Kid Spokesman for Focus on The Family Wants SCOTUS Put in Time Out

Focus on the Family’s latest temper tantrum over the arrival of nationwide marriage equality might be its most desperate yet.

read more

Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2015/07/11/kid-spokesman-focus-family-wants-scotus-put-time-out

Samsung ban gay-dating apps in South Korea over ‘moral’ concerns

Samsung and Google Play have taken down gay networking apps including Jack’d in South Korea according to app developers.

A report from Buzzfeed released Friday found Samsung, based in Seoul, refuses to list apps like Hornet, Grindr or Scruff in its country owing to ‘local moral values.’

Hornet’s CEO Sean Howell received an email which said his app had been removed due to: ‘Local moral values and laws [in which] LGBT is not allowed’.

It also said it: ‘Does limit LGBT content on a country-by-country basis.’

Hornet isn’t listed in Syria, Iceland or Argentina too – though the last two legalised gay marriage.

Another app Jack’d was banned in South Korea, but from the more popular Google Play website. Google have not said why.

However, the app’s mangers report they have around 500,000 users in South Korea. Presumably South Koreans are using loopholes like VPN to download apps banned in their country. Guides to doing so are easily avaliable online.

South Korea has the fastest broadband, and the highest smartphone penetration in the world, making it a lucrative and fast-growing market for developers.

However the country is notably conservative and religious; the government recently tried to close down its 16th pride parade, but failed after much protest.

Censorship is present in South Korea owing to the ongoing war with North Korea.

Despite no military action taken for decades, censors are cautious of anything which could be perceived as abnormal.

The post Samsung ban gay-dating apps in South Korea over ‘moral’ concerns appeared first on Gay Star News.

Jack Flanagan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/samsung-ban-gay-dating-apps-in-south-korea-over-moral-concerns/

Stockton, CA Police Lieutenant Blasts SCOTUS Ruling, ‘Vile and Sinful’ Homosexuality in Letter to Paper: VIDEO

A Stockton, California police lieutenant is under investigation after publishing a letter this week condemning the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, and arguing that homosexuality is “vile and sinful”, against natural law, and will lead to God’s destruction of the nation.

Stockton, located in the San Joaquin Valley, is the 13th most populous city in California.

Wrote Lt. Toby Will in his letter, which you can read in full here:

The Word of God is going forth with striking clarity and Divine accuracy. Man’s rebellion, ungodliness, and unrighteousness in rejecting the truth in order that he may live according to the vile and sinful passions of his corrupt heart is going to be met with the wrath of God.

When the highest court in the land ignores, twists, and misinterprets that governing document that was framed out of a noble and healthy respect for God and His word, and when the highest office in the land publicly declares the legitimizing of homosexuality to be a great victory for the nation, you can be sure that God is giving that nation over to its own destruction.

We are living in a time when the institutions ordained by God, marriage and family, which provide the very bedrock for civilized society, are being dismantled before our very eyes; and when marriage and family are dismantled, the nation that dismantles them will not stand.

Whoever speaks out against this blatant debauchery and dares to take a stand for the truth, will find themselves standing alone. But those who are willing to stand alone for the truth will find that God stands with them.

Will made a special request to the paper that his name and position in the police department be published.

He is now under review, the Stockton Record reports:

“He does not speak for the Police Department, and regarding his use of his police position, it is under administrative review,” department spokesman Officer Joe Silva said Wednesday. Silva could not discuss what that administrative review might lead to.

After reading the letter, Police Chief Eric Jones made a call to the San Joaquin Pride Center “to reassure them that Will does not speak for the Police Department,” Silva said.

Nicholas Hatten, executive director of the Pride Center, described his organization’s relationship with the Police Department as very good.

“We provided them with LGBT sensitivity training, and I don’t know if the lieutenant received the training. I wish he would have voiced his opposition to our faces rather than in a letter,” Hatten said Wednesday.

Local LGBT advocates are understandably concerned.

Said Stockton Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, chair of the LGBT caucus, to News10:

“I choked on my coffee [when I read the letter]…When you need to call 911, you should feel safe that the person who responds is there to support you no matter who you are.”

