Freedom of Speech - HAHABT 2015

Isn't it strange how people who speak out against the LGBT community tend to paint themselves as the victims? We see it happen all the time. A recent example from the USA is a small pizza place that said they'd refuse to serve at a same-sex wedding. They got nearly $840,000 from people who saw the owners of the pizza place as the true victims for the backlash they received. According to their supporters, they had a right to state their opinions, even if it showed massive bigotry. A recent example in Iceland is a musician spreading and advocating hate against LGBT people when a town decided to add education about homosexuality into their schools' curriculum. Sadly, he had supporters, about 400 of them the last time I knew. That may seem like a tiny number to the big world out there, but there are only about 320,000 people living in Iceland, so 400 is a lot. They set up a Facebook page and called it "Protect the Children" and hateful things were said. But the difference between the USA and Iceland is that ten of those people are now facing lawsuits for their words.

Image by Wilpersou via FreeImages.com

Of course, the musician and his followers are now the "true" victims in all this, not being allowed freedom of speech and stating their "humble" opinions. What they failed to understand is that freedom of speech has its limit in Iceland. You're allowed to say whatever the hell you want as long as it doesn't ridicule, calumniate, insult, or assault a person or a group of people because of their nationality, color, race, religion, or sexual inclination (General Penal Code, article 233 a). In other words, they're not allowed to verbally attack what is already a vulnerable minority group. If these ten people people are found guilty, they'll get heavy fines or prison for up to two years (but most likely it'll only be fines). 

Image by ilco via FreeImages.com

So, people over here are allowed to have their opinions, but they're not allowed to express them however they please in public. It sounds bad when you say it like that, but given the alternative of allowing hate speech without consequences, it isn't bad at all. Many countries forbid hate speech and are certainly not worse for it. Countries like Sweden, The Netherlands, France, and South Africa. Canada has banned the Westboro Baptist Church for entering their borders because of hate speech ("Church members enter Canada, aiming to picket bus victim's funeral", CBC News, 8 August 2008.).
You see, when Freedom of Speech was first introduced, it did have its limits. John Stuart Mill introduced the "Harm Principle" that would put limitation on freedom of speech. He said "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." ("Freedom of Speech". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 April 2008.).

Image by lusi via FreeImages.com

Prevent harm to others, he said. But what are anti-LGBT activists doing? They are spreading nasty messages about LGBT people to cause harm. "Harm" doesn't always mean that it's physical, it can be financial, libel, and injustice. It can be a mob yelling demeaning things at a single person, and no one can convince me that it wouldn't cause the person psychological harm. Hell, they're allowed to spread lies about minority groups without having to face any consequences. Really, outright lies!

Image by coachen via FreeImages.com

I think that officials in these countries - especially the USA that prides itself of free speech - are afraid of actually trying to put legal restriction on hate speech. They're afraid of backlash from the public and their fellow congressmen (because congressmen will use everything to attack one another in elections), of being accused of trying suppress opinions. Because that's what bullies do: they're loud, they act out, and they throw around big words and accusations to get their way. But these officials wouldn't be suppressing opinions, they'd only be limiting how these opinions are expressed in public, and the only reason they would do that would be to protect minority groups from harm. Freedom of speech is a human right, but how is it a human right not to be able to get justice for someone spreading lies about you and trying to get others to hate you because you're Hispanic/gay/Muslim/disabled/etc.?

Image by haiinee via FreeImages.com

Now, most of my readers and fellow authors are United States citizens. I respect that you may have a different opinion about freedom of speech. This post is not about ridiculing Americans. It is simply about me being unhappy with acceptance - even protection - of hate speech when it does more harm than good (in my opinion ^.^). 

In relation to this, but also on a completely different note, a study was made in 1996 about homophobes. The result? "...students who had the greatest sexual identity conflict -- young men and women who reported a straight identity while scoring highest on homosexual tendencies -- also exhibited a number of behaviors consistent with homophobia. They tended to report more negative or fearful attitudes toward gays and lesbians, tended to be biased against homosexuals in hypothetical situations, and were more likely to endorse anti-gay policies." (ibtimes.com) Meaning that those who protest the loudest are most likely to be homosexual. Here's a video that explains the study:

I should have started the post with the below introduction, but I wanted to dive right into the issue. Today is the International Day Against Homopohobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. For the last four years, I've been organizing the Hop Against Homophobia, Bi- and Transphobia with friends. The hop starts today and ends on the 24th. Over 100 authors, publishers, reviewers, and cover designers of LGBT literature are taking part in the hop to spread the message about bi-, trans-, and homophobic discrimination, and stand together against discrimination of our books. It is tradition to offer a prize. I'm offering one of my ebooks to four people who comment. The winners will be chosen at random and may choose which ebook and in what format. I will draw the winners on the 25th and contact them, so please include your email or a way for me to contact you (e.g. a facebook link) in your comment. But everyone can get something: I have a number of free works that anyone can download.

