We The People

Category: Top Stories

  • Wedding venue turns away gay couple ‘under the guise of Christianity’

    A devastated same-sex couple say they were turned away from a popular wedding venue “under the guise of Christianity”.

    McCae Henderson and Ike Edwards got engaged on Valentine’s Day and began searching for wedding venues in North Carolina. They settled on Highgrove Estate, a romantic estate overlooking Lake Laurel in Fuquay-Varina.

    The first red flag came when the couple filled out an intake form on the estate’s website, which only provided spaces for the name of the “bride” and “groom.”

    “In the notes section I just said we were a groom and groom,” Edwards told ABC11. “It’s not like we can ignore that and then show up.”

    Two days later, their application was refused. A Highgrove Estate employee told them the venue’s owners “have chosen not to participate in same-sex weddings at this time”.

    The couple were dismayed by the decision. “Disheartening is the word I would use,” Henderson said. “We had not had anything like this throughout the process or really in our lives.

    “This is us. We are gay and we did not choose to be gay,” he continued. “The fact that we don’t have access to things other people do is discrimination in my eyes.

    “I think everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe to an extent. I don’t think you get to be racist because your religion tells you to be racist. I don’t think you get to be homophobic because your religion tells you to be homophobic.”

    In a statement to ABC11, the venue insisted that it does not discriminate against any people or group as it welcomes LGBT+ employees and vendors.

    However, the owners added: “We believe in the sanctity of marriage as God says in the Bible that marriage is between a man and a woman and we choose to honour Him above what the world decides what marriage should be.”

    This explanation didn’t fly with Henderson and Edwards. The couple say they have many friends who grew up Christian, and Highgrove Estate’s sentiment isn’t shared by them.

  • Biden seeks to ramp up funds to beat HIV/AIDS in budget request

    President Biden, unveiling on Friday his initial budget request to Congress in the first year of his administration, called for ramping up funds to beat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, signaling he’d continue the PrEP-centric initiative that began in the previous administration.

    In the preliminary budget request for fiscal year 2022, known in Washington parlance as the “skinny budget” in anticipation of broader request at a later time, Biden seeks an increase of $267 million for Ending the HIV Epidemic, building on the more than $400 million Congress has appropriated for the program since 2019.

    As it was launched in the Trump administration, the initiative sought a 90 percent decrease in new incidents of HIV infections across the United States by 2030, although Biden campaigned on beating that goal by five years and ending the domestic HIV epidemic by 2025.

    Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, hailed in a statement the proposed increased funds for the initiative, but said it falls short of the amount advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS were seeking.

    “While it falls short of what the community has requested, if this funding is realized it will continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in the U.S. Efforts to end HIV will help eradicate an infectious disease that we have been battling for the last 40 years and help correct racial and health inequities in our nation,” Schmid said.

    Counterintuitively, Trump had sought more funds to beat HIV/AIDS in his final year in office than Biden has in his first year in office. Last year, President Trump’s budget called for an increase of $412 million for the second year of the initiative for a total of $716 million while Congress settled on an increase of approximately $137 million.

    Biden seeks increased funds for HIV/AIDS at a time when advocates in the fight against HIV were at a crossroads at the start of a new administration. Questions had persisted about whether or not the Biden administration would continue the initiative, which was the brainchild of health officials in the Trump administration.

  • Exorcist disturbingly claims he’s beaten and ‘prayed the gay away’ from 500 people

    An exorcist has claimed he has “prayed the gay away” from more than 500 LGBT+ people in Pakistan.

    Tineenullah Fahad, who works from a clinic above a discount store in the country’s capital, Islamabad, explained to Vice World News that queer people are possessed by lustful demons.

    The cure, he claims, is reciting verses from the Quran.

    Since 2012, the 35-year-old has been offering so-called spiritual healing on a case-by-case basis. Such treatments include beating LGBT+ people in an effort to expel so-called evil spirits.

    Around “60 per cent of the homosexual cases that come to me are the results of black magic and demonic possession,” Fahad claimed, explaining his belief that LGBT+ people are possessed by demons.

    In one disturbing case, Fahad “was on top of [a victim] beating him and he had no scars on his body” for “four hours, until two o’clock at night”, he recalled.

