American fast-food chain Chick-fil-A recently ventured across the pond to the United Kingdom — but the controversial chicken restaurant won’t last long.
Soon after opening Oct. 10, Chick-fil-A’s restaurant at the Oracle Mall in Reading, a town in Berkshire, announced it will close after its six-month lease expires, according to the BBC, with the mall saying in a statement it was the “right thing to do.”
The suburban eatery faced protests from activists who took issue with the company’s track record on LGBTQ rights.
Prior to the closure announcement, Reading Pride, a local LGBTQ advocacy group, said it was “staunchly opposed” to the restaurant opening in the U.K., “and certainly in Reading.”
“The chain’s ethos and moral stance goes completely against our values, and that of the U.K. as we are a progressive country that has legalized same sex marriage for some years, and continues to strive toward equality,” its statement read. “We respect everyone’s freedom to eat where they choose, however, we ask the LGBT+ community (including allies) to boycott the chain in Reading.”
Protesters gathered outside the chain Friday — but they had already won. A day before the protest, the BBC broke the news that the Chick-fil-A branch would only stay for six months. The chain claimed in a statement to The Washington Post, however, that it had only ever planned to be in Reading for six months.
“Chick-fil-A have subsequently stated they’d not planned to stay past 6 months, but what business would not stay if they were successful and profitable?” Martin Cooper, CEO of Reading Pride, said in an email to NBC News. “The point is, they’ve not been given the option to stay by the landlords, The Oracle.”
Matt Rodda, a member of Parliament for Reading, also praised the move in a tweet, saying he was “pleased” that the mall “listened” to activists.
In the United States, Chick-fil-A has more than 2,400 restaurants across the country, but the chain frequently faces protests from LGBTQ activists over its record on gay rights. Before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, Chick-fil-A lent support to organizations that worked to ban same-sex marriage and roll back LGBTQ rights.
Earlier this year, local activism foiled Chick-fil-A’s plans to open restaurants at airports in Buffalo, New York, and San Antonio. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott responded by signing legislation dubbed the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill, which prohibits government entities from taking “adverse actions” against businesses or individuals because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions.
While Chick-fil-A did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment Monday regarding its Reading location, in a previous statement, the company claimed its “restaurants welcome and embrace all people, regardless of … sexual orientation or gender identity.”
For the first time last June, residents in Heber City, Utah, saw their downtown adorned in rainbows.
Sky Elizabeth Smith, 15, remembered driving with her family through the tiny Rocky Mountain town in northern Utah where she grew up, and finding herself surrounded by dozens of rainbow banners on both sides of Main Street.
“It made me feel really, really happy,” she told NBC News.
Smith, a high school student who identifies as pansexual, attempted suicide last year after what she described as routine bullying from classmates. Some classmates, she recalled, told her that Jesus was going to return and kill anyone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.
When Smith’s mother, Elizabeth Gale Seiler, a day care worker and lifelong member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, saw her daughter’s reaction to the banners, she was overcome with emotion.
“She looked at me, and she said, ‘I’m not alone here,’ and I just started to cry. In fact, I’m going to cry right now,” Seiler, 35, said. “It was the first time in this valley that she has felt accepted.”
A devastating trend
Youth suicide rates have tripled in Utah since 2007, according to the most recent data available from the Utah Department of Health. The problem is so severe that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert spearheaded a task force to combat the issue.
Nationwide, youth suicide skyrocketed 56 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to a newly released report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it’s unclear what’s behind the increase. LGBTQ youth are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, according to the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.
Many advocates believe LGBTQ youth represent a large portion of suicides in Utah, but because public health data do not track sexuality and gender identity, there is no data that confirms their suspicions, according to Hillary McDaniel, a manager for the Utah Pride Center, Utah’s largest LGBTQ organization.
“When someone dies by suicide, their family often knows by a note or just knowing them that that was the issue, because they were gay, or lesbian, or transgender, bisexual, and they didn’t have that support or were being bullied,” McDaniel said.
Ironically, Utah’s large population of Mormons, who represent about 61 percent of the state, have become increasingly lenient on the issue, Allen said, with more and more Mormon leaders showing a willingness to work with LGBTQ advocates.
“If you look at public opinion polling, Mormons fall somewhere between white evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants on LGBTQ issues,” Allen said. “So it means that Mormons aren’t going to be quite as hard-line as maybe religious folks in the Bible Belt and parts of the Deep South, but they aren’t going to quite go to West Coast levels of LGBTQ acceptance just yet.”
