Tasteless Gay Sex Joke
An Australian singer, Rob Mills, posted a photo on Instagram that many are referring to as a tasteless homophobic reference to gay sex. It seems Mills was watching football and when one team lost he posted a photo of two plastic dolls engaging in what appears to be anal sex. The losing team is the bottom, and the winner is on top.
He added the hashtags #hilarious and #criticssaidwhaaaaaat.
This prompted several critics on social media to hit out at the star for offensive views about gay sex.
‘It equates receiving anal sex with being beaten or losing – that is homophobic,’ said @erinrileyau.
‘Shame on you @RobMillsyMills for instagramming that vile, homophobic lego picture about the Swans v Hawthorn. I thought better of you,’ tweeted @bec_barrett.
‘@RobMillsyMills Yeah nah, Millsy. Not cool. You’re supposed to be a friend of the rainbow community!’ said @katiemelb.
Mills has since removed the photo from his account, and published an apology on his website.
You can read more here. He really did go out of his way to apologize. But I think the bigger point here is that the LGBTI community deserves the same respect, and the same form of PC enlightenment other minorities receive. And I’ve reached the point where I won’t tolerate any form of homophobic slur, not even if it’s passive aggressive.
Gays Deserting Facebook
I’ve posted about the most recent FB issue with the LGBTI community with respect to FB not allowing drag queens to use stage names in their profiles. FB claims it wants every user to have a profile with a real identity. I’m still not getting this totally, and I’ve been a FB user since they started. I happen to use my real name, but I would estimate that 90% of the thousands of FB friends I have don’t. That’s what I don’t get. In all the years I’ve been on FB I’ve only had one or two incidents, and one was with some wing nut who DID use his real name. For the most part, I haven’t seen many issues in my circles. Why start all this now if it’s been going on all along? My poor friend Barry who has FB stock isn’t too thrilled about it either.
In retaliation, gays are allegedly going to other social media sites.
A new social network is enjoying a surge of new users, as many people are deserting their Facebook accounts due to their controversial name change policy.
Ello is an ad-free, invitation only social network which was established in 2013. It is now being hailed by some as the ‘anti-Facebook’, and has seen many new users from the LGBTI community.
You can read more about this here. The comments are interesting, too.
Ellora’s Cave Sues DearAuthor/Jane Litte
Update Below*
I’m only posting this as basic information right now because I don’t feel qualified to make any comments. I have no personal association with either party. And frankly, it’s not big enough or newsworthy enough for me to research in depth.
So here you go. Journalism 101 for freshmen year college students:
Who: digital publisher, Ellora’s Cave, took legal action against, Dear Author, and blogger, Jane Litte.
What: it’s a $25,000 lawsuit for defamation, to legally force the blogger to cease posting about Ellora’s Cave, and to force the blogger to reveal her anonymous sources.
Where: the lawsuit was filed in Ohio.
When: last week.
And…
Why: A blog post was published on Dear Author, written by Jane Litte, titled The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave.
For me to post any personal commentary without knowing the facts would be highly mendacious of me with respect to both parties involved in this case…and to all of those associated with both parties. I’m an American; I believe in due process.
I do, however, think cases like this are significant to bloggers with respect to shield laws…and to future cases like this that should, and will, arise.
*Update: I actually found a link to an LA Times piece that I think discusses this topic objectively. You can get there from here.
