A Leeds shul has hosted the launch of the Rainbow Jews exhibition, which documents and showcases Jewish-LGBT history in the UK.
Sinai Reform Synagogue held a shabbat weekend, which included a service on Friday night and Saturday morning, before the display was launched.
The services were led by Sinai’s assistant rabbi, Esther Hugenholtz, with Friday’s service followed by a supper at the shul.
Surat Shaan Rathgeber Knan, founder and manager of Rainbow Jews and of his latest project Twilight People, spoke about his journey coming to terms with the relationship between his sexuality and his Judaism.
The Saturday shabbat service included alternative texts and liturgy which embraced LGBT issues, which event organiser Nicolle Levine called “thoughtful, spiritual, sensitive and inclusive”. She added: “this is exactly what we were aiming for in bringing the exhibition to Sinai.” 
The service was attended by members of the Jewish and non-Jewish LGBT community from across Yorkshire.
The launch of the exhibition took place after the Shabbat service, and saw speaking guests including Leeds’ Lord Mayor and Sinai member Judith Chapman, Leeds North East MP Fabian Hamilton and Pudsey Horsforth and Aireborough MP Stuart Andrew.
The exhibition is run by Rainbow Jews, which is a lottery funded oral history project that records and showcases Jewish LGBT history in the UK from 1950-present.
An oral history selection can be heard on the Rainbow Jews website: www.rainbowjews.com
Sinai’s Senior Rabbi, Rabbi Morris also spoke about the Jerusalem Pride attack.
On Sunday morning, Nicolle Levine and Sinai member Matt Thornfield were guests on Radio Leeds talking about the event. They spoke about significant parts of the exhibition, including a testimony of a Jewish woman who aged 90, came out as lesbian.
For more information, contact sanctuary@sinaisynagogue.org.uk.
The event took place between 31 July and 2 August.
26 Million People Change Profile Pictures With Facebook’s Rainbow Pride Filter
Photos from Facebook/Leonardo DiCaprio, Anne Hathaway, Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Banks, Mark Zuckerberg, Arianna Huffington, Arnold Schwarzenegger
As anyone with a Facebook account can attest to, this weekend saw rainbows sweep across the social media site. In honor of Pride, and in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, Facebook developed a program to allow users to quickly and easily add a rainbow filter to their profile images. Originally created by two interns, the company saw the concept’s promise and streamlined the process.
The reaction was nothing short of viral, with more than 26 million people across the world turning their profiles into visible statements of LGBT pride and support. So far the photos received more than half a billion likes and comments, and the momentum shows no sign of slowing down.
Among the millions were a number of familiar faces, with stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Elizabeth Banks, and Arianna Huffington taking part. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a particulalry memorable encounter with an anti-gay fan:
Policing Board publishes update reports on LGB and Transgender human rights recommendations
Following the publication in 2012 of the Human Rights Thematic Review on the policing with and for people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual (LGB) and/or Transgender, the Policing Board has now published two reports on how the 18 recommendations made by the Review are being implemented by the PSNI.
The Review looked at how the PSNI engage with LBG and Transgender individuals across a range of circumstances – as members of the public generally; as victims of crime; as suspects; and as employees or potential employees.
Chair of the Policing Board Anne Connolly said: “The Board recognises the positive progress made by the PSNI in this area since we published our Thematic Review in 2012. We know, however, that many LGB and Transgender people in Northern Ireland continue to be the target of hate crimes which can have a devastating impact upon their lives, their families and the wider community. Hate crime is a wider societal issue that cannot be tackled by the police alone yet the police play a critical role in a victim’s experience.
Despite increasing budgetary pressures, the police must therefore continually seek to improve their response, to bring more offenders to justice and to build confidence in people to report incidents and we welcome the fact that tackling hate crime is a strategic priority for PSNI.”
Ends
For further information, please contact the Northern Ireland Policing Board’s Communications Office on 07801738795.
Notes to editors
- To view the update report on LGB people click here and the for update report on Transgender people click here.
- To view the 2012 report, click here.
- In recognition of the fact that gender identity is in no way connected with or related to sexual orientation, a commitment was made in the thematic review that any further reporting on transgender issues would be separate from LGB. Thus two update reports have been produced, one reporting on policing with and for transgender individuals and one reporting on policing with and for LGB individuals.
Notes to editors ends.
