The Gays" Bill ?

Time is running out for thousands of Ugandans, who face the death penalty or life in prison if "convicted" of being gay.

It's time for the United States to escalate its diplomatic efforts to protect the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

Forward the link to this blog post to your friends, and then sign and share these to petitions :

Our allies on the ground tell us that if Pepsi, which has a huge presence in Uganda, speaks out against the "Kill The Gays" Bill and the harmful effect it would have on investment and economic development in Uganda, it would force Ugandan officials to put the bill on hold -- or even pull it entirely. Sign the Pepsi Petition.

Citibank and Barclays -- two of the largest banks in the world -- have major operations in Uganda. Ask Citibank and Barclays to publicly condemn Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill, and send a loud message to Ugandan legislators that criminalizing homosexuality with lifetime prison sentences and the death penalty won’t be supported by major international businesses. Sign the Citibank and Barclays Petition.

Meanwhile, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has no opinion about whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should escalate diplomatic efforts to protect the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

In North Shore-LIJ and Christine Quinn Plan for St. Vincent's, a Fear of Union-Busting

OP-ED : Update on Community Effort to Create a Hospital to Replace St. Vincent's in the Lower West Side of Manhattan

When a deal was announced for the transfer of bankruptcy assets from the 501(c)(3) charity that was St. Vincent's Hospital to the private real estate developer tycoon William Rudin at values that may not fairly represent the full market value, the bankruptcy assets transfer was hailed as a health care miracle, because it would replace the Level 1 Trauma Center that was St. Vincent's with a first aid clinic.

But just a mere examination, at first blush, of the beneficial transfer of assets to insider creditors, the jobs that it would create, and the services it would provide, show that this deal is fraught with potential legal challenges.

The transfer of St. Vincent's principal assets -- its real estate -- to the Rudin family, who has always had an ''inside track'' on condo-conversion plans -- may be fraudulent, if the transfer does not happen at full market value prices. There is also community concern that the North Shore-LIJ landlord taking over the first aid clinic is going to hire only non-union employees for the 400 jobs that are expected to be created at the first aid clinic, and that the new clinic will forbid any efforts at collective-bargaining ; presently, only approximately 36 per cent of North Shore-LIJ employees receive union benefits. The services to be provided by the first aid clinic will not be able to treat ''women in labor, patients with severe trauma such as gunshot wounds or open fractures, or those requiring immediate surgery or cardiac interventions.'' In the face of the lack of life-saving services to be provided by the first aid clinic, and even the dishonest comparison of ambulance response times between 2008 and 2009 (even though St. Vincent's closed in 2010), predictably Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn can still be ''encouraged'' by the flimsy outpatient center.

Meanwhile, here is a video of a press conference outside Friday's appellate court hearing in connection with a freedom of information lawsuit.

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 23) - Freedom of Information from g. sosa on Vimeo.

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn try to destroy the social safety net by trying to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, pretend like votes don't go missing, build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms, we are left to wonder. When will the focus of irresponsible real estate development at the expense of the middle class spark a voter backlash, that will lead to mass protests at the city's legislature, or a revolution of the likes that have been happening elsewhere ? What will be the spark that will trigger mass protests in New York ?

(Christine Quinn is Speaker of the New York City Council, but she has made her bed alongside Mayor Bloomberg on many controversial issues that often times she acts more and more like his Deputy Mayor than an independent voice for Democratic Party ideals.)

David Kato : Vigil and March in NYC to Demand Hate Crimes Investigation

NYC vigil and march in memory of David Kato on Thursday, February 3

Last Wednesday, Ugandan gay activist David Kato was beaten to death in a brutal hate crime. Even after David was deliberately marked as a target in a newspaper’s controversial campaign that called for gays to be executed, police in Uganda are refusing to investigate David’s suspicious murder as an act of homophobia.

Here in New York, the LGBT community and our allies are outraged at the continuation of human rights violations against David, even after his death, and against LGBT people everywhere.  We invite all New Yorkers to participate in a vigil and march on Thursday, February 3.

For more information about the vigil and march, please visit the Facebook page. The vigil will begin at 4 pm at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (885 Second Avenue), and, from there, mourners will begin a march that will pass in front of the United Nations Headquarters and end at the Uganda Mission to the United Nations (336 East 45th Street).

Date : Thursday, February 3, 2011
Start Time : 4 p.m.
Meeting Place : 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (885 Second Avenue), New York City
Please Bring : Signs and Banners to remember David Kato

David’s life work was to courageously fight for the human rights of LGBT people in Uganda. In the time leading up to his murder, David had been working to defeat the widely controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda.  Under the proposed bill, some LGBT people would become subject to the death penalty.  In David’s name, we demand that the Ugandan government abandon this bill.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in the Ugandan Parliament by David Bahati, who is associated with ‘’The Family,’’ a fringe group of right-wing politicians and businessmen, who inject their fundamentalist beliefs into government matters, including civil rights and reproductive freedoms. Mr. Bahati reportedly first proposed the idea of executing gays during The Family's Uganda National Prayer Breakfast in 2008.

We stand up to the bigotry of and interference by groups, like The Family. We also join others in calling for the Ugandan government to recognize LGBT equality as a universal human right, to fully investigate all hate crimes, and to take action against institutions, which create campaigns that are only meant to incite discrimination and violence against LGBT people.

The campaign against LGBT Ugandans was being lead by other social and cultural institutions, including the media. It is unacceptable that a newspaper would publish a list of LGBT people and mark them as targets for death. As we hold our vigil and march near the United Nations, we also ask the U.N. to continue to put pressure on the Ugandan government to thoroughly investigate David’s killing, as well as to investigate and prosecute any institution, which is responsible for advocating for the execution, discrimination, or harassment of LGBT people.

We ask everyone to join us in this vigil to demand that all cultural- and government-sanctioned discrimination and violence against LGBT persons come to an end.