ExxonMobil is well known for its very poor environmental record. It is ranked in the top 10 on the Toxic 100 list of US corporate air polluters by Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). Exxon is probably best known for The March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill which resulted in the discharge of approximately 11 million gallons of oil (240,000 barrels) into Prince William Sound, and widely considered the number one spill worldwide in terms of damage to the environment.

ExxonMobil has drawn criticism as a major funder of organizations campaigning against the scientific opinion that climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and against the Kyoto Protocol. According to The Guardian, ExxonMobil has funded, among other groups skeptical of global warming, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, Congress on Racial Equality, TechCentralStation.com, and International Policy Network. ExxonMobil’s support for these organizations has drawn condemnation from the Royal Society, the academy of sciences of the United Kingdom.

The company is behind video clips promoting the advantages of carbon dioxide and those that lampoon Al Gore. You can view a couple here:

But, THAT’S NOT ALL!!! ExxonMobil has illegally engaged in trade with Sudan, bribed Kazakhstan President to get a share of the country’s oil fields, and knowingly assisted human rights violations in Indonesia, including torture, murder and rape, by employing and providing material support to Indonesian military forces.

And finally (there’s so much more about them, but we need to end this soon!), the company has a horrible reputation of being anti-gay. When Exxon Corporation merged with Mobil Corporation in 1999, the newly-merged company ended enrollment in Mobil Corporation’s domestic partner benefits for same-sex partners of employees, and it rescinded formal prohibitions against discrimination based on sexual orientation by removing it from the company’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy.

The combined company still does not provide domestic partnership benefits. And just today (May 28, 2008), ExxonMobil shareholders voted down a resolution to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to Exxon’s non-discrimination statement. Approximately 40% of Exxon’s outstanding shares voted in favor of the clause, but it was not enough to send the issue to the oil company’s board of directors.

The shareholder resolution has come up every year since 2000, when it got 8.2% approval among shareholders. The percentage that voted in favor of the resolution has grown every year since then. Human Rights Campaign–the LGBT rights lobbying organization–said ExxonMobil is the only company they’ve had to use shareholder activism as a method to get “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” added to a company’s non-discrimination clause. ExxonMobil scored a 0 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index 2006 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Exxon is simply Destroyer of the Week.

Sources: Wikipedia, FoxBusiness, PERI

Around the world, there is a blood donation ban for gay and bisexual men, and all the other men who have ever had sex with men in their entire lives (i.e. suburban dads who frequent state highway bathrooms, those hanging out in the bushes in parks, those gay for pay strippers and porn actors). American Red Cross, Hema-Quebec, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service are just a few of the organizations, across the globe, that restrict men who have sex with other men from donating blood during their entire lifetime. 

Decisions to restrict blood donation are embedded in the policies of government health agencies. For example, Health Canada, The Food and Drug Agency in the U.S., or Britain’s Health Protection Agency are the government bodies regulating or permitting the continued discrimination. These agencies responded to the HIV epidemic in the 80’s with sweeping, and - at the time - understandable bans.

It made good sense (kind of, not really), when these policies came about. In the 80’s, HIV-tainted blood and the ensuing scandals were all the rage. So, to limit HIV in donated blood (since screening for the virus was not yet created), the agencies set in motion regulations that barred people considered at increased risk of contracting and transmitting HIV from donating blood. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, are 7 times more likely to contract HIV than the rest of the population, and in the 80’s, that number was much much higher. 

In a recent article in Canada’s The Globe and Mail, Andre Pacard wrote, “Giving blood is not a right. The overriding responsibility of blood collection and distribution agencies is not to ensure all Canadians are allowed to join in this altruistic act, but to ensure the safety of blood and blood products for recipients.”

Yet, Pacard continues, “At the same time, these agencies must strive to ensure there is an adequate supply of blood, which saves the lives of thousands upon thousands of people each year. This is not an easy balancing act. Some donor exclusions are justifiable and necessary. Some are perhaps justifiable but are neither necessary nor useful. Regardless of exclusions, there is the additional safeguard of testing. Blood is consistently tested for HIV-AIDS, hepatitis C, hepatitis B and syphilis, and these tests are quite sensitive. 

“Th(e) approach (of denying gay men) was entirely appropriate when it was introduced in 1983. Today, the policy seems horribly outdated, based on current science. It makes little sense to defer a heterosexual man who has had unprotected sex with a female prostitute from blood donation for a single year, but to impose a lifetime ban on a homosexual man who has been celibate for many years. 

A recent study supports lifting the ban. In the study, it is estimated that lifting the lifetime ban would result in 136,000 more donations annually without compromising safety, and that the theoretical risk of contamination is one unit of blood every 18 years, a risk classified as “infinitesimally low.”

Also, most research looking at the risk of blood donations by gay men have focused on the high-risk population, those with multiple partners. But few studies have been done on those - the majority - in long-term, stable relationships. There is no reason to believe their risk profile differs from most heterosexuals.

