British Olympic diver Tom Daley now says he's a gay man, according to E! Online. The announcement came months after he told fans that he was bisexual. "Of course I still fancy girls," Daley said on a YouTube video posted in December 2013. Later that month, it was revealed that the Olympic diver, 19, is dating Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, 39.
United Nations Free & Equal—the UN human rights office's public information campaign for LGBT equality—announced that Grammy Award winning band fun. is joining the campaign as equality champion, according to a press release. The members of the band are the latest artists to pledge their support for Free & Equal by helping to spread campaign messages and materials via social media. They join pop star Ricky Martin, South African singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Bollywood actress Celina Jaitly, U.S. hip-hop artists Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury.
Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller has again said that decriminalizing gay sex is not a priority for her government in the latest sign that she intends not to honor her 2011 election promise to do so, Gay Star News reported. Simpson-Miller told Television Jamaica, "We have to go to our constituents, consult our constituents and then we go with the decisions of those consultations." She didn't say when those consultations would occur.
Argentina President Cristina Kirchner has agreed to be godmother to the baby daughter of a lesbian couple, according to IOL News. The couple said they asked the president, a mother of two herself, over Facebook. The office for the center-leftist president, who pushed same-sex marriage legislation that was approved in 2010, has not confirmed if Kirchner will attend the baptism—believed to be the first time that a child of an Argentine lesbian couple has been baptized.
Ireland's first gay penguin couple have set up a nest together in the country's only Gentoo penguin colony, the Irish Examiner reported. The same-sex pair, Penelope and Missy, are showng all the signs of a courting couple in their polar ice home in Dingle Oceanworld. They are following in the footsteps of a number of famous same-sex penguin couples, including long-time pair Roy and Silo from New York City's Central Park Zoo.
In a profile, Dr. Kim Seok-Kwun—known as the "father of South Korean transgender people"—said that he has "decided to defy God's will" through the gender-reassignment surgeries he performs, according to the Associated Press. Kim has conducted about 320 of the operations over the past 28 years, widely believed to be the most by any single doctor in the country. He added, "I was [initially] overcome with a sense of shame. But my patients desperately wanted these surgeries. Without them, they'd kill themselves."
Emails sent to the British Columbia premier's office in response to a rainbow flag flying over the legislature last February attacked the provincial government with anti-gay rhetoric and threats, according to Straight.com . The general themes that emerged from the emails included homophobia, bigotry and hate ( plus an often substantial amount of misinformation and poor grammar and spelling ). One email read, "Shame as the government buildings are adorned with the multi- striped symbol of homosexual Propaganda. There is nothing Gay and nothing to be Proud of in forcing a 'celebration' of sodomic sex."
A new burial area for lesbians only was recently inaugurated in a two-century-old cemetery in the German capital, according to LGBTQ Nation. A 4,300-square-foot area of the Lutheran Georgen Parochial cemetery, established in 1814 in central Berlin, will be reserved as a graveyard for up to 80 lesbians, said Usah Zachau, a spokeswoman for the Safia association, a national group primarily for elderly lesbians. The group was given use of the cemetery area for 30 years in exchange for cleaning up and landscaping the area.
In Britain, the Muslim anti-hate crime campaign group Tell MAMA has been criticized for having a "reformist agenda" after it appointed human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell as its patron, Pink News reported. Recently, Tatchell became one of the first openly gay persons appointed to a senior role in a mainstream, non-gay Muslim organization. However, Fiyaz Mughal, the chairman of Tell MAMA, has said he is now facing backlash from members of the Islamic community for overstepping a "stated remit."
In Australia, all four football codes as well as Cricket Australia presented a united front in Sydney, emphasizing the need to end anti-LGBT discrimination in sport, The West Australian reported. The agreement came ahead of the Bingham Cup, the world cup of gay rugby, with all codes agreeing to introduce policies in line with the new Anti-Homophobia and Inclusion Framework by the end of August. It marks the first time in all the major professional sports in a country have collectively committed to tackling discrimination based on sexual orientation with inclusion policies.
Some of the top teams from Canada's LGBTQ community recently faced off in Edmonton for the 2014 Canadian Gay Curling Championships, according to GlobalNews.ca. Colin Rechlo, one of the bonspiel's ( curling match's ) organizers, said, "The stigma is very much, if you are a homosexual that you don't play sports, that you can't be a jock, per se. And I think a lot of it is starting to break through and people are realizing that anyone can play sports, it doesn't matter who you are." Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area; team members then use brooms to sweep the ice and control the speed/direction of the stone.
The group Intolerance Free Weyburn wants the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association to drop an anti-gay speaker from its roster, but Illinois resident Peter LaBarbera vows he will appear, according to CBC.ca. LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality ( AFTAH ), will be speaking at the association's provincial convention April 11-12. According to the group's website, Americans for Truth's mission is to oppose "the radical homosexual agenda" and "stand for God-ordained sexuality."
A Chilean man who had been in a coma for nearly six months after a group of men allegedly attacked him because he was gay died April 6, according to the Washington Blade. Wladimir Sepulveda passed away at a hospital in Rancagua, a city that is roughly 55 miles south of Santiago, the Chilean capital. The 21-year-old had been in a vegetative state after a group of six men attacked him last October in the nearby town of San Francisco de Mostazal. The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBT advocacy group, said Sepúlveda's assailants shouted anti-gay slurs at him as they kicked him and punched him in the head.
A district court in the western Russian region of Kostroma declared that two LGBT rallies can proceed as planned, overturning two decisions by lower courts that sided with local officials refusing to allow the demonstrators to protest, according to Advocate.com . Prominent Russian LGBT activist Nikolay Alexeyev, who wanted to hold two rallies protesting the country's nationwide ban on so-called gay propaganda, filed the case. Although the decision will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, LGBT advocates hailed this latest decision.
Estonians may be able to enter into civil partnerships as soon as July if a coalition of Estonian lawmakers gets its way, accordigng to Gay Star News. A working group including MPs from all four parties in the Estonian Parliament is working on a bill to allow both straight and gay couples to enter into civil partnerships; three of the parties ( Reform Party, Center Party and Social Democracy Party ) in the parliament support the idea.
A heterosexual-pride organization has launched in Italy, and plans to hold its first gathering in May, according to Pink News. Etero Pride launched last month in Tuscany, inviting interested straight people to take part in "Europe's first straight pride." The campaign aims to "challenge mass media and the world of communications in general," and to show the world that the idea that "heterosexuals have no issues or needs" is wrong.
