Eurovision 2015: Belgium's Entry

Belgium's Eurovision entry was selected by state media and today the track to be performed by 18 year-old Loïc Nottet was unveiled. There's a lot going on in this video, but I think it's supposed to be some statement about gender roles. Or maybe not. Nottet came in third in last year's Belgian version of The Voice and his label, Sony Music, says this: "Our first objective was to choose a song that definitely does not sound like a typical Eurovision Song Contest song. The world of Loïc Nottet is very far from the contest."

And That's The End Of That

LIVE STREAM: Belgium Vs USA

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Tweet Of The Day - Waffle House

USA vs Belgium starts at 4pm EDT.

Eurovision 2014: Belgium's Entry

Another bear, another ballad. So So Gay reports on Belgium's Eurovision finals, which were held Sunday night.

It is the turn of the Flanders region of Belgium to select the country’s entry this year, and they went back to using a national final for the first time since 2008 to choose the artist and song. After one of those processes that takes a lot of weeks to narrow down not a lot of acts, we were left with six potential entries battling it out last night. The winner was Axel Hirsoux with ‘Mother,’ which overwhelmingly beat the competition. Winning 57% of the televote as well as being the favourite of the international juries, ‘Mother’ was the clear winner.

Another site observes: "Axel becomes the first Walloon-born Belgian to win a Flemish-produced Eurovision selection." As I've made amply clear, my Eurovision tastes lean towards the over-the-top glitzy silliness that have so characterized the contest over the decades. But this might be my favorite 2014 entry. What a voice! I'm not finding much background detail about Alex Hirsoux, but he is a bear singing about his mother. So...

Belgians Protest At Russian Embassy

Vitaly Milonov, one of the authors of Russia's "homosexual propaganda" ban, speaks briefly at the end of this clip.

Updated Global Marriage Map

After last week's first gay wedding in France, the Agency France-Presse posted the above map.

Updated Gay Marriage Map

Source.

Ten Years Of Gay Marriage For Belgium

Belgium's Tomorrowland 2012

A giant straight version of a circuit party: "More than 180,000 visitors attended one of the most beautiful and talked about festivals in world. The 8th edition of Tomorrowland was one that would never be forgotten. An amazing festival, a magic location, wonderful decor, more than 400 artists and by far the best public in the world!" Wikipedia claims that all 180K tickets sold out in one day, leaving two million people on waiting lists.

(Tipped by JMG reader Ray)

Billboard Of The Day

The above ad can presently been seen on Brussels mass transit. Not mentioned in the text is the parade of vehicles apparently carrying nuclear missiles along the river bank. Copyranter has a quote from from the head of European Conservatives:

The posters were "either a mistake or a piece of poorly disguised Putin propaganda. If Aeroflot did not intend to send a political message then they should withdraw the advert. If they were acting as a proxy for Putin then the EU should make it clear that it has no intention of being intimidated."

Aeroflot and Russian officials have declined to comment.

BRUSSELS: Anti-LGBT Lobby Linked To American Conservative Groups

The EU Observer reports that the anti-gay lobby in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union, has financial links to anti-gay conservative groups in the United States.

One such lobby group is European Dignity Watch, founded in 2010, advocating "life, the family and fundamental freedoms." According to the EU transparency register, it has an annual budget of €80,816 - all in the form of anonymous donations. It rallies against abortion, euthanasia, but most ardently against gay rights. It accuses the European Parliament of pressuring member states into legalising same-sex marriage, and the European Commission of bias for hosting a pro-gay photo exhibition.

Among those suspected of secretly funding European anti-gay groups is the Heritage Foundation, the DC-based conservative think tank founded in 1973 by Joseph Coors. The anti-gay groups cited in the EU Observer's article vehemently deny that they are paid by American organizations.

BELGIUM: Gay Prime Minister Sworn In

Elio Di Rupo, the openly gay head of Belgium's Socialist Party, took the oath of office yesterday before King Albert II. Di Rupo becomes the world's second openly gay head of government after Iceland's Johanna Sigurdardottir.

In a ceremony at the ornate royal palace, the son of Italian immigrants completed a remarkable personal journey that took him from an impoverished childhood in Belgium's rustbelt south to become the leader of Belgium. Amid small talk and jokes with King Albert II, the 13 ministers and 6 state secretaries took the oath, much to the relief of the nation of 6.5 million Dutch speakers and 4.5 million French speakers frustrated with lawmakers' inability to form a government over linguistic differences.

Di Rupo is Belgium's first French-speaking leader in 40 years. He has vowed to learn Dutch.

Belgium To Get Gay Prime Minister

Belgium's national election was last summer, but it was only this week that the European debt crisis finally forced the formation of a coalition government. And leading that coalition will be the quietly gay head of the Socialist Party, Elio Di Rupo. In 1996 journalists demanded to know if Di Rupo was gay. His famed response: "Yeah. So?"