LGBT people are subjected to hate crimes ‘on daily basis’ in UK rural communities
The Independent – James Cusick – Tuesday 23 June 2015
Survey reveals that eight in 10 have been verbally abused or harassed, with one in 10 suffering physical assault
The portrayal of the “only gay in the village” as a tolerated and integrated minority, masks a far harsher reality for Britain’s LGBT community who are subjected to everyday bullying including verbal abuse, discrimination and criminal damage to their property, according to a new report.
The study reveals that hate crime, especially in small rural communities, is often a daily occurrence for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
However high levels of under-reporting – out of fear that police will not treat incidents seriously, or that they will be “outed” to families – is leaving vulnerable victims lonely and isolated.
The report by the University of Leicester’s Centre for Hate Studies estimated that 35,000 cases of hate crime against LGBT people fell below the radar of official crime figures.
The report’s author, Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy, paints a picture of intolerance far removed from the BBC TV Little Britain comedy character, Daffyd Thomas, played by Matt Lucas.
Dr Hardy said that the individuals who contributed to the study described being “targeted by young people” in their area, being verbally abused with derogatory names shouted in the street and their homes daubed with offensive graffiti.
She said : “If something was done about it, then sometimes the instances got worse and the targeting levels increased.”
According to the study, LGBT people who were “noticeably different” and living in small rural communities, were more likely to be the victims of hate crime.
Of those who were interviewed at length for the study, 88 per cent reported being victimised. The national figures highlighted in the report showed only 4,267 incidents being recorded by police in 2012-13. The most recent Crime Survey [for England and Wales] showed 39,000 homophobic hate incidents over the same timeframe.
The survey reveals that eight in 10 LGBT people have been verbally abused or harassed, with one in 10 suffering physical assault.
Additional evidence suggested that although victims of transphobia [intense prejudice against transsexual or transgender people] could be targeted up to 50 times a year, only three in 10 individuals bothered to report what had happened to them.
The Leicester study lists the “normalisation” of hate crime, concerns about wasting police time, and “negative experience” of police involvement, including being “outed” without permission, as potential reasons for the substantial under-reporting.
Dr Hardy said her research alongside previous studies had shown a targeted minority who were often scared to go out, scared to reveal their identity and were suffering both emotionally and physically from the impact of hate crimes.
The publication of the new study has been co-ordinated with the launch of new campaign to combat the high incidence of LGBT hate crime and to raise awareness of victimisation.
Matt Lucas as “the only gay in the village”, Daffyd Thomas in BBC’s Little Britain (Rex)
The campaign is being supported by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Welsh Government and the Crown Office Scotland and is being co-ordinated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
It is aim is to encourage equality and diversity, eliminate unlawful discrimination, and to protect and promote human rights.
Commenting on the UK campaign which carries the message “Recognise it, Report it”, the deputy chairwoman of the EHRC, Caroline Waters, said “It is a tragedy that there is a still a backdrop of intolerance and abuse which stays largely hidden from society.”
Paul Roberts, the chief executive of the LGBT Consortium, which assists voluntary and community organisations in providing support and services, said LGBT communities were already working with the police to help break down barriers. He added : “But too often LGBT people don’t know they are experiencing hate crime or just shrug it off. Our message today is – recognise it, report it and get support when you need it.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lgbt-people-subjected-to-hate-crimes-on-daily-basis-in-uk-rural-communities-10337452.html
Kissing boys in the street
Editorial: ‘Kissing Boys in the Street’, is a wonderful song, with wonderful and thoughtful lyrics – I wonder how many of our readers feel it pull heart strings and memories about a relationship in their own family. Why not comment and let us know what happened to you!
Greg Holden is back
The brand new track from Greg Holden is certainly an emotional one. It’s a song about a young boys conflict with is father about his sexuality, and “kissing boys in the street”.
His father, dead against any of that sort of behaviour, grows distant with him until the moments leading up to his death.
This is a truly heartbreaking song, but one with real depth, meaning and a little light at the end of the tunnel. Greg has outdone himself with the song, and the video isn’t bad either
Watch it here:
Image Myriam Santos
Words Josh Withey, @josh_withey
3 years in prison just for being gay
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In 3 days, two Moroccan men could get 3-year jail terms – just for being gay.
Join a global outcry to free Lahcen and Mohsine.
Target's New Pride Commercial Will Make Your Queer Heart Sing
Posted: Updated:
https://youtu.be/4Ji8OpjSCXE
Target is ringing in Pride month in a very big way, introducing a rainbow-themed clothing and accessories line as well as an inclusive ad campaign.
Unveiled June 8, the Minnesota-based retail giant’s #TakePride line is available online and in select stores. It includes T-shirts, swim trunks and flip-flops, as well as headphones, iPhone cases and other products.
