The Russian authorities need to address a deteriorating situation of widespread and concerted abuse against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and activists, Human Rights Watch said today.
The authorities’ failure to act and some officials’ homophobic comments expose LGBT people to further harassment and violence and embolden the attackers, Human Rights Watch research found.
As the host to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, which begin on February 7 in Sochi, Russia should act in accordance with the principle of nondiscrimination, a core provision of the Olympic Charter. As a member of the Council of Europe, and party to multiple human rights treaties, it should meet its obligations to provide equal respect and protection for LGBT people.
Last night, after President Obama’s State of the Union address, NY1 reporter Michael Scotto interviewed Staten Island Republican Congressman Michael Grimm to get his response to the address.
Scotto followed up with questions regarding an ongoing federal investigation into Grimm’s campaign contributions. The congressman quickly said he wasn’t going to speak “off-topic” and departed.
Scotto reported back to the studio, in a live shot, that Grimm “does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances.” After Scotto’s live shot was completed, Grimm approached him and threatened to “throw [him] off this f—— balcony” and “break you in half. Like a boy.” Transcript of the exchange:
GRIMM: “Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this fucking balcony.”
SCOTTO: Why? I just wanted to ask you…
GRIMM: If you ever do that to me again…
SCOTTO: Why? Why? It’s a valid question.
GRIMM: No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.
As the heated moment began to dominate the twitterverse into the evening, Grimm released a non-apology saying the reporter had taken a disrespectful “cheap shot” that prompted him to become “annoyed:”
“I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other requests,” Grimm said in the statement.
“The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a favor. I doubt that I am the first Member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won’t be the last.”
Today, Grimm has issued an apology to Scotto. Grimm also said that he and Scotto would be going out to lunch soon.
“I was wrong,” Grimm said in the statement. “I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get the better of me and lose my cool. I have apologized to Michael Scotto, which he graciously accepted, and will be scheduling a lunch soon.”
Scotto later tweeted that he accepted Grimm’s apology.
This is probably a good example of “how NOT to draw more attention to a ongoing federal investigation.“
Queer Nation takes a classic Coca Cola commercial and updates the video to reflect current angst and violence today in Russia due to anti-gay legislation and sentiment.
Coke is an official sponsor of the Sochi Olympic Games.
During the previews before a screening of “Lone Survivor” in Florida, a movie goer was shot by a retired police officer for apparently texting on his smart phone.
“Somebody throws popcorn. I’m not sure who threw the popcorn,” a witness said. “And then bang, he was shot.”
Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner of Generations Radio are upset about a float at the Rose Bowl parade that included a married gay couple which, despite nasty attacks from anti-gay activists, went off without incident (and even won an award).
Buehner was perplexed by the fact that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation sponsored the float, saying that its “pro-homosexual propaganda” would “spread AIDS.”
He added: “I wonder what the Rose Bowl parade would do if we had the stoning of a homosexual along the parade just as an expression of free speech and all that.”
Swanson: They’ll also witness a controversial same-sex wedding, courtesy of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. According to the Pasadena Star News, a pair of homosexual hairstylists will ‘marry’ along the parade route while riding a wedding cake-shaped float sponsored by the AIDS group.
Buehner: This is an AIDS group? This is a group that’s against AIDS? They’re not trying to spread AIDS right? I mean, if you are trying to spread AIDS you would have pro-homosexual propaganda but if you’re trying to stop it….
Swanson: They may be serving lemonade too as part of the event, I hope not but maybe.
Buehner: I wonder what the Rose Bowl parade would do if we had the stoning of a homosexual along the parade just as an expression of free speech and all that.
Swanson: I think that would be rejected by the Rose Bowl parade committee.
Buehner: Well what if the stones were just made like of flowers and flower pedals?
Swanson: I don’t know if they’d allow that or not. Anyway ladies and gentlemen, this is another instance in which the degradation of our society is going mainstream.
So, just so I’m clear: Buehner wants to compare the exchange of loving marriage vows with staging a violent stoning death of a human being?
Really? Is that what Christ would do?
Swanson went on to say that the gay community is “coming after Christians” and will have them “burned at the stake.”
