A petition to ban an annual gay pride festival in Seoul, South Korea, has received over 200,000 signatures.
The petition was started on Blue House, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s official website, on June 14th. It has since garnered support from traditionalists and religious groups, who are calling for an end to the “abominable” three-day Queer Culture Festival taking place this weekend in Seoul Plaza.
The festival, currently in its 19th year, will include art exhibitions, a film festival and the Seoul Queer Parade on Saturday, July 14.
According to Britain’s Telegraph, the petition says that they are not advocating “discriminating against sexual minorities,” but that the Plaza should not host the festival because it belongs “to all citizens.”
“We do not want to see their abominable events in a square where we should be able to rest and relax,” it reads. “Every year, queer-themed events such as street performances, drinking and smoking are called ‘cultural festivals,’ but they are just occasions filled with illegal acts and hypocrisy.”
The petition added: “Homosexuals and normal people should not engage in such perverse and obscene events in a plaza that is meant to be a space for citizens to relax. True human rights are not indulgences.”
While homosexuality is not illegal in South Korea, traditional Korean society disapproves of LGBTQ people and relationships. Same-sex marriages are also not considered legitimate by the government and committing homosexual acts while active in the military is an offense that carries up to one year in prison.
Police arrested a former Jackson Police Department officer who allegedly killed his ex-boyfriend in a bloody attack at a Jackson, Mississippi apartment complex.
Police mounted a search for 33-year-old Marcus Johnson in connection with the murder of 25-year-old Carlos Collins, a registered nurse who hailed from Yazoo City.
Collins was killed on April 9 at the Tapestry Northridge Apartments, off Parkway Drive near Old Canton Road, in the northeastern part of Jackson.
According to WAPT, members of Collins family said police told them that Collins succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained during the attack, and that an axe was used during the murder.
The United States is now seeing over 200,000 syphilis cases annually, the highest figure since the 1950s.
Imagine the voice of Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo saying, “Picture it, United States 1951, I Love Lucy was kicking off its first season, super glue had just been invented, and there were 140,000 syphilis cases reported across the country.”
By 2000, however, decades of public health advocacy and medical advancements, such as the use of antibiotics in early treatment, had cut down cases to just 32,000 per year.
So, what happened? Why are the numbers worse now than they were 24 years ago?
At around 2 a.m. on March 9, a security camera outside of Precinct, a gay bar in downtown Los Angeles, caught two men dressed in black and carrying cocktail glasses walking around the corner from the bar's main entrance. They entered an exterior hallway leading to the bar's employee entrance.
The men set their glasses on a nearby railing, unzipped their pants, and appeared to urinate in a corner between the door and the entranceway.
In the video, two other men are seen passing by the entranceway but not entering it, just moments as the taller of the two men appears to zip up his fly and looks around furtively. The video cuts out shortly after that.
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