Little Saigon, lesbian separatists and what comes after marriage

Your Daily Package of newsy and naughty bits from around the world


The era of witches, furies and lesbian separatists

Director Mary Dore speaks to Mother Jones about her new documentary, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, a chronicle of the radical second-wave feminist era of the 1960s and ’70s. “I wanted to do a film that was in-your-face and maybe even rude, because that’s how the women’s movement was,” Dore says. “You don’t make change by being polite and folding your hands — it doesn’t work that way.”

Poll: Most Americans support marriage equality, also support refusal of service

According to a poll commissioned by the Associated Press, Americans narrowly favour gay marriage, but they also favour the right of businesses to refuse service to gay clients on religious grounds. Respondents favoured gay marriage 44 to 39 percent but were split 48 to 48 on whether the Supreme Court should make it the law of the land.

What comes after marriage?

In the United States and across the Western world, marriage equality is rushing toward completion, but what comes next? At The American Prospect, Peter Montgomery considers the options for the next great gay social struggle, from anti-discrimination to economic equality to global acceptance.

Judge: New Jersey conversion therapy experts not qualified to testify

A New Jersey judge has ruled that proponents of conversion therapy are not qualified to testify as experts in a consumer fraud case against a conversion therapy clinic, because their opinions are based on the scientifically rejected claim that homosexuality is a disorder. Judge Peter Bariso wrote, “The theory that homosexuality is a disorder is not novel but — like the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it — instead is outdated and refuted.”

Read more from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Little Saigon struggles to accept gay rights change

Vietnam has become the first nation in Southeast Asia to decriminalize, if not endorse, same-sex marriage, but for Vietnamese people living overseas, change is hard to accept. Not only do gay rights fall in between tradition and modernity, writes Ahn Do at the LA Times; they also pull at Vietnamese expats feelings about Communism and national identity.

 

Kyrgyzstani protesters rally against gays

A small group of protesters rallied in front of Kyrgyzstan’s government buildings this week, demanding the government do more to block “pedophilia, homosexuals” and NGOs that support gay rights. Kyrgyzstan is considering a Russian-style law banning gay propaganda.

Read more at Radio Free Europe.

Niko Bell

Niko Bell is a writer, editor and translator from Vancouver. He writes about sexual health, science, food and language.

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