 I'm Ann Charles. And I'm Linda Quinlan. And welcome to All Things LGBTQ. It is Tuesday, September 6th. And we are recording at Orca Media, which we acknowledge is unceded indigenous land. Ann, what do you have? Well, I guess we should announce that one of our names is missing. Keith is on vacation. In Nova Scotia, somewhere, I think. And our last minute stand-in had a COVID exposure, so thank you anyway, Kim. And here we are together. So may I begin? Yes. Okay, I'd like to start, if I may, with something I've been forgetting about for the last two episodes, which is the second half of the Lambda Literary Awards that I keep announcing. Seven weeks ago or eight weeks ago when I was last here, I read the first half of the list. So let me remind you that on June 11th, 2012, the winners of the 34th Annual Lambda Literary Awards were announced. The winners were selected by a panel of over 60 literary professionals for more than 1,300 book submissions from over 300 publishers. So I announced the first half of the list last time. And now, before I do my headlines, I'd like to follow up with the second half of the list. This is very important. It's a very important literary event in our community, and I don't think it should be overlooked. So let's start with lesbian memoir, Biography. And the winner is the one you want to marry and other identities I've had. And memoir by Sophie Santos, Topple Books. Gay memoir, Biography. Punch Me Up to the Gods, a memoir, by Brian Broom, Mariner Books. There are a lot of categories to follow, so let me run through them, including lesbian romance. The headmistress has won in the lesbian romance category. This is by Milena McKay, self-published. Gay Romance, Excellent Sons, A Love Story in Three X, by Larry Benjamin. Beat and Track Publishing. LGBTQ Anthology, Miles of Rain, An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, by Brianna Simone Jones, who is the editor. This has been published by the New Press. Cheryl Clark mentioned it in my interview with the Conditions Collective, and I'm hoping that maybe we can have the editor on the show at a future date to talk about this fabulous anthology. LGBTQ Children's Middle Grade Books, Calvin, by J.R. and Vanessa Ford, J.B. Putnam's Son's Books for Young Readers, LGBTQ Young Adults, The Heartbreak Bakery, by A.R. Capetta, Candlewick Press, LGBTQ Comics, Stone Fruit, by Lee Lay, Vantigraphics Books, LGBTQ Drama, Mrs. Harrison, by R. Eric Thomas, T.R.W. Plays, LGBTQ Erotica, Big Joe, by Samuel R. Delaney, the famous African-American science fiction writer, whom we all know. This was published, or many of us know. This was published by Impatient Press. LGBTQ Mystery, The Savage Kind, by John Copenhaver, Pegasus Books, LGBTQ Speculative Fiction, this is the category Linda likes, No Gods, No Monsters, by Cadwell Turnbull, Blackstone Publishing, and finally, LGBTQ Studies, Vice Patrol, Cops, Courts, and the Struggle Over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall, sounds very interesting, by Anna Loboski, University of Chicago Press. So congratulations to all of those winners and all of the winners that I announced eight weeks ago as well. Now. Bad lines. All right, shall I continue then? Okay, let's start with North America. And there's a lot of discouraging news in these headlines, but let's start out with some positive stories. St. Kitts and Nevis have found the law criminalizing gay sex to be unconstitutional. The top court has struck down a colonial-era law against homosexual conduct, ruling that sexual orientation is covered by the right to privacy. It was an 1873 law dealing with sodomy, and it was strengthened in 2012 to increase the maximum penalty for indecent assault against men from four years to 10 years, including the possibility of hard labor. So now it's been struck down. All right, previously courts in Belize, Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua and Barbuda have found such laws unconstitutional. And other cases in Barbados and St. Lucia are pending. So let's, you know, we've started out with some good news. Now let's go to South America for some- The news isn't so good. Unpleasantness, yes. Chile overwhelmingly rejects a progressive new constitution that would have enshrined LGBTQ plus rights. Almost all of the ballots were counted. 