Nigeria Protests & "Behind the Queens"

Week of March 10, 2014
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Four young men convicted of violating Nigeria's new horrendously-oppressive anti-LGBT laws are publicly flogged and still face fines and imprisonment as demonstrations -- like the one outside the Nigerian Embassy in New York City -- proliferate around the world (Kelly Cogswell and Harriet Hirshorn report).

The forthcoming documentary Behind the Queens unveils Vancouver's drag scene (producers Zack Singer and Deborah Power).

U.S. Congressman Steve King is dethroned by satirist Stephen Colbert after the self-professed Iowa Republican's pronouncement about the fairness of religious discrimination against self-professed LGBTs.

And in NewsWrap: "unnatural" arrests panic Zambia, Cameroon and Uganda; ambiguity attends the Pope's new civil unions spin; the Dalai Lama is "okay" with marriage equality; U.S. marriage equality marches forward in Colorado, Indiana, Wyoming, Illinois, and Kentucky; and more news reported by Tanya Kane-Parry and Christopher Gaal (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending March 8, 2014

SUMMARY

Flogged and Fined - Four young men convicted of violating Nigeria's new horrendously-oppressive anti-LGBT laws are publicly whipped and could face more violence in prison …

Admissible Evidence - trial begins for two men in Zambia forced to undergo anal probes to "prove" their homosexuality …

Orange Is the New Lavender - four lesbians are reportedly arrested in Cameroon, which Human Rights Watch says prosecutes more sexual minorities than any other country in Africa …

Totally Intended Consequences - a Ugandan blog reports that a lesbian has been evicted from her home, despite being a "wonderful" tenant, because of that country's new Anti-Homosexuality Law …

Prophets of Doom - Uganda's Anglican Bishop calls mother Church of England "spiritually blind" about homosexuality, and prospective Anglican clerics in Nigeria must now swear to God that they aren't gay …

New Testaments - ambiguity surrounds comments attributed to Roman Catholic Pope Francis that seemed to suggest that the Church might be open to civil unions for same-gender couples, while exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama tells "Larry King Now" that marriage equality is "okay" …

Law in Transition - a landmark ruling in Lebanon sanctions the relationship of a transgender woman and a man …

Jasmine Equality - 200 guests cheer what may be the first public wedding of a gay male couple in Myanmar (Burma) …

Altared States - Colorado's Governor publicly endorses civil marriage for lesbian and gay couples, while Wyoming and Indiana are next in the U.S. to be sued for marriage equality by same-gender couples, and a federal court is expected to rule this month in a case challenging Michigan's hetero-only marriage law …

Early Admissions - citing a federal court ruling, Illinois officials expand the availability of marriage licenses to same-gender couples outside Chicago before the official June 1st enactment date of the state's marriage equality law …

Running for the Roses - Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway is unable to conceal his emotions as he announces that he won't appeal a federal ruling declaring as unconstitutional his state's refusal to recognize same-gender civil marriages legally performed elsewhere ….

Read the <a href="http://bit.ly/OfHeDd">complete NewsWrap text</a> ... or listen to <a href="http://bit.ly/1oRwiH7">this week's podcast</a>.

NewsWrap for the week ending September 28, 2013

SUMMARY

Ring of Allies - Eleven countries and the European Union reaffirm their support for LGBT rights during the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York …

Worlds Apart - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh uses his address to the General Assembly to call gays & lesbians one of the three "biggest threats to human existence," Cameroon's Ambassador to the U.N. office in Geneva suggests that brutally-tortured and murdered gay activist Eric Lembembe had it coming, while Bangladesh also rejects a recommendation by the U.N. Human Rights Council to abolish its colonial-era sodomy law …

Slip-knotted Loophole - a family court judge in Costa Rica refuses to allow a gay couple to register as married even though legislators "accidentally" removed gender references in the country's marriage laws in July …

Second Place Not Good Enough - a Superior Court judge in New Jersey orders civil marriage opened to same-gender couples in the U.S. state on October 21st, though Republican Governor Chris Christie vows to appeal …

Old Friends - Republican former President George H.W. Bush officially witnesses the civil marriage of a lesbian couplenhn in Kennebunkport, Maine …

Credit Where It Isn't Due - notoriously rights-resistant ExxonMobil announces that the giant oil conglomerate will extend spousal benefits to the same-gender partners of its legally married gay and lesbian workers – but only because the U.S. Labor Department requires it …

Spaghetti Opera - CEO Guido Barilla gets his global pasta company in hot water by telling an Italian radio audience that their advertising will never feature a gay couple because "we like the traditional family," and "if gays don't like it they can buy another brand" …

Too Easily Satisfied - Amnesty International joins a chorus of global human rights groups criticizing the International Olympic Committee for being "completely satisfied" with Russian assurances that its "no promo homo" law won't put LGBT athletes or visitors to Sochi in harms way …

Frontlines - ten LGBT activists are arrested outside Russia's Olympic headquarters in Moscow for protesting the "no promo homo" statute …

Shades of Gray - prosecutors in the Russian region of Chelyabinsk assure a local citizen that a rainbow-colored lamppost does not violate the law ….

