Celebrating at Mississippi Pride
At Jackson’s 2015 Mississippi Pride, members of the LGBT and allied community were ready to celebrate.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/celebrating-at-mississippi-pride?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
“No Gays Allowed” Business Owner Learns There Are Consequences To Being A Hateful Bigot
Another antigay business owner has learned there are consequences to bigotry.
Earlier this week, Jeff Amyx hung a handwritten sign in the window of his Tennessee hardware store: “No Gays Allowed” in response to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling.
“The Supreme Court did not speak for me when they voted to make this legal, and I can’t accept it,” Amyx told his local news station.
After the story went viral, Amyx was hit with a storm of backlash. It started with angry phone calls and emails.
“A lot of people have called and cussed me and said nasty things,” Amyx said.
Then a Facebook group was created calling for people to boycott the store.
But it took budget moving equipment company U-Haul dropping Amyx as a customer and demanding he take down its logo from his website for the small businessman to rethink his actions.
On Tuesday, Amyx replaced the “No Gays Allowed” sign with a more polite but no less ridiculous one: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”
Related: Five Disgraced Business Owners Who Learned That Homophobia Just Doesn’t Sell
Graham Gremore
Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats
A photo alluding to an iconic image from World War II meant to depict the struggle for gay rights has stirred controversy online.
The picture (above) was take taken ten years ago by photographer Ed Freeman for the cover of Frontiers Magazine. It alludes to the now iconic image (below) of US Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during a battle that saw 6,821 servicemen lose their lives.
The original photograph also became the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. Freeman’s photograph found a new life after Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. The image circulated on social media and Freeman himself even re-posted it, weighing in on the image’s significance:
When I took this picture almost ten years ago, it never, never occurred to me that it would someday come to symbolize the victory we are celebrating today. Congratulations to all of us! Love to you all.
Since the photo began to circulate, however, Freeman has received many hateful reactions on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that the image is disrespectful. Freeman has also received a death threat, as The Washington Post reports:
“He said if he ever saw me, he’d kill me,” Freeman said in a phone interview. “I got swamped with vitriolic hate mail.”
Freeman reported the threat to the FBI.
The photographer insists that haters are misunderstanding what his intention was with the photograph:
Freeman, whose studio is in Los Angeles, said he never expected the backlash. The image, taken before social media was ubiquitous, was partially staged using models, and completed with Photoshop, he said.
“The principle complaint that people have is that I am equating the gay struggle with the contribution and sacrifice of American servicemen,” he said. “But there is no equal sign here. This is not meant as a sign of disrespect. For God sake, no. I totally support people in uniform. There is no comparison going on here. The comparison is going on in people’s heads, and they’re spoiling for a fight. They’re already on edge because of the gay marriage decision.”
One silver lining from the story may be that one of Freeman’s critics has given him an idea for his next photo:
“One of them said, ‘Well, why don’t you have an astronaut planting a gay flag on the moon?’” he laughed. “And I said, ‘Well, why not?’”
The post Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
Gay Pride Version of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats
New Orleans Man Who Kidnapped Trans Woman Granted 'Rare' Minimum Sentence
After assault and attempted rape charges were dropped, a judge chose to be unusually lenient, citing the attacker’s age.
Mitch Kellaway
There's A Sign Women Are Ovulating, But Men Can't Detect It
By Cari Nierenberg, Contributing LiveScience Writer
Published on 07/01/2015 11:38 AM EDT on LiveScience
Women’s cheeks get redder when they are the most fertile, but this color change is so subtle that it is undetectable by the human eye, a new study finds.
In the study, researchers in the United Kingdom took photographs of 22 women every weekday over the course of one month. After analyzing the photos, the researchers concluded that the women’s faces got redder around the time they ovulated.
“This is the first study to conclusively show that women’s faces do change in redness over the course of the menstrual cycle,” said Robert Burriss, a co-author of the study and a research fellow in psychology at Northumbria University in England.
But the researchers had expected to find a change in skin redness that was detectable to the human eye, because this might explain why previous studies had suggested that men perceive women’s faces as more attractive when the women are ovulating, Burriss told Live Science. Surprisingly, however, the study found that the changes in redness are too small for people to perceive, he said.
