Fridae

HK conducts phone survey on public attitudes about gays
A 10-day telephone survey is currently being conducted in Hong Kong to assess public attitudes towards gay men and lesbians. Commissioned by the Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau, the telephone survey which started on October 22, will cover 2,000 people aged 18 to 64 selected at random.

The bureau said to ensure impartiality, an independent advisory group comprising lawyer Christopher Chan Yiu-chong, former Equal Opportunity chair Fanny Cheung Mui-ching, who is professor of psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Priscilla Leug Mei-fun, associate dean of the School of Law at City University, has been appointed to advise on the questionnaire design.

The bureau has also held several discussions with sexual minority, family value and religious groups including the Society of Truth and Light which openly opposes the introduction of sexual orientation, anti-discrimination laws.

According to the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong government received more than 50,000 letters after the Society of Truth and Light, and other conservative Christian groups, the Sex Culture Society and the Hong Kong Alliance for Family placed full-page advertisements in papers opposing the law. This was before the government began any public consultation.

And in August this year, the group lobbied the government with a 27,500-signature petition to appeal against a High Court ruling that overturned a law banning sexual acts between men under 21. Justice Michael Hartmann had said the ordinance violated the Basic Law and discriminated against homosexuals. The government is now appealing that decision.

Hong Kong repealed its laws criminalising gay sex in 1991.

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Judge shuts Tennessee ex-gay centre down
A US Federal Judge has shut down the ex-gay Love In Action Ministry - a "treatment" centre which claims to help gays "turn" straight - in upholding an order from the Tennessee state Dept. of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities requiring the organisation to obtain a license allowing them to treat mentally ill patents in order to continue operation. The court warned that the organisation would face criminal changes if it failed to comply.

One of many Christian ex-gay groups in the US, the Memphis, Tennessee-based ministry's writes in its web site that its mission is "the prevention or remediation of unhealthy and destructive behaviours facing families, adults and adolescents, including promiscuity, pornography and homosexuality."

The group also specially targets parents to send their gay children or children who they suspect could be gay for live-in camps. The group has drawn the outage of many gay rights advocates, who Love In Action (LIA) claims were instrumental in getting the state to inspect the facility and push for its closing.

Meanwhile, LIA has sued the state to oppose being required to get a license. It claims that the facility did not restrict access to medication but kept it in a central location to prevent theft and tampering. The ministry, which is affiliated with Exodus International and Focus on the Family, is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund - an Arizona-based Christian legal organisation.

U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald denied the motion last Saturday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

LIA has been the subject of three separate investigations by the state since June after a 16-year-old "patient" posted LIA's rules on his blog, such as the ban on certain brands of clothing, and expressed dismay about his parents' plan to send him there for treatment intended to alter his sexual orientation. Soonafter, the posting was widely reported in the US gay media.

"We hope this will serve as notice to other practitioners of this junk science known as 'reparative' or 'conversion' therapy that their days are numbered" said PFLAG spokesperson, Ron Schlittler.

"And we hope that this action by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health is noticed by similar agencies in other states. We applaud that awareness of this fraud and false hope is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves."

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