welcome to gay usa i'm anti ha i'm in north korea in the news this week president trump is being pushed by house republicans not that he needs a push to follow through on a license to discriminate religious freedom executive order there never giving up another trance woman has been murdered in florida and a gay man in virginia and a bigoted state senator in florida is forced to resign interesting police officer who was killed in the terror attack in paris was a gay activist his surviving partner calls for no hatred more grim details from the anti gay pogrom in chechnya and coverage of a protest at the russian consulate in new york and in a red thirty men were rounded up and arrested and beaten for being gay and this is a country that still carries the death penalty for sodomy and now for something completely different we will review cynthia nixon in the little foxes off slow about the israel p l o conflict groundhog day the musical and charlie and the chocolate factory in a busy time it's because the tony season is here yeah and president trump is not letting the grass grow under his feet well only there they are once again you know the right wing w this executive order on religious freedom to want to do gay rights laws all across the country is surely and a lot of other things too yes and so they're pushing on a fifty house republicans signed a letter to him saying get with the program get this done i'm surprised that he's gotten so little done in his st one hundred days that he hasn't moved on this well he does you know we pay him self in a corner because he is claiming to be a friend of the community and someone in there is smart enough to know that appointed you know ten famous anti gay bigots basically to the top levels of the administration and gotten away with it he doesn't care about any of that stuff none of those but any of that stuff well it's an interesting question i agree with you  this religious freedom very broad exemption to discriminate also would allow people to claim a religious exemption for not covering contraception for not a case about this past week you know missouri has this very strong law that says you can't give state funds to religious institutions we have wanted new york too but they fudge it all the time and you know this was just about  playground for a church but the supreme court justices seem most of them seem disposed towards allowing this kind of funding and then again when you break all this down you lose something very special about this country which has kept us going for two over her many years and has been all more and more we have politicians who take elected or appointed office and declare their devotion to installing a theocratic state and our attorney general jeff sessions is just one of the most prominent he says openly and repeatedly that he wants a divine  keep a book of hitler speeches on his bed stand yes he did and you know hung around with roy cohn michele bachmann has surfaced to say d god helped trump when to stop transgender bathroom use well you know one of the one of this is there are religious on the brink of anti transgender activists in the country a guy named mark green we know a very nice mark green here in new york but this was a tennessee legislator is as we've told you for a nd secretary of the army and he's now bitterly complaining that he is being targeted by the liberal left making about to be a hater you've got quite a record but he neverthe less stated i believe every american has the right to defend their country regardless of they was a whole bunch of categories including sexual orientation and gender identity and then he says at religion it's the radical left that won't allow that we'll see what happens when his confirmation hearings come but i'm surprised there hasn't been even more outcry about him because how is he going to run an army that has been opened up to everybody and have anybody have any faith in him well so to speak things are going to hell and then you know we we weren't you that the right wing is pretty intent on doing a lot of declaration stated that it wants the designation for the stonewall national monument done and i don't know how much power president has to do something that's been declared a national monument but that that is something that they are  ordered a review of all of these things and we could we could lose that designation well i'd like to think that his you know public declarations would prevent him from doing that but i able to be a pretty stupid battle to pick but it's nothing i don't put anything past this guy well work radio you know most worried about working for a right seriously well we have an independent creation of a new have created a new font in favor in honor of gilbert baker and it is open use it is being given free to the world and it's quite lovely and you'll see we're running the video of it and it's named gilbert and here it goes and it's all my stuff on the radio and so it's and it's  it's studied well they say they want to be used to be able to be used for protest signs and all those it's of things and batters just as gilbert did so for those of you who are listening and not watching and seeing this you can go to type with pride dot com and you can see the whole panoply of possibilities with the font i want to see the colors darker i don't want them to disappear into distance i want people to get the message that's certainly the way  worked those his messages were short and bold and that all these huge banners they always read very well and we're going to take those banners to brighton beach on may th for the brighton beach pride we're going to take his anti snow in and he started talking about how the state senate president was a pussy called to tallahassee lobbyist faggots and use the n word to refer to six white law lawmakers of his own party and he called them all the budgets later a bitch and a girl he was at st forced to apologize and he defended and you know that and i'm going to say this he says i didn't say niggers i said niggas said which is different in my mind but only in your mind pressure he resigned because he was becoming a distraction to the great republican onslaught in florida he's gone now we have our eye on this race and george is still the th congressional district where john vause off almost one yes outright but now has to go into this runoff with karen handel was a harsh she was the woman