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Today’s Top Headlines

Prop 8 Case Judge Walker Leaving Bench
Moscow Grants Activist Rally not Pride Festival
Gay Iranian Refugee Says He Can’t Return Home
UK Audiences Want ‘More Realistic’ Portrayal of Gay People

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The BBC has made “great progress” in its portrayal of gay people and gay relationships, but there is still more to be done, according to a report. The study commissioned by the corporation said lesbian, gay and bisexual people wanted to see more authentic depictions of their lives. It also found that heterosexual people, who were “comfortable” with gay lifestyles, wanted a similar approach. More than 2,000 adults were questioned as part of the study. The corporation also held a public consultation which got more than 9,400 responses.

Read the full story from the BBC.

Three years ago this month, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously told a New York audience that Iran doesn’t have any homosexuals. An aide later clarified that Ahmadinejad meant that Iran doesn’t have many homosexuals compared with America. Human rights groups say the Islamic republic continues to execute homosexuals. Gay and lesbian Iranians are increasingly among those fleeing the country. One young Iranian who fled to Turkey says he was targeted by authorities for two offenses: going public with his homosexuality and taking part in last year’s post-election anti-government protests.

Read the full story from NPR.

The prefecture of Moscow’s Central Administrative District has said that it gave no permission for a gay pride parade to be held in Moscow on October 1. “The district prefecture officially states that its officials gave no consent for a gay pride parade to be held on October 1, contrary to what gay pride parade organizer Nikolay Alexeyev wrote in his blog,” the prefecture’s spokesperson told Interfax. Alexeyev did apply for a picket with up to 20 participants to boycott Swiss Airlines outside its representative office in the capital, the spokesperson said.

Read the full story from Interfax.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage, plans to leave after more than two decades on the bench, officials say. A press officer for the federal courts in San Francisco said Walker, 66, plans to return to the private sector, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. Walker was nominated as a judge by President Ronald Reagan and then again by President George H.W. Bush. His original nomination was stalled because he was perceived as anti-homosexual for representing the U.S. Olympic Committee in litigation against the “Gay Olympics,” the Times said.

Read the full story from UPI.

 

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Today’s Top Headlines

Michigang AG’s Blog Targets Gay Student President
Gay Student Commits Suicide After Classmates Webcast His Sexual Activities
Gay Teen Dies After Hanging Himself Over Bullying
Gay Characters on Television at a New High, Study Says

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In a study released on Wednesday, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said that the number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters on television had reached a new high in the new season. On the broadcast networks, there are 23 gay characters this season, representing 3.9 percent of all series regulars on scripted shows, the group said, up from 3 percent last year. The group, which has tabulated the number of gay characters for 15 years, said it was pleased by the progress but pointed to several areas where it felt the networks could improve. On scripted network television this season, it found, there are no gay characters who are black and no transgender characters.

Read the full story from the New York Times.

Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old California middle school student, died in the hospital on Tuesday, days after he attempted to take his own life after reportedly enduring relentless bullying. Seth, a student at Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi, Calif., was found unconscious and not breathing on Sept. 19 after he apparently tried to hang himself from a tree in his backyard, according to a police report obtained by The Bakersfield Californian. Friends told NBC affiliate KGET that Seth had been picked on for years because he was gay.

Read the full story from CBS.

A Rutgers University freshman appears to have killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate broadcast live images of the 18-year-old having a sexual encounter with another man on the internet, according to campus and law enforcement sources. Tyler Clementi, 18, of Ridgewood, is presumed dead after his car, cell phone and computer were found near the George Washington Bridge last week, law enforcement sources said. His wallet was found on the walkway adjacent to the New York-bound lanes. No body has been found.

Read the full story from the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

Here’s a curious test case for any public servant pondering a sideline as an online political activist. An assistant state attorney general for Michigan has created a blog devoted to discrediting the University of Michigan’s student body president, who is openly gay. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has called student Chris Armstrong a “pervert” and “Satan’s representative” on his blog, and admits to protesting outside the 21-year-old’s home. He scours Armstrong’s Facebook page and Armstrong’s friends’ Facebook pages and posts defaced photos of Armstrong on his site. “You might wonder how is this man still employed in the attorney general’s office,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper observed in a Tuesday-night segment on Shirvell.

Read the full story from CBS.

 

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Today’s Top Headlines

Beijing Police Raid Gay Spot, Question Dozens
Parents Say Bullies Drove Their Gay Son to Take His Life
Islamic Extremists Force Partial Cancellation of Gay Film Festival Indonesia
Artist Fired After Protesting Church’s Anti-Gay Marriage Campaign

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Artist Lucinda Naylor did not think about losing her job when she announced plans to build a protest sculpture using anti-gay marriage DVDs distributed by the Catholic Church. But two days after launching the project, Naylor was suspended from a part-time job she has held for 15 years at Minneapolis’ Basilica of St. Mary. “I suspect suspension is a kind word for termination,” Naylor said. “I’ll miss the income. But there’s times when people need to stand up for what they believe.”

Read the full story from the Star Tribune.

Dozens of Islamic hard-liners protested against an international gay film festival in Indonesia’s capital Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of several screenings. The Q! Film Festival, being held at foreign cultural centres in Jakarta, opened last week and was slated to run until Wednesday night. In its ninth year, it aims to raise awareness of gay issues. Members of the hardline Islamic Defenders Front — some wearing masks, white robes and turbans — chanted anti-gay slogans and said the movies were blasphemous.

Read the full story from the Canadian Press.

Asher Brown’s worn-out tennis shoes still sit in the living room of his Cypress-area home while his student progress report — filled with straight A’s — rests on the coffee table. The eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.

Read the full story from the Houston Chronicle.

Beijing police raided a popular outdoor hangout for gay men and took dozens in for questioning over the weekend as part of a security sweep ahead of China’s National Day holiday, an activist said Tuesday. At least 80 gay men were taken away from a park in the capital’s Haidian district by police during night raids on Saturday and Sunday, said Guo Ziyang, a project manager with the Beijing Working Group of Gay Movement, a non-governmental group that promotes gay rights.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.