Day: 11 June 2013
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The £1m goal to open gay hostel in memory of murdered son
The mother and father of a gay teenager who was murdered in 2008 have vowed to open a £1m gay hostel in his name.
CREDIT: Michael Causer Foundation Marie and Mike Causer have begun a campaign to raise £1 million to open a hostel for LGBT Youth at risk. Their aim is to provide temporary emergency care for gay and lesbians who are at risk of living on the streets.
Marie and Mike Causer set up the Michael Causer Foundation to provide housing and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people at risk in northwest England.
Marie Causer said,
“I want money people have donated in Michael’s memory to be used to help young people.”
“These youngsters need somewhere to go where they feel safe and are surrounded by people who have gone through a similar experience.”
Mrs Causer hopes to help young people aged 16-25.
“I did not want a stone or a plaque to be put up in his memory. I wanted to do something worth doing and I am very lucky to have the support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community behind me.
In August, it will be five years since Michael died
Marie added,
“I miss him so much. I think it’s his personality. He was a strong person and his personality outshone everything. I’ve met people just like Michael and I think if I give up who is going to be there for them?
“We need this house, we need accommodation for them. People say to me ‘if Michael wasn’t gay, would you be doing this?’ I say ‘yes’. Michael used to call the bingo and do events for charity. So, on some level, I’m helping because he would.”
The Michael Causer Foundation’s Development Worker, Kieran Bohan, was appointed in April to help achieve its vision: to create a society where LGBT young people feel safe, happy and understood; at home in their communities; and supported and empowered to achieve their full potential.
Kieran said,
‘I was on a stall at a youth centre when I overheard a child explain to her friend how Michael died, “He was killed because he loved another boy.”
‘If a ten-year-old can understand that no-one deserves to die because of who they are or who they love, then everybody can.’
The Foundation aims to raise £1m by 2015 to create a safe haven and provide round-the-clock support.
The first openly gay Lord Mayor in the country, Cllr Gary Millar, a trustee of the Foundation, took on the role of first citizen of Liverpool in May.
To boost their efforts, he has nominated the Michael Causer Foundation as one of four charities he will support during his year in office.
On the anniversary of Michael’s death each year, the Foundation leads a vigil in Temple Square, in Liverpool’s Stanley Street Quarter.
Marie’s son, Michael Causer was brutally murdered five years ago, was 18-years-old at the time of his attack.
Michael’s family believe was assaulted because of his sexuality, at a house party in Merseyside, he died 10 days later in the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery after undergoing extensive emergency surgery to his brain. However Michael’s killer was sentenced on the basis it was not a hate crime.
Two men were charged with murder, James O’Connor and Gavin Alker. Alker was acquitted of murder and manslaughter; O’Connor was convicted and sentenced to service life, with a minimum of 11 and half years before he could be considered for parole.
For more information please visit:www.michaelcauserfoundation.org.uk
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Graham Norton confirms split from boyfriend
The openly gay Irish entertainer Graham Norton has confimed that he has split from his long-term partner Trevor Patterson.
(C) BBC – Photographer: Andrew Hayes-Watkins Graham Norton and Canadian software designer Trevor Patterson have split after two years together, the Mirror is reporting.
Asked if he was in love, Norton replied,
“No, not at the moment.”
And told that someone would be very lucky to be with him, he comically cried,
“If only now, if only now. Tweet me.”
Norton had shared his London flat with Patterson, but is enjoying his own space again, with his beloved dogs.
He said,
“I love living alone, which sounds so miserable, doesn’t it? But it is one of my greatest joys.
“I have Bailey and Madge – so I’m never truly alone.”
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Father freaks out after his 3-year-old son told about gay marriage
Father of pre-school boy worried that ‘same-sex’ marriage is being discussed with children as young as three.
In a letter published by the Belfast Telegraph a father writes that ‘a homosexual’ told his son, 3, that ‘when they grew up, they could get married to a girl, or a boy.’
The letter begins:
‘MANY of your commentators have speculated as to what the wider implications of allowing same-sex marriages will be on society. I was given a stark illustration of this at the weekend.’
The man’s son, (names have been withheld), asked what marriage was, the father’s response was, ‘when a man and woman loved each other very much and wanted to spend their lives together.’
His son then told him that boys could get married too.
‘Apparently, his carer at nursery, a homosexual, told the entire class that he had great news: when they grew up, they could get married to a girl, or a boy.
Surely, my son is too young to have this discussion? If I were to complain, however, I would be labelled a bigot.’
The same-sex marriage bill has been debated and voted upon by the UK’s MPs and Lords and successfully passed the bill, which will now go to committee and the UK could be celebrating its first same-sex marriage in the summer of 2014.
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OPINION | When Pride Was About Pulling
Gay Pride events, what wonderful things they are. These days I like to get fully involved in the true meaning of pride and have an active role in community aspects of it.
I am even organising my county’s first ever Pride (www.warwickshirepride.co.uk). But there was a time in the not too distant past when going to Pride was all about pulling.
One year when I was particularly ‘mad fer it’, I went to Birmingham Pride with the intention of getting extremely drunk and copping off with as many guys as I could. How disappointed I was when it didn’t work out quite like that. What was even more disappointing was seeing each person I was at Pride with getting off with someone or at least having somebody show an interest. Even my heterosexual step-mother got hit on by a lesbian, but I had absolutely no interest in me at all. I know, how can that be possible?
I spent the afternoon at the famous Nightingale Club in Birmingham with my friends and step-mother. It was a typically rain drenched Pride day so we had decided to take shelter and get drunk. I went to the toilet with my step-mother to get dried off. At this point a guy armed with a bag full of hairdressing equipment said he would style my step-mothers hair (as you do in a unisex toilet at Gay Pride – anything goes, I guess). Upon leaving the toilet my step-mother had been transformed from a drowned rat into a glamourpuss courtesy of the dude carrying a hairdressing kit around Pride all day. As she strutted towards the bar, heads were turning and one particular woman walked up to her and said “alright darling”. My step-mother thought it was hilarious. I was horrified. Why was she getting hit on and I wasn’t?
I eventually saw the funny side of it and continued with my plan to pull. Once my step-mother had gone home and I was more able to misbehave, I began picking out the guys that I wanted to get jiggy with. Alas, more disappointment awaited. Nobody reciprocated the not so innocent feelings I had. Worse still, a girl I was with pulled a woman and my male mate pulled a man dressed as Queen Elizabeth 1st, which was quite bizarre actually.
Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t even going to get a Pride snog. So I got very drunk and shook what my mama gave me in the club that night. But the next morning something unexpected happened.
I was sharing a hotel room with my friend who had previously decided he was into guys that dress as Queen Elizabeth 1st, and somehow found myself in a tryst with him. It was nice. It was familiar. It wasn’t what I had intended, but sometimes these things just happen.
So although I did pull, I don’t really count it as it wasn’t with somebody I didn’t know. I went home feeling incredibly disappointed that I had failed in my task. My strike rate had been very high, but perhaps I just tried too hard that weekend.
Looking back, I am not too impressed with the way I conducted myself and now realise there is so much more to life than getting off with guys, and indeed more to Pride than pulling. However, on the other hand, I am glad I was like that because it has provided me with plenty of entertaining stories to tell my mates down the pub, and also some that I can share here.
However you view Pride and whatever you get up to while you are there, the only thing I must insist on is that you have pride in yourself and enjoy it. If you see it as an opportunity to pull, then go for it and be safe. If you see it as a time to protest and focus on the issues that LGBT people face, then I salute you and again say go for it. Pride can be whatever you want it to be.
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