NewsWrap for the week ending November 1, 2014

SUMMARY

Step Back, Pass Buck - Singapore's highest court upholds the Southeast Asian island city-state's colonial-era sodomy law …

Out of the Frying Pan - cases against three men charged with violating Uganda's sodomy law are dismissed, but a new version of the East African nation's notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill gets fast-tracked in Parliament …

Gross Equality - the Sri Lankan government tells the U.N. Human Rights Committee that LGBT people are protected from bias in the South Asian island nation's constitution, but defends its colonial-era "gross indecency" law by claiming that it doesn't specifically target them …

Trick or Exorcist - Jordan's government bans Hallowe'en to avoid a repeat of riots in Amman by fundamentalist Muslims the past two years who call the holiday "homosexual and Satanic" …

Back in the Pulpit Again - a U.S. United Methodist Church jury reinstates pastor Franklin Schaefer, who was defrocked for officiating at his gay son's wedding …

Dunking the Quacks - the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest protestant denomination, now renounces so-called "reparative therapy" to make gays and lesbians straight, but reaffirms Biblical edicts about homosexuality and marriage …

Computer Virus Hoax - Apple CEO Tim Cook officially comes out to almost universal acclaim – except for Vitaly Milonov, the "father" of Russia's infamous "no promo homo" law, who wants Cook banned from entering the country because he might bring "the Ebola virus, AIDS (or) gonorrhea" with him …

No Tolerance, No Service - Latvia bans homophobic Russian sitcom actor Ivan Okhlobystin from entering the country for a one-man show in Riga because he's called for all LGBT people to be "burned alive" ….

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