Thursday, March 28, 2024
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The Latest Gay News and World Events

I knew we Tucsonans are pretty proud of our fun little city, but there is a whole gay world out there full of amazing people and we should know a little about their lives.  With that in mind, I present to you the Gay News section; a few of my favorite news sources talking about Gay News and Events around the world.  Check back regularly for constantly updated news and information that truly matters.

LGBTQ Nation Gay News

LGBTQ Nation

The Most Followed LGBTQ News Source

An attorney on the case said the plan should become "a model for the nation."
The battle for American democracy continues, and Gallego is attempting to hold the line.
LGBTQ+ advocates continue to call for an independent investigation.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been thwarted again.
"Black women legislators are... bring[ing] real change to communities in need," Cannon writes as she outlines why the GOP is failing to solve this crisis.
She called the wildly anti-LGBTQ+ lawyer "a great attorney" even though he's in court due to his alleged bad legal advice.
"We, as trans women, will confront the state with our bodies, because our bodies exist and our bodies will continue to exist."
The staffer who accused Matt Schlapp of groping him suddenly dropped his lawsuit yesterday, and now more details are emerging.
Failed legislation found its way back into a hateful omnibus package.
The Guardian LGBT News Feed
The Guardian LGBT News Feed

LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Latest news and features from theguardian.com, the world's leading liberal voice

Lawmakers overwhelmingly vote to make country the first in south-east Asia to recognise same-sex unions

Lawmakers in Thailand’s lower house of parliament have overwhelmingly approved a marriage equality bill that would make the country the first in south-east Asia to legalise equal rights for marriage partners of any gender.

Four hundred of 415 lawmakers present voted for the bill on Wednesday and footage from inside parliament showed people standing and applauding afterwards.

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He rose to fame as foul-mouthed drag star, Lily Savage, then abandoned the wig and became a national treasure. Friends including Sandi Toksvig, Amanda Holden and Gaby Roslin remember a true, terrific one-off

‘I can’t believe it’s been a year,” says Malcolm Prince, the producer of Paul O’Grady’s long-running Sunday teatime Radio 2 show. “Awful, awful, awful, awful. It’s been such a very difficult year. I’m embarrassed to say how tricky it’s been.”

O’Grady’s death on 28 March 2023, from sudden cardiac arrhythmia, came as a shock to the world. For decades, he had achieved the rare feat of presenting himself to the public as he truly was: funny, sharp, outspoken and compassionate in roughly equal measure. To some, he was best known as a comedian, to others a gameshow host, or an animal lover, or a political firebrand, or an LGBTQ+ pioneer. O’Grady’s appeal was so broad that people argued about what his legacy should be after he died; even ITV’s big Good Friday show this year, a documentary entitled The Life and Death of Lily Savage, can’t begin to contain the multitudes in O’Grady’s life, instead choosing to focus on the years he spent in drag.

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Until recently, sapphic romances generally meant furtive nods in a corset. Today’s queer offerings are fun, unbuttoned – and climate-appropriate

There’s a scene towards the end of Rose Glass’s romance thriller Love Lies Bleeding in which the leads, Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie (Katy M O’Brian), have a screaming match on a tennis court. “I wish I never met you!” shrieks Jackie, blasting bullets into the sky. Two minutes later they’re embracing. “What’s wrong with me?” she asks. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” Lou whispers to her murderous girlfriend, greased hair framing her face, bomber jacket slung around both shoulders.

To the lesbian eye this is pure dyke camp.

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Military chief says review into chaplaincy found ‘unacceptable views about minority groups, women, LGBTQI+ persons’

Some religious chaplains in the air force hold “unacceptable views about minority groups, women [and] LGBTQI+ persons”, posing a mental health risk to members, the royal commission into defence and veteran suicide has heard.

And part of a review commissioned by the defence department into the air force chaplaincy unit – quietly tabled as evidence to the royal commission – found tension between theology and values, “notably in relation to gender and LGBTI inclusion”.

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Religious exemption laws that deny LGBTIQ+ people protections have no place in modern Australia

I loved my job and I was good at it. But my 16 years of hard work in the Catholic education system was taken from me because I also loved a woman.

Growing up in the Bible belt of Sydney there was no “gay in the village”. All my role models were happy heterosexual couples and I just thought everyone had the same feelings for women that I did.

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Claiming to have created the concept of online dating, Grindr has been described as a lifeline for users in some countries but also a ‘crash course’ in objectification

One of pop culture’s early but most seminal depictions of gay online dating comes from a 1999 episode of Sex and the City. Stanford Blatch, Carrie Bradshaw’s gay friend, played by the late Willie Garson, is seeking advice. He’s been chatting to another man on an online chatroom – the height of technology at the time – and wonders whether they should meet up.

“What do you know about him?” asks Bradshaw. “Well, his name is bigtool4u” answers Blatch – cue hysterics from Bradshaw. Fast forward 25 years and although the tools are different, the activity is, arguably, much the same. Instead of online chatrooms, one of the most popular means of gay and bisexual men around the world connecting with each other is Grindr, which has 13 million monthly active users worldwide.

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Australian Law Reform Commission report welcomed by LGBTQ+ rights groups but faith leaders have rejected its recommendations

It’s 2024 and Australia’s federal parliament still can’t decide whether and how to prohibit religious discrimination and remove religious exemptions to sex discrimination laws.

Discrimination on the basis of religion is not prohibited in the same way as other protected attributes such as race, age, sex and sexuality.

Sex discrimination laws contain broad exemptions for religious educational institutions, allowing them to expel gay and transgender students or fire teachers for their sexuality and gender.

