The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission ( IGLHRC ) released a collection of eight articles that offer approaches to advance acceptance and improve understanding of the LGBT community of Iran, a press release stated. With contributions from international activists, lawyers and scholars from IGLHRC's second conference held in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 2014, the collection, "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights in Iran: Analysis from Religious, Social, Legal and Cultural Perspectives," examines human rights for LGBT Iranians from legal, religious and socio-political perspectives, analyses and interpretations. The publication includes a selection of the proceedings from the 2014 conference and is available in both English and Persian.; visit IGLHRC.org/content/iran-Analysis-from-Religious-Social-Legal-and-Cultural-Perspectives.
U.S. trans actress/entertainer Candis Cayne will be one of four grand marshals at this year's Montreal Pride, to be held Aug. 10-16, a press release stated. The others will be KyivPride General Manager Anna Sharyhina, Canadian radio host/show designer Monique Giroux and McGill University Sexual Identity Centre founder Richard Montoro. Montreal Pride's guests of honor will be photographer/director/journalist Linda Dawn Hammond, actor Hubert Lavallre Bellefleur, Lightspeed POS CEO Dax Dasilva and political advisor Francis Ishpatau.
President Obama is gearing up for a visit to Kenya, but an extremist group says it will protest his support for LGBT rights by demonstrating completely naked, according to NewNowNext.com . "Our very objective is that Obama can see from a distance the difference between a man and woman," Vincent Kidaha, leader of the Republican Liberty Party, In told Nairobi News. Kidaha promised that 5,000 people will join a procession on July 22-23, in advance of the visit, "to protest Obama's open and aggressive support for homosexuality."
In Britain, the Football Association ( FA ) has been accused of damaging its own credibility after an 11-month investigation into Malky Mackay and Iain Moody ended without any form of punishment for their exchange of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic messages, The Daily Mail reported. The FA have said it will now conduct a review of its own rulebook with regard to such cases. The association also stressed that Mackay and Moody, who were the manager and the head of recruitment at Cardiff City at the time of the exchanges, had been spoken to "about the inappropriateness of terms used in the messages."
French lesbian tennis player Amelie Mauresmo was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Famebut unable to travel to the ceremony because she's expecting her first child in early August, Tennis.com noted. Joining the 36-year-old Frenchwoman were David Hall of Australia, a six-time Paralympic medalist, and Nancy Jeffett, elected in the contributor category. Mauresmo, who is now Andy Murray's coach, won the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006 and spent 39 weeks at number one in the Women's Tennis Association rankings. Also during the ceremony, Billie Jean King received a gold Hall of Fame ring.
The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington began one-week tour in Havana to support the improved relations between Cuba and the United States started in late 2014, according to CubaHeadlines.com . With this unprecedented visit on the island, the male choir wanted to "do something really significant," choir director Chase Maggiano has said. On July 13, the choir performed at the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, a suburb of Havana, to groups of young people who returned the gesture by offering a dance.
In Britain, Coronation Street star Daniel Brocklebank has revealed that he receives hate mail and death threats for playing a gay vicar, PinkNews reported. The actor, who is gay in real life, told the Daily Star, "Somebody tweeted me the other day and said they wanted to kick 'that faggy Sean's head in and crucify the shirt-lifting vicar'. I thought: 'Crucify? God, we can have a coffee first?'" The Shakespeare in Love actor debuted in the soap in December as Billy, the new vicar.
In a recent study published in the journal Demography, a team of researchers looked at earnings and parenting patterns over time among married Swedish couples and found that registered partnership is important to male and female same-sex couplesbut for different reasons, according to Time.com . Most gay couples entered their union without kids, and that number remained close to zero after marriage; the authors concluded that "the main function of registered partnership for gays is resource pooling," they write in the paper. "For lesbians, on the other hand, the right to joint or step-parent adoption allowed in 2002 raised fertility and possibly entry into partnership." Almost 1,400 couples were in the study.
Satirical French Magazine Charlie Hebdo has made the decision to no longer draw cartoons that depict the Islamic prophet Muhammad in wake of January's terror attack on its headquarters, TheWrap reported. "We've done our job. We have defended the right to caricature," top editor Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau told Stern Magazine. "We still believe that we have the right to criticize all religions. The mistakes you could blame Islam for can be found in other religions."