San Diego condemns bikinis to avoid discrimination charges
How far will the city of San Diego go to avoid charges of discriminating against a gay man who was arrested for wearing a leather kilt to a Pride parade? Far enough, apparently, to throw bikinis under the bus. When Will Walters provided photos of women wearing standard bikinis on a San Diego beach, unheeded by police officers, as proof his kilt wasn’t out of line, the city’s attorney responded, “Having photographs of violators does not prove these violators were not subsequently contacted by police during the event.”
Read more at The Huffington Post.
Indian state to “treat” LGBT youth
According to the Times of India, the minister of sports and youth affairs in the small Indian state of Goa says he plans to set up centres to “treat” LGBT youth and make them “normal.” “We will make them normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholic Anonymous centres, we will have centres. We will train them and give them medicines too,” Ramesh Tawadkar said Jan 12.
South Dakota court strikes down gay-marriage ban
A South Dakota federal judge has struck down the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage. The judge said gay people have a “fundamental right to marry” but put a stay on the ruling until the state could appeal. If the ruling comes into effect, only 13 states would remain in which same-sex couples cannot marry.
The UK’s Muslim drag queens
Ali is a gay Pakistani drag queen, learning the ropes of the drag circuit in the UK. The Guardian follows Ali and his mentor, Asifa Lahore, the UK’s first Muslim drag queen, in an online mini-documentary.
Watch Muslim Drag Queens here.
The gay Golden Globes
The big winner at this year’s Golden Globes, writes Joseph Neese at MSNBC, was the LGBT community, from HBO’s The Normal Heart to Amazon’s Transparent. The Human Right Campaign also shared their favourite moments, including a win by marriage-equality supporter Julianne Moore.
Photo credit: Will Walters
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