I(international) D(ay) A(against) HO(mophobia)

IDAHO: International Day Against Homophobia
Today is International Day against Homophobia (IDAHO) which Black French academic and activist Louis-Georges Tin established a year ago. I linked to Direland's post and interview about Tin a few days ago, and there's lots of information on the day and international action on the IDAHO site.

Rod 2.0, on it as always, covers several different bloggers who posted on the topic, and on some instances of intolerance and homophobia around the globe.

Some quotes to close out the day:

Paul Newman: “I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant."

Kanye West: "Not just hip-hop, but America just discriminates. And I wanna just, to come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, `Yo, stop it.'"

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PM of Spain): "We are not the first but I am sure we will not be the last. After us will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentleman, by two unstopable forces: freedom and equality."

Alanis Morissette: "Anytime I can support the gay community in whichever way I can, I want to really show up big."

Ernest J. Gaines: "Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"

Simone de Beauvoir: "The fact that we are all human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish humans from one another."

James Baldwin: "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality."

Fran Lebowitz: "If you removed all of the homos and homo influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would be pretty much left with Let's Make a Deal. Fran Lebowitz

Michel Foucault: "We must be relentlessly gay."

Random photo

A commercial being filmed, Patchin Place, Greenwich Village