Have you been thinking about going back to school? Through Career Online High School’s online, accredited program, adults can earn a high school diploma and a career certificate, free with your Sonoma County Library card!
Finish high school and receive job training in an online environment that’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
There are a limited number of scholarships available to qualified adults who are looking to advance their careers, prepare for workforce entry, or continue their education. Find out more here.
Thank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit us online or in person at one of our branches. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here.
Proyectos comunitarios con la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma
¡Celebre la comunidad con su biblioteca durante esta temporada de fiestas! Dependemos de nuestra comunidad ahora más que nunca, y estamos ofreciendo varios proyectos comunitarios en nuestras sucursales.
¿Le interesa? ¡Descubra abajo cómo puede involucrarse!
Gracias por ser miembro de la comunidad de Bibliotecas del Condado de Sonoma. Visítenos en línea o en persona en una de nuestras sucursales. Asegúrese de consultar los trabajos disponible en la Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma aquí.
¿Preguntas? Por favor llame a su biblioteca local o haga clic para mandar un mensaje.
If you would like to manage which emails you receive from us, please click here.
Si desea gestionar los correos electrónicos que recibe de nosotros, haga clic aquí.
After an 18-month fight, an LGBT+ activist who fled Jordan is finally “supported, seen and heard” in their new home in Australia.
AlShaima Omama AlZubi, 25, who identifies as a non-binary lesbian, has been a “victim of rape, sexual assaults, torture, forced marriage, forced conversion therapy, forced hospitalisation, and forced veiling abuse that dates back to their childhood”, according to Amnesty.
AlZubi, an LGBT+ and women’s rights defender, comes from a powerful family, with many members working for Jordan’s government, and whose “influence extends across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq”.
They first fled to Turkey from Jordan in July 2020, and later made it to Lebanon, planning to travel onwards to Australia on a humanitarian visa.
But in December, 2021, they were stripped of their passport and detained by Lebanese authorities for five days, who told them there was an Interpol Red Notice out of their arrest. During this time, Amnesty suspected that the Jordanian embassy in Lebanon was working on having them repatriated.
Finally, after tireless work by NGOs and Australian diplomats, AlZubi was able to board a flight to Australia on 30 December.
Speaking to SBS News, they said that since arriving, they have begun seeing a therapist and are finding their place within the local LGBT+ community.
They said: “Now I feel supported, seen, heard and treated like a human being regardless of my beliefs, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
“[I want to] move on in my life, continue my education, [and have] a great career and independence.
“Finally I have the chance to be myself without people shaming me and trying to kill me for it.”
In a message “to all of the women and the LGBTIQ+ community in the Middle East”, they added: “There’s always a way to be free. We just need the right people to help us.
“Never be ashamed of being yourself, never be sorry for who you are. Don’t let religion or anyone control your being. No one on Earth can be you.”
While homosexuality was decriminalised in Jordan in 1951, LGBT+ people face frequent harassment, discrimination and violence.
There are no laws to protect queer people from discrimination, no recognition of same-sex relationships, and one 2019 study found that 93 per cent of Jordanians believe that society should not accept homosexuality.
An Invitation to Join our Youth Leadership TeamUna invitación para unirse a nuestro equipo de liderazgo juvenil Click on the picture below and check out our Interview of past Youth Leaders and listen to what they have to say about their experience!!!
¡Haga clic en la imagen a continuación y vea nuestra entrevista de líderes juveniles anteriores y escuche lo que tienen que decir sobre su experiencia!
LGBTQ YOUTH LEADERSHIP TEAM
The YLT is a team of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) youth that create events and advocate for change in partnership with LGBTQ Connection.
El YLT es un equipo de jóvenes LGBTQ (lesbianas, gays, bisexuales, transgénero y queer) que crean eventos y abogan por el cambio en asociación con LGBTQ Connection.
Interested?¿Interesado?Youth who are interested can click on the link below and fill out the form.
Los jóvenes que estén interesados pueden hacer clic en el enlace a continuación y completar el formulario.
