Gays not safe anywhere with 'gay bashing'

Last week a U.S. senior news producer with CBS and his co-worker suffered severe injuries after being attacked by 4 men and 2 women outside of a gay bar in St. Maarten. One of the injured men required a titanium plate in his head, the other is still in intensive care, suffering from severe neurological damage.
So, when I read things like this, people like MadMax make my blood boil. It's intolerance and and discrimination that leads to incidents like the one in St. Maarten. What I don't understand is why some "straight people" thing they have the right and duty to gay bash. What did those two men ever do to them?

Asylum detentions 'breaking law'

I thought it might be interesting to look at this article to compare our detention facilities and practices to the U.Ks. Britian believes it is neccesary to detain asylum seekers to control immigration. While others argue that the government can't lock people up simply because they are seeking asylum.

Si se puede...

This chant was heard at many immigration rallies across the nation yesterday. There were protest in more than 140 cities across 39 different states, all in favor of giving the 11-12 million undocumented immigrations a chance to live the American Dream. The protestors want to send a clear message that immigrants are fed up and tired, and that they too work hard to have a chance to live in this country. The question that this CNN article deals with, is do these undocumented immigrants deserve the right to become legal although they have broken the law by coming to America illegally? The article ends with with a brief overview of some options that Congress has been looking at to deal with the hot topic of immigration.

Asylum seeker can stay with her lover

Ok, so I found another article. This article discusses the right to protect families under Article 8 of Human Rights law. It stresses somes of the main topics we have discussed in class. A "life sentence" will be placed on this couple and either their family will stay together or be torn apart. I think that keeping families together is important and that some type of system should be made to try to keep families together, whether it is in a host country or an individual's country of origin.

Also, the article discusses past violent abuse on one of the women by her former husband. Will women who have been abused be the next social group under asylum law? What would the consquences of that be?

I think that strict regulations need to be enforced and followed when dealing with asylum cases, but I also feel that it is just not humane to separate families. Some individuals do not have anything to rely on in their lives besides family members. In the end, if we cannot even have enough compassion to keep loved ones together, how can we ever have enough sympathy, morality or compassion to deal with giving human beings international rights or legal protection? I am in no way saying certain people should not be deported, but shouldn't there be some type of way to keep families together if they want to be?

BURUNDI-RWANDA: Gov't to expel asylum seekers

I found this article to be interesting and possibly controversial. Asylum seekers from Rwanda are going to be sent back to their country if they are not eligible for refugee status. Aren't refugees and asylum seekers different? How can a country throw away requests for asylum by thousands of people at one time? Though every case may not meet the grounds for asylum, each case should be individually heard. What will happen to all of the individuals who never got a chance to have their stories heard? Is it okay for asylum seekers to fall through the cracks thousands at a time?