62% of the voters rejected this new proposal with only 38% in favor. It followed a nearly two-year process aimed to uplift and reflect a broader array of voices in Chilean society through this nation's document. The proposed constitution would have expanded social rights, committed to fighting climate change, given the government-wide responsibility for social welfare programs. It would have provided full gender parity, would have allowed Chileans to live their authentic identity in all its dimensions. Are they part of that center, that rim where they have, you know, like they're supposed to pass gay marriage or is that just Central America? No, they're part of the- The alliance of countries, yeah. The human rights alliance, yes. The president backed the new constitution, but then said the voters had spoken loudly and clearly. They've given us two messages. He said the first one is that they value their democracy. The second one is that the people of Chile were not satisfied with the proposed constitution, and therefore they decided to reject a clear way at the polls. Now, the constitution they have in place is awful. It was inaugurated by the Pinochet government. They started working on it in 2019, but as you recall, Pinochet's reign was marked by harsh suppression of dissent against his regime and was held responsible for the torture and deaths of thousands of people. So, they're keeping his constitution. Another sad story, I decided to include this in South America because it involves a Peruvian activist who actually was a graduate student at Harvard. His name was Rodrigo Ventosia, and I have a picture before you now of some activists in Peru holding a protest on Friday questioning how their government could have handled the death of this transgender man in Indonesia earlier this month. He was detained at the airport upon arriving to celebrate his honeymoon, and they arrested him for cannabis charges, and he died in custody. It sounds like Brittany Griner, except he died in custody. He was a grad student at Harvard and a transgender rights activist. He died on the tourist island of Bali of bodily failure, the authorities said, after being detained for this alleged cannabis possession. And even if you are detained in another country, it is unreal and painful that the Peruvian government can leave you like this, said a member of Diversa Dade's Trans Mesculinas, a trans rights organization that he founded seven years ago in Peru. And this reminds me, if I may have an earlier story I did about Bali and how people are seduced because it seems so progressive and as such a lovely climate. Now I'd like to go, if I may, to Asia. I have some good stories to start, but then there's a decline. Let's start with South Korea's barrier breaking LGBTQ reality shows. South Korea's first LGBTQ reality shows, Mary Queer and his man, premiered on the streaming platform Wave this summer. And the people behind these shows hope they'll bring awareness to the long fight for LGBTQ rights in the country. South Korea, as we know, does not recognize same-sex marriage and offers little legal protection to its LGBTQ citizens. Mary Queer co-host Hong Sok Tron, one of the most prominent openly gay celebrities, and his man, cast member Lee Jong Ho, talked about what this show means for queer representation. In the future, I hope Mary Queer, his man and other cultural content could open up more opportunities to bring awareness to issues that need to be resolved or discussed, he said. So that's good news from South Korea. Now I have a picture before you of Rina Sawayama, who is a Japanese-British pop singer, and she made a passionate plea for marriage equality on the stage in Japan. She's a model who came out as bi and pansexual in 2018. She was performing at the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan when she gave an emotional speech about LGBTQ plus marriage rights. I'm bisexual, but I try to have a same-sex marriage here. I can't, she said at the event. It's not allowed in Japan, out of the G7 countries, it's the only one that doesn't have that protection. Japan, as we know, does not have, currently have any national legislation ensuring LGBTQ people are immune from discrimination. And ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, a new campaign was founded to encourage the introduction of new protections. Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution and articles 371, 731 and 737 of the Japanese Civil Code currently exclude rights for same-sex couples to get married. Same-sex couples married abroad are also not recognized in Japan. So, Sohiyama is speaking out. She's been a vocal advocate throughout her career. So. Okay, so we should probably move on for now. Okay, we've moved on from my upbeat Asian stories. Now I'm afraid we're gonna have to go downhill a little bit. Okay. Well, maybe you have an uplifting one for the last, no? Well, let's get on to Brigham Young University. Oh, good news there. Removed pamphlets with off-campus resources for LGBTQ students from welcome bags for incoming freshmen last month. Created by Rainbow Collective, a nonprofit group that founder Madison Teeny, a BYU student said focuses on education and a life shift for queer students. The pamphlets offered information about weekly and monthly events available to LGBTQ students as well as a list of organizations in the era