BenefitsBeneficiosLearn skills in advocacy and activism. Make friends you can rely on, earn community service hours, and explore scholarship opportunities!
Aprende habilidades en defensa y activismo. ¡Haga amigos en los que pueda confiar, gane horas de servicio comunitario y explore oportunidades de becas!
Upcoming eventsSonoma County Library is hosting a QUEER BOOK CLUB for ages 18+. If you’re interested in signing up call your local library or click on the link here:
La biblioteca del condado de Sonoma está organizando un QUEER BOOK CLUB para mayores de 18 años. Si está interesado en inscribirse, llame a su biblioteca local o haga clic en el enlace aquí:
Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, announced its endorsement of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who is running for re-election in 2022, on Monday. Kounalakis made history in 2018, when she became the first woman to be elected to the position. She has been an outspoken champion for LGBTQ+ civil rights and social justice during her time in office and created the nation’s first statewide transgender advisory council in September 2021.
“LGBTQ+ Californians are fortunate to have such a strong champion and ally in Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang. “She understands the unique challenges that LGBTQ+ people face in communities across our state, and she has been a forceful and effective advocate for progress. Her focus on protecting and empowering the trans community, in particular, has been incredibly valuable — especially as politicians across the country pursue anti-trans legislation.”
In addition to using her platform to amplify the voices of transgender Californians, Kounalakis has sponsored and supported critical legislation to ensure colleges and universities respect the gender identities of students and graduates; prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ youth in the criminal justice system; and expand access to safe, legal abortion care on college campuses.
“I am deeply honored to have the endorsement of Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization,” said Kounalakis. “No organization has done more in our state to protect and expand the rights of our LGBtQ+ communities. I look forward to continuing to work with EQCA toward our shared goal of equality for all.”
Kounalakis also has been endorsed by Governor Gavin Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, NARAL Pro-Choice California, the California Professional Firefighters and SEIU California.
Prior to her election, Kounalakis served as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary from 2010 to 2013, where she used her role to support human rights and made history as the first U.S. Ambassador to march in the Budapest Pride Parade.
For a complete list of Equality California’s 2022 endorsements, visit eqca.org/elections.
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization. We bring the voices of LGBTQ people and allies to institutions of power in California and across the United States, striving to create a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all LGBTQ people. We advance civil rights and social justice by inspiring, advocating and mobilizing through an inclusive movement that works tirelessly on behalf of those we serve. www.eqca.org
Jim Obergefell, who was at the center of the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized marriage equality in the United States, announced Tuesday that he is running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives.
“We should all be able to participate fully in society and the economy, living in strong communities with great public schools, access to quality healthcare, and with well-paying jobs that allow us to stay in the community we love, with the family we care about,” Obergefell said in a statement.
Obergefell, 55, was not involved in politics before the Supreme Court case. In 2015, a Washington Post profile described him as “a soft-spoken real estate broker with little previous interest in political activism.”
On Martin Luther King Jr Day, we revisit the legendary civil rights leader’s relationship with LGBT+ rights.
Dr King’s legacy is towering and complex. He devoted his life to – and was ultimately murdered for – advancing the rights of Black Americans, rallying against the “three major evils” – racism, poverty and war. But when looking back at his life and work, it is of course natural to wonder about the things that largely went unsaid. For many, queer Black folk in particular, his stance on LGBT+ rights is a topic of much conversation.
During his lifetime, Martin Luther King Jr was not a vocal advocate for gay rights (he was assassinated a year before Stonewall, in 1968), nor did he speak out against them. One of the rare (if not only) examples of him discussing sexuality publicly comes from an advice column written in 1958, in which an anonymous boy who felt “about boys the way I ought to feel about girls” asked Dr King what he could do, or where he could “go for help”.
“Your problem is not at all an uncommon one,” Dr King replied. “However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired.
Martin Luther King Jr speaking before crowd of 25,000 on March 25, 1965. (Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty)
“Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit.
“In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognise the problem and have a desire to solve it.”
