WATCH: Methodist Pastor Says He Was Fired for Having a Partner
Benjamin Hutchison had been pastor at a United Methodist church in Michigan for three years.
Lucas Grindley
www.advocate.com/religion/2015/07/16/watch-methodist-pastor-says-he-was-fired-having-partner
Here's How You Can Help LGBTQ Communities Around The Country
Get ‘em while they’re hottt! This week BLgT USA is launching a BLgT product line in the form of an IndieGoGo campaign to fund the remaining portion of the 50-state BLgT USA tour. Thus far, we’ve stopped in 23 states and DC, partnering with local restaurants and organizations to benefit LGBT people in those communities. From Misery Loves Co. and Outright VT in the Burlington area to The Third Bird and Avenues for Homeless Youth in Minneapolis, BLgT USA is catalyzing connections in the movement towards equality.
Throughout the country we are constantly asked about merch, so now is your chance to support the campaign with style. Buying BLgT swag. Getting your name on the truck. Sponsoring a city. All of these have an incredible multiplier effect for impact across the country — this summer and beyond.
Our partnership model matches one restaurant with one LGBT organization per city. Proceeds from the BLgT go towards the community partner. 100% of this goes to local organizations. BLgT USA does not take a cut of this. We’ve already engaged over 1,000 people in-person across the country, created over 50 local partnerships, and captured 100+ stories that have been shared on our blog and in our weekly Huffington Post series. This summer is a win-win for everyone, sparking relationships built to last:
· LGBT organizations gain visibility, funding, and access to new supporters.
· Restaurants gain visibility, increased sales during our events, and access to new customers.
· Supporters get connected to organizations and local businesses they want to support.
In Philadelphia, we marched in the Pride Parade with our partner, the Attic Youth Center. The kids rocked 1980s style workout wrist bands during their dance contest, which inspired our own BLgT twist. You can join the sandwich movement by heading over to IndieGoGo to help fund the tour for all 50 states. For questions, sponsorship, suggestions, and/or media inquiries, email us: [email protected]
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Prop 8 Documentary Among Several Pro-LGBT Emmy Award Nominees
This morning, The Case Against 8 was among many pro-LGBT films, series, actors and artists to receive Emmy Award nomination.
HRC.org
Texas Librarian Rescues LGBT Children’s Books From Mob Of Homophobic Parents
As the religious right’s frustration over marriage equality rages on, it’s no surprise they’re moving the fight somewhere — anywhere — other than the courts, sensing a losing battle there. Now it seems even the children’s section at the public library isn’t safe.
Over in Hood County, TX, our favorite summertime hellhole, they’re having their hate cake and eating it, too.
Last week Hood County clerk Katie Lang made national news when she joined the band of Christian superheroes sent to Earth by Jesus himself to obstruct justice and illegally prevent gay couples from tying the knot. Way to selectively read that Bible of yours, Katie.
But why stop there? Hood County residents have now taken up the charge of book banning in an attempt to make it known that gay is not OK.
The insidious subversions in question are two titles in the children’s section of the county library — This Day in June, a picture book about a pride parade, and My Princess Boy, the story of a boy who likes to wears dresses.
They have the audacity to promote things like inclusiveness, anti-bullying and acceptance. Or as a group of local parents put it, “perversion” and the “gay lifestyle.”
But as much as we could rag on Hood County, there are people like librarian Courtney Kincaid living there giving us hope.
“They’re very sweet books about acceptance, tolerance and anti-bullying,” she told an advisory board at a public hearing to consider removing the books. “[They] are both aimed at helping children understand the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Lesbians and gays are in this community, and they deserve to have some items in this collection.”
Granbury resident Dave Eagle complained the books are about “transvestic behavior” and “program children with the LGBT agenda,” telling the board, “This is information that hits a child’s eyes and goes into their brains before they have a chance to make a decision about it. As adults we have a duty to protect children’s innocence.”
Won’t someone think of the children?!
In the end Kincaid got her wish and the board voted to keep the books, though they promised to move This Day in June to the adult section.
By the sound of it, the adults of Hood County need it more than the kids.
