by Christopher Cappiello

Cayman Islands apologizes for detaining gay American

The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism has officially apologized to an American tourist who was detained by law enforcement after kissing his boyfriend at a bar, Caribbean Net News reports.

Aaron Chandler, a 23-year-old Massachusetts resident, was at the Royal Palms bar with his boyfriend, his boyfriend’s sister and her husband on April 30. The gay couple was dancing and “occassionally kissing,” Chandler told Caribbean Net, before an off-duty police officer informed him erroneously that public displays of affection between people of the same sex are illegal in the Cayman Islands. When Chandler and his boyfriend kissed one more time, the officer led him to his car and took the young American to the George Town Police Station.

Chandler was held for an hour. He was never officially arrested, and wasn’t even questioned by police before being returned to where he was staying.

“I apologize for your upsetting experience and want to assure you that the Cayman Islands is a welcoming jurisdiction to all people,” said Pilar Bush, director of tourism, in her official apology.

“What happened to you was an isolated incident, and is not representative of Cayman.”

Gay activist named to Nepal’s Parliament

The leader of a Nepalese LGBT organization that didn’t even exist seven years ago has been named to a seat in the Himalayan country’s Parliament following an historic election on April 10.

Sunil Pant, 35, founded the Blue Diamond Society in 2002, when there was little discussion of LGBT people in the highly traditional and conservative country. He was named to one of the five seats granted to the small Communist Party-United, referred to as the CPN-(U).

“It’s absolutely astonishing,” said Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT rights program, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Considering how few resources they have and the depth of prejudice they have to fight against, what they’ve achieved is extraordinary.”

A Gay City News story by gay blogger Doug Ireland reports that there were 10 LGBT candidates running for parliamentary seats.

“The number of votes we received exceeded our expectations, which is why CPN-(U) chose me as a member of the Constituent Assembly,” Pant told Gay City News. “Most of the CPN-(U) party have indicated their support for LGBT rights, and it was very happy to send an openly gay man to Parliament. And there are also many good individuals in the Parliament with whom we have worked in the past,” he said.

Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, endured a civil war from 1995-2006, with Maoist guerrillas fighting against the monarchy. In December 2007, an interim Parliament declared the country a federal democratic republic.

Pant and BDS have made tremendous progress for LGBT rights, winning a supreme court case last year to overturn laws against “unnatural” sex. To the surprise of international activists, the court went further than expected in its ruling, declaring sexual minorities “natural persons” and ordering the government to guarantee equal rights, including setting up a committee to study paths to legalizing same-sex marriage.

Native ‘Lesbians’ sue over the word ‘lesbian’

Three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have filed a lawsuit in an Athens court demanding that a Greek LGBT rights organization drop the word “lesbian” from its name, claiming that using the term originally applied to residents of the island was the equivalent of “psychological and moral rape,” the Guardian newspaper reports.

“This is not an aggressive act against gay women,” said Dimitris Lambrou, one of the three bringing the suit against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece (OLKE). “Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want [OLKE] to remove the word lesbian from their title.”

The use of the word to describe homosexual women derives from the island’s historical importance as the birthplace of the ancient female poet Sappho, whose work often expressed passionate love for other women.

In the past 30-40 years, Lesbos has become a major tourist destination for lesbians. While island business—particularly in the town of Eressos, where Sappho is said to have been born—benefit greatly from the lesbian tourism trade, there have been occasional conflicts between the traditional Greek culture of Lesbos and the somewhat unconventional behavior of some of the lesbian visitors.

“There were some tensions back in the ’80s, when there were lots of women camping [at a free campsite] for extended periods of time,” Sasha Roseneil, founder of the Lesbian Avengers, told the Guardian.

At the same time, most residents recognize the value of the island’s popularity with lesbians from around the world.

“How can I mind them?” a waiter in an Eressos café asked the writer from the Guardian. “They are our livelihood. People who tell them they are not welcome must have too much money. These girls spend a lot. They drink like men.”

The mayor of Lesbos has publicly come out against the lawsuit. The court in Athens is expected to hear the case June 10.