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

Troubles in Russia, Cameroon and Zimbabwe

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Venerable writer/activist Harvey Fierstein takes aim at President Vladimir Putin in a New York Times op-ed  as an outbreak of Russian repression threatens the Olympic torch (Fierstein appeared on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.)

Cameroon activists mourn assassinated LGBT leader Eric Lembembe (Ngala Killian Chimtom of Free Speech Radio News reports from Yaounde.)

Zimbabwe's long hard slog against hate continues (Free Speech Radio News reporter Garikai Chaunza has the latest from Harare.)

And in NewsWrap: news in or about Russia dominates this week's LGBT headlines, Moldova surprises rights groups with "no promo homo" law, death threats and stones greet Montenegro's first LGBT Pride march, dignitaries pelted with eggs at Lithuania's second Pride, Super Mario satire stings Mexican media, and more news reported by Christopher Gaal and Tanya Kane-Parry (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending July 20, 2013

SUMMARY

Crowning Achievement - The Queen's Royal Assent makes England and Wales the 16th and 17th countries in the world to open civil marriage to same-gender couples …

The Money Pit - U.S. House Republicans stop wasting taxpayer money defending DOMA …

Elope with Pride - gay Aussie couple wins a "dream wedding" in New Zealand, and the first kiwi same-gender couple to wed may do so at 30,000 feet …

Unintended Consequences - Alistair Stewart of Britain's Kaleidoscope Trust warns that advances in the West like marriage equality have lead to a "perverse" worsening of LGBT freedoms in the developing world …

Martyrs' Roll Call - Cameroon gay and AIDS activist Eric Lembembe is horrifically tortured to death, while 20-year-old Hashim al-Asimi is shot to death in Yemen for being gay …

We Are Trayvon, Too - key witness in the high-profile Florida trial of George Zimmerman tells CNN that 17-year-old victim Trayvon Martin may have worried that wannabe cop Zimmerman was following him with rape in mind, while 35 American LGBT organizations issue a joint statement calling for a Justice Department probe into the killing because "Trayvon Martin deserves justice and his civil rights" …

Numero Uno - singer and gay bar owner Benjamin Medrano is elected mayor in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, a rural northern city of about 230,000, becoming Mexico's first "out" mayor …

Island Hopping - Pink Dot Singapore begets Pink Dot Okinawa ....

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

Steel Mongolians pt. 1 & "Tea Leaves"

"Sapphic Nomads" Katie Cook and Maggie Young send an "audio postcard" from the morning of the movement in Mongolia, the latest stop in their around-the-world search for material for their documentary (part one of two).

Memoirist Janet Mason telephonically travels to Australia to talk about her book with Gordon Wilson on Joy 94.9 in Melbourne.

And in NewsWrap: Italy's top court supports same-gender parenting, gay Serbian wins discrimination lawsuit, homosexuality convictions quashed in Cameroon, Sweden stops sterilizing trans surgery patients, equality bells ring at Washington's National Cathedral, and more news reported by Robert LeBlanc and Pamela Brooks (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending January 12, 2013

SUMMARY

Parental Permission - Italy's Supreme Court declares that same-gender couples can raise children just as well as heterosexual couples …

First Bias Hit - an appeals court in Serbia becomes the first in the Balkan nation to punish someone for anti-gay discrimination …

Liquor License - the Court of Appeals in Cameroon frees two men after they'd served more than a year of five-year "homosexuality" prison sentences for, among other "offenses," drinking Bailey's Irish Cream …

Reproductive Rights - the Stockholm Administrative Court of Appeals overturns a 1972 law in Sweden that required involuntary sterilization in all gender reassignment surgeries …

Oyez Oyez - the U.S. Supreme Court announces that it will hear oral arguments in the Proposition 8 case on March 26th and on the DOMA case the following day …

If You Don't, You Can - the Church of England says that "out" gay men in celibate civil partnerships can now become bishops …

Faithful Servant, Well Done - the first openly-gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, New Hampshire's Gene Robinson, retires after almost a decade in that post …

Capital Equality Bells - the national seat of the Episcopal Church, the iconic National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., will soon begin hosting the weddings of lesbian & gay couples ….

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

Ambassador James Hormel

The rebirth of the controversy around Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel's infamous 1998 insult notwithstanding, the first openly gay US ambassador proves that he was and is Fit To Serve (an interview by Steve Pride).