    Conversion therapists are often considered in Pakistan to be spiritual healers, with no federal laws banning the practice – meaning that such brutal beatings under the guise of spirituality continue.

    Hundreds of faith leaders have pleaded for a global ban on conversion therapy, a call only amplified by countless medical authorities and the United Nations, which say the discredited and dangerous practice is akin to torture.

    Types of conversion therapy, UN violence expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz said, range from “beatings, rape, electrocution, forced medication, isolation and confinement, forced nudity, verbal offence [to] humiliation”.

    All these atrocities, he said, are “degrading and discriminatory and rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior, and that they must at any cost modify their orientation or identity to remedy that supposed inferiority”.

    The idea alone that sexual orientation or gender identity can be “converted” was one even dismissed by psychotherapist Sigmund Freud.

    But to Fahad, homosexuality is nothing more than a symptom of “Ashiq Jinnat” which loosely translates to a kind of demon-lover. To him, this justifies such extreme acts.SPONSORED CONTENT

    He believes that a spirit, or a “jinn”, settles into a body to exploit the possessed’s lust – the jinn places people under a spell, which some spiritual healers claim bewitches them into same-sex attraction.

    “When Satan was banished from Allah’s darbaar [a ruler’s court] he vowed to take revenge on mankind by making them reject God’s commands so that they fall into such unnatural activities,” he added.

    In Pakistan, LGBT+ citizens face vigilante executions, beatings and torture. The country’s penal code – drafted during colonial imposition, a relic of British Raj rule – punishes queer sex with a prison sentence.

    Other anti-LGBT+ penal code provisions compound the climate of religious conservatism that snarls the lives of queer Pakistanis, forcing many to live in secrecy and always be on their guard.

    With such looming threats – and an uptick of violence bringing even greater urgency – lawmakers last year announced a long-sought “bill of protection“. As transphobic violence in particular soars, ministers are scrambling to enshrine greater protections for the embattled trans community.

  • Leading doctor wants you to know puberty blockers are ‘incredibly safe’

    The head of trans healthcare at one of the largest hospitals in the US has reminded the public that puberty blockers are an “incredibly safe” and “reversible” treatment for transgender children.

    Dr Joshua Safer, executive director at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City, was speaking to NPR alongside Republican Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson – who recently tried and failed to veto a bill restricting gender-affirming treatments, including puberty blockers, for under-18s.

    “The reason I vetoed the bill,” Hutchinson said, “is because we did not want to interrupt a treatment that the parents had agreed to, the patient agreed to and the physician recommended.”SPONSORED CONTENTWhat’s Huel’s Black Edition?By Huel

    Hutchinson was overruled by Republican lawmakers, and Arkansas became the first US state to ban puberty blockers for trans kids. But Safer said that in his medical experience, puberty blockers are a “conservative options and they are reversible”.

    “Puberty blockers are used in a number of medical situations, specifically so that hormones can be adjusted to a certain degree, and then they can be stopped, and things will revert to how they were,” he said.

    “When we use these medications for transgender kids as well as for kids with precocious puberty, they’re incredibly safe,” Safer added. “That’s the reason why they are the conservative go-to medication for these kids.”

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is preparing litigation in Arkansas, stating that the anti-trans bill “will drive families, doctors and businesses out of the state and send a terrible and heart-breaking message to the transgender young people who are watching in fear”.

    “This is a sad day for Arkansas, but this fight is not over – and we’re in it for the long haul,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of ACLU in Arkansas.

    Dozens of similar bills attacking trans people, backed by the anti-abortion Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, are making their way through legislatures across the US.

  • Malaysia pushes for Sharia law to be tougher on LGBT+ Muslims

    Malaysia is pushing for Sharia law to be tougher against LGBT+ Muslims even as it makes a bid for a spot on the UN Human Rights Council.

    On Tuesday (6 April) the Malaysian government announced plans to move forward with an amendment to the Sharia Courts Act that would allow heavier punishments to be imposed on the LGBT+ community.

    The country’s strict Islamic laws already penalise any form of anal or oral sex with up to 20 years in prison and mandatory caning – but ministers want to push it further still.