Pride Swim Short, Rainbow The commercial that accompanies the campaign, which can be viewed above, pairs archival footage of LGBT rights milestones with colorful, time-lapse images and present-day Pride clips.
“We’re not born with pride,” a voiceover declares. “We take pride, pride in celebrating who we were born to be.”
Pride Flip Flop Sandals, Rainbow Chevron Laysha Ward, Target’s Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer, said in a statement:
Pride Men’s Sunday Funday, Navy Target, which came under criticism in 2013 for reportedly making a donation to an organization that supported an anti-gay Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, has made great strides toward inclusivity in recent years. Last year, the company signed an amicus brief in support of marriage equality, while a commercial for their “Made to Matter” product line featured two gay men painting with a child.
In 2012, the company created 10 Pride T-shirts, including two designed by Gwen Stefani, that were available online.
View a selection of products from Target’s #TakePride line below:
Target is ringing in Pride month in a very big way, introducing a rainbow-themed clothing and accessories line as well as an inclusive ad campaign.
Unveiled June 8, the Minnesota-based retail giant’s #TakePride line is available online and in select stores. It includes T-shirts, swim trunks and flip-flops, as well as headphones, iPhone cases and other products.
“We’re not born with pride,” a voiceover declares. “We take pride, pride in celebrating who we were born to be.”
We’re making our message loud and clear: Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do – from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups likeFamily Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online.
In 2012, the company created 10 Pride T-shirts, including two designed by Gwen Stefani, that were available online.
View a selection of products from Target’s #TakePride line below:
-
1 Pride Women’s 50 Shades of Fabulous T-Shirt, White
Target -
2 Pride Rainbow Chevron Earbud with Microphone
Target -
3 Pride Kid’s Thing Called Love T-Shirt, White
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4 Pride Men’s Love is Love Tank, White
Target -
5 Pride Flip Flop Sandals, Rainbow Chevron
Target -
6 Pride Love Is Love Tumbler
Target -
7 Pride Men’s Sunday Funday Navy
Target -
8 Pride Men’s Vintage Love Is Love T-Shirt, Grey
Target -
9 Pride Men’s Unicorns On Fleek T-Shirt, Charcoal
Vodafone blocks LGBT website and redirects to ad for ‘flirty’ dating service
PinkNews Exclusive.
Mobile phone network Vodafone has restricted access to an LGBT community website to over-18s – instead showing ads for a “flirty” dating website.
A PinkNews reader spotted that the website lgbt.co.uk – which provides information on services for the LGBT community in the UK – appeared to be blocked by the provider.
A standard message received when trying to access the website states: “You are not able to access this service because VodafoneContent control is in place. If you’re 18 years or over, you can easily remove Vodafone Content control by going to the ‘About Content control’ link below for further information and details about how to remove it.”
The network requires people to prove their identity with a credit card and another form of ID in order to de-activate the filters.
Despite the perfectly child-friendly website only being accessible to over-18s, ironically the filtering page itself shows a number of ads for over-18 dating websites that remain unblocked.
When PinkNews attempted to view the page, Vodafone message was above an ad for raunchy-sounding dating site “FlirtFinder” – which was unfiltered despite its terms and conditions banning users 17 and under.
Another user received an ad for Match.com – also unfiltered – which operates a strict over-18s policy.
Peter Burnett of lgbt.co.uk told PinkNews: “We started the site in 2006 to deal with prejudice that was built into the tax and pensions system, as well as to campaign for civil partnership and equal marriage. We also discuss holidays and investments, as well as financial ideas for couples, which is our speciality.
“Of course, we haven’t got anything at all barely even saucy on the site, but because we use the terms lgbt, gay and transgender, for example, in our site metadata, providers and others sometimes block us.
“It is incredibly infuriating, not because we’re being blocked, but because it is exactly the sort of prejudice we dislike the most – instiutional assumptions made about millions of people, and not based on reason.”
He added: “Being blocked by Vodafone is careless and prejudiced use of metadata, with their engineers assuming that because our market is LGBT, we must be peddling porn, or something, I don’t know what. It’s so offensive.
“To be honest, any of many LGBT sites are at risk of this, and that is an ugly thought.
“I’m talking about forums, advice sites, clothing sites, news sites, help and information sites, and Vodafone should do their job and examine each site they block. There are also lists of adult sites they can consult, and we wouldn’t be on any of these.”
“Except that we are now on theirs, I am sad to say. I have challenged them of course to find any adult content on the site, which offers financial advice, and I await their response.”
