A twenty-one year old student has been charged with committing grievous bodily harm to a gay man in Brighton.
Sussex police have confirmed that Arain Moradi, 21, from London is accused of committing grievous bodily harm against a man in the early hours of Sunday, 8th May on Madeira Drive, in Brighton.
He allegedly used homophobic language before attacking the victim and breaking his jaw.
The London Gay Symphony Orchestra are set to take up their instruments in a battle to become the greatest Orchestra in the BBC’s nationwide search that captures the spirit of amateur music-making.
The four-part series will air on BBC Radio 4 at the end of August and will be hosted by BBC Radio 3’s Katie Derham. I
n each week’s episode, the orchestras will present a performance to be judged by renowned conductor Paul Daniel and the winning orchestra will perform at BBC Proms in the Park!
A spokesperson for the London Gay Symphony Orchestra, which turns 21 next year said the players were “excited” by the news.
Mr. Arnold, 37, was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 23 years and 4 months. He pleaded guitly for a quick sentence.
Chilling Message
The Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard how Arnold had become agitated after having sex – that he slashed and stabbed Mr. Lound, who was 30 at the time. After the grizzly attack, Arnold wrote the chilling message, “your (sic) not reddy (sic) for me. I always win. “I always win” on the student’s bedroom wall.
The victim, William Lound was openly gay. According to reports, he also wore women’s clothing and makeup – which have led some to believe that the attack may have been anti-trans.
He had 12 knife wounds to his back, neck and head. The knife was found in the victim’s body.
23 years and 4 months
Mr. Arnold will now serve a life sentence, with a minimum term of 23 years and 4 months.
Judge John Potter said,
“This was a brutal, pre-meditated sustained attack with a weapon upon a vulnerable and defenceless man.
“There is, in my judgement, evidence that your victim was murdered as a consequence of his sexual orientation.”
According to The Mirror, Detective Superintendent Simon Retford, from GMP’s serious crime division, said,
“This was a horrific murder of a young man whose only mistake was to trust and try to help the wrong person.
“Lee Arnold used William’s kind heart and good nature to gain his trust and then stabbed him to death.
“I would like to take this opportunity to reassure the LGBT community that I do not believe this was a case of Arnold randomly attacking somebody from within that community.
“Sadly, it appears that he and William had previously met, which ended up leading to his tragic death.”
Warwick District Council have come under criticism after refusing to fly the rainbow flag during Warwickshire Pride.
Photo Credit – Paul Szabo
The organisers of Warwickshire Pride have raised concerns with Warwick District Council after it said it would not fly the rainbow flag, at a town hall, during the county’s main pride event, which takes place in Leamington Spa on 20th August.
Daniel Browne, who founded Warwickshire Pride said that he wrote to the council to find out about the possibility of flying the rainbow flag during Warwickshire Pride. Mr Browne also enquired whether flags could be flown along Leamington Spa’s high street during the event.
A number of towns and cities across the UK, have raised rainbow flags to show their solidarity with the LGBT community after the Orlando massacre killed 49 people in June.
Matter of policy?
However, Councillor Andrew Mobbs, Leader of Warwick District Council replied that flags can only be flown for national events, not local ones. The leader remarked that this was not a new policy.
Spaces for flags on Leamington Spa’s high street are taken up by the Bowls Championships.
Further investigation by Mr Browne revealed that no such policy exists.
Mr Browne said,
“On Friday 29th July, I was contacted by a local councillor. He informed me that he has discovered that Warwick District Council do not have a flag policy.
“This is deeply concerning, as Cllr Mobbs specifically mentioned a council flag policy in his original email to me.”
Across the UK there are around 62 prides, with the bulk of events taking place to celebrate the LGBT community in July and August.
Entrance Flag
The council have confirmed that there will be a flag flown, but only at the entrance of Jepson Gardens – directly opposite the pride site – but not at the Town Hall.
Mr Browne continued.
I did raise concerns that he had not addressed the rainbow flag flying at the Town Hall and I asked him some direct questions about it. I asked for an explanation of the flag policy so I can understand it a bit more, asked who was involved in the decision making, and also whether it means Cllr Mobbs does not recognise Pride as a national event.
