Many Russias: Sochi’s Absurdist Olympics
Many Russias: Sochi’s Absurdist Olympics On 7 February, the world will witness one of the most absurdist events in its history: the Winter Olympic Games will be hosted in notoriously cold Russia, but in its warmest geographic point – the…
Girls’: Lesbians in Russia
‘Girls’: Lesbians in Russia (feministtimes.com) The photo series ’Girls’ was made in response to the Russian federal law banning ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’. Since the legislative ban on gay propaganda, the attitude of Russian society has worsened towards lesbians. An…
Crisis in South Africa: The shocking practice of ‘corrective rape’ - aimed at ‘curing’ lesbians
The prevalence is unknown though “one support group in Cape Town told ActionAid researchers in 2009 they deal with 10 new cases every week.” On the independent: Mvuleni Fana was walking down a quiet alleyway in Springs – 30 miles…
The disgrace of papal blessing for Ugandan homophobia
From: the guardian The Catholic Church is foundering, and it’ll take a lot more than 140 characters and a rightwing “news” hack to put it on a modern track. The pope is a social issues guy, more interested in themes…
"None of these princesses get to marry another girl…
Earlier this month I posted about the project my 11-year-old pupils have asked to do in their PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) lessons. They want to investigate why men and women are different, if indeed they are. We’ve identified a…
Two thirds of gay students feel excluded from team sports at university
Homophobia in school can put gay students off sport for life, according to research by the National Union of Students (NUS). By the time they get to college or university 34.6% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students said they were…
California Outlaws Therapy To “Cure” Homosexuality In Kids
California is now the first state to outlaw “conversion therapy” — treatments intended to “cure” homosexuality — when practiced on minors. (You can read the bill here). The future of the bill is up in the air, since several right-wing groups are saying…
The New Gay Marriage Map (US) [image]
Gay rights advocates won five major victories across the United States yesterday. Wisconsin elected America’s first openly gay Senator, Democrat Tammy Baldwin. Maryland voted to affirm a same-sex marriage act the state legislature approved earlier this year. Ballots are still coming in,…
I Was a Secretly Gay Jehovah’s Witness: How I Tried to Pray the Gay Away
The following is an excerpt from Cowboys, Armageddon, and The Truth: How a Gay Child Was Saved from Religion published by Lethe Press. I learned what it meant to be a homo from a fellow sixth grader. Michael was the most “grown up” kid I…
Same-Sex Marriage Support Up Among Basically Everyone
Republicans have been trying to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue to secure more votes from Latino Americans — a group that the GOP has actively marginalized because of the GOP’s general racism and anti-immigrant policies — assuming that…
Gay and lesbian parents are “perfectly average” (i.e. just like everyone else)
A report out in the October issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry finds that “high-risk” children adopted from foster care do just as well when matched with gay, lesbian or straight parents. Of the 82 foster children that psychologists…
Nick Griffin’s tweets and the limits of free speech
[...] Regardless of whether people visit this house or not, this controversy will unfold in a particularly frustrating manner. Griffin has already begun to complain that he is a free speech martyr, the victim of hypocrisy, denied free speech yet…
NoHomophobes.com – tracking homophobic language on twitter
NoHomophobes.com Look at how quickly those trackers rise. And, beautifully, the tweeters are being named and shamed. Related: NoHomophobes Site Exposes Homophobic Tweets in Real-Time (mashable.com) Counting casual homophobia real-time #NoHomophobes (osocio.org) Twitter Homophobes, You’re on Watch. Not That You…
How My Church Tried to Make Me Hate Gay People
[Trigger warning] The following post contains frank descriptions of the hate speech against LGBTQ people that my church used to inculcate fear and contempt in its youth. It’s probably not something you want to read if you’re already having a…
Homophobia is still rife in UK prisons
Despite moves in recent years towards eradicating discrimination against prisoners on the grounds of race or religion, the challenges facing gay men in prison have still not been addressed sufficiently by the prison service. A letter in this month’s edition of Inside…
Athy (Ireland) councillor, supporting gay marriage, is called on to resign from school board by Catholic group
Dear Old Ireland. Athy town councillor Aoife Breslin (pictured) has been called on to resign her position on the board of management of a local school by an Athy resident who represents a right wing Catholic group called Catholics United for…
China – Pressure to conform for 17 and 30 million gays “is crippling”
Coming out as gay is tough almost the world over. In China, it can constitute a major tragedy. When one man in northeast China told his parents he was gay, his father pulled a knife on him, according to Fan…
This is how to end gay cures
An email this morning from Allout.org: They’re coming to the UK. This Sunday, an extremist religious group is holding workshops for gays and lesbians on how to hate themselves for who they are. These types of “therapy sessions” collect cash for…
Why is Michael Gove so close to Christian extremists from LoveWise?
More evidence (as if we needed it) that this government is vehemently anti-choice. A government backed Christian charity called Lovewise teaches school children that most rape victims ‘regret abortion’. According to Dina Rickman, the charity also teaches children that abortion causes holes in the womb, depression…
Archbishop ‘links MP’s death to being gay’
Unbelievable. Philip Tartaglia, the current Bishop of Paisley who has voiced his opposition to legalise same-sex marriage, appeared to suggest David Cairns’s death was connected to his sexual orientation. While he did not name the former Scotland Office minister, who died…