Stonewall will campaign for trans rights
The UK’s largest gay rights advocacy group, Stonewall, says it will start to fight for trans rights, after decades of focusing exclusively on gay and lesbian issues. Stonewall’s chief executive said the organization has “a responsibility to use our voice” and apologized for taking so long. Stonewall will now campaign on issues such as economic equality for trans people and an end to the “spousal veto” on trans recognition.
Apple terminates contract with anti-gay lobbyist
Apple has let go a lobbyist and former Alabama state legislator with a history of anti-gay campaigning. Apple would not say why Jay Love was fired but confirmed that he was gone after The Washington Blade requested a comment. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, came out as gay last year.
Read more at The Washington Blade.
#ItsNotOver
The United States may be headed toward gay marriage, but the fight for equality is far from over, says Gender Rights Maryland director Dana Beyer at The Huffington Post. Backlash like the new “licence to discriminate” law in Arkansas, she says, shows that gay opponents are just getting started. Gay radio host Michelangelo Signorile sums it up in one hashtag: #ItsNotOver.
Mexican gay activist Max Mejía dies
Tijuana gay activist and cultural promoter Max Mejía has died after a struggle with heart disease. Mejía helped to found the Mexican gay rights movement in the 1970s and for a decade ran the newspaper Frontera Gay.
Colombian government supports gay adoption
The Colombian government has thrown its weight behind a court case to allow gay adoption. Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo says that he hopes the court will find in favour of gay adoption and that this is “a step that we should take.” The University of La Sabana, a Catholic institution, recently published an article suggesting that the children of gay parents suffer developmental problems, but Cristo says there is enough scientific proof that gay parents are just as effective.
Children’s author apologizes for anti-lesbian comments
English children’s author Robert Muchamore has apologized and donated $20,000 to an LGBT charity after making disparaging comments about lesbians on Facebook. After going to see the film Fifty Shades of Grey, he commented on his Facebook page on a “small but noisy group of lesbians (well, ugly women with short hair who I assume were lesbians, and surely hadn’t had a penis anywhere near them in some considerable time) shouting: ‘You’re all rapists,’ to men entering the cinema.”
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