News

Mayor Pete jumps in

Pete Buttigieg is officially running for president on the Democratic Party ticket, and jumped up to third place in national polls behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. He also is in contention in early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. His campaign scored well in the money race, hauling in over $5 million on announcement day. The 37-year-old made the announcement from an old Studebaker factory in South Bend, Indiana, where he has served as mayor since 2012. So far his campaign is light on issues, but is benefiting from the combination of Midwest Nice and a fabulous gay man personality. He campaigns with his husband, Chasten, who has perfected the Nancy Reagan adoring gaze and Michelle Obama eye roll.

Arizona No Homo Promo

As Utah goes, so goes Arizona. The Republican-dominated legislature just repealed a nearly 30-year-old law that prohibits schools from conducting education on HIV/AIDS that “promotes a homosexual lifestyle.” Gov. Doug Ducey, R-Ariz., swiftly signed the bipartisan bill after the Senate’s 19-10 vote on Thursday, calling it a “common sense solution.” The new law renders moot a lawsuit filed by Equality Arizona challenging the old law, which the Arizona Attorney General declined to defend.

Under the knife in Iran

The world’s leading provider of gender reassignment surgery turns out to be the Islamic Republic of Iran. Attitudes towards sexuality can be rigid in Iran. Former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, once declared that the country didn’t have any gay people. The regime’s encouragement of sex-change surgery is related to its intolerance of homosexuality, which is a capital offense. Gay Iranians face pressure to surgically change their sex regardless of whether they want to, say activists and psychologists in Iran. The procedure has been permitted since the mid-1980s.

Canada Equality loon decried

Canada isn’t pleasing anyone with a new $1 ‘Equality coin’ commemorating the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality. Some LGBTQ activists are unhappy because they say equality was not achieved in 1969 and has not yet been achieved. Others are unhappy because the coin suggests credit for equality should be given to “the Canadian government — specifically … former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.” Mint president Marie Lemay tried to make lemonade out of lemons, saying the design was “inspirational” and, “I see this morning it already has and spurred reflection on 50 years of progress while acknowledging … that the journey towards full equality for Canadians of all genders, identities, and sexual orientations was hard fought and is not yet over.”

The gay cure is in Kuwait

In Kuwait, a college professor claimed that she has found a cure for homosexuality. It’s a suppository that will kill what she calls a “sperm-eating anal worm that facilitates excessive sexual urges.” Dr. Mariam Al-Sohel in a TV interview said, “This is science, so there is nothing to be ashamed of. The sexual urge develops when a person is sexually attacked, and afterward it persists because there is an anal worm that feeds on semen.” Whew, can’t make this stuff up.

PrEP price gouge investigated

Seven US Senators sent a letter Tuesday to HHS and the CDC, asking the agencies to investigate Gilead Sciences for sales of the HIV drug Truvada. They say the patent is owned by the federal government for the drug. It is the only drug approved for use in the HIV-prevention method known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It is also used in HIV treatment in combination with other drugs. The research that led to Truvada’s use as PrEP was conducted and funded by the US government. Gilead sold $3 billion worth of Truvada in 2018 and argues that the government patent is invalid, and the company has turned down requests for royalty payments. The Justice Department has begun reviewing the patent issue.

Michigan Christian adoption agency bends over

Bethany Christian Services a faith-based foster care and adoption contractor involved in more than 13,000 foster care and adoption cases in Michigan said Monday it will place children in LGBT homes. The agency was sanctioned by the state for refusing adoption services to a same-sex couple. St. Vincent Catholic Charities in Lansing, is still under sanction and is suing the state. BCS, not happy about the requirement, but likes the state funding, released a statement, “We are disappointed with how this settlement agreement has been implemented by the state government. Nonetheless, Bethany will continue operations in Michigan, in compliance with our legal contract requirements.”

San Antonio hates Chick-fil-A

Hope you are not in the San Antonio airport if you are “jonesing” for waffle fries and a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A. The city council is banning the chain from the airport, which has long been criticized for making donations to anti-gay organizations.

The city council member, in proposing the ban, said that San Antonio is a city of compassion where everyone “has a place and we do not have room in our public facilities for a business with a legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior.”

The company has tried to downplay comments from its founder about marriage equality, but in 2017, Chick-fil-A made donations to groups not favored by LGBT activists.

The Texas attorney general sent a letter to the city that his office would investigate whether the a ban violates any laws about religious liberty. He also asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to look into the matter.

No ‘Call Me by Your Name’ 2, yet

A sequel to Call Me by Your Name, a straight-washed movie about a gay relationship, is happening — at least in book form. André Aciman’s Find Me picks up where the book and movie left off. The age-significant lovers Elio and Oliver have moved on.

Elio is now a gifted classical pianist and Oliver is a professor in the U.S., with sons. A movie sequel is in the talks, but the actor who played Oliver, Armie Hammer, talks it down, saying, “I think we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.”

A tease does not please

A couple of late-Victorian bachelors sit around in dressing gowns drinking tea in a fabulous London flat. Some fans of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson thought (or hoped) they were lovers.

According to Martin Freeman, Dr. Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes on the PBS-aired series said a “writers’ tease” ticked off some fans when the series didn’t have a “gay” ending. The updated portrayal toyed with the sexual nature of the relationship.

There was tongue-in-cheek humor, with other characters often assuming they were a gay couple. Fans assumed the show runners would end the series, “Where we held hands off into the sunset together,” says Freeman.

That scenario didn’t occur and the production company got complaints of disappointment and “betrayal.” With another season in the offering, gay hope, as it does at midnight on Grindr, can spring eternal.

Equality Act gets hearing

The U.S. Congress is holding the first-ever hearing on the Equality Act. The legislation guarantees LGBT nondiscrimination under the 1964 landmark Civil Rights Act. The act has major support from 180 name-brand businesses through the Human Rights Campaign’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act.

Polls show 70 percent of Americans support any legislation with the word “equality” in the title. Congress will hear testimony from LGBT grievance-industry professionals, LGBT supporting churches, university law professionals and diversity officers, and the obligatory personal stories of discrimination.

Not invited to testify is former Log Cabin chief executive Gregory Angelo, who wrote an op-ed for a conservative newspaper, saying, “Don’t be fooled by the name: The Equality Act is legislation that would compromise American civil rights and religious liberty as we know it.”