And in NewsWrap: Brazil barrels toward marriage equality, marital progress stalls in Uruguay, Taiwan's top court stokes hasty marriage proposal, wedding bells ring in Maine and Maryland, love texts and queer whiskey seal Cameroonian convictions, the sun will never set on Sally's special spot, and more news reported by Sarah Sweeney and Michael LeBeau (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending January 5, 2013

SUMMARY

Full Steam Ahead - A judge makes Sao Paulo the latest Brazilian state to open civil marriage to same-gender couples …

Put on the Brakes - an expected December 26th Senate vote on a marriage equality bill in Uruguay is postponed until April …

Under Consideration - lawmakers in Taiwan hold initial hearings on a bill to give limited marriage rights to the island's same-gender couples …

Sweet Victories - first-ever voter-authorized marriages of lesbian and gay couples are celebrated in Maine and Maryland, while marriage equality bills progress in Illinois and Rhode Island …

Steel Magnolias - five lesbian couples make news applying for marriage licenses in the state of Mississippi …

Text Offense -Cameroon appeals court upholds the 3 year prison sentence of a man convicted of "homosexuality" for simply sending an "I love you" text message to another man …

Hound the Gays - continuing harassment and worse against LGBT activists in Uganda includes the arrests of two gay youth workers, the vandalizing and burglary of the offices of Sexual Minorities Uganda, and what the nation's leading newspaper reports as "tens of thousands" of people hearing preachers in churches and sports stadiums across the country demanding passage of the so-called "Kill The Gays Bill" when parliament reconvenes in February …

By the Light of the Silvery Dyke - a little corner of the moon is named for late lesbian astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space …

Viva la First - a lesbian and her partner become the proud parents of the first baby born in 2013 in France ….

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

Sapphic Nomads in Samoa & Rev. Rebecca Voelkel

In the first of a series of "on the road" reports, traveling lesbian documentarians Maggie Young and Katie Cook explore fa'afafine life in Independent Samoa.

A Minnesota United Church of Christ minister and LGBT ally prays for marriage equality with correspondent Dixie Treichel.

Plus -- admirers Lily Tomlin, Jane Lynch, and Steve Harvey "Mark" Ellen DeGeneres' "Twain" at Washington, DC's John F. Kennedy Center.

And in NewsWrap: gay activists take Jamaican sex laws to court, Cameroon legal advocates get death threats, marriage equality appeal rejected in New York, a Viking "voices" his support for it, and more news reported by Rick Watts and Michael LeBeau (produced by Steve Pride).

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NewsWrap for the week ending October 27, 2012

SUMMARY

Suing for Dignity - Jamaican activists file suit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanding repeal of their island nation's sodomy laws …

Lawyer Contracts - phone calls and text messages from persons unknown make death threats against two legal advocates for LGBT rights and their family members in Cameroon …

Lacking Appeal - New York's highest court rejects what may be the last legal challenge to the state's marriage equality law …

Holding Noses May Not Be Enough - the gay Log Cabin Republicans give Mitt Romney their "qualified" endorsement, even as the GOP presidential candidate reiterates his support for a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, and the "Boston Globe" reports on his efforts as Massachusetts governor to thwart the legal recognition of lesbian and gay parents …

Cheerleader-In-Chief - President Barack Obama formally urges votes in favor of marriage equality on state ballot measures this November in Maine, Maryland and Washington …

Marriage Scrimmage - National Football League Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo's outspoken support for Maryland marriage equality draws a state lawmaker's letter demanding that the team owners silence him, prompting Minnesota Vikings punter CHRIS KLUWE to mock the lawmaker in an open letter and appear in a radio ad against the marriage equality-banning state constitutional amendment on the November ballot in his state [you'll hear the spot] …

One-Two Punch - recently "out" Puerto Rican professional featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz wins his first fight as an openly gay man ….

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

NewsWrap for the week ending April 7, 2012

SUMMARY

Targets on Their Backs - An anti-gay group in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia distributes fliers with what is being described as a "hit list" of people who support LGBT rights, whom one member said could be punished by "flogging and death" …

You Mean They're Human? - authorities in Cameroon's capital of Yaounde shut down a human rights workshop when they discover that the focus is on LGBT rights …

This Is Fascist - two Russian gay activists become the first to be arrested in St. Petersburg under the city's recently enacted law criminalizing dissemination of LGBT "propaganda" to minors for holding placards outside a popular youth center simply reading "Gay – this is normal" …

The Orientation Will Not Be Televised - Malaysian government authorities announce a ban on state-owned radio and TV stations of any shows that feature gay characters, although one official says male program hosts who appear effeminate are exempt "because they are born this way" …

Too Late for Daniel - Chilean lawmakers pass a bill to ban sexual orientation- and gender identity-based bias seven years after it was first introduced, but about a week after the highly-publicized brutal neo-Nazi gang beating death of "out" young man Daniel Zamudio …

Freezing Chads? - citing several polling place irregularities, the ACLU of Alaska demands a formal review of municipal election results this week in Anchorage that included the overwhelming defeat of Proposition 5, which would have banned anti-LGBT bias …

The Audacity of Political Pressure - the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund joins 72 members of Congress to urge President Obama to issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to have LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies …

Queers in Hoodies - 23 of the largest LGBT rights organizations in the U.S. sign on to a joint open letter condemning the shooting death in Florida of unarmed 17-year-old African-American teen Trayvon Martin …

Age Appropriate - after almost a half-million people petition the Motion Picture Association of America to protest the "R" rating of "Bully," the highly-praised documentary about anti-queer school bullying that would only allow viewers 17 and older to see it in theaters, filmmakers agree to cut the number of "f"-words from six to three to get a "PG-13" rating, which will allow movie houses to admit viewers aged 13 and older, and screenings in middle schools and high schools, so that it can be seen by the film's target audience ….

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