09/02/2014 – Scene Magazine – From the heart of LGBTQ+ Life

Last week The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a new European Union ‘LGBT roadmap’ to help tackle widespread discrimination against the gay community across Europe.

Sarah Ludford, MEP

The Lunacek report calls for:

Legislation to prohibit incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity

Proposals for the mutual recognition of documents across the EU to reduce barriers on same-sex couples in exercising their right to freedom of movement

The monitoring of equal treatment in employment, with 1 in 5 LGBT people feeling they were discriminated against at work or when looking for a job

Protection of LGBT freedom of expression.

While left of centre groupings supported these measures to tackle LGBT discrimination, Conservative and UKIP MEPs abstained.

Liberal Democrat MEP for London & vice-president of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats Sarah Ludford, said: “With half of LGBT people in Europe subject to some form of discrimination, urgent action is needed to ensure the gay community is protected. As a Liberal Democrat, I want to see equal treatment become the norm across Europe.”

“The roadmap is not about giving the LGBT community special privileges. It’s simply a recognition that existing rights applicable to everyone are not being properly enforced for LGBT people.”

“It’s a disgrace that Conservative MEPs failed to support action to tackle LGBT discrimination, following in the footsteps of their ideological bedfellows UKIP. While UKIP and the Tories continue to ignore the injustices that LGBT citizens face, Liberal Democrat MEPs will keep putting gay rights, as part of human rights, a core focus of our work in the European Parliament.”

New York activist hijacks Olympic sponsors social media promotions.

As opposition to Russia’s anti LGBT laws continues to grow and major Olympic advertisers including Coca-Cola, McDonalds and VISA fail to speak out against those laws, Scott Wooledge an LGBT activist and member of Queer Nation NY has created a new parody website, CheersToSochi.org to allow people to continue conversations with Sochi Olympic sponsors about their concerns with LGBT rights in Russia.

The website was launched after LGBT activists last week successfully hijacked advertising promotions by Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s two global Olympic sponsors – including McDonald’s social media hashtag #CheerstoSochi.

While originally created by McDonald’s to connect twitter users to athletes, #CheersToSochi became a grassroots uprising of human rights supporters expressing their frustration and objections to Sochi 2014 sponsors over their silence on LGBT and human rights abuses in Russia.

While McDonald’s currently own and operate CheersToSochi.com — CheersToSochi.org, a parody website, has become a one stop website to hold advertisers accountable.

Scott Wooledge, creator of CheersToSochi.org, said: “#CheersToSochi speaks to frustrated people around the world who are disgusted with the sponsors’ silence. Their silence, and tacit consent with Russia’s war on gays has damaged their brand images worldwide.”

Wooledge created the CheerstoSochi.org parody website, where users can browse a library of existing social media content and share them with their network, create their own social media content with the #CheersToSochi meme-maker, and find links to social media accounts for all the top ten Sochi sponsors to take action themselves.

Scott concluded: “Many LGBT rights organisations have already written sternly worded letters calling for words and action. Hundreds of thousands quietly signed internet petitions. Activists around the globe have demonstrated loudly in the streets of New York City, London, Berlin and elsewhere.”

To view website, CLICK HERE: