Out diver Tom Daley recently posed in the autumn/winter collection for the Adidas NEO label, for which he is UK ambassador, according to HeraldScotland.com . The 20-year-old Daley, who is dating screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, had been on two series of ITV's celebrity diving show Splash!, mentoring celebrities to brave the board, but he is now focusing his attention on training to compete in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. The NEO clothing is aimed at teens.
A man in Cameroon was convicted of homosexuality—because he was drinking Baileys liqueur, according to Pink News. Homosexuality is against the law in the African country, with the penal code banning "sexual relations with a person of the same sex." However, according to attorney Michel Togue, police take a broad interpretation of the law—with a court even convicting a man for drinking Baileys Irish Cream, because it is considered feminine.
Despite death threats and severe backlash on social media calling it a "gay temple," Dr. Taj Hargey opened an "all-welcome" mosque in South Africa, according to Pink News. This marked the first time openly LGBTI people are able to attend services in a mosque in that country. Male and female Muslims will worship together, interfaith marriages will be endorsed, and Sunni and Shias will be allowed to worship at the same service. In November 2012, a mosque aimed specifically at gay people opened in Paris.
Six UK universities achieved perfect scores in a guide to gay-friendly universities that LGBT-rights group Stonewall released, The Guardian reported. Gay By Degree 2015 rates 158 universities across the UK against a 10-point checklist of things they should have to best support LGB students. The universities found to be the most gay-friendly, scoring 10 out of 10, are Cardiff University, the University of Essex, the University of Glasgow, Liverpool John Moores University, Sheffield Hallam University and York St. John University. When the guide launched in 2010, no university scored 10 out of 10.
In Wales, freelance photographer has been blinded in one eye following an alleged anti-gay hate crime in which his attackers threw gasoline in his face, according to LGBTQ Nation. Tyler Maddick, 20, said he was targeted by three or four men in a car as he walked home in Swansea on Sept. 11. Maddick said he had just said goodbye to a friend at the railway station and was walking to his home when a car pulled up alongside him and he was verbally abused. The occupants allegedly yelled out an anti-gay slur and then doused him in a liquid, which he later discovered was gasoline.
Yulia Volkova may have made her career by being a fake lesbian, but she says she would not love a son if he came out as gay, Gay Star News reported. The t.A.T.u singer said on a Russian show, "I would condemn [a gay son], because I believe that a real man must be a real man." However, Volkova did say that she would love a lesbian daughter, adding, "[A] man has no right to be a fag."
A bill to create legal same-sex marriages was tabled in the parliamentary Assembly of the autonomous Australian territory of Norfolk Island—putting it on a course to become the first part of Australia where same-sex couples will be able to legally marry, Gay Star News reported. Norfolk Island Assembly member Hayden Evans put forward the bill, which aims to allow Australian same-sex couples to marry on their home soil rather than having to travel overseas. Australian Marriage Equality ( AME ) estimates the island could reap a tourism windfall of $12 million a year from same-sex couples holding their weddings on the island.
Jim Deva, a prominent member of Vancouver's LGBT community, died suddenly after falling from a ladder while gardening at home, Advocate.com reported. Deva, 65, was best known for promoting and defending LGBT literature. He co-owned Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium in Vancouver, and was at the forefront of a decades-long censorship battle with the Canadian Border Service Agency.
Tom of Finland stamps have successfully passed into Russia and reached their destination, with the Russian postal service apparently having no problems with them, according to Gay Star News. Finnish news agency Yle Uutiset put the erotic-art stamps on parcels and posted to Russian addresses to see if they would be seized and declared to be in breach of Russia's laws banning public positive discussion or expression of homosexuality. The stamps on the package sent to Manninen depict a sexy police officer smoking a cigarette, and a topless muscled man with his head lying against the crotch of a clothed man wearing tall leather boots.
A Vietnamese man was arrested in Karuzi in northern Burundi for gay sex, Gay Star News noted. If found guilty, he will be the first person convicted of the crime in the African country. Burundi adopted a new penal code in 2009 that punishes "sexual relations with a person of the same sex" with three months to two years in jail. and a fine of 50,000 ( $32 ) to 100,000 Burundian francs ( $65 ). Gay sex is illegal in 38 out of 54 African countries.
Police in Brazil are investigating if the death of an 18-year-old was the result of an anti-gay hate crime, Pink News reported. Joao Antônio Donati, who was openly gay, was found murdered in a vacant lot in the state of Goiás; his neck was broken and his mouth was stuffed with paper. In February, six people thought to be connected to a string of anti-gay attacks in Brazil were arrested, after beating a gay teenager to death with a skateboard.
In Australia, a New South Wales ( NSW ) government MP has introduced a bill to clear the records of men convicted of having gay sex under historical laws, according to a Guardian item. Thirty years ago, gay men faced jail time for homosexuality-related offenses in NSW. The member for Coogee, Bruce Notley-Smith, introduced his private member's bill in the NSW parliament; he said the measure would correct the wrongs of the past. The Victorian government has also introduced similar legislation. The Victorian government decriminalized same-sex acts in 1981; NSW decriminalized them in 1984.
A French anti-gay leader has claimed that children raised by same-sex couples will end up as orphans, Pink News reported. Ludovine de la Rochere, president of the group La Manif Pour Tous, made the claim at a session of the group's summer university, which holds workshops that train anti-gay activists. Paris recently celebrated its 2,000th same-sex marriage, following the passage of equal marriage in May 2013.