He described the fight as a “battle between good and evil,” warning “Christians will be destroyed by the other side” unless the government begins to “prosecute homosexuality, especially public acts of homosexuality.”
Out with two of his gay friends in the Old Market Saturday night, they decided to grab a bite at PepperJax Bar and Grill.
Inside a group of three guys started to verbally harass his friends. Ryan said, to avoid confrontation they left PepperJax.
The three men followed them outside.
“My friend then said, yes, I know I’m a boy in a dress. After that he said, “yes I know”, some “colorful words” and disgusting. I said hey guys, we’re not looking for any trouble, just trying to get home. Just trying to get home”, said Langenegger.
Ryan stepped forward and tried to stop the incident. Instead he took a hard blow to the face.
“It’s sad, it’s really sad, disgusting. It just makes no sense this day and age and in Omaha, for all of this stuff to still be happening and out in the streets.”
A police report was filed but the attackers were long gone by the time police arrived at the scene of the attack. However, surveillance video and credit card records may end up identifying them.
Terrible news out of Canada this weekend as a gay man was violently attacked in the street early Saturday morning.
Choir director Scott Jones’ throat was slashed and he was stabbed in the back, the knife severing his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Police made an arrest in the attack late last night.
Police said Shane Edward Matheson, 19, of Trenton, N.S. is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public peace, in the violent attack on 27-year-old Scott Jones early Saturday morning. The accused was arrested without incident at a home on High Street in Trenton at 11 p.m. AT on Saturday.
Matheson is facing another charge of assault with a weapon for an incident earlier in the evening against an 18-year-old woman. New Glasgow police Const. Ken Macdonald said that charge is unrelated to the attack on Jones, which happened shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time on Saturday.
Jones’ friend and roommate Amy Punke said she and Jones were out with friends celebrating the opening of a friend’s art studio. Though she didn’t witness the attack, Punke has been speaking to Jones, who remains in critical but stable condition in a Halifax hospital.
Steven Torres, a 22-year-old Bronx man, has been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime for stabbing 69-year-old Edward Orozco of Queens to death under the elevated 7 train subway station at 90th and Roosevelt in Queens at 1:30 pm on Monday.
According to NY Daily News reports on what set Torres off:
“He (Torres) said the victim was blowing kisses to him. That’s what set him off,” a source said. “This is what he is claiming.”
Police say Torres tried to run from the scene before they apprehended him. The assailant reportedly said nothing as he attacked his victim, but laughed when he was finally caught.
“He was laughing, yes,” witness Julio Lobaton said. “He was laughing like nothing”.
According to the NYPD, Torres has also been charged with the stabbing of a second man, which occurred on September 12th inside 9 Stanton Street near Bowery, because, reportedly, Torres believed that a 47 year old unidentified man was making sexual advances toward him. The second man survived the injuries.
An ethnic Uzbek man was reportedly raped at gunpoint in Novosibirsk, Russia after being threatened by a group of “six or seven” vigilantes, who filmed the alleged incident and posted it online where it began circulating on the mobile phone application WhatsApp, Radio Free Europe reports:
The series of short clips, making the rounds on the mobile phone application WhatsApp show the victim, who seems to be an ethnic Uzbek, being bullied into confessing that he is gay.
He is asked to identify himself and is stripped of his clothes, which are later burned. He is then handcuffed, beaten, insulted, and threatened with a gun. Ultimately, he is forced to sodomize himself by sitting on a bottle, which is then pushed with a bat.
The man, visibly terrified, weeps throughout much of the ordeal.
The Uzbek-speaking source, speaking from Russia, confirms that the victim was targeted because he is gay.
“We made him sit on a bottle so that he repents for his sins and comes to reason,” he told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service. “We did this to protect the dignity of Uzbeks. We live and work here, we are in contact with people of different nationalities. There will be no respect for us otherwise.”
According to the purported assailant, the attack took place on September 11 in Novosibirsk, where he himself is a student, and all the participants were ethnic Uzbeks.
He says the man was first detained by a group of Russian antigay vigilantes who lured him to a fake date through a social-networking website.