at the susan komen foundation who tried to defund planned planned parenthood exact got her of ultimately they had to get rid of her because she had this agenda well another one of her agenda planks is gay couples and gay parents are not what god intended so if you needed further  a very slick and experienced politician and and she's going to get a lot of support but we have to continue pressing for johnson i just hope trump campaigns for her little good news a sort of from alabama where the supreme court has up held the permanent suspension of judge roy moore suspension for his refusal to acknowledge the supreme court's legalization of same sex marriage but he retains the title of chief justice because of a technicality and he wants to either run for senate or governor so don't count him out yet we thought he'd been counted out the st time he got suspended but he came back from that got himself elected you know he can't run again at least for chief judge for justice because he's too old oh ok and speaking of the law the magazine society in washington d c which was revived as a group by charles francis nearly a gay republican who was close to george bush and who has been a great activist in the last few years so  charles francis in the mannish society are suing the justice department and they've put in a foil a class for release of documents related to the lavender scare the eisenhower executive order d that  mandated firing of people from government jobs in the fifty's and for the next forty years it turns out that not only has jeff sessions trump's attorney general refused to things it says see perversion new york times well thank you to charles francis in the magazine society of d c for pursuing this and trying to dig up those documents and again parent that equate recommend to josh howard's new film the lavender scare which is now having screenings around the country you can look that up on the lavender scare dot com website and i have one near you in texas the state has been ordered to pay six hundred thousand dollars in fees to the mormons for the same sex couples who successfully challenge that law you know but the texas attorney general the with good can paxton is trying to find a way to get out of this but he's lost now the appeals level few good notes in new york governor cuomo previously mentioned has instituted a nondiscrimination policy for sexual orientation for insurance companies coverage of fertility treatments you cannot discriminate against people in provide in covering fertility treatments now in new york state and i want to go back to texas for a nd where a seven to testify against an anti transgender bill there and i just want to read what she was going to say she said my name is libby gonzalez i'm seven years old and i'm transgender i'm up my school my friends and they love me too i don't want to be scared to go to the bathroom or anywhere else in public and i never ever want to use the boys bathroom it would be gross and weird please keep me safe from seven years old well viv's city  id county georgia which is make and georgia commissioners by a vote of six dollars to three dollars have helped libby or if she ever goes to work for the county there because they voted for a non pass a gay and lesbian rights bill we've that we got that from head yet housel so some of the commissioners on the human rights commission said we will take complaints we can't do anything about them but we're going to compile all the complaints and they got hundreds of complaints and they compiled a book and left it on the desk and there it was and come on and even if you didn't have complaints even if you passed the law and that prevented it and you had no complaints what does it cost you to make a statement of that my brother and sister went to camp there as kids in a unanimous vote added gender identity to their existing city employment nondiscrimination law but in new york state we keep coming back to this the committee of the state senate has rejected a gender identity and expression nondiscrimination law for the umpteenth year in a row boat of six to three and this is because the governor has allowed democrats to caucus with republicans who are in him in the arnie in the state senate but who are who have power over the state senate because democrats vote to keep them in power it's because there are right wing democrats a religious exemptions for adoption agencies this is another current running through the country heaven forbid the catholic adoption agencies should have to actually serve all comers or give up their public funding to do it their way no they want they want the money and the ability to discriminate well and the united methodist church which said it was going to lay off on gay stuff for two years while it reviewed but thank heavens we have two th grade girls in bethel connecticut who are a little smarter they decided that for their social issues class in middle school they would create the bethel connecticut st pride parade five hundred people showed up and well great dive wow two th grade girls thank you very modest happening everywhere in chandler arizona and we're going to get to that not quite all right let's say that hillary clinton is you know showing up here and there she went to the gay community center dinner yes she did  talk things over war sure sure and congratulations to long time activist and theologians out lesbian mary hunt who is getting a peter go miss memorial award at harvard divinity at any rate but they're right you know we should be that we should just be able to say and i don't take orders from the you know they they haven't done everything perfect no but nonetheless mary haan too is woman named we have a picture over chivas read twenty eight years old fatally shot in miami dade county early friday morning she was at least the th transgender woman killed nationwide this year all were trends women of color  eight out of the nine were killed with guns she grew up in carroll city graduated from american senior high school well good job a lot when she finished at the job corps friends say she was like a mother to them and that she was hilarious and joyful and they just adored her you know couldn't stop dancing at the job corps had everybody adored her and this is just a shocking loss also bruce scar net gay man sixty seven years old activist in virginia one of the early one of the st to lobby for gay rights