Tag Archives: homosexuality

Over at Vulture, Brian Moylan today unpacks what he sees as the glittery gay subtext in the 1964 television classic, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. An excerpt from the slightly tongue-in-cheek piece: “For a year the Donner family did a good job hiding Rudolph’s — non-conformity,” the narrator tells us, pausing slightly before landing on the right euphemism. This is the …

Last month the office of British Prime Minister Teresa May signaled that this would happen but gave no timeline. Today we get confirmation. The Guardian reports: Gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences in England and Wales are to receive posthumous pardons, the government has announced. Thousands of living men convicted over consensual same-sex relationships will also be …

Yet another study has concluded that men who openly say they are homophobic give themselves away under the unblinking eye of science. Literally unblinking, in their case. Mic reports: Researchers at the University of Geneva tested 38 heterosexual male subjects by having them first rate their levels of “homonegativity” to determine how antigay each of them were. Then the men …

The Belize News reports: Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin today found that Section 53 of the Criminal Code which criminalizes consenting intercourse between adults of the same sex contravenes the right granted by the Constitution of Belize to no interference with a person’s dignity and personal privacy, as well as equality and equal treatment of all persons before the law. So …

Hurricanes! Earthquakes! Same-sex bovine loving! Will the punishments for gay marriage never end? Kyle Mantyla reports at Right Wing Watch: Glenn Beck said that they had been forced to artificially inseminate many of the cows on his ranch because the bull that he owns has not been interested in mating with any of them and they couldn’t figure out why. …

CNN reports: Pope Francis said Sunday that Christians owe apologies to gays and others who have been offended or exploited by the church, remarks that some Catholics hailed as a breakthrough in the church’s tone toward homosexuality. “I repeat what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: that they must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and …

The BBC reports: A gay man in Belgium is trying to end his life because he cannot accept his sexuality. He told the Victoria Derbyshire programme he wanted to be granted euthanasia on the grounds of extreme psychological suffering. Sébastien has thought carefully about the moment he hopes his life will come to an end. “The moment when they put …

Radio Free Europe reports: Russia led an effort at the United Nations to strip language from an AIDS resolution that would have called for the decriminalization of homosexuality and drug use. Russia was joined by Iran, Poland, and several Gulf states in blocking the decriminalization language from being included in a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on June …

Tribune News Service reports: A growing number of Americans are having gay sex, or at least admitting to it. And that’s OK with more of us. “People over time are reporting more same-sex sexual experiences than ever before,” said Brooke Wells, a social psychologist at Widener University’s Center for Human Sexuality Studies. The behavioral trend, reflected in an annual survey …

The Atlantic reports: Same-sex acts are no longer illegal in the Republic of Seychelles, the 115-island country off the East African coast, making it one of the few African countries to decriminalize the acts. Fourteen lawmakers voted Wednesday in favor of the proposal to amend Section 151 of the country’s Penal Code that named sodomy a felony, punishable with up …

The compensation aspect is intriguing. The BBC reports: Germany is set to annul the convictions of gay men under a law criminalising homosexuality that was applied zealously in post-war Germany. Justice Minister Heiko Maas is to overturn the convictions and create a “right to compensation”. About 50,000 men were convicted between 1946 and 1969, under a 19th Century law that …

Via Science Daily: Around half of all heterosexual men and women potentially carry so-called homosexuality genes that are passed on from one generation to the next. This has helped homosexuality to be present among humans throughout history and in all cultures, even though homosexual men normally do not have many descendants who can directly inherit their genes. This idea is …

From the National Center for Lesbian Rights: Today, the world’s largest organization of mental health professionals—representing more than 200,000 people in 118 countries—called for an end to the discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” which is linked to serious harms, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide. In a statement issued today, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) says: “WPA believes strongly in …

Via press release: At today’s Apple shareholder meeting in Cupertino, California, shareholders will vote on a resolution submitted by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a shareholder, requiring Apple’s management to prepare a report identifying Apple’s criteria for operating in regions with significant human rights violations. Apple operates in 17 nations in which homosexual activity is illegal. In four …

Huge news out of India this morning. Video below. The BBC reports: India’s Supreme Court has agreed to revisit a previous judgement that upheld a law criminalising gay sex. Three senior judges said the 2013 ruling would be re-examined by a larger bench of judges, in a move that has been welcomed by activists. The judges said that the issue …

Via Pew Research: Acceptance of homosexuality is rising across the broad spectrum of American Christianity, including among members of churches that strongly oppose homosexual relationships as sinful, according to an extensive Pew Research Center survey of U.S. religious beliefs and practices. Amid a changing religious landscape that has seen a declining percentage of Americans who identify as Christian, a majority …

Well, this is encouraging. From a just-issued study by Pew Research: Pew Research Center surveys consistently show that not all religious “nones” are nonbelievers. In fact, the majority of Americans without a religious affiliation say they believe in God. As a group, however, the “nones” are far less religiously observant than Americans who identify with a specific faith. And, as …

Researchers at the UCLA School of Medicine today issued a press release in which they claim to be able to predict sexual orientation about 70% of the time using an “algorithm using epigenetic information from just nine regions of the human genome.” From the press release: “To our knowledge, this is the first example of a predictive model for sexual …

Via my pal DJ Corey Craig, here’s a pastor that will surely surprise you. Corey promises to put this to a beat.

Some YouTube commenters don’t think he really answered the question regarding “evolutionary sense.”