News
Periodical Political Post *159
Mar 27th
Queer News
- US Supreme Court hears arguments over marriage equality
- A gay scientist made the greatest invention of the 20th century
- Sweden & Netherlands most gay friendly countries in Europe
- Ian McKellen: Religious leaders to blame for homeless queer youth
Other News
- Incomes of America’s bottom 90 percent grew $59 in 40 years
- Wealthiest Americans donate 1.3% of income, the poorest 3.2%
- BP accused of whitewashing environmental record on Wikipedia´
- Teen develops device to clean 7 million tons of plastic from oceans
+18This Lad just became a Millionaire
Mar 26th
One of Yahoo’s newest employees is a 17-year-old high school student in Britain. As of Monday, he is one of its richest, too. That student, Nick D’Aloisio, a programming whiz who wasn’t even born when Yahoo was founded in 1994, sold his news-reading app, Summly, to the company on Monday for a sum estimated to be around the $30 million mark. Yahoo said it would incorporate his algorithmic invention, which takes long-form stories and shortens them for readers using smartphones, in its own mobile apps, with D’Aloisio’s help.
“I’ve still got a year and a half left at my high school,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday. But he will make arrangements to test out of his classes and work from the Yahoo office in London, partly to abide by the company’s new and much-debated policy that prohibits working from home.
+16Periodical Political Post *158
Mar 23rd
Queer News
- Trans woman commits suicide after being bullied by newspaper
- Mexican court: anti-gay comments are hate speech, not free speech
- Canada passes transgender rights and anti-discrimination bill
- Proposed law in US state allows counsellors to refuse gay patients
Other News
- Early HIV drugs functionally cure patients in about one in ten cases
- “We ‘try to collect everything and hang on to it forever”’ says CIA
- UK move to drop debate on climate change in schools faces backlash
- Another study says illegal downloading doesn’t impact music sales
+4The “Gay God” attracts Robbers & Cultists
Mar 15th
The modern revivers of the cult of an ancient Roman gay god have claimed that Egyptian authorities are ignoring widespread looting of the Egyptian city named for him. The Roman emperor Hadrian declared his male lover Antinous a god in the year 130, after he fell into the river Nile and drowned at the age of 19. Hadrian founded the city Antinoopolis in Egypt nearby the site of his lover’s death and established annual games in his memory.
Hadrian also named a star after him which was said to have appeared after his death. Temples for Antinous were established all over the Roman Empire during Hadrian’s reign but were torn down by Christians after the cult was outlawed by the Christian Emperor Theodosius. Many of the surviving statues of Antinous ended up in the Vatican Museum where they were seen by the artist Raphael who adopted him as a model for male perfection in painting angels.
The cult of Antinous was revived in 2002 and its followers now say that the ruins of Antinoopolis have been left to looters while officials turn a blind eye. “Nobody cares because Antinous is the god of gays, and they are embarrassed to mention that fact,” said Antonyus Subia, head priest of the Hollywood Temple of Antinous. “Even the few news articles which have appeared about the destruction of Antinoopolis fail to mention Antinous at all.”
Subia said that the ruins of Antinoopolis were being systematically looted by tomb robbers and blamed poor law enforcement by the new Egyptian Government. “This is our gay heritage which is being destroyed,” he said.
+5The Pope’s still awful
Mar 14th
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a 76-year-old Argentinean, was chosen as the first Latin American pope on Wednesday. He will lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics as Pope Francis. While his selection may be historic, it may also mean more of the same when it comes to gay rights in the Catholic Church.
Bergoglio is a conservative who is not only anti-gay marriage and anti-gay adoption but possibly involved in dreadful crimes and scandals. He has described same-sex marriage as the work of the devil and a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” He has also said that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children. In 2010, he championed against a bill for same-sex marriage and gay adoption, according to the National Catholic Register.
“The Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family," he wrote to the four monasteries in Argentina. "At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts.”
He described it as a "‘move’ of the Father of Lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God" and asked for lawmakers to "not act in error." In John 8:44, the Father of Lies is the devil.
Argentina approved same-sex marriage in 2010, making it the first Latin American country to legalize the union, the New York Times previously reported. The country is also progressive when it comes to contraception. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has promoted free contraception and artificial insemination, the Associated Press notes. In the past, Francis has clashed with the Argentinean government over his stance on these issues.
