NewsWrap for the week ending April 25, 2015

SUMMARY

Rights Trump Religion - Kenya’s High Court orders the government to allow LGBT groups to register as NGOs …

Revised Repression - a proposal in Uganda would essentially outlaw LGBT NGOs "in the public interest" …

Protections Pending - India’s upper house passes a ground breaking transgender rights bill …

Acting On Their Own - a celebrity lesbian couple symbolically weds in Tokyo …

Not In My Constitution - two far-right politicians push anti-marriage equality bills in the U.S. Congress …

2 + 2 = 900,000 - a Utah lawyer claims that opening civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples will lead to 900,000 more abortions …

Whack-A-Mole - a few cities in Arkansas push back against the recently-enacted law banning them from enacting LGBT anti-bias protections, and Little Rock’s City Attorney believes a state anti-bullying law already provides those protections …

Give a Kid a Break - Arizona’s governor overturns a policy denying adoption and foster parenting to legally-married same-gender couples …

Sun Shines In - Florida Senate leaders shelve a bill that would have allowed taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to use “religious belief” to discriminate against prospective LGBT parents …

Who Needs It - with the dust yet to fully settle over contentious so-called “religious liberty” bills in Indiana and Arkansas, North Carolina’s House leader says his chamber won’t debate a similar measure this year …

Toilet Training - the Nevada Assembly rejects a bill to require transgender students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their biological gender …

Naked Lunch - Tallywackers, a male version of “Hooters”, is scheduled to open in May in Dallas, Texas’ Oak Lawn gayborhood  …

Read the complete NewsWrap text here.

Museveni's Science & Arizona's Reprieve

Week of March 3, 2014
To listen to the whole show, click here!

President Yoweri Museveni defends the highly questionable "research" behind Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Law in an interview with CNN’s Zain Verjee.

Arizona's "bias license" gets a dramatic "thumbs down” from Governor Jan Brewer, whose veto announcement prompts howls from the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer and right-wing radio talker Rush Limbaugh; Emory University law professor Timothy Holbrook provides analysis.

And in NewsWrap: courts in Zimbabwe and Zambia each acquit leading LGBT activists, oppressive legislation creeps into Kenya, Jordan cops bust 10 gays and lesbians for getting acquainted, post-Olympic "Open Games" leaps hurdles in Moscow, a U.S. federal judge tosses Texas' marriage inequality law, and more news reported by Jason Proctor and Natalie Peoples (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending March 1, 2014

SUMMARY

Off the Hook - LGBT rights activists are acquitted on bogus charges in Zimbabwe and Zambia …

Laws of Mobs Rule - the war on sexual minorities continues unabated in Nigeria and Uganda …

How to Make Friends - Kenyan leaders call for their own similarly harsh anti-gay legislation …

Acquaintance Raid - ten lesbians and gay men at a "getting to know each other" gathering at a party hall in Amman, Jordan are arrested in a prophylactic prevention of "disturbing the peace" …

High Hurdles - more than 200 athletes from 11 countries endure bomb threats, cancelled-at-the-last-minute venues and hotels, smoke bombs, and "technical problems" at an ice skating rink to compete in the inaugural Russian LGBT Sports Federation's Open Games in Moscow …

Hellish Law Burned - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoes a so-called "religious freedom" bill …

No Legitimate Governmental Purpose - a federal judge declares the Texas law defining civil marriage as exclusively heterosexual to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution …

Clearly Demeaning - a federal judge makes final his ruling declaring as unconstitutional Kentucky's refusal to recognize the civil marriages of same-gender couples performed elsewhere …

Reality Check - retired National Football League Hall of Famer and TV sports commentator Deion Sanders tells "The Arsenio Hall Show" that there were gay players on all five teams he played on during his career, and says of out pro prospect Michael Sam "if he can make plays, he can play the game" ….

Read the complete NewsWrap text ... or listen to this week's podcast.

NewsWrap for the week ending February 22, 2014

SUMMARY

St. Valentine's Day Massacre - A mob of 40 viciously attacks more than a dozen perceived to be gay young men in Nigeria's capital of Abuja in the early morning hours of February 14th as violence against LGBT people escalates following enactment of the so-called "Jail the Gays" law …

Exodus - LGBT people are reportedly fleeing equally inhospitable Uganda, as government leaders defy possible reduced foreign aid over the country's equally draconian "Anti-Homosexuality Act"….

