In the News

Calif. - Equality California applauded the Senate Judiciary Committee for advancing a bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing state curriculum anti-bias rules.
B 1437, authored by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, would prohibit biased curriculum and require that the contributions of the LGBT community, like other underrepresented groups, be included in social science curriculum. The bill, sponsored by EQCA, is one of the eight critical pieces of legislation that the organization is spearheading in the Legislature this year.

A gay Jamaican pupil is in police custody after an attack at the University of West Indies campus.

The man, whose name has not yet been released, allegedly approached another student on Tuesday evening and made sexual advances.

A group of students gathered and began attacking the man, and are said to have chased and hurled rocks at him.

The Jamaican publication The Daily Gleaner claims that it was feared that the group would have killed the student if the Police had not intervened. The students outnumbered the security officers.

After a melee with the angry mob, the Police apprehended the student, and escorted him away from campus.

He could face charges if guilty.

NASSAU - The Bahamas has banned the gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain, triggering a new controversy over the island chain's reputation for homophobia.

Gay rights groups and other critics have called on the Plays and Films Control Board to think again, so far to no avail.

The award-winning 2005 film got the thumbs-down from the board after a request for it to be banned from the Bahamas Christian Council.

Last September, Miss Teen Bahamas was stripped of her title after she admitted to being a lesbian.

In 2004, Christian groups led a protest against a cruise ship, which had docked with 1600 gay passengers. Four years ago, employees went on strike at a resort cay after a ship of gays arrived.