Two Cameroon men who were sentenced to five years in prison for “looking gay” after ordering Bailey’s Irish Cream have been acquitted of the charges by an appeals court. The two had already passed a year of their sentence before the acquittal. Homosexuality is illegal in Cameroon, and is subject to harsh penalties.
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Slap Upside The Head: Russia Goes After American Pop Divas
Less than a year ago, the Russian city of St. Petersburg passed a law banning “homosexual propaganda,” with expected hysterical results. From equal rights marches to rainbows on milk cartons, no one seems to be safe from the accusing eyes of the ruling United Russia party in their search for
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Russian Anti-Gay Lobby Warns About Gay Milk
Other countries take note. If you enact crazy anti-gay laws forbidding any positive portrayals of homosexuality, here’s what you can expect to happen: A popular brand of milk is being accused of illegally promoting homosexuality in St-Petersburg, Russia. The milk, a PepsiCo-owned brand, features a jolly dairy farmer, standing in a lovely
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Theatre Producer Charges For Gay Play
Slap reader Christian submits this bit of craziness: David Cecil, a British theatre producer, is facing a possible prison sentence after staging a play criticizing Uganda’s anti-gay attitudes. The performance, entitled The River and The Mountain, is about a gay businessman who is killed by his own employees. Since it
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Ukraine Proposes Jail For Positive Gay Depictions
Lawmakers in the Ukraine have introduced an anti-gay bill that would punish “propaganda of homosexuality” with fines and up to five years in prison. Russia recently enacted a similar law this year, with expected disastrous results. Gay activists in the country have been arrested simply for marching for equal rights,
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Australia’s Gay Panic Defence Get Challenged
Slap reader Tim writes in with this bit of news from Down Under: Currently in Queensland Australia there exists a legal defence which allows a reduced sentence on murder of another person of the same sex if they hit on you. [There is a] petition put forward by Rev. Fr.
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: North Carolina Re-Bans Same-Sex Marriage
North Carolina conducted a statewide study yesterday to resolve the question once and for all: Are most North Carolinians narrow-minded bigots? The answer, of course, was yes.
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Alberta Party Pushes For Anti-Gay “Conscience Rights”
The Wildrose Party, a socially-conservative provincial party hoping to wrestle power away from Alberta’s current conservative government, is defending its election platform against some pretty serious criticism this month. The policy is pretty far to the right of the political spectrum, even by Alberta’s standards. One contentious point
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: St. Petersburg Bans “Homosexual Propaganda”
Bad news out of Russia: St. Petersburg passed a law banning “homosexual propaganda” today. What counts as propaganda is broad and ill-defined, so Russian Slap readers may officially reading be illegal material right now! So, I guess you might want to close your windows or something, right?
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