that could provide therapy, safe housing, mentorship, and more. The Rainbow Collective is not officially affiliated with the university. Teeny, who is gay, said she wanted to create the pamphlets because she remembers the loneliness she felt as a freshman at the university, which is owned by the Church of Latter-day, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Students at the university in Provo, Utah, about 45 miles away from Salt Lake City are restricted by university rules from dating or showing signs of affection toward members of the same sex. Violating these rules put students at risk of being unenrolled. A Republican candidate running for Wisconsin governor has told people to take up pitchforks and torches after it was revealed he had been donating to anti-LGBTQ organizations. It was reported that Tim Michaels, a wealthy businessman endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has donated $250,000 to anti-LGBTQ and anti-apportion groups, representing about 15% of his total donations in 2020. Michaels has said, I believe people should just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal media has become. So, Michaels is a jolly guy. Several teenagers allegedly assaulted a gay couple in Northwest Washington, D.C., Shaw neighborhood on Sunday after calling them Monkey Park's Faggots. Unhoused LGBTQ plus Washingtonians will have a place to call home in D.C. after the city opens its first homeless shelter for them in August. The LGBTQ plus adult shelter has 40 beds for individuals aged 25 and older and is located in Southeast D.C. And the funds will become from the American Resource Plan Act, the local government establishment and will operate this shelter. So that's good news. On a terrible note, Black transgender woman Dee Dee Ricks, 33, was shot to death last Saturday in Detroit. Ricks was the second black trans woman to die by violence in the city in about a month. Hayden Davis, 28, was fatally shot in late July. Ricks and Ohio resident was found dead at her home in Detroit early Saturday morning. Deontay Close, 31, was arrested that day and it rained Tuesday on the charge of second degree murder. And following his wife's viral transphobic Instagram comments, it looks like country singer Jason Aldean is not getting off scot-free. The Grammy Award nominees public relations firm, The Green Room, has stepped away from working with him. If I didn't love you, artist, according to billboards, so you got dumped. Good. All right, good, yeah. A gay inmate in Texas who died in prison was murdered and did not die by suicide. The death of Justin Levy Galloway was a homicide resulting from ligature affixiation according to the local newspaper, which obtained a copy of the autopsy's report. On August 5th, Galloway, 42, was found in his cell with the news around his neck at the Gibb-Lew unit in Woodville. His death was initially reported a death by suicide, but his family told local media that Galloway told him he feared for his life behind bars. And again, and we have our own. A gay man who is mayor of Hyatt'sville, Maryland, has been accused of embezzling 2.2 million from a charter school network in Washington, D.C. A lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Kevin Ward, who died by suicide in January, embezzled the funds while working as a senior director of technology for KIPP, D.C., one of the biggest charter networks in the city. It was filed on Monday at U.S. District Court in D.C. I'm resisting the impulse to make a crack about KIPP privatizing education. Yeah, really? According to recent ruling by an Indiana court, discrimination based on sexual orientation is permissible and in fact is alive and well in the state. A Catholic school teacher at Cathedral Hills School was fired in 2019 by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis over his marriage to his husband. The Indiana Supreme Court now upheld the decision and it was not discrimination. Well, what would you call it? I don't know. And this happened in D.C. and I believe it also happened in Boston, didn't it? Where a children's hospital in D.C. has become the most recent victim of online movement to vilify medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth. Children's National Hospital has been under fire from far right extremists. After the far right Twitter account lives of TikTok posted an audio recording that features a staff member appearing to say that the hospital provides hysterectomies to minors. The exposed host of the account, real estate broker and transfer, Shea Reishik, posed as a mother seeking care for a 16-year-old transgender son. It's called Duggery. Yeah. And then we have Texas. Oh. Employees of Texas Child Welfare Agency were told to avoid written communication and take other steps to maintain secrecy about the investigations of parents who allow transgender