The NDP put forward a motion in the Commons today to restore queer rights to the Canadian citizenship guide, but Conservative MPs voted to adjourn debate until after the passage of a major budget bill.

Xtra's federal politics reporter Dale Smith has more:

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NDP MP Olivia Chow moved a motion in the House of Commons after Question Period, which would see the government reinstate sections on queer history and queer rights in the next printing of the citizenship guide. This follows a motion from the Commons citizenship and immigration committee that recommended the same.
 
After 30 minutes of debate, during which only the NDP asked questions or made comments, the parliamentary secretary for the minister of finance, Ted Menzies, said that it was an important debate, but that C-9, the budget implementation bill, was more important. He moved to adjourn debate on Chow’s motion until after the passage of C-9.

While all three opposition parties carried the vote on an oral call (and there were only about 15 or so MPs in the House at the time), the Conservatives demanded a recorded vote, so the division bells rang for 30 minutes, and a standing vote was recorded.

The final vote was 119 to adjourn, 101 against, with all three opposition parties voting against adjourning debate. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was not in the House for the vote, nor was Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

It is almost assured that Chow raised the motion as a means of delaying the debate on C-9 — especially given some of the comments raised by NDP MP Peter Julian during the short debate on the motion.

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Read Dale Smith's Hill Queeries blog every weekday.

Read more: 

• Add gay rights to citizenship guide: Commons committee
• Kenney dodges more questions about gays and citizenship guide
• A disaster week for Jason Kenney and Egale
  
• Twittersphere slams Egale's response to citizenship guide issue
  
• Queer MPs criticize Kenney's decision to edit gays out of citizenship guide

Two gay men were attacked in Windsor early Sunday morning — the second reported gaybashing in the city in less than two weeks.

Windsor Police released this description of the attack, which occurred at a pizza restaurant in downtown Windsor:

"The restaurant was very busy after the downtown bars had closed for the evening. The victims were in line behind a group of three men who began to make derogatory comments about the victims behind them loud enough that everyone in the restaurant could hear. One of the men in the group was particularly loud and continued to make disparaging remarks about the two victim's sexual orientation. After a number of comments were made, one of the victims confronted the loudest of the three and advised him that he should be ashamed of the way he was speaking. Immediately, the suspect punched one of the victims on the side of the head knocking him to the floor. The second victim yelled 'Hey' to the suspect and the suspect walked toward the second victim punching him in the nose also knocking him to the floor. The second victim was bleeding profusely. Store employees yelled for someone to call the police which prompted the suspect to exit the restaurant and walk north on Ouellette Ave.   

Both victims were taken to hospital where they were treated and released for facial injuries. One of the victims sustained a broken nose and broken cheek bone, which will require reconstructive surgery to repair the injuries.

27-year-old John Raymond Meloche of Amherstburg is facing charges of public incitement of hatred, assault causing bodily harm, assault, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. 

Pizza Pizza on Ouellette Ave in downtown Windsor. (Google Streetview)

Windsor Police are also looking to speak to the two men who were with the suspect at the time of the assaults. Anyone with any information as to their identities is asked to call Windsor Police Investigations at 519-255-6700  x4830 or Crime Stoppers (anonymously) at 519-258-TIPS (8477).

One of the men is described as being 20 years old, 5'9", average build with a shaved head and a gap between his front teeth. He was wearing a white T-shirt and shorts. A description of the second man is not available, but there were a number of patrons in the restaurant at the time of the assault who may have witnessed the events.

Less than two weeks ago, gay man Chris Rabideau was robbed and beaten by two men who shouted homophobic slurs. Police have arrested two suspects.

Thirty Russian queer activists staged Moscow's first uninterrupted Pride march on May 29, in defiance of a city ban.

For 10 minutes, activists carried a 20-metre rainbow flag. Unlike attempts in past years, no arrests or bashings were reported.

How did they do it?

"The guerrilla-style hit-and-run Moscow Gay Pride march was over before the police arrived," says British gay activist Peter Tatchell, who attended the parade in support. "When they turned up, officers scurried around aimlessly, searching for protesters to arrest. All escaped the police dragnet.

"All morning the Gay Pride organizers fed the police a steady stream of false information, via blogs and websites, concerning the location of the parade. They suggested that it would take place outside the EU Commission’s offices. As a result, the police put the whole area in total lockdown, closing nearby streets and metro stations, in a bid to prevent protesters assembling there."

