Calgary mayor: GSA bill would have made us look like “hillbillies”
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi praised Alberta’s premier Dec 11 for stopping a bill that would have forced students to go to court to make their schools allow them to start gay-straight alliances. “Well, folks, that would be the Scopes Monkey Trial of Alberta,” he said. “We would end up having international attention toward what kind of hillbillies we are. None of us need that.” The Alberta legislature has spent weeks debating two competing bills, one Liberal bill that would give students the right to start GSAs and one government-supported bill that would leave discretion up to schools unless students went to court.
Read more at the Toronto Star.
One-on-one conversations can change minds on gay marriage
According to Los Angeles researcher David Fleischer, a short conversation with a gay canvasser can permanently change people’s minds about gay marriage. Fleischer found that after the conversations, support for same-sex marriage jumped by eight percentage points, with the change in opinion lasting over time and trickling down to other family members. The change in opinion did not last, however, if the canvasser was straight.
Read more from The Washington Post.
Playboy interviews Dan Savage
In a wide-ranging interview with Playboy, Dan Savage discusses why religion wants to own your genitals, why some people should cheat and others should not, and how straight men would hook up in parks if they could.
Read the whole interview at Playboy.
Most HIV infections come from young, undiagnosed men
A UK study on HIV shows that the majority of new cases among men who have sex with men stem from young, undiagnosed men with relatively large numbers of sexual partners and in the early stages of infection. Researchers estimated that 85 percent of new cases were from men who were not taking treatment, and 90 percent happened in ongoing sexual relationships.
New York governor: Insurance companies must pay for sex reassignment
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered the state’s insurance companies to pay for treatment for gender dysphoria, including sex-reassignment surgery. In the past, trans people have been told to pay for their own surgery because it is “cosmetic.” In a letter to insurance companies, however, Cuomo says that insurers are obligated to cover surgery because state law requires them to pay for treatment of psychological disorders.
Read more at The New York Times.
Ex-gay poster boy re-gays
For years, Christian Schizzel was as an example of how a gay man could turn straight. None of it, however, was ever true, he says. In an interview with the Religious News Service, Shizzel explains the lies, tricks and brainwashing techniques his trainers used to keep up the act.
Read the whole interview at the Religious News Service.
Image Credit: Naheed Nenshi, calgarymayor.ca
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