Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality.
– Floyd Corkins II, who opened fire at the Family Research Council in August 2012, injuring a security guard who was able to restrain him, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
– Mayor Virginia Gurrola of Porterville, California was removed from office because she issued an LGBT Pride proclamation.
– The Alaska State Personnel Board has voted to include same-sex partners of state employees in the definition of “immediate family” when considering requests for leave.
– Topeka, Kansas has voted to educate people about discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but the city still hasn’t passed actual nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community.
– The increasingly hostile National Organization for Marriage is now shaming a gay Republican congressional candidate in California specifically for his sexual orientation.
– Pope Francis offered some supportive words about gay people, but that doesn’t change the fact that Catholic bishops are working against LGBT equality across the globe.
– Russia’s state-controlled television network has let go Oleg Dusaev, an accomplished journalist who came out as gay a few weeks ago.
– Selena Gomez has been denied a visa to perform in Russia, and some suspect it’s because she’d been pressured to speak out for LGBT equality.
– Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized Russia’s anti-gay laws, though he was writing for the wrong Russian publication.
– A video supposedly going viral in Russia suggests that “gays adopt kids to rape them.”
– A new campaign is encouraging soccer players in England and Scotland to wear rainbow laces to combat homophobia, but some think the campaign’s name, “Right Behind Gay Footballers,” is inappropriate.