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Prevent discrimination against people of faith, including anti-vilification protections.

Act to protect all students from discrimination on any grounds.

Protect teachers from discrimination at work, while maintaining the right of religious schools to preference people of their faith in the selection of staff.

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Long Island Roller Rebels say Republican-led county’s demand to know athletes’ assigned-at-birth status is invasive and illegal

For years, New York’s Long Island Roller Rebels have welcomed transgender women to strap on skates and body padding and join their women’s roller derby team.

Now, under an executive order issued this month by Nassau county on Long Island, if they want to book a county-run park or athletics facility they must ask each member what sex was marked on their original birth certificate, and expel any teammates who were not designated female.

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LGBTQ+ advocates criticize decision by Oklahoma authorities not to prosecute over incident preceding trans teen’s suicide

Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights expressed outrage following an announcement that no criminal charges will be filed against the Oklahoma teens involved in a high school bathroom fight with Nex Benedict, the non-binary 16-year-old who was ruled by the authorities to have subsequently taken their own life, the county district attorney said.

The president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad), Sarah Kate Ellis, criticized the decision by the Tulsa county district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, who had cited as part of his decision that he deemed the incident in which Nex reported three students “coming at me” as “an instance of mutual combat”.

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Human Rights Watch Gay News

Human Rights Watch News

Click to expand Image Inter Milan's players lift the trophy to celebrate winning the Italian SuperCup football match at the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh on January 18, 2023. © 2023 Fayes Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

(Beirut) – A Saudi court sentenced 12 football fans from six months up to a year in prison on March 27, 2024, for peacefully chanting during a January football match, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities should immediately quash the verdict, which is based solely on the peaceful expression of exuberant football fans.

Saudi police summoned and arrested the fans after a video of them chanting a Shia religious song during a match was posted and spread on social media. The Saudi Criminal Court in Dammam sentenced two fans to one year in prison with a fine of 10,000 Saudi Riyals (about US$2,666) and the others to a year in prison, with six months suspended, and fines of 5,000 Saudi Riyals (about $1,333). Saudi Arabia is the sole bidder to host the 2034 men’s World Cup.

“Jailing football fans for chants at a match is just one more reason that FIFA’s rigging of the 2034 World Cup bidding process to allow Saudi Arabia to be the sole bidder is not just embarrassing, but dangerous,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “How can football fans feel safe in Saudi Arabia if they can be so easily sentenced to prison for nothing more than chants the government doesn’t like?”

On January 24, during a football match between Al Safa Club and Al Bukiryah Club in the country’s Eastern Province, where Saudi Arabia’s minority Shia community is concentrated, a group of Al Safa football fans were filmed peacefully singing a Shia religious song celebrating the birth of Imam Ali, who is considered by Shia Muslims to be the first Imam. Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority have long suffered systemic discrimination, government hate speech, and violence from the government.

Qatif police summoned and released more than 150 fans for questioning in the days after the match, according to a source familiar to with the case. They detained 12 people, initially holding them in Qatif Prison, and later in Dammam General Prison, the source said.

In court documents viewed by Human Rights Watch, including the list of charges, the police investigation ended with a request for indictment of the defendants under article 6 of Saudi Arabia’s notorious 2007 cybercrime law.

The charge requested for two of the defendants was “sending what can undermine public order using the internet and electronic devices.” Another charge, requested for all 12, was “undermining public order through the spirit of sectarian intolerance by passing sectarian content in places of public gathering and inciting social strife.” Article 6 of the cybercrime law provides for penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 3 million Saudi Riyals (about $800,000).

On February 3, the Saudi Ministry of Sport announced the dissolution of the Board of Directors of the Al Safa Club due to violations of the country’s basic regulations for sports clubs. The basic regulations allow the Sport Ministry to dissolve a club’s board of directors if it “commits … practices or actions that are inconsistent with public order, public morals, or regulations.” The Sport Ministry then put Ahmed Mohamed al-Sada in charge of the club’s affairs.

On February 4, the Discipline and Ethics Committee of the Saudi Football Federation found that Al Safa Club fans had violated the Federation’s discipline and ethics regulations and fined the club 200,000 Saudi Riyals (about $53,325). The ruling also barred the public from attending the next five home games of the Al Safa Club.

The Saudi government has spent billions of dollars to host major sporting events as an apparently deliberate strategy to deflect from the country’s image as a pervasive human rights violator, and its investments in football are astronomical. In October 2021, the Premier League announced the sale of Newcastle United to a business consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), a government-controlled entity implicated in serious human rights abuses.

On October 31, 2023, Saudi Arabia became the “sole bidder” to host the 2034 men’s World Cup, when Australia, the only country with a potential competing bid, dropped out. FIFA, the international governing body for football, will certify the World Cup award at meeting in 2024, but there little doubt of the outcome with only one candidate. Saudi Arabia has recently hosted the men’s Club World Cup, the Spanish football Super Cup, and the Italian equivalent. 

Human Rights Watch has long documented that some Saudi state clerics and institutions incite hatred and discrimination against the country’s Shia minority. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has tried to appeal to the country’s Shia minority, including neutering the country’s once-powerful religious establishment, and making changes to the 2018-19 Saudi school curriculum to remove some anti-Shia images and rhetoric. But some of the worst abuses of Shia citizens and their ability to practice their religion remain unchanged.

“Any sports institution, musician, or global entertainer needs to ask themselves a serious question before they perform in Saudi Arabia,” Shea said. “They should ask themselves whether their own fans might be arrested if they chant something the government doesn’t like.”