A man who tried to establish a gay club has been detained in a mental hospital by local authorities.
He had filed an application to set up the club in Abbottabad.
In the application filed to the deputy commissioner (DC) of the city, the man said the club was to be a “great convenience and resource for many homosexual, bisexual and even some heterosexual people residing in Abbottabad in particular, and in other parts of the country in general.”
Homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan and can be punished by two years to life in prison.
The application stated that in “the envisaged gay club, tentatively to be called Lorenzo gay club, there would be no gay (or non-gay) sex (other than kissing).”
“A clearly visible notice on the wall would warn: no sex on premises. This would mean that no legal constraints (even obsolete ones like [anti-sodomy] PPC section 377) would be flouted on the premises”.
Abbottabad’s DC office confirmed to The Telegraph it had received the application for a gay club and was reviewing it like any other proposal.
American actor Noah Schnapp, who plays the closeted gay teenager Will Byers on Netflix’s Stranger Things, has come out as gay.
In a video posted to his TikTok account on Thursday, the 18-year-old actor wrote, “When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘we know’” — over Schnapp lip-syncing to an audio clip from a different TikTok of someone saying, “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, will never be that serious.”
In the caption to his TikTok video, Schnapp wrote, “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.” In July, following the debut of the final two episodes of the fourth season of “Stranger Things,” Schnapp confirmed to Variety for the first time that Will Byers is gay and in love with his best friend Mike (Finn Wolfhard).
“It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends?” Schnapp said. “Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing. Now it’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike.”
Will’s sexuality had been an open question since the first episode of “Stranger Things.” However, Schnapp had always deflected questions about the character’s identity, noting that the character was still “up to the audience’s interpretation.” In his July interview with Variety, Schnapp said that he wasn’t entirely sure what “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer had in mind for Will, and once he did, he didn’t want to spoil the way the show revealed the character’s journey in Season 4.
“I think it is done so beautifully because it’s so easy to make a character just like all of a sudden be gay,” Schnapp said. “People have come up to me — I was just in Paris and this, like, a 40-year-old man came up to me and he was like, ‘Wow, this Will character made me feel so good. And I related to it so much. That is exactly who I was when I was a kid.’ That just made me so happy to hear. They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle and they’re doing it so well.”
When Variety asked Schnapp about how he navigated the attention on Will’s sexuality while he was also still figuring himself out, the actor pointed to all the tribulations the character has faced over the course of the series.
“I think it’s all just part of the challenge of acting,” he said. “This isn’t just a single layer thing of he’s struggling with coming out. It’s this multifaceted trauma that goes years back, because he was taken by the Demogorgon and then his friends, they never acknowledged him, and now he’s scared to come out and doesn’t know if they’ll accept him.”
Netflix and the Duffers have announced that Season 5 of Stranger Things will conclude the show, but there is no confirmation yet when production will begin on the season, let alone when it would debut.
The Indian company Dabur, which makes beauty creams, withdrew an advertisement about a lesbian couple celebrating Karwa Chauth after online trolling and Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra’s threat, reportsNDTV.
In its statement, the company said: “Fem’s Karwa Chauth campaign has been withdrawn from social media handles and we unconditionally apologise for unintentionally hurting people’s sentiments.”
Fem’s Karwachauth campaign has been withdrawn from all social media handles and we unconditionally apologise for unintentionally hurting people’s sentiments. pic.twitter.com/hDEfbvkm45
Mishra slammed the ad and said, “In future, they will show two men taking ‘feras’ (marrying each other according to Hindu rituals).” According to him, the police had ordered the company to withdraw the ad.
“And if it fails to do so, take legal steps after examining the advertisement,” the minister added.
While there was praise for the ad as well, some objected to the ad for promoting fairness. One person wrote: “Why doesn’t Dabur or whoever comes up with similar ads for Xmas or Eid or any other festival? Why target Hindu festivals?”
Actress Pooja Bhatt, while reacting to the ad tweeted: “Pity a giant like Dabur refused to stand behind their AD. While I don’t endorse a fairness cream in principle I reserved my comment as they attempted to celebrate Inclusivity and Pride. So why hide now?”
बस यही करते रहो.. slam,bam,ban! So much for being the ‘Mother’ of democracy! Pity a giant like #Dabur refused to stand behind their AD. While I don’t endorse a fairness cream in principal I reserved my comment as they attempted to celebrate Inclusivity & #PRIDE So why hide now? https://t.co/avzq1XafgW
London will on April 11 be hosting the world’s first-ever Muslim pride event, ‘ImaanFest’, which comes after a successful crowdfunding campaign by its organisers, Imaan, a leading Muslim LGBTQI+ group in the United Kingdom (UK).
LGBTQI stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex, while the ‘+’ represents other sexual identities.
According to reports, ImaanFest organisers successfully raised close to $20,000 in order to host the event, explaining that LGBTIQ+ Muslims often found themselves isolated, without community and frequently facing homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and Islamaphobic abuse.
“The event will build on the incredible events we organised in the past, and feature panels, discussions, speakers, arts, culture and history — a first for LGBTQI Muslims,” they were quoted as saying.
✨Calling all LGBTQI Muslims!✨ Tickets are now live for #ImaanFest Muslim Pride on 11 April in London. Don’t miss an amazing lineup of speakers, workshops, art, entertainment & food!https://t.co/xXxMq45ogY
With tickets for ImaanFest now available to members of the public, organisers are now using social media to reach queer Arab speakers and service providers who might like to get involved. Other speakers include queer British-Iraqi writer and filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi and trans activist Asifa Lahore.
An Islamic online news agency, 5 Pillars UK, notes that the event has been organised “despite Islam’s strict prohibition of homosexuality”. The news agency adds that the “practice and promotion of homosexuality is considered a major sin in Islam by all mainstream schools of thought”.
Imaan group has received a slew of negative tweets from online trolls after announcing the event over social media. But the group is responding to negative responses with “#Islamophobia”.
Most Muslim-majority countries and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have opposed moves to advance LGBTQI+ rights at the United Nations (UN), in both the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
A number of Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran among others, have strict laws against homosexuality, with punishments for the same being as serious as a jail term or the death penalty.
