Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where [...]]]> Alert:

Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies… Firouz, understandably, has requested asylum from the British government. Much to everyone’s shock and dismay, the British Home Office has rejected her application for refugee status. Yes, they know she’s gay. Yes, they know she could be deported back to Iran at any time, and that if this happens, Firouz will most likely be sentenced to torture and death after being found guilty of the “unspeakable sin of homosexuality” because she has participated in explicit lesbian sex scenes in the movie, and been a fierce proponent for human rights in her country.

Louisville candidate Mike Slaton is getting some national attention. We highly endorse him–please vote for him in the primary!

The Episcopal church has just ordained Mary Glasspool, a lesbian, as a bishop.

Tim Pawlenty, possible presidential hopeful, is set to veto a bill allowing same-sex couples the same end-of-life rights as straight couples.

New homophobic activist tactic: march around with a pro-pedophilia sign, since that’s next if the gays can marry. Let’s hope this doesn’t get trendy.

Gay rights opponents are… inching closer to death.

Elena Kagan has been nominated to be a Supreme Court Justice, and there’s confusion about her stance on abortion. We’re inclined to say that, as the linked article describes, Kagan’s history shows more of a sense of politics than anything.

Missouri gets in on restricting abortion rights, while doctors in Oklahoma are criticizing stringent new state regulations. Meanwhile, forced-to-Independent former Republican Charlie Crist may veto an anti-choice bill in Florida.

This could be excellent: scientists are at work on a male contraceptive that relies on ultrasound and would last for six months a dose.

In other stupid Missouri news, a bill on sexual businesses has passed. From the article:

Some House Democrats temporarily stalled the bill this year with a variety of objections. They said it infringed on the free market, cut into local control, placed religious and political viewpoints into law and would force some businesses to close — driving up unemployment and reducing state tax revenues.

“If we had a vote by secret ballot, this bill would die,” said Rep. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, who voted against the bill. “But everybody wants to be holier than thou.”

The Missouri legislation would apply to strip clubs, adult video and book stores and other businesses of a sexual nature, including semi-nude model studios.

It would ban full nudity, alcohol, anyone younger than 18 and touching between semi-nude employees and customers. To ensure strippers are off-limits, the bill requires semi-nude employees to remain on a stage at least 18 inches high and at least 6 feet from customers in a room of at least 600 square feet.

The bill also requires sexually oriented businesses to close at midnight and prohibits them from locating within 1,000 feet of homes, schools, churches, libraries, parks, day cares or other sexually oriented businesses.

Here’s a great example of how politics can increase stupid legislated sex-negativity.

A must-read piece detailing the Kentucky Values Coalition–another group claiming they defend “family values” while actually behaving in quite a slimy manner.

Funny and informative Cracked list of sexperts who made the world a worse place [to do it].

Retro sex ed videos! And they are… interesting.

ROCK also got more free press [...]]]> First off: the Kentucky House has approved an In God We Trust plate. As you might recall, ROCK’s been at it to get a vanity IGWT plate for years—should this pass, it effectively kills ROCK’s fundraising strategy, and if it doesn’t pass, we’re spared license plate theocracy. A true win-win!

ROCK also got more free press from WAVE-3 this week when their demands weren’t met by the Clarksville Town Council. Not so amusingly, half the very anti-ROCK comments were deleted, but it would seem public opinion actually isn’t so much on ROCK’s side. The WAVE-3 reporter’s email is above the text of the article and Clarksville’s Town Council can be reached at trishAtdigicoveDOTcom. Let’s make our sex-positive voices heard!

Another ROCK member got a letter in the Courier today. She writes,

When I read “A Super Bowl advertisement we can do without” by Timothy Rutten in The C-J’s Feb. 3 edition, I was already nodding my head in agreement to what I was sure was going to be a detractor of Go Daddy’s blatant use of porn culture and sexuality of women to sell its product.

Interestingly, the idea of porn culture is not strictly far right—many very liberal thinkers object to an oversexualized culture. PAPER, of course, advocates not a wholesale condemnation of pornography and sexuality, but striving toward a culture where sexuality is just one aspect of whole, healthy people. What’s more interesting, though, is the idea that sexuality of women is something objectionable. So much of porn’s titillation factor is in seeing women behave in unladylike ways; it might lose its more addicting quality if everyday women weren’t shamed for being sexual entities.

