Newport Mayor Dean Sawyer [photo] resigned Monday, three days after OPB revealed he has been posting offensive content in a private Facebook group for current and former law enforcement officers. Sawyer notified City Manager Spencer Nebel and City Council President Jan Kaplan of his resignation in an email just before 9 a.m.
“I am sorry – in its simplest and sincerest form,” the email opens. Since at least 2016, Sawyer has shared memes and posts denigrating women, immigrants, non-English speakers and the LGBTQ+ community in 39,000-member Facebook group.
Many of Sawyer’s most recent posts specifically targeted the transgender community. Over the weekend, Newport Oregon Pride organized a protest that brought more than 100 people to City Hall demanding Sawyer resign.
The mayor of Baker City in Eastern Oregon announced his resignation late Tuesday after heated controversy over an offensive meme he posted last month that depicted four pride flags rearranged to form a swastika.
Mayor Matt Diaz did not address the controversy when he resigned at a city council meeting, telling residents only that he would be moving out of the city of 10,000 people and therefore could no longer serve.
After Diaz compared pride flags to Nazi symbolism, he told residents in a statement June 20 that the post was “meant to illustrate how the DEI or ‘woke’ ideology is being propagandized and militantly forced on American society.”
Six women suing the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma for allowing a transgender sister to join its University of Wyoming chapter have responded to the sorority’s assertion that the lawsuit was frivolous.
In a response filed Wednesday, Jaylyn Westenbroek, Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, Grace Choate, Madeline Ramar, and Megan Kosar criticized Artemis Langford, the first transgender member of Kappa Kappa Gamma’s Wyoming chapter.
“It is unclear why — when a large man pushes his way into an all-female space — the women who object are the bullies,” attorneys for the six, Cassie Craven and John Knepper, contend in one of several filings, Cowboy State Daily reports.
These women “are labeled attention-seeking liars, an old playbook from our history when women call out the men who force themselves upon them and their privacy. But the times have changed. Women no longer must be silent victims to men who attempt to play by their own set of rules,” they wrote.
On June 20, Langford and the sorority asked Wyoming’s U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson to dismiss the suit, calling it frivolous and criticizing its bad faith effort.
The court lacks jurisdiction over the organization’s president Mary Pat Rooney, the sorority can adjust admission criteria according to the evolving understanding of gender, and the plaintiffs did not consult enough with the leadership before filing, the defendants claim.
The sisters’ lawsuit, Langford claims, is not only long and confusing, but it doesn’t have a rational reason for naming the sister.
On Wednesday, the women suing asked the judge to allow all parties to remain in their lawsuit. The plaintiffs rejected Langford’s arguments, saying the lawsuit should include her name since the outcome could affect Langford’s membership.
They are not seeking monetary damages from Langford.
More than 145 Kappa Kappa Gamma chapters have accepted transgender women since 2015. According to the Kappa Kappa Gamma filing, its policy is similar to that of 25 other sororities in the National Panhellenic Conference, an umbrella organization for sororities across the U.S. and Canada, the Associated Press reports.
Those opposed to Langford’s induction could change the policy if most sorority members shared their perspective, or they could resign if “a position of inclusion is too offensive to their personal values,” a prior motion to dismiss by the sorority read.
The June 20 court filing by Langford accuses the women of spewing “dehumanizing mud” and attacking transgender people. Aside from that, the inductee claims the complaint is too long and complicated for the court to handle, according to Cowboy State Daily.
In a fun and educational addition to Out In The Park, this month’s picnic will feature Abby Greenleaf, a young entomologist. She’ll show some specimens from her insect collection and discuss the importance of symbiotic relationships. All ages are welcome so please bring the whole family and your own picnic lunch, and dress for a nature walk!
This event will be hosted next week on Saturday, July 15, from 12:00-2:30pm, at Roy’s Redwoods. Meet us in the parking lot of the San Geronimo Golf Course Clubhouse.
In a first for LGBTQ+ people in California, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins has signed bills into law while serving as the state’s acting governor.
Atkins, who is a lesbian, is “the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person serving as acting governor to sign bills into law while doing so” in California, according to The Bay Area Reporter.
Atkins took the action last Thursday, when both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis were out of the state. She signed three bills: Assembly Bill 354, updating membership on the Sacramento Regional Transit District board of directors; AB 410, upgrading Braille signage on motorized scooters and other mobility devices; and AB 588, dealing with membership on the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency board.