If you're interested in more articles about the issue in Iceland, here are a couple of links:
Freedom Of Speech
Come On Kids, Let's All Join Hands And Be Gay!

Here are other links on free speech vs. hate speech:
Free Speech isn't Free
Here Is Why It's Time To Get Though On Hate Speech In America
Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S.

And below are the links to the rest of the people taking part.

Happy hopping :)

Edited: The winners are redtigerburninglust, Kassandra, MA Church, and Trix. Congrats :) You will receive email shortly. 

Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia: Holocaust

Most people have heard of the Holocaust that took place under Nazi German rule between 1933-1945. Millions of people were brutally killed by guns, gas chambers, and concentration camps. Most were Jews, but there were also other groups that ended up in those camps. The lesser talked about were the estimated 100,000 homosexuals (mostly men) who were arrested, over half of which were sentenced to the camps or simply murdered. Like the Jews and all other groups, the homosexuals were forced to wear a triangle. Theirs was pink. I doubt it's a coincidence that the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia's symbol is a pink triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle:

Take action against homophobic and transphobic discrimination!

Taking action is exactly what May 17th is all about. You can help by posting about homophobic and transphobic discrimination, reading about it, donating to LGBT charity organizations, and just get the word out there. Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia is the effort of nearly 180 writers, publishers, reviewers, and cover designers to spread the word and to try to get our readers active during the day and for ten days thereafter. Please stop by and read our messages. A prize will be given at each stop.

Back to the topic: a holocaust is a thing of the past, right? Wrong. LGBT people in all countries (even in tolerant Iceland, although it's not very frequent or visible) have to face homophobic and transphobic discrimination. In some countries, they are killed, either by officials or the public.

There are many, many countries that imprison people for their sexuality. One such country is Uganda, but they want to take things further. They have been on the verge of a homosexual and transsexual holocaust twice now, trying to push through the "Kill the Gays Bill". Politicians want all homosexual and trans* people imprisoned, and everyone who helps them in any way (this includes their landlord for renting them a roof over their heads). They want the public to point out who's gay or even displaying homosexual/transsexual behavior. If this bill ever goes through, one must make certain never to touch an individual of the same gender for too long or they run the risk of being accused of being same-sex oriented, and thereby thrown in jail or hanged. If this bill goes through, it will be a modern-day holocaust.

Currently, the bill's been put on hold, but if you ever see it prop up again (it's on the agenda for 2013), I beg you to sign petitions against it and do whatever you can to stop it. Every little bit helps. 

In honor of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, I'm donating $50 to Icebreakers Uganda, and will make it my choice of future donations when I have more money. If you have money to spare, this is a great cause. Frank Mugisha and his people have been working hard to stand up for LGBTI rights, but it's like swimming upstream with all the public and political prejudice in Uganda. They need all the backing they can get.

Now, if you leave a comment below along with your email address, you may have a chance to win a book from my backlist. I will use Random.org to choose, announce and contact 3 winners on May 28th.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia: Sign-Ups

 

We've opened sign-ups for Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia. There are a few changes this year, so please read the post carefully before signing up. We hope for another great year ^.^

ETA: The sign-ups are temporarily unavailable. We're changing the hop a little, to make it even better. I'll flood the channels again when sign-ups are back up :)

ETA: The sign-ups are back in business! We welcome (self-) published authors, reviewers, publishers and cover designers of LGBTQ literature to take part.

February 2012 Recap

February 2012:

I started the month setting up reading goals...which crashed an burned spectacularly! What can I say? I was busy with edits.

I was also busy expanding on my m/m-only blog hop idea. Originally, it was only supposed to be a giveaway of m/m books only (since I'd taken part in many blog hops where I'd had to wade through m/f books to find the few m/m books to sign up for). However, once I read about the International Day Against Homophobia, the goals changed, and my friend K-Lee Klein came up with the name Hop Against Homophobia. N.J. Nielsen was also a part in the organizing. The goals were now "to help create awareness against homophobia and to stand together as an m/m genre (authors, publishers, reviewers AND readers) to try to help the world see gay fiction as first class literature, not second class." We felt it was important to stand together as a community of m/m because RWA had grossly discriminated against m/m by excluding same-sex stories from a contest of theirs.

February 17th was a release day! Some readers didn't seem as keen on Grade-A-Sex Deal as they were on Hot Hands, mainly because of the subject (teacher-student relationship) and the darker theme of the story. However, there were a number of "I didn't think I'd like this story because of the subject, but...".

