Tag: LGBT rights

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Trailer: Award-winning indie film “Bridegroom”

This fall, Bridegroom will give audiences a closer look at the tragic story of Shane and Tom, a committed couple living in California. They started a business, bought a home together, traveled the world together, and adopted a dog together.

Though they weren’t legally able to marry in California, Tom and Shane planned to wed one day. Unfortunately, they were never able to, because Tom died after accidentally falling off a roof in 2011.

Tom’s family prevented Shane from going to the funeral because Shane had no legal rights. On the one-year anniversary of Tom’s death, Shane posted this moving and emotional video.

It went viral and garnered the attention of Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (Designing Women), who went on to write, produce, and direct a documentary about Shane and Tom’s story. Bridegroom premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, where it was introduced by President Clinton, and went on to win the Audience Award there as well as at multiple other film festivals this year.

The film will be released in New York City on Friday, Oct. 4, and in Los Angeles on Friday, Oct. 18. It will air on the OWN Network on Sunday, Oct. 27 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and will also be available on Netflix beginning that same day. More at Bridegroommovie.com

(source)

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Fabulous – Italian lawmakers stop to hug and kiss in support for hate crimes bill

Five Star Movement (M5S) politicians staged a kissing protest in the Italian parliament during a debate on an anti-homophobia bill, calling for more rights for gay people.

The bill was passed on Thursday by the lower house and aims to see a 1993 anti-discrimination law extended to crimes motivated by homophobia or transphobia.

A total of 354 politicians voted in favour of the bill and 79 against, La Repubblica reported.

The parliamentary debate was interrupted when dozens of M5S politicians stood in unison and began kissing and hugging each other. Fellow politicians from Beppe Grillo’s party held signs that called for “more rights” for gay people.

Tweeting a photo of the protest (above), MP Federica Daga said “equal rights and dignity without gender. Because a kiss and a hug are not scary”.

While the bill has now been passed by the lower house, Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party said it would fall in the Senate vote, La Repubblica reported.

(source)

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BBC report shows violence targeting LGBT community in Russia

The BBC produced this report based on a Russian vigilante group that not only hunts down LGBT citizens, but posts the violence done to them via video. In one, a man is being forced to drink urine to “cure him” of being a homosexual. In another, a metal bucket is placed over the man’s head and hit with what looks like a baseball bat and a police truncheon.

Attacks like this are being carried out across Russia by an ultra-nationalist group. It claims its objective is to name, shame and punish suspected pedophiles.

However, the aggressors in the videos seem to put all gays and lesbians in the same “category” as pedophiles.

In another online clip, a woman armed with a gun and dressed in camouflage jokes that she’s “out on safari” hunting for paedophiles and gays. She starts shooting towards an imaginary “rainbow target”.

The woman’s name is Yekaterina, and she lives in St Petersburg, where she heads the local branch of the vigilante group “Occupy Paedophilia”.

“Our priority is uncovering cases of paedophilia,” Yekaterina explains to me. “But we’re also against the promotion of homosexuality. And if – along the way – we encounter people of non-traditional sexual orientation, we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Watch the report from BBC above. Very grim stuff.

Read more at the BBC.

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New Mexico: State Supreme Court rules photographer discriminated against gay couple

From the Advocate: A New Mexico photography business violated the state’s Human Rights Act by refusing service to a same-sex couple for their commitment ceremony, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

In a decision issued Thursday, the court found that Elane Photography, based in Albuquerque, violated the antidiscrimination law “in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of two different races.” The studio had turned down a request to photograph the commitment ceremony of Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth, the Santa Fe Reporter notes, with co-owner Elaine Huguenin saying the job would go against her Christian faith and the studio handles only “traditional weddings.”

The court ruled that since Elane Photography is a business that markets to the general public, it is subject to the public accommodations provision of the law. “If Elane Photography took photographs on its own time and sold them at a gallery, or if it was hired by certain clients but did not offer its services to the general public, the law would not apply to Elane Photography’s choice of whom to photograph or not,” the decision reads.

Read more here.

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Russian gold medalists kiss at medal ceremony in protest of “homosexual propaganda” laws

This picture makes me “happy dance.”

Last night, Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova, two members of Russia’s women’s 4×400 relay team, defied their nation’s ban on “homosexual propaganda” when they kissed on the podium during the presentation ceremony for their gold medals at the World Track & Field Championships in Moscow.

Pay attention International Olympic Committee and US Olympic Team – even Russian athletes know how to show moral leadership and courage.

 

Also last night at the World Track & Field Championships, Finnish Minister of Culture & Sports Paavo Arhinmäki waved a rainbow flag during the competition.

Russia, you may make your silly, bigoted laws, but strong, authentic, people are going to be who they are. They will stand for what they believe.  Period.

Forward.

(via JMG)

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Proctor & Gamble on Russian TV

From Bilerico:

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that “barely an hour goes by on Russia’s biggest TV networks without at least one ad from Procter & Gamble.” The Russian government owns or is a major shareholder in most of Russia’s television stations, so every time Procter & Gamble purchases an ad on those networks, the company puts money directly into the pockets of the Russian government and finances Putin’s bloody crusade against LGBT people.”

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President Obama talks Sochi Olympics, Edward Snowden on The Tonight Show

Last night President Obama made a lengthy appearance on the Tonight Show, where Jay Leno brought up the subject of Russia’s crackdown on LGBT people.

Leno: “This seems like Germany – let’s round up the Jews, let’s round up the gays, let’s round up the…it starts with that. You round up people you don’t like. Why isn’t more of the world outraged at this?”

Obama: “I’ve been very clear that when it comes to universal rights, when it comes to people’s basic freedoms, that whether you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality that should transcend every country, and I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.”

[snip]

“What’s happening in Russia is not unique. When I traveled to Africa there were some countries that are doing a lot of good things for their people, who we’re working with and helping on development issues but in some cases have persecuted gays and lesbians and it makes for some uncomfortable press conferences sometimes but one of the things that I think is very important for me to speak out on is making sure that people are treated fairly and justly because that’s what we stand for and I believe that’s not a preset that’s not just unique to America but should apply everywhere.”

When Leno asked him if it would affect the Olympics, Obama replied:

“I think Putin and Russia have a big stake in making sure that the Olympics work, and I think that they understand that for most of the countries that participate in the Olympics we wouldn’t tolerate gays and lesbians being treated differently. They are athletes. They are there to compete. If Russia wants to uphold the Olympic spirit, then every judgment should be made on the track or in the swimming pool or on the balance beam and people’s sexual orientation shouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

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More NYC bars joing the #DumpRussianVodka campaign

From the Facebook page of The Eagle NYC:

“Beginning immediately, the Eagle NYC will discontinue the sale of STOLI and any alcoholic product produced in Russia in protest of Russia’s anti-gay bill banning the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations”. This archaic bill effectively strips every LGBTQ member in Russia of basic human rights and puts gays in danger of being harmed or even killed because of the anti-gay fervor created by the bill. The bill even applies to tourists. The Russian government is pandering to its constituents basest characteristics in an attempt to elevate it’s own image.

“The Eagle NYC denounces the bill and will continue to support gay rights at home and abroad.”

Three other NYC venues with the same owner will reportedly join the boycott: Industry, Elmo, Barracuda.