In 2015, the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed “the Utah compromise,” a law that made Utah the only solidly conservative state to pass some protections in housing and employment for LGBTQ people. Two years later, Utah became the first of eight conservative states to repeal a “No Homo Promo” law that prohibited discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. And after an attempt to ban conversion therapy failed in the Legislature, the state’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing issued a draft rule to prohibit therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors. If Herbert adopts the rule without changes, Utah will become the 19th state and the first reliably conservative state to ban the practice.
However, in a statement released last week, the politically powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposed the proposed ban, stating that the rule would interfere with psychologists’ religious beliefs, and said the measure “does not account for important realities of gender identity in the development of children.”
Small towns divided
Not everyone in Heber City was pleased to see Main Street bedecked in rainbow banners. Like many small towns in Utah, the population is largely Mormon, and is divided over LGBTQ issues, according to Mayor Kelleen Potter.
On June 4, a day after the banners were installed, Heber City residents gathered for a City Council meeting to voice divided opinions over the flags, Potter said. Some threatened to tear them down, she added, while others were overjoyed.
“There were a lot of really tender stories of people contacting me, telling me they’ve grown up in Heber, some of the difficulty growing up as an LGBTQ person in that community, and how they never believed that they would see something like that,” Potter recalled.
In the following weeks, Potter fielded angry phone calls and emails from community members who felt the flags were inappropriate. She said some people saw them as an attempt by LGBTQ advocates to use city-owned property to send a “political” message, an idea she dismissed.
“There is no one advocating for any legislation, or anything,” she said of her city. “This is a civil rights issue. It’s just a message of love and inclusion. It’s good for our community.”
Allison Phillips Belnap, 46, a local real estate attorney, raised $3,553 through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase the rainbow banners for Heber City. Phillips Belnap left the Mormon Church in 2017 after coming out as a lesbian. As one who had attempted suicide, she said she purchased the banners because she wanted to show other members of the local LGBTQ community they were not alone.
After the flags were installed, residents began reaching out to Phillips Belnap on social media to say thanks. One message was from Elizabeth Gale Seiler, still distraught over her daughter Sky’s suicide attempt.
“I think that’s what makes it worth it,” Phillips Belnap said. “And it meant more to me than I ever would have anticipated starting out. I didn’t realize what a big effect it would have on individuals and the community.”
A similar debate erupted in St. George, a small desert town in Utah’s southwest corner, almost 300 miles from Heber City. During the early weeks of September, commuters there were greeted by rainbow banners on either side of St. George Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that cuts through the city center.
Pride of Southern Utah, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, paid for the banners, which were installed on about 30 lampposts along the boulevard. The group also installed banners in the towns of Cedar City and Hurricane.
Inspired by the banners in Heber City, Pride of Southern Utah raised more than $6,100 on GoFundMe to purchase the banners.
“Within 20 hours, we had more than twice as much as what we needed,” Stephen Lambert, director of Pride of Southern Utah, said. “It was very humbling.”
The group filed for a permit to install the banners, which were part of the group’s Pride Week celebration spanning a week in mid-September.
The banners set off waves of approval and outrage from residents of St. George. In an email circulated on social media, a councilwoman referred to the flags as “political statements,” igniting a debate over whether an ordinance surrounding public signage should be reevaluated.
Lambert refuted the idea that his group has political motivations.
“Pride of Southern Utah is not a political organization,” he said. “We are not out there trying to change policy. Our purpose is to be a support group for the LGBTQ+ community, to be a resource for them, to be a safe place for them. That’s all.”
As the controversy mounted, city officials received at least two informal inquiries from groups interested in installing their own banners on the city-owned lampposts, according to St. George Mayor John Pike. Pike declined to specify the names of the organizations, but he said one was a white supremacist group and the other was interested in installing flags with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
St. George put a moratorium on applications for city lamppost banners until officials could revisit the city’s policy around what can be displayed on city-owned property, according to Pike.
The rainbow banners in Heber City prompted similar inquiries, according to Mayor Potter. She said at least one group inquired about installing anti-abortion banners on city-owned lampposts. While Heber City has not placed a moratorium on flags, Potter said the town will likely need to create an official policy that specifies what kinds of messages can be displayed on city-owned property.
Rainbow flags vandalized
Throughout Utah this year, rainbow flags adorned more than city lampposts. From summer through fall, flags were staked in the front yards of hundreds of homes in urban and rural neighborhoods.
Behind the effort was Project Rainbow, a small Salt Lake City-based nonprofit.