H/t: TNCRM
Dan Tracer
The OXD Mirror: It’s Going Down With New Jessica 6
by Josh Appelbaum
Jessica 6 feat. Thodoris Triantafillou & CJ Jeff: ‘Down Low’
Singer/songwriter Nomi Ruiz is back with with her group Jessica 6 and has a new EP due later this month, The Capricorn. After recording the first Hercules and Love Affair album and touring the world with them, Ruiz broke off on her own (along with HALA bandmates Andrew Raposo and Morgan Wiley) to record Jessica 6’s 2011 debut album, See The Light. Her sultry, silky vocals contrast beautifully against Jessica 6’s deep house and disco beats, often tackling the real life topics of shame and sexuality that Ruiz so openly waxes on as trans woman.
The first single of The Capricorn, ‘Down Low,’ does not veer off this path lyrically or musically, with the song explicitly covering the topic of oral sex. ‘Down Low”s haunting deep house production comes courtesy of Thodoris Triantafillou & CJ Jeff, who previously worked with Ruiz on a cover of Adventures of Stevie V‘s ‘Dirty Cash.’
OCCUPY THE DISCO (OXD) curates and recommends music events to the gay community in NYC—in an effort to move the focus of the nightlife scene beyond the promoter and venue and to the music itself. OXD’s goal is to educate, entertain, engage and empower the gay audience to reclaim their ability to question and experience the unknown. The OXD Mirror will serve to showcase tunes that are definitely off-the-beaten-path but rightfully deserve the attention of the gay ear.
Follow us on Spotify! Subscribe to our ‘As Seen on Towleroad Playlist to listen to tracks posted from past weeks. For more information on OXD, check out our website and accompanying blog at www.occupythedisco.com, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: @OccupyTheDisco.
The post The OXD Mirror: It’s Going Down With New Jessica 6 appeared first on Towleroad.
Occupy the Disco
Your touch feels like summer to me. The linger of your fingers on my skin sends shivers down my spine. The feel of just the thought of you brings me to a mere puddle. I puddle of emotions, both good and bad. Are you there for me the way I want you to be? How has the idea of you become so real? Is it in my head of are we becoming something I thought would never happen. Shivers you send down my spine like fire dancing around a log. Something feels so right, but I just can’t help and put my walls up. My walls are so high, but I just scream for you climb them. Climb my walls, break away my chains, and free me from what I’ve become. My heads on your heart. I feel it beating deep within your chest. It speeds up as I move my leg up your thigh. You’re wearing shorts and your legs are looking amazing tonight. I want to feel your junk so bad, teasing myself and you as I slowly move my fingers on your inner thigh. My throbbing member pushed against my swim shorts, I need head in the next couple of minutes.
Visit Chase Swagger’s Chat Room
'19 Kids and Counting' Canceled by TLC
Nearly two months after Josh Duggar admitted to sexually abusing five girls as a teen, TLC has taken their most popular show off the air.
Mitch Kellaway
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/television/2015/07/16/19-kids-and-counting-canceled-tlc
Will Marriage Open the Closet Door?
What happened to Terry Mutchler? In her gripping memoir, Under This Beautiful Dome, the voice I hear is weak, barely audible. This isn’t the woman I know as a friend and outspoken human rights advocate. Her professional accomplishments as a journalist, attorney, and former Director of the PA open-records advocacy program belie the searing shame and fear regarding her lesbian identity that she portrays in her memoir.
Terry captures in moving detail the story of her deeply passionate love for Penny Severns, a PA state senator whose campaign she was assigned to cover for her job as a political journalist. Their love affair began in 1998, prior to any legal rights for gays. She and Penny went to excruciating lengths to hide their romance, in essence their sexuality, for the duration of their five-year relationship until Penny’s death from cancer. I was moved by her passionate love story. Yet, I could barely read about their deeply closeted behavior. I had to put the book down several times. Reading many of her vignettes describing lies, wounds, and poor decisions emanating from their fear of discovery made me uncomfortable.
Just 27 years old when she met Penny, Terry was a prisoner of deception. The couple’s fear of discovery led to behaviors that at times verged on paranoia. Terry managed to survive her closeted lifestyle, but at a terrible cost.
