This Day in History:
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs's Birthday: August 28^th, 1825. I mentioned Ulrichs in a previous post on the Holocaust, one of the founders of homosexuality as a distinct identity and one of the founders of the Urning/Invert/Homosexual civil rights movement in Germany, that would – ironically and tragically – aid and provide such a target for Hitler's own future pogroms.

It was with Ulrichs's writing that such a blog as Queerish could today come to be.

Edward Carpenter's Birthday: August 29^th,1844. Research done by Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin:

Edward Carpenter and George Merrill

Britain would be a very different place without him, and so would the LGBT world. Carpenter was a very influential poet, philosopher, anthologist, nudist, feminist, pacifist, and early gay activist. He was as leading proponent of socialism, and helped to found Britain’s Labour Party. Reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in the 1860′s was a huge revelation for him, with Whitman’s dreams of “a brotherhood of manly love.” Carpenter’s 1889 book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure argued that civilization is a form of disease which no society ever survived more than a thousand years before collapsing. His cure involved a closer relationship with the land and a greater sense of our own development as individuals. He very much practiced what he preached, living among tenant farmers and other working class workers. He was relatively open about his homosexuality, which was a remarkable accomplishment. Unlike Oscar Wilde, who was arrested and imprisoned for his “vice,” Carpenter escaped scandal and arrest, even though he had moved in with the man who would be his partner for the rest of his life, George Merrill, in Millthorpe.  Carpenter befriended Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Havelock Ellis, John Addington Symonds, and several other early pioneers in the nascent gay community. Carpenter and Merrill’s relationship would serve as the model for Forster’s homoerotic novel, Maurice and, hetersexualized, for D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. His groundbreaking 1908 book, The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women, would become a foundational text for future LGBT movements. He wrote that because “intermediate types” (his preferred term for gay people; he hated “homosexual” because of what he called its “bastardization” of the Latin and Greek) were free of gender limitations, they were uniquely qualified for bringing about greater gender equality and equal rights for women. Carpenter’s writings would later inspire Harry Hay to found the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, and thus spark a new gay rights movement half a world away.

General News:
Anti-gay Puerto Rican Senator Resigns: Puerto Rico Senator Roberto Arango was caught posting pictures on the gay hook-up smartphone app Grindr. And – hold your breath for the shocking surprise – he has taken many anti-gay legislative positions over the years. Joe.My.God informs us:

In 2009 he voted in favor of Resolution 99 which would have amended Puerto Rico’s constitution to ban the recognition of same-sex marriages (it didn’t pass). He has been opposed to civil union bills and in 2004 he used a rubber duck and made it quack to make fun of an opponent (in Puerto Rico, the word for duck, “pato”, means faggot.)

Box Turtle Bulletin tells us:

Arango was identified partly by the pendant that he was wearing while taking the photo. Another photo allegedly downloaded from Grindr has him wearing a shirt and showing his face. And then, of course, there’s this one (NSFW). The photos were aired last Friday on the Puerto Rican TV show Dando Candela.

In response to the discovery, the senator has resigned as of last weekend.

Jerry Buell and His Understanding of the Classroom: Jerry Buell, a Florida history and American government teacher who was suspended two weeks ago for posting “I’m watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up” on his Facebook, has been reinstated at Mount Dora High School. On August 26^th, Buell returned to the class room.

The school district had claimed initial suspension on a need for separation of church and state. They have refused to comment on whether they feel this seperation will be kept in tact with the return of Buell, only mentioning that they have placed a “written directive” in his personnel file.

They have though, in light of this, removed Buell’s school-hosted web page which had declared “I try to teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself,” while also instructing him to change his syllabus, which stated:

I am a man of God and I try to be like Jesus every day. I teach God’s truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, ’cause I ain’t changing!

Off-Duty D.C. Cop Arrested For Shooting Trans Women:  The Washington Blade reports:

Police issued a statement Friday saying three of the people in the car “sustained non-life threatening injuries” in the incident. The statement said the officer involved in the incident was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and driving while intoxicated.