International protests are rising, not just from the scientific world. Today, May 8, 2008, students from campuses throughout Northern Ireland are campaigning for the National Union of Students – Union of Students in Ireland Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (NUS-USI LGBT) day of action over the ‘gay blood donation ban’. Also, over the past couple of years, universities across the U.S. are banning blood drives on campuses, citing homophobic policies on the part of the collecting agencies as the reason. Similar protests and bans are occurring on campuses across Canada. 

Australia has recently changed its rules. It now refuses blood donations from gay men who have had “man-to-man sex” in the past 12 months (which is still homophobic, but whatever). Italy, for its part, asks donors if they have had a new sexual partner or unprotected sex during the past year. Other agencies are also considering lifting the ban, such as Canada Blood Service, and the Scottish and British Parliaments have committees investigating the ban and the new science discrediting the need for the continued ban. 

Until these bans are reversed, these international blood agencies deserve the title of Homophobe of the Week for May 5th to 12th, 2008, here at blurbberry. 

Click on image to view gallery (4 photos).

Last week, we were sitting around, discussing the next Homophobe of the Week. As a young queer magazine (two weeks old, exactly), there are so many choices. So far, we’ve only covered two (Michael Corin from The National Post, and the Pope). At that moment, we got our reliable Google Alert, that tells us somewhere, out there, in cyber-land, someone typed and published the word gay, lesbian, queer, or transgender (and other selected words), and that we need to pay attention.

And it came as a letter to the editor, in the Jamaica Gleaner, titled, “Standing firm vs gay pressure.” In it, one Elaine M. says, ”Some parents have themselves to blame, boys should look like boys and girls look like girls. I once saw a mother with her son at a very young age playing with a doll; she thought it was ok for him to have a doll to play with…. The children should know that they are different, so they should look different… Multiply and replenish was a command given by God and since, like most Jamaicans, I believe that the principles laid down by God are right, I certainly hope that the Government does not buckle under the pressure of foreign governments and change the law of the country. God has never made a mistake but men always do.” 

Sadly, a thorough search through the Jamaica Gleaner reveals many more articles such as Elaine M.’s, compared to articles supporting queer people. There were, of course, numerous articles supporting gay people, and even an interview with a gay man.

We considered Jamaica as Homophobe of the Week. 

The next day, we got another Google Alert, this time alerting us to a column in the Canadian queer magazine, Xtra. In the most recent issue, they discuss a Canadian call for a boycott of Jamaica and the ongoing attempts to ban homophobic dancehall music. Stop Murder Music Canada (SMMC) — a coalition that includes Egale Canada and the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto — is calling for a boycott of Jamaica if the country’s government does not take action on homophobic violence by Mon, May 12.You’ve probably heard about the controversy surrounding some dancehall and reggae music and the blatantly homophobic lyrics that support hurting and killing queer people. Across the world, Jamaican singers have been banned from entering countries and spouting their anti-queer hatred. Buju Banton and Elephant Man are considered two of the worst perpetrators of such vitriolic language. Elephant Man declares in one song, “When you hear a lesbian getting raped/ It’s not our fault … Two women in bed/ That’s two Sodomites who should be dead.”

We were certain Jamaica was the Homophobe of the Week.

We’re not alone in considering this issue. In 2006, Time Magazine reported in “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?” that, in the previous two years, “two of the island’s most prominent gay activists, Brian Williamson and Steve Harvey, have been murdered — and a crowd even celebrated over Williamson’s mutilated body.”    

You can find many stories on the Internet, all of which include angry mobs of men and women, and boys and girls, attacking queer men and women, beating them, and putting them in hospital and possibly killing them (see photo gallery). A recent article from February, 2008, in Bet.com, mentions three such stories, with ears ripped off, arms broken, people running themselves off cliffs and dying to avoid mobs. 

What are the reasons for such hate? In the British newspaper, The Guardian, Decca Aitkenhead wrote, ”Many Jamaicans are not homophobic, but the prevailing attitude to gays is ignorant and sometimes violent. But the fact remains that of all Jamaica’s injustices and deprivations, homophobia cannot be singled out as uniquely intolerable. Although activists are right to campaign about it, it’s wrong for public opinion to seize on the issue with no thought for political context.

“A better emotion would be culpability. Every ingredient of Jamaica’s homophobia implicates Britain, whose role has maintained the conditions conducive to homophobia, from slavery through to the debt that makes education unaffordable. For us to vilify Jamaicans for an attitude of which we were the architects is shameful. To do so in the name of liberal values is meaningless,” wrote Aitkenhead.

Boycotts are not the answer. They simply make the public poorer, hungrier, more desperate, and then angrier, and possibly more homophobic. 