Were such words written in 2020, they would rightly be condemned. Do they indicate that Dr King saw homosexuality as something that could, in this boy’s case at the very least, be fixed? It seems so. Attitudes like this were hugely prevalent at the time, with the LGBT+ community under constant attack from the government and by society.
However, they were usually combined with an aggression and a hate that was entirely absent in Dr King’s response. It’s possible that he both believed this boy’s sexuality could be changed, and truly believed in equality for all, with no exception.
The opinions of those who knew and loved him, however, suggest he was no homophobe.
Bayard Rustin on Martin Luther King Jr: ‘He would not have had the prejudicial view’
Bayard Rustin, the legendary organiser of the 1963 March on Washington, became one of Dr King’s most trusted advisors while he was organising the Montgomery bus boycott and was influential in his adoption of non-violence tactics. He was also a gay man.
1964: Martin Luther King Jr (r), Bayard Rustin (l), and Bernard Lee (c). (Getty)
In 1987, almost 20 years after Dr King’s assassination, Rustin approached the subject of his attitudes towards gay people in an essay.
“It is difficult for me to know what Dr King felt about gayness except to say that I’m sure he would have been sympathetic and would not have had the prejudicial view,” he wrote.
“Otherwise he would not have hired me. He never felt it necessary to discuss that with me.”
Rustin said this his own gayness “was not problem for Dr King but a problem for the movement”, explaining that eventually some of the reverend’s inner circle eventually “came to the decision that my sex life was a burden” and “advised him that he should ask me to leave”.
“I told Dr King that if advisors closest to him felt I was a burden, then rather than put him in a position that he had to say leave, I would go,” he continued.
“He was just so harassed that I felt it was my obligation to relieve him of as much of that as I could.” After the split, Rustin said, King “continued to call on me, over and over”.
Dr King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, certainly believed his central mission was inclusive of LGBT+ rights, even if he remained quiet.
1964: Coretta Scott King and her husband Martin Luther King 09 December in Oslo where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. (Getty)
Coretta Scott King was a tireless gay rights campaigner
In 1998, addressing a Lamda Legal anniversary luncheon, Mrs King said: “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people, and I should stick to the issue of racial justice.
“But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr said: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”
Mrs King was a tireless LGBT+ rights campaigner, coming out in support of the groundbreaking Gay and Civil Rights Act that would have banned anti-gay discrimination in many public arenas in 1983.
Until her death in 2016 she continued to fight for LGBT+ equality: calling on then-president Bill Clinton to stop the gay military ban in 1993 and condemning George W Bush in 2004 for his anti-marriage equality stance.
Declaring marriage equality a civil rights issue at the time, she said: “With this faith and this commitment we will create the beloved community of Martin Luther King Jr’s dream, where all people can live together in a spirit of trust and understanding, harmony, love and peace.”
On the other hand, there are those who have positioned Dr King’s legacy as against LGBT+ rights. Most notable, his own daughter, Bernice King, said in 2004 her father “did not take a bullet for same-sex unions” while campaigning against marriage equality (though it appears she has since changed her own position, having welcomed the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on the matter).
Those who believe Dr King would have supported the community have dismissed Bernice King’s words, noting that she would have been approaching five-years-old when her father died and therefore, couldn’t possibly know his view on the matter.
Ultimately, it’s impossible to know what Dr King’s true position was. The fights for queer liberation and Black liberation have overlapped and diverged and various points in history – and continue to do so to this day. Neither community (not its intersection) is a monolith, and no person is all good or all bad.
It’s impossible to say exactly how Martin Luther King Jr felt about LGBT+ people and their rights simply because he isn’t around to tell us. On the evidence and testimonies available, it seems his thinking was flawed, but not malign, and he may well have considered himself empathetic to the community. Ultimately, the biggest crime is that he isn’t around to tell us today.
California’s new congressional and state legislative maps include big wins for the LGBTQ+ community, after the state’s independent nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission worked to unite and empower dense LGBTQ+ populations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Long Beach, the East Bay, Sacramento and the Coachella Valley. The achievement follows a months-long campaign led by Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, to advocate for fair and equitable maps that empower LGBTQ+ Californians to elect “candidates of choice” — members of the community and allies responsive to their unique challenges and priorities. [Click here to watch Equality California’s October 22 presentation to the Commission.]