Paypal started censoring books and I felt they were sniffing around way too close to m/m, which only reinforced my determination to make Hop Against Homophobia a success. I didn't want m/m books to be pushed under a dirty carpet as some form of indecency! These were great books that had to be seen. So now, the HAH team didn't want to make a splash anymore, we wanted to make a tsunami.

HAH Winners

Hi guys :)

Thank you all for taking part in the Hop Against Homophobia. The participants worked hard on their posts and the visitors left thought provoking comments. All in all, the outcome was far beyond my expectations, and I'm thrilled. 

I've drawn the winners from my giveaway, and they are:

For a choice off my backlist (any pre-May release):

Sal - (flubber2kool...)

SiNn - (mortalsinn...)

Rissa - (raynman1979...)

Absolutely Eric:

Luci - (elle.cee6...)

$40 donation to the Samtökin 78 will be given in the name of:

Cole!

I have sent mail to the winners.

Thank you all for stopping by and I hope to see you all in next year's hop :)

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Hop Against Homophobia!

It's time! It's the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. It's the day where we stand up and and say no to homophobic and transphobic discrimination. It's a day where we honor GLBTQ people and their rights and remind the world of the injustice they've gone through, but it's also a day to be celebrated because a lot has been accomplished in fight against homophobia and it's worth noting those things in hope that it will give inspiration and hope.

I'd like to talk about homophobia and transphobia in my home country, Iceland. I've been saying left and right that there isn't much homophobia here, because the people I know aren't homophobic. The media and society here also appear to be very supportive of GLBTQ people, but I felt uncomfortable stating this during this hop, in case I was wrong. So I stopped by the Samtökin 78, The National Queer Organization, last week and spoke with the director, Árni Grétar Jóhannsson. 

Icelandic Prime Minister
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

First, Iceland is a small country with around 300,000 inhabitants. The general public is not heavily religious and most of the churches here are liberal and welcoming to everyone (GLBTQ people included). We have a lesbian prime minister, but no one really cares. We have a lot of people in show business who are openly gay and, for the most part, they don't suffer for that. In fact, they're generally more respected for being open about themselves.

Iceland hasn't always been open to homosexuality - far from it. In a 1975 interview with Hörður Torfason, the first Icelandic man to openly admit his homosexuality in a magazine, he talks about how homosexuality shouldn't be anyone's business. He also talked about the hardships he'd gone through because of the rumors of him being gay. Among other things, he couldn't rent an apartment and had to take a lot of verbal (and hinted at physical) abuse. He had to flee the country after the interview, because his life was threatened. This is truly heartbreaking, and the worst thing is that this is still what GLBTQ people have to face today in many countries. But a lot has changed in Iceland since 1975.

Samtökin 78

Árni confirmed that there isn't a lot of homophobia in Iceland. Samtökin 78 has been working tirelessly for 30 years for the Icelandic community to accept GLBTQ and to protect the rights of GLBTQ people. Árni told me that the first thing they did was to take the words "lesbia" and "hommi" and make it their own, so in Iceland it's perfectly acceptable to use those terms (though I feel wary about using "hommi", because "homo" in English is usually offensive). They go to schools and educate the kids. They also get called out to the schools especially if there's extra need (if prejudice pops up in relation to a GLBTQ child, for example). They're also very active in the community and make sure that the government doesn't do anything silly that would compromise the interests of the people they represent. 

Icelandic pop star, Paul Oscar

Working alongside the Samtökin 78 is Paul Oscar, Iceland's most beloved pop singer. I remember him from when I was a teen and I also remember how he repeatedly shocked the public into acceptance with his videos, interviews, and just by being his gorgeous, amazing, fun and charming self. Absolutely nothing is taboo when it comes to him and he'll answer any question on homosexuality, not matter how intrusive. Árni confirmed that he's been a huge part of bringing acceptance of gays and lesbians in Iceland. 

Celebrity stylist Karl Berndsen

There are more public figures that have helped bring acceptance. There's Friðrik Ómar, a singer who's flamboyant like Paul Oscar, but is married to a man and they walk hand-in-hand like any other couple to public events. There's the confident and eloquent Karl Berndsen, a hair and makeup stylist who moved back to Iceland a few years back and did a TV series. There are many more, but it's time to move on to the less positive sides...

There may be less homophobia in Iceland than in many other countries, but that is not to say that there is none. What were harmless "homo jokes" and comments before, now sound offensive to me and is probably hurtful to others. There is also gossip about GLBTQ people in smaller communities...but then there's also a whole lot of gossip about everyone else, so I guess this will never change. Árni was able to name four loud voices - bloggers - in Iceland who actively speak out against GLBTQ people, and one church (that is not a part of the national Lutheran church). However, the government and city officials are clear: homophobic discrimination is not acceptable. The church had been promised funds from the city, but the promise was withdrawn when Reykjavik learned of the church's anti-GLBTQ speech and ideals. One of the bloggers is a school teacher in Akureyri (the largest town in the north), but he got discharged because of his anti-GLBTQ speech, as it was likely to influence the children. He appealed, saying it had nothing to do with his teaching, so he's still teaching today, but Akureyri isn't giving up and the lawsuit is still going.

