Tag Archives: LGBT rights

Moments ago President Obama tweeted the above image with this message: “No matter who you are or whom you love, celebrate #Valentines Day with pride. #LoveIsLove.” We’re sure Ryan Anderson is unhappy. As you’ll see below, Ben Shapiro definitely is.

“Love is in the air this Valentine’s Day. But that doesn’t mean that marriage and family are flourishing. A mistaken understanding of romantic love — the Hallmark and Hollywood version — has, unfortunately, undermined key aspects of committed marital love, and the consequences have been dire. Gays and lesbians, obviously, are not to blame for this. Heterosexuals are. Heterosexuals who …

Last month the head of the Russian Orthodox Church declared that young men become terrorists because they are outraged about gay pride parades. Today he is in Cuba with Pope Francis for the first meeting between the heads of their churches in over 1000 years. With ten centuries worth of bickering to discuss, naturally the first thing they did was …

By a 20-19 vote, today the Virginia Senate approved a bill which allows government employees to refuse to officiate same-sex marriages because Jesus. The bill was sponsored by GOP state Sen. Charles Carrico [photo], who has introduced a slew of other anti-LGBT bills. Democratic Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin reacts via press release: Senator Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) expressed deep …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: President Obama and lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres exchanged praise with each other for advancing gay rights — DeGeneres saying Obama changed laws, Obama saying DeGeneres changed hearts and minds — in an interview on her TV show set to air Friday. During an appearance by Obama on her show, DeGeneres initiated the exchange …

Yesterday afternoon the West Virginia House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved a bill that would legalize discrimination against LGBT citizens on the basis of “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The bill now goes to the West Virginia Senate, where the GOP holds a slim two-seat majority. Today the Huntington Herald-Dispatch wants to know what you think. You know what to do.

Last fall Russian police launched an investigation into whether Apple’s so-called “gay emojis” violate the national ban on gay propaganda. Yesterday Indonesia asked Facebook to block them entirely. TIME reports: Indonesian authorities on Thursday said they would ask Facebook and its popular messaging service WhatsApp, to block subscribers from using emojis and stickers with LGBT themes. Ismail Cawidu, spokesperson at …

After hours of fiery and literally fist-shaking testimony in the name of White Jesus, West Virginia’s House of Delegates has voted 72-26 to pass a bill legalizing discrimination against LGBT citizens on the basis “sincerely held religious belief.” It appears that at least eight Democrats crossed party lines to vote with the GOP majority. The bill now moves to the …

The West Virginia House of Delegates has just begun its third and final reading of HB 4012, which would allow Christians to discriminate against LGBT citizens on the grounds of “religious liberty.” A live video stream is here. Watch below with us.

One of Italy’s far right parties has proposed thousands of amendments in an attempt to destroy the civil unions bill. The vote on the bill was yesterday postponed until Tuesday. ANSA reports: A conference of Senate whips on Wednesday postponed voting on the government’s hotly contested civil unions bill to next Tuesday. Earlier, the Senate rejected a motion to not …

The Kentucky County Clerks Association says it wants to avoid having to ask “which is which” when they fill out the bride and groom portion of marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The Richmond Register reports: A state Senate committee gave approval to a bill that would alter Kentucky marriage licenses to accommodate county clerks who don’t want to sign licenses …

West Virginia’s Gilmer County Clerk Jean Butcher [inset above] says she agrees with her deputy clerk, whom a lesbian couple claims railed at them about God and called them an “abomination” when they applied for a marriage license. The Charleston Gazette reports: Samantha Brookover stood crying in the Gilmer County courthouse last week, humiliated on what was meant to be …

Portugal’s Parliament today voted to override last month’s veto of a gay adoption bill by President Anibal Silva, who must now sign the law into effect. Portugal was the only nation that had legalized same-sex marriage but had not done the same for adoption by married gay couples. The override vote largely came via support from Socialist Party and Communist …

You may recall that in May 2013 a mob of 20,000 rioters attacked a small gay rights rally in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi. The attackers were led by priests from the Orthodox Church, which doesn’t want a repeat situation after a man this week filed a same-sex marriage lawsuit. Eurasianet reports: In a first for the Caucasus, a Georgian man …

From the New York Times: A middle-age gay man confronted Senator Marco Rubio here on Monday over his opposition to same-sex marriage, pointedly asking, “Why do you want to put me back in the closet?” “I don’t,” Mr. Rubio replied. “You can live any way you want.” The tense exchange inside the Puritan Backroom diner ended with Mr. Rubio walking …

Launching today is my new twice-monthly politics column for Britain’s Pride Life, a quarterly LGBT rights and lifestyle magazine. In today’s first column I rate four leading GOP presidential candidates based on their potential threat to LGBT civil equality. While my assessments may seem a bit rudimentary to regular readers of this here website thingy, I thought it might be …

The mother of a former US Army soldier has launched a Change.org petition to President Obama in which she claims that her daughter and her daughter’s partner have been sentenced by a Kuwaiti court to 25 years in prison on “trumped-up” drug charges. The real reason for the sentence handed down last month, the mother says, is that the women …

The Times Of India reports: Mumbai: The amiable Sindhi lady, waiting at Kemps Corner signal, carefully propped up her shopping bags against her leg, and trained her phone’s camera on the profusion of colour that had suddenly poured down the road. “It is for gay rights, no?” she asked a couple of passing reporters. “Yes, I read about it in …

The same federal judge who last year struck down Nebraska’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage today issued a permanent injunction against the now moot law. The move was largely a formality but Judge Joseph Bataillon’s order comes after gay parents complained that the state had barred them from listing both their names on the birth certificates of their children.

Not the Onion. Via The Guardian: Russian prosecutors have begun considering whether media coverage of the unexpected friendship between a male tiger and goat at a safari park in the country’s far east counts as gay propaganda. Novosibirsk lawyer Alexei Krestyanov complained to the prosecutor general last month that information about the animals living together could harm children by provoking …