The International Federation of Gay Games announced the launch of its first crowdfunding campaign, for the Gay Games 9 scholarship fund, according to a press release. The campaign, hosted on IndieGoGo ( gaymes.info/gg9campaign ), features Gay Games Ambassador Leigh Ann Naidoo, a South African Olympic beach volleyball player, along with personal messages from beneficiaries of Gay Games scholarships. The ninth edition of the quadrennial Gay Games will be held in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, Aug. 9-16 , 2014.
The International Olympic Committee declared it has no grounds to challenge a Russian law that has been criticized as discriminating against gays, according to the Washington Post. IOC officials told a news conference in Sochi, Russia, where they were making their final inspection tour before the Games begin Feb. 7, that they were "fully satisfied" that a Russian law banning gay propaganda does not violate the Olympic charter's anti-discrimination guarantee. The law, signed by President Vladimir Putin over the summer, makes it illegal to discuss "non-traditional" sexual relationships in the presence of minors or to suggest that they are equal to traditional ones.
Cameroon is attempting to blame a gay activist for his own murder, Gay Star News reported. Eric Lembembe's body was discovered by his friends in July, with his neck and feet broken and his face, hands and feet burned with an iron. Anatole Marie Nkou, Cameroon's ambassador to the United Nations Office at Geneva, claimed the descriptions of the murder as a hate crime and a homophobic murder were "just things that have been made up," adding the Lembembe "may have committed crimes." Recently, Cameroon rejected the United Nations Human Rights Council's recommendation that it decriminalize homosexuality.
In Australia, Surry Hills Police Local Area Command ( LAC ) is warning Sydney men who have sex with men about criminals who find potential targets via online dating and then rob and assault them, Gay Star News reported. Recently, a 34-year-old man met another male at a hotel on Oxford Street after arranging a date through a gay dating website. However, a third man entered the room and allegedly assaulted the victim. The alleged offender was caught and charged with aggravated robbery with wounding; his court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 7.
Beatings as well as death and rape threatens have failed to deter Kaye Ally, the organizer of South Africa's Johannesburg Pride, from staging the Oct. 26 event, according to Gay Star News. Ally claimed the violent attacks began in the early hours of Aug. 23, when three men broke into her home as she slept. The men, wearing balaclavas, held a gun to her head and stole her laptop, cell phone and tablet as well memory sticks and two files on Johannesburg Pride. She was also beaten and tasered.
On the heels of Pope Francis' recent remarks about the Catholic Church being too focused on abortion and homosexuality, the pontiff ordered the excommunication of an Australian priest who advocated for women's rights and gay marriage, according to the Huffington Post. The priest, Greg Reynolds, received a letter from the pope informing him that he had been excommunicated. The letter, written in Latin, did not give a reason for the decision; however, the Archdiocese of Melbourne ( which oversaw the three churches where Reynolds preached ) said he was shut out because he was publicizing his views that women should be ordained as priests. Also, Reynolds reportedly held unauthorized communion ceremonies.
A lesbian explorer has become the first woman to row unaccompanied from Japan to Alaska, SheWired.com noted. Sarah Outen, a British native, touched shore in Adak, a town in the Aleutian Islands, after a 3,750-mile solo journey across the Pacific Ocean. During her five-month trek, the 28-year-old Oxford University graduate also became engaged, proposing to her girlfriend on a satellite phone call. Outen also wants to bicycle across North America, and, upon reaching the Atlantic Ocean, begin another solo boat ride to the United Kingdom.
Gay-rights groups are calling for a boycott of the world's biggest pasta maker, Barilla, after the company's chair said he would never use same-sex couples in his advertisements, the Independent reported. Guido Barilla, whose firm has almost half the Italian pasta market and a quarter of that in the United States, told Italy's La Zanzara radio show, "I would never do an advert with a homosexual family. ... If the gays don't like it they can go an eat another brand." The chairman later attempted to backtrack, saying, "I'm sorry if my comments on La Zanzara have created misunderstanding or polemic, or if I've offended anyone. In the interview I only wanted to underline the central role of the woman in the family."
In Mexico, fathers Alex and Pepe hope to make a public push for LGBT-rights laws in their border state of Nuevo Leon after their 2-year-old was expelled from the Hill Institute for having two fathers, the Latin Times reported. Alex and Pepe had initially hoped for no more than to expose the institute's discrimination. However, having received expressions of support from media and other parents at the school, they wanted to extend their complaint into a public push for laws that recognize LGBT rights to marriage and adoption and protect the rights of the children of same-sex couples.