    Religious affairs minister Datuk Zulkifli Mohamad has strongly endorsed the amendment, initially tabled by his deputy, which would drastically increase the maximum sentencing limits Sharia Courts can impose against Sharia offences.

    LGBT+ people are “violating the norms” of human behaviour, the minister declared as he defended the proposal.

    “We cannot accept such practices. We just need to manage the issue with wisdom, inviting and educating them to return to the right path,” Free Malaysia Today reported him saying.

    The government’s insistence on draconian anti-LGBT+ laws was slammed by the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), a coalition of 14 women’s rights organisations in Malaysia.

    Speaking to Malay Mail, the group reminded Malaysia’s government of its intention to join the UN’s Human Rights Council, a body that opposes everything the Sharia law amendment represents.

    “It is ironic that these proposed discriminatory measures – a clear violation of human rights – coincide with the minister of foreign affairs, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein’s bid for Malaysia’s membership on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council,” they said.

    “The government’s decision to move forward with a harsher sentence against Muslim LGBT+ persons would stand at odds with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

    “As such, JAG requests the cabinet of ministers to prevent the proposal from being tabled at the next parliamentary session and to refrain from persecution of the LGBT+ community.”

    JAG said it is also concerned that religious affairs minister Zulkifli has openly endorsed government-run conversion therapy programmes by masking it as a softer approach.

  • Germany: New Policy to Champion LGBTI Rights Abroad

    The German government has pledged to do more to uphold the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The commitment is included in its multifaceted strategy for foreign policy and development cooperation, adopted on March 3, 2021.

    Among its many goals, the LGBTI Inclusion Strategy aims to further Germany’s role in promoting LGBTI people’s rights at international and regional human rights institutions. It commits Germany’s diplomatic missions to do more to engage in dialogue on LGBTI issues with host countries and, where appropriate, with religious, business, and other sectors. The policy also highlights the importance of monitoring human rights abuses and collaborating closely with civil society.

    “The German government’s important policy comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the discrimination that many LGBTI people experience around the world,” said Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The policy’s focus on strengthening civil society organizations recognizes the crucial role they play as front-line human rights defenders and the violence and harassment they face for their pro-LGBTI work.”

    The policy says that Germany may provide assistance for at-risk activists by raising relevant issues with the host governments, expressing solidarity through official statements where needed, observing trials, and, in urgent circumstances, providing asylum.

    In the area of development cooperation, the strategy says that Germany will pay “appropriate attention” to LGBTI rights, including by expanding funding and technical support, capacity building, and networking opportunities for organizations serving LGBTI populations abroad.

    As a member of the Equal Rights Coalition, the Global Equality Fund, and the UN LGBTI Core Group, Germany already plays an important role in advocating LGBTI rights abroad, Human Rights Watch said. The LGBTI Inclusion Strategy formalizes and expands upon those activities, including by aiming to streamline LGBTI rights support through “appropriate initial and continuing training measures” for public servants working on foreign policy and development cooperation.

    The adoption of the LGBTI Inclusion Strategy is the result of sustained advocacy from German civil society groups since 2012, spearheaded by the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (Der Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland, LSVD), the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation, and the Yogyakarta-Alliance. The policy incorporates many of the preliminary considerations that these groups presented to the German federal government in 2017, including making cooperation with civil society a centerpiece of the efforts.

    With the adoption of the Inclusion Strategy, Germany joins other countries like the Netherlands, Canada, and Sweden in setting LGBTI rights as a priority in their foreign policy. In February, US President Joe Biden issued a memorandum on advancing the rights of LGBTI and queer people around the world. As Germany is one of the European Union’s most influential members, its added support for a pro-LGBTI foreign policy agenda is significant.

    The LGBTI Inclusion Strategy is noteworthy for highlighting the importance of improving access to comprehensive sexuality education, children’s right to age-appropriate learning material that can help foster safe and informed practices when it comes to sexual development, relationships, and safer sex. It can also prevent gender-based violence, gender inequality, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies. Expanding access to such information can be a key tool to combat violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.

    The policy is also significant in noting that “[l]ocal history and the life stories and traditions of LGBTI people, including relevant aspects of mission and colonial history, are essential considerations” in carrying out the policy. A representative of the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation told Human Rights Watch that they pushed for the inclusion of these concerns as a way to recognize the nefarious impact of European colonial and missionary interventions on questions of gender and sexuality in certain contexts in the Global South, such as in the case of colonial-era laws criminalizing same-sex conduct.