For $15, Utahans could rent rainbow flags from Project Rainbow during the duration of their city’s Pride festivities, which took place at various times throughout the summer and fall. Volunteers from Project Rainbow traversed the state to stake flags in customers’ front yards on PVC poles.
This year, the group raised $17,000 for the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City, and several thousand more for smaller LGBTQ groups throughout the state, including Pride of Southern Utah, according to Lucas Horns, who founded Project Rainbow in 2017.
Horns, 25, a professional ballet dancer who lives in Salt Lake, said the group staked 1,400 flags in the city and hundreds more throughout Ogden, Logan, St. George and Provo — more than doubling the number from last year.
Horns said Project Rainbow received backlash in response to the flags on social media, with some people accusing the group of “forcing their beliefs” on local communities. He estimated that about 10 percent of the flags Project Rainbow staked throughout Utah were stolen or vandalized.
“It’s sad that it’s been turned into a political symbol,” Horns said. “People have roped it into the dichotomy of our nation and I don’t think it has to be.”
Shally Sorensen, 46, a hair stylist who lives in St. George, came home one day in mid-September to see that her rainbow flag had disappeared from her property.
Sorensen, a mother of four, said she ordered the flag from Project Rainbow to show support for her nephew, who is gay. A few of her neighbors’ flags had also been thrown down or vandalized, she said.
“My girls and I, all of us cried, because we had a lot of sadness that week,” Sorensen, who has teenage daughters, said.
Days later, in an empty lot next to Sorensen’s house, a friend discovered a rainbow flag in a porta potty, soiled and partially burned. Instead of calling the police, Sorensen invited family and neighbors to her home to draw “messages of love” in colorful chalk on her driveway. About 40 to 50 people showed up, she said, including the local news media.
“It was beautiful to see that many people come together just to show love and support,” she said.
Sorensen washed the flag and put it back in her yard. Six days later, the flag vanished for the last time.
“I do know that I think there was a lot of good that came from all of this despite the yucky that came out,” Sorensen said. “It caused a lot of people to have conversations about what the flag means and that was really a good thing.”
‘Then came the flags’
Despite some backlash against the flags, advocates say Utah is warming to LGBTQ rights.
Mormon families are increasingly beginning to accept their LGBTQ children, according to Allen. Driving much of the change, she said, is Mormonism’s unique focus on family togetherness.
In recent years, a burgeoning online network of Mormon mothers known as the “Mama Dragons” emerged to help parents in the Mormon community understand their LGBTQ kids. Founded in 2014, the group has grown to more than 3,000 members throughout the country.
“I think it’s really telling that Mama Dragons came out of Mormonism,” Allen said. “You have these amazing moms who decided they were going to be really vocal and stand by their kids.”
Both Potter, who has a gay son and a transgender daughter, and Elizabeth Gale Seiler are proud members of the group.
“They’ve really helped me with some struggles I have with balancing how to help Sky through the struggles she’s been having with the bullying situation,” Seiler said.
Sky Elizabeth Smith has joined a newly formed a gay-straight alliance at her high school, and is doing much better, according to her mother.
“It’s been a real struggle,” Seiler said between tears. “But we make it through. She makes it through. She’s proud of who she is. She doesn’t hide who she is.”
Smith said the bullying she endured at school last year was “really bad.” One boy, she said, told her to “kill myself.”
“Then came the flags,” Smith said, recalling that day in June when she was surrounded by rainbow banners in downtown Heber City. “It just made me realize that there are people in this town and out there that actually care about us.”
Sebastopol Senior Center’s Fabulous Halloween LGBTQ and Friends Dance Party. Included in the $15 door prices are 4 rooms of fun, black light art, gorilla kissing photo booth, talking pumpkins, delicious food for meat eaters and vegetarians, CAKE, Fortune Tellers for private sessions by donation, live DJ takes requests, home-backed chocolate chip cookies, FUN PEOPLE, ghosts that fly through windows, 8-foot clowns, skeletons. Beer and wine only $5. Our team of volunteers are up late preparing this wonderful event for you to enjoy. All money raised goes to help Seniors. And DJ BearCake Donald Rodreick has been up late working on his “Monster Mash” dance music set! Come Sat Oct 26th, 6:30 PM to the Sebastopol Senior Center 167 N High Street, Sebastopol
WorldPride 2023 will be held in Sydney, InterPride has announced, marking the 50th Anniversary of Australia’s first Gay Pride Week.
