A 19-year-old man, identified only as Xiang, was arrested on Saturday and will be in administrative detention for 12 days for organising an “illegal protest”, police said, according to a report in the local Xiaoxiang Morning News, which has since been deleted online.

Xiang has been transferred to the Changsha Municipal Detention Centre, said A Qiang, a fellow demonstrator and well-known activist from Guangzhou.

Xiang has been active in the local LGBT community since age 14. A Qiang said Xiang had approached police about the protest before it took place on Friday afternoon.

It was second time Changsha’s LGBT community has organised such a protest. Police had not interfered in last year’s demonstration. Some 80 to 100 people participated this year.

Coming Out in the 1960s (by gayhistoryguy)

Excellent documentary on queer life and coming out in the ’60s. I would encourage any student of queer history to watch. I especially like the hope and encouragement these four activists offer the youth of today. About 25 minutes.

Q.

“Four young activists interview gay, lesbian and trans-gender elders who explore how the perfect storm of 1960s activism — the anti-war, civil rights, and the women’s movements — inspired them to fight for their personal freedoms. These were the years that led up to the Stonewall Riots in 1969. The elders explain what the underground LGBT community looked like pre-Stonewall, and how their treatment created a resentment that boiled over and ultimately gave way to the national modern LGBT movement.

I like the way Singaporean’s have found a way to celebrate pride and diversity in such a subversive manner. The Pink Dot has grown from about 2,500 participants in 2009 to over 15,000 in 2012 in a country where gay sex is illegal. As noted at the bottom of this article, the ban on gay sex is currently being challenged in the High Court.

Q.

Speaker’s Corner at Hong Lim Park in Singapore will once again turn a rosy hue for Pink Dot, which will be on Saturday 29 June this year.

Like last year, those who believe that everyone should have the ‘freedom to love’ with gather at dusk with pink lights to form a dot showing there is support for LGBT rights in socially conservative Singapore.

The festival has grown exponentially since it started 2009 when 2,500 people turned out to show support. Last year there were 15,000 people so that the dot over-flowed out of the small park.

The organizers had hoped that the government would allow the festival to move into a larger space this year, but that didn’t happen. Speaker’s Corner at Hong Lim Park is the only place in Singapore where people are allowed to protest.

In an interview with Gay Star News last December, Pink Dot committee member Paerin Choa said that if the government allowed the festival to move to another space it would be an offical stamp of approval. Sadly, that doesn’t seem likely to happen.

This year has the potential to be a significant milestone in the passage of LGBT rights in Singapore, with the law that criminalizes gay sex being challenged in the High Court. 

Westboro Baptist Church at Santa Monica High School (by Ben Ross)

Lovely response.

2012: The Chinese Queer Year 2012十大同志新闻事件 (by qafbeijing)

“The Dragon Year 2012 has taken its leave, hello 2013, Year of the Snake! Looking back on the past year, a lot of things happened for the China LGBT movement. We reviewed all that happened from September 2011 till August 2012 and picked out 10 highlights for you to enjoy.

告别往昔，迎接未来。我们进入了充满希望的2013年！回首2012年的中国同志运动

­，真的是发生了非常多的事情。我们统计2011年9月到2012年8月的众多事件，其­中有十个是我们觉得非常值得与大家分享的。

Thelma Houston, gay rights revolutionary (by xtraonline)

Still one of my favourite all time songs.

Q.

“Thelma Houston,the Grammy award winning singer, talks about her role in the fight for gay rights and against HIV/AIDS. Houston, famous for such hits as Don’t Leave Me This Way, was profiled in the recent documentary The Secret Disco Revolution.

A story of perseverance and bravery. I hope his story also becomes one of triumph.

Q.

Editor’s note: Pepe Julian Onziema is the Program Director and Advocacy Officer of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a gay rights organization, and 2012 Recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award

(CNN) — For Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, 2013 strengthens us with fresh resolve. But a new year also torments us with old anxieties.

Uganda is my home, but every day I must fight tooth and nail to remain. I inhabit a land and a paradox where my right to have a consensual relationship with an African woman is illegal — “un-African”— and where my daily work is a life and death matter.

Since 2009, my community has faced the potential passage of an anti-homosexuality bill that threatens Ugandans in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment (there are conflicting reports on whether the original death penalty provision remain). This year, many Anglican Church officials and other leaders have declared the legislation’s speedy passage as their New Year’s resolutions, with the bill scheduled for discussion when Uganda’s parliament reconvenes in February. As a transgender man, I am not safe.

Read More

American allies are joining forces the Russian LGBT community in a new photo campaign to protest Russia’s anti-gay propaganda bill.

Mike Petrelis, San Francisco-based blogger and gay rights advocate (pictured), has joined other Americans in the ‘I am Not Propaganda’ campaign started by Coming Out, an LGBT organization based in St. Petersburg, and OutLoudMag.ru

A Russian policeman, a Christian straight man and a teacher are some of the hundreds of individuals who’ve contributed photos of themselves holding signs that read: ‘I am ______ and I oppose homophobia’. 

The photo campaign comes as Russia’s State Duma voted in favor of the new law on Friday (25 January), which forbids ‘homosexual propaganda’ to minors which it links to pedophilia.

On Thursday (25 January) the Kaliningrad region, with a population of almost a million, became the 10th Russian region to pass a law. The Kaliningrad governor just needs to sign the bill in order for it to become law.

According to the Coming Out website, the campaign challenges the moral grounds of the anti-gay propaganda bill.

The website reads: ‘Champions of morality and the “children’s rights advocates” in Russia have consistently indicated that Russian society is traditionally against homosexuals. Authors of the campaign ask the question: is this true? Does the Russian society really believe gays and lesbians should be persecuted?’