GLAAD President Herndon Graddick responded to the election of the new pope saying:
For decades the Catholic hierarchy has been in need of desperate reform. In his life, Jesus condemned gays zero times. In Pope Benedict’s short time in the papacy, he made a priority of condemning gay people routinely. This, in spite of the fact, that the Catholic hierarchy had been in collusion to cover up the widespread abuse of children within its care. We hope this Pope will trade in his red shoes for a pair of sandals and spend a lot less time condemning and a lot more time foot-washing.
+5Periodical Political Post *157
Mar 11th
Queer News
- Children of gay parents are thriving, family experts say
- Brazil elects racist, anti-gay pastor to be human rights boss
- Gay mayoral candidate beaten, burned in possible hate crime
- Mother beat teenage son with electrical cord for being gay
Other News
- Revealed: US Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres
- British ministers plot Human Rights Act repeal in the UK
- Northern Irish women risk jail by admitting use of abortion drugs
- Mother sent son to school in wrong town jailed for 5 years
+3Bashed by the Police
Mar 8th
A press photographer caught what a troubling incident of police brutality on Saturday night on camera, as a reveler at Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was assaulted by a cop. Read on…
0Periodical Political Post *156
Mar 4th
Queer News
- Gay marriage ban is not sex discrimination, Australian judge rules
- British anti-gay Cardinal admits that he and others had gay sex
- Meanwhile, some clerics are convinced the pope himself is gay
- Polish Nobel peace prize winner shocks with anti-gay comments
Other News
- US trade office calls ACTA back from the dead & Canada complies
- Baby born with HIV apparently cured for first time, say scientists
- Local US police using pictures of little children for target practice
- Long-lost ancient continent finally found under the Indian Ocean
+2Periodical Political Post *155
Feb 28th
Queer News
- Anti-gay propaganda bill “reflects Russian values”, foreign minister says
- Australia: Gay kids bullied by teachers as well as students says new study
- Christian group campaigns against program to stop bullying of gay kids
- Vote on same-sex marriage in Vietnam likely to be delayed until next year
- Transgender woman to stand for election in Pakistan for the first time
Other News
- Billion dollar profits of big US banks coming entirely from taxpayers
- UK’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric resigns due to abuse allegations
- Radioactive waste leaking again in former American plutonium factory
- US state of Mississippi officially abolishing slavery after historic oversight
- Prison treating inmates like people has lowest reoffending rate in Europe
+1Bestiality? Yay! Gays? Nay!
Feb 26th
Australian film censors have banned a film that contains real sex between two male actors less than a year after they allowed a documentary that contained actual depictions of bestiality to screen at festivals. I Want Your Love, by American filmmaker Travis Mathews had been scheduled to screen at LGBT film festivals around Australia this year but the Australian Classification Board decided to ban it instead.
The decision comes less than six months after the Classification Board decided to allow the film Donkey Love, a documentary about a Colombian folk tradition where men have sex with donkeys to prepare them for having sex with women. Donkey Love contained actual on screen sex between men and animals but was given permission to screen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival and Melbourne Underground Festival by the Classification Board. I Want Your Love tells the story of a 20-something gay artist who negotiates to have sex with his best friend before leaving Los Angeles to move back to his hometown in Ohio.
In 2010 the Classification Board banned the Bruce La Bruce gay zombie movie LA Zombie which contained scenes of simulated cannibalism during real sex, however the depictions of real sex in I Want Your Love are non-violent. The Melbourne Underground Film Festival defied the ban and screened LA Zombie anyway and was issued a fine after being raided by police.
Prior to that in 2003 the Classification Board banned the Larry Clark film Ken Park which contained a real threesome between two male and one female adult actors who’s characters were supposed to be teenagers. The ban on LA Zombie lead to a number of official complaints and accusations of anti-gay bias. Another Travis Mathews film, the short documentary In Their Room Berlin, was also refused permission to screen at last year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival.
Australian censors have approved feature films containing real heterosexual sex for an R rating in the past – meaning that they can be rented from video stores – while films deemed simply pornographic are illegal to sell but legal to own in most Australian states.
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