HRC recently released a video of Whoopi Goldberg sharing a message for the leaders of Nigeria and Uganda, and a call to action for the LGBT community.

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Kenyan supporters of LGBT rights protest Uganda’s anti-gay laws in Nairobi, Kenya (Photo: Dai Kurokawa / EPA)

BY CATHERINE MORPETH
dot429

On Monday, February 24, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the country’s Anti-Homosexual Bill, also known as the “Jail All the Gays” bill, into law on live television.

The bill, which previously included the death penalty for those convicted of “aggravated” homosexuality, was passed in an attempt to toughen up on current anti-LGBT legislation. The new law includes jail time for first time offenders, those who “promote” homosexuality and those who fail to report homosexuals to the police; repeat offenders can be sentenced to life imprisonment.

According to South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Museveni had previously promised him he would not sign the bill into effect. “I was […] very disheartened to hear.”

Read more at dot429.com

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On February 7, AT&T became the first major corporation in the US to officially condemn Russia’s anti-LGBT laws. The telecommunications company is known for standing with Team USA at every Olympic opening ceremony since 1984; it has also received a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index for the last ten years in a row. When those two interests suddenly clashed, AT&T chose to support the side that needed it most.

AT&T released a statement that included:

“…We stand against Russia’s anti-LGBT law…AT&T has a long and proud history of support for the LGBT community in the United States and everywhere around the world where we do business. We support LGBT equality globally and we condemn violence, discrimination and harassment targeted against LGBT individuals everywhere. Russia’s law is harmful to LGBT individuals and families, and it’s harmful to a diverse society.”

To show that AT&T still hasn’t lost its team spirit, the post concludes with: “Go Team USA! #ItsOurTime.”

Read more at dot429.com

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BY JESS MORR

Stoli Group (USA) of Stolichnaya vodka has announced a three-year partnership with the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center’s Leadership Learn, Act, Build (LAB) program, which aims to help aspiring LGBT leaders to effectively advocate for equality. Stolichnaya, owned by SPI Group, joined the battle against the controversial, anti-gay “propaganda” laws in Russia with a worldwide message of support for the LGBT community. So far, Stoli has donated $300,000 for a fund that will go towards training the potential leaders to build strong organizations to fight against legislation which endangers or discriminates against LGBT people.

“Our position at Stoli is clear. We stand with the LGBT community in the fight for equality, and are proud to be working with the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center to make our joint vision possible,” said the president of Stoli Group USA, John Esposito. “Through our strategic partnership we hope to harness the power of our global community, cultivating leaders on a local level in the U.S. to create meaningful change throughout the world.”

Read more at dot429.com

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BY STEVE WILLIAMS

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has refused to sign Uganda’s infamous Anti-Homosexuality bill, returning it to parliament. Museveni had previously told parliament he would not sign the bill until the government had been given an appropriate length of time to study the issue. This was widely interpreted to mean the bill would not be allowed to pass until international attention had died down.

In an eight page letter to MPs that was released this week, Museveni again rejected the bill. He challenged  that the chamber passed the bill without quorum, or the minimum representative number of lawmakers in attendance. Museveni, terming homosexual citizens as “abnormal” hasn’t changed his opinion of gay people, but: “The question at the core of the debate of homosexuality is; what do we do with an abnormal person? Do we kill him/her?” At the same time, he rallies against gay rights, saying, “You cannot call an abnormality an alternative orientation. It could be that the Western societies, on account of random breeding, have generated many abnormal people.” Museveni also made it known he believes women may become lesbians due to “sexual starvation.”

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Nina and Gulia at the LGBT kiss-in protest at Ikea in Brooklyn, NY (Photo: Alexander Kargaltsev)

A group of gay and lesbian demonstrators touched down at an Ikea in Brooklyn, N.Y. over the weekend for a “guerilla photo shoot” in protest of the Swedish company’s decision to nix an article about a same-sex couple from the December issue of the Ikea Family Live magazine, which is distributed in Russia.

“Ikea calls themselves the ‘life improvement’ store, but we decided they have some major room for improvement after they deleted a lesbian couple from the Russian version of their catalog,” Joseph Huff-Hannon, co-editor of the forthcoming book “Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories,” told HuffPost Gay Voices in an email. It’s a cause particularly close to Huff-Hannon, as his boyfriend, Artyom Matusov, was born in Moscow: “Ikea should stop insulting their LGBT customers in Russia and around the world, show some backbone, and publish the story in Russian.” Huff-Hannon organized the shoot along with Alexander Kargaltsev, a gay Russian artist and photographer who was recently granted asylum in the U.S., and Rusa LGBT co-founder Nina Long.

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BY KELLY MORRIS

Five women were arrested for violating the Senegalese anti-gay law last week in the West African nation of Dakar, Senegal. The women were taken into custody during a birthday party in Dakar’s Yoff district, according to KWQC. Ndeye Kebe, president of the only lesbian activist group in the country, Women’s Smile, said she believes the restaurant where the women were arrested was familiar with the women’s work with Women’s Smile and tipped off the police.

While raids against suspected gay men are much more frequent than against lesbians in the Muslim-majority country, Kebe said that lesbians have been receiving a lot of pressure from scandals that have been in the media. For example, a man put cell-phone coverage of his 18-year-old girlfriend online when he caught her kissing another woman and she was forced to flee the country.

Since the November 11 arrest, a judge has ruled there is “insufficient evidence to convict four woman accused of violating the country’s law banning homosexual acts.” The fifth woman is minor.

Read more at TheSeattleLesbian.com

The Seattle Lesbian online magazine reaches more than 188,000 readers per week globally

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BY TaggMagazine.com

Laurence Hewitt of New York, New York has started a petition on Change.org asking the U.S. Olympic Team to show their support for equal rights by flying the gay pride colors at the opening ceremony in Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Over the past few months, the world has been watching the increasing violence towards the LGBT community in Russia due to the passage of the anti-gay legislation.

“By carrying the Gay Pride flag alongside their country’s flag or wearing the colors on their uniform, athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics will be sending a strong message to the Russian government,” says Hewitt in his petition. “The athletes of the world should act with a single voice against this oppression.”

View the petition here.

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Tagg Magazine is a print and online resource for LBT women in the DC Metropolitan and Rehoboth, DE areas.

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