    The LGBTI Inclusions Strategy references and upholds international human rights standards on non-discrimination for LGBTI people, such as those found in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It also rightfully frames LGBTI rights as a question of advancing human dignity, mandated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    The implementation of the ambitious LGBTI Inclusion Strategy will require close monitoring in collaboration with civil society in Germany and beyond. The government proposes to evaluate the policy after three years, which may offer an opportunity to identify areas for improvement and expansion.

    “Organizations working to advance the rights of LGBTI people worldwide need supportive governments, like Germany’s, to provide moral and material support in the face of national and transnational forces that aim to block or roll back advances,” González said. “Germany has taken an important step toward a holistic human rights-based foreign policy, and the authorities should ensure that the policy will be carried out.”

     

  • Queer Black lawmaker won’t be charged after arrest for knocking on governor’s door

    Georgia lawmaker Park Cannon has vowed to continue knocking on the “doors of injustice” after it was confirmed she will not be prosecuted for knocking on the governor’s door.

    Cannon, an out, Black state representative, was arrested and forcibly removed from Georgia’s state capitol building  for knocking on governor Brian Kemp’s door as he signed a voting bill that has been condemned as racist. She was subsequently charged with obstruction of law enforcement and disrupting the general assembly.

    Two weeks after her arrest, Fani Willis, district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, said the office will not file charges against Cannon, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she considers the case closed after reviewing the evidence surrounding her arrest on 25 March.

    “While some of Rep. Cannon’s colleagues and the police officers involved may have found her behaviour annoying, such sentiment does not justify a presentment to a grand jury of the allegations in the arrest warrants or any other felony charges,” Willis said.

    Park Cannon tweeted following the news she would not be prosecuted: “Doors of injustice are everywhere, and we cannot stop knocking.”

    Gerald Griggs, an Atlanta attorney who is representing Cannon, welcomed the news.

    He said the “facts and evidence showed to the world” that Cannon “committed no crime and should not have been arrested”.

    He added: “We thank the district attorney for her thorough review of the evidence and are weighing our next legal actions.”

  • North Carolina Republicans want to force teachers to out gender non-conforming children to parents

    Three North Carolina Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would force teachers to out any trans or gender non-conforming child to their parents.

    Senate Bill 514 would make it illegal for any “government agents” to not “immediately” inform the parents or legal guardians of any child or young adult if that “minor under its care or supervision has exhibited symptoms of gender dysphoria, gender nonconformity, or otherwise demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner incongruent with the minor’s sex”.

    This would compel any state employee, teacher, volunteer or contractor of a school district in North Carolina to out trans students under the age of 21 to their parents.

    The bill – introduced by Republican senators Ralph Hise, Warren Daniel and Norman Sanderson – will also prevent doctors and other healthcare professionals from giving gender affirming care to trans youth under the age of 21. This includes performing gender affirming surgeries and administering puberty blockers, testosterone or estrogen.

    Under the bill, medical professionals who provide gender affirming treatment to trans patients could have their license revoked and face a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per occurrence.

    Kendra R Johnson, executive director of Equality NC, said in a statement that it is “heartbreaking” – but “not unexpected” – to see these “direct, repeated attacks” against trans and gender non-conforming youth in North Carolina.

    “These attempts to control the bodies and medical decisions of parents and their transgender children are invasive, inappropriate and outright dangerous,” Johnson said. “Decisions about a child’s medical welfare should be made between that child, their doctor, and their parents or guardians – not lawmakers.”

    She added that it is the “job of all lawmakers” to thoroughly understand the “entirety of their constituency” and “mitigate challenges instead of creating barriers”. Johnson said: “We cannot legislate the transgender community out of existence.”

    Chantal Stevens, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, added SB 514 is the latest in a “series of coordinated attacks on healthcare access” for LGBT+ youth across the US. She explained the “true aim” of such legislation is to “push trans and non-binary people out of public life”.

    “Not only are these bills rooted in falsehoods, hate and fear-mongering, but they also invade the private interactions between each of us and our medical providers,” Stevens said.

