To add to the ever expanding list of abuse, cruelties, and degradation suffered by gays in Africa, a report from Senegal on another – the desecration of their bodies. The report points to an incident in February, 2008, when a Senegalese tabloid ran photographs of a secret gay wedding in a suburb of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. After the photographs and accompanying story was published police began rounding up men suspected of being gay, those caught, and held in captivity routinely beaten. Those not arrested, went into hiding or attempted to flee to neighbouring countries. One of the men in the photographs was Madieye Diallo, in his early thirties, an activist and leader of a gay rights group called
And Ligay, which translates to
Working Together, which he operated out of his parent’s house. He was HIV positive and on medication. After the he was outed by the tabloid’s story, fearing for his life, he went into hiding, and unable to regularly visit a doctor, went off his anti-retrovirals. In the spring of the following year, 2009, he was so sick that his family checked into a Catholic hospital in downtown Thies. He has fallen into a coma when he died at 5:50 am on May 2nd, 2009, the family having chosen to not disclose his illness even thought the hospital has a unit entirely dedicated to treating HIV patients. After his death, his family took the body to a nearby mosque, where custom dictates that the corpse be bathed and wrapped in a while cloth. However, news reached the mosque that Diallo was gay and his family was chased out, quickly wrapping in a sheet and headed to the cemetery. A cell phone video recorded what happened next. His thin, disease ravaged body was placed inside a narrow trough in the middle of desolate cemetery, then shouting, a mob of men surrounding the improvised grave, one man shovelling away the dirt till the white shrouded body appears, and they tie a rope around its feet while it still in the trough. The men pull it up and over, cheering as the body bends over the edge of the grave. The shroud tears away, exposing the body, the mob begin to drag it through the streets, spitting at it, finally dumping it along the front of his elderly parents home.
Dixie Carter has died. She was 70. The cause of death has not been revealed. Carter was known mostly for her work on the
CBS sitcom
Designing Women, playing the character of Julia Sugarbaker, but also appeared, infamously, on
Different Strokes, as well as an
Emmy nominated guest starring role on
Desperate Housewives. Her husband, the great actor Hal Holbrook, released a statement that read in part “this has been a terrible blow to our family. We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy.”
The Reverend Michael Barlowe is one of four finalists to replace Utah retiring Episcopalian Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, noteworthy because Barlowe is openly gay. He married his partner, the Reverend Paul Burrows, in San Francisco, in the fall of 2008 just before
Proposition 8 passed, effectively eliminating the right of gay men and women to legally wed in California. If elected, Barlowe would join the Reverend Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and the Reverend Mary D. Glasspool, of California, as only the third openly gay Episcopalian bishops. All four finalists will begin to visit Utah parishes in early May, with church delegates electing the new bishop May 22nd.
Ryan Phillippe scheduled to host
Saturday Night Live next week, seen Tuesday at a
Whole Foods in West Hollywood, oddly thugged-out.
Then two days later, Phillippe and a healthy bulge stroll while scowling, still sexy.
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