The Courier also printed an editorial on the terrorist Scott Roeder and more abortion-related letters to the editor.

Amanda Marcotte takes down “101 Reasons not to Have an Abortion” spectacularly.

A new anti-choice bill in Utah illegalizes miscarriages. Yeah, the anti-choice movement cares about women. Sure.

And more on Tebow: there are actually TWO anti-choice Tebow ads, both funded by the extremists at Focus on the Family. Unfortunately feminist reaction to the ad has not been received well.

At least there are the following touching and/or funny videos.

Planned Parenthood hired two sports notables–wisely, men, as anti-choicers aren’t going to respect women talking about why abortion is a force for good–to make the official counter-ad.

Florida’s Raging Grannies sing it like it is.

Jimmy Kimmel makes the most biting counter.

On the sad career of choice.

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s own Planned Parenthood and ACLU made a great showing in Frankfort for real sex ed. Real sex ed is getting proper funding again, thanks to Obama–Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards responds.

In other sex ed news, a new study said abstinence education works. Huh? Well, it’s not abstinence-only education, it’s sex ed that highlights the positives of abstinence while giving good health and contraception information. More on this here.

Sexting as kiddie porn is nothing short of absurd.

The Courier also opined on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and whew, the homophobia came rolling in. It’s not just Louisvillians: Ollie North said repealing DADT will lead to NAMBLA being in uniform, the American Family Association said gayness ought to be illegal, as did the Family Research Council. Remember, the AFA and FRC are two of ROCK and their ilk’s biggest sources of “evidence.” Neighborly, huh?

Although Obama and Hillary Clinton attended the National Prayer Breakfast, put on the theocratic group The Family, they condemned the Family’s work in hate-mongering and would-be genocide in Uganda. In the Courier, another religious GLBTQ-friendly voice was heard–come on, sane Christians, keep making noise.

A top Canadian music magazine named a transman for Canada’s sexiest man. Yay progressiveness!

Another disgusting little ploy: homophobes aren’t content with saying gays are evil, they’re ugly, too.

LA will not make condoms mandatory in porn, for a variety of reasons… link is more NSFW than most.

People always have questions about sex, most of which boil down to, “Am I normal?” Who cares?

Got a painfully curved penis? Help may be on the way.

The anatomy of sperm.

Make your gay relationship [or gay-friendliness] known in the Census.

The Obama administration has now banned bias over gender identity.

About the Prop 8 lawsuit, which will be televised.

New Jersey rejected gay marriage [...]]]> The Courier-Journal drama with Archbishop Kurtz continues to unfold in reader letters, more reader letters, and even more reader letters. And the comments were many.

Make your gay relationship [or gay-friendliness] known in the Census.

The Obama administration has now banned bias over gender identity.

About the Prop 8 lawsuit, which will be televised.

New Jersey rejected gay marriage this week, but the whole country of Portugal legalized it.

The Kill the Gays Bill saga in Uganda gained publicity when the New York Times covered it. More here, and about how evangelicals are trying to distance themselves here. Frankly, this should become the PR disaster for evangelicals that pedophile priests were for the Catholic church.

The AIDS/HIV travel ban has finally been lifted.

The sex addiction model isn’t harmless.

Revisiting purity balls, and yes, they’re still creepy and awful. And a new poll says most parents think their kids are “model citizens.”

Absurd: carrying three condoms in DC could get you arrested for prostitution.

A new study says guilt may lower women’s sex drives. Meanwhile, Amplify points out that when sex is normal, normal people talk about sex.

Did you know some of Toronto’s mental health professionals are painfully sex-negative? Kenneth Zucker is leading the transphobic wing of psychiatry, and the definition of paraphilia may expand so much that everyone is included.

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month.

Why do we forget that abortion is a fundamental right? Here’s Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards on reproductive justice around the world.

At our own EMW Women’s Clinic, the anti-choice protesters are now wearing orange “life escort” vests. Also picked up on Feministing.

Guess what? Abby Johnson , the former Planned Parenthood employee scared anti-choice by watching an abortion, is a big LIAR.

Catholic bishops have embraced anti-choice terrorists.

No shit: study says more frequent sex increases chance of pregnancy. Another study reminds us that sex is good for your health.

Alan Moore has just released a paean to erotic history.