Gays make gains in China: survey

There's a growing acceptance of gay people in China, the latest survey on LGBT shows. 59% of surveyed city residents said that society should accept homosexuals according to the first annual survey on the social acceptance toward LGBT people by the Shanghai LGBT Professionals and Work For LGBT and Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Ah Qiang, a well-known gay rights activist and founder of PFLAG China, said that the report revealed that gay people can win more acceptance and understanding by coming out: "I appeal to the large number of gay people who are still hiding to come out for the public to better understand the group," Ah Qiang said. Read More 

Church members charged with beating gay man

For Matthew Fenner, a crowd of parishioners gathering around him in a church sanctuary after a prayer service was a sign of trouble. Within minutes, he said they began to berate him because he was gay. One woman told him he was "disgusting." Then for two hours, they pushed and hit Fenner, screaming at him as they tried to "break me free of the homosexual 'demons,'" he said in a police affidavit. 

Nearly two years later, five Word of Faith Fellowship church members have been indicted for kidnapping and assault in connection with Fenner's beating. But the case has opened new wounds in the rural North Carolina community where the church has been a lightning rod of controversy.  Read More

Why it is not a sin to be gay

Nigerian pastor Elizabeth Funke Obisanya explains why Jesus loves gays but African Christians do not:

To win the struggle to change men and women’s hearts and minds, one must consider what the Bible calls strongholds – ideologies, views or thinking that have been held on to for a long time. When that thinking is wrong, the challenge is great.

Many African strongholds include the view that homosexuality is paganistic and paganism is bad. The second is that gay white men want to pollute black children (see the justifications for Uganda's anti-gay laws). The issue is not whether one agrees with them or not, but that these perceptions are there and need to be dealt with. Read More  

Op-ed: An Open Letter to Mainstream LGBT Organizations That Have Remained Silent on Black Lives Mattering

Why did we feel the need to write this open letter to mainstream LGBT organizations with a reference to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act?  Because it illuminates the dangers of focusing on one type of identity-based violence -- the violence that impacts LGBT people -- while willfully ignoring the police and vigilante violence that impacts Black queer- and trans-identified people, as well as all Black people:

Mike Brown's bloodied and lifeless body was left on a hot Missouri street for 4.5 hours; the world bore witness to video clips of Eric Garner uttering his final words, "I can't breathe!", as a police officer choked him to death. Read More 

The first LGBT Shelter opened in Tirana, Albania

The first residential shelter for LGBTI who are left homeless, suffer domestic violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, or live in a non safe environment was open in Tirana, marking a milestone for the human rights movement in Albania. Through this temporary housing, beneficiaries will be offered different services including life skills training, vocational training opportunities and psycho-social support. Read More

Protesters Kiss-In At Madrid Burger King After Gay Couple Is Kicked Out

Over 100 people participated in a gay kiss-in at a Burger King franchise in Spain after a same-sex couple was reportedly kicked out of the restaurant for kissing. A security guard had asked two gay men, ages 18 and 19, to leave the Burger King in Madrid's Plaza de los Cubos last month after a patron who was eating there with his kids complained about them kissing, according to El Pais.

“He said to us that we couldn’t do things like that. That there were children around," one of the men told the publication, adding that the pair ultimately left the restaurant because they did not want to cause trouble. Arcópoli, a Madrid-based LGBT rights group, organized the event.  Read More

The hidden and the hunted: Uganda's war on gay men

Reporter Jonathan Heaf takes an intimate view on the lives of Ugandan gay men in the wake of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) - or the "Kill The Gays Bill", as it has become known - passed by the Parliament of Uganda:

There must be no distinguishable markings on the outside of the building. Nothing indicative of what happens within. The room is airless and empty. Michael Bashaija slumps between his boyfriend - an older man named Apollo - and a lawyer, knees wide apart, on a green plastic garden chair that is cracked and worn.  Read More 

Living Dangerously: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Iran

It is possible to be gay and live under a repressive regime that is always threatening to out you, or worse. But it's a lot like walking a tightrope: scary and fraught with risks

Saeed was 20 years old when he sat his father down and told him he was gay. Trembling, he recounted how, as a child, he hid cutouts of male underwear models from foreign magazines under his pillow, and would gaze at them for hours when he was alone. His mother, sitting speechless in a chair next to her husband, went pale.

A retired colonel in the Iranian Air Force, Saeed’s father looked at him with a straight face, not moving a muscle. “Affirmative,” he said. He had spent three decades in the military, and had been shaped equally by its rigorous discipline and his religious upbringing. “I always knew you were different from my other children. I always used to say that to your mom. Right?” he said, turning to his wife, then added: “Saeed, this is your nature. This isn’t your choice. You should have told us earlier.”

Saeed burst into tears, relieved. His mother took his hands and nodded, “What can we do to help?” Read More 

South Korean LGBT Activists Declare Victory After Seoul Mayor Agrees To Address Discrimination

The mayor of Seoul, South Korea, has apologized for failing to proclaim a new civil rights charter that includes LGBT protections, and agreed to establish a panel to discuss ways to end discrimination, according to a coalition of activist groups. The LGBT coalition, called Rainbow Action, decided to end a six-day sit-in at Seoul City Hall after meeting with Mayor Park Won-soon last week. The sit-in began when Won-soon and the Seoul Municipal Government declined to proclaim the charter on World Human Rights Day as originally scheduled, saying the LGBT protections had caused "social conflict." Read More 

Cuba’s Gay Rights Evolution

Mariela Castro, the daughter of the current president, Raúl Castro, has led the charge on legislative and societal changes that have given rise to an increasingly visible and empowered community. In the process, she has carved out a rare space for civil society in an authoritarian country where grass-roots movements rarely succeed. Some Western diplomats in Havana have seen the progress on gay rights as a potential blueprint for expansion of other personal freedoms in one of the most oppressed societies on earth. Read More

Chinese Court Sides With Gay Man in ‘Conversion’ Suit

In a victory for gay rights advocates in China, a Beijing court ruled on Friday that a Chinese clinic must pay compensation to a gay man who sued it for giving him electric shocks intended to change his sexual orientation and stating that homosexuality is not a mental illness. Read More

UCCP approves LGBT policy statement, stresses ‘Let Grace Be Total’

The United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) approved “Let Grace Be Total,” a policy statement on lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people in its 10th Quadrennial General Assembly and 66th Founding Anniversary. “This affirms that all of us regardless of any category are under the grace of God. The statement means that LGBTs should not be discriminated but should be unconditionally accepted in the fellowship and membership of the Church,” says Bishop Reuel Marigza, UCCP General Secretary. Read More