Month: August 2017

5 THINGS TO KNOW

Ex-Muslims in Britain fight for LGBT rights.

August 13, 2017 compassq Comments Off on Ex-Muslims in Britain fight for LGBT rights.

The Council of ex-Muslims of Britain will challenge Islam and any other religion for persecuting minorities, including the LGBT community, Jimmy Bangash, the spokesman for the controversial group, said during a debate on RT. The group made headlines in the UK after its members joined an LGBT parade in London on Tuesday. Their least controversial banners at the event read: “We’re here. We’re kaffir [unbelievers]. Get used to it,” “Celebrating apostasy,” “Make LGBT rights universal” and others, accompanied by a list of Muslim states that punish homosexuality by the death penalty.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

Gay Russian violinist’s beautiful life in Chicago.

August 13, 2017 compassq Comments Off on Gay Russian violinist’s beautiful life in Chicago.

One day this spring, Artem Kolesov set up a video camera in the Chicago townhouse where he lives, sat down in a chair and started talking to the young gay people of Russia. “Yesterday I turned 23 years old,” he began. He went on, in Russian, to tell the story of growing up as the fourth of six brothers in a small town, an hour’s drive from Moscow, where his father was a deacon and his mother was a youth pastor at the Pentecostal church.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

The President’s weakening authority over the military.

August 13, 2017 compassq Comments Off on The President’s weakening authority over the military.

“Our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned,” presidential adviser Stephen Miller told the nation on February 13. Rarely has a prophecy been quite this wrong.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

A history of the gay marriage debate in Australia.

August 12, 2017 compassq Comments Off on A history of the gay marriage debate in Australia.

It’s been quite a week in Australian politics. You might have heard that the Turnbull government (a coalition of the centre-right Liberal Party and slightly further-right-but-mostly-rural National Party) have been debating marriage equality and have launched something called a postal-plebiscite. To understand why this is a Big Complicated Deal, we have to go back to 2004. Before 2004, the Marriage Act (1961) of Australia did not take note of gender when establishing the federal definition of marriage. In 2004, long term Liberal Prime Minister John Howard passed the amendment to the Marriage Act with the express purpose of ‘[ensuring] that same sex marriages are not recognised as marriage in Australia’. At the time, no major Australian political party endorsed marriage equality, and no […]

DESTINATIONS

The rich LGBT history in Washington D.C.

August 12, 2017 compassq Comments Off on The rich LGBT history in Washington D.C.

It’s hard to walk a block in D.C. without passing a historic landmark; much of the country’s history was made here, after all. But out of the hundreds of places in the District that are included on the National Register of Historic Places, only two are recognized because of their connection to the city’s extensive gay and lesbian history. That could soon change. This summer, D.C. received a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Interior to identify the city’s LGBTQ landmarks.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

Why the VA transgender student dropped his appeal.

August 12, 2017 compassq Comments Off on Why the VA transgender student dropped his appeal.

Gavin Grimm, the Virginia transgender student who took a bathroom case to the United States Supreme Court, dropped part of his case Friday, after years of high-profile litigation that could have marked the first transgender case to be heard by the high court. Papers were filed in Richmond just before 4 p.m. to drop the appeal seeking an immediate end to the Gloucester County Virginia school district’s bathroom policy.