CGT News
12/10/2010
Volume 1, Issue 1
Editors: Christina Miller, Garrett Salter and Tawana King
Special Interest Central Michigan University
Articles pg 1:
• What you need
What you need to know about
IPPF
to know about The International Planned
IPPF Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a
global organization whose most
• How IPPF is informative website can be found
at www.ippf.org . The IPPF is a
Globally
global leader in human sexual
Involved rights and healthy sexual living.
• IPPF Tools that The mission and purpose of the
you must know IPPF as defined in their website;
“A global service provider and a
leading advocate of sexual and
reproductive health and rights for
all” (IPPF). In our opinion the IPPF
is a great educator of human
sexual exploits and current human
rights issues faced worldwide.
The IPPF seems to have the
interest of a global community
versus a single region and /or
country. They are long standing
fighter of human rights and
advocate sexual responsibility and
responsible family planning with
the ever growing world population
Special Interest increase.
Articles pg 2:
The IPPF can be classified as an
unbiased organization devoted to
human health and safety. The
• What is information provided on their
Trembling website is the most current with up
Before G-d? to date information of healthy
sexual living. Additionally, the
IPPF has current event links to
• The mission of
global media outlets detailing up to
Trembling date news articles related to either
Before G-d human rights and/ or information
about current sexual trends to also
• Is this film include sexual disease awareness.
resourceful for
The website titled International
our peers? Planned Parenthood Federation,
hereinafter, IPPF, is just that, an
organization based upon
international awareness related to
sexual and reproductive health.
The IPPF is chaired by Dr.
Jacqueline Sharpe who is a
licensed child and adolescent
psychiatrist. According to IPPF,
there are approximately 36
million visits to over 58,000 IPPF
facilities located throughout the
world.
The IPPF provides an
abundance of resources related
to sexual and reproductive
health, i.e. family planning
handbook, unsafe abortion
awareness, HIV/AIDS
awareness, adolescent sex
access to contraceptives and
gender equality.
The IPPF is globally involved in
influencing world and political
view related to unsafe sex
practices and diseases.
Additional to handouts the IPPF
they also provide videos related
to the topics mentioned in this
report. According to the IPPF
they advocate the five “A’s” that
being abortion, access (gender
equality), adolescents, advocacy
and AIDS/HIV.
Currently, Dr. Jacqueline Sharpe
is promoting a legislation to
promote abortions in Kenya,
Africa. Dr. Sharpe indicates her
reason is to advocate women’s
rights to fertility and to promote
safe abortion practices.
Currently, unsafe abortion
practices are being implemented
in Kenya placing lives at risk
according to IPPF and Dr.
Sharpe. Additionally, the IPPF is
taking a stance on gay and
lesbian lifestyles, promoting
understanding and acceptance.
We believe the International
Planned Parenthood Federation
website would be beneficial to our
peers. IPPF contains an abundance
of valuable information from
Hormonal Contraceptives to the
location of these useful facilities.
Locations of these facilities can be
found in 170 countries and include
countries such as the Africa Nation,
Europe and the Western
Hemisphere Region to name a few.
As explained earlier, IPPF also has
some great tools that can be used
such as articles, newsletters,
guides, toolkits and even films to
educate visitors on areas needing
support. Because of these
resources within this site, peers can
easily gain access to their database
to find out certain rights and
campaigns for sexual and
reproductive health care.
We believe that this website
provides us with new insights on the
many challenges that often go un-
noticed. We were not aware that a
website like this existed and found it
assuring to know that something so
educational is out there. We think
that this website needs to be more
exposed to children in international
school settings, High School mainly.
Exposing this website to these
students will allow them to become
more aware of the issues at hand,
and what they need to do to protect
them if faced with any of these
challenges. Many countries are
naïve when it comes to one’s health
because of the lack of education,
mainly third world countries
therefore, this website would be a
great source of valuable information.
Please visit www.ippf.org for more
information!

