Global gay

TORNADO HITS MCC

USA: Members of a Metropolitan Community Church congregation in Joplin, Missouri were lucky to survive with their lives when a tornado destroyed the church they were worshipping in last month. The entire building from the ground up was destroyed, as was the home of the church’s pastor and cars belonging to congregation members. Thankfully the congregation had relocated to the building’s basement when the storm hit and only two people were injured.

GAY FLAG FAD

AFGHANISTAN: Second-hand cars once owned by gay Canadians have led to a short-lived gay flag fad across Afghanistan. When Afghans saw the stickers on the cars they assumed it was the new fashion in Western car accessories and soon cheap Chinese-made gay pride accessories were being sold from virtually every garage in the country. A local journalist who knew what the rainbow flag meant broke the news to the Afghan public in a recent article in Pajhwok newspaper and the flags disappeared overnight.

CHRISTIAN CONCEDES

USA: The leader of an anti-gay American Christian group has conceded defeat in the fight against marriage equality. Focus on the Family president Jim Daly told World Magazine the campaign to stop same-sex couples from being given the legal right to wed was “probably lost”. “We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20 and 30 somethings,” Daly said. “Sixty-five to 70 percent of them favour same-sex marriage. I don’t know if that’s going to change with a little more age. Demographers would say probably not. We’ve probably lost on that one.”

AFRIKAANS FILM

SOUTH AFRICA: A film about a closeted married timber merchant’s obsession with his nephew has taken out this year’s Queer Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, Skoonheid, is also the first Afrikaans-language film to appear at Cannes. Skoonheid means ‘beauty’ in Afrikaans.