Past research had shown that men find women more attractive when the women are ovulating, and that men rate changes in women’s voices and body odor during ovulation as more attractive. This new study investigated whether changes in women’s facial coloring during their menstrual cycle might also explain how attractive they appear to men during ovulation.
The researchers used a specialized camera to take the photographs, and analyzed changes in the women’s skin color and skin luminance, which is a measure of its lightness or darkness, at two locations on the women’s cheeks. [5 Myths About Women’s Bodies]
The study found no change in the women’s skin luminance, but there were variations in facial color, according to the findings published today (June 30) in the journal PLOS ONE. The redness in a woman’s cheeks increased in the days before she ovulated and remained high until she began her next period, and then decreased rapidly after she started her period.
Attractiveness and fertility
Research has shown that men consider red facial skin more attractive, and researchers think the reason for this may be that the color suggests good health and youthfulness, Burriss said. The color of skin on other primate species changes in a similar way when they are the most fertile, he noted.
For example, female chimpanzees have swollen red bottoms at peak fertility as a clue to attract male chimps looking to mate.
But humans might not “advertise their fertility” the way that chimps and other species do, Burriss said. The benefit of concealing ovulation in women might be that it promotes relationship commitment, he noted.
“If men don’t know when women are fertile, they stay interested in the relationship,” Burriss said. In species where the timing of ovulation is obvious, such as chimps, males often ignore nonfertile females, he noted.
Some studies have suggested that women may advertise their fertility by becoming more flirtatious, but they do so only with men they find attractive. Other research has shown that women may make more attempts to enhance their appeal near the time of ovulation by wearing more revealing, stylish or red clothing.
A next step in this current research may be to determine whether skin-color changes are more pronounced in some parts of the face than in others during ovulation. For instance, future studies could look at whether the lips have more dramatic color changes than the cheeks do, Burriss said.
One weakness of the study is that it included mostly Caucasian women, so it’s unclear whether similar patterns of skin variation during the menstrual cycle would be observed in women of different skin colors.
Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.
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Leaked emails reveal Hillary Clinton has always supported LGBTI rights
Hillary Clinton’s emails have been released to the public, and it shows that she has always been a supporter of LGBTI rights.
The Democratic politician that could very easily be US’ next president had her online messages released by the State Department, and one of them is very revealing.
Back in 2009, four years before she said she ‘evolved’ on same-sex marriage, the then-Secretary of State expressed concern over the torture and murder of gay men in Iraq.
‘So sad and terrible,’ she said. ‘We should ask Chris Hill to raise this w govt. If we ever get Posner confirmed we should emphasize LGBT human rights.’
The Washington Blade reports the Chris Hill to which Clinton is referring to is likely US ambassador to Iraq during the first two years of the Obama administration.
Posner is likely Michael Posner, who came to serve in the State Department after his confirmation as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.’
During her campaign for president so far, Clinton has consistently supported marriage equality. In videos she has shown same-sex couples and mentioned LGBTI rights in her speeches.
In a 2013 video made with the Human Rights Campaign, Clinton revealed she believes that LGBTI people are ‘full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship’.
‘That includes marriage,’ she said. ‘That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law.’
The post Leaked emails reveal Hillary Clinton has always supported LGBTI rights appeared first on Gay Star News.
Joe Morgan
www.gaystarnews.com/article/leaked-emails-reveal-hillary-clinton-has-always-supported-lgbti-rights/
Josh Duggar Faces Sexual Abuse Lawsuit From Molestation Victim Outside the Duggar Clan
Josh Duggar may find himself in court soon as the unnamed, non-family member in the Duggar molestation scandal announced that they’re preparing to file a civil suit against him reports In Touch Weekly.
Although the statue of limitations on the case expired, legal experts say the victim maintains the right to sue under Arkansas Code Annotated Section 16-56-30 where a sexual abuse victim may pursue civil action if they start to experience effects of that abuse several years later.
The lawsuit could spell disaster for the Duggars’ TLC show 19 Kids and Counting since the criminal statute of limitations expired, waiving Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s right to invoke their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, requiring the couple to give depositions and testify regarding their son’s molestation scandal.