children to receive gender-affirming care. The investigations began after Governor Greg Abbott ordered them in February based on non-binding legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton that allowing kids such care is child abuse. Both are far right anti-LGBQ plus Republicans. Scientists have said the opinion was based on faulty and biased information and LGBTQ activists have condemned the child abuse characterization. The order is partially blocked while the lawsuit against it proceeds. So. Ken Paxton is another. I know. Deplorable. And lastly, for now, for this segment, U.S. Representative Eric Stahlwell, a California Democrat and major LGBTQ ally has received a violent threat from someone claiming to be a gay man. A staffer of mine who's one month into her job received a call from a man saying he's coming to our office with an assault rifle to kill me. Stahlwell tweeted Tuesday, I hesitated to share this, but how else do I tell you we are in violent times? And the architects, Trump and McCarthy, bloodshed is coming. He was referring to the former president and house, minority leader, Kevin McCarthy. Okay. Well, on to some bad news from Asia. Hong Kong, to start us off with this second half, has rejected a gay marriage appeal. The Hong Kong court has refused to recognize overseas same-sex marriages. And this is Delta Blow to the LGBTQ community in a case brought by a local gay counselor who got married in New York. Same-sex relations, I'm sorry, same-sex unions are illegal in the semi-autonomous Chinese cities, but gay couples have won small recognitions in some spousal benefits, such as visas and housing in recent years as a result of a series of local challenges. In a separate case, the same court on Friday ruled in favor of another Hong Kong gay couple who married in London, granting them inheritance rights similar to those of heterosexual couples. The two cases were the latest in a series of challenges to laws that discriminate against LGBTQ people in the former British colony, which last year upheld a ban on same-sex partnerships. As we know, Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. It decriminalized homosexuality in 1991, and the city hosts an annual pride and pride parade at a likely gay scene. So, there's one step forward, two steps back, maybe a couple steps forward. This is my, now I'd like to end my Asia segment with the most discouraging story of the night for me. Iran has sentenced two LGBTQ activists to death, and I have a picture before you now of Zara Siddiqui Hamadani who was reportedly arrested in 2021 while attempting to cross into Turkey to seek asylum. A court in Ermia found Zara Siddiqui Hamadani pictured before you 31 in Elham Chudbar 24, Guilty of Corruption of the Earth, an organization for human rights sponsored in Norway said that they were accused of promoting homosexuality, promoting Christianity and communicating with media opposed to the Islamic Republic. Iran's judiciary later confirmed the sentences but said they were connected to human trafficking and not activism, which just sounds totally bogus to me if I may editorialize. Norway registered, this Norway registered human rights group said that Siddiqui Hamadani, also known as Zara, was from the predominantly Kurdish town of Nadeqa in West Azerbaijan province, which borders both Turkey and Iraq. Amnesty International previously described her as a gender non-conforming human rights defender who it said had been detained solely in connection with her real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as her social media posts and statements in defense of the LGBTQ rights. It's reported that she was arrested in October, 2021, as I said, by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps while attempting to cross into Turkey, as I also said. It cited her as saying that she was forcibly disappeared for 43 days during which these revolutionary guard agents allegedly subjected her to intense interrogations accompanied by verbal abuse and threatened to execute or otherwise harm her and take away the custody of her two young children. This January, she was brought before a prosecutor and told that she was accused of spreading corruption on earth, including through promoting homosexuality and Christianity and talking to a hostile media. The first two accusations stemmed from her public defense of LGBTQ rights on social media and her appearance in a May, 2021 BBC documentary about abuses that LGBTQ people were suffering in a rocky semi-autonomous Kurdistan region where she'd been living. Under Iranian law, same-sex sexual conduct is a criminal offense with punishments ranging from flogging to the death penalty. The accusation of promoting Christianity was for wearing a cross necklace and attending a house church in Iran several years ago. Citizens who are not