Web-TV Star Vala Grand

Trans people, unfortunately, are not as accepted as gays and lesbians. Árni told me that two years ago, the rights of trans people were in the same place as the rights of gay and lesbian people were thirty years before. For the past two years, Samtökin has been working hard to fight for trans-rights, and to educate the public. Things seem to be changing for the better though, and a lot of it has to do with Vala Grand, another public figure who isn't afraid to express herself. Physically, she used to be a he, but has now gone through a sex change. She has been very open about the whole process and hosts her own web-TV shows that are very popular. I can only hope that by being herself and allowing others to get to know her, transphobia in Iceland will quickly die down. But there's still work to be done, because a few weeks back, a trans-man was badly beat up in a bar for being who he is.

Beside writing this blog and organizing the hop, there is one other thing I've done today. I've joined the Samtökin 78, as it is for GLBTQ people and everyone else who wants to lend their support. By joining, I am openly standing up and telling my countrymen that I support GLBTQ people and rights. I'm also writing a proposal for my home town, pleading with them to renew their contract with Samtökin 78, so that Samtökin can continue educating the children in our school and provide their services to the GLBTQ people and their families in my home town. Samtökin 78 operates on donations and membership fees alone. Which brings me to the next part...

I want to thank everyone for stopping by and here is what I have to offer in the giveaway today: 

an e-book from my backlist for three different people - winner's choice (anything released before May). 

An e-copy of Absolutely Eric for one winner.

And here's the best part: a 5,000 Icelandic kronur donation to the Samtökin 78 in the name of one winner (roughly $40 according to today's exchange rate). 

If you'd like to be entered for the drawing of these prizes, please leave a comment to this post with your email address. If you feel uncomfortable leaving your email address, you can send me mail: eripike at gmail dot com (but please leave a comment as well, saying that you've sent me mail).

This hop, Hop Against Homophobia, is an attempt of nearly 250 m/m writers, reviewers and publishers to bring about awareness of homophobic discrimination. Each blog is giving out at least one prize. To visit the other sites, please click this link.

I hope that you've learned something from this entry, namely that it's possible to reach very positive result in national GLBTQ rights. All it takes is time and people to stand up for those rights.

The Purpose of Hop Against Homophobia

Hi guys,

There's a new post up on Hop Against Homophobia. We were recently made aware of a blog post that talked about how wrong this hop is, and the person who wrote that post made a very valid point. We're hoping that today's post will help clear any misunderstanding about the purpose of this hop. 

Hop Winners and a Word on Homophobia

There were 40 entries to my giveaway this time, which is more than last time and absolutely fantastic. It still indicates that I have a lot of work to do for the m/m-only blog hop in May. We'll want greater numbers than 40 with 130 m/m authors, publishers and reviewers already signed up (and more coming). If you're an m/m author, publisher or reviewer (don't have to be m/m-exclusive publisher or reviewer) and want to take part in the Hop Against Homophobia, sign-ups will be open until May 16th. The more the merrier.

If you're a reader, we'd love it if you could mark down this event and tell your m/m-reading friend about it. This is for a good cause: to help create awareness against homophobia and to stand together as an m/m genre (authors, publishers, reviewers AND readers) to try to help the world see gay fiction as first class literature, not second class. I'm sure many of you caught the RWA's stint of excluding same-sex romance stories from entering their More than Magic contest. RWA cancelled the contest after an uproar from the GLBT community and supporters, but they followed the cancellation up with a lame excuse that shows that the m/m genre still has a lot of work ahead of itself to be considered normal. We hope that Hop Against Homophobia will be a step toward making that happen.

But you  probably came here to see if you won! The plan was to draw three winners, one for each prize offered, but since I have two kids I decided to draw four winners. What I did was print out the entrants' names, cut it down in strips, fold the whole lot up and let them draw two each.

The winners are:

Valerie - A Life Without You

PD Singer - Hot Hands

Lisa - Hot Hands

Valentina - Grade-A-Sex Deal (it will be out very soon!)

Congrats guys :) I'll send out the emails later today. For the rest of you, I'm so sorry you didn't win this time, but I'm taking part in the Easter hop where you'll get another chance :) Then, of course, there's the May 17th Hop Against Homophobia where my prizes will be a bit more extravagant and in greater numbers. 

Until then, you're welcome to download my very short but very sweet free story, In His Pocket. If you get warning messages, just continue to click "continue" until you get the file to download (I hear this can be a problem for international people).

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