The Salvation Army's History of Anti-LGBT Discrimination

In recent years, the Salvation Army has come under fire for its lengthy history of anti-LGBT political maneuvering and other incidents. The church has publicly articulated its belief that homosexuality is unacceptable, stating:

Scripture opposes homosexual practices by direct comment and also by clearly implied disapproval. The Bible treats such practices as self-evidently abnormal. ... Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God's will for society.

While such statements were recently removed from the Salvation Army's website, the church has yet to repudiate any of its explicitly anti-gay beliefs. And though these positions may seem to be limited to the group's internal doctrines, they've become a persistent element of the church's overtly political activities -- activities which have negatively impacted the Salvation Army's ability to provide charitable services, and have aimed to limit the rights and benefits of LGBT citizens in multiple nations.

More by Zinnia Jones at Huff. Post

It Gets Better

New York City Fire Department (FDNY)

US Transgender Rights

This week’s the American gay rights victory was historic, but the transgender community still faces staggering challenges. John Oliver focuses on the “T” in “LGBT."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Man trolls ISIS at LGBT pride event with fake penis flag — and CNN thinks it’s real

A man trolling the violently homophobic Islamic State at a London gay pride event got extra troll points Saturday for duping CNN.

CNN reporter Lucy Pawle was at the event when she stumbled upon that man, who to her bewilderment, everyone seemed to be ignoring. Turns out his fake “ISIS flag” was made up of images of dildos, Mediaite discovered.

Pawle tells CNN anchors that she was leaving work when she happened upon the annual London Gay Pride festival. She was shocked to see a man dressed in black and white carrying what she called “a very bad mimicry” but a “very clear attempt to mimic the ISIS flag.”

More at RawStory.com

Chelsea Manning petitions Kansas court for legal name change

Jailed transgender whistleblower Chelsea Manning has petitioned a Kansas Court to allow her to legally change her name to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. According to the Leavenworth Times, Leavenworth County District Court has scheduled an April 23 hearing on the name change request.

The petition was filed on January 27 and published 1 March, but only came to light today. It was submitted by Manning’s lawyer David Coombs, of Providence, Rhode Island. Manning, 25, is being held Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, for leaking classified material to the website WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years behind bars last August.

The former US soldier, who came out as transgender last year, is still being denied access to hormone replacement therapy by the military prison. A civil prison would be required to respect her transition and provide her the treatments she requested, but military prisons provide no support, as transgender people are already banned from military service.

PinkNews

Arizona, discrimination and Takei

Arizona passed a law allowing businesses to refuse service to anyone based on personal beliefs, especially LGBT customers. With George Takei.

Takei website – Takei Facebook

Elena Klimova, the journalist and creator of the " Children 404", is prosecuted under Article 6.21 of the Administrative Code

Elena Klimova, the journalist and creator of the "Children 404", is prosecuted under Article 6.21 of the Administrative Code ("Promotion of non-traditional sexual relations among minors") by the Russian Interior Ministry in Nizhny Tagil.

Elena is blamed for "the creation of the group in social Russian internet network VK , which promotes non-traditional sexual relations." In March 2013 she published a series of articles on the situation of adolescents who aware of their homosexuality. After this publication she began to receive a large number of responses from these adolescents. They talked about their experiences and the challenges they faced. Elena launched the project "Children 404", where these letters were published, and it eventually became the meeting place for LGBT teens. "If it is closed, LGBT teens lose the only place where they can talk openly about themselves and get advice to help them live. It would be a disaster," - says Elena Klimova.

Elena had her first questioning on January 17 this year. Then "propaganda" had not been seen in the Klimova’s project. What was the reason for the change of the decision remains a mystery. Last report doesnt specified, on what basis made officers decided that she had created the group "promoting unconventional sexual relationship."

Российская ЛГБТ-сеть - Olympic protests of Russian anti-gay laws (Wikipedia)

Young and Gay in Putin's Russia

Other parts of this series on YouTube

Gay Reporter Kicked Off RT After Protesting Anti-Gay Law

Reporter James Kirchick was kicked off the air of Russian TV Wednesday after he refused to talk about Bradley Manning and instead spoke about the Russian government's anti-gay laws.

