Closet Encounters
Marriage Is the Issue Confronting U.S. Gays, But in Some Places, It’s Prison, Torture — Or Worse
By Leela Jacinto
April 12 — On that fateful May 2001 night when a ghastly watershed in official Egyptian homophobia was set, Maher Sabry missed the party on the Queen Boat, a floating disco moored on the Nile.

The Egyptian writer and theater director was too tired to drag himself to the popular Cairo gay hangout that night, so he stayed home. It was a decision that was to change the course of his life.

In a crackdown that gripped the country and provoked widespread international condemnation, Egyptian security officials swooped down on the party and arrested about three dozen men. More than 50 of them were then put on high-profile trials on charges ranging from "devil worshipping" to "habitual debauchery."


While international rights groups dismissed the trials as "spurious," the local media published the names and photographs of several detainees — a personally crushing disclosure in a conservative society.


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Jury makeup in Araujo trial reveals diverse group
By Ivan Delventhal, STAFF WRITER
HAYWARD -- Of the 12 jurors who will decide the fate of three men charged with the killing of a Newark transgender teen, only three live in the Tri-City area, but the slaying generated such publicity that all but two of the 12 say they heard about it when it happened.

A more complete picture has emerged of the 12 Alameda County residents who will take their seats in a jury box this week for opening statements in the trial of Michael Magidson, 23, of Fremont and Newark residents Jose Merel and Jason Cazares, both 24.

They are charged with murder and a hate-crime enhancement in the killing of the teen, who was born Eddie Araujo but was living as a girl named Gwen at the time of the October 2002 killing.


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Festival offers gay blessings
by Maddy Biddulph
Gay couples will have the chance to take part in blessing and commitment ceremonies at a festival in Oxford.

Oxford Pride, a free event celebrating the county's gay community on May 1, is offering gay couples the chance to formally celebrate their relationship in front of friends and family, a month after the Civil Partnerships Bill was introduced.