Tag: homophobia

A former Alabama sheriff’s deputy who went on a homophobic Facebook tirade after a gay teenager took his own life just landed a new gig with a different Alabama law enforcement agency. Jeff Graves was fired from his position a Madison County sheriff’s deputy in May after he went on Facebook to mock the death of 15-year-old Nigel Shelby, a Huntsville, Alabama teenager who died by suicide the previous month after he was bullied relentlessly for being gay. Responding to another...

A shopper at a UK supermarket flew into a rage over LGBTQ garden gnomes, apparently angered over the concrete statues’ rainbow flags. The man was at an Asda last Sunday afternoon, according to Plymouth Live, when the man caused a disturbance over the popular yard decoration. An anonymous witness claims that the man was unaccompanied, aside from having the rainbow-capped gnome shoved in his bag. “ causing a disturbance over a gnome, sort of gay pride flag colors, which I’m all...

A Dutch priest is blowing the whistle after he says he was fired by the Catholic Church for being gay. Pierre Valkering’s troubles began back in March when he was suspended from his duties after coming out during a mass in the Vredeskerk in Amsterdam. During the mass, the 57-year-old priest talked about the “big pink elephant” within the Catholic Church and criticized its culture of silence around homosexuality, saying he had “suffered a lot” because of it. Around that same time,...

Joe King (images via Instagram/JoeKingMrLUK) Joe King, a former Mr. Leather Europe, is on a mission to help a young 22-year-old lesbian woman from Uganda who has suffered severe homophobia and poverty. According to King, Shadia has lived “a very brutal and difficult life in Africa because of her sexuality.” Rejected by her family for being lesbian, she traveled to Kenya with her two-year-old son. But life was no better there as she fell victim to rape and was forced to live...

It’s been over two weeks since it was first reported that Nivea had been dropped by its long-time ad agency following accusations of homophobia and the firestorm surrounding the global skincare brand is only growing hotter. Quick recap: According to Ad Age, it all started when the brand rejected an image the ad agency pitched depicting two men’s hands touching. In a call with agency creatives, a rep from Nivea allegedly said, “We don’t do gay at Nivea,” unaware that one of...

Elizabeth Johnson, aka “The Activist Mommy,” thought she’d scored a decisive victory over an LGBTQ prom when she sent her followers to shut down the Jacksonville, Florida event. Two weeks later, the event, called the Storybook Pride Prom, was held at a new location — a local Unitarian Universalist Church. The event had originally planned to be held at the Willowbranch Library at the end of June, but Johnson and others — apparently tiring of focusing on drag queen story...

Joe King (images via Instagram/JoeKingMrLUK) Joe King, a former Mr. Leather Europe, is on a mission to help a young 22-year-old lesbian woman from Uganda who has suffered severe homophobia and poverty. According to King, Shadia has lived “a very brutal and difficult life in Africa because of her sexuality.” Rejected by her family for being lesbian, she traveled to Kenya with her two-year-old son. But life was no better there as she fell victim to rape and was forced to live...

A poster was taken down because it perpetuated homophobic myths and stereotypes. Image via Weibo from SCMB.com After outrage on various social media platforms, an HIV awareness poster was removed from Hengxian No.2 High School for having a “harm of homosexuality” column, according to Global Times. An employee at the high school was responsible for putting up the poster as part of an AIDS prevention campaign that the school was participating in. The employee, however, did not closely review the contents...

Photo by Ronny Sison on Unsplash Adding homophobia to racism, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents made a migrant hold an “I Like Men” sign as an anti-gay punishment. Agents at El Paso Processing Center in Texas tried to humiliate a Honduran migrant by making him hold a piece of paper saying “Me gustan los hombre” or “I like men.” According to CNN, the man was forced to hold the paper while walking a group of newly arrived migrants throughout the...

This last Friday during Pride weekend in Barcelona, Spain, a man at a McDonald’s threatened to “beat the gay out of” a gay man for wearing “disrespectful” cut-off jean shorts and a tight neon yellow tank top in public. A bystander took video of their encounter and though police soon intervened the queer man declined to press charges. In the video (which has since been viewed over 4.2 million times), a security officer inside the fast-food restaurant speaks to a...

The pastor of a Baptist church in Alabama has been arrested after admitting to his entire congregation that he molested at least one young boy from the church on multiple occasions. 41-year-old John Martin is a married father of five and the lead pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church where he has regularly preached about the evils of homosexuality since 2010. On Monday, he confessed to four counts of child sexual abuse after church members reported him to authorities. According to local news...

Lawmakers in Tennessee just struck a low blow to marriage equality by banning anyone ordained online from officiating weddings. As of July 1, only priests, rabbis, ministers, people designated through a temple or church, and public officials can perform weddings, courtesy of a totally unnecessary new law. Critics of the law claim that it will unjustly affect LGBTQ couples who, by and large, have their weddings performed by friends and family members and outside churches in the state. By prohibiting online ordination...

Pride is followed by Wrath. And since June was Pride month that means July is Wrath month. At least, according to Washington Post columnist Anthony Oliveira. This “LGBTQ Wrath Month,” the gays seem to have set their sights on global skincare company Nivea after news broke that the company had been dropped by its ad agency amid allegations of homophobia. Just to recap: According to Ad Age, it all started when the brand rejected an image the agency pitched depicting two men’s hands...

Police in the UK were forced to remove a man for flying into a “violent rage” after he spotted a set of garden gnome statues painted with the Pride flag. A local shop in Estover called Asda began selling Pride-themed garden gnomes in a few years ago as a show of support to the LGBTQ community. On June 29, a man entered the store and saw the statues on display. That’s when things turned ugly. According to witnesses, he flew into a...