person:rosie peaty

Expedia equal marriage advert sparks gay hate | Gay Star News
►http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/expedia-equal-marriage-advert-sparks-gay-hate091012

Expedia equal marriage advert sparks gay hate
Travel website’s recent campaign backing same-sex marriage sees homophobic backlash on Facebook and YouTube.
09 October 2012 | By Rosie Peaty
Expedia’s pro-gay marriage ad fuels Facebook controversy

Expedia’s recent advertising campaign backing same-sex marriage has seen a homophobic backlash on Facebook and YouTube.

The advert, created by the online travel website and called ’Find Your Understanding: Expedia Find Yours’, features a father accepting his daughter’s wedding to another woman.

But despite receiving over 1.4 million likes on Expedia’s Facebook page, the video received over 155 dislikes followed by hundreds of homophobic comments.

The video has been described by some as ’disgusting’ and an ’abomination’, with regular Expedia customers threatening to take their business elsewhere.

The message Expedia gives out is, ’Every trip is unique. On this trip, Artie Goldstein travels across the country to attend his daughter’s same-sex wedding.

’A journey that will test him, challenge him, and ultimately change him in unexpected ways.’

Donnie L Owens on Facebook said: ’When you give a life that is pleasing to GOD you will lose some family and friends but whatever you lose for his sake he will give you a hundredfold!

’If GOD is not pleased I’m not. We as christian’s have to teach our children the word of GOD and stop condoning sinful behavior!’

’Glad I was able to see this,’ writes Reggan Simons. ’I book all the business trips for our office and will no longer be using Expedia. This commercial is unrealistic and denies the real turmoil a family experiences with the issue of homosexuality.

’I don’t believe in same-sex marriage, my belief tells me it is wrong in the presence of God.

’My belief also tells me that I am not called to judge no one for that is God’s job,’ says Ines Reynoso.

’I am called to love my fellow man as I live myself. This was touching, God Bless that father for loving his daughter unconditionally because that is what we are called to d[sic]. Love conquers all.’

With the negative comments came the positive though, with many people praising the advert.

Facebook user, Pamela Smith Lucas, said: ’You love your child unconditionally - forever - regardless. Just accept people for who they are and life would be so much better.

’Love is love in any form, we all need it and deserve it. Equality!’

Whilst another user Jeanne Foust Ewinger wrote: ’I am so glad that this father chose to love his daughter completely even if her life was not going to fulfil all his dreams and wishes for her.

’For me, as a mother and a grandmother, all I want for those I love is for them to be happy.’

You can watch the video on YouTube below:

Top UK spy praises gay World War II hero Alan Turing | Gay Star News
►http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/top-uk-spy-praises-gay-world-war-ii-hero-alan-turing051012

Top UK spy praises gay World War II hero Alan Turing
Alan Turing has been praised by GCHQ director saying ’enduring lessons’ can be drawn from his work.
05 October 2012 | By Rosie Peaty
Alan Turing praised by GCHQ director and described as having a ’great mind’.

Alan Turing has been praised by leading British spy Iain Lobban, saying ’enduring lessons’ can be drawn from his work.

Lobban is director of GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), Britain’s ’listening station’ giving ears to its intelligence services.

He said there were ’many parallels between the way we work now and the way we worked then’ in reference to the World War II hero.

Turing, although virtually unknown to the public at the time, was a homosexual mathematician and a key part of the team that cracked the Nazi Enigma code at Bletchley Park.

There work was a vital part of the allied war effort and may have shorted the war by several years.

Lobban said Turing had played a key part in the ’irrevocable change’ that eventually led to the development of the ’highly technological intelligence organisation that GCHQ is today.’

Describing Turing as one of the ’great minds of the 20th century’ he said that staff at the organisation had demanded that he make ’a big public deal’ of Turing’s legacy as part of celebrations marking the centenary of the codebreaker’s birth.

Lobban said that the codebreaking work at Bletchley marked a shift to a mindset that ’started to see technology as something that could be pitted against technology’ which is why Turing is now widely recognised as a computing pioneer, despite his work being kept quiet until 1974.

Lobban said technology lies at the heart of our mission and expressed how engineers and technologists are an essential part of our success.

He added that key skills need to be developed in order for this to be carried out and said: ’We must inspire school children to study maths and science - we must find tomorrow’s Turings.’

During the rare public speech, Lobban also addressed the well known aspect of Turing’s homosexuality.

’The fact that Turing was unashamedly gay was widely known to his immediate colleagues at Bletchley Park: it wasn’t an issue,’ he said.

’I don’t want to pretend that GCHQ was an organisation with 21st century values in the twentieth century, but it was at the most tolerant end of the cultural spectrum.’

Later in his life, Turing was convicted of gross indecency after an affair with another man.

Instead of enduring a life in prison, he was subsequently obliged to take injections of female hormones in an effort to dull his sex drive and after his arrest he was no longer given an opportunity to carry out work for GCHQ.

He later committed suicide as a result. Attempts to grant him a posthumous pardon for his gay ’crime’ have so-far failed but former Prime Minister Gordon Brown did make a public apology for his treatment.

Lobban said ’we should remember that the cost of intolerance towards Alan Turing was his loss to the nation.’

He added that today it remained vital that the agency recruited the best people and did ’not allow preconceptions and stereotypes to stifle innovation and agility.’

’I want to apply and exploit their talent: in return, I think it’s fair that I don’t need to tell them how to live their lives,’ he said.

Gay men can now have their sex record scrapped | Gay Star News
►http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-men-can-now-have-their-sex-record-scrapped011012

Gay men can now have their sex record scrapped
Gay men in England and Wales who were convicted of having consensual sex with someone over 16 can now apply to have their criminal record wiped clean
01 October 2012 | By Rosie Peaty
The UK Parliament changed the law to allow gay men who only had consensual sex with people over 16 to have their criminal records wiped clean.

Men across England and Wales will be able to apply to have criminal convictions given for consensual gay sex scrapped from today (1 October).

Stonewall, Britian’s leading gay campaign organization, lobbyed for the axing of laws that criminalized gay sex as part of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said: ’Thousands of men who’ve been burdened with homophobic convictions can clear their names and Stonewall stands ready to help them.

’We never forget that the equality we enjoy today came too late for many.’

After laws were changed, many men were left with convictions and cautions such as gross indecency and buggery on their criminal records.

This left them feeling unable to apply for jobs as they feared their convictions could be revealed.

Men can have their convictions disregarded if two key conditions are satisfied, these being if the consensual person was 16-plus and if the sexual activity was not carried out in a public toilet, which is still illegal.

The act also includes amendments enabling gay and bisexual men maliciously convicted of ’loitering with intent’ under Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 to have those convictions removed too.

Summerskill added: ’By correcting these historic injustices we can start to bring closure to a very sad period of this country’s history.’

A form to have the offences disregarded can be downloaded from Stonewall’s site and today the charity will publish a step-by-step guide to help applicants exercise their new rights.