Human Rights Repellent - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh calls gay people "vermin" during a nationally televised speech …

Love the Motherland - members of the pro-gay Russian punk band Pussy Riot are horsewhipped and doused with pepper spray under an Olympics promotional sign in Sochi as they try to perform an anti-Putin protest song …

In Full Regalia - transgender former Italian M.P. Vladimir Luxuria is arrested at least once outside an Olympic venue for wearing a rainbow-colorful headdress and outfit and carrying a sign saying "It's okay to be gay" …

If He Won, Who Lost? - President Putin hands out a "humanitarian" award to a popular newscaster who said the hearts of deceased gay people need to be burned or buried to avoid accidental transplantation …

Safe on a Technicality - Germany's top court evades a request to rule on the rights of civilly partnered same-gender couples to adopt non-biological children …

In Sight of the Finnish Line - Finland's parliament begins a process that activists hope will lead to marriage equality in the only Nordic country without it …

Resistance Is Futile - Oregon's Attorney General declines to defend her state's constitutional amendment banning marriage equality …

Rocking the Rockies - nine couples in Colorado challenge their state's ban in federal court …

Off the Back Burner - a federal court says that same-gender couples in Cook County don't have to wait for the June 1st implementation date of the Illinois marriage equality law to tie the knot …

Brewer Brews on Bias - will Arizona become the first U.S. state to enact a bill that allows discrimination against LGBT people by individuals and businesses if providing services would "substantially burden" the exercise of their sincerely held religious beliefs? ….

Complete NewsWrap text and this week's podcast to be posted February 25, 2014.

NewsWrap for the week ending January 11, 2014

SUMMARY

Russia Roundup - Russia's politically powerful Orthodox Church calls for a public referendum to re-criminalize gay sex; NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas tells reporters that he wants to ask Vladimir Putin to defend his country's "no promo homo" law during the network's Winter Olympics coverage next month in Sochi, while the U.S. State Department warns LGBT visitors to keep it on the "down low" …

Slow Backtrack - the Indian government asks the nation's Supreme Court to reconsider its December 11th ruling that recriminalized gay sex …

As Night Is Falling - just the threat of Uganda's draconian anti-gay law, yet to be signed by the president, is already making life more difficult for HIV/AIDS workers and the sexual minorities they serve …

The Sun Also Rises - civil unions for Chile's same-gender couples may be just a few weeks away after the Senate overwhelmingly approves a bill to create them …

Feds Buzz Bees - Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert nixes state recognition of the 1,360 lesbian and gay couples who legally wed in the state during the 17 days that they could, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says that the federal government will recognize those couples …

Courting Rituals - four same-gender couples challenge Arizona's constitutional marriage equality ban in federal court, and a federal court in Austin will soon begin hearings on a challenge to the ban in Texas …

Disenchanted - an effort by opponents of New Mexico marriage equality to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the state Supreme Court ruling establishing it as the law of the land in December are not given much chance of success …

Celebrity News - Germany's retired high-profile international football [soccer] star Thomas Hitzlsperger comes out, while Joseph Lown, the San Angelo, Texas mayor who resigned in 2009 to move to Mexico to live with his undocumented gay partner legally marries him in a Mexico City ceremony …

And That's the Truth - comedy icon Lily Tomlin and her creative/life partner of 42 years Jane Wagner finally make honest women of each other on New Year's Eve in New York City ….

Complete NewsWrap text and this week's podcast to be posted January 13, 2013.

Leslie Jordan's "Fruit Fly"

What entertainer Leslie Jordan's mother doesn't want you to know -- but he told all to Rosie Wilby during the London run of his one-man show!

Plus: the classic Everybody Has To Have A Mother by the New Miss Alice Stone Ladies Society Orchestra!

And: pioneering Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya is remembered in a Rainbow Minute (produced by Judd Proctor and Brian Burns, read by Tonya Utkina).

And in NewsWrap: Uruguay prepares for marriage equality, judge won't register gay Paraguan couple's legal Argentine wedding, Gambia's President calls gays satanic, Nepal's Blue Diamonds are in the rough, civil unions spring from Arizona's "liberal oasis," and more news reported by Wenzel Jones and Carole Meyers (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending April 6, 2013

SUMMARY

No Stopping It Now - Uruguay appears to be a few months away from being the latest country to open civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples …

Blocked Border Crossing - a judge in Paraguay refuses to register a gay couple's legal Argentine marriage …

Coming Attraction - the Colombian Senate is reportedly scheduled to debate a marriage equality bill in the coming week …

Family Friendly - the French Senate begins debate on a marriage equality measure that also includes adoption rights …

Local Control - the city of Bisbee, Arizona prepares to fight the state over its civil unions ordinance …

Cures AIDS, Sees Devil - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh once again almost literally tells gays and lesbians to drop dead …

Rough Cuts - a government office in Nepal is apparently bent on destroying the country's pioneering 12-year-old LGBT Blue Diamond Society …

Once More Unto the Breach - activists in St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, plan a ban-defying Pride event …

Goal! - a Brazilian import charges fans of his adopted St. Petersburg football team with racism and homophobia …

Suffer the Little Children - St. Petersburg "hometown boy" and President Vladimir Putin calls for a ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign same-gender couples …

Friendly Persuasion - a critique from above proudly waves during his visit to Amsterdam to participate in the Netherlands-Russia 2013 Year of Friendship ….

Read the complete NewsWrap text ... or listen to this week's podcast.