“These maps represent a huge victory for diverse LGBTQ+ communities throughout California,” said Equality California Managing Director of External Affairs Samuel Garrett-Pate. “While states across the country launch unprecedented attacks against LGBTQ+ people and engage in partisan gerrymandering, California is once again leading the fight to protect our democracy and achieve full, lived LGBTQ+ equality.”
Unlike racial demographic groups, for which the Citizens Redistricting Commission receives block-level data to evaluate the concentration of Latino, Black, Asian, Indigenous and white voting age population in potential districts, LGBTQ+ people are not fully counted in the U.S. census. To fill the data gap, Equality California and Redistricting Partners used more than 500,000 georeferenced datapoints from Equality California and its partner organizations’ membership databases, as well as the U.S. Census Bureau’s Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Quarters (“POSSLQ”), to create a model identifying where LGBTQ+ people live throughout the state.
CONGRESS
Long Beach: California’s new 42nd Congressional District unites the LGBTQ+ community in coastal Long Beach and Signal Hill in a Latino-majority district that runs north through the Gateway Cities. In recent days, U.S. Representatives Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey) announced their retirements, clearing a path for Mayor Robert Garcia to make history as the first openly LGBTQ+ immigrant elected to Congress.
San Francisco: The state’s new 11th Congressional District includes all of the city’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhoods — including the Castro, SOMA, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights and Twin Peaks — and excludes the city’s neighborhoods that voted for Proposition 8 in 2008 (the latest statewide election data on opposition to LGBTQ+ equality), maximizing LGBTQ+ support for longtime ally and champion Speaker Nancy Pelosi and providing the community with a strong opportunity to elect an LGBTQ+ member of Congress in the future.
San Diego’s LGBTQ+ neighborhoods around Balboa Park are united in the new 50th Congressional District; Los Angeles’s LGBTQ+ community in West Hollywood, Hollywood and Silverlake is united in the new 30th Congressional District; Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community is largely united in the new 7th Congressional District; and the East Bay’s LGBTQ+ community is united in the new 12th Congressional District.
ASSEMBLY
Los Angeles: The nation’s largest county currently has zero openly LGBTQ+ legislators for the first time since Sheila Kuehl made history when she was elected to the Assembly in 1994. But with the creation of the new 51st Assembly District running from Santa Monica through West Hollywood and Hollywood to East Hollywood and part of Los Feliz, the heart of the LGBTQ+ community is more united than ever — and well positioned to elect former Equality California Executive Director Rick Chavez Zbur next November.
Coachella Valley: After the 2011 Commission split Cathedral City from the rest of the Valley’s LGBTQ+ community in Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs and Rancho Mirage, the new 47th Assembly District reunites the community in a competitive district well positioned to elect a strong ally or an openly LGBTQ+ Assemblymember.
San Francisco: With Sunday’s last-minute reunification of most of West of Twin Peaks with the Castro and other historically LGBTQ+ neighborhoods, the city’s LGBTQ+ community remains largely united in the new 17th Assembly District.
San Diego’s LGBTQ+ neighborhoods around Balboa Park are largely united in the newly reconfigured 78th District; Long Beach’s LGBTQ+ community is united in the new 69th District; the East Bay’s LGBTQ+ community is evenly divided between the new 14th and 18th Assembly Districts; and Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community is well represented in the new 6th District.
SENATE
Coachella Valley: Although the LGBTQ+ community is largely united in the new 19th Senate District, positioning Palm Springs Mayor Lisa Middleton to make history as the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker, the Valley will have to wait until 2024 after moving from an even-numbered district (the current 28th) to an odd district. Meanwhile, the southern end of the Valley is included in the new 18th District, where Chula Vista City Councilmember Steve Padilla is the clear frontrunner to succeed Senator Ben Hueso in 2022.
Los Angeles: The heart of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood and West Hollywood are united in the new 24th District, while LGBTQ+ residents in East Hollywood, Silverlake and Los Feliz — as well as the emerging LGBTQ+ community in Downtown LA — are united in the new 26th.