recognized as Christians, Zoroastrians, or Jews may not engage in public religious expression in Iran. Before she tried to leave Iran, she recorded a video in which she said, I want you to know how much pressure we LGBTQ people endure. We risk our lives for our emotions, but we will find our true selves. I hope the day will come when we can all live in freedom in our country. How sad. I'm journeying toward freedom now. If I don't make it, I will have given my life for this cause. There are no details about the other woman who was arrested and sentenced, but she's also from Ermia. The German-based Iranian lesbian and transgender network, Six-Rang, also confirmed the death sentences for the two activists and called on foreign governments to put pressure on Iran to release them. This is the first time that a woman has been sentenced to death in Iran for her sexual orientation, a spokesman said. How brave these people are. Oh my God. How awful this is. So we can go to Europe. Okay. EuroPride. We have that new transphobic Prime Minister, yeah. But let's start with EuroPride in Serbia. EuroPride 22 has been canceled. The Serbia and President Alexander Vucic has said September's EuroPride celebration in Belgrade will not go ahead. Now this is very trumped up if you ask me. His announcement comes after thousands of people marched in protest against the event earlier this month. And then after he canceled it, another thousands of people demonstrated against it, even though it had already been canceled by him. He was not happy with the decision he said, but Serbia had to concentrate on other issues, including trouble in Kosovo. And Serbia has never recognized the independence of Kosovo, I learned. And there was a dispute about ID cards if you're trying to cross the border from Kosovo to Serbia. And so this was kind of a minor bureaucratic thing unless I suppose you're experiencing it. But that's been cleared up, yet he's still using this as an excuse to cancel EuroPride. The international LGBTQ pride parade has been hosted in a different European city most years since 1992. It's supposed to take place between September 12th and 18th. He says it's gonna be postponed, but activists said, say we're going ahead anyway. So there may be fireworks in Serbia. Event organizers said Serbia's role as a host of EuroPride was an important step along the path toward achieving equality for the LGBTQ plus community in the Western Balkans. In 2020, I'm sorry, 2010, anti-gay protesters fought running battles with police in an effort to disrupt a gay pride march in Belgrade. The march returned four years later with huge security. So we'll see what happens in the next week in Serbia. And when is this Euro? The 12th through the 18th of September. Then they're gonna try to do it anyway. That I would say. Well, we'll see. There's a lot of, I mean, you know, the protesters saying like protect our children and so forth, and there's a lot of pressure on the Serbian's first female openly gay prime minister on a bra bitch. And so activists are saying, come on, you promised us we could do this, we negotiated this in good faith, keep your promise. So the president has promoted her as some kind of quid pro quo. Maybe he's trying to buy her off, but so we'll see what develops. Now on to England, where I have a picture before you now of the British activist about whom we've spoken in the past, Peter Tatchell. And now that Liz Truss has been elected, he has challenged her to call a general election and test her toxic policies in public. This Liz Truss is bad news for the LGBTQ plus community, he says, and we already knew that. She was announced the next prime minister. She's all over in the mainstream news, even in the US. She was chosen by a vote among the Tory party members. We just saw her last night. That's right. And she was on democracy now this morning. She's all over the place. She's barely begun her role and already LGBTQ advocates are calling for her to make good on the Tory promises of being equitable to the LGBTQ community. He, Tatchell continued, she's against reform of the Gender Recognition Act, the GRA, and is not committed to a comprehensive ban on all conversion therapy practices. She's been using us, especially trans people, as a political football to score cultural war points. I wonder where she got that from. She's Margaret Thatcher clone, people are saying she even dresses like her. She's jeopardizing the lives and welfare of LGBTQ plus refugees with her heartless deportation of asylum applicants to Rwanda. She has an abysmal track record as Minister for Women and Equalities as the Tory government's scrapped meaningful reform and failed to bring forward any legislation protecting LGBTQ people from conversion therapy. Boris Johnson doesn't look so fit. I don't know, they're all, and you know, her opponent