Interview
The holidays bring ‘Dream Girls'
page 25
Trans ’06 Year in Review
Trans woman elected to Hawaiian board
page 22
LGBT Youth
Homeless count up
page 21
Noted . Notable . Noteworthy. LGBT News & Views
• Happy New Year
Volume 21 . Number 17 www.q-notes.com December 30.2006
A look back at LGBT events in *06
A look back at some of the significant
events that shaped the year
by David Moore . Q-Notes staff
As 2006 drew to a dose, it
became evident that this year cele
brated a number of milestone
anniversaries and achieverrients.
Aside from the many headlines
that captured major media cover
age, from closeted Republicans
and Evangelical Christians to
the vice president’s pregnant
lesbian daughter and the con
tinuing struggle for same-sex
marriage equality, there were
a number of important
developments. Here’s a look
back at what 2006 was for
the LGBT community in
the Carolinas and more.
Gay soldier tells his
story from Iraq
Since October of
2005,every colurrin
began with these
words:
These are the
thoughts of a gay
soldier — a North
Carolina native —
who has been deployed .
to Iraq. Because of the
military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell’’policy, he must remain
anonymous.
For the first issue of 2006, our anonymous
gay soldier told us about his experiences with
the holidays in Iraq.
“By the time you read this, the holiday sea
son will have come and gone. It’s been a time
of reflection for me — thinking about New
Year’s resolutions and starting the year on a
good note. My first holiday season spent in
Iraq has been unlike anything I’ve ever experi
enced
before. I
had a
Christmas
tree and
many
wonderful
gifts, but it
was a day like any other day in the desert.
“Since I came to Iraq I have seen death
very graphically and firsthand. It’s worse than
any horror film or car accident I have ever
seen. War is ugly. On the 22nd of December, I
witnessed the aftermath of a very deadly
explosion at the south entrance to our camp.
The entrance to our camp is off the infamous
Main Support Route (MSR) called
MSR Tampa. It is the life
line for many
cities and for
ward operat
ing bases
(FOBS)
into
Baghdad
and one of
the busiest
highways in all
of Iraq. A Vehicle
Borne Improvised
Explosive Device, other
wise known
VBIED, explod
ed and killed 12 Iraqi
Army military police officers
' and injured six more Iraqi national
workers coming into the camp around 10 a.m.
that morning. First aid was not an option for
most of the soldiers involved — they were
blown apart. I mean that literally — charred
bodies, limbs and other pieces of flesh scat
tered through the air like pollen in the spring.”
By October of 2006, our columnist had
survived Iraq and returned to the U.S., to
resume a military career here at home. He
continues to adhere to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell” policy, but he admitted in a final inter
view with Q-Notes that his politics had drasti
cally changed. “As much as I love this country)’
he told us,“l think there’s a lot of corruption.
It makes me cringe to say this, but I was a
staunch Republican before 1 left. Now I’m
much more moderate — even liberal.”
St. John’s MCC celebrates 30 years
St. John’s Metropolitan Community Church
(MCC) in Raleigh has the distinction of
being one of the oldest churches
U.N. recognizes LGBT groups
page 6
in the denomination. On Feb. 17, the church
offered a weekend-long series of events
designed to celebrate 30 years in the business
of teaching inclusive Christianity, which
makes room for all in the LGBT community
and more. “I can’t be any more proud of this
community than I am,” said Rev. Belva Boone.
In addition to appearances by all the previous
ministers of St. John’s MCC, tjie Rev. Troy
Perry, founder of MCC, was also on hand for
the event, held at Raleigh’s Crabtree Marriott
Charlotte Pride becomes
PRIDE Charlotte
At a press conference held May 5 at The
Lesbian and Gay Community Center of
Charlotte, organizers officially announced that
the Center had taken charge of the annual
Pride celebration in the Queen City.
“With a new name, new location and a
new vision, we’re extremely excited to
announce that this year’s PRIDE Charlotte
Festival will be held August 26 at Gateway
Center,” said Laura Witkowski, director of the
Center and PRIDE Charlotte co-chair.
Earlier in the year previous organizers of
Charlotte Pride had dropped the ball in
preparing for the event, which led an
obscure local anti-gay evangelical organiza-
tion.to try and claim responsibility for the
festival’s demise.
When Q-
Notes and the
Community
Center came
together with a
number of key
volunteer coordi
nators the event
was re-tooled, slated for Gateway and would
later go off like gangbusters, attracting the
largest crowd for Pride to date in the city: an
estimated 6,000.
Despite earlier claims by anti-gay opera
tives that they would rally more than 150 pro
testors, less than 15 appeared and were quick
ly shuttled off the property.
Iraqi death squads slaughtering gays
Following a death-to-gays fatwa issued in
October ’05 by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-
Sistani, death squads of the Badr Corps
began systematically targeting gay Iraqis for
persecution and execution. “The Badr Corps
is committed to the ‘sexual cleansing’ of
Iraq,” says Ali Hili, a 33-year-old gay Iraqi
exile in London.
Hili fled to the U.K. with some 30 other
gay Iraqis who founded the Abu Nawas
Group there to support persecuted
gay Iraqis. The Badr Corps, the military arm of
the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), become
posse-like death squads following the orders
of Ali A1 Sistani — to murder all gays and les
bians in Iraq. Sistani would later remove his
fatwa, but fundamentalist Shia Muslims con
tinue to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men
throughout 2006.
“Badr Corps agents have a network of
informers who, among other things, target
alleged‘immoral
behavior.’ They
kill gays,
unveiled women,
prostitutes, peo
ple who sell or
drink alcohol,
and those who
listen to western
~ music.and wear
western fash-
ions.Badr mili
tants are entrap
ping gay men via
internet chat rooms. They arrange a date and
then beat and kill the victim. MdesWho are
unmarried by the age of 30 or 35 are placed
under surveillance on suspicion of being gay,
as are effeminate men. They will be investigat
ed and warned to get married. If they don’t
change their behavior, or if they fail to show
evidence that they plan to get married, they
will be arrested, disappear and eventually be
found dead.
Q-Notes celebrates 20 years and
merges with The Front Page
After decades of service to readers in both
Carolinas, Q-Notes and The Front Page
became one on May 12. “We’re very excited
about this accomplishment,” said Q-Notes
publisher Jim Yarbrough. “We’ve talked about
doing it for years and it finally seemed like
the time was right.”
Coinciding with the merger, Q-Notes cele
brated a milestone anniversary of 20 years in
print. Along
with that
achievement
came two more
— former
Frontpage
publisher Jim
Baxter joined Q-Notes as a
contributing writer and
the paper underwent a
see year on 11
Trans youth murders
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