“These bills impact public transit, shared mobility devices, & local water management will continue our efforts to protect CA & enhance our communities,” Atkins tweeted.
“I’m thrilled to step into the governor’s shoes, though I have better shoes than him,” Atkins said during the signing ceremony, the Reporter notes. Her wife, Jennifer LeSar, joined her at the ceremony.
Atkins had served as acting governor for a few hours in 2014, making her the state’s first LGBTQ+ person doing so, but she signed no bills then.
The senator, who represents a San Diego district, has a history of firsts. In 2014, she became the first lesbian and second out LGBTQ+ person to be speaker of the California Assembly; John Pérez, a gay man, had held the post previously. In 2018, when she was named president pro tempore of the Senate, she was the first woman and first out LGBTQ+ person in that position.
She will leave the Senate at the end of 2024 due to term limits, and she has set up a campaign account for a run for lieutenant governor then, when Kounalakis will also be term-limited. Kounalakis plans to run for governor.
Georgia’s annual LGBT+ Pride event was evacuated by the police on Saturday after hundreds of counter-protesters stormed the site. In a statement, organisers of the festival in the capital of Tbilisi announced that they had been forced to shut down the annual festivities after the authorities failed to maintain the perimeter.
“Today’s developments indicate that today’s planned events were pre-coordinated and agreed upon between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the violent group Alt-Info,” Tbilisi Pride said.
Smoke rose above the site, a field just outside the city, as LGBT+ rainbow flags were burned and right-wing activists danced to traditional Georgian folk music. Attendees had been told to board buses for safety moments before.
A court in the Kurdistan region of Iraq dealt independent civil society a blow on May 31, 2023, by ordering the closure of Rasan Organization over “its activities in the field of homosexuality,” Human Rights Watch said today. Rasan is the only human rights organization willing to vocally support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), in addition to its work on women’s rights and domestic violence.
“Shuttering Rasan is not only an attack on civil society in Kurdistan but is also a direct threat to the lives and wellbeing of the vulnerable people they support,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “By closing Rasan, the government has sent a clear message that it does not respect freedom of association.”
Tanya Kamal Darwish, CEO of Rasan Organization, told Human Rights Watch that the purported reason for closing the group down was not because of its activities, but because the judge took issue with its logo, which contains the colors of the rainbow. The court order states that “the expert committee confirmed that the logo of the organization is a complete expression of its activities in the field of homosexuality.”
Rasan has appealed but is unable to continue operating while the appeal is pending.
The closure of Rasan is part of a broader pattern of oppression and targeting of LGBT people and activists by local Kurdish authorities in recent years. Human Rights Watch has previously documented the targeting of LGBT people online and violence against LGBT people by armed groups in Iraq, including the regional government.
The closure is the result of a lawsuit filed against Rasan in February 2021 by Omar Kolbi, a member of the Kurdistan Parliament, who accused Rasan of “promoting homosexuality,” and “engaging in activities that defy social norms, traditions, and public morality.” Kolbi also submitted a complaint to Barzan Akram Mantiq, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Department of Non-Governmental Organizations, an official body responsible for registering, organizing, and monitoring all nongovernmental organizations in the region.
After the suit was filed, local police issued arrest warrants for 11 LGBT rights activists who were either current or former employees at Rasan based on article 401 of the penal code, which criminalizes “public indecency.”
“The Department of Non-Governmental Organizations is supporting MP Kolbi’s complaint against us, but that is backward,” Darwish said. “The department should have been supporting us, not standing against us.”
Darwish said that the trial, which took place last year, focused on the activities of Rasan and never mentioned any issues with the group’s logo. “They were asking about our activities, and we told them what we do,” Darwish said. “We focus on human rights. Anyone who comes to us with a problem we help without any discrimination.”
Rasan found out about the issue with the logo only when the court decision was published. “We weren’t expecting them to take any action against us, since we weren’t doing anything illegal. They used the logo as an excuse because they couldn’t find anything illegal in our activities,” Darwish said.
Rasan, which has operated in Sulaimaniya, a city in the Kurdistan region, for nearly two decades, has faced increasing threats and official retaliation for its activism and work. The group provides legal, psychological, and social support for women and LGBT clients, raises awareness of LGBT and women’s rights, and collects and compiles data relevant to LGBT people and gender-based violence.