San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community remains united in the slightly adjusted 11th District; Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community remains united in the new 8th District; the LGBTQ+ community in Signal Hill and coastal Long Beach remains united in the 33rd District; most of San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community is united in the reconfigured 39th District; and the East Bay’s LGBTQ+ community remains united in the new 7th District.
Equality California worked in close partnership with the IVE Redistricting Alliance and organizations like the California Black Census & Redistricting Hub, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and MALDEF to ensure that efforts to unite LGBTQ+ communities did not inadvertently divide other communities of interest. An overwhelming majority of LGBTQ+ Californians are members of communities of color, and LGBTQ+ people are significantly more likely to live below the poverty line, so the community is best served by fair and equitable maps that empower all historically marginalized communities — including communities of color, immigrant communities and working class communities — throughout the state.
BACKGROUND
A decade ago, Equality California and Redistricting Partners successfully pushed the 2011 Citizens Redistricting Commission and local commissions in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego to consider geographically connected LGBTQ+ communities as communities of interest in the redistricting process.
California has pioneered maximizing the LGBTQ+ community’s political power through the redistricting process. Harvey Milk became the state’s first out LGBTQ+ elected official in 1977, when San Francisco switched from at-large elections to districts for the Board of Supervisors. With the power to elect candidates of choice, San Francisco’s historically LGBTQ+ neighborhoods went on to elect nine more out LGBTQ+ supervisors, including Senators Mark Leno and Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who each served on the board before being elected to the Legislature.
In 1990, San Diego LGBTQ+ community leaders advocated for the creation of City Council District 3, which includes the traditionally LGBTQ+ neighborhood Hillcrest and surrounding neighborhoods with significant LGBTQ+ populations. In 1993, District 3 elected out lesbian Christine Kehoe, who was succeeded by an unbroken line of out LGBTQ+ city councilmembers including Toni Atkins, Todd Gloria, Chris Ward and Stephen Whitburn. Kehoe, Atkins, Gloria and Ward went on to represent the historically LGBTQ+ neighborhoods in the California Legislature. Atkins made history as the first LGBTQ+ woman to serve as Assembly Speaker and the first openly LGBTQ+ Senate President Pro Tem. Gloria became the first openly LGBTQ+ person to be elected Mayor of San Diego in 2020.
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization. We bring the voices of LGBTQ people and allies to institutions of power in California and across the United States, striving to create a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all LGBTQ people. We advance civil rights and social justice by inspiring, advocating and mobilizing through an inclusive movement that works tirelessly on behalf of those we serve. www.eqca.org
An Australian man has pleaded guilty to murdering an American mathematician who fell from a Sydney cliff in 1988 in a gay hate crime that was dismissed by police at the time as suicide.
Scott White was charged in 2020 with murdering 27-year-old Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson, whose naked body was found at the base of North Head cliff on Dec. 8, 1988.
White yelled repeatedly in court during a pre-trial hearing in Sydney on Monday that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.
Scott Johnson’s body was found at the base of a cliff in Sydney in 1988.NSW Police
A New South Wales state Supreme Court judge on Thursday accepted the guilty plea, dismissing the objections of White’s lawyers. White is to be sentenced on May 2.
He faces a possible sentence of life in prison.
Police had initially concluded that Johnson, who was a doctoral student at Australian National University and lived in Canberra, had taken his own life. This was despite the discovery that his wallet was missing from his clothes, which were neatly folded near the cliff top.
A coronial inquest — a court-like proceeding held after unusual deaths — ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.
Johnson’s family sought a third inquest, and State Coroner Michael Barnes ruled in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the cliff top as a result of actual or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him because they perceived him to be homosexual.”
Barnes found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations in search of gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.
A new police investigation offered a 1 million Australian dollar ($731,000) reward for information in 2018 and Johnson’s older brother, Boston IT entrepreneur Steve Johnson, matched that reward offer in 2020.
“I think he deserves what he has coming to him,” Steve Johnson told reporters outside the court after White pleaded guilty.
