Gay News

To the casual observer, the black flag with unfamiliar white symbols looked out of place among the colourful outfits and banners at London's gay pride march.

CNN certainly thought so, running photographs of the flag above a banner headline, saying: Isis flag spotted at gay pride event. The segment was billed as an exclusive and the network even lined up one of its top security analysts, Peter Bergen, to discuss its appearance.

However the flag was a spoof, with the apparent Arabic script actually being pictures of dildos, dongs and butt plugs.

Lucy Pawle, a CNN journalist, didn't spot the subtleties and went on air being surprised that no-one else had reacted to the flag.  She said:

This man dressed in black and white waving what appears to be a very bad mimicry of the Isis flag, but a clear attempt to mimic the Isis flag, the black and white flag with the distinctive lettering.

She also said that she had alerted the police to its presence.

The news clip has now been deleted.

A notoriously anti-gay Russian politician has suggested popular TV show and book Game of Thrones is harmful and should be banned.

Vitaly Milonov, who is a deputy in the St Petersburg legislature, and who was behind Russia's anti-gay propaganda law in its earliest form, claimed that one in ten characters in Game of Thrones is a sexual deviant . He told TASS:

We can see that the Internet and television have assumed a leading function in education, replacing or ousting altogether traditional methods of education and upbringing of the young generation. Denying the fact or pretending that nothing of the kind is going on is a short-sighted position.

It is not the point of scenes of violence or elements of advocating violence which is at issue. The point is that practically any product of culture, which is brought to us from the West, advocates values which provoke the formation of a certain paradigm of views on politics and the reality.

Nowadays, any game or a TV film series is not merely a merry thing to see. For example, in The Game of Thrones book every tenth character is a sexual deviant. Such products and their popularisation in this country might bring ideas to our minds that a certain conduct is a matter of fact thing.

Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai's runaway hit We're All Different, Yet the Same has been banned from the airwaves and television screens in Singapore, according to Hongkong's Mingpao News.

The ban was ordered by the music censors of the Media Development Authority. It means that television and radio stations will be fined if they air the song or the music video.

Under Singapore's censorship rules, broadcast content must not:

In any way promote, justify or glamorise... lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transsexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest.

Jolin Tsai said in a statement that she was disappointed with Singapore's decision as the song was her way of expressing her support of marriage equality through music. She would, however, respect differences in opinion.

The music video for We're All Different, Yet The Same features a wedding scene -- and a kiss -- between Jolin and Taiwanese actress Ruby Lin. It was inspired by the true story of a lesbian couple who has been together for 30 years. When one half of the couple was hospitalised and required surgery, her partner was unable to give consent because she was not legally recognised as a family member.

Unfreedom is a 2015 USA / India crime romance by Raj Amit Kumar.
Starring Victor Banerjee, Adil Hussain and Bhanu Uday.

In New York arrives a violent and angry man imprisoned by his brutal past, Mohammed Husain. His mission - to kidnap and kill a peaceful Muslim scholar, Fareed Rahmani. On the other side of the world, Leela Singh, a homosexual girl in New Delhi, kidnaps her bisexual lover, Sakhi Taylor. Her mission - to marry her lover and live happily ever after. In a brutal struggle of identities against unfreedom, four characters, in two of the world's largest cities, come face to face with most gruesome acts of torture and violence. The choices they make when they are most cornered in life, expose the blemished reality of contemporary world.

India: Banned by the CBFC, March 2015

The film is the story of a young girl who resists a forced arranged marriage to unite with her lesbian partner. The nudity and lovemaking scenes of the female protagonists, 'outraged' the Indian Board of film censors.

Add to it a parallel story line which revolves around a liberal Muslim kidnapped by a terrorist and the CBFC was up in arms.

Speaking from the US, the director told Mirror, The two stories are juxtaposed and the film challenges the idea of religious fundamentalism and questions its connection with homosexuality which is a biting reality of India.

He added that the film was refused by both the Examining Committee and the Revising Committee. They plainly told me that after watching the film, Hindu and Muslims will start fighting and will ignite unnatural passions. I was aghast as my film is not provocative.

The filmmaker then appealed to the Film Certification Apellate Tribunal (FCAT) but this time too, he was denied a certificate. I'm making an appeal in the High Court now as the Censor Board cannot tell a filmmaker what to make and what not to, said the filmmaker

Update: Director to appeal the ban in court

4th April 2015. See article from hindustantimes.com

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) recently banned the release of Unfreedom, a film based on a lesbian relationship, on the grounds that it will supposedly ignite unnatural passions . The board reportedly also had a problem with a storyline in which a liberal Muslim girl is kidnapped by terrorists.

Kumar has decided to file court case against the CBFC. I have appealed to the high court asking them to allow me to release the film.

The director said that the board primarily had a problem with the portrayal of religious fundamentalism in the film. Everyone believes that the reason for banning the film is homosexuality, but that's just a part of the problem. The religious fundamentalism, which I am dealing with in the film, bothers them even more, Kumar said.

The chief censor, Pahlaj Nihalani said:

The film was brought to the censor board back in November last year, when I had not even joined office. They (previous panel) had not cleared the film. So, the filmmaker approached the Examining Committee later, which refused a certification to the film. He then went to the Revising Committee, which passed the film with an A certificate, after suggesting a few cuts. However, the producer was still not satisfied, and he approached the tribunal (the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal) in Delhi. And the Tribunal also refused to certify the film. And now, the director is planning to move the court.

Kumar spoke of the cuts requested by the censors:

I don't even want to talk about the kind of cuts they asked me to make in my film. It was not only cutting a few scenes, it was more about removing a particular thought and expression. They have no business telling a filmmaker what to put in his film. They cannot curb our creativity. Who are they to decide what goes in my film and what doesn't.