Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Continues To Divide Toronto Pride, Madrid Pride Cancels Israeli LGBT Invitation, Steven Monjeza Claims To Be In Relationship With Women, Claims He Has Turned Down Offers Asylum Because He Does Not Want To Be Used By Gay Men

In Toronto, more drama surrounding the decision by Pride Toronto to ban the words Israeli Apartheid from any and all Pride sanctioned events, a move that effectively eliminated the right of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from participation this year. Monday, the 2010 International Grand Marshalls resigned their positions, and more than twenty recipients of previous Pride Toronto awards returned them in response to what they regard as censorship. Pride Toronto says it stood to lose as much as $600,000 in funding and sponsorship monies if the extremist group was not excluded from participating.

Meanwhile, a report that the organizers of Madrid, Spain’s Pride scheduled for July have announced they are cancelling an invitation to Israeli representatives, a delegation from the LGBT community and the Foreign Ministry scheduled to participate in the parade for the first time. The Madrid organization cited safety concerns in their decision to cancel.

Reuters is reporting that the Malawi gay couple recently released from prison, fully pardoned from a 14 year sentence with hard labour for unnatural acts and gross indecency, have ended their relationship. 26 year old Steven Monjeza apparently leaving his partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20 years old, because he contends he was coerced into the gay relationship and that he is seeing a 24 year old female named Dorothy Gulo. She told a local newspaper “I am looking forward to a future with him. I don’t care what people say. But I have yet to tell my parents.”

The Nation, Malawi’s national newspaper, meanwhile has more details about Monjeza’s sudden heterosexual conversion, including a video interview with the new couple. Said Monjeza about his relationship with Chimbalanga, “we were pardoned but I know the law can bounce back on us if we are not careful. Although I claimed that I still love Tiwo, I did not mean it. I have never had sex with him as was revealed in court. That is why the medical examination failed to establish any anal penetration. I was coerced into the whole thing.” He added that he has turned down multiple offers for foreign asylum, contending that he would rather live in Malawi with Dorothy that go to a foreign land “to be used by gay men.”