U.S. Appeals Court rejects gay Zimbabwe man's appeal for asylum

[Thom Little]

A federal appeals court in St. Louis decided 2-1 on Tuesday to deny asylum to a man who claims he was persecuted for homosexuality in his home country, Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe declared homosexuality illegal in 1998, and is reported to have called gays "lower than pigs and dogs."

William J. Kimumwe, recently of Minneapolis, said he fears persecution. He cited cases from his past in Zimbabwe, in which he said he was expelled from school for having sex with another male student at age 12, in 1995, and detained for two months in 1998 after a fellow student reported a sexual encounter.

Kimumwe said he came to the U.S. in 2002, was eventually turned down for asylum and appealed.


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/91452220C7EC28AB862570D700169002?OpenDocument

[Der Blaue Engel]

1. I guess it would be a double standard

if we gave him asylum and then continued persecuting him here. :eyes:

[Mechatanketra]

4. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.

Asking America to protect you from anti-homosexual bias is like looking for the perfect pulled pork recipe in Jerusalem: maybe it's not impossible, but you're really not playing the odds ...

[Charlie Brown]

2. The dissent:

Judge Gerald Heaney, the lone dissenter, said the immigration judge who denied asylum overlooked "Kimumwe's unrefuted testimony that the officers who arrested him made it clear he was arrested for being gay, not for having sex." Heaney also pointed to Mugabe's vow that Zimbabwe would do "everything in its power" to combat homosexuality.

"Our country ought not sanction the return of an openly gay man to a country whose leader has vowed to rid the country of homosexuals," Heaney wrote.


There was at least one voice of reason in this case.

Here's a link to the opinion, if anyone is interested:

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opns/opFrame.html The case is number 04-2716

[mitchtv]

3. If only he were a Cuban plane bomber

the doors would be wide open

[LostinVA]

5. Canada would probably take him in