in the virginia legislature found dead at home stabbed to death sixty seven years old had evidently been lying dead there for weeks weeks before someone said hey himself in prison they're now saying that one of the reasons may have been that he was covering up his bisexuality that he had a boyfriend in high school well that he had a boyfriend in prison he left three notes one to his girlfriend one to his child and one to the prison boyfriend and so they're wondering you know they're examining his brain for concussion syndrome but there which is highly likely yes and can cause all sorts of paranoia and suicidal thoughts and that's happened with a number of football players who have killed themselves and but this boyfriend stories now coming out to about and that's from in institute of medicine panel on lesbians she'd been doing this for thirty years and very well known as someone tremendously important in creating the whole idea of data collection on the   cancer well he was really one of the rare people in the power structure of hollywood like david geffen who was out can i say that and he would look here he was talent manager for richard pryor dolly parton to share whoopi goldberg joan rivers michael jackson and mariah carey among others yeah and you also produced the documentary common thread stories from the quilt was featured on the cover of out magazine's power issue and his friend jessica parker said his death is  is the former pastor of a th day adventist church alicia johnston who has come out as bisexual and resigned her post because the church is not going to want to have anything to do with sent a letter to my church and to the conference that got four to do all the members telling them number one through study and prayer i've come to a point of complete disagreement with  on their teachings about people and i don't know how to minister anymore without being honest about that and number two that i also myself i'm bisexual so i've come to an awareness of that and have realized i just can't live my life with integrity anymore without being honest about that and i can't live my life the way i know it needs to be lived do the things i know i need to do without being honest about that and yes it's wonderful to finally be able to say this is who i it is an extremely right wing church that was a one hour television show on the adventist channel decrying what she did yeah and saying you go hey what about if somebody comes to her for counseling is she going to tell of this gay stuff is ok they were very alarmed by it and they blame the whole thing on the ordination of women yes they do this is what happens when you let women be ordained and that's against god and against them i believe no one should be ordaining women level loaned you know previous jobs with the carolina conference as a church planting pastor that means going into public schools and taking over public space for churches which is something they're doing this in new york i'm not very fond of it all right absolutely not all right international news i think we should well two let's start in france even if it was so bad that terror attack in paris last week one police officer killed  several other people wounded on the show sadly say well it turns out that the police officer who was killed was not only gay d but a gay activist yes  reopened it he was in a civil partnership and there was his partner who was eighteen and who spoke so movingly at this service with the police and president hollande and my mean lumpen wants to divide the country over things like this and barack obama who's the other can't and i mccrone in the presidential race so everybody showed up clearly this was mandatory and parents for all the top politician who has his partner  spoke and said i have no hatred because it is not like you and does not fit with what made your heart beat nor what made you a guardian of the peace it was a very peaceful you know loving saying don't let this divide this country basically he had also gone to greece to help the syrian migrants who were coming in there just a true clearly big hearted guy and a terrible story also the continuing terrible story is from russia from chechnya where the tales of the gay men being entrapped arrested torture kill just continue to grow and spread across the world what we have st person stories from witnesses you know you know there are these gay men or they find them through apps or whatever or somebody turns the man or maybe a neighbor just says they're gay so then they pull you in they say who else do you know and then they sat here with kurt he said this guy seems that it was unbearably painful painful i was hanging on with my last strength i didn't tell them anything because well they want you to do is name or have going to bring more people in and there have been fatalities and some of the fatalities are due to the fact that they these guys get out of they release them and their families commit other killings against them that's how bad it is i mean i've seen you know are denying any of this is happening or that there are any gay people in chechnya or you know any of it they're just and may get away with just saying that and the world is complaining but not sanctioning russia for this or doing anything concrete about it it's nice that nikki haley our u n ambassador has spoken out quite strongly and even the state department under rex tillerson has made you now lip service going to show you something from the protest in new york which explains a little bit more you know we have a video there is a group in new york called ruth l g b t and that is a russian l g b t people who've emigrated from russia  to new york we've worked with them over the years on russian homophobia particularly around the sochi olympics three years ago so we're going to show you a little speech by elaina goldsman they want to the russian consulate on the upper east side of manhattan to hold a protest and there are a lot of signs and stuff so let's start by showing you what you like to say thank you thank you thank you everyone who came today the weather did not cooperate but we still did what we had to do and i just read a russian l g b q network that is actually in charge of helping people get out of the country so this is the only right now so you guys won't contribute it you contribute it in the way that is better than money that's the pressure to our government to