“All we ask is that the LGBT+ community in Leamington Spa receive the same visible support that councils around the UK show to their communities for Pride. A small gesture would go a very long way.”
A petition has been launched in which the Warwickshire Pride organisers “ask that the LGBT+ community in Leamington Spa receive the same visible support that councils around the UK show to their communities for Pride. A small gesture would go a very long way.”
The Pride Flag flies outside the Scottish Parliament during the Opening of the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament. 02 July 2016. Pic – Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament
One of the hottest number one selling bands in the UK, Years and Years, will be bringing their unique electro-pop sounds to South Wales on Friday 12th August 2016.
CREDIT: PR Supplied
The ‘Desire’ hitmakers will be performing in the picturesque setting of Cardiff’s Cooper’s Field and the concert is brought to you by the organisers behind Pride Cymru, marking the organisations inaugural, ‘Party in the Parc’ event.
The British electronica trio will entertain with a full set performing the classics from their brilliant no.1 debut album Communion. The album marked a moment in UK pop music history and rocketed to the top of the first Friday release chart, propelling the London based 3 piece into the stratosphere of UK stardom. It’s now Platinum in the UK, and has sold over 1.4 million copies worldwide.
Hits have included their first #1 single ‘King’, alongside recent track ‘Desire’, ‘Shine’ and ‘Eyes Shut’ – all in all selling over 10 million singles worldwide to date.
To complete the evening of music and celebration a strong support line-up is set to comprise of electronic duo, Maribou State, singer-songwriter Izzy Bizu, cool five-piece band Nimmo and Jax Jones DJ.
Co-founder of Party in the Parc, Lu Thomas said,
“We’re thrilled to have secured such amazing acts which will give concert goers an evening to remember. If Years & Years recent performances such as their Glastonbury set are anything to go by then we are in for one hell of a show!”
The Years & Years gig titled, Party in the Parc has been organised to support Pride Cymru, all profits from the event will be invested into Pride Cymru to ensure the organisation remains sustainable.
Olly Alexander lead singer of Years & Years said,
“We’re so excited to play Wales’ pride party this August. Pride is something that we all care deeply about and having grown up in Wales I’m so happy we get the chance to celebrate with people there. Pride continues to be a vitally important day for the LGBT+ community and our allies, especially in the light of recent events. Celebrating our diversity, supporting each other and promoting visibility is something I really care about. Pride Cymru is a great organisation that provides crucial support for the LGBT+ community and we’re so thrilled we get to play at their party. See you in August Wales!”
Tickets to Party in the Parc in association with Pride Cymru are on sale via www.partyintheparc.co.uk or www.ticketmaster.co.uk and prices range from £29.95 – £55.00. The ticket price includes a full set from the ‘King’ hitmakers, plus support from Maribou State, Izzy Bizu and DJ Jax Jones.
The British Government has announced it is to open a trade office in the US State of North Carolina, despite the state’s anti-LGBT laws.
CREDIT: Foreign and Commonwealth Office / FLICKR/ CC
The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) is looking to open an office in Raleigh, North Carolina, despite the state’s notorious anti-LGBT laws.
The State which enacted HB2, a bill which bans LGBT+ right ordinances, earlier in the year has seen businesses pull out of investment deals, and rock stars pulling out of gigs.
The newly appointed DIT, headed by Doctor Liam Fox said,
“I am pleased to announce today that the UK government plans to open 3 new offices right here in the United States, in Minneapolis, Raleigh and San Diego.
“Our ambitious vision for an open and outward-looking UK economy includes growing our footprint in the most important markets around the world and these 3 cities offer exciting opportunities to boost trade and investment.”
HB2 Bans LGBT Rights
HB2 bans LGBT+ right ordinances in North Carolina.
In March, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed a law which would allow business owners to discriminate against LGBT people on the grounds of religious belief. The law also requires trans people to use the public toilet that aligns with the gender that is on their birth certificate.
The MP for North Somerset has voted against every piece of legislation that equalised LGBT rights in the UK.
Dr Fox was unsuccessful in his bid to become Prime Minister.
What Is HB2?
Business Over Rights?
