Op-ed: The Slow Death of Gay Gathering Places May Be Aiding HIV
Social isolation among LGBT elders may be contributing to new HIV infections, but community building can slow the advance.
Sean Cahill
www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/03/27/op-ed-slow-death-gay-gathering-places-may-be-aiding-hiv
Yelp's Open Letter Warning to States Considering Discriminatory 'Religious Freedom' Bills Is Must Read
While the list of corporations, politicians and celebrities boycotting Indiana grows, the CEO of Yelp is taking preemptive action to ensure other states understand the economic consequences of choosing to move forward with discriminatory “religious liberty” bills.
In an open letter penned on the Yelp official blog, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman warns that his company “will make every effort to expand its corporate presence only in states that do not have these laws allowing for discrimination on the books.”
Stoppelman writes:
A little over one year ago I wrote an open letter to then-Arizona Governor Jan Brewer requesting that she veto SB 1062, a bill that would have allowed businesses in the state to discriminate against consumers. Thankfully she did the right thing and vetoed that legislation, thus maintaining Arizona’s status as a hospitable place for Yelp’s employees to live and for our company to do business.
Since that time, however, legislators in other states have sought to pass, or have enacted, laws that would allow for businesses to discriminate against consumers based on certain traits including sexual orientation. While Indiana is the most recent state to enact a law allowing for this kind of discrimination by businesses, unfortunately measures are being debated in other states across the country that would follow Indiana’s example. These laws set a terrible precedent that will likely harm the broader economic health of the states where they have been adopted, the businesses currently operating in those states and, most importantly, the consumers who could be victimized under these laws.
Just as I said in my letter to Governor Brewer, it is unconscionable to imagine that Yelp would create, maintain, or expand a significant business presence in any state that encouraged discrimination by businesses against our employees, or consumers at large. I encourage states that are considering passing laws like the one rejected by Arizona or adopted by Indiana to reconsider and abandon these discriminatory actions. (We’re looking at you, Arkansas.)
I hope that in the future the legislatures in the nineteen states that have these laws on the books will reconsider their actions. In the mean time, Yelp will make every effort to expand its corporate presence only in states that do not have these laws allowing for discrimination on the books.
I also hope that other companies will draw a similar line in the sand for equality on behalf of their employees and the greater public to persuade legislators to do the right thing and stop or rescind these harmful laws.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Stoppelman
CEO, Yelp
In related news, civil rights leader and former NAACP chairman Julian Bond has released a statement blasting Arkansas’s proposed bill, saying:
H.B. 1228 in Arkansas opens the door to a hateful past that some had thought this country had left behind. This legislation cloaks discrimination in the guise of religion–and it will mark people of color, LGBT Arkansans, religious minorities and women as second class citizens. Governor Hutchinson has a duty and a moral obligation to veto this legislation or the ghosts of the past will haunt his legacy.”
Earlier today, we told you about the campaign to prevent a similar “license to discriminate” bill from becoming law in Georgia.
Kyler Geoffroy
Indiana's Governor Pence Signs A Bill That Would Allow For LGBT Discrimination
The law is held under "freedom of religion" he argues. — NowThisNews is the first and only video news network built for people who love their phones and love social media. Follow NowThis…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdxEdnWKkBY&feature=youtube_gdata
Radio Stations Pull Little Big Town's 'Girl Crush' Over Complaints Of Song's 'Gay Agenda'
Radio stations are reportedly pulling Little Big Town’s latest country hit, “Girl Crush,” due to complaints that the song’s lyrics promote the “gay agenda.”
Radio host Alana Lynn of 104.3 FM in Boise, Idaho, told the Washington Post that she received angry calls and emails after playing “Girl Crush” off the band’s latest album, “Pain Killer,” and stopped playing the song during her morning show. Other stations across the country axed it, too, the outlet notes.
Some of the sultry lyrics include: “I want to taste her lips/ Yeah, ’cause they taste like you/ I want to drown myself/ In a bottle of her perfume/ I want her long blonde hair/ I want her magic touch/ Yeah, ’cause maybe then/ You’d want me just as much/ I got a girl crush.”
But “Girl Crush” is not about a lesbian romance. It’s about a woman who is jealous yet enthralled by her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. The track was written by Lori McKenna, Liz Rose and Hillary Lindsey, the songwriting collective known as the Love Junkies. Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman loved it as soon as they heard it.
“It could be a bit of a game changer on country radio right now,” Fairchild told Rolling Stone back in December. “There are not many women on the radio and not many ballads with that kind of lyrical content. I’m excited. Already, radio’s support has been huge out of the gate.”
This week, Fairfield shot down critics’ misconceptions about the song’s meaning.
“The lyric of ‘Girl Crush’ is written in kind of a sexy way,” Fairfield said, per iHeartRadio. “So some people might turn it off when they get to the ‘I want to taste your lips’ and all that. But once they get to the hook they go ‘Oh.’ It turns and it’s about a girl saying, ‘Why do you love her and not me?’ And that’s what makes it. You’ve got to lean in a little bit, but the fans are really loving this one.”
Radio host Bobby Bones wasn’t shy to vocalize his annoyance (“It shouldn’t even matter if it’s a lesbian song!”), and other country stars have rallied around the group.
even if Girl Crush was some kind of lesbian-50-shades song (it isn’t), how could it be more offensive than any of the boozy objectification
— Charlie Worsham (@charlieworsham) March 22, 2015
of women songs? Little Big Town is a stellar act that puts out great music and I say heck yes to great music. ok I’ll stop ranting now.
