Conservative Christians around the nation have been clamoring for increased religious protections to match the advances made by by gay rights groups. The latest attempt fell flat yesterday in Arizona when Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoed Senate Bill 1062, which would have effectively sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by businesses in the state.
“Revenge porn” websites typically run sexually explicit or suggestive photos of individuals along with identifying information. They got the name “revenge porn” because, initially, a lot of the photos and films that got online were posted as an act of revenge by a jilted lover. But “revenge” is not the right descriptor, considering the tactics used by many operators of such sites. A much more apt term, perhaps, is “involuntary porn.” Now meet its barons.
Saying that the 2009 AIDS-denialist film House of Numbers is bunk is nothing new. What is new, however, is that YouTuber Myles Power knows how to make a video that people want to watch and share. To date, his five debunking videos have reached 40,529 people — not just readers of the New York Times or subscribers to the Lancet or people seeking information about AIDS specifically, but laypeople of all stripes. That has power. And that’s why he must be silenced.
A woman in the United Kingdom recently attempted to sue her attorneys for failing to convey to her that getting a divorce would effectively terminate her marriage. Jane Mulcahy, a Catholic, didn’t know that judicial separation was an option. She feels her attorneys were negligent in that they failed to make this option available to her. Though funny, this is actually an option a lot of people pursue, and not just for religious reasons.
Last week presented a brief moment of vindication for men and women in relationships that fall outside the realm of the couple. In a 91-page decision, Federal District Court Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that Utah’s bigamy law, which forms part of their prohibition against polygamy, was too broad because it bans not only being married to more than one person, but also prohibits cohabitating with someone other than one’s spouse.
Gone are the days when a flight attendant would welcome you back to your seat after a tryst in the lavatory with bubbly and a quip about the Mile-High Club. Since 9/11, staying in a lavatory too long has become a serious offense. The frisky passengers who haven’t let that stop them — opting for entry into the Club right in their seats — have unsurprisingly pushed flight attendants to adopt a far stricter response to public displays of affection. Things are not at all helped by people who have no regard for discretion, but what does the law say about sex on a plane?
News outlets do a stand-up job of publicizing incidents of impropriety on the parts of teachers, whether it’s because they are sleeping with students or because they are hiding previous involvement in some facet of the sex industry, but we never hear about the harassment that teachers and other faculty face at the hands of their own students. It’s not that it doesn’t happen — a survey by the American Association of University Women found that 36 percent of high school students report instances of student-on-teacher harassment, with four percent of students polled self-disclosing their harassment of a teacher.
Theresa May, home secretary in the United Kingdom, is disturbed that prosecution rates are low given estimates about the number of trafficked persons in the UK. May and supporters believe this is due in part to uncertainty among law enforcement agencies. To this end, there is now a bill on the table that will create the office of the modern slavery commissioner, as well as toughen existing anti-trafficking legislation.
Last month, the judge presiding over the challenge to Section 2257 ruled it constitutional under the First Amendment. Opponents will fight on. In the meantime, the adult industry is really pissed that no one else seems to care about complying with 2257 regulations. Gawker had a five-minute preview of the Sydney Leathers porn this week without 2257 labeling. And in a recent post on AVN, one of the industry’s go-to news sources, there’s an oblique bit of whingeing about how few blogs at the porn amplification machine that is Tumblr really bother to comply with 2257, either.