There was hope in 2006 that the nation’s first female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, a progressive would eventually move to decriminalize homosexuality. But, it hasn’t happened yet. And she has been replaced by Bruce Golding, who unequivocally said in the last week that there will be no loosening of the laws against queer sex. Jamaica remains a country with numerous queer-related murders each year, and continued arrests and imprisonment of queers.

Of course, not all Jamaicans are homophobic, and of course, homophobia exists everywhere. There are many supporters of queer folk in Jamaica. Many Jamaicans rally behind their queer family members and friends, horrified by the anger and violence.

At present, there is only one human rights/queer group in Jamaica, called Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG). J-FLAG has recently called on Stop Murder Music Canada to remove their call for a Jamaica ban. J-FLAG’s website is www.jflag.org. If you are looking to support Jamaican queers, you can learn about donating here… www.jflag.org/misc/donate.htm. 

Jamaica remains Homophobe of the Week, for now, and we will hopefully and gladly, some day, call it Homophile of the Week. 

Bill O’Reilly wearing a lot of makeup

Just in case there were any doubts that Bill O’Reilly has some negative views of “homosexuals”…

Created by www.mediamatters.org

Well, we haven’t been able to escape the pope this week. He’s been all over the news, of course, what with his visit to the U.S. He received a 21 gun salute this week at the White House, has been to every major city, provided communions at many masses, and has undoubtedly spread his love of god to all his peeps. He spoke at the United Nation’s General Assembly this week as well. He told The Assembly that authentic human rights are rooted in the dignity of the human person made in God’s image, and thus cannot be limited by any state, religion or majority rule. He emphasized the obligation of the international community to intervene to protect fundamental rights. “It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history,” he said.  ”They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks.” 

What is fascinating, and thus making him the Homophobe of the Week here at blurbberry, is the complete disconnect between this supposed fundamental right for everyone to live humanely and freely and his disregard and outright disgust for queers around the world. He has said, ”Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living-out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.” 

Not surprising, then, he has strongly opposed queer rights, not just in Italy, but around the world. He has scolded every country, region, city, and so forth for putting forward any type of domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage bill. He recently went as far as to warn Columbia that if they moved forward with their plan to grant queer couples some basic cohabiting rights, that the Church will not offer communions anymore to members of the Colombian government.

Of course, Pope Benedict has every right to attempt to interfere. But, really, don’t come to the U.N., and say things like, “It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the (U.N.) declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history.” Don’t suggest that authentic human rights are rooted in the dignity of the human person made in God’s image, and thus cannot be limited by any state, religion or majority rule. It’s just wrong, and hypocritical. 

I’m not alone with this thinking, of course. Others believe similarly. IPSNews reported, “Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the New Ways Ministry, said that the fact that gays and lesbians are ostracised from the Catholic Church is a clear violation of their human rights. (Said DeBernardo) ”This Pope has had a terrible record of making harmful statements against gay and lesbian people. We think he should have offered a gesture and met with ministries of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered] Catholics… He should come and listen to perspectives that differ from his own.” 

To his benefit, though, his recent remarks finally disconnected pedophilia from homosexuality: “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but paedophilia which is another thing.” But, he still thinks both are evil. Oh well. 

You can read more about the Pope at Religious Left Us here. 

Michael Coren is our first entry star as Homophobe of the Week. Congratulations Michael! Michael is a contributor to the National Post and a Canadian writer and broadcaster. We think though, that he’s also a man of hate pretending to have some ‘wisdom’. In this week’s National Post Blog he states that legalizing same-sex marriage was a huge Canadian mistake. He deflects the obvious conclusion that he’s a homophobe by preemptively stating, ‘although this is a valid and vital debate about social policy, anyone critiquing the status quo is likely to be marginalized as hateful, extreme or simply mad. Social conservatives aren’t just wrong, they’re evil.’  He says it is valid to argue such social policy, which is true, but over 60% of Canadians support this social policy, and, worldwide, countries are trending towards the same conclusion as Canadian judges and lawmakers did.

Michael Coren, in his National Post essay, speaks like a sore loser, with such statements, as “the discussion, we are told, is over. Which is what triumphalist bullies have said for centuries after they win a battle. In this case, the intention is to marginalize anyone who dares to still speak out. In other words, to silence them.” He therefore refers to the majority of smart-thinking Canadians, to a majority of legislators in Canada’s Parliament (over two different votes), to judges across the country, as triumphant bullies, when really, he’s simply a SORE LOSER. Face it Michael, you lose, we win.

Three years later, Michael is still stomping his feet, yelling, no, but what about this argument, and that argument… when really, all these arguments have been made for decades, and in the end they proved to hold no water. His continued discussion is not hateful, it’s worse. It’s stupid, juvenile, irrelevant and tiresome. I would argue each piece of what he said, but 12 Canadian courts listened to his arguments, two Canadian Parliamentary sittings listened to his arguments, and 60% of Canadians listened to his arguments and decided his thinking process was erroneous. So, I figure why should I bother. He likes hating fags and pretending it’s for the sanctity of marriage.