3/18/2012 This Way Out

Program #1,250

Hosted this week by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle

"NewsWrap": Multiple sources report that as many as a hundred young people perceived to be LGBT have been brutally murdered by religious militia in Iraq during the last month, while the UK's "Pink News" reports that an inflammatory article in a popular newspaper in Syria claims that gays have been "prospering" from the uprising against the entrenched regime of President Bashar al-Assad; Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko responds to comments by Germany's openly gay Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle that Lukashenko's government is the "last dictatorship in Europe" by saying that it's "better to be a dictator than gay"; Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI continues his crusade against marriage equality with a warning to visiting American bishops this week of "the powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage", while two senior Roman Catholic bishops in the UK tell parishioners that they have a "duty" to "ensure" that same-gender couples are never allowed to marry, while comments by Scotland's Roman Catholic Cardinal Keith O'Brien calling the idea of marriage equality "grotesque" are applauded by Zimbabwe's state-run "Herald" newspaper; what's come to be known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill in Tennessee, which would ban any discussion of homosexuality in public schools, continues to percolate in the US state's legislature, while Utah lawmakers pass legislation that not only bans classroom discussion of homosexuality, but also of contraception and sexual activity outside of marriage, and requires any school sex education to be abstinence-only, all of which one opposing legislator calls "a mandate against reality" (written by GREG GORDON with thanks to REX WOCKNER, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL and SARAH SWEENEY)

A groundbreaking panel discussion this week at the UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL in GENEVA addressed how to end violence and discrimination against LGBT people. A June 2011 resolution by the Council ordered the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report for the panel on how international human rights law can be used to eliminate such violence and bias. Delegates from several Islamic states walked out in protest. But a video message from UN SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON opening the event included supportive words for LGBT people around the world

MARYLAND's Democratic GOVERNOR MARTIN O'MALLEY was a guest on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" this week. He was proud that his state has opened civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples – even though a referendum on that right will likely be on the state ballot in November

Katy Butler, a bullied 17-year-old Ann Arbor, Michigan student, has spearheaded a change.org petition urging the Motion Picture Association of America to revise its rating of "BULLY", a documentary that addresses homophobic bullying, from "R", which bans anyone under the age of 17 from seeing it, to "PG-13", so that it can be shown in middle schools and high schools, where advocates say that it most needs to be seen. TV talk-show host ELLEN DEGENERES is among more than 225,000 people who've signed Katy's online petition, and she applauded the young activist on her program this week

Diverse young LGBT voices say "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE" (to live in a bigotry-free world of equality) in this audio track from the increasingly-popular YouTube video produced by poet/filmmaker RYAN JAMES YEZAK