US activists brace for marriage ruling
With a ruling on the constitutionality of state same-sex marriage bans likely only days away, activists on both sides are bracing for victory or defeat. Fifty-thousand Americans have pledged to engage in civil disobedience if same-sex marriage is made the law of the land, and presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has promised to fight on even after a defeat at the Supreme Court. Activists supporting gay couples, on the other hand, worry that a defeat in the Supreme Court could effectively annul thousands of marriages.
One woman and her relentlessly gay yard
When widow and mother of four Julie Baker received an anonymous note asking her to tone down her “relentlessly gay” front lawn, she asked the internet for help making it even gayer. The internet obliged, with over $25,000 to a GoFundMe campaign — enough to buy a lot of rainbows lights.
South Korea lifts Pride ban
A South Korean court has reversed a ban on Seoul’s gay Pride parade. Police initially blocked the parade because Christian counter-protesters threatened to cause conflict and traffic disruptions. A Seoul administrative judge, however, said that the parade could not be stopped unless “all other possibilities of less restrictive conditions for the freedom of assembly have been exhausted.”
Read Daily Xtra’s coverage here.
Scientist: There’s no such thing as a gay voice
Many gay men may speak with a similar, distinctive style, but this voice is not directly related to homosexuality, says Canadian linguist Ron Smyth. Instead, Smyth says the “gay voice” is related to the distortion of gender stereotypes, and that many gender-nonconforming straight men also follow the same patterns. In one survey, he found that listeners could only identify gay men based on vocal patterns about half the time.
Read more at the Boston Globe.
The toll of torture
Gay Star News and the NGO Freedom From Torture team up to tell the story of a Cameroonian gay man, snagged by police in a random raid and tortured for days. Now, he is fighting to stay safely in the UK, away from the country that tried to kill him. Even abroad, however, the scars of torture follow him.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
“SCOTUSbuilding 1st Street SE” by 350z33 (talk) – I (350z33 (talk)) created this work entirely by myself. Cropped by Pine. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SCOTUSbuilding_1st_Street_SE.JPG#/media/File:SCOTUSbuilding_1st_Street_SE.JPG
Why you can trust Xtra