InterPride is the international association of Pride organisations, and it voted on Sunday, October 20, at its Annual General Meeting in Athens on the bids for 2023 WorldPride.
The bid said that WorldPride in Sydney, with the theme of “fearless”, would “benefit those communities who need it most; neighbouring countries where LGBTQI communities experience some of the worst human rights abuses in the world”.
2023 will now be the first time a city in the Southern hemisphere has hosted the international LGBT+ event.
The bid highlighted the importance of a Southern Hemisphere WorldPride: “It presents a unique challenge to the WorldPride movement, asking it to engage with and celebrate the many unique, culturally diverse expressions of genders and sexualities found in Oceania and Asia on an unprecedented scale.
“From the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sista Girls and Brutha Boys, to the Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama from Samoa, the Fakaleiti from Tonga, the Kathoey from Thailand, and the Hijra from India.
“WorldPride in Sydney will be a global first, providing a unique opportunity for the Prides of the world to meet with these diverse communities and for them to be seen, be heard and be included.”
New South Wales minister for tourism Stuart Ayres told ABC that WorldPride could generate $664 million for the city, and it has been estimated that the event could draw around one million visitors.
He added: “Sydney is a truly cosmopolitan city with an amazing harbour, delicious food and beverage, world-class transport and a proud history of celebrating diversity.
Campaigners who fought for decades to end Northern Ireland’s same sex-marriage ban and restrictions on abortion prepared on Monday for a momentous change to the laws on both at the stroke of midnight.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that does not allow same-sex marriage. Also, unlike England, Scotland and Wales, laws in Northern Ireland forbid abortion except where a mother’s life is at risk, bans that have been upheld by the region’s block of conservative politicians.
But an overwhelming vote by British lawmakers in July to compel the government in London to overhaul the laws if Belfast’s devolved executive had not been restored by Oct. 21 is set to kick in with little or no hope of politicians ending the local parliament’s near three-year hiatus.
Advocacy groups have planned a number of events on Monday to usher in the changes.
“We are not going to stick with the guilt and the shame any longer. Tomorrow the law changes in this place, and for the first time in Northern Ireland, women will be free,” Pro-choice campaigner Dawn Purvis told a public meeting in Belfast
“Free to choose if, when and how many children they will have in the care of health-care professionals. This is a very emotional day for many here.”
Abortion rights were long opposed in Northern Ireland by religious conservatives in both the Protestant community that supports continued British rule and the Catholic community that favors union with the traditionally Catholic Irish Republic.
Pressure has mounted, however, to change the Victorian-era laws in recent years, particularly after the neighboring Irish Republic voted overwhelmingly last year to repeal a similarly restrictive ban, demonstrating a stark change in attitudes on an island once known for its religious conservatism.
If a new devolved government is not formed by midnight, abortion will be decriminalized, beginning a consultation on what the framework for services should look like, which is due to be finalized and approved by March 2020.
“This is a bad law being implemented through a bad process leading to bad consequences for both women and unborn children,” said Dawn McAvoy from the anti-abortion Both Lives Matter group.
Opinion has also changed on same-sex marriage. But despite opinion polls showing most in the region in favor, previous attempts to follow the Irish Republic in legalizing it have been blocked by the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), using a special veto intended to prevent discrimination towards one community over another.
It will take the British parliament until mid-January to bring in the new legislation, setting up Feb. 14, 2020 – Valentine’s Day – as the first opportunity for same-sex couples to marry once they give the required 28-days’ notice.
A Ugandan doctor allegedly shattered a patient’s skull, arms, legs and back with an iron bar and then threw her out of the hospital, all because she is lesbian.
The patient was attacked in August this year in Kampala, the country’s capital, where the medical professional brutally battered her after finding out she is friends with his daughter.
Enraged, the doctor ordered security to give him an iron bar which he then used to pelt the woman’s head, arms, legs, and back, local outlets reported.
Patient went in to purchase glasses, left with her body and mobile phone shattered.
According to a statement recorded at Kabalagala Police Station, the patient had gone to consult an eye specialist at Mukwaya General Hospital in the Kabalagala neighbourhood, a vibrant business hub dotted with commercial banks, restaurants and fuel stations.
A friend had advised her to visit Dr Mukwaya at the clinic because purchasing a pair of glasses would be cheaper at the hospital than at a nearby opticians, where she first had an examination.
Arriving for her appointment, Mukwaya asked which friend told her to visit his facility. She gave a name, which happened to be his daughter who is a nurse at the hospital, the statement read.