'In solidarity. From Russia with love'

Tilda Swinton is risking arrest to hold up a rainbow flag in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia! Swinton's rep asked that everyone share this photo of her in Moscow risking arrest by waving a pride flag in violation of Russia’s new homosexual propaganda bill.

SheWired

36 Photos From Russia That Everyone Needs To See

It’s a scary place for LGBT people in Russia right now. 35 more photos on BuzzFeed

Homophobic Killing Sparks Outrage in Russia

The brutal killing of a gay man in the southern city of Volgograd has sparked outrage among Russia's LGBT community, with activists calling authorities "accomplices" in the killing for stigmatizing sexual minorities.

The body of the 23-year-old man was found early Friday morning in the courtyard of an apartment building on Rossiiskaya Ulitsa in one of Volgograd's sprawling suburbs, investigators said in a statement. The victim, identified by gay rights activists as Vladislav Tornovoi, was badly beaten and found with wounds to his genitals, the statement said. Local media reported that Tornovoi's attackers raped him with an empty beer bottle and set fire to his corpse.

Investigators believe that Tornovoi was attacked after coming out to his drinking companions during alcohol-fueled Victory Day celebrations.

The Moscow Times

In memory of Marjan Ahouraee: an Iranian transsexual refugee

According to reports from UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) ranks third out of countries with the highest number of refugees fleeing to Turkey, only outnumbered by neighboring Syria and Iraq. Every year, thousands of refugees flee Iran to escape persecution on account of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and political and social beliefs. However, the life that awaits Iranian refugees across the border in Turkey, while their asylum claim is pending with UNHCR, is not without its difficulties. Despite the efforts of the Turkish government to provide refugees with the services they need as they await resettlement in a third country, limited financial resources and a lack of access to medicine and adequate healthcare are all a routine part of an Iranian refugee's daily life in Turkey.

In this IHRDC video, the challenges that one such Iranian refugee faced are described in detail. Marjan Ahouraee--an Iranian transsexual refugee--died from complications from pneumonia on April 3, 2013 in Kayseri, Turkey. Had she lived, she would soon have been resettled in Canada to begin her new life. In the following short clip, Marjan's close friend, Sayeh, talks about Marjan's life and her inability to get the financial assistance and the resources she needed to treat her sickness in a timely fashion. Sayeh also has one important message for everyone who has mourned Marjan after her death: there are other "Marjans" out there and they need your help.

IranHumanRightsDC

Struggle for LGBT right one of the great, neglected human rights challenges of our time

Video Message by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the International Conference on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (Oslo, 15-16 April 2013).

Gay Activist Fined in Russia for Propaganda

A prominent Russian gay rights activist was convicted on Friday of spreading "gay propaganda" among minors in the first such ruling in Russia's modern history.

Nikolai Alexeyev told the Associated Press that a city court in St. Petersburg fined him 5,000 rubles ($170) for breaching the law, which was controversially introduced by lawmakers in Russia's second-largest city in February. He pledged to appeal the decision.

Gay rights activists say the legislation could be used to ban public demonstrations. Alexeyev was briefly detained last month after he picketed the city hall in St. Petersburg with a poster which said that "homosexuality is not a perversion."

ABC News

Fox News Says Dan Savage is 'Bullying' Christians

Dan Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives and Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality. As a gay man, Savage has often been the subject of controversy regarding some of his opinions that pointedly clash with cultural conservatives and those put forth by what Savage has been known to call the "gay establishment". In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.

Wikipedia - Video from The Young Turks

The Brutal Rape and Murder of South African Lesbians

Ekurhuleni Pride Organizing Committee (EPOC) and the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) call on all supporters for equality and dignity for all, to join us in specific actions calling for justice for slain lesbian, Noxolo Nogwaza and all the other LGBT people who have lost their dignity and lives on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in South Africa.

