CANADA
A Catholic college board in suburban Toronto has voted to uphold its coverage banning Satisfaction flags from being displayed exterior colleges after a faculty trustee launched a movement to revise the coverage on Jan. 22.
The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District Faculty Board governs 151 public Catholic colleges in Toronto’s western suburbs. Within the province of Ontario, Catholic colleges obtain public funding and are allowed to advertise non secular educating, however should usually observe provincial nondiscrimination regulation.
The board’s coverage limits the flags which may be flown exterior colleges based mostly on the variety of flagpoles the college has. These with one pole should fly the Canadian flag, these with two should additionally fly the Ontario flag, whereas these with three should fly a flag that’s both related to the liturgical season of the church, the college board itself, or a neighborhood Catholic charity.
Trustee Brea Corbet had proposed that the third flagpole may very well be used to fly the Satisfaction flag or different acceptable flags.
“Once we take away rainbow flags or different heritage flags, we’re not defending Catholic id. We’re revealing institutional fragility. The rainbow flag doesn’t threaten Catholic schooling. Insurance policies of exclusion do. And exclusion is a powerful type of bullying,” Corbet mentioned.
However different trustees rejected the movement.
“The LGBTQ+ group shouldn’t be our enemy. All of us fall wanting God’s glory. We’re not judging, however we’re additionally not selling. We don’t need to outwardly promote, as a result of our religion doesn’t enable us to. We’re referred to as to like all individuals, no matter their beliefs are. We’re not discriminating in opposition to anybody,” Trustee Paula Dametto-Giovannozzi mentioned on the assembly.
The present coverage permits Satisfaction flags to be displayed inside colleges, however solely throughout a particular “observance interval” they usually have to be eliminated at different instances.
“Prohibiting these flags from flying exterior the board workplace and eradicating them inside colleges after an observance interval ends doesn’t make college environments extra welcoming, safer, extra inclusive. It doesn’t,” Corbet mentioned of the coverage.
Catholic college boards in Ontario and different elements of Canada have a protracted historical past of disputes over LGBTQ inclusion, together with a historic authorized struggle over whether or not a scholar may carry a same-sex date to promenade, and an eventual political struggle over whether or not gay-straight alliances could be allowed at Catholic colleges. Satisfaction flags have develop into the most recent flashpoint as the college boards have misplaced increasingly of those battles within the courts and legislatures.
UNITED KINGDOM
The long-lasting queer nightclub G-A-Y Bar in Soho has been put up on the market following a yr of turmoil for the membership and its associated companies G-A-Y Late and Heaven.
Among the finest-known queer nightlife manufacturers in London, G-A-Y has been round in some kind or one other since 1976, however lately it’s come underneath evident hassle.
In December 2023, G-A-Y Late closed, with proprietor Jeremy Joseph citing security and crime points among the many explanation why he shut the bar down. Final November, the Heaven nightclub was compelled to close for a number of weeks when its license was pulled after one in all its safety guards was accused of rape.
Joseph cited the stress brought on by the closure of Heaven as one cause why he’s promoting G-A-Y Bar.
“I used to be clear to Westminster CC’s Licensing committee that in the event that they closed Heaven for even a short while it might probably put G-A-Y Bar in danger financially,” Joseph mentioned in a press release posted to Instagram. “Even now after Heaven’s reopening, the harm financially and and mentally has been irreparable.”
Joseph additionally mentioned that the altering nature of the homosexual scene has made it troublesome to maintain a queer nightclub.
“After I began G-A-Y it was all the time about having a venue on Previous Compton Avenue and Canal Avenue, being the gayest streets within the gayest capitals. Nevertheless it’s not like that anymore,” he mentioned.
“My purpose could be for G-A-Y Bar to stay an LGBT venue and can take into account franchise choices, however my guts is that within the present local weather, and it gained’t be as a result of Previous Compton Avenue shouldn’t be the identical anymore, it has a brand new id and once you look down the road, you see eating places, cafes, take aways however the avenue that was the LGBT capital, is not any extra.”
The nightclub has been listed on-line with annual hire of £410,000 ($510,000).
AUSTRALIA
The basic 80s Australian movie “Crocodile Dundee” is getting recut to take away an disagreeable transphobic scene forward of a rerelease later this spring.
The 4K remastered version of the 1986 movie, titled “Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Reduce” was screened at Sydney’s OpenAir Cinema on Jan 23. The brand new minimize removes about two minutes from the movie, together with a scene the place the titular naïve hunter performed by Paul Hogan grabs a trans girl by the groin and says, “that was a man, dressed up like a Sheila,” whereas one other character yells a homophobic slur.
The brand new minimize additionally contains an aboriginal land acknowledgment and a few prolonged scenes.
Hogan, who was available for the screening, instructed reporters he “completely” agreed with the cuts, which had been made up to now for broadcast edits of the movie.
“I heard about it years in the past, it began, and it wasn’t about being woke,” Hogan mentioned.
“They identified to me and mentioned, ‘This man is a folks hero around the globe, and he shouldn’t be groping individuals.’ And I believed, ‘Yeah that’s proper, he shouldn’t be,’ so take it out. I imply, he did it in all innocence, in naivety, however it’s higher with out it.”
The unique “Crocodile Dundee” stays, by a large margin, the highest-grossing Australian movie of all time, and was a real world phenomenon. It was the second-highest grossing movie on the U.S. field workplace in 1986 and impressed two sequels and a quick fad for all issues Australian.
PHILIPPINES
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos is pledging to veto a proposed intercourse schooling invoice designed to struggle teen being pregnant as a result of he says he believes the brand new curriculum contains instruction for kindergarteners on the way to masturbate, which, it ought to go with out saying, it doesn’t.
“You’ll educate 4-year-olds the way to masturbate. That each youngster has the suitable to strive completely different sexualities. That is ridiculous. It’s abhorrent. It’s a travesty of what sexual [orientation] and intercourse schooling must be to youngsters,” Marcos instructed the Philippine Day by day Inquirer.
Marcos concedes that colleges want to show youngsters concerning the penalties of minor being pregnant — which has seen an alarming enhance lately — and sexually transmitted ailments, together with HIV, however mentioned he doesn’t help the Prevention of Adolescent Being pregnant Invoice at present earlier than congress.
“To incorporate the so-called ‘woke’ absurdities are abhorrent to me — and I’m already guaranteeing, this may not be handed right into a regulation if this invoice is handed in that kind,” he mentioned. “I assure all mother and father, academics, and youngsters: I’ll instantly veto it.”
The allegations about the subject material of the proposed intercourse ed appears to return from a spiritual group led by a former chief justice, which has popularized the false declare that the invoice would require colleges to supply classes on “bodily pleasure” and “sexual rights.” These bogus claims about intercourse schooling are acquainted tropes pushed by non secular conservatives the world over.
However Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who authored the invoice, has fought again onerous in opposition to the allegations.
“Mr. President, with all due respect, it’s clear that even the phrase ‘masturbation’ shouldn’t be within the invoice. It additionally didn’t point out ‘strive completely different sexualities,’” Hontiveros mentioned in a press release.
Hontiveros says she’s keen to just accept amendments to get the invoice handed.