was no friend or friend either. She is, Tatchell says she has no mandate as PM from the British people as she was voted into Tory leadership by 81.81326 votes. She was chosen by fewer than 200,000 Tory party members who represent one-two-hundredth of the electorate, he said. The Conservatives won power with less than 44% of the vote at the 2019 general election. A clear majority, over 50% voted against them. So the Democratic, the leader, the Liberal Democratic leader is also causing, calling for a general election to have a referendum on her policies, but she says she's not gonna do it. She says, denied trans women are women openly spoke out against trans youth accessing gender-affirming care during a hustling's event and vowed to protect single-sex spaces, presumably from trans and non-binary people. She was accused of pandering to bigots. One former MP said that they were appalled to see the effort put into changing the party on LGBTQ issues over the years. This Tory was in favor of improving things and, according to him, trust trashed their efforts during the election. So now I'd like to go to my favorite story. Okay. It's a little salacious. It involves the finished Prime Minister and I'd like to, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you the whole thing. I have a picture before you. Well, I don't know because I still have some stuff that we have. Okay, well, let me just do this. I have a picture before you now of finished Prime Minister, Sana Maron, and that is juxtaposed with a very racy picture that leaked on social media that occurred at a party she was having. So the two women, as you see, are topless and kissing at a party held at her house in July. And I looked up the finished word over their picture and it means barracks, so I don't know what that means. But in my opinion, the picture is not appropriate. I apologize for it, she said. That kind of picture should not have been taken, but otherwise nothing extraordinary happened as they get together. Last week, she, Maron, who's with the Social Democratic Party, faced criticism after a video of the 36 year old world leader drinking and dancing leaked online. She said that she was upset that the video was leaked, even though she knew she was being filmed at the time. I spent the evening with my friends, partied, even in a rowdy way. Dancing sang, she said, I myself have not used drugs nor anything other than alcohol. Nor have I been in such a situation that I would have seen or known others using drugs. I was dancing, singing, partying, hugging my friends, doing totally legal things. Other politicians in Finland criticized her, including Central Party member, member Miko Karna, who demanded she take a drug test. People are entitled to expect this from their prime minister. He said she took the test and passed the drug test. Now pictures and videos of a separate event are being shared online. She said she invited some people over to her residence on July 8th after a music festival. They spent the evening in the sauna, otherwise nothing extraordinary happened. A month later, Finnish tic-tac influencer Sabrina Sarka, who is pictured on the left in the kissing picture, posted a private picture from the event of her kissing another woman while both of them lifted their tops up. The word Finland covers their breasts, you can see this. Not only did she, Maren, apologize, but Sarka did too, saying that she didn't mean to cause further embarrassment for the prime minister. Maren has been in office since late 2019 and now she says she's getting more worried about people filming her. I feel like footage is being shot of me all the time everywhere and it doesn't feel good. She said last week, even normal things are made to look bad. Other people, this is the online response that I want to share with you. Online people praised Maren for being cool and supportive of LGBTQ people. Congrats on making her seem more and more cool, one person said. Good for them, said another. Okay, how can I become a citizen of Finland? Said a third. Finland is a wonderful, beautiful country and Maren has done an excellent job in her leadership role. To be honest, from an objective Western observer, I wish the West had more leaders like her, regardless of these attempts to smear her publicly. So that's kind of interesting news from Finland. Yes. I love Finland. I've never been there. Well, I haven't either, but I like what I hear. May I just? You have a clip and then we should move on. All right, well, I have a brief headline a German man dies after an attack at a Pride event in Munster, Germany. He was 25. People were heckling somebody who was marching on the Christopher Street Day, which is what they celebrate in Germany. And they hit, knocked him to the ground and he died. So he's, the men fled, so they haven't been apprehended. But now, speaking