This prompted the healthcare professional to allegedly ask a hospital security officer to give him an iron bar which he swung into the woman’s head and several other parts of her body.
Her phone was also cracked during the assault, detectives reported.
The alleged assault left her, according to medical records and X-ray results, with a “tender” skull and her arm dislocated as a result of the brutal beating.
An examination at the Mayfair Clinic along Entebbe Road concluded that the woman’s skull had been cracked. Her condition is unknown.
Erasing 76 Crimesreached out to the doctor of comment, but he did not reply. While an anonymous source informed PinkNews that they reported the incident to the local authorities, who confirmed the incident is under investigation.
In a country where it is not only illegal to be gay, but laws are defined by traditional and strict religious views, a trans woman being elected councillor seems like a fever dream.
But for Bangladeshi garment shop owner Pinki Khatun, it’s a reality.
Khatun was elected as councillor for Kotchandpur, a rural town in the country’s westside, after beating her nearest rival by more than 4,000 votes earlier this week, reported The Straits Times.
“I am very delighted. I campaigned door-to-door and people have responded positively,” said Khatun.
“I did not face any discrimination or hate campaigns.”
Trans councillor: ‘My aim is to work for the betterment of women and protect their rights’.
Local police chief Mahbubul Alam confirmed the win for Khatun on Monday.
The 37-year-old is a youth wing official of the ruling Awami League party.
She campaigned as an independent candidate in the 200,000-population town of Kotchandpur after the party did not back anyone.
In parts of South Asia, the term hijra refers to certain women, intersex and non-binary people assigned male at birth. While some hijra are trans, not all trans people are hijra.
The community has received some legal recognition in the last decade, but work continues from tireless campaigners to enshrine the wider LGBT+ community with better protections while improving cultural attitudes.
“My aim is to work for the betterment of women and protect their rights,” said Khatun.
A Californian police officer smashed a gay man against a car’s windshield – hurling homophobic insults at him and mocking his voice – is now retired and collecting around $100,ooo per year from his pension pot.
The former Palo Alto police sergeant was swamped with criticism when video footage capturing the incident went viral in April, The Mercury News reported.
Wayne Benitez was placed on administrative leave earlier this year after the video surfaced, state officials said, and retired on 30 September.
Scrutiny bubbled again, however, when it emerged that the former officer is collecting a monthly pension of $9,866 — earning him an annual retirement package of about $118,600, according to Amy Morgan, information officer for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
Benitez joined the city’s police department in 2000 and previously served as union president of the Peace Officers Association.
Gustavo Alvarez filed a federal lawsuit against the Palo Alto Police Department in April, alleging that several officers used excessive force when he was pulled over and arrested in February 2018.
Alvarez had been allegedly driving with a suspended license, leading to law enforcement to break his door down, cuff him, slam him against the car and make him bleed.
The only evidence of the attack is surveillance footage from outside Alvarez’s house that he set up in front of his residence. Officers had removed their body cameras and parked their cars facing away from his house, preening being on tape from their dash cameras.
According to the 77-page complaint, officer Christopher Conde was on patrol that day when he spotted Alvarez’s car. He was aware that Alvarez had had his licence suspended a month before, so followed in pursuit.
Although, he was unaware if Alvarez was even in the vehicle.
Soon after, he went to Alvarez’s mobile home telling him he was being arrested for driving without documentation.
When Alvarez asks the officer if he saw him driving, Conde admitted that he didn’t. Alvarez then went back inside his home.
After telling officers he was coming out, officers busted gay man’s door down and dragged him outside.
As a result, Conde called for backup – including Benitez – to order Alvarez outside his home. Despite informing officers he was coming out, they busted his door, dragged him outside and cuffed him.
His head was repeatedly smashed into his car windshield, as the sergeant asked: “You think you’re a tough guy now?”
“You’re going to be bleeding a whole lot more.”
“See how well they behave when we put our foot down?” Benitez said to another officer after Alvarez was back in the squad car. “That’s what we don’t do enough of,” the mic recording showed.
Benitez added “He’s gay” before calling the suspect a “frickin’ low life”. He ordered for Alvarez’s car to be towed and proceeded to raise his voice to mock him while mentioning Alvarez’s sexuality.
Furthermore, Alvarez alleged that the incident was provoked partly because he is gay.
Suspect’s attorney: ‘To think that taxpayers are still rewarding him is incomprehensible at this point in time and history.’
Alvarez spent two weeks in Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of driving under influence, driving with a suspended or revoked license and resisting arrest.