    The North Carolina bill comes after Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. The Arkansas bill was passed by the state’s House of Representatives and Senate in March before making its way to governor Asa Hutchinson for approval. However, Hutchinson vetoed the bill on Monday (5 April), saying it was a “vast government overreach”.

    But on Tuesday (6 April), the Republican-controlled House and Senate voted to override Hutchinson’s veto, meaning the bill will be passed into law.

  • Amnesty cites ‘transphobic fear-mongering’ in report claiming UK is ‘rushing to abandon human rights’

    “Serious concerns” about hostile attitudes towards human rights in the UK, including the government’s failure to reform gender recognition laws and “transphobic fear-mongering”, have been raised by international human rights group Amnesty International.

    The stark rebuke of the British government comes in Amnesty’s annual reporton human rights around the world.×ADVERTISING

    Policies on immigration, housing and current efforts to curtail the right to protest mean the UK is “speeding towards the cliff edge” when it comes to upholding and preserving human rights legislation.

    In its 408-page report, Amnesty also condemns the Conservative government’s failure to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) in September 2020 as a move that “fell short of human rights standards”.

    The GRA is the 2004 law that adult trans men and women use to get legal recognition of their gender. It is widely seen as outdated, overly bureaucratic, expensive, and exclusionary of non-binary people and under 18’s.

    A huge consultation into potential reforms of the GRA attracted more than 108,000 responses, with 80 per cent of respondents in favour of de-medicalising the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate, and three-quarters in favour of dropping a requirement for trans people to provide “evidence” of living in their chosen gender.

    But shelving the reforms, Conservative minister for women and equalities Liz Truss claimed it was “not a priority” for transgender people.

    Moreover this, Amnesty said there is “growing transphobic rhetoric and fear-mongering in the media” in the UK.

    “For years, the UK has been moving in the wrong direction on human rights – but things are now getting worse at an accelerating rate,” said Amnesty International’s UK director, Kate Allen.

    “Having made mistake after lethal mistake during the pandemic, the government is now shamefully trying to strip away our right to lawfully challenge its decisions, no matter how poor they are.”

    The report also highlights Britain’s poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, recent assaults on the right to protest, police discrimination against Black and Asian communities, and the resumed arms trade with Saudi Arabia.

    “On the right to protest, on the Human Rights Act, on accountability for coronavirus deaths, on asylum, on arms sales or on trade with despots, we’re speeding toward the cliff edge,” said Allen.

  • Hundreds protest as brazen homophobes sworn into Israeli parliament

    Hundreds demonstrated in Jerusalem on Tuesday (6 April), protesting the swearing in of a group of viciously anti-LGBT+ Knesset members.

    The protest was held outside parliament as all 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s national legislature, were sworn in following last month’s elections, according to AFP.

    Among them were six members of the far-right Religious Zionism alliance, which includes the parties Noam and Otzma Yehudit, and the Religious Zionist Party (National Union–Tkuma).

    Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party and self-described “proud homophobe”, helped to organise the 2006 anti-LGBT+ “beast parade”when World Pride came to Jerusalem.

    The “beast parade” saw right-wing activists trace the Pride parade route with donkeys and goats, claiming the animals were above LGBT+ people because they hadn’t “sinned”.

    Other Knesset members under the Religious Zionism alliance umbrella include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads the Otzma Yehudit party, and Avi Maoz, founder of the anti-LGBT+ party Noam. 

    en-Gvir has celebrated the killing of Palestinians, has previously been convicted of inciting violence and supporting a terror group, and believes the “Arab enemy” must be “expelled” from Israel.

    Maoz’s Noam party has compared those who fight for LGBT+ rights to Nazis and suicide bombers, and was founded solely to oppose LGBT+ rights.

    Protesters outside parliament in Jerusalem on 6 April, 2021. (AFP via Getty/ EMMANUEL DUNAND)

    Activist Or Keshet told AFP: “Already during the 2019 elections, when it first appeared, Noam was targeting the LGBT+ community with humiliating slogans bordering on incitement to hatred.”

    Now, with six Knesset members belonging to the Religious Zionism alliance, he fears “a step backwards” for LGBT+ rights in Israel.