Noor Al-Sibai

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Montana Public Schools Caught Blocking LGBT Advocacy Websites — While Allowing Anti-gay Sites

Public high school students in Montana have been blocked from accessing pro-LGBTQ websites — but not from anti-gay sites. CounterPunch reported Friday that students in Billings, Montana have been blocked from pro-LGBTQ sites since January 14. An email sent to school staff from Brandon Newpher, the executive director of technology for Billings Public Schools, said the school system is blocking content “to improve network security and help protect students and staff.” A list of “blocked keywords and subjects” was leaked to CounterPunch but did not include the terms “gay,” “homosexuality,” or “LGBT/Q.” It did, however, show that “adult content” and “dating sites” […]

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Alaska Airlines Forced a Same-sex Couple to Switch Seats So a Straight Couple Could Sit Together in First Class

Over the weekend, Alaska Airlines allegedly forced a prominent gay businessman and his partner to switch seats so a straight couple could sit together in the seats they were occupying in the plane’s “premium” section. Los Angeles businessman David Cooley was flying from New York back to LA when he and his partner, who had already been seated in their assigned premium seats “for a while,” were approached by a flight attendant. “My companion was asked to move from his premium seat to coach, so a couple could sit together,” Cooley wrote in a Facebook post about the incident. “I […]

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Disexual Russian Man Could Be Killed if He’s Deported — But an Oregon Judge Won’t Let Him Stay

Participants march during the Belgian Gay Pride parade in Brussels Belgium on May 20, 2017. Image by Alexandros Michailidis via Shutterstock. After traveling through multiple countries to get to the United States and avoid persecution, a bisexual Russian man waited in immigration detainment for months — only to be denied asylum by an Oregon judge. The Portland Mercury reported that after being threatened by police in the Russian North Caucasus region, near the border of the notoriously anti-gay Chechnya, Dmitri (a pseudonym to protect his identity) decided to flee to the US in spite of knowing neither English nor any people in […]