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 ....

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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 ….

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