Chicago Gay Activist Paul Varnell Dies At 70, Ottawa Nurse’s Aide And Survivor Of Rwandan Genocide Sentenced To House Arrest After Trying To Get Gay Ugandan Cousin Into Canada Illegally, Tens Of Thousands Of Children Sexually Abused In Dutch Catholic Institutions Since 1945, 22-Year-Old Sentenced To Fifteen Years For Fatally Stabbing 63-Year-Old Man He Met Online, Chandler Massey, Steven R. McQueen

Paul Varnell, an activist in the gay community who voiced his many strongly held opinions as a columnist for the Windy City Times and Chicago Free Press was always reluctant to have his photo accompany the articles he wrote, a colleague said. "He felt that it was less important for him to be advancing anything, and more important that the ideas got out there," said Jennifer Vanasco, who worked with Mr. Varnell for more than 15 years. Varnell, 70, died of a stroke and complications from pneumonia on Friday, December 9, in St. Joseph Hospital, according to his longtime friend Ted Sigward, reports The Chicago Tribune. Born in St. Louis, the son of an attorney for the Pennsylvania Railroad, Mr. Varnell spent much of his childhood moving around in the Northeast. He graduated from Cornell University in 1963 before settling in Bloomington, Ind., for graduate school at Indiana University, where he met Sigward in fall 1965. "At that time, he already had a remarkable knowledge of culture," Sigward said. "He was wise beyond his years." At Indiana, Mr. Varnell finished course work for a doctorate, but never completed his dissertation. He taught at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb before moving to Chicago's Lakeview neighbourhood and becoming an advocate for gay rights in the early 1980s. Varnell took a number of positions in a burgeoning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights movement. He was a member the Chicago AIDS Task Force and chairman of the media committee and research director of the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Varnell also sat on the board of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in Chicago and helped launch the Chicago Area Republican Gay Organization in 1984. "He was instrumental in the founding of a number of organizations," said Tim Drake, a fellow member of the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force and co-founder of the Chicago gay Republican group. "He had a knack for drawing people together." A staunch libertarian, Varnell's politics were central to his approach to life, social policy and his "way of thinking about everything," Sigward said. As an activist, Varnell was able to work with people of varying political backgrounds parties in reaching common goals, although he often stood out for his iconoclastic views. "From a philosophical point of view, he was against just about everything we were trying to do, just on principle," said Kit Duffy, who served as Chicago's first liaison to the LGBT community under Harold Washington. "Yet he was in there helping every inch of the way." After close to a decade of activism, Mr. Varnell began writing as a columnist for the Windy City Times and the Chicago Free Press. As a writer, he was known for his fiery nature and expressing conservative views on politics and issues in the LGBT community in what some considered a brusque or prickly manner. At the heart of his opinions, however, was his desire to inform and advance the gay movement.

