Gay Judge Shatters Pink Glass Ceiling

[Mossfinn]

An interesting article regarding a form of prejudice that doesn't always hit the headlines.

It is only Thai related if you have received similar treatment in Thailand, but I found it interesting none-the-less.

Link -IoS

Good Luck

Moss

[onni4me]

var articleheadline = "Gay judge shatters 'pink glass ceiling'";

In my opinion it is more strange that people assume gays to have just sexual preferences...

Gay judge shatters 'pink glass ceiling'

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Saturday, 20 September 200

• It is often said that the "pink glass ceiling" which holds back the promotion of gay and lesbian people in British society is double glazed when it comes to professional mobility among the higher echelons.
  

So the achievement of a 58-year-old barrister and former Olympic fencer in winning a place on the Bench of the Court of Appeal is all the more remarkable.

Sir Terence Etherton, pictured, will be the first openly gay judge to be sworn in as Lord Justice of Appeal when his appointment is confirmed later this month.

Sir Terry's promotion to the 36 judges of the second-highest court in England and Wales, on the formal recommendation of the Prime Minister, was welcomed yesterday by gay rights campaigners. It also means that Sir Terry is a leading contender to become the first openly gay law lord. Friends described him as the "epitome of a modern judge" who ensured that both sides always got a fair hearing in his courtroom.

His appointment is also recognition for the work he has done over the past two years as chairman of the Law Commission, the Government'slegal reform body. In that time the commission has been responsible for showing "enlightened thinking" on some very sensitive and important areas of the law.

Sir Terry said: "It is a great honour to be appointed to the Court of Appeal. My appointment reflects the high standing of the Law Commission and the quality and importance of the reports we produce. My appointment also shows that diversity in sexualityis not a bar to preferment up to the highest levels of the judiciary."

The judge, a Cambridge graduate, was a member of the England sabre team which won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Fencing Championships in 1978 before qualifying for the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

In 2001 he was appointed to the High Court, becoming one of only two openly gay judges to hold such office – the other is Sir Adrian Fulford, appointed in 2002. Two years ago, Sir Terry was the first High Court judge publicly to announce his own civil partnership.

Welcoming Sir Terry's promotion, Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, said: "This is not before time. We have been in contact with the Judicial Appointments Commission for the past 18 months about our concerns about the invisibility of people from minority groups on the Bench."

Recent Stonewall research found that 25 per cent of all gay and lesbian people interviewed felt they would be treated worse by a judge than if they were heterosexual and charged with a major offence. In the family courts the perception of bias is even more serious. Two in five (41 per cent) expect to be treated worse than a heterosexual if they were to appear before a family court in a divorce or custody case. "People say it doesn't matter whether the judge is a straight white guy or not because the system is basically fair," said Mr Summerskill. "But what people forget is that the common law has been developed over the years by a group of people with a particular outlook, namely white, heterosexual men from public schools. So the idea of what the reasonable man or reasonable point of view may be in legal terms may be very different from someone who comes from a very different background."

Gay rights landmarks

*The idea of coming out was introduced in 1869 by the German homosexual rights advocate Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, right, as a means of emancipation.

He claimed that invisibility was a major obstacle toward changing public opinion.

*Chris Smith, below left, became the first openly gay MP after being elected for Labour in 1983, and later the first gay cabinet minister when he became Culture Secretary after Labour's 1997 election victory.

*Alan Duncan, centre, is the first openly gay Conservative MP, having come out in 2002. He is the Tories' business spokesman.

*In 2004, The Right Rev Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, below right, became the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained as a bishop in a major Christian denomination.

*On 21 December 2005, Debbie Gaston and Elaine Cook from Brighton entered the gay rights history book when they became the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Britain.

*Two decades after the first gay character moved to Albert Square and 13 years after Anna Friel's lesbian kiss on Brookside Close, The Archers achieved a soap-opera first by featuring a gay civil ceremony in 2006.

*In June 2008, two male priests exchanged vows and rings in a ceremony seen as blasphemous by conservatives. The Rev Peter Cowell and the Rev Dr David Lord, had registered their civil partnership before the ceremony.

[Paagai]

Gay judge shatters 'pink glass ceiling'

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Saturday, 20 September 200

• [snip]
  

*Chris Smith, below left, became the first openly gay MP after being elected for Labour in 1983, and later the first gay cabinet minister when he became Culture Secretary after Labour's 1997 election victory.

• [snip]

I think more significant was his public admission he had been HIV positive for 17 Years. That really took some guts given the prejudices that exist.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4219501.stm

[PeaceBlondie]

I have written a novel about a gay man. He has a successful career as a practicing attorney, makes three babies, earns the Nobel Peace Prize, preaches sermons, destroys the damnable Just War Theory, saves Thais and Thailand, helps to liberate Burma, survives massacres, makes millions doing funny commercials, etc. - but after his death, some folks still just think of him as....a queer.

[thaicurious]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gay,_...bisexual_people

self portrait of that famous fag

leonardo da vinci

Edited September 21, 2008 by thaicurious

[onni4me]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gay,_...bisexual_people

self portrait of that famous fag

leonardo da vinci

Fortunately Leonardo was always surrounded by VERY handsome guys. Michelangelo was very jealous about that...

[PeaceBlondie]

That list in wiki is so great that I opened a new thread on it, after discovering my old neighbor on the list.

[midas]

This is nothing new for Australia - we did this 12 years ago !

Michael Donald Kirby, , AC, CMG (born 1939) is a Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.

Kirby has been open about being gay since 1999, when he outed himself in Australia's Who's Who by naming Johan van Vloten as his long-term partner. Van Vloten, who migrated to Australia in 1963, has lived with Kirby since 1969. Kirby has often spoken publicly in support of gay rights. While President of the International Commission of Jurists he encouraged that organisation to give more consideration to human sexuality as an aspect of human rights and as an Anglican he has expressed disappointment at his church's stance on gay rights. In 2002, at the Sydney Gay Games VI, Kirby was the keynote speaker at the opening ceremonies. "The movement for equality is unstoppable. Its message will eventually reach the four corners of the world,"he told a crowd of 35,000. In 2006, he attended the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights in Montreal, presiding over the Asia-Pacific Plenary.

In November 2007, Kirby accused the Anglican and Catholic archbishops of Sydney, Peter Jensen and George Pell respectively, of hindering the acceptance of gay people in Australian society, stating that homophobia was "reinforced even to this day by religious instruction, and it has to be said, religious instruction from the two archbishops of Sydney." Kirby also expressed disappointment in his "minority of one" status among his High Court of Australia colleagues, and indicated that "some of the justices perhaps have less liberal views than I have".

For full background see :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kirby_(judge)

[Navalator]

This appointment is really old news. Years ago, under the California Governor Jerry Brown administration, two openly gay judges were appointed to the appeals bench (1980). The two were friends over a long period prior to the appointments and both were appointed during the same year. One died in office of AIDS and the other retired to Thailand. How do I know this? I am the surviving judge.