The Lesbian News Stack 2010 - July 7

By maxime68 on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - 16:20

Pride season is not only the season of Parades and celebration but also the season when politician mingle with the LGBT community.

Around the Corner (hat tip @ vonIrrwegen)

Shortly before this inglorious situation would have turned one year old, South African 800m runner Caster Semenya was finally allowed to compete again, as a woman. While the IAAF refuses to comment at all, others claim to know more details without sharing their sources.

Google announced that it will start paying the costs for a tax only their gay and lesbian in a domestic partnership are required to pay. Do we/you know if Google intends to implement similar benefits in Europe?

The World

Uganda has become an extremely dangerous territory for gay people and even more so for LGBT activists. Police recently recovered a severed head they think to be belonging to a known activist who has been missing for over a month. And the fate of the priest who disappeared after he gave a gay-friendly sermon doesn’t have a positive lookout either. (via Queeried)

Europe

MEPs belonging to the EPP claimed at a hearing on sexual abuse of children that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked. Though these were individual comments which do not represent EPP’s opinion, you might want to give that group a closer look to find out which of the national political parties threw their weight together; these are most often the 'Christian' parties. 

Do you often wonder “how did people qualify for this?” when coming across surveys? Now is the time to voice your opinion in the “world's largest LGBT research study”.

Finland

Helsinki Pride Parade was marred by an attack with pepper spray and tear gas committed by a group of men, of which some could be arrested quite quickly. Tarja Halonen, President of Finland and LGBT supporter, condemned this attack fiercely.

France

The French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) will decide on a topic that could (hopefully) overturn the current legislation on adoption rights for same sex couples. And if it does not, each and every foreign same-sex couple with children should think at least twice before setting foot on French soil.

This is an exclusive story by Yagg about a French/American couple, living in the States. When the American gives birth to a child the French adopts it without hardly any problems, as the court states that it is in the interest of the child for both his mothers to have legal rights. When the French wants France to take notice of this status they flat out refuse because the French adopting system doesn’t take pre-existing situations into account and it doesn’t allow for a child to be adopted when a biological parent exists. The decision is to be expected for tomorrow, Thursday, July 8th.

Nobody wants to hear news like this, especially not during Pride season, but once again a lesbian couple was the victim of a brutal and definitely homophobic/lesbophobic attack, this time in Montpellier. The city's Lesbian & Gay Pride de Montpellier is calling for witnesses to come forward. It is clear that witnesses exist as these cowards joined the aggressors and some even participated in the aggression.