TLC pulled 19 Kids and Counting from its network schedule shortly after news broke regarding the scandal. TLC hasn’t announced whether they plan on bringing back the show, but with the molestation lawsuit moving forward it seems unlikely that TLC will renew or schedule the show’s return. The incident hasn’t humbled the Duggars, though, as matriarch Michelle continued to condemn transgender people, likening them to predators, in an interview with Megyn Kelly last month.
(Photo via Instagram)
The post Josh Duggar Faces Sexual Abuse Lawsuit From Molestation Victim Outside the Duggar Clan appeared first on Towleroad.
Anthony Costello
Josh Duggar Faces Sexual Abuse Lawsuit From Molestation Victim Outside the Duggar Clan
15 Questions for Someone Religious Struggling With Gay Marriage
I recently had a woman (who was supposedly strong in her Christian faith) grab a dollar from my hand as I was attempting to offer it to a homeless young man. “You know these people make almost $30,000 a year this way, right?” I told her that I was impressed in their economic prowess as I grabbed the dollar back and handed it to the man with the hungry eyes. I then found myself having to explain that “many of them are mentally ill and have no where to go” and that ” I know many of them are drug addicts, but that’s a disease and I’m not going to judge them for that.” I found myself in those two minutes twice the Christian she bragged about being and I don’t even go to church.
The memories I have from bible school (which are admittedly scattered) all point to what I was always told was the most important teaching of Jesus, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Last week, the Supreme Court finally decided that within the United States, you can legally love and marry someone of the same sex because we are all endowed the right to pursue happiness. It was all right there in the original founding documents, but it just took about 239 years to really digest the words I guess.
While a huge majority of the country celebrated this tremendous civil rights victory a minority of Americans found this to be one of the darkest days on record. Preachers threatened to set themselves on fire and congregations prepared for the end of times, yet no men of the cloth set themselves ablaze and unless I missed the emergency warning on my IPhone, I think we can rule out the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Fair warning, if you use the terms, “Fire and Brimstone,” “God’s Wrath,” “Sodom and Gommorah” or “Damnation”… this is not the questionnaire for you.
If you’re house is Locust proof or if you’ve mapped out your evacuation strategy in preparation for the next Great Flood… this questionnaire is not for you.
If you are a person of faith who is having a hard time finding how you can support gay marriage… this is most definitely for you.
Feel free to take your time, research some of the answers, work on it with a friend or use any tools that help. With that, I give you:
15 Questions for Someone Religious Struggling with Gay Marriage
15. Sally and Jen move in next door to you with their two kids. How does this end up affecting your marriage? How does this affect your relationship with your own children?
14. Greg’s husband of 30 years, Jack, sadly passes away unexpectedly and there is no will written. Should Greg be able to inherit what his husband Jack leaves behind?
13. John had a terrible marriage with Cindy and after about a year they divorced. In a few years both John and Cindy found love again, married these new partners and just couldn’t be happier. Are they adulterers as the bible states they are?
12. Being no one can live according to the rules of the Old Testament in 2015, most (read: All) Christians live their lives in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. Does Jesus ever mention homosexuals or homosexual activity?
11. During the abomination of slavery in this country, many slave owners turned to a famous book to uphold their practice. What was this book? What were those passages? How do you feel about their picking of passages to uphold the practice of slavery?
10. Do you feel that religion is dying with younger generations? If so, why do you think that is? And furthermore, could churches stand to be more inclusive in spreading the word of God and teachings of Christ?
9. When someone tries to take something away from you that you love, how do you feel?
8. What is the “Golden Rule?”
7. Now that you’ve researched the “Golden Rule,” does question 9 feel different?
6. Are you happily married? If so, how good does it feel to bask in the joy of your marriage?
5. What is the Golden Rule?
4. How do you feel about those who believed in segregation/not allowing mixed races to marry?
3. Do you believe strongly in legacy? How do you want your children/grandchildren to think of you?
2. How did marriage start?
A. A religious institution.
B. A man and a woman in love.
C. An arranged alliance between families to increase land and/or power.
1. After finding the answer to Question 7, do you think marriage has evolved since its “creation?”
**Extra Credit**
How does a marriage between two people of the same sex physically (not personally) affect you and the happiness of your own life?
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