But all of those charges were later dismissed by the Santa Clara County Superior County due to insufficient evidence.
“Obviously the police department and the city of Palo Alto thus far have failed to step up and condemn the actions of these officers,” Alvarez’s attorney Cody Salfen told Mercury News.
“To think that taxpayers are still rewarding him is incomprehensible at this point in time and history.”
“This speaks volumes to our claims that the agency suffers from a culture of violence, a culture of covering things up, a culture of failing to adhere to their constitutional duties as police officers to the point that they are breaking their own policies and therefore, the law,” Salfen said.
Efforts to contact Benitez proved unsuccessful, TheMercury News reported.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Sum Ting Wong opted for a more muted look today as she and more than “150 people” protested today against the first UK Chick-fil-A store.
In the southern town of Reading, England, locals were filled with unease when they awoke to the news that the American fast-food chain – known for its donations to anti-LGBT+ organisations – was set to open up shop in their town.
Sending ripples through the queer community, campaigners rallied together to stand against the chain by spilling outside The Oracle shopping centre in the Berkshire town today telling the corporation to ‘sashay away’.
The protest came after a spokesperson for the shopping centre confirmed that that “the right thing to do” is to not extend Chick-fil-A’s lease past its “six-month pilot period”, Reading Pride confirmed in a news release.
Organisers added that as the “restaurant will be profiting from unsuspecting patrons”, the protest would continue as planned.
Protest organisers: ‘They failed to respond, and so we took action’.
Dozens of local residents and Pride organisations from nearby towns gathered on the red bricked-Broad Street to hoist up rainbow Pride flags, unfurl banners and hand out pamphlets at around 11am.
Protesters chanted “Chick-fil-A, sashay away!” while others held banners up high reading: “Get the chick out! Say no to bigotry and hatred on your High Street.”
The beating heart of the ‘Get The Chick Out’ protest was Reading Pride – first formed in 2003.
Reading Pride chief executive officer Martin Cooper told PinkNews that the LGBT+ community needs to take a stand against the corporation.
“The individual franchises may have differing views to the family that own the company.
“But the profits that are made are used towards anti-LGBT+ activities, including conversion therapies and law making in Uganda, where officials want to ‘kill the gays’.
“Therefore, it is appropriate to protest and let the community know where their money could go.”
Labour councillors, local unions and officials from the UK Pride Organisers Network travelled to the city’s shopping district to show their support.
While representatives from Gloucester Pride, Newbury Pride, Pride in Surrey and Weston-Super-Mare Pride swung to plump up crowds, which organisers estimated saw around 150 people attend throughout the day.
“All in all, the message was put across, and it was clear,” Cooper recounted.
“We won’t allow companies that are actively supporting oppression of LGBT+ persons to get away with setting up shop without calling to question their actions.
“They failed to respond, and so we took action.
“And it paid off.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star allegedly turned away from Chick-fil-A.
Outside a Sainsbury’s supermarket in the city centre, shoppers may have been given a flyer from Sum Ting Wong.
Wong was dressed to match the airy weather in a nondescript mustard beanie, grey drop-stitch cardigan and sandals.
Far removed from her usual powdered, perfumed drag that has made her a fan favourite on the show.
But the Reading local meant business as she joined protesters in solidarity.
Attempting to go into the Chick-fil-A, Wong was allegedly turned away by staff, according to a tweet.
“But I just wanted see if chicken tasted better than bigotry?” Wong continued.
Moreover, Wong claimed in another tweet that customers in the branch threw “the middle finger” at protesters outside – an obscene hand gesture in the UK.
A Hong Kong court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage and civil union partnerships on Friday after a lesbian identified as “MK” launched the city’s first judicial challenge on the issue, stating it violated her constitutional rights.
Rights group Amnesty International described the judgment as a “bitter blow” for LGBTQ people in Hong Kong.
“Sadly, the discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples will continue for the time being,” Amnesty said in a statement.
The Court of First Instance ruled that the government was not obliged to provide an alternative legal framework such as civil unions, giving same-sex couples the equal rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex married couples.
The court said that, while there are diverse and opposing views in society, it expressed “no view on the associated social, moral and/or religious issues” and that it had adopted a strict legal approach to the matter.
Homosexuality has been decriminalized since 1991 in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The city has an annual pride parade and lively gay scene.
It does not, however, recognize same-sex marriage and LGBTQ activists voice concerns about widespread discrimination.
Hong Kong’s top court in June ruled in favor of a gay civil servant fighting for spousal and tax benefits for his husband.