Gays in public

A Tennessee city abandons its ban on being gay in public

Under pressure from a lawsuit over an anti-LGBTQ capital ordinance, officials in a Tennessee town removed language that banned homosexuality in public this month.

You read that right: Murfreesboro's "public decency" ordinance, passed in June,listed various "indecent" behaviors in the Murfreesboro city code, including "homosexuality," alongside "acts of masturbation" and "sexual intercourse." Opponents said it effectively banned existence gay in general and contributed to systematic discrimination against the city's LGBTQ communities in a state with an already-sordid record.

In October, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city on behalf of the Tennessee Equality Plan (TEP), accusing it of enacting the ordinance to commute Murfreesboro's LGBTQ people — particularly flamboyant performers — out of public spaces and to block TEP from hosting its BoroPride Festival on city grounds.

The removal of "homosexuality" from the list of indecent behaviors went into outcome on Nov. 17. Although the ACLU welcomed the convert, the group is proceeding with the lawsuit in the hope that courts will declare the ordinance unconstitutional.

The ‘Global Closet’ is Huge—Vast Majority of World’s Lesbian, Lgbtq+, Bisexual Population Cover Orientation, YSPH Learn Finds

The vast majority of the world’s sexual minority population — an estimated 83 percent of those who determine as lesbian, queer or bisexual — keep their orientation hidden from all or most of the people in their lives, according to a unused study by the Yale School of Public Health that could have major implications for global public health.

Concealing one’s sexual orientation can lead to significant mental and physical health issues, increased healthcare costs and a dampening of the public public presence necessary for improving equal rights, said John Pachankis, Ph.D., associate professor at the Yale Educational facility of Public Health. He co-authored the study with Richard Bränström, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and study affiliate at Yale.

Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the study is believed to be the first seek to quantify the size of the “global closet” in order to gauge its public health impact.

“Given rapidly increasing acceptance of sexual minorities in some countries, it might be easy to assume that most sexual minorities are

LGBTQ Rights

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Employers with 15 or more employees are prohibited by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act from discriminating on the basis of sex. Some courts have ruled that Title VII also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Supreme Court recently announced it will hold up this question in three cases. In addition, many states and cities have laws that ban this kind of discrimination.

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Public Attitudes Towards Homosexuality and Gay Rights Across Age and Countries

Introduction

Available evidence indicates that the position of gays and lesbians in societies and the legal status of homosexuality possess undergone notable changes in recent decades. In some countries, attitudes have change into much more supportive of gay and lesbians rights and more accepting of homosexual behavior. For example, in Great Britain, the percent saying that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender were “always wrong” fell from 64% in 1987 to 22% in 2012 (Park & Rhead 2013) and in the Joined States approval of lgbtq+ marriage climbed from 11% in 1988 to 48% in 2012 (Smith & Son 2013). Collective behaviors have also changed. For example, the first gay-pride parades were held in the United States in June 1970. These hold expanded into mass annual events that attract over a million attendees in a number of countries (Encarnacion 2011; Johnston 2005, 2007). The legal status and rights of gays and lesbians have also expanded. For example, in 2000, the Netherlands became the first country to recognize gay marriage and by 2013, 15 countries plus sections of two other countries had