THEGAYUK reached out to the DIT about why North Carolina was chosen even when the FOC warned LGBT travellers about visiting the state, a Department for International Trade spokesperson said,
“These locations were chosen because of their potential for UK trade and investment given their economic productivity and well-established research and development institutions and establishing a presence in these cities will help us to increase our reach across the United States to the benefit of British businesses.”
The government of Tanzania apparently wants to stop gay sex, so it’s banning lube.
Tanzanian health officials have banned the import of sexual lubricants in a move to crack-down on anal sex, directly targeting the gay and bisexual male community.
Gay sexual relations are illegal in Tanzania with those found guilty handed life imprisonment sentences. However no arrests have been known to have been made in recent years.
“It is true that the government has banned the importation and use of the jelly to curb the spread of HIV,”
“It is estimated that 23 percent of men who have sex with men in Tanzania are living with HIV/AIDS,”
“I have instructed stakeholders working with gay people to remove the products from the market.”
Up until recently the gay and bisexual community were being handed out lube for free as part of a health campaign by advocacy and health groups working with the community. However the ministry now wants to use the money spent on lube “for beds for the maternity wards.”
It is recommended by healthcare professionals that lube always be used when having anal sex, regardless if the sex is being same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples.
Waterbased or silicon lubes are recommended with condom usage, one of the most effective ways of combatting HIV infections – as oil based lubricants such as Crisco or even cooking oil can break or weaken a condom.
A young man on Teeside has been left with serious burns after being set alight in a suspected anti-gay attack early Wednesday morning.
The 20-year-old required skin grafts and was treated at the North Tees University hospital.
His legs were sprayed with aerosol and set alight.
CREDIT: Google Maps 2016
According to ITV.com he was set set upon by four men who questioned the victim about his sexuality as he walked through the Holy Trinity Church grounds in Stockton-on-Tees, near to Middlesbrough in the North east of England, at 3AM in the morning.
One of the men, described as white, in his early 20s, short blonde hair and of medium build is alleged to have sprayed aerosol onto the victim’s legs before lighting the highly flammable liquid. He was wearing jogging bottoms and was topless.
After setting his legs on fire the group ran away.
The Cleveland police are looking for information from anyone in the area and should call 101.
The Scottish Catholic Church has indicated that they are keen to tackle homophobia in schools.
The Catholic Church in Scotland have spoken in support of dealing with homophobia in the classroom according to campaign group Time For Inclusive Education (TIE).
TIE have been campaigning to introduce teacher training in Scottish classrooms to deal with and tackle homophobia in schools. The campaign has received the support of a host of cross party politicians; including Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Willie Rennie, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party Patrick Harvie and Conservative MSP Oliver Mundell.
Speaking with the Sunday Herald this weekend, a spokeswoman from the Catholic Church in Scotland responded to the campaign’s calls, stating,
“The Church is working with the Catholic Head Teacher association to ensure that all teachers have adequate knowledge, understanding and training and feel confident in addressing all aspects of relationships education, including LGBTI matters, in an appropriate and sensitive way.”
Last month, party leaders pledged swift action on the group’s calls for LGBTI inclusive education during a parliamentary debate on which steps should be taken to advance equality following the Orlando massacre in June which left 49 dead and 53 others injured.
During the session, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has publicly supported the TIE campaign, restated her pledge to work with the campaigners during her term in government.
She said,
“I don’t want to live in a country, yet alone be First Minister of a country, where any young person has to feel that, somehow, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, they are subject to judgement or made to feel in any way less than any other individual in our society. I have given a commitment to working with the campaign for inclusive education.”
Ever heard of the biographical fallacy? No, it’s not a handy, dictaphone dildo, but a warning to never, ever judge an author’s work by his life. See, back in the 19th Century, critics actually believed in pure, spun-from-thin-air fantasy, that plays and novels came from sheer imagination, not hard, lived experience.
Oh really? Tell that to gay, smack addict and novelistic genius William Burroughs, whose entire output mirrored his self-chosen squalor. And he’s merely the tip of a non-stop, thinly-fictionalised iceberg – every second, every minute, we’re swamped by tsunamis of blogs, memoirs and blatant self-mythologizing.