of Germany, I'd like to talk about great freedom. And I digress just for a moment. When I taught Cabaret, the Berlin stories by Christopher Isherwood, that Cabaret is based on, that took place as the Nazis were taking over Germany. I used to teach about paragraph 175, a horrible law that had been in place since the 19th century in Germany, but that the Nazis stepped up. So even at the end of the war, gay men who had been imprisoned under paragraph 175 were released from concentration camps and then sent to jail. So, great freedom is a film you can see on Amazon and WUBI, and let me tell you about it before I share the clip. In Germany, after World War II, the liberation by the Allies did not mean freedom for everyone. Hans has been found guilty of something the government deems a crime, he is gay. Under the 19th century German penal code as paragraph 175, homosexuality is grounds for imprisonment and Hans over the course of multiple decades is spied on and repeatedly jailed solely for his sexuality. As he returns to prison again and again, Hans develops an ever closer relationship with his cellmate, Victor, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. As their charged rapport blossoms over time into something far more tender, great freedom explores love, lost time, and the tenacity of the human spirit. So let's take a look at a clip from great freedom. I really want to see it. I know. Looks good, I really want to see it. I know. We tried to look at it, but we ran into some YouTube issues. Well, let's go to back to the United States. We're in Kansas City. A new Missouri law, applying to both public and private schools, makes it a crime for educated sixth-minors of books that contain sexually explicit material. The Missouri Library Association argued the law violates educational intellectual freedom. They said the library is the first place people could freely explore the world of ideas. Of course it is. And Yashiva University filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court to block a court order requiring the New York University to recognize a Pride Alliance, an LGBTQ student club. In court papers, the school says that as a deeply religious Jewish university, Yashiva cannot comply with that order because doing so would violate its sincere religious beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values. Lawyers for the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty representing Yashiva argued that the lower court's order is an unprecedented intrusion into the university's religious beliefs and a clear violation of Yashiva's First Amendment rights. So we'll see how that goes. A New York Court of Appeal refused to review the Nile of a state prompting school officials to petition the high court, but it has not yet ruled on the merits of the dispute. Transgender woman Maddie Hoffman, 47, was shot to death by police in Malvern, PA in May news that has recently. It's news has been just recently widely reported. Police were called to Hoffman's home to do a wellness check. May 19th at the receiving airport that a woman there was having a mental health crisis. Hoffman approached them outside the house holding a handgun and a cell phone. Hoffman dropped the gun at one point and then picked it up inside the house and struggled with a police officer for it. Hoffman then pointed it at the officers and then one of them fatally shot the trans woman. And I'd like to do a tribute to Susan Silverman. Oh please do. And as you can see here is a photo of her. This is the iconic photo of her running. But she was a lesbian and civil rights activist whose activism spanned over five decades. Passed away in early money on August 24th. She was 73 years old. Silverman had been a resident of the John C. Anderson LGBTQ friendly apartments on Logan Street since 2014. Silverman was born at Brooklyn Jewish Women's Hospital on February 24th, 1949. The daughter of Unionist and the sister of a freedom writer. Her activists began with groups including the New York radical women which protested the Miss America pageant in 1968 due to its stereotypical treatment of women. That year Silverman came out at 19 years old. She was living on Manhattan's Lower East Side and working on the Steery Committee at Alternative U, a lecture hall in meeting space when the Stonewall riots took place in June, 1969. In the weeks after Stonewall, Silverman copied flyers and secured meeting space at Alternative U for the first meeting of what would become Gay Liberation Front. She then became a member of GLF and Gay Youth. Speaking out and working for LGBTQ rights while continuing work on women's rights. From there she joined Lesbian Liberation Group, popularly referred to as Lavender Menace, and organized the group Radical Lesbians with other LM members. As part of Radical Lesbians with other LM