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Judge Orders U.S. to Return Gay Asylum-seeker Deported to Chad

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to return a gay asylum-seeker who was deported to Chad, ruling that the government had not properly considered his asylum claim based on his status as a gay man before deporting him. Oumar Yaide arrived in the U.S. in 2009 and requested political asylum because he was a member of “a disfavored group,” a Chadian ethnic group called the Gorane. His asylum application was denied in 2014, and in December 2018 a judge denied his final appeal. In October, however, two months after officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, […]

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Same-Sex Marriage Now Legal In Northern Ireland

The BBC reports: From Monday, same-sex couples will be able to register to marry, meaning the first ceremonies will take place in February. For couples who are already married, their marriage will now be legally recognised in Northern Ireland. However, those who are already in a civil partnership will not be able to convert it to a marriage at this stage. The Northern Ireland Office is set to begin a consultation later this year about converting civil partnerships and the role of churches in same-sex marriages. Same-sex marriages have been allowed in England, Scotland and Wales since 2014, but Stormont did […]

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Trump’s New Campaign Adviser Thinks HIV and AIDS is Punishment from God for Homosexuality

Surprise surprise, Donald Trump has appointed a campaign advisor who promotes conversion therapy and thinks HIV in gay men is “God’s moral law.” Anti-LGBT+ extremist Jenna Ellis is a right-wing news pundit and former constitutional law attorney. She does nothing to hide her strongly homophobic views and has a long history of tirades against “the homosexual lifestyle” and the “LGBT agenda.” Trump appointed her for the senior role as he was impressed by Ellis’ TV appearances, Axios reported. He also indicated that he wanted to give her a bigger job, and his team briefly discussed bringing her into the White House. Ellis […]

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Trump’s Attempt to Fire HIV-positive Airmen was Blocked a Second Time

The Trump administration’s latest bid to have two HIV-positive airmen discharged from service has been blocked by courts for a second time. The two men, referred to by the pseudonyms Roe and Voe, were given discharge orders in 2017 on the basis that they couldn’t be deployed to the Middle East due to their HIV-positive status. Both men are on antiretroviral treatment, have no symptoms, and have been pronounced physically fit to deploy by their doctors. Their discharges were blocked by a preliminary injunction in February last year, which the Department of Defence and the Air Force appealed. On Friday, January […]

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Klobuchar’s Votes for Trump Judges include One with Anti-LGBTQ Record

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is facing scrutiny on the campaign trail for voting to confirm many of President Trump’s judicial nominees — and a closer look at that record reveals she backed one pick who once derided as “social policy” not only LGBTQ rights and abortion, but also school integration. With weeks remaining before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3, Klobuchar’s vote to confirm David Ryan Stras to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals could dissuade supporters of LGBTQ rights and other progressives from supporting her in the Democratic presidential primary.  Although Stras hasn’t been as viciously anti-LGBTQ as some […]

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Rising Anti-Semitism: 4 Lessons for LGBTQ Americans

Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, deadly attacks on Jewish homes, businesses, and places of worship are rocking America, from San Diego to Pittsburgh, and from Jersey City to Monsey. Yet anti-Semitism isn’t just a clear and present danger for Jews: for millennia it has been a symptom of societies breaking down into dangerous forms of tribalism. At its root, this fight is just as much about holding up America as a pluralistic and democratic society for all – something every LGBTQ American must concern themselves with to protect and advance our rights.  Below are four important lessons we […]

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Nicaragua LGBTQ Activist Tortured after Arrest

A well-known LGBTQ activist in Nicaragua who was arrested last September says he was tortured while in custody. Ulises Rivas on Monday said members of Nicaragua’s National Police on Sept. 1, 2019, arrived at his niece’s volleyball game in Comalapa, a town in the country’s Chontales department that is roughly 75 miles east of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, and arrested him because “they had an arrest warrant.”  A source with whom the Washington Blade spoke after Rivas’ arrest said he had been accused of robbing a woman. Rivas sent the Blade a screenshot of a message posted to a pro-government Facebook […]

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Poland Opposition Parties Hit Back at Anti-gay Sentiment by Appointing Gay Candidate for President

A coalition of centre-left parties in Poland has responded to the growing LGBT+ backlash in the country by appointing an openly gay candidate to stand in the next presidential election. The strongly conservative Catholic country has seen a huge surge in homophobia after the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) based its winning 2019 parliamentary election campaign on a platform of LGBT+ abuse. The problem has grown so severe that more than 80 Polish municipal or local governments have now proclaimed themselves to be ‘LGBT-free zones’, a move strongly condemned by the European Parliament. An alliance formed of three left-wing parties is now aiming to combat […]

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Christian College that Expels People in Same-sex Marriages Served with its Second Lawsuit

The US’s largest interdenominational Christian seminary is embroiled in a second discrimination lawsuit over its expulsion of a student for being in a same-sex marriage. Two former students, Nathan Brittsan and Joanna Maxon, are each suing the Fuller Theological Seminary for $1 million, claiming that the college violated anti-discrimination laws. The suit is believed to be the first of its kind, and its outcome could have wider implications for Christian colleges and universities who receive government funding. Maxon launched legal action in November, saying that disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her when the school’s financial aid office flagged information from […]

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D.C. Council Proposes Making City’s Laws and Regulations Gender-neutral

The Council of the District of Columbia on Tuesday introduced legislation that would strip gendered and “patriarchal” terms from the D.C. code and replace them with gender-neutral language. The Gendered Terms Modernization Amendment Act of 2020 would change instances of “he” or “she” in the law books to “the individual” or “they.” The bill was introduced by David Grosso, an at-large independent member of the council who has been a leader on LGBTQ legislation during his council tenure. “We believe very strongly that language matters, that it actually holds power, and that the language of our laws matters,” Grosso told NBC News. […]

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