“It’s a very sad, tragic thing that he did,” Johnson said.
White was arrested at his Sydney home two months after the reward was doubled. Police said at the time that the reward helped in their breakthrough and an unnamed informant would be eligible for the reward once White was convicted.
A bill that is currently before Kenyan lawmakers would prohibit gays and lesbians from using surrogate mothers to have children.
The proposed law — dubbed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, 2019, passed last November by the National Assembly — seeks to assist individuals, including intersex people or couples unable to bear children due to infertility to procure surrogate mothers.
To lock out gays and lesbians, the MPs amended the bill by replacing “husband and wife” to “couple” under Kenyan law, which refers to a male and a female who are in an association that may be recognized as a marriage.
“Of the many amendments that have been carried, this one is the best. This is so that we be specific that in Kenya, we do not recognize marriages between people of the same gender,” MP David Ole Sankok stated during the debate in the National Assembly.
Any gay or lesbian found guilty of using a surrogate mother to have a child risks a fine not exceeding Sh5 million ($50,000) or a jail term of not more than five years or both. The bill would also require a qualified medical doctor to certify that an individual is infertile before proceeding to find a surrogate mother.
This requirement is not only a big blow to thousands of gays and lesbians in Kenya but also hundreds of surrogate mothers like Mary and Rebecca in Nairobi who, through the Find Surrogate Mother public website, carry pregnancies for all couples including heterosexuals, gays, lesbians, single women and single men who want to have children.
The proposed law, which is the first of its kind in Kenya, also criminalizes engaging in surrogacy to make money. This means surrogate mothers will no longer carry pregnancies for any individual or couple whose infertility is not proved by a doctor.
Currently, the overall cost of surrogacy in Kenya is estimated at Sh4.5 million ($45,000).
“A person who contravenes the provisions of this section commits an offense and shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding Sh5 million ($50,000) or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to both,” reads Clause 23 of the bill.
A special directorate under the Health Ministry would oversee surrogacy activities in the country. The bill requires a surrogate mother to be over 21 years old with at least one child.
The new law adds to other punitive laws against LGBTQ rights in the country.
The Kenyan Penal Code under Sections 162 and 165 criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations viewed as “acts of indecency or unnatural offenses.” The Penal Code also forbids gays and lesbians from adopting children.
The passing of the bill in November occurred barely four months after U.S. Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten broke the news of welcoming their twins to the world.
Buttigieg via a tweet said, “Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents. We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family.”
It remains unclear whether the couple had their babies via surrogate or if they adopted them.
Kenya, just like most African countries, has refused to recognize the rights of the LGBTQ community despite pressure from the group and Western countries.
For instance, in 2015 President Uhuru Kenyatta during a joint press conference with the then-U.S. President Obama at the State House in Nairobi flatly rejected his visitor’s demand for the protection and promotion of gay and lesbian rights in the country.
Kenyatta insisted that though Kenya “shares a lot with the U.S., gay rights were not among them.” Homosexuality is considered both ungodly and against African culture on the continent.
In July 2021, a coalition of 27 global companies like Microsoft, Google, Barclays, Standard Chartered, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express and Burberry demanded Kenya to fully recognize the rights of gays and lesbians for more billions of Kenyan shillings to be injected into the economy.
The global firms in a report dubbed “The Economic Case for LGBT+ Inclusion in Kenya” warned that the country loses between $65 million and $143 million annually because its discriminative environment was keeping away some tourists. Still, Kenya remained unbowed.
Several rights groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Coalition and UNAIDS has criticized the continued enactment of laws that discriminate against the LGBTQ community.
The National Assembly’s Health Committee, the sponsor of the surrogacy law, collected views from numerous key stakeholders in the health sector like the Intersex Persons Society of Kenya which has a population of 1,524 in Kenya as per the 2019 Census. However, the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, (GALCK), was notably sidelined in the committee’s public hearings.
The Kenyan Senate is expected to debate the bill once it reconvenes on Feb. 8. The president would sign it if it passes.