“I thought for awhile, how
can I be a Jewish Lesbian?
How does that go
together?”
“Women’s name not identified”
Trembling Before G-d
Trembling Before G-D was produced
by Simchaleid production and
produced by Sandi Simcha and Marc
Smolowitz. It can be viewed at
www.snagfilms.com/films/title/tremblin
g before g d/ .
The mission and /or purpose of this
production are to bring to light the
struggles, trials and tribulation of being
gay/ lesbian and practicing Judaism in
today’s current society.
This film highlights some who are
practicing Judaism and are gay. They
live in fear to be open about their
sexuality. This is due to a strong
fundamentalist base of staunch Jews;
however, devotion to God is as strong
if not stronger by those who are gay
but, they still live in fear of reprisal,
family/community rejection and
religious outcast.
The information was very current for
the day and defines social
misunderstanding of the homosexual
community, especially as it relates to
religion.
We felt the information and dialogue
within this film was unbiased, due to
the fact we are speaking of human
emotion and rights. Some could say
they view this as propaganda;
however, we view this as informative
and step to tolerance in a hate filled
society. The authors depicted in
“Trembling Before G-D” are credible
and genuine people who detail and
provide explicit dialogue into their
complex lives as gay Orthodox Jews.
They speak of their current status in
their faith, that is being shunned and
outcastes of their peers. This is
primarily due to a strong fundamental
Jewish belief practiced by a majority of
Jews. Furthermore, a gentleman by
the name of Dr. Yaakov Meir Weil a
psychiatrist speaks of gay Jews
confiding into him their gay lifestyle
insisting they have a disease that is
curable through the use of
medications. Hence explaining the
fear of acceptance and being openly
gay in the Jewish community.
In the documentary,
understanding and acceptance
of the gay lifestyle is being
advocated through the use of
awareness marches and
awareness campaigns with very
little fan fare. However, very little
is still openly expressed due to
the strong fundamentalist view of
the majority of Jews. In fact,
Jewish Rabbi’s and strict
followers in the documentary say
that the punishment for being
gay is “death”. This leaves a
majority of the gay Jews at a
struggle with their lifestyle and
religious beliefs; however, even
though they are gay they depict
a very strong devotion to their
religion and God despite their
oppression from the majority.
As far as current projects
undertaken by the gay Jewish
community to educate on being
gay seems to be at a lack of
enthusiasm, mainly due to the
hard stance of their peers and
being outcasts. They, however,
see themselves totally devoted
to God and the Jewish faith.
Their struggles continue and
their propensity to stay secretive
for fear of reprisal is at the for
front, again mainly due to a
strong fundamentalist view
expressed by the majority.
This resource would be
extremely beneficial for peers to
view because it really hits home
as to how the Jewish feel about
their religion when faced with
issues regarding their sexual
orientation.
It would also benefit our peers if
they had any questions about
their sexual orientation when
religion is highly practiced. Peers
would know they are not alone if
they were in the same
predicament as we watched in
Trembling before G-d.
This resource did provide us a new
insight but didn’t challenge our beliefs
in any way. We believe the insight
we experienced opened our eyes and
allowed us to understand what
homosexuals face in terms of
bringing their sexual orientation in
front of their God. The shame and
embarrassment these people felt and
the heartache that occurred because
they lost a loved one was an eye
opener. It was sad to watch how
after so long, a man reached out to
his father who was nearing 90 years
old was still shunned by after asking
to be united to see him. The
confusion another man faced
regarding his sexual orientation that
went as far as seeking therapy to
undo his sexual desires for men was
also something that showed us the
intentions of these people.
Those that are homosexual and are
Orthodox feel outnumbered and also
are trying to find ways of justifying
their intentions, however each one
failed and are now learning to cope
with the fact that they are
homosexual.
Overall the film is simply stating that
you cannot help who you are and
who you love and that God will still
love you inspite of your sexuality.
Love yourself and not be ashamed of
who you are no matter what is being
said about you.