NewsWrap for the week ending October 25, 2014

SUMMARY

Contagious Hate Virus - Liberian Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders preach that Ebola is God's curse on the country for tolerating homosexuals …

Straight Down the Tubes - a Nigerian Federal High Court judge dismisses a challenge to the draconian anti-gay laws enacted in the country last year because the plaintiff is heterosexual and therefore not directly affected by them …

The Klan Rides Again - up to a dozen homophobic hooded hooligans create mayhem when they invade the 2nd anniversary party of an LGBT support center in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, sending at least one young woman to the hospital …

Passing Transmuster - disabled transgender veteran and civilian U.S. Army employee Tamara Lusardi wins a landmark federal discrimination case, and while transgender people are barred from U.S. military service, enlistees from 18 other countries gather in Washington, D.C. for a first-ever conferenced entitled "Perspective on Transgender Military Service from Around the Globe" …

Against the Tide - U.S. District Judge Perez Gimenez breaks with most of his peers and upholds the ban on civil marriage for same-gender couples in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico …

States of Marriage - officials in Kansas, Montana and South Carolina, over which federal appeals court rulings overturning state marriage bans have jurisdiction, postpone the inevitable by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples in their respective states unless a federal court specifically orders them to do so; other state marriage news from Alaska, Idaho, and Nevada …

The Family Way - the Utah Supreme Court opens adoption to legally-married same-gender couples …

Occupy Synchronicity - Hong Kong Pride organizers coincidentally adopt the umbrella as their official symbol this year and order 500 of them in rainbow colors weeks before the umbrella becomes the symbol of pro-democracy "Occupy Central" street protesters, who use them to defend against tear gas, pepper spray, and police batons …

Flame of Anor - out British actor/activist Sir Ian McKellan revives the wizardly "Gandalf" to encourage students at a school he’s visiting to properly prepare for their examinations or, he warns, "You shall not pass!"

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