Dubai launches yet another ‘morals’ crackdown on ‘cross-dressing’

image A rendering of the Palm Trump Hotel in Dubai (via blog)

Buildings in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai have taken on a bizarrely Jetsons-esqe quality as developers push architects and engineers to create ever-more unlikely and awkward structures.

But Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, is also attempting similar feats of social engineering.

The latest example of social engineering comes from the Ministry of Social Affairs which has launched a campaign called “Excuse me, I’m a girl”

The aim of the campaign, according to Khaleej Times, is “to combat a trend of girls cross-dressing as men in the UAE.”

The report doesn’t define what officials mean by “cross-dressing”, but prior reports from the emirate suggest that common Western clothing styles would fall under the definition.

One doctor told the Times reporters that  some cross-dressers believed they had the right to wear whatever they want.

“But they need to understand that they should respect the social values of the community and that they are living in a Muslim country,” the doctor said.

He recommended that parents and schools should “observe” the behavior and dressing styles of children.

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 07 Aug 2009 4:53 PM (PT)

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Out gay anchorman fired by Miami TV station

image A Miami TV station has fired out gay anchor Charles Perez after he filed a discrimination complaint against the station, WPLG TV – an ABC affiliate owned by the Washington Post Company’s Post/Newsweek group.

The complaint offers a unique glimpse behind the scenes of that odd world of local showbiz/celebrity that plays out in every city on the anchor desk of local newscasts. And it has just enough almost-juicy details that even TMZ has taken notice.

Steve Rothaus reports in his Miami Herald blog, Gay South Florida:

Late last week, Perez filed a discrimination complaint with Miami-Dade's Equal Opportunity Board.

Perez, 46, says in the complaint that station bosses demoted him to weekend anchor/reporter “because of their discomfort over the increasingly high profile of my sexual orientation.”

On April 3, Perez went to court seeking a restraining order against his former partner, Dennis Ricardo Peña, whom he accused of leaking a private e-mail concerning Perez’s ‘gender identity issues.’

Later that month, Perez claims he “began to disappear”' from station promotional spots. He lost the weeknight anchor seat July 22.

Perez confirmed to Rothaus that he was fired this week, “but said he couldn’t discuss the case until after he speaks with his agent.”

Perez’s business attorney, Melanie E. Damian, told the Miami Herald Thursday afternoon, “His employment has been terminated. We filed a charge of discrimination last week. We will now amend that to include his termination as part of his claims.”

WPLG’s vice president said in a statement to the Herald that “the actions of Charles Perez left us no real choice other than to terminate his employment contract.” In the statement, the station again “emphatically denies” Perez's charges of discrimination.

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 07 Aug 2009 12:51 PM (PT)

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Motown out; NJ harassment; Hawaii reprimand

   ::: An out gay candidate endorsed by Victory Fund emerged from a extraordinarily crowded primary ballot as the top vote-getter for Detroit city council in a low-turnout primary. Charles Pugh, a former anchor and reporter for a Detroit TV station, was one of an astounding 160 candidates for city council on the primary ballot. He earned 9 percent of the vote, but that was more than any other candidate. Pugh and 15 other top finishers will now face each other in November when voters will select eight at-large city council positions.

   ::: Robert Colle, a former police officer who accused other officers in in Milville, NJ of harassing him because he is gay has settled his federal lawsuit for $415,000. In his suit, Colle claimed he was subjected to ridicule from other officers, and that other officers refused to back him up on a call involving a disorderly woman. The agitated woman bit his finger to the bone, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in October, 2007. His attorney said Colle, who had been on leave since August 2007, resigned from the Millville police department as part of the settlement. None of the six police officers named in the suit was required to admit any wrongdoing, according to the settlement.

   ::: University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin got one more rebuke Monday for using a gay slur last week at a Western Athletic Conference (WAC) press conference. The WAC issued a reprimand to the coach for violating the conference’s sportsmanship code. McMackin previously agreed with UH administrators that he’d work for 30 days without pay as punishment for the remark. Meanwhile, ESPN columnist LZ Granderson wonders if the sportswriters at the presser shouldn’t share in the rebukes, since the writers were yukking it up as the coach used the slur.

[National Post] Out gay actor Adamo Ruggiero on coming out as character and person [showbiz]
[PinkNews] PR guru Max Clifford: 'If a gay footballer comes out, his career is over' [sports]
[PinkNews] Laramie Project: Ten Years Later to be shown across US [activism]
[GregInHollywood] Greg Hernandez chats with Kevin Rankin who plays a gay paramedic on NBC’s “Trauma” [showbiz]
[Baltomore Sun] Genesis of acclaimed movie 'Humpday' goes back to conversations at Maryland Film Festival [movies]
[Washington Blade] D.C. hopes to wow Gay Games officials this weekend in bid to host 2014 competition [sports]
[Newsweek blog] The Advocate Dings Obama on Gay Rights [politics]
[Reuters] Club kid? gay? Asian? Sex and the City wants you at NY casting call [showbiz] 
[Time] Gay vs. Orthodox: Israel's Culture War Turns Deadly [religion]
[Guardian comment, Daphna Baram] Gay shooting inflames debate in Israel [hate crimes]
[NorthJersey.com/WaPo] Time running short for gay Air Force officer (Fehrenbach) [dadt]
[Ars Technica] Hidden gay slur, search terms, get campaign site blacklisted by Google http://bit.ly/1Fcc12

Posted by NewsEditor -- 07 Aug 2009 11:04 AM (PT)

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Ref. 71 petition signatures still have too many errors

Thursday’s Referendum 71 signature checks in Washington continue to show an error rate on referendum petitions that is too high for the number of names submitted. The error rate has been increasing for checks done in the past two days.

From the blog maintained by Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office:

Referendum checkers, beefing up their efforts to determine whether R-71 gets a place on the statewide ballot, have processed another 3,831 signatures, bringing the total to over 27,000 checked so far. The latest daily count reflected an rejection rate approaching 15 percent.

The state Election Division crew rejected 573 signatures, mostly because the signers weren’t registered Washington voters, for a daily error rate of 14.96 percent. That was the highest daily error rate recorded in the first five days of signature-verification, and brought the cumulative error rate to 13.54 percent. That is somewhat above the 12.42 percent rate the sponsors will be able to absorb, once all signatures are counted.

It’s still too early to determine if the measure will make it onto the ballot, but the news for the past two days doesn’t look good for referendum backers.

If it makes it onto the November ballot, Referendum 71 would ask voters if they want to affirm or reject the expansion of rights and responsibilities for registered domestic partners that were passed in this year’s legislative session.

The grand totals so far:

27,288 checked, with 23,593 and 3,695 rejected — 3,226 for being a nonvoter, 90 duplicates, 295 for signature not matching and 84 pending county confirmation.

However, Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), the lead senate sponsor of the domestic partnership bills, said yesterday “the current rate of invalid signatures clearly suggests that R-71 won't make the ballot”. In his statement, reported yesterday by Seattle PI’s Strange Bedfellows blog, Murray disputes the math used on the Secretary of State’s blog to calculate the error rates. The PI prints his explanation of the math dispute.

(But, beyond it all, Reed and his spokesman David Ammons deserve kudos for the blog and for the office’s transparency on the whole issue.)

Source: From Our Corner

Posted by NewsEditor -- 07 Aug 2009 8:39 AM (PT)

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