Kasha Jacqueline is the founder and director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), the only exclusively lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersexual organization in Uganda. FARUG strives for the attainment of full equal rights and the eradication of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Jacqueline and others established the group as a platform for both socializing and political activism in an intolerant environment.

http://www.faruganda.org/

I am proud to give my support to Foyle Gay Pride 2010. Although I can't be with
you on your big day, I hope you'll have a fabulous time.
...Celebrate your sexuality and the LGBT rights we have won. But also
remember that the battle for LGBT freedom is not yet over.

2010 is the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the Gay
Liberation Front in Britain. With its revolutionary slogan, “Gay is
Good,” GLF turned the homophobia of centuries on its head and
motivated thousands of LGBT people to come out for the first time.

Defiant and proud, GLF ended the victim mentality and challenged the values, laws and institutions of heterosexist society. It initiated
the idea of Gay Pride and coordinated the UK’s first Gay Pride march, which was held in London in July 1...972.

Since the 1970s, the LGBT community has made great strides towards equality, but we have not yet won equal treatment.

There is still a ban on same-sex marriage. Civil partnerships are not
equality. They are a form of sexual apartheid, with different laws for gay and straight people. I am against the ban on same-sex couples getting married and I am equally opposed to the way heterosexual couples are barred from having a civil partnership. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Gay and bisexual men are prohibited from donating blood, even if they always practice safe sex and have tested HIV-negative.

Successive Home Secretaries have given visas and work permits to reggae singers who incite the murder of gay people, despite such incitements being serious criminal offences  The many commendable LGBT law reforms of the last decade are no excuse for the government stonewalling on the abolition of these remaining aspects of homophobic discrimination.

We won’t stop campaigning until we win full respect, acceptance,...dignity and human rights.

Onwards, upwards and forward to LGBT freedom.

Solidarity! Peter Tatchell
 

 
Out and Loud singer Mirenda Rosenberg will play a show in Derry in August Below is a message sent to the LGBT Community from Mirenda. More info on Mirenda at www.mirendarosenberg.com


Im doing a gig in the Collon Bar on 7 Aug. Id love it if some of the Foyle Pride people came out. Im origianlly from the states and am accustomed to living 'out loud'. Im used to my gigs being filled with LBGT. I flirt at my gigsand put on a full 'show'. Id really like to have the collon bar gigs be a HUGE party where everyone -regardless of sexual orientation - can let thier hair down and have a ridiculously good time.

Cheers!
M

Love is a human right
In many parts of the world, being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT) is not seen as a right, but as a wrong.

Everybody has the right to express his or her sexual orientation without fear of persecution. Yet every year LGBT people are killed simply because of who they are: some by State execution, many more while the State looks on indifferently. Many hundreds of thousands more live in fear of persecution in societies still blighted by stigma, prejudice and discrimination.

Foyle Pride is about recognising and respecting the right of people to freely express themselves without fear of persecution. That’s what Amnesty International stands for too and that's why we are proud to support Foyle Pride. 
Patrick Corrigan
Director