Organizers have asked permission to hold the march every year since 2006, and each time, they've been rejected by authorities. Courts have upheld the ban and rejected appeals. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has described Pride parades as "satanic."

Watch a short video of the May 29 march, featuring comment from Tatchell:

Read more:

• Technology links gays in Montreal and Moscow
• The new Russian queer activism
  
• Moscow gays trick police (2008)
• Moscow's first Pride ends in violence (2006) 

After a meeting with the UN Secretary General on Saturday, Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has ordered the release of a queer couple jailed under the country's sodomy and indecency laws.

The president said the couple committed "a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws." More from the UK Telegraph:

"However, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions."

He added: "I have done this on humanitarian grounds but this does not mean that I support this."

On May 20, a judge in Malawi sentenced Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga to 14 years in prison with hard labour. The two were arrested in December 2009 after they held a symbolic engagement ceremony. Monjeza and Chimbalanga were convicted of "unnatural acts" and "gross indecency." 

Read more:

• Harper's Malawi G20 meeting is a 'minimum', say opposition MPs
• Malawian couple sentenced to 14 years in prison 

Open Letter to the Toronto Pride Committee from founders of Pride in 1981:

As founding members of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, and people involved in organizing the first Pride event in Toronto at the end of June in 1981, we stand totally opposed to the decision of the current Toronto Pride Committee to ban the use of "Israeli Apartheid" at Toronto Pride events.

This banning of political speech is clearly an attempt to ban the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) and queer Palestine Solidarity supporters from the parade and from participation in a major event in our communities. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the exclusion of certain political perspectives within our movements and communities from Pride events. We call on the Pride committee to immediately rescind this banning and to instead encourage QuAIA's participation in the pride parade.

We remind people of the political roots of Pride in the Stonewall rebellion against police repression in 1969 and that the Pride march in 1981 in Toronto grew out of our community resistance to the massive bath raids of that year. On the Pride march in 1981 about a thousand of us stopped in protest in front of 52 Division Police Station (which played a major part in the raids) and our resistance to the bath raids was rooted in solidarity with other communities (including the Black and South Asian communities) also facing police repression. Two of the initiating groups for Pride in 1981 -- Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE) and Lesbians Against the Right (LAR) -- organized Pride as part of more general organizing against the moral conservative right-wing. This included not only its anti-queer but also its anti-feminist, racist and anti-working class agendas.

We also remember in the 1980s that lesbian and gay activists around the world, including in Toronto in the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee, took up the struggle not only for lesbian and gay rights in South Africa but linked this to our opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white supremacy in South Africa. This global queer solidarity helps to account for how it was that constitutional protection for lesbians and gay men was first established in the new post-apartheid South Africa.

Solidarity with all struggles against oppression has been a crucial part of the history of Pride. To break this solidarity as the Pride Committee has now done not only refuses to recognize how queer people always live our lives in relation to race, class, gender, ability and other forms of oppression but also breaks our connections with the struggles of important allies who have assisted us in making the important gains that we have won.

Signers:

Katherine Arnup, founding member of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, member of Lesbians Against the Right and Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere.

Hugh English, one of the first organizers of Toronto Pride, a former member of GLARE, and a queer in solidarity with struggles against oppression around the world.

Amy Gottlieb, founding member of Lesbians Against the Right, Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere and the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee.

Gary Kinsman, founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, member of Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere, member of the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee.

Ian Lumsden, founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee and member of Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere.

Michael Riordon, co-host (with Lorna Weir) of the first Toronto Lesbian & Gay Pride Day, 1981; founding member of Bridges (between gay/lesbian & Latin American liberation movements); author of the forthcoming book, Our Way to Fight, on peace activists in Israel and Palestine.

Lorna Weir, co-host (with Michael Riordon) of the first Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, founding member of Lesbians Against the Right.

Brian Woods, member of Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere, and founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee.

(image: Toronto Pride Parade 2008, Flickr, CC 2.0, Sweet One / Neal Jennings)

Read more: 

• Who is Martin Gladstone?
• Alan Li rejects appointment as Pride Toronto grand marshal
• Protesters demand Pride Toronto reverse censorship decision
• Pride Toronto plans to censor the term 'Queers Against Israeli Apartheid'
• Council motion still looms as Pride Toronto dilemma comes to a head