01/12/2006
Queerty nabs an interview with former Army Private Kyle Lawson about the recent homophobic attacks at Fort Huachuca near Tucson that prompted his departure from the armed services. Lawson was assaulted and later threatened by another soldier with a knife. He recently returned to civilian life. He talks to Queerty about life as a gay soldier and describes the incidents that lead to his decision to leave: "One day I was in the barracks hanging out and he came up to me, pulled a knife on me and said if I didn't get out of his barracks he was going to cut me up. I just let it roll off thinking he was just an idiot trying to act bad. He continued making remarks to other soldiers saying he wanted to see me cut up into little pieces. He would even cut his arm saying the blood on the floor was my blood and he couldn't wait to see more all over."
More of the same from Abercrombie & Fitch.
Now South Africa takes discriminatory step of banning gay blood.
Mark Spoon (Markus Loffel; Loffel is the German word for spoon) of German progressive trance duo Jam & Spoon is dead at 41. He reportedly died of cardiac arrest. Jam & Spoon was best known for their classic dance tune "Right in the Night," one of my favorites.
Posted 2:42 PM EST by Andy Towle in Elsewhere | Permalink
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Oh my...about Mark Spoon...their track "Odyssey to Anyoona" from their Find Me cd single has brought tears to my eyes on a few dance floors. DJ Abel used to frequently play it in many circuit parties in the late 90's.
I hope Jam El Mar continues on...
Posted by: Mike P | Jan 12, 2006 3:32:21 PM
How much for the blond in the leather belt and wet shorts at A&F?
Posted by: Ted B. | Jan 12, 2006 4:14:14 PM
I've always liked Abercrombie & Fitch ads; they are full of shirtless hot men. And the one for Spring 2006 is no exception. It's so gay and extremely hot, especially the one with a guy carrying over another over his shoulder.
yum... I'm drooling already.
Posted by: kevin | Jan 12, 2006 4:21:42 PM
Red Cross still discriminates so that anyone else does unfortunately doesn't surprise me. What irritates and confounds me is that the Red Cross is always Whining about needing donations.
Posted by: Michael | Jan 12, 2006 4:55:04 PM
>>Now South Africa takes discriminatory step of banning gay blood.
So does the Red Cross! They've done it for years. What makes the S.A. ban different? Do they actually say they don't want Gay donations? Red Cross only bans donations from men who have had sex with other men since 1975 or something. They won't even be honest enough to say they don't want Gay blood.
I've never been a big fan of the Red Cross, for a number of reasons, but they do more good than harm. I guess.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Jan 12, 2006 7:35:05 PM
Abercrombie = Yawn.............
Posted by: busytimmy | Jan 12, 2006 8:43:18 PM
What the article doesn't say is that, last year, the SA blood service was forced to admit that it was secretly incinerating non-whites' blood.
Because SA has such high HIV numbers, and because SA black people have a disproportionately high chance of having it, the service took black blood but secretly destroyed it. Only white heterosexuals' blood was used, with I think some Asian blood.
Naturally, there was a national outcry when the story broke. The blood service was accused of racism, and rightly so. Initially, they defended themselves with science, talking about high-risk groups and window periods and the fact that the SA blood supply is one of the safest in the world. But they soon relented by instituting a complex batch of tests for prospective non-white donors. The number of tests depends on whether you're black, mixed-race or Asian.
Of course, this approach has not been extended to gay men, who have lower HIV incidence than many groups of black people in SA. The blood service still defends this with science, but by bowing to charges of racism and not to homophobia, the “science” begins to look very patchy.
Posted by: Joachim | Jan 13, 2006 3:41:06 AM
Right in the Night by Jam & Spoon is also one of my all time favorites. I remember the first time I heard the song in college in the middle of South Bend, Indiana at a gay bar called Trumans. I thought God had finally spoken to me and I could hear Him. RIP Mark Spoon, thanks for the good times.
Posted by: matty | Jan 13, 2006 9:32:04 AM
Banning donations from an extremely high-risk population is "discrimination" in a country with more HIV cases than any other -- and one where the HIV rate is more than FORTY times greater than that of the United States?
Gay men have dealt with discrimination for so long that we apparently can't tell when it is real or merely perceived.
Posted by: Malcontent | Jan 13, 2006 9:51:24 AM
I understand the Red Cross band less and less with each passing year the opportunity for detection advances. If you're going to test every donation of blood then you would also test blood from gays...oh I'm sorry not gay men but men who have had sex with other men in the past 30 years. Not gay men. Ok. Is there rationale that they are saving the expense of having to do so many more tests? You're also getting alot less blood. It seems a dated practice and a laughable, carefully worded legal policy like the catholic church responding to the pedophilic priest scandal by accepting homosexual priests who have not been sexually active in the last three years. I’d love to see the studies they did to come up with that.
Plenty of companies, institutions, and organizations do good while at the same time propagating homophobia. I don’t think one cancels the other out absolutely.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Jan 14, 2006 1:50:55 PM
I always knew Jam & Spoon for "Stella," RIP. :(
Posted by: Michael | Jan 16, 2006 11:51:36 AM