NEWSBYMICHAEL JONES

The Weinstein Company has announced that “Bully,” the award-winning documentary about the epidemic of school bullying in the United States, will open in theaters on March 30 as “unrated” after nearly 500,000 people signed an extraordinarily popular online petition at Change.org demanding that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) remove the “R” rating initially given to the movie by the MPAA’s ratings board.

“I am happy ‘Bully’ will maintain its authenticity and will be an accurate portrayal of what thousands of kids experience every day,” said Katy Butler, a bullied high school student from Michigan who was outraged that the MPAA gave “Bully” an “R” rating by just one vote because of brief language. Butler, who had her finger broken by bullies in middle school, urged the MPAA to remove the “R” rating from “Bully” so that middle school and high school students would have a chance to see a movie that could potentially save their lives.

Aeroflot, Russia's national airline, celebrates its 89th birthday this week. But don't expect many Russian activists to mark the occasion with cake and candles. Instead, Russian activists are taking the opportunity to draw attention to what they say is Aeroflot's extremely anti-gay record -- including the company's refusal to recognize an LGBT group for employees, as well as reports that Aeroflot forced a 25-year-old gay flight attendant, Maxim Kupreev, to marry a woman if he wanted to keep his job.

And now these Russian activists are asking for your help. They want to hold Aeroflot accountable for its record on LGBT issues, so they're holding an all-day online action on Thursday, February 9, to pressure Sky Team -- a global alliance of airline carriers, of which Aeroflot is a member. They want Sky Team to remove Aeroflot from the alliance unless it commits to improving its LGBT record.

During the same week where Russian lawmakers passed an extremely anti-gay law that could criminalize "the promotion of homosexuality," these activists are looking to draw international attention to the marginalization of LGBT people in Russia.

So how can you help?

More than 30,000 people have joined a campaign on Change.org calling on the government of Cameroon to release two men sentenced to five years in prison for the “crime” of being gay.

The campaign was launched as the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced sweeping efforts to confront global anti-LGBT human rights abuses.  Before a speech in Geneva on Tuesday, Secretary Clinton met with human rights activists from Cameroon to discuss how the U.S. can promote the rights of LGBT residents in Cameroon, where ten people have been detained or arrested by police for being gay in the last year.

The Association for the Defense of Homosexuals (ADEFHO), a grassroots Cameroon LGBT group, started the petition on Change.org after a judge sentenced 19-year-old Jonas and 20-year-old Franky to five years in prison for violating Cameroon’s laws against homosexuality, which criminalize same-gender sexual conduct. According to ADEFHO, Franky and Jonas never engaged in any sexual conduct but were merely walking from a bar when they were stopped by police and detained.

“Franky and Jonas should have never been condemned,” said Stéphane Koche of ADEFHO. “If Cameroon had a transparent and fair judiciary system, and if the President and Minister of Justice valued the human rights of all Cameroonians, Franky and Jonas would be free men today.”

You might know New Balance as the major brand of shoes and athletic wear found at marathons, road races, and gyms around the country.

Here's what you might not know about the company: their Chairman, James Davis, has given upwards of $500,000 to Mitt Romney's campaign for President -- the same Mitt Romney who just signed a viciously anti-gay pledge from the National Organization for Marriage that amounts to a full-on assault on the civil rights of LGBT Americans.

New Balance's Davis was revealed as a major donor to Romney's campaign this week, after a filing with the Federal Election Commission disclosed a number of Romney's top supporters. With a $500,000 donation, Davis is quite the Romney backer. And as such, his cool half million is going to support a Presidential campaign that has taken a sharp and increasingly anti-gay turn.

Which is why it's time to send New Balance a message asking whether they stand by their Chairperson's donation to an extremely anti-gay politician who wants to take marriage rights away for same-sex couples. Send the company a message now.

In January 2011, Change.org first brought you the story of Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup, a Dallas couple who was legally married in Washington, D.C., yet couldn’t get their marriage announcement printed in the Dallas Morning News’ “Weddings” section. The Dallas Morning News told Mark and Dante that same-sex couples weren’t welcome in the “Weddings” section, and that because Texas state law banned same-sex marriage, the paper was justified in omitting same-sex couples from its pages.

Mark and Dante wouldn’t take no for an answer. In sharing their story with Change.org, Mark and Dante urged Change.org members to put pressure on the Dallas Morning News, and demand the paper get rid of this discriminatory and anti-equality policy.

