The beefy male strippers of Thunder From Down Under foiled a would-be robber in Las Vegas this week: Tuesday night, a thief brandishing a .44-caliber Magnum tried to make off with a suitcase filled with props and costumes used by the Australian male revue at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino.

The suspect—who was allegedly dressed in a SWAT team hat and fireman's shirt—was initially mistaken for a new troupe member. When he was confronted, he fired a shot at the head of one performer but was subdued by a half-dozen other members until security arrived. "The suspect definitely got the worst of it," remarked Las Vegas police officer Laura Meltzer.

The unnamed perpetrator is being arraigned on felony attempted murder, armed robbery and burglary charges that could get him decades in prison if found guilty.

Critics—even gay ones—complained the show was more of a stunt than a serious news program, with Jessen abandoning objectivity fairly early on. "Dr Christian took all the ‘cures’ and was entirely unflabbergasted to find, courtesy of the penile arousal gauge, that he was just as gay as he was at the start," wrote Metro's Keith Watson. "So, the cures don’t work. However, we never really got to the bottom of why so many are available."

The Telegraph's Neil Midgley was more damning:

"[Jessen] had contempt for the “cures” and the “curers”, but tried to hide it. "After trying a specially-staged version of aversion therapy (which used to be available on the NHS, and involved taking a drug that forced him to vomit repeatedly while he looked at gay erotica), he pretty much abandoned even the pretence of actually trying to change his sexuality. Almost all the “reparative therapists” he approached in the US refused to be interviewed, at least one of them on the (understandable) ground that Jessen was himself gay, and could not be objective.

Can a gay person even be objective in such a situation?

The unnamed 14-year-old, described as "sweet, shy and insecure’," had been bullied because of his sexuality. But when his adoptive parents found out, they took him back to the orphanage because the situation created "too many problems."

‘We can’t handle it,’ the parents were quoted as saying in Il Messaggero. "At school his classmates don’t accept it. Everyone says to us 'why do you bother?’"

There has been public outrage, with Messaggero columnist Marida Lombardo Pijola attacking the parents' betrayal: "Being a parent is not giving it up if the child makes you look bad," she wrote. "Being a parent is fighting for them and protecting them from hate." She told the boy she dreamed "of parents who are able to welcome you, love you, protect you, help you grow and recognize and accept each and every beautiful shade of your personality."

Jeff Green, the leader of Wales' Christian Party, is also the mayor of Llandrindod Wells, population 5,300, and runs the Highland Moors guesthouse with his wife, Sue. The issue arose when the couple received a complaint from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

"[They] said they had received a complaint about a line on our website which said we had double rooms for married couples,” said Green.“We agreed to remove this from our website and suddenly the complaint completely vanished.”

Rather than change the policy, though, Mayor Green removed all double beds and only offers rooms with two single beds.  The Greens are taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. The Greens maintain they've never actually refused service to a gay couple and suggest the complaint was trumped up. “It would be a matter of deep concern if a public authority is simply scanning websites with the intention of confronting Christian businesses which want to conduct their activities in line with their beliefs.”