Pakistan's Internet watchdog has blocked the deeply conservative Muslim country's first website aimed at gay people, saying it was "against Islam," France24.com reported. The queerpk.com site, set up to help members of Pakistan's homosexual and transgender community socialise and share experiences, was shut down Sept. 25. A spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority said access to the site was halted after complaints from Internet users.
Swedish distance runner Abeba Aregawi has spoken of her disappointment that remarks she made about homosexuality overshadowed her 1,500-meter gold-medal performance in Moscow in August, according to IceNews.is. The Ethiopia-born athlete refused to participate in the rainbow protest because of her religious beliefs at the World Championships. Unlike teammates Moa Hjelmer and Emma Green Tregaro, who sported rainbow fingernails as a pro-LGBT move, Aregawi did not, saying her faith doesn't permit homosexuality.
In Singapore, a court heard that a naked man who was found dead at a gay spa likely died from a sex game gone wrong, Gay Star News reported. It is believed Yeo Hung Song, 48, was practicing autoerotic asphyxiation, which involves starving the brain of oxygen to increase sexual arousal. Imran Abdul Amid, the state coroner, has said suicide could also have been a possibility. According to an FBI estimate, as many as 1,000 U.S. residents die from autoerotic asphyxiation every year.
Vatican officials threatened legal action and shut down an exhibition in Rome because it featured photos of same-sex couples kissing inside Roman Catholic churches, according to an Advocate.com item. The exhibit, titled "Trialogo" and produced by Spaniard Gonzalo OrquÃn, was scheduled to open at Rome's Galleria L'Opera; however, the exhibit's curators received a letter from the Vatican threatening legal action and confirming that "the church is against the exhibition."
Two same-sex couples have become the first to be legally married in Colombia, Advocate.com noted. A civil court judge had declared Julio Alberto Cantor BorbÃ"n and William Alberto Castro Franco "united in civil matrimony" following a ceremony. Also, the country's leading newspaper published a front-page article announcing the legal marriage of Elizabeth Castillo and Claudia Zea, who were also granted a marriage license by a different civil court judge.
Two women were reportedly arrested, jailed and publicly shamed after kissing at an evangelical event in Brazil, the Huffington Post reported. Brazilian congressman and pastor Marco Feliciano halted his presentation after Joana Palhares and Yunka Mihura began kissing, reportedly asking municipal guards and military police officials to arrest the pair. Palhares and Mihura—who say that heterosexual couples around them were kissing—also claimed they were physically assaulted by police following their arrest and incarceration at the First District Police Station of Sao Sebastiao.
The United Nations has held its first-ever ministerial meeting on LGBT rights, according to On Top Magazine. The meeting was organized by Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. Eleven countries signed on to a resolution stating "those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender must enjoy the same human rights as everyone else." At the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also announced a $1 million contribution from The Netherlands to the Global Equality Fund, a global initiative to support gay rights that former secretary Hillary Clinton first announced in 2011.
In Denmark, Hotel Sig rejected Keld Christensen and Dinghao Wang as managers—and they believe it's because they're a gay couple, according to the Copenhagen Post. Christensen and Wang both reportedly have strong management backgrounds and had several positive conversations with the owner of the property, Karl Kristian Nielsen. "I do not think that Sig is ready to have a gay couple managing the hotel," Nielsen told the newspaper Ugeavisen Varde. "One of them, the lanky Chinese guy, spoke poor Danish and neither had chef's training." The couple said that they have received letters of support from Sig residents.
Serbian authorities banned a gay pride march in Belgrade for a third consecutive year because of threats made by right-wing groups, according to Boston.com . Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said top security and state officials decided to ban the event, originally slated for Sept. 28, because they feared a repeat of violence in 2010, when extremists attacked a gay pride march in the Serbian capital. Protesting the ban, about 100 gay-pride activists marched past the downtown Serbian government headquarters.
Gay Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, an ER doctor, who were detained Aug. 16 in Egypt while filming a documentary and held without charges since then, are to be held for another 45 days, according to the Toronto Star. Under current Egyptian law they may be held for six months—until March 2014—without charges, and if charged, they could be behind bars for two more years before trial. Canada's prime minister has called for their immediate release. The two Canadians' dramatic odyssey began when they met by chance last year at the annual Toronto Palestinian Film Festival, where Greyson was a long term adviser and Loubani was viewing films.