Other LGBT-focussed websites including PinkNews and Stonewall appeared to still be accessible.
A Vodafone spokesperson told PinkNews: “Vodafone UK, along with the rest of the UK mobile operators use the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to define which content is unsuitable for customers under the age of 18.
“We use a third party supplier to provide automated technology to block sites which are unsuitable under that rating system and have recently changed our supplier, which clearly has slightly different categories than those of the provider we used before.
“We believe that the new automated system blocked this site by mistake and we have gone back to our supplier to ensure it is unbarred with immediate effect.”
Senior Presbyterians reach out to LGBT community
Several former moderators spoke during the Presbyterian Churchs General Assembly
Mark Rainey (mark.rainey@newsletter.co.uk
Presbyterians must welcome everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, to worship a former moderator has told the church’s general assembly in Belfast.
Rev Dr John Dunlop called for greater understanding of the LGBT community that has suffered as a result of persecution.
Addressing delegates yesterday afternoon, Dr Dunlop said he was “partially left-handed” and that “there is nothing I can do about it”.
He said: “I am heterosexual, I don’t know what it’s like to be anything other than heterosexual. That is how I am. And I ask you to consider the possibility, that people with a sexual orientation, have an orientation about which they can do nothing. It is a part of who they are.”
Dr Dunlop said it must be made clear that they are welcome to worship with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI).
“They are a minority amongst us but they are part of us. I have come to understand that human sexuality is a good deal more complex than I thought it was. People like me are on a learning curve,” he added.
He also cautioned that, in the fallout from the Ashers ‘gay cake’ case, there was a danger people would become “switched off” from the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission.
“This church in its history often could have done with the protection of equality and human rights legislation The danger of the Ashers dispute is that it has widened the rift between many of us in the Christian churches and people of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender orientation,” Dr Dunlop added.
Another former moderator, Rev Dr Rob Craig from Londonderry called on the current church authorities to show solidarity with Ashers Baking Company.
“Think seriously, at the coming of the Ashers appeal, to call our church to a day of prayer – not just for Christians oppressed in this land, but also for Christians who are persecuted across the world,” he said.
Rev Alan Boal from Dublin complained there was a “lack of leadership from the PCI” on the referendum and that the PCI must make “greater strides towards meaningful engagement with homosexual people who are members in our congregations”.
Rev Boal told delegates that when resolutions had to be debated and voted on later this week, including issues arising from the referendum outcome, it should happen behind closed doors “since the lack of full rapport together is deep, and varied emotions play out badly and prematurely in the church and in the press.
“I remain convinced that God’s design for bearing his image to creation is that of male/female complementarity,” but, he added: “We must pay attention to the impact of legislative change…the social revolution is making its way north”.
Three gay activists jailed after Moscow rally
By AFP | AFP
Gay and LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev (R) holds a flare as he rides a quad-bike during an unauthorized gay rights activists rally in central Moscow on May 30, 2015. Moscow city authorities turned down demands for a gay rights rally. (Dmitry Serebryakov/AFP/Getty Images)
The organiser of an unauthorised gay pride rally in Moscow was jailed for 10 days on Monday along with two other activists for disobeying police.
The event’s main organiser, Nikolai Alexeyev, was jailed after being detained by police at Saturday’s brief protest outside the Moscow mayor’s office.
“The court hearing was a farce!” he wrote on Twitter.
Two other activists, Yevgeny Gerasimov and Vadim Gruzdev were also sentenced to 10 days in police cells, reported OVD-Info website, which monitors detentions of activists.
On Saturday Alexeyev rode past the mayor’s office on the main Tverskaya Street on a quad bike decked with a rainbow flag and waving an orange smoke flare. The mayor’s office had refused permission for a rally and a court rejected activists’ appeal.
Police detained around a dozen people at the rally after some 30 nationalist counter-demonstrators in camouflage clothing and football fans hurled eggs at the activists and attacked them.
Gays in Russia face regular harassment and requests to hold pride parades have been consistently rejected by authorities in the capital.
In 2013, President Vladimir Putin approved legislation banning the dissemination of “gay propaganda” among minors.
The law has been widely condemned in the West as stoking intolerance.
Human Rights Watch last December sounded the alarm over a rising number of homophobic attacks in Russia, saying that the ban on “gay propaganda” effectively legalised discrimination.
Police officers detain gay rights activists as they gathered near the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament chamber, in Moscow, Russia, on June 11, 2013. AP PHOTO/IVAN SEKRETAREV
Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, and only stopped classifying it as a mental illness in 1999.
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