So unsurprisingly, critical theory’s undergone a complete reversal, and currently, all creative writing is viewed as ultimately flowing from biographical facts. Oh dear. That’s very bad news for Rocky Horror creator Richard O’ Brien’s latest show The Stripper, which once again showcases his low-brow, pop-culture fixations. It’s a heavy-handed, sleazy, musical theatre adaptation of a disposable, pulp-fiction, private-eye novel by hack Carter Brown, and as dire as it sounds.
Me, I pity the show’s outstanding actors. Despite being crippled by O’Brien’s clueless, misogynistic lyrics, an uninspired score and lazily generic stage design and costuming, they often touch real brilliance. In particular, Gloria Onitiri’s lead stripper Dolores has the raw, diva heat of a young Grace Jones, while Sebastian Torkia’s private eye Wheeler is magnificently moody. More quirkily, Hannah Grover, Michael Steedon and Marc Pickering all triple-up to flesh out The Stripper’s seedy, eccentric cast. Sadly, they inhabit a world of laughably clunky exposition, with composer Richard Hartley’s score merely a serviceable, degraded blizzard of inept doo-wop and leaden jazz.
Immediately, it’s obvious that nothing but instant closure can rescue this glacially-paced, Z-grade murder mystery.
Yes, every possible cliché is alive and unfeasibly surviving here. There are one-note tough guys, vapid femme fatales and even – shades of Rocky Horror’s Riff-raff – a two-timing hunchback.
Speaking charitably, it’s more Roger Rabbit than Jason Bourne. My god – didn’t it even occur to O’Brien that Carter Brown was parodying hard-boiled prose and attitudes? How could it? Peel away all the frothy, feel-good kitsch from Rocky Horror onwards and what’s left are O’Brien’s deeply unpleasant, highly reactionary, sexual politics.
Frankly, nothing else explains such shockingly offensive lyrics as ‘I wanna fondle your tits/Baby you give me a hard-on’. There’s a simply appalling sub-text here – f*ck whoever possible and totally abuse their feelings – a textbook, sexual predator sense of intimate entitlement and presumed consent. Sure, as a songwriter, O’Brien is hardly Noel Coward or Cole Porter, but surely he’s capable of finer artistry than this abysmal, teenage smut? Honestly, do audiences really need such insensitivity casually inflicted on them in 2016?
And even more disturbingly, O’Brien’s lyrics don’t even attempt irony – the object of their lust is meant to feel privileged! Gee, whatever happened to any notions or awareness of sexual dignity, humanity or compassion here? Heartless but superficially attractive, The Stripper is a coldly cynical exercise in period sleaze, but ultimately, one best left unattended in a forgotten, theatrical morgue.
The Stripper run at the St. James Theatre Studio until 13th August
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has confirmed that more hate crimes, including homophobic and transphobic crimes, have been prosecuted than before.
The CPS is reporting that it is prosecuting more hate crimes than ever before, including homophobic and transphobic crimes.
Year on year the CPS’s success in bringing more prosecutions has risen 4.8 per cent (15,442) from 2014/15 which was a rise against 4.7 per cent the year before 2013/14.
Overall the conviction rate was high for homophobic crimes was 83 per cent of prosecutions resulting in a conviction for the perpetrator of the crimes. This was a rise from 81.3 per cent in the previous year.
Solicitor General Robert Buckland said,
“Tackling hate crime has always been a priority for the Government. We have worked extensively to improve our collective response to this issue and in particular to improve recording of hate crime, so that we now have a fuller picture of the scale of the problem.”
There were 1439 homophobic and transphobic cases prosecuted by the CPS in the UK 2015/16.
Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions said,
“My message is that a hate crime is exactly that – a crime – and will not be ignored. Hate crime creates fear and has a devastating impact on individuals and communities. Nobody should have to go about their day to day life in fear of being attacked.
“This report shows that more of these incidents are being recognised as hate crimes, so they are reported, investigated and prosecuted as such. It is important that this trend continues and no one should simply think that this abuse – on or offline – will be dismissed or ignored.
“More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, which is good news for victims. Over 73 per cent are guilty pleas – this means that more defendants are pleading guilty due to the strength of the evidence and prosecution case, so victims do not have to go through the process of a trial.
“The CPS has undertaken considerable steps to improve our prosecution of hate crime and we will continue this improvement.”