members which rallied against homophobia at the National Organization for Women, Silverman and other members disrupted now's 1972nd Congress to unite women and held a teach-in telling audiences about their lives and pushing back on people's misconception about lesbians. So she will be greatly missed. And that action is memorialized in the film She's Beautiful When She's Angry that many audience members have seen. And my friend Karla Jay was her friend and a fellow member of all these groups and she wrote a lovely tribute on Facebook to her. So it's very sad. It's very, very sad. And the Northwest Public School District is being accused of discontinuing its Nebraska School newspaper due to coverage of LGBTQ issues. While the decision details are still not entirely certain, some students feel that they have been censored despite this, how the newspaper was funded is also unclear. And so discussions about First Amendment rights are being sparked by this controversy. Recent press surrounding the Nebraska School newspaper is shining a light on conflicting community issues. While many parents are concerned that schools are indoctrinating their children to adopt gender theory, students are becoming increasingly open to the concept of gender spectrum. This led the editor of the school, Papal the Saga to run a piece called Pride and Prejudice, LGBTQIA+, for the last edition of the school year. Covered Pride and Month Origins and detail the history of homophobia. And we heard a report on that on gay USA and our mentor Andy Humph said, start your, spoke to the students, start your own newspaper. And briefly, I saw this, but I didn't. Maybe I'll do it for next time, but it seems like for those who remember Farron, the musician and writer of the music. She's still alive, right? She's still alive. She's 65 years old, lives in Washington State, I believe, is trying to make a comeback. And for those who remember her, she was a beautiful songwriter and she was compared to Dylan early on in her career. Just incredible work. Senate Democrats upon return from August recess are weighing whether to include a provision seeking to codify same-sex marriage into law as part of a measure that would temporarily continue funding the government as lawmakers hammer out the budget for the upcoming year. Something Senator, Senate Democrats have been considering in recent days is possibly adding marriage equality to continue a resolution. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the talks talks to the Washington blade on Tuesday morning, the news was first reported on Punch Bowl news. Supporters of the Respect for Marriage Act, which seeks to codify same-sex marriage into law aimed amid fears of U.S. Supreme Court may rescind its after its decision of overturning Roe versus Wade have said they've been working on securing 10 Republican votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. The House approved the legislation in July. And a 23-year-old Tennessee man arrested by DC police on August 24th outside the Lynn Hotel near DuPont Circle for threatening two hotel workers with a handgun while saying his gun is only for faggots pleaded guilty on Tuesday in DC. Superior Court is part of a plea bargain offer by prosecutors, Dillon Nation, a resident of, I think this is Wallatois, Tennessee, who was a guest at the hotel at the time of the incident pleaded guilty on August 30th to attempt to dissolve with a dangerous weapon in carrying a pistol without a license outside a home or business. So, I know. So, and then lastly, I would like to tell people that there's going to be a queer takeover at Charlie O's. One is September 7th, which will be too late by the time you hear this, but the next is September 21st at 7 p.m. So, get down to Charlie O's in Montpelier and whoop it up. And just to close out with some book news, our LGBTQ Momentum Rainbow Umbrella Book Group is going to meet on Sunday, September 25th at 3 o'clock on Zoom, and we're going to read DeTransition Baby by Tori Peters. And so if anybody is interested in joining a book group, we are open. Our book group in particular. Yeah. We're open to having people come and join us. It's a great group. It's fun. Lots of fun. Okay, do we have anything else we want to report on? Well, I guess not. Okay. We look forward to the return of our regular Keith. Yes, and he's probably enjoying himself wherever he is. And I guess our personal news is we're going to celebrate our 40th anniversary. Yes, and so we're going to the Cape. That's right. I know. Having a little trip to Pito. And maybe we'll tell you about that when we get back. We're going to a book fair. We're going to a book fair and we're going to see some interesting plays, one of which is LGBTQ. So maybe we'll do a little play review, but in any case, that's it from us. Okay. So remember, Resist. Resist.