Judging by media reports, the real problem Di Rupo will face is that he doesn't speak Dutch.

Mr. Di Rupo, the son of an Italian immigrant, will take office committed to cutting 11.3 billion euros (about $15.2 billion) from the national budget. He has also promised to improve his spoken Dutch, which is glaringly weak in a country where officials and politicians routinely are fluent in both of the country’s main languages, and in English, another tongue that gives Mr. Di Rupo trouble. “If you’re looking for public support for a government, it may be a problem when the leader of that government has difficulty speaking the language of the majority,” Yves Leterme, the caretaker prime minister who will yield to Mr. Di Rupo on Monday, said on Dutch television.

The Guardian also worries about Di Rupo's language skills.

At 60, he will be Belgium's first French-speaking prime minister in 30 years, a rare centre-left voice in a European Union that has veered right, and one of few proudly gay world leaders. He's also the first Socialist to take the premiership in Belgium since 1974. But he speaks poor Dutch. This is a serious problem in a country where language is so important and so fiercely protected that, in areas of Dutch-speaking Flanders, town council meetings can find their decisions annulled if anyone is heard to utter a word of French.

(Tipped by JMG reader Subtle Knife)

Eurovision 2011: Belgium's Witloof Bay

Don't think I've ever seen an a capella + beatbox Eurovision entry. Very Manhattan Transfer. I like this.

Not This Year's Nobel Peace Prize Winner

In the midst of a campaign to see him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Belgium's revered Father Francois Houtart has confessed to child molestation.

The confession was published in a Belgian newspaper Wednesday and confirmed by the organization the priest founded, deepening a sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the country. After a spate of accusations this year, the church in September published the harrowing accounts of more than 100 victims of clerical sex abuse, some as young as 2 when they were assaulted. In October, after supporters of 85-year-old Francois Houtart began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago, according to its director, Bernard Duterme.

The committee to nominate Houtart for his anti-globalization work has disbanded.

BELGIUM: Archbishop Andre Leonard Hit With Pie Following AIDS Remarks

Days after comments in which he declared that AIDS was God's punishment for being gay, Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard was struck with a pie as he stood at the altar during a service.

Footage of the incident released Saturday showed a young man approaching Archbishop Andre Leonard on Monday and smacking him with a pie. A church official says the archbishop will not press charges against the unknown attacker. The incident came amid growing turmoil within Belgium's Roman Catholic church, which faces an investigation into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Leonard himself shocked Catholics by sympathizing with priests accused of pedophilia and by saying that homosexuals deserved to get AIDS.

On Tuesday the Archbishop's spokesman resigned, saying, "Archbishop Léonard has sometimes acted like someone who’s driving against the traffic and thinks everyone else is wrong.”

PhoboQuotable - Belgium's Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard

“When you mistreat the environment it ends up mistreating us in turn. And when you mistreat human love, perhaps it winds up taking vengeance. All I’m saying is that sometimes there are consequences linked to our actions. this epidemic is a sort of intrinsic justice." - Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, saying that AIDS is God's punishment for being gay. Leonard also said that seeking vengeance on pedophile priests was "inhumane," a remark from which he later retreated.

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

California: Pastor Leonel Pelayo charged with sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl.
Ottawa: Father Robin Barrett convicted of possessing tens of thousands of child porn videos and images.
Florida: Pastor Steven Rowe charged with molesting four students at the Christian middle school where he is headmaster.
Texas: Father Chester W. King arrested for lewd behavior in a public park.
California: Pastor Carlton F. Hammonds on trial for sexual assault of two teenagers.
Florida: Pastor Gregory Sims pleads guilty to embezzling $800K from the union benefit fund he managed and funneling the loot to his church.
Britain: Reverend Alex Brown sentenced to four years in prison for conducting 360 sham marriages between EU citizens and undocumented immigrants. Each couple paid up to £15,000 for Brown to marry them.
Louisiana: Father Alejandro Flores convicted of child molestation.
Connecticut: Father Martin Federici sued by convicted rapist who claims his molestation at Federici's hands turned him into a sexual predator.
Massachusetts: Father Thomas M. Curran once again accused of child molestation after being cleared by his Archdiocese in 2007.

This Week's Winner
Belgium: An independent commission has released a report documenting the cases of over 500 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and officials of the Belgian Catholic Church. Two-thirds of the victims are male and 13 suicides are linked to the assaults. Cardinal Godfried Danneels this week admitted wrongdoings and apologized for the cover-up. Belgium has no law requiring church officials to report sexual crimes to the police.

Fireworks At European Parliament

I guess they don't mince their words in the EU Parliament.

(Via - AmericaBlog)