To view the photos that have been submitted so far, visit OutLoudMag.ru.

To contribute your own photo to the online campaign, take a picture of yourself holding a sign that reads ‘Я человек а не пропаганд’, which translates to ‘I am a human being and not propaganda’. Submit your photo to yanepropagnda@gmail.com.

A gay couple in South Korea have announced that they are planning a wedding for 100,000 people to raise money for an LGBT center in Seoul.

Sunghwan Kim and Gwang-soo Kim Jho are planning a wedding outside city hall in central Seoul on 7 September.

‘In Korea we do not have a donation culture,’ Kim told Gay Star News. ‘People don’t usually give money to charities - but they do at weddings. At a marriage ceremony a lot of people give money to the couple.’

The couple, who own a film production company dedicated to making LGBT-themed films, decided they wanted to use their wedding to set up an LGBT foundation and center in Seoul.

‘A big open same-sex marriage performance can get media attention very easily and draw public attention. The funds raised will be used for an LGBT foundation and LGBT center, which would be very helpful and useful for Korea LGBT rights movement.’

Kim said he is hopping 100,000 people will come to the wedding and donate $10 each so that they raise over $1 million US dollars.

‘We work in the film industry so we know a lot of press and media and they are already very curious about our wedding ceremony.’

The couple are director and producer of Korean romantic comedy Two Weddings & a Funeral, about a fake marriage between a gay man and a lesbian. The film was released last year and opened Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.  

The LGBT rights movement is just starting in socially conservative South Korea and most LGBT people are still in the closet. Same-sex marriage is a long-way from being instigated so Kim and Kim Jho’s marriage will not be legally binding.

Talk about Marriage Equality this Christmas (by austmarriageequality)

Australian Marriage Equality has released this video featuring high-profile supporters of reform explaining why it is important to start one-to-one conversations about equality this Christmas. Social media covers and e-cards are available with the same theme.

The campaign includes messages from Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Senator Louise Pratt, Professor Kerryn Phelps, Carl Katter, Alex Greenwich and NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann.

Australian Marriage Equality has also unveiled a shopping site that allows supporters to buy Christmas gifts that contribute directly to the marriage equality campaign.

Visit AME’s Xmas Gift site here: http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/shop

Gay activists were pushed to the floor and pelted with eggs as they staged a kiss-in protest near the Russian State Duma today against plans for an anti-gay law.

Police broke up the demonstration in sub-zero temperatures and arrested the peaceful kissing protestors.

They were campaigning against a bill which had been due to go to the Duma, the lower house of parliament today (19 December). It would ban people spreading ‘propaganda about homosexuality to minors’.

In fact the debate on the bill has been postponed until 22 January but the activists decided to press ahead with their protest anyway.

Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia told Gay Star News: ‘There was about 15 people there. They were picketing the entrance to the Duma with placards and they decided to make this kissing protest in front of the entrance. There were about four or five couples, male and female, kissing.

‘Then this radical Orthodox activist attacked them physically and with eggs. It was quite violent. It was really like the Middle Ages I would say.’

Video footage shows them being hit with eggs and pushed. One couple is shoved to the ground and a bearded anti-gay protestor is seen brandishing a camera tripod at them.

Police bundle away the lesbian, gay and bisexual campaigners but Alekseev said officers were ‘very reluctant’ to arrest the radicals who were attacking them.

One of those arrested was the well-known journalist of ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Elena Kostyuchenko who initiated the protest.

GSN does not know if any of the LGBT campaigners arrested have been charged.

The proposed national ‘gay gag’ law was submitted by the legislative assembly of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk which already has a similar law locally.

If it is passed, the new national law would punish the ‘promotion of homosexuality among minors’ with fines of up to 500,000 roubles ($16,000 €12,000). But it is not clear what legal definition ‘propaganda’ or indeed ‘homosexuality’ would have, meaning the law’s impact could be very wide.

Similar laws already exist in the Russian regions of St Petersburg, Ryazan, Arkangelsk Kostroma, Magadansk, Samar, Bashkortostan, Krasnodar and Novosibirsk.

The bill is being pushed at the Duma by the United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin, which has a majority there.

However Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, also of United Russia, indicated he wasn’t aware of his own party’s plans when he said legislation like that wasn’t needed.

Medvedev’s comments might be one of the reasons why today’s debate in the State Duma was postponed. But international pressure against the legislation may also have played a part in the delay. The Duma was also discussing another controversial bill today and politicians may have wished to avoid running the anti-gay bill at the same time, fearing negative publicity abroad.

See footage of violence breaking out at the protest here:

http://youtu.be/H8sNvsuCxXM

Manifestation pro mariage gay Paris (by 24gayfr2012)

Tens of thousands marched in the streets of Paris in support of marriage equality.

Q.

From Towleroad.com:

Thousands of people took to Paris’ streets to show their support for marriage equality and gay adoptions today.

Police estimate about 60,000 people were there, smaller than the 100,000 who recently marched to oppose equality, but organizers put the number of people at today’s demonstration at about 150,000. Among them was Paris’ gay mayor, Bertrand Delanoe.

From Reuters’ report:

Marching along to drumbeats and jazz music, the protesters waved rainbow flags and held up signs saying “liberty, equality, dignity” and “hate is not a family value.” One sign announced “wedding gifts for gays will boost the economy.”

Among their chants was “Oui, oui, oui” (yes, yes, yes) in support of same-sex marriage, adoption rights for gay couples and access to assisted procreation methods such as artificial insemination.

The Socialist government’s bill would legalize gay marriage and adoption, but not assisted procreation.