Little Richard

December 5th Person
12-05-1932 Little Richard (Richard Wayne Penniman) – Born in Macon, Georgia. He is an American recording artist, songwriter, and musician. Little Richard has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His recording of Tutti Frutti (1955) was included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2010. In 2015, the National Museum of African American History and Culture honoured Little Richard for his pivotal role in the formation of popular music and in helping to shatter the colour line on the American music charts. In 1995, he told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay.

Anglican church elects gay, black, immigrant man in a same-sex marriage as bishop

An Anglican church in Missouri has elected a gay, black, immigrant man in a same-sex marriage as its new bishop.
Reverend Deon Johnson was overwhelming elected by voting delegates at Christ Church Cathedral in St Louis, with 113 votes out of 164, making him the new leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri and its more than 10,000 worshippers.
Johnson was described by the diocese in its announcement as a “veteran Episcopal priest with deep experience in social justice issues and ministry to gay and lesbian communities”.
He immigrated from Barbados to the United States at the age of 14, and now lives in Brighton, Michigan, with his husband and their two children.
The newly elected bishop appeared via video with his husband at Christ Church Cathedral, and seemed overwhelmed by the applause when the results were announced on Sunday, 24 November.
He said: “Thank you so very much for this awesome responsibility. I am overwhelmed with joy, humility, and gratitude.
“The Holy Spirit has brought us to this day, for such a time as this. I am looking forward to walking with you as we share the liberating love of Jesus. My husband and our family are looking forward to being with you in the new year.”
According to the diocese, as long as consent is received from other bishops and diocesan standing committees, Johnson will be ordained in April 2020.

Exit's World AIDS Day Message December 2019

By Edwin Cameron, retired Justice of the Constitutional Court of SA

This is my fifteenth World AIDS Day message for EXIT newspaper. I mention this as a private landmark, because I value this newspaper (and its associated website, and mambaonline, with which it shares) as a crucial medium for getting out important messages on HIV and AIDS.

Every completed year is a landmark also for EXIT, which has been published since 1982. It was started in the dark days of apartheid, when men having sex with men (MSMs) were targeted and arrested and shamed and charged under stringent homophobic criminal prohibitions. That was when LGBTIs were treated as immoral, unbiblical, perverted criminals in South Africa. The apartheid government went so far as to set up a parliamentary committee, in 1987, to figure out even harsher prohibitions and punishments.

During that awful time, this newspaper served as a voice of pride and justice for the LGBTI community.

1982 was before we properly knew about AIDS. It was mostly just a rumour from America. We didn’t know, then, what was happening in Uganda. And we didn’t know how that same devastation would strike our own country.

1982 was before Simon Nkoli was arrested, in 1984. It was before the mass uprisings of the 1980s – which Simon helped instigate – forced the apartheid government to buckle.

And buckle apartheid did, in 1990. But the end of that era saw a new and frightening spectre: AIDS. We became a constitutional democracy just as a massive wave of HIV prevalence swept through our country.

A high court in Zambia has sentenced two men to 15 years in prison for gay sex.

(From the African Human Rights Media Network)
The men were convicted last year in a lower court. They appealed, but high court Judge Charles Zulu rejected their challenge and imposed the 15-year sentence.
Under Zambian law, the sentence for same-sex activity can range from 15 years to life.
The Star reported:
The court heard that Japhet Chataba and Steven Samba [in 2017] booked themselves into a lodge in Kapiri Mposhi, in central Zambia, where they committed the act.
While they were in the room, one of the workers peeped through an open window and saw them having sex.
The female worker then alerted her colleagues whom she invited to the window to catch a glimpse of two men.
The two men were convicted last year by the Kapiri Mposhi Magistrates’ Court but they took the case to the high court.
But high court judge Charles Zulu refused to review the verdict of the lower court and handed down the 15-year sentence.
“The trial court cannot be faulted and there is no basis to review or substitute the conviction and I further find that there were no irregularities by the trial court,” Judge Zulu said, the state-owned Zambia Daily Mail newspaper quotes him as saying.
Judge Zulu said he was satisfied that the lower court had been within the confines of the law when it convicted the defendants for “having sex against the order of nature” – the legal phrase used to describe gay sex.

Haitian LGBTIQ activist found dead under suspicious circumstances

One of Haiti’s most prominent LGBTIQ activists, Jeudy Charlot, was found dead at his home in Pétion-Ville outside of the capital of Port-au-Prince on the morning of Monday, November 25th.
The circumstances of his death are still unclear and an autopsy is needed to determine the cause of death.
Jeudy Charlot, affectionately known by many as Charlot, was the Executive Director of KOURAJ, one of the country’s only LGBTIQ organizations and OutRight’s partner in a multi-year project fighting sexual and gender-based violence in Haiti.
While the cause of death has not been verified, human rights organisations OutRight fears that Charlot’s death may have been a hate crime. Charlot had been receiving threatening and anonymous phone calls, yet was determined to continue the fight for LGBTIQ equality.
Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International said it was essential that local police fully investigated his death.
“I knew Charlot as a bold LGBTIQ leader and fierce advocate fighting for the rights of his community. Even though the cause of death is yet unconfirmed, we fear it is part of a larger pattern of anti-LGBTIQ violence underway in Haiti, potentially focused on people visible within LGBTIQ organizations.