“Malaysia’s prime minister has offered help to a Muslim couple detained in Sweden for hitting their son, in a case that has provoked an outcry in the Southeast Asian country,” The Local reports.
The Malaysian newspaper The Star has more.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the truly great actors in Hollywood, has died in his New York flat.
“Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Tuesday that an international nuclear agreement with Iran is possible within six months,” The Local reports. I really, truly wish he were right, but I don’t think Iran has any intention to give up its heavy weaponry.
“The Scottish Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of legislation that will permit gay marriages,” The Scotsman reports. Hurrah!
Gossip website Page Six tells the sad story of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s addiction.
“By turning a blind eye to hateful homophobic rhetoric and violence, Russian authorities are sending a dangerous message as the world is about to arrive on its doorstep for the Olympics that there is nothing wrong with attacks on gay people,” says Tanya Cooper of the Human Rights Watch.
I came across this picture and loved it. Photo by Wikipedia user “Fpo74”.
“For those of you asking, when there’s no lobby in your hotel, you go to the owner’s bedroom to check in,” Mark MacKinnon writes in a tweet.
The Washington Post has collected some hilarious tweets.
The Eurosceptic think tank Capital Economics has once again published a report saying that a country—this time the Netherlands—would benefit from leaving the EU. As so many times before in similar reports, the whole conclusion is based on the assumption that Europe would somehow remain a single market without the EU. The Eurosceptics never seem able to recognise that Europe without the EU was an Europe of borders, duties, and government subsidies.
Read about the report at EU Observer.
Åsa Linderborg is the most prominent of Sweden’s anti-Semitic communists. She was the editor who sparked the 2009 Aftonbladet controversy by publishing an article claiming that Jews are harvesting human organs of Palestinian youth. Now she’s at it again—but this time, gay activists are bad people because we criticise Russia for its government-sponsored homophobia. Why? Because there are some US states with widespread homophobia, too.
This is what Russian Internet users see when they visit Google. Love it!
Ulrika Westerlund, head of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, was held in custody in a Moscow prison earlier tonight. Her crime? Carrying a rainbow flag.
But not everything is bad. The Guardian has posted pictures of rainbow logos companies have made to back gay rights during the Sochi Olympics.
“Attorney General Holder to extend recognition of same-sex marriage rights to all states,” CNN reports on Twitter.
This and many more absurd questions are gay asylum seekers in Britain required to answer, Pink News reports.
“A Swedish fermented herring expert has been called to help ’disarm’ a 25-year-old can of the odorous Swedish delicacy that managed to literally raise the roof of a cabin in northern Norway,” The Local reports.
I’m sure Surströmming can also kill you by its stench alone.
As the American footballer Michael Sam came out yesterday, Mississippi State University’s Rufus Warren tweets, “I don’t have a problem with gay people… Be happy! But I look down on gay football players… This is a MAN sport! And being gay is not a man.”
Some people are born idiots.
Vocativ reports on a strange tradition—white people painted black.
“Scientists have moved a step closer to achieving sustainable nuclear fusion and almost limitless clean energy,” the Guardian reports. Great news!
This is Kansas in 2014:
When passed, the new law will allow any individual, group, or private business to refuse to serve gay couples if “it would be contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.” Private employers can continue to fire gay employees on account of their sexuality. Stores may deny gay couples goods and services because they are gay. Hotels can eject gay couples or deny them entry in the first place. Businesses that provide public accommodations—movie theaters, restaurants—can turn away gay couples at the door. And if a gay couple sues for discrimination, they won’t just lose; they’ll be forced to pay their opponent’s attorney’s fees.[…]
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to barring all anti-discrimination lawsuits against private employers, the new law permits government employees to deny service to gays in the name of “religious liberty.” This is nothing new, but the sweep of Kansas’ statute is breathtaking. Any government employee is given explicit permission to discriminate against gay couples—not just county clerks and DMV employees, but literally anyone who works for the state of Kansas. If a gay couple calls the police, an officer may refuse to help them if interacting with a gay couple violates his religious principles. State hospitals can turn away gay couples at the door and deny them treatment with impunity. Gay couples can be banned from public parks, public pools, anything that operates under the aegis of the Kansas state government.
This is not only homophobia but also abuse of religious freedom.
Update: This from Kansas City Star is hilarious:
Republicans say the bill does not target gay people. The wording of the bill would allow someone with a “sincerely held” religious belief against heterosexual marriage to deny service to a straight couple, they say.
I wonder if the same policy would be accepted had it been about skin colour. There are, after all, quite a few religious organisations advocating racism.
Early expressionistic painting by El Greco (1541–1614).
This review of Sam Harris’s book on Free Will is a joy to read. I don’t believe for a minute that the determinists are right. On the contrary, we are the result of the choices we make, not the machines that some predetermined force made us.
Whilst most Europeans are aware of the Palestinian refugees, few know that a greater number of Jews were forced out of Muslim countries at the same time. The Economist has now done what most European media never does—taking the Jewish experience under consideration.
Tomorrow, I’m leaving Sweden for a weekend in Amsterdam, where nature thinks it’s spring.
Today, Uganda’s president is planning to sign into law one of the worst anti-gay laws in the world. Sign the petition against it here.
The Ugandan president has signed the anti-gay law. It means life imprisonment for gay people and seven years imprisonment for anyone helping them.
This graph is from a pamphlet by Swedish Pastor Sigvard Svärd. It intends to show is the strong relationship between “Christian values” and good quality of life. This in contrast to the living hell amongst those with “homo values”. Apparently, it’s these “homo values” that caused the discrimination and violence that makes some people more inclined to experience these bad things and subsequently have a less-than-perfect life. Personally, I think it would be much more interesting to see what relationship there is between the bad treatment experienced by gay people and the bigoted self-righteousness of homophobic Christians.