After months of pressure from nearly 15,000 Change.org members, groups including GetEqual, as well as the persistent work of Mark and Dante – who even filed an anti-discrimination complaint against the Dallas Morning News – the paper has announced that they are changing their policy and will print same-sex wedding announcements in their “Weddings” section. Publisher James Moroney said that “it’s the right thing to do,” and that the decision will be effective July 10, 2011.

More than 120,000 people have joined a viral petition campaign calling on McDonald’s and Maryland authorities to take action over the severe beating of a transgender woman at a franchise of the fast-food chain near Baltimore, Maryland.

The assault, captured on film by a McDonald’s employee, shows 22-year-old Chrissy Lee Polis viciously attacked by several customers while McDonald’s employees watch. Polis is punched, knocked to the ground, dragged across the floor by her hair, and kicked in the face until she appears to experience a seizure.

To date, only one McDonald’s employee has been held responsible, with the company continuing to say that it’s investigating the situation and “will take appropriate action as necessary.”

The attack has caused widespread outrage, with hundreds of people attending a vigil and rally outside of the Maryland McDonald’s to protest anti-transgender violence. In response to the attack, Adrian Leigh Cowan, a Baltimore resident, also launched a campaign on Change.org, the fastest-growing online platform for social change.

For months, students at Indiana University South Bend (IUSB) have been organizing to remove Chick-fil-A as a vendor from campus. The reason is simple: Chick-fil-A has given more than $1.1 million to anti-gay organizations around the country, and IUSB has a vendor policy that requires all vendors not to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation.

Yet despite some awesome and powerful activism -- including student body resolutions, and a faculty senate resolution calling for an investigation into whether Chick-fil-A violates IUSB's vendor policies -- IUSB's Chancellor, Una Mae Reck, has been largely silent on the issue. During a recent meeting with Chancellor Reck where students were set to bring up the issue of Chick-fil-A, the Chancellor abruptly ignored the agenda item.

But students aren't slowing down their activism. A few weeks ago, students organized a protest during the lunch hour to slow up cafeteria lines to draw attention to Chick-fil-A's anti-gay connections. And now students are filing official discrimination complaints against the Chancellor, arguing that her decision to keep Chick-fil-A on campus -- this is a decision that rests solely with her -- is tantamount to allowing anti-gay discrimination to thrive on campus.

The law firm of King & Spalding is set to receive quite the paycheck from taxpayers, all to defend one of the most anti-gay laws in U.S. history.

As Amanda Terkel notes at HuffPost this afternoon, King & Spalding will reap about $520 per hour -- with a sum not to exceed $500,000 -- for work that their firm does to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. The contract details come after an announcement yesterday that U.S. Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner, had tapped a partner at King & Spalding, Paul Clement, to defend DOMA.

Here's hoping that $500,000 is enough to compensate King & Spalding for the stain that's about to go on their record. Because when the history books are written, and we look back on what entities helped support discrimination in U.S. law, King & Spalding's name will be at the top.

Imagine if years from now, history books had this to say about your business: when discrimination needed a champion, "x" business was there to make sure anti-gay laws were defended.

The law firm of King & Spalding better be careful, or this is what folks will be saying about it a few years down the road. That's because it was announced today that a partner at King & Spalding, Paul Clement, was tapped by Rep. John Boehner to be the high-priced lawyer to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

DOMA might be the most anti-gay law in this land, denying same-sex couples more than 1,100 benefits, tearing apart LGBT families, and financially penalizing same-sex couples in cruel and harsh ways. And King & Spalding lawyers want to help preserve a law with that kind of legacy?

For the past few months, we've been covering the story out of Ontario, where Catholic educators throughout the province have been banning the formation of gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in their schools. First came news out of Halton, then out of Mississauga, that students would not be allowed to start GSAs at their Catholic high schools.

The ban on GSAs at Catholic schools sure seems like a direct affront to anti-discrimination policies in Ontario, particularly memorandum 145, a policy that requires schools in Ontario that receive government money to support students who want to create GSAs. Catholic schools in Ontario receive some substantial funding from taxpayers, which means in theory they should be adhering to this policy.

Queer Ontario has a petition up on Change.org, calling on Ontario's Minister of Education, Leona Dombrowsky, to require Catholic schools in Ontario to follow this policy, or risk losing their government funding. You can sign their petition here. Queer Ontario also directly quotes memorandum 145 (check out the bold text for the specific language):