An Ottawa nurse’s aide and survivor of the Rwandan genocide said she believed it was “God’s plan” to help save a gay Ugandan relative by lending him her son’s passport and permanent resident card so he could come to Canada and claim refugee status. The Ottawa Citizen reports that Friday, Barbara Nyiraneza was sentenced to six months of house arrest as part of a year-long conditional sentence for violating Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Nyiraneza’s cousin said he feared for his safety in the African country, so Nyiraneza bought him a plane ticket and lent him her son’s Rwandan passport and Canadian permanent resident card. Her 20-year-old cousin and 21-year-old son resembled one another, court heard. The 57-year-old nurse’s aide at the Perley and Rideau Veterans Health Centre said she had been in Kenya visiting her sick sister when she discovered son Paul Milindi’s paperwork, which he had given her for safekeeping, in her bag. Then she learned about her cousin Benon Bagire’s plight. The two boarded Air Canada flight 889 from London, England. When it arrived in Ottawa on February 28, Bagire was the last person off the plane. Bagire told authorities his name and that he was claiming refugee status. When asked for the passport he had used to board the plane, Bagire said he flushed it down the airplane toilet. Canada Border Services agents quickly determined Bagire was travelling with Nyiraneza and that he had used a passport belonging Milindi. Nyiraneza was detained but laughed and admitted what she had done when confronted, according to an affidavit filed by the CBSA investigator. Ontario Court Justice Robert Fournier found that Nyiraneza made a “naive” and ultimately illegal decision, but was a far cry from “entrepreneurs” with organized plots to bring multiple people to Canada on phoney passports. Fournier said her motivation appeared to be humanitarian and not money. “She is not trying to bring terrorists into the country,” said Fournier, who called Nyiraneza a “survivor” who had herself escaped with her life from the Rwandan genocide. Her husband and mother, along with other relatives, were murdered. “If (Bagire’s) discovered, harm will be inflicted. He’ll be persecuted, maybe even killed,” said Fournier. “She decided the ends justified the means, which is the wrong approach.” Fournier added the plan was not sophisticated and seemed to be spontaneous. “It wasn’t rocket science,” said Fournier, adding anybody could have come up with it “in 32 seconds.” Prosecutor Moray Welch asked for a six to nine month jail sentence for Nyiraneza, arguing that time in custody was needed to send a strong message to others who might contemplate such a crime. Welch argued Nyiraneza could have been charged with people smuggling instead of pleading to a lesser charge. Welch said it costs Canadians about $50,000 during the course of a refugee claim. That amount will be much higher for Bagire, who has so far spent nearly eight months in the detention centre. The CBSA estimates it costs them $200 a day to hold someone on refugee status at the jail. Bagire had been released from jail but violated conditions not to communicate with Milindi or Nyiraneza. “This was a planned and deliberate act. Ms. Nyiraneza was aware of the regulations of the visa process,” said Welch. “She abused the integrity of the Rwandan passport and the permanent resident card of Canada just as if she had used a counterfeit one,” he said. “If I send her to jail for four or five months, I don’t know what I’m going to accomplish,” said Fournier. Nyiraneza has been a “useful, productive citizen” since arriving here, he said. “It’s not like she’s been around letting Canada take care of her,” said Fournier, who also dismissed a defence request for a conditional discharge — meaning Nyiraneza could escape a criminal record — as “too light.” Despite the consequences, Nyiraneza said outside of court that she felt like what she did was worth it. “I didn’t feel like losing another relative. I have lost enough,” said Nyiraneza, a mother of five.

Tens of thousands of children have suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions since 1945, a report says. The report by an independent commission said Catholic officials had failed to tackle the widespread abuse at schools, seminaries and orphanages. But the report also found that one in five children who attended an institution suffered abuse - regardless of whether it was Catholic. "This episode fills us with shame and sorrow," said a bishops' statement. According to the BBC, the commission, which began work in August 2010, sought to uncover what had gone on and how it had happened, and examined what kind of justice should be offered to victims. It was triggered by allegations of abuse at a Catholic school in the east Netherlands, which prompted other alleged victims to come forward. It studied 1,800 complaints of abuse at Catholic institutions, identifying 800 alleged perpetrators, just over 100 of whom are still alive. It also conducted a broader survey of more than 34,000 people, to gain a more comprehensive picture of the scale and nature of abuse suffered by Dutch minors. The report estimates that 10,000-20,000 minors were abused in the care of Catholic institutions between 1945 and 1981, when the number of Church-run homes dropped. In the years between 1981 and 2011, several more thousands suffered at the hands of priests and others working for the Church. Most of the cases involved mild to moderate abuse, such as touching, but the report estimated there were "several thousand" instances of rape.

In Australia, a student inflicted 123 stab wounds on a 63-year-old old man he met through a gay dating site after asking him "did you ever think of dying?,” a judge said today. Jailing Umit Sengoz for 15 years in the Supreme Court Justice Paul Coghlan said the student planned to use the knife to force Peter Harper to hand over his Lexus car and by force if necessary. The judge said Sengoz, 22, and Harper, who was a hairdresser working from home, met through a website called Gayromeo.com, reports The Herald Sun. On the day of the killing Sengoz told friends he would soon be in possession of a Lexus and he went to Mr Harper's home with a knife and a change of clothes. Justice Coghlan said the pair were engaged in oral sex when Sengoz asked the victim "did you ever think of dying.” Harper told Sengoz he planned to live for many more years and Sengoz produced the knife. Justice Coghlan said Sengoz later told police he could not remember what happened next but Mr Harper was found to have stab wounds to his torso, chest, arms, legs, back, face, neck and head. Justice Coghlan said the killer tried to take Harper's Lexus but he could not get it started. Sengoz, from Hampton Park, pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Harper in his home in Maud St, North Balwyn in August last year. Justice Coghlan said the victim impact statements from the dead man's family were very moving and illustrated how crimes such crimes affected many people. The judge said he took into account Sengoz's age, his depression and problem gambling and the fact he was worried about his Turkish family finding out he was gay. He set a maximum term of 18-and-a-half years.

Chandler Massey talks to AfterElton.com about his character of Will Horton on Days of Our Lives, and of Will’s coming out.

The sizzling sexy Steven R. McQueen graces the cover of Bello magazine.