Deputy Police Chief Diane Groomes told the Blade that the officer, identified by police sources as Kenneth Furr, was stripped of his police duties pending the outcome of an investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Division and Force Investigation Team.

[…]

Employees with Transgender Health Empowerment and members of the D.C. Trans Coalition said they spoke on Friday with two of the transgender women involved in the incident. According to the employees and the DCTC members, the two women said the incident started when Officer Furr, appearing drunk, approached one of the two women on the street near First and Pierce Streets, N.W. about 5:25 a.m.

They said the two victims informed them that Furr became angry when he solicited one of the women for sex and she turned him down. What unfolded next remains unclear, with police officials saying they wanted to wait until Furr appeared in court on Saturday or Monday before providing full details as they known them.

“Preliminary investigation reveals a confrontation occurred involving an off-duty officer and five other individuals, some of which are members of the transgender community,” police said in a statement released Friday morning. “The officer discharged a handgun and one person was shot and sustained non-life threatening injuries,” the statement says.

“Two other individuals involved in the incident sustained injuries which are also non-life threatening,” according to the statement. “The nature of those injuries is under investigation to determine their cause.”

T.H.E. employee and transgender activist Jeri Hughes said two of the trans women involved in the incident told her organization that one of them was struck by a bullet in the hand and the other was grazed by a bullet. Hughes said one of the men in the car with the three trans women, who was identified as the brother of one of the women, sustained a “very serious” gunshot wound and was in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital.

Police would neither confirm nor deny that report as of late Friday, saying they were still investigating the details of the incident.

Perry Signs the National Organization for Marriage’s Anti-Gay Pledge: Via Box Turtle Bulletin:

Texas governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry joins Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in signing the National Organizations for Marriage’s anti-gay pledge. The pledge requires candidates to:

• Support the Federal Marriage Amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman,
• Defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court,
• Apply a marriage litmus test for judges and the attorney general,
• Appoint a presidential commission to investigate so-called “harassment” of traditional marriage supporters,
• Demand that marriage be put to a vote in the District of Columbia.

Uganda’s Ethics Minister Defrocked By the Vatican: Fr. Simon Lokodo – also Uganda’s new Ethics and Integrity Minister – has been revoked from being a Catholic priest by the Vatican. Box Turtle Bulletin reports:

According to New Vision, Lokodo violated Roman Catholic canon law which forbids priests from holding political office.

The Vatican’s action was slow in coming. Lokodo had long been a parish priest when in 2006 he became a member of Parliament for Dodoth County after his predecessor had passed away. The Ugandan Catholic hierarchy had already criticized his participation in politics, and he was reportedly suspended from his pastoral duties during the election over “a parish administrative glitch.” From 2009 to May, 2011, he served as State Minister for Industry and Technology, and was appointed Ethics Minister after James Nsaba Buturo, an ardent supporter of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, resigned after losing his seat following his loss in chaotic party primaries held in late 2010.

First Study Released By Council of Europe on the Human Rights Situation of European Queer People: This actually occurred before Queer News started on Queerish, but it's important, and I've come across it just now, so I give you the information regardless. Pardon its tardiness.

On June 23^rd of this year, the Council of Europe launched its social-legal report on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. It is the first report covering all 47 member states of the Council of Europe regarding issues pertinent to Queer people. The report bears further significance in that it not only maps the legal situation but also tracks and evaluates the social attitudes and opinions about Queer people.

The European Lesbian News reports:

When it comes to social attitudes, the report clearly demonstrates that LGBT people continue to be subjected to homophobia and transphobia in their everyday lives in all Council of Europe member states and those attitudes are being based on ‘outdated and incorrect information’ about sexual orientation, gender identity and gender.

The report contains a number of specific recommendations to the Council of Europe member states on how to end discrimination and ensure full equality for LGBT people. It also provides a number of recommendations on non-legislative measures such as state education programmes aiming to increase awareness and understanding of various sexual orientations and gender identities and therefore promote improvement of the social attitudes based on facts and objective information.