Her family history and fundamentalist Christian roots help to explain her efforts to deny her sexuality to herself and the world. She writes,
When I visited her (Penny) I parked two miles from the house as a rule and walked the rest of the way, no matter the weather, so that my car would not be seen…We lied to everyone about where we were on weekends, where we were at night, where we were vacationing…we spent countless hours creating elaborate machinations to be sure we weren’t discovered.
They saw no other option if they were to maintain the lives they had developed for themselves.
Fortunately, Terry occasionally softens her painful story of extravagant lies and deceptions with some very humorous situations. Such as the time she resorted to scurrying nude to hide behind the furnace in their basement in order to avoid discovery by sudden, unexpected visitors–Penny’s parents.
Sadly, Terry ultimately was relegated to the status of invisible observer at Penny’s funeral and memorial. She lost all the material wealth they had accumulated and all evidence of their shared lives. Most of her grief was in isolation. Was the cover-up worth it? Would they behave differently if this occurred today?
I wonder whether the rapid turn-around of gay and lesbian cultural acceptance in the past few years will change this type of hidden love that has been a reality for so many people in our LGBTQI community. Terry explains that the groundwork had been set for her desperate masquerade. Both women faced the loss of their jobs at the time they met. There were no legal protections in 1993. But, the explanation for why she or any of us hides goes far deeper than legal or cultural acceptance and isn’t so quickly remedied.
Most of our religious institutions have yet to accept or come to an understanding of gays or lesbians, let alone transgendered people. Terry was a devout fundamentalist Christian and still is influenced by many of the values she was taught. Homophobia still lingers in the confines of family life for many people. Prejudice takes time to change…including the homophobia that is directed inward, becoming our own self-hatred.
On the online discussion site that I monitor for women who are married and coming out in mid-life, some women in our own community post angry messages disparaging those who don’t come out publicly. These particular lesbians have made different choices and often resent the discrimination they suffered, which has benefited others. They question why closeted women are taking the easier way. Admittedly, I sometimes feel uncomfortable when I listen to people who have decided to systematically lie to try to protect themselves. Yet, the pain that Terry describes is so searing that I assume that closeted individuals would make other choices if they could see beyond their fear. Terry paid a dear price. Today she is an open advocate for gay rights and is using her memoir to publicly draw attention to a way of life that hopefully will become a historical story.
Under This Beautiful Dome: A Senator, A Journalist, and the Politics of Gay Love in America, by Terry Mutchler, Seal Press, Berkeley, CA, 2014.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
French magazine Têtu goes bust after making annual losses of over €1million
France’s best-known gay magazine, Têtu, has gone bust.
The magazine declared bankruptcy four months ago but has been seeking a buyer since that time. It also launched a social media campaign, #SaveMyTetu, in an effort to find new investors.
However, ahead of a final liquidation hearing on 23 July, staff have conceded that the search has proved unsuccessful.
Speaking to AFP yesterday, managing editor Yannick Barbe said, ‘We are forced to file for liquidation because there is no money coming in.’
Têtu (which translates as ‘stubborn’), was launched in 1995 by Pierre Berge, the longtime partner of Yves Saint Laurent.
However, it has consistently failed to make money over the course of its history, reports AFP and was sold by Berge for a symbolic €1 in 2013 to French publisher Jean-Jacques Augier.
At the time of the sale the magazine was making an annual loss of €2million ($2.2million). That was brought down to €1.1million ($1.2million) in losses in 2014, with figures for 2015 predicting a loss of €600,000 ($654,000).
Barbe said that circulation had fallen by 12.5% since 2010. The title was selling around 28,000 copies a month at the end of 2014.
France has also faced high-profile demonstrations in recent years against same-sex marriage and adoption (both now legalized), and Barbe felt the controversy over LGBTI issues had ‘made advertisers and potential investors nervous.’ As a result, the magazine had received no inquiries from ‘credible and serious’ buyers.
The post French magazine Têtu goes bust after making annual losses of over €1million appeared first on Gay Star News.
David Hudson
You must be 18 years old or older to chat