The body of Noxolo Nogwaza, a 24 year old lesbian, was found lying in an alley in Kwa-Thema at about 9am on Sunday, April 24 2011. Noxolo’s head was completely deformed, her eyes out of the sockets, her brain spilt, teeth scattered all around and face crashed beyond recognition.Police and other witnesses at the crime scene say that an empty beer bottle and used condoms were pushed up her genitals. Parts of her body had been stabbed with glass. A large pavement brick that is believed to have been used to crash her head was found by her side.

Noxolo was raped and murdered in a similar manner as that in which another member of EPOC was murdered, 3 years ago today. Eudy Simelane's body was also found in an open field in Kwa-Thema. She had been raped and murdered, crimes that the perpetrators confessed to. Just last year, a gay man in the same township was attacked by eight men, who attempted to rape him. Luckily, he escaped the "vultures." The men, as they attempted to rape him, were heard saying, "We are determined to kill all gay people in this area and we will do it."

Call to Action on the International gay and lesbian human rights commission

Agnes Hernandez, Mexican Transgender Activist, Brutally Murdered

Nearly 2000 individuals congregated outside a civic plaza in Puebla, Mexico on Tuesday, demanding justice for slain Mexican transgender activist Agnés Torres Hernández, whose body was found on Friday by neighbours who reported the crime to local police.

Mexican Attorney General is considering the investigation of Torres' murder as a hate crime, according to the newspaper El Universal (in Spanish).

She was last seen on Friday night when she left her home to attend a party in Chipilo, a small town in the state of Puebla. She was found clothed only in underwear, a blouse with suspenders and a brown jacket on Saturday in a ditch outside the city of Puebla. Her throat had been slashed and their were several burn marks across her body.

Torres, a 28 year-old psychologist and educator, is remembered as an activist and ardent defender of human rights in Mexico's LBGT community. She was an important figure in the strive for acceptance for the transgender community in her native country.

Huffington Post - Justice for Agnes Torres: Slain human rights activist

St Petersburg bans 'homosexual propaganda'

Twenty years after homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia, anti-gay legislation is making a rapid comeback, with St Petersburg becoming the latest city to ban "homosexual propaganda". The law, signed by St Petersburg's governor last week, came amid increasing calls by leading Russian politicians and Orthodox Church officials to bring anti-gay laws to the federal level. Dmitry Pershin, head of the Church's youth council, renewed those calls on Mondayafter praising the St Petersburg law for "helping to protect children from information manipulation by minorities that promote sodomy".

The law's content is vague – it criminalises "public action aimed at propagandising sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism, and transgenderism among minors". Those charged with breaking the law will be fined from 5,000 (£108) to 500,000 roubles.

Gay rights activists say the law is part of a wider government initiative, supported by the strictly conservative Orthodox Church, to crack down on public protest, civic activity and the liberalisation of society.

"The tendency in Russia is toward limiting freedom of speech and freedom to gather, targeting any group that somehow stands up for its rights," said Yury Gavrikov, the head of Equality, one of several gay rights groups in St Petersburg. "No one knows how the law will work," Gavrikov said. "The main goal seems to be limiting the rights of those who engage in social activity. But in its widest sense, it can mean limiting exhibits, plays, film showings – cultural activities."

After Ryazan, Arkhangelsk and Kostroma, St Petersburg is the fourth city to pass such a law. Its adoption in Russia's most European city and one with a relatively vibrant gay scene has sparked an international outcry. All Out, a global gay rights group, has called on people to avoid travelling to the city until the law is repealed.

The Guardian

'Better To Be A Dictator Than Gay'

Belarussia's Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday criticised EU politicians who have threatened him with further sanctions and in an apparent reposte to the German Foreign Minister's branding him "Europe's last dictator", said: "Better to be a dictator than gay."

Guido Westerwelle is Germany's first openly gay minister.
European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels on Friday called for new measures to pressure the Belarus President, in power since 1994, over alleged human rights abuses.
Lukashenko said Belarus would give a strong reaction to any sanctions, according to local news agency Belta. "This is absolute hysteria," Belta reported him as saying. "And as you can see, at the forefront there are two types of politicians ... one lives in Warsaw, another in Berlin. Whoever was shouting about dictatorship there ... when I heard that, I thought: it's better to be a dictator than gay."

Huffington Post