press their government to help those people thank you very much for being here go ahead and evacuating people getting people out is like the only thing that's going to help at this point and there's also a toronto based group called rainbow railroad that is working to you know work with on the ground contacts to try to get people out of there receive six hundred more requests for assistance but i you know it's there's so many countries that have laws we're going to talk more about them with iran you know that have these laws where basically it's a death penalty if you're found out as guy there ha been other demonstrations around the country and around the world but there needs to be much more about something like that let's do something ok all right enough of that let's go to iran now now we have here is what he had to say i like the horrific reports on the pro russian chechen government's brutal campaign against l g b t people and others over the last several weeks human rights watch something report quote law enforcement and security agency officials under the control of the ruthless head of the chechen republic ramzan counter offer have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay torturing and humiliating the victims and quote there are reports that at least one hundred men have been arrested at least three men have reportedly been killed since the campaign began chechen algy bt individuals as well as those just suspected of being gay have been taken to unofficial secret detention facilities where they have endured and it's abuses they also by the way face the danger of so called d honor killings committed by their own relatives it's instructive in that vein a statement from the spokesman for the chechen leader here's what he told the russian news agency interfax quote if such people existed in chechnya talking about gay men in particular in the l g b t community this is quote if such people existed in chechnya law enforcement would not have to worry about them as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return and quote unfortunately this is not a new reality for those living under the brutal tyranny of the chechen leader who by the way happens to be a loyal ally of blood in your putin there have been reports in the past of similar abuses although the reports seem to be although these reports seem to be the most brutal and should provoke anger and also we should never ever tolerate human rights violations against any person for their political views their religious beliefs their sexual orientation according to reports today the russian foreign minister lavrov said that russian officials have not seen information to confirm the reports well yes except that he won't sponsor the equality act which would protect the rights of the united states and he's likely to vote for all is going to vote for all these religious freedom things which is going to take our rights away and so i mean have a heart charity begins at others and if any of these guys are fully prosecuted they could face extensive lashings or even the death sentence and watch out not gay people because apparently several  in nigeria cops are arrested fifty three people at what they described as a same sex wedding they arrested them for conspiracy out unlawful assembly belonging to a gang of a lesbian couple who are living here in new york for the last couple of years they moved up from atlanta and you would think they could have a perfectly nice life in atlanta and i asked them whether they were going back to atlanta and they both paused and they said you know it it's going to be hard for us to go back to atlanta because that life is so different there from here here it really feels free and there are the very few places in atlanta even where we can be open on the stories there are and they have very good holding hands i mean it's a yes you can do that in the streets of new york you could also get the crap beat out of yeah new york or murdered if you're wants to report here i'm just trying to make the point there as we go through these international stories that in fact while we have come a long way we still as always have a long way to go absolutely and some of that is here in mexico there are some gay soccer players who were trying to come here for the world out games which is in florida on may th and miami and they were rejected for visas by the trumpet administration though they're fighting it but you know it's a it's a big blow to their medal hopes in south korea there is a lot of stuff going on about gay people st of all the top candidate for president now that they've gotten rid of the corrupt former president says he is opposed to homosexuality but he doesn't believe in discrimination no marriage no service in the military but you know no discrimination against gay people doesn't people showed up to protest him waved a rainbow flag in his face and got arrested well it is a crime for korean who currently ranks th in the world and you'll be you'll be the go to great now that you're out so to speak the czech republic there is a new campaign for same sex marriage they legalize civil partnerships some years ago but there's a new push for marriages and good news out of north korea kind of our have north korea that right because there is a ga defector from north korea who has showed up in south korea i guess and probably be very happy to be able to would live in atlanta he was interviewed by c n n to go and see it inside and look up the north korean gay defector he is a very eloquent story about how he knew he was different but he didn't know what it was that he got married to a woman need felt bad for her and and finally figured out what was going on and got out of north you know we used to make a big deal about whoever the hell the surgeon general was in the united states especially because of the aids crisis but last week the trumpet ministration asked by saddam roll vive them or murthy to resign and they put in a nurse in drugs that make their virus undetectable and therefore not transmissible or if they're whatever doesn't matter they get prosecuted well in illinois prosecutors dropped charges against an condom before having sex with three women well jimmy is on medication and is undetectable and therefore not transmissible and here's what happened his lawyer said i'm tired and  angered that i must continue to defend people who are publicly prosecuted for