Gay News

An advertising poster of two men in a passionate embrace has been censored by Brisbane City Council'.

Lifestyle chairman Krista Adams has deemed the image too confronting and banned it, pending a review by the Advertising Standards Board.

The image in question, a parody of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's passionate beach embrace in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity , was designed as a publicity poster for the Brisbane Queer Film Festival which begins at the Powerhouse on March 28.

The ban could potentially expose the council to liability under the anti-discrimination act, by anybody who feels aggrieved by this decision.

While many in Brisbane's gay community are 'outraged', Powerhouse artistic director Kris Stewart played down council's decision.

We got word from Krista there were reservations about one of the three images we had planned. My sense was it is a very sexualised image and the decision would have been the same whether it was two men or a man and a woman.

A Russian court has fined a newspaper editor for publishing an interview with a gay school teacher who was quoted as saying homosexuality is normal.

Alexander Suturin, editor of the Molodoi Dalnevostochnik, a weekly published in the city of Khabarovsk, was ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 rubles (£870) for supposedly publishing gay propaganda .

The prosecutor claimed that the statement: My very existence is effective proof that homosexuality is normal, goes against logic. She said:

By offering it to underage readers, the author is misleading them about the normality of homosexuality.

Suturin is to appeal against the ruling.

Porn production is struggling in California. Since the passage of Measure B in 2012, which strictly imposes the use of condoms on all porn sets in Los Angeles, adult movie production has largely begun to move out of the San Fernando Valley. However, gay porn company Falcon Studios is now attempting to hearken back to the days before the measure was passed. In their latest release California Dreamin' 1 , the studio filmed all its scenes with condoms but managed to digitally remove the prophylactics in post-production.

Director Tony DiMarco stated on the Falcon Studio blog that the film is meant to tap into fantasies of bareback sex in the 1970s and 80s, while also aligning with the safe sex ethos that is currently being enforced in LA:

With this movie I really wanted to capture the essence of that time, when life seemed more carefree and spontaneous. In keeping with this concept, I felt that condoms need to be addressed. The decision to go with this technique appears to strike a middle ground between Measure B and the porn industry's belief that scenes without condoms are a better sell with consumers.

Nevertheless, while Falcon Studios seems committed to their new style of filming, it's unclear if it will catch on. The company doesn't make clear how expensive it is to painstakingly remove condoms during sex scenes.

The christian moralist campaign group, One Million Moms has called for sponsors to withdraw from the Disney Channel show, Good Luck Charlie . The group spews:

Alerting all parents! If Good Luck Charlie goes through with introducing LGBT content, then the floodgates will be opened for all programs on the Disney Channel - a trend that will be almost impossible to stop.

Disney Channel has very few sponsors and advertisers on its network. Care.com was the only Disney Channel sponsor that was promoted during the January 19, 2014, newest episode of Good Luck Charlie. Care.com often sponsors programs on the Disney network.

An upcoming episode in this last season of Good Luck Charlie will feature a family with two moms, a first for Disney Channel. Because Good Luck Charlie is coming to a close, the characters are only expected to appear in one episode. However, one episode is enough, especially since the network repeatedly airs reruns of all its programs.

One Million Moms launched an email campaign in 2013 that urged Disney officials to abandon their plans to corrupt the children's network with LGBT content. However, Disney officials have not responded to the thousands of emails protesting their plans. Disney has decided to be politically correct instead of providing family-friendly programming. Disney should stick to entertaining, not pushing an agenda.