This week's first story comes from my home: Salt Lake City, Utah. Last Thursday, a young couple named Matt & Derek were walking near the LDS Temple. Matt put his arm around Derek and gave him a kiss. It was at this point when they were approached by church security guards, who told them that they needed to leave and that their behavior is "unwanted." When Derek refused to leave, both were detained for trespassing, and held until Police arrived. They were arrested and given a citation for criminal trespass. Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said that they were "asked to stop inappropriate behavior just as any other couple would have been." Here is the link to the actual police report.

The LDS Temple downtown is part of the Main Street Plaza. The city sold the plaza to the church 10 years ago, and The Church banned activities like protesting on the grounds. For a church that donated 20+ million dollars to pass Prop 8 and set up phone banks to get donations, you'd think you'd want to pick your battles. For a religion that tries to say, "Hate the sin not the sinner", this fails miserably. How would you react if you had been detained for showing affection to your partner? What if you were arrested? I once walked around the Temple hand-in-hand with someone, and we did get looked at as if we had just shit on the Book of Mormon itself, but I guess it's possible I could have been arrested. That's wild to me.



On Sunday, protesters got together and staged a "Kiss In" near the Main Street Plaza to show support for Derek & Matt, and in protest of The Church's poorly veiled homophobia. You can read about it here. Yesterday a blogger from 365gay.com wrote an amusing " Pocket Guide to Mormon PDA Penalties." Maybe you can tell me if you think it's funny too.



The second story comes from the international world. Lithuania passed a bill that would ban "the public dissemination of information considered harmful to minors." What this ban would mean is that any information pertaining to homosexuality, transgenderism, bisexuality, etc, would be censored from minors. Petras Grazulis, the co-sponsor of the bill had this to say, "We have finally taken a step which will help Lithuania raise healthy and mentally sound generations unaffected by the rotten culture that is now overwhelming them." Without the accessibility of information on the internet, it's not likely that you would have ever come to this site. This kind of censorship inhibits efforts to prevent HIV infections, and puts GLBTQ youth at risk for a host of dangers that come from limiting youth to important resources. My question to you is, how would you have been affected had you not had access to media that showed you people who were like you, that connected you to groups, forums, and health resources? How would that have impacted your identity development? Do you think it would have taken longer for you to accept yourself? How many relationships and friendships would you have missed out on? What kind of places do you think you would have sought out friendships and relationships? Many times we take for granted our amazing access to information. It's one less privileged citizens of Lithuania have, and I'll expect to see the consequences from this bill in the future.

Back to America, in Miami, Judge Cindy Lederman was removed from the bench after 15 years seemingly because she ruled that Florida's gay adoption ban (instituted in 1977) was unconstitutional. Joel H. Brown, the new Chief Justice said he wanted, "new perspectives and leadership." Florida, Utah, and Mississippi all prohibit same-sex couples from adopting. In my state (Utah) the law is written in a way that indirectly excludes gay couples from adopting. Instead of outright banning gay adoption, the state says that single parents can't adopt. Since same-sex relationships aren't recognized, you would be considered a single parents, and we all know single parents are awful people who don't deserve children. Florida's law is more upfront, saying that LGB people, couples or not, cannot adopt. You can find out the laws in your state by going to HRC's webpage. I guess when Judges (who are elected) go against your wishes, you just remove them.

The last story for this week happened on Friday. Joseph Biedermann was acquitted of murdering his neighbor Terrance Michael Hauser. His reason for killing him: He made unwanted sexual advances on me, so I stabbed him....61 times with a 16 inch dagger. In fairness to the jury, they could only convict him or first degree murder or acquit him. Even with that said though, it's shameful that defense attorneys still use to the gay panic defense, and clients still get away with it. Michael Rowe wrote an appropriate reaction piece on the Huffington Post about the story. How ugly and shameful.

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