International Community Continues To Ignore The State-Sanctioned Massacre Of Gays In Iraq, Mike Huckabee Says He Borrowed Phrase “Ick Factor” Describing Gays From Gays, Twin Cities Pride Goes To Court To Have Bible Distribution At Pride Event Stopped, Deliberations In Philadelphia Boy Scouts Suit, Outing Of Minnesota Pastor Condemned For Violated Confidentiality Of Support Group

Why are the United Kingdom and the United States failing to investigate the organized state-sanctioned massacre of hundreds of gays, lesbians, and transgender seriously? A report documents 738 LGBT killings in five years, and despite insistence in 2009 by Colorado Representative Jared Polis that at least one man has been executed by the government for “membership of a banned organisation” and that “egregious human rights violations” were being “carried out by Iraqi government officials from the ministry of the interior” calls that the gay rights are routinely abused have so far been met by silence.

Former Arkansas governor and failed Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is quoted in a New Yorker profile arguing against gay marriage, “I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes. Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ‘ick factor,’ but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.” Huckabee is now defending his use of the phrase ‘ick factor’, but not apologizing for the inanity of the statement, instead telling Policito.com that “my use of the phrase ‘ick factor’ was as the established notion from with the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender community. It was not an indication of personal aversion, but rather a reference to an established phrase used mostly from same-sex marriage advocates and militants – not one I created.”

In Minnesota, Twin Cities Pride is scheduled to seek a federal injunction Wednesday to prevent an anti-gay group from distributing Bibles at the day-long event. Twin Cities Pride contend that they have paid tens of thousands of dollars to secure Loring Park for the weekend’s event, and therefore have the right to control and determine the message of the event. Minneapolis Parks and Recreation counter, saying that it has given permission to an organization to be on park property during the Pride celebrations because it is defending free speech. Eileen Scallen, an attorney for the Pride Festival, said that “the park board’s decision is akin to allowing the Klu Klux Klan to openly convey their racist and anti-immigration views at the Cinco de Mayo festival.”

Deliberations begin Wednesday in Philadelphia in the United States District Court to decide whether the Boy Scouts of America can be evicted from a city-owned building because the chapter will not renounce the national organization’s ban against homosexuals. The Scouts argue that if forced either to being paying $200,000 in rent yearly – up from $1 annually – or vacate the premises violates their right to free speech and due process. The city contends that they are maintaining a policy that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Not surprisingly, Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock – who infamously correlated a tornado striking a church and the Minnesota Convention Centre to gay marriage – has been outed, although the actual outing by Minneapolis based Lavender magazine is being condemned by some. A reporter was sent uncover to a support group for gay men struggling with chastity; a group where rules of confidentiality are paramount to participation, and many regard the reporter as having violated that ethos.