Desmond Hatchett (YouTube)
And you thought Octomom had her hands full—a Tennessee man who has fathered 30 children is asking the courts for a break on child support.
Desmond Hatchett, 33, of Knoxville has children with 11 different women, reports WREG-TV.
The state already takes half his paycheck and divides it up, which doesn’t amount to much when Hatchett is making only minimum wage. Some of the moms receive as little as $1.49 a month. The oldest child is 14 years old.
Hatchett explains how he reached such a critical mass: He had four kids in the same year. Twice.
Back in 2009 when Hatchett was in court to answer charges that many of the mothers were not receiving child support, he had 21 children. At the time, he said he was not going to father any more kids, but he ended up having nine more in the past three years.
The state cannot order Hatchett to stop making babies. He hasn’t broken any laws, according to the report.

J’can youth tells of struggles with homosexuality
BY CANDIESE LEVERIDGE Online reporter [email protected]
Saturday, May 19, 2012
CORBIN, a 21-year-old homosexual who resides in the Jamaican capital, Kingston, says he has been a victim of discrimination and has decided to speak out openly against homophobia, which he claims is rampant in the country.
Corbin, a human rights advocate, said he felt more confident about championing the cause of gays because of the decision by some countries to mark Thursday as the ‘International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia’.
The tall, introverted young man said he had been fortunate not to have been exposed to violence because of his sexual preference, but the torture of not being able to be his true self was ‘horrendous’.
“There was this time (when) my best friend and I were seeking to rent a place together since it is cheaper for two persons to share utility bills, (but) the landlady refused to take our information because she was adamant that we needed her place for more than renting as we were a homosexual couple,” Corbin shared.
“It is just disheartening how we jump to conclusions as a people and have such myopic views about lesbian, gays and bisexual people,” he added.
Corbin, who knew from an early age that he was attracted to men, said growing up he was teased by his peers who called him ‘Sharon’ and other female names, and was referred to as his mother’s ‘big daughter’ while he attended a prominent co-educational school in Clarendon, a rural parish in South Central Jamaica.
“I was seen as different from boys my age, and despite my efforts on my tenth birthday in the fourth grade to ‘man up’ and appear more masculine, I was in a world by myself,” he said. About that time Corbin also realised that he had an overwhelming sexual attraction to boys, but he was taught that this was wrong.
An ardent churchgoer who believed in the Bible, the teachings of Christ and the Church, Corbin said this unending aspiration for “worldly things” made him feel even more guilty.
“I had nowhere to go but church, which was hardly a place of refuge given my situation; I had no one to turn to either,” he said.
Confused and ashamed of himself as he tried to fit in socially, Corbin, who was in denial, said he began bashing other suspected homosexuals in an attempt to fit in with what he called ‘the accepted homophobic culture’.
Said he: “I am very saddened by my subscription to this expectation, but the truth is most young people my age are guilty of this. It’s an almost innate thing for you to do as a homosexual or questioning young man.” He said that denial worked to an extent, so much so that when he finally ‘came out’ while attending university, people were surprised.
However, his challenges with discrimination never ended. “I remember one evening, about three male friends and I went to a restaurant in Liguanea. We were hungry and decided to meet up; the waiter (a male) refused to serve us because ‘him nah serve no fish’. This was about 2008 and my first contact with expressed homophobia. I was livid. We got up and left and one of my friends spoke to the manager who said he would deal with the issue,” said Corbin.
It was after this that he began to fight discrimination, arguing that it is in this sort of environment that diseases such as HIV/AIDS are able to engulf a society. He said that he began to read on issues surrounding human rights and homosexuality, asking people questions and filling the gaps. He later went on to study human rights at the post-graduate level “because I thought I needed a broad understanding around the theories of rights and processes of change”.
However, even without the academic qualifications, Corbin insisted that he would have chosen the human rights field in which to work. “My aim is to ensure Jamaica is a place I can live in, that my friends, family and everyone can feel secure regardless of their sexual orientation. I also want to know that other people (heterosexuals) can feel safe and are encouraged to love lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons around them.
He blamed the Jamaican Government for what he said has been its failure to remove punitive laws, such as the Buggery Act, which continue to “create an enabling context for human rights abuses”.
Corbin charged that laws criminalising same-sex intimacy fuelled counterproductive behaviour, as gays have been afraid to visit health care centres and pharmacies to purchase products to protect themselves.
“After 30 years, the stigma and discrimination continue to hinder prevention efforts by increasing the vulnerability of people living with and affected by these diseases. Gay and bisexual persons are at high risk of HIV transmission,” he declared.
According to Corbin, his contribution, through academic research and his professional work, has been a critical component to create a sense of freedom within the gay community.
“I wish to dig deeper in the issues about sexuality… and the law, and how they impact on human social and economic development to explore potential opportunities for the necessary changes,” he said.

Malawi President Vows To Legalise Homosexuality

Malawi’s new president has pledged to lift the country’s ban on homosexuality, breaking ranks from much of Africa where such activity remains a crime.

Joyce Banda, who came to power in April on the death of her predecessor, said in her first state of the nation address on Friday: “Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed.” She described the measure as a matter of urgency.

Elsewhere in the speech, Banda said her government wanted to normalise relations with “our traditional development partners who were uncomfortable with our bad laws”.
But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote and, although Banda’s party commands a majority, it is unclear how much support the move would have in this socially conservative nation.

Malawi was widely condemned for the conviction and 14-year prison sentences given in 2010 to two men who were arrested after celebrating their engagement and were charged with unnatural acts and gross indecency.

The president at the time, Bingu wa Mutharika, pardoned the couple on “humanitarian grounds only”, while claiming they had “committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws”.

Mutharika died from a heart attack in April. Banda, who was vice-president, stepped in to serve out his term, which ends in 2014. She has hit the ground running with a cabinet reshuffle, the sacking of the police chief and sweeping reforms to break from Mutharika’s autocratic rule.

Her audacious plan to legalise homosexuality was welcomed by the campaigner Gift Trapence, executive director of the Centre for the Development of People. “If that’s what the president said, Malawi is going in the right direction in terms of human rights and meeting international human rights standards, and saying people are equal irrespective of sexual orientation,” he said.

Banda has previously demonstrated her liberal attitudes on the issue, he continued. “When she was vice-president she was invited to address a group of religious leaders and she spoke in favour of including LGBT communities in HIV interventions.”

Trapence said Banda’s stand offers hope in a continent where homosexuality is criminalised in 37 countries. “It has come at the right time as the African Union is coming to attend a summit in Malawi. This sends a good message to the African heads of state who will attend.”

Trapence said the gay couple whose engagement caused a storm, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, were no longer together. Chimbalanga gained asylum in Cape Town, South Africa, while Monjeza is serving a three-year prison sentence for theft.

“They will be happy at this decision,” he added. “They will look back at how they suffered and were incarcerated and have a smile that at least they did something to influence the sodomy laws under which they were convicted.”

Wapona Kita, one of Malawi’s leading human rights lawyers, said he welcomed the president’s announcement. “She has done the right thing. The repeal of this bad law is long overdue.”

The law is “unconstitutional against international human rights standards”, he added.

Undule Mwakasungula, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, said: “This is good news for us as we have been advocating for these sodomy laws to be reviewed or repealed as part of all the bad laws. Now that president Joyce Banda has indicated that the sodomy laws will be part of the laws to be repealed, this is very welcome development.”

In South Africa, the only African country with laws protecting gay rights, activist Mark Heywood said Banda would have international support. “I hope that she is persuasive enough in her own country,” he told the Associated Press. “It’s really important for other African countries other than South Africa to move in this direction. Symbolically, I think it is very important for Africa.”

A report this week from Kenya and Uganda by the watchdog Human Rights First found that African homosexuals who fled persecution in their countries were abducted, beaten and raped in the places where they sought asylum.

It cited examples including two refugee women in Uganda who were abducted and raped because they had been assisting LGBT refugees, five cases of “corrective rape” of lesbian or transgender male refugees in Uganda and a gay Somali teenager in Kenya who was doused in petrol and would have been set on fire if not for the intervention of an older Somali woman.

Human Rights First, a US-based non-governmental organisation, called on Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, to help make sure that LGBT refugees gain access to safety and protection from violence.

The Guardian