Hungarian censors fine bookstore over HeartStopper
Californians to vote on equal marriage in November 2024
Censors in Hungary fined a bookstore $36,000 (USD) for selling the queer YA comic book HeartStopper (source material for the Netflix series) in the youth section, contrary to Hungary’s law banning the promotion of extremely boring books in which the heroes face no obstacles to their love LGBT content to children. This comes right ahead of Saturday’s Budapest Pride March, and a joint statement from 36 ambassadors calling on the government to protect Pride events and repeal laws that discriminate against the LGBT community.
California will hold a referendum to repeal its defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage next November, after the state Senate voted 31-0 (with nine Republicans abstaining) to give final approval to the measure. Earlier this year, I wrote for Xtra Magazine about why this matters.
In Nepal, a district court in Kathmandu has refused to register a same-sex marriage, despite last month’s order from the Supreme Court ordering the government to do so. The partners are planning to appeal.
Russia’s Parliament’s lower house passed a new bill cracking down on trans people by barring gender affirming medical care, forbidding legal gender change, prohibiting trans people from becoming adoptive or foster parents, and listing gender change as a cause for annulment of marriage. The effect of the law would also be carried into the occupied territories of Ukraine. The bill goes to the upper house and president Putin for approval, but those are both formalities at this stage.
A shelter in North Macedonia is providing a haven for homeless LGBT people.
Venezuela’s National Assembly has been working on a comprehensive anti-discrimination law for the past few months, which has riled up the country’s Evangelical community, who staged a protest in Caracas yesterday against the bill and other proposals to legalize same-sex marriage and abortion, and include sex education in the classroom.
And in Guatemala, despite the fact that both candidates have sworn they are against same-sex marriage, and despite the fact that the president does not have the power to legalize without Congress, which is overwhelmingly against it, same-sex marriage has emerged a major item of concern in the upcoming presidential runoff. One candidate has at least pledged to work to eliminate anti-LGBT discrimination in the country (somehow while also continuing to demonize LGBT relationships!), which has led the other to push disinfo campaigns alleging he supports equal marriage. Sigh.