— Charlie Worsham (@charlieworsham) March 22, 2015
“Girl Crush” is currently No. 17 on Billboard’s Hot County Songs. Kelly Clarkson and Miranda Lambert have both covered it.
Listen to the song below.
Advocates Mobilize to Stop Georgia's Anti-LGBT 'Religious Freedom' Bill: VIDEO
An anti-LGBT “religious freedom” bill similar to the one signed into law in Indiana yesterday is currently working its way through the Georgia Legislature, but activists are hoping to stop this one before it gets to the governor’s desk.
Georgia’s SB 129 allowing businesses to deny service to gay and lesbian customers based on religious beliefs passed the Georgia Senate last week. Yesterday, some good news came when the state’s House Judiciary Committee voted to table the bill after an amendment was added to keep the bill from allowing discrimination – effectively gutting the bill’s primary purpose.
Session ends next week, but anti-LGBT opponents are reportedly still working to bring the bill back. You can follow the bill’s progress here.
Via HRC statement:
“This ill-conceived, discriminatory bill threatens not just the LGBT community, but women, racial minorities, members of minority faiths, and the economic climate of the state,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “All Georgians deserve to be treated fairly and equally with dignity and respect. We call on Speaker Ralston and Governor Deal to stop this bill before it becomes law, inflicting harm throughout the state.”
Major local conferences have already threatened to move out of the state if the bill becomes law, including: American Society for Higher Education, American Academy of Religion, American Historical Association, German Studies Association, History of Science Society, Philosophy of Science Association, Society for Biblical Literature, and Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.
State Sen. Josh McKoon (pictured), the chief proponent of the “license to discriminate” bill, called these economic warnings against the bill “nebulous” and claimed the bill wouldn’t impact the economic interests of the state. He obviously hasn’t been paying attention to the #BoycottIndiana backlash.
In fact, a campaign calling on Georgia-based corporate allies to speak out against #SB129 is currently underway. Comic and fantasy convention Dragon Con has already done so:
Dragon Con is calling on Georgia lawmakers to reject the “license to discriminate” RFRA bill! Click “like” and share to…
Posted by Georgia Unites Against Discrimination on Thursday, March 26, 2015
The Augusta Chronicle‘s editorial staff, meanwhile, called SB 129 “a solution we don’t need in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.”
The push by Georgia Republicans to further enshrine anti-LGBT discrimination into law has also faced opposition from an unlikely source recently: Mike Bowers. Bowers was the former Georgia Attorney General who defended the state’s sodomy law in the landmark Supreme Court case Bowers v. Hardwick. Last month, he spoke out against so-called “religious freedom” bills as an “excuse to practice invidious discrimination.”
Watch McKoon defend discrimination at yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
Rachel Maddow on the 24 Pilots Over the Past 20 Years Who Have Deliberately Brought Down Planes: VIDEO
Rachel Maddow took a look last night at the weak link in airline safety: humans.
Over the past two decades, 24 pilots have deliberately brought planes down, sometimes killing large numbers of people along with themselves. Maddow takes a look at those cases and the circumstances surrounding them, along with this week’s tragic destruction of the Germanwings A320.
Said Maddow:
“In large passenger aircraft, pilots are some of the few people on earth to whom we give the opportunity that if they want to commit mass murder, or if they want to carry out a lone wolf terror attack, to a degree greater than almost anyone on earth, we give them the power to take huge numbers of people with them, with very little effort on their part….We will inevitably now search for some technological fix to try to stop this from ever happening again….But what caused this in the first place is not a technological problem. It was a failure of flesh and blood. This was not a technologically-caused but rather a technologically-enabled, mass casualty, human, failure.”
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Andy Towle
Julian Bond speaks out against discriminatory Arkansas bill
Flaunt Your Flora! Men’s Floral Print Underwear Is A Hot New Trend
Men’s apparel designed with floral prints became a prominent style about a year ago. Embraced by the younger generation of guys, modern floral prints took on the attitude of modern hipsters. But not entirely, because floral prints also found there way into formalwear — most notably on ties and button-down shirts, some of which used the floral for bold cuff and collar accents. Now in Spring 2015, floral print underwear is blooming across some of The Underwear Expert’s most admired brands.
There are 10 pairs of floral print underwear and one floral swim brief featured in this exclusive photo shoot by Jerrad Matthew. Modeled by Adam Powell, each look waters the prints with masculine touches.
The Jor Garden Brief and the Croota Garden Grove 02 Boxer are coincidentally the shoot’s darkest pairs. Jor’s design uses a black waistband and seams to contrast a floral print that rocks a deep green/bold pink contrast. Croota earns style points by applying their floral look against a navy underwear body. Navy is the thinking man’s “basic” color. It’s handsome without even trying, and even better with touches of white, red and light blue flowers.
On the lighter side of the spectrum is the Dirt Squirrel Floral Boxer Brief and Oiler & Boiler’s Nantucket Paradise Boxer. These looks do the opposite of the darkest pairs and trade black and navy for white and light blue. Rather than tone down the flowers, these color bases make them blossom. After all, flowers do need light to grow.
You can see more of this photo shoot on The Underwear Expert.
Photo Credit: Jerrad Matthew Exclusively for The Underwear Expert.
Underwear Expert
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