In September 2022, members of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament introduced the “Bill on the Prohibition of Promoting Homosexuality,” which would punish any individual or group that advocates for the rights of LGBT people. Under the bill, the vague provision against “promoting homosexuality” would be a crime punishable by imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of up to five million dinars (US$3,430). The bill would also suspend, for up to one month, the licenses of media companies and civil society organizations that “promote homosexuality.”
Momentum for adopting the bill appears to have stalled, but in the context of repeated targeting of LGBT people, local LGBT rights activists fear it could be quickly revived and passed at the whim of local authorities.
“By going after Rasan, authorities are effectively scapegoating activists working to protect among the most vulnerable members of society, who should not fear reprisals for speaking up about abuses,” Coogle said. “The Kurdistan Regional Government should take immediate steps to ensure that organizations like Rasan are permitted to operate freely and cease harassment and targeting of LGBT advocates.”
Police in Salt Lake City are investigating after a number of Pride flags were set alight in the Utah capital.
The investigation began on Monday morning (3 July) after officers were called to a home where the owner reported their flag being cut down and burned, the police said in a statement.
After responding to the incident, they learned that at least four other LGBTQ+ flags in the area had been vandalised, reportedly during the early hours of that morning.
The police want to hear from anyone with information and have asked people in the area to check home-surveillance systems to see if they captured footage of any suspect.
In its statement, the police department also said it recognised “our responsibility to investigate hate crimes thoroughly and impartially to hold offenders accountable and ensure justice for survivors”.
They went on to say: “The Salt Lake City police department educates its officers and works with our community to recognise and condemn hate crimes and works to prevent them from occurring in the future.
“Hate has no place in our community.”
Photos of four of the flags were posted on social media by the police, with the images showing them having been cut and one in ashes on the ground.
Fox 13 reported more flags being cut and burned on Tuesday morning (4 July), this time near Harvey Milk Boulevard, named after the prominent gay rights pioneer.
One resident, Joseph Leyba, told the news outlet that he and four neighbours woke on Tuesday morning to find their flags in ashes on the pavement, and that he was “at a loss for emotions and feelings”.
He said it was particularly shocking because the area was Salt Lake’s unofficial LGBTQ+ district.
On a positive note, he added a woman he did not know replaced all the flags.
“She had Pride flags in her hands and was setting them on the front porches of all the individuals that had been affected,” Leyba said.
As the UK government fights to save its Rwanda asylum plan in the Supreme Court, a gay man from the country reports on the dangers facing the community there.
On Thursday (29 June), the Court of Appeal ruled that the government’s much-criticised plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. Prime minister Rishi Sunak and home secretary Suella Braverman have indicated that they intend to challenge the ruling.
On the same day, the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, which backs up the Rwanda plan, suffered heavy defeats in the House of Lords.
Innocent Uwimana – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – is a gay man from Rwanda who migrated to the UK about 20 years ago.
He knows first-hand what life is like for LGBTQ+ people in Rwanda, and it’s for this reason that he is so disturbed by the UK’s proposal.
As debate rages on about the bill, Innocent set about finding out what life is like right now for queer people in Rwanda. Here, he reports on conversations during which he found that stigma and abuse are still a part of every-day life for LGBTQ+ people in the East African country.
‘We don’t understand how the UK government would send LGBTQ+ people here’
However, same-sex marriage is prohibited and LGBTQ+ people are not protected from discrimination by any specific legislation.
LGBTQ+ people face stigmatisation and abuse there every day and there are many other factors that fuel hatred against them, especially religious and cultural factors.
I’ve had a chance to speak to a group of Rwandan LGBTQ+ people who currently live in the country, and who have faced discrimination their entire lives because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
“We don’t understand how the UK government would send LGBTQ+ people here knowing that they will face discrimination. Although the country’s recent human rights advances have been ‘enormous’, not all Rwandans are able to enjoy them equally,” one person told me.
The people in the group explained the tactics used to discriminate anyone perceived to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Religion and culture are used as arguments to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people
The UK government has to understand that Rwandans’ conceptions of the world are substantially shaped by their religious beliefs, that religious ideas heavily shape their attitudes and behaviours.