Watch News10’s report:

The post Stockton, CA Police Lieutenant Blasts SCOTUS Ruling, ‘Vile and Sinful’ Homosexuality in Letter to Paper: VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Stockton, CA Police Lieutenant Blasts SCOTUS Ruling, ‘Vile and Sinful’ Homosexuality in Letter to Paper: VIDEO

Homophobic nurse tries to stop gay parents adopting their son

Gay dad Andy Miller from South Houston, Texas, has revealed the chilling circumstances surrounding his son’s birth.

Speaking as part of the ‘I’m From Driftwood’ project, a story-telling community for LGBTI individuals, Andy explained the journey he and his partner took on the way to becoming parents.

After getting on well with the birth mother and her family, Andy and his partner were all set to collect their son from hospital after he was born.

But while the pair left the hospital to allow the mother to recover, a nurse threatened to derail the adoption process by asking a series of homophobic questions.

Andy described the moment he received a panicked call from the birth mother.

‘We rushed back to the hospital and she starts telling us that one of the nurses that was assigned to her to come in and check all of her sutures started asking her a lot of questions, starting with, “Aren’t you the girl that’s giving your baby up for adoption?” which is a huge red flag for us,’ he said.

‘We went through adoption class and anyone who uses that term like ‘giving up a baby’ is already coming to that conversation with some judgment.’

As well as using unhelpful language, Andy explained the nurse asked their birth mother if she was afraid her son would hate her for allowing him to be adopted by a gay couple.

She also asked: ‘Aren’t you afraid those boys are going to hurt that baby, aren’t you afraid that he’s not going to grow up and be normal?’

Despite their birth mother being visibly shaken, a social worker helped her decide whether or not to place her child with the couple.

Eventually, she decided to stick with her original decision, and now Andy and his partner are the proud fathers to a little boy.

Andy added: ‘No one’s given an easy ride when a child enters the world. There’s always two things that happen: Money exchanges hands and there is pain.

‘It’s just a question of how those two things happen.

‘And for the LGBT community, a lot of times the way it happens for us is, money exchanges hands between the adoption agency and prospective parents. And the pain is oftentimes emotional.

‘It’s not physical pain that comes with the birth. But we’re all kind of more alike than different in that regard.’

Watch Andy’s full video below:

The post Homophobic nurse tries to stop gay parents adopting their son appeared first on Gay Star News.

Mel Spencer

www.gaystarnews.com/article/homophobic-nurse-tries-to-stop-gay-parents-adopting-their-son/

Conservative Groups Urge Alabama Supreme Court to Defy SCOTUS Marriage Ruling

SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston reports on a disturbing development in the Deep South’s ongoing fight against nationwide marriage equality.

Asked by the Alabama Supreme Court for advice on how to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, the Alabama Policy Institution and the inter-denominational church support group Alabama Citizens Action Program have both urged for direct and indirect resistance.

Denniston writes:

Three days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the state court asked the two groups and two probate judges directly involved in the case for their views on the effect of the Supreme Court decision on the state court’s earlier action.  The two probate judges said in short briefs that the state court had to respect and follow the binding ruling of the Supreme Court — the same position that Alabama’s attorney general has taken.

But the two organization leading the challenge before the state court used a combination of arguments — points made by the dissenting Justices in the Obergefell decision on the errors they found  in the majority ruling, the protests of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., against “unjust laws,” and a series of Wisconsin Supreme Court rulings defying the Supreme Court in a mid-nineteenth-century runaway slave case — to persuade the state judges to treat the Obergefell ruling as not binding on them.

Denniston adds that “depending on what the state court now does, it could set up a new federal-state collision that potentially could go to the Supreme Court.”

Presumably though, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore doesn’t even need this outside advice on why it’s a “good” idea to break the law as his Foundation for Moral Law has already pledged to defy the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage.

Read the defiant brief below:
 

The post Conservative Groups Urge Alabama Supreme Court to Defy SCOTUS Marriage Ruling appeared first on Towleroad.

Kyler Geoffroy

Conservative Groups Urge Alabama Supreme Court to Defy SCOTUS Marriage Ruling