First Columbian Gay Mayor

For the first time ever Columbia has made a huge step in the way of acceptance. They have recently elected a mayoral candidate who is openly homosexual. The new mayor, Julián Antonio Bedoya, won under the conservative billing for this past election. While Antonio Bedoya was not the first LGBTQ candidate, he was the first one to win. Although this is their first openly gay mayor elected he wasn’t the first LGBTQ person to win a political office in Columbia.

In fact they currently had 72 openly LGBTQ candidates run for office in the entire nation of Columbia. One of the most fascinating things to note is that one of these candidates was Ramón Rojas. Rojas is a Trans politician who was elected for his third consecutive term as Council of Chaparral in Tolima.

Many were surprised that he was running for a conservative, right wing party. However Wilson Castaneda of Caribbean Affirmative stated that Antonio Bedoya’s winning sends a “clear message to the political parties. He was going for right-wing party, and [his election] demonstrates that this isn’t a fight of the left, but rather of human rights and decent living.”

Republicans Fight Marriage Equality

While all people in the LGBTQ community and most others in this country consider the fight for marriage equality over, the Republican candidates don’t seem to think that this is the case. The party seems to have a master plan to overturn the current Supreme Court’s decision.

The Republicans believe if they have the majority in the House and Senate and if they win the presidency in 2016, they will have the power to overturn the Supreme Court. As the members of the Supreme Court are getting older, the new president will probably have to replace some. If this happens with a Republican president they will put all conservative people in the Court and overturn the ruling that was made last summer.

While this seems like a lot of possibilities that need to fall into place for this to happen, it’s actually a lot more realistic than those of the LGBTQ community would like to admit. The fact of the matter is that there has been a Democratic president in office for the past two terms; most of the time whenever this thing happens in the next term there’s a Republican who is elected into office.

All of this may sound very scary; however experts say that it’s very unlikely that this would happen. Not because of Republicans winning, but because the Supreme Court rarely repeals their own decisions. All the LGBTQ community has to do now is wait and fight for their rights.

The Gay Priest

Those with a Catholic background know that it’s frowned upon to be gay. However it isn’t unheard of for priests to come out as gay. The individual consensus on this issue varies from priest to priest. Some will say it is an automatic ticket to hell, while others will say it isn’t a sin, it’s just the sex that’s bad. However, something interesting has recently happened in the Catholic Church these past few weeks.

A priest by the name of Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa of Poland was recently fired from his job at the Vatican for coming out as gay. While this is sad, what he did next blew the minds of Catholics everywhere. He said he was currently dating a man.

Now as a priest you are meant to be celibate. Once in the priesthood a priest is considered to be married to the church. Because he said he was dating a man he was defrocked or “depriested.” For perspective, if a priest came out saying they were dating a woman they would have been defrocked, it’s just the fact that he was dating a man that makes this more interesting.