The Equality Act Overview: Your Questions Answered
HRC’s Legal Director Sarah Warbelow and Government Affairs Director David Stacy sat down to discuss The Equality Act and how it can impact you and your family.
HRC.org
Daily Archives: July 23, 2015
Boyfriend Experiment Ends In Violent Attack By Neo-Nazis
Boyfriend Experiment Ends In Violent Attack By Neo-Nazis
Last week we reported on a social experiment in Russia where two young men spent the day walking the streets of Moscow while holding hands. Things didn’t go so well.
A hidden camera captured an unyielding barrage of insults, slurs, skunk-eyed stares, and physical intimidation, culminating in one extremely tense confrontation.
To shed light on the reality of LGBT life in other hostile areas, Bird in Flight magazine decided to repeat the exercise in Kiev, Ukraine.
Things really didn’t go so well.
A group of neo-nazis or extreme-right men approaches the couple, asking them if they are patriots and getting aggressive.
Once police are out of sight, they pull out pepper spray and blind both men before hurling punches and kicks at them.
Luckily, the project team was at the ready to intervene and prevent serious injury.
Watch the disturbing video below:
Dan Tracer
News: Jurassic World 2, Henry Cavill, Donald Trump, Earth 2.0, Barney Frank
News: Jurassic World 2, Henry Cavill, Donald Trump, Earth 2.0, Barney Frank
> Donald Trump threatens to mount a third-party run for the presidency if the Republican National Committee is mean to him.
> Jurassic World sequel pegged for 2018.
> Barney Frank on why progressives shouldn’t support Bernie Sanders. “His very unwillingness to be confined by existing voter attitudes, as part of a long-term strategy to change them, is both a very valuable contribution to the democratic dialogue and an obvious bar to winning support from the majority of these very voters in the near term.”
> Rep. Mark Pocan trolls Republican-sponsored bill attacking so-called “sanctuary cities” by introducing amendment to enforce the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling.
> Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran wade into the Taylor Swift vs Nicki Minaj Twitter fight.
> HRC co-founder Terry Bean’s ex-boyfriend sentenced for methamphetamine possession in a separate case from his and Bean’s upcoming trial in a sex abuse case.
> Kelly Clarkson perfectly covers *NSync’s “Bye, Bye, Bye”
> NASA’s Kepler mission discovers Earth’s bigger, older cousin.
> Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito fear-mongers that Supreme Court marriage equality ruling could lead to the end of the minimum wage.
> Iconic Baltimore gay bar Club Hippo to close.
> Secretary of State John Kerry raises LGBT rights concerns with Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari.
> Associated Press releases 1 million minutes of historical footage to YouTube.
> PhD student rails against being labeled “cisgendered” in HuffPost article. “By imposing the label “cisgendered” onto me, you do me psychological and intellectual violence. You are saying that I am the same as all the people who do accept and inhabit the normative roles attached to the social construct of “men,” “male,” or “masculine.” You are silencing my voice and rejecting my right to determine my own identity. You have put me into a binary that alienates me from gender discourse.”
> Alabama man fired for refusing to remove confederate flag on his truck.
> George R.R. Martin is bored with Marvel’s villain catalog. “I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero. The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn. I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting).”
> Rick Perry isn’t mincing words with Donald Trump. “He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued.”
> Obama’s unique opportunity to be a voice for LGBT rights in Kenya. “Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, is possibly the only Western politician who can speak out against widespread, state-sanctioned discrimination on the African continent without being viewed as an imposing colonialist.”
> Is Henry Cavill joining the cast of Fifty Shades Darker?
The post News: Jurassic World 2, Henry Cavill, Donald Trump, Earth 2.0, Barney Frank appeared first on Towleroad.
Kyler Geoffroy
News: Jurassic World 2, Henry Cavill, Donald Trump, Earth 2.0, Barney Frank
Gothic Goddess of Roc Pride
POLL: Thousands of U.K. Health Workers Believe in Gay 'Cure'
POLL: Thousands of U.K. Health Workers Believe in Gay 'Cure'
A new study shows alarming LGBT biases in the British health care system.
Daniel Reynolds
www.advocate.com/health/2015/07/23/poll-1-5-london-health-workers-believe-gay-cure
Gay Bars Can Offer Entry to Community — But the Cover Charge Can Be Steep
Gay Bars Can Offer Entry to Community — But the Cover Charge Can Be Steep
Gay bars have played an outsized role in the lives of many gay men. They’re often our first introduction to the gay community, our entry to a Technicolor world after struggling to be true to ourselves in a black-and-white world. They’re where we meet others like ourselves and realize we’re not ‘the only one.’
But ‘the bars’ are also where far too many of us move from social drinker to alcoholic, a disease that plagues our community. Of course ‘the’ plague, HIV/AIDS, has been fueled in no small measure by the alcohol and substances — and casual liaisons — that fuel the bar scene.
For the book I’m writing about gay men’s resilience, I’m revisiting my own development as a gay man from the time I made the choice in 1981, at age 22 — just as AIDS began to kill gay men — to own my truth and ‘come out.’
I’m reading the journals I’ve kept since those young years, taking notes as I trace patterns and themes in my own behavior, emotions and mental health that shaped my life’