Gay News

Last December, an HIV-awareness billboard commissioned from gay artist Poko Murata appeared in the Tokyo gay district of Shinjuku Ni-chome. The billboard, advertising the AIDS pharmaceutical company Viiv Healthcare, featured a ring of Japanese men alongside the text, There are people living with and without HIV and we're all already living together.

In January, Murata received a complaint from the Shinjuku district office that his billboard was contrary to public order and morality because of one of the men in his ad was wearing only underwear. After re-drawing the man in a slightly unzipped pair of shorts, the office continued to complain because the man's underwear was still visible.

The artist himself considers the complaint an obvious prejudice and discrimination against gays, especially considering that the district has numerous advertisements for straight bars featuring real-life women in skimpy underclothes.

A clothed version of Murata's sign was placed over the original earlier this week.

Perennial moral campaigners of One Million Moms have their latest whinge against a US cereal advert:

Nabisco should be ashamed of themselves for their latest Honey Maid and Teddy Graham cracker commercial where they attempt to normalize sin. Right away it shows two men with a baby, followed by other families, and ends with different families pictured including the one with two dads. This commercial not only promotes homosexuality, but then calls the scene in the advertisement wholesome. The ad states, Everyday wholesome snacks for every wholesome family. This is wholesome.

One Million Moms stands up for Biblical truth which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion.

Honey Maid is also using the hashtag #thisiswholesome. There is concern about the way this ad is pushing the LGBT agenda, but an even greater concern is the way that they are changing the meaning of the word wholesome.

This is truly sad. If this is what Honey Maid thinks is wholesome, then my family will no longer purchase Honey Maid or Nabisco products.

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.