merely having a manageable disease you simply cannot have the intention to transmit a disease when that disease cannot be transmitted and what he did was he met with the prosecutors and got them to sit down with doctors at a local hospital and learn about the details of having to be and what the reality is d with people who are on medication that makes their virus detectable and the prosecutors listened but when did we hear prosecutors listening in any kind of case like this apparently we needed training at the museum of natural history in new york well i just want to congratulate th you know over incarceration in the united states some people think it's due to drug laws d it's due to racism which a lot of racism all that kind of stuff but the main thing it's due to is the enormous jump in number of prosecutors in the united states these offices have gotten so many people they need something to do and that's why we have so many that's the reason we have so many people in jail because we have fewer prosecutors to make deals you cut things you get people probation all that kind of stuff not now all right so to the museum of natural history in new york where a guy named brian torres has filed a federal lawsuit because when you go about a hostile work environment he has a charity and his supervisor basically said scientific institution yeah so not only did he yell at him all the time and say things like this to him but then he accused brian of screwing up that work specifically in one case where he said  you know you booked my travel to syracuse what i was going to rochester and bryant said all my god did i do that and he looked into the records and the airline produces the e mails with the supervisor saying change my travel for rochester day from syracuse to rochester whatever he accept the whole thing up to frame brian mr monti i think you better back up on this and i think maybe you're the one who needs to be dismissed unbelievable all right and that in the eastern part of competition of our friends of broadway cares they raised a record six million four hundred thousand dollars and guess which broadway show raised the most money for broadway cares it was some said boulevard starring glenn close over that they raised a half a one million dollars on their own can grab elations and thank you and thank you to broadway cares which continues to do incredibly important work  helping people with hiv it's great it's great that people have not let you know or are not forgetting this cause that of course they support many other health causes absolute women's health etc but you know it's great well speaking of broadway show we go to entertainment news sure we saw some shows together or at least parts of them i walked out of one well so i was really looking forward to a slow and you know when you left at the beginning at the end of the st act i didn't resent you  and this was a play that you turned to me and said this is awfully cartoony yeah you know it was not working and it was a three hour play but i stuck with it and you know i guess you missed a lot of lively characters and came out of the nd act and it really an what i did not walk out of was the little planes regina or laura linney plays then they switch roles the other role is bertie which is a smaller role yet and we saw cynthia nixon as regina who was quite chilling yapa laura linney really stole the show she was terrific once had a nightmare where i was screaming at lillian hellman for writing the children's hour and putting such a horrible negative portrait of lesbians on the stage in the screen although the original was not so le private lives richard bird that's right that's yeah anyway i saw groundhog day the musical now andy caro who is at the center of this you know does a wonderful job but i have to say going to see groundhog day the musical is like groundhog day because every broadway score and about who writes it seems to be the same and they're just forgettable songs you know ballads you know some inventive staging things like i think groundhog day is a wonderful movie you know if you know how to get a little box is a wonderful movie and i think i also think they kind of unnecessarily with groundhog day vulgarized a bit you know by adding curse words and talk of masturbation and things like this that you know kids are the main ones we're going to like this i think and certainly that's who charlie and the chocolate factory's aimed at one of my favorite books of all time now the stars christian borel you remember him from smash they're playing willy wonka and it's all about you know and as of last week he's alive and well i have to go home tonight and see whether he gets kicked off tonight but he survived the aftermath and everybody's very proud of him and he's very happy to be out in a in the trans world of survivor and the group that went through that with him says we are now stronger together because we have gone through this sort of read this i mean now he's a target actually started to read this week of the passing of jonathan demme a wonderful director you know controversial at one time but the oscar that he won for silence of the lambs because they basically had a transgender killer and we used to we protested that but of course you also made philadelphia with tom hanks about about a guy suing when he was discriminated against because of having aids and directed a segment of the red hot and blue special t v special which was and h riverdale who has come out as bisexual she apologizes to fans who were complaining that the betty and veronica kiss at the beginning of riverdale at the beginning of the series was just a tease they never played that out so she's saying yeah i'm by and i'm sorry i'm sorry they never explored that congratulations to our friend aren't leonard a frequent guest on this program  law professor has been made the robert f wagner chair there at new york law school and congratulations to several members of our communities who were included on the time magazine one hundred most court sarah paulson who has been so celebrated for her portrayal of marcia clark in the o j story and other things she's done and she's terrific and ru paul also on on our e mail list to get one e mail a week once a week from andy telling you what's on the show sort of remind you that the show's on every week and giving you a link to watch it on line you don't have to wait till it comes on