On tope of that, homophobia has evolved into a rallying cry that mobilises the masses by urging them to guard themselves against westernisation. Political and religious leaders, as well as social media influencers, justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people on the grounds of culture.
They claim that homosexuality and non-heteronormative gender identities are not part of African culture and that they were brought to Africa by Western countries (especially the US and European nations) as a way to impose their beliefs on the continent.
Some also claim that Western countries intend to wipe out the African population by promoting homosexuality and preventing people being in heterosexual relationships in which they can have children.
However, there is historical evidence of same-sex relationships and gender expression versatility as they are well-documented in many places in Africa, including Rwanda.
For example, in Rwanda, cyabakobwa (men behaving and crossdressing as women) and ibishebago (women behaving and dressing as men) were tolerated and they lived in peace in the communities in pre-colonial times.
But, unfortunately, this is no longer the case, and LGBTQ+ individuals have to hide or are forced to flee to other countries.
The controversial cases of a Rwandan fashion star and a social media influencer
The people I spoke with noted recent, well-documented cases of violence against LGBTQ+ people and people simply perceived to be part of the community.
One example is that of a famous DJ and social media influencer who has been accused of being a lesbian. Despite her denial, she has been attacked in the media by religious leaders and other social media influencers, demanding she be arrested or beaten up.
‘We hope the UK government will hear our voice’
Rwanda is clearly a country from which most LGBTQ+ people want to get out, to live in a place where they can be free and themselves. So why would the UK government think it is safe to send queer people there?
The people I chatted to were surprised that a country like the UK, previously known for pushing the human rights agenda, was now deliberately planning to send people to a place where it is known that they will face stigmatisation and discrimination.
When I asked the group what they sought to achieve, they said: “We hope the UK government will hear our voice and don’t put other people in a situation many others want to get out of.“
Ivan Miadini said it was like a scene out of the Old Testament.
He and his husband were walking their dog a week ago Saturday night in Drogheda, north of the Irish capital in Dublin, when a gang of teenage boys starting verbally abusing them, calling them “f****t bastards”, “queers” and “pedophiles.”
“They threatened to kill us, rape our dog and told us to go back to our own countries,” Miadini told the Independent. “They were going to chase us off the island.”
The incident escalated as the teenagers started hurling stones at the couple and their dog and then physically attacked them. Both men were punched in the head and face. One man suffered a broken nose.
The attack lasted over a minute.
Despite the violence, Miadini managed to record most of the incident — he said the boys knocked his phone from his hands twice — and he posted it online in hopes local residents would come forward with information about the attackers’ identities.
Remarkably, the couple hasn’t contacted cops.
Referring to the state police in Ireland, Miadini told a local radio station, “I didn’t film with the intention of sharing it with the Garda. I think there is another way to go here.”
“I am sharing this with various outlets, with people I know to share it among themselves so we can find out who these people are and see what their situation is.”
“I really want to know before taking this further down the line.”
A local Garda source told the Irish Mirror police are aware of the video online and that it was a “shocking” attack. He hopes the couple comes forward.
“These teenage gangs should not get away with this,” he said. “There is no excuse for such vile homophobic and racist abuse.”
Imelda Munster, a member of the Irish Parliament representing Drogheda, said she’s spoken to the victims and condemned the attack.
“These are two law-abiding citizens going out for a walk with their dog when they are attacked in broad daylight because of who they are.
“Under no circumstances should these thugs get away with this. It was a frightening incident and everyone in Drogheda is shocked and angry.”
For their part, the couple, who recently relocated from Dublin, think their attackers should avoid jail time and be directed on a path to community service.
“I don’t think the solution here is just to throw the book at them with a criminal prosecution,” Miadini said.
“If these young people aren’t educated, they will grow up to carry out worse assaults.”
“Hopefully it doesn’t take root,” said Miadini, “because that kind of hate can only grow.”
FORBIDDEN KISS @ The California in Santa Rosa 7:30pm – 9:15pm
SPECIAL COMEDY EVENT!
It’s comedy burlesque, sketch comedy, stand-up and more, including the premiere of a new talk show – with Cheryl King, Shan Free and Alia Beeton as The Cunning Linguists.
Join Cheryl and her other guests Velvet Thorn, Martin Gilbertson, Jonni Machado, Serena Elise, and Malia Abayon for this sexy, smart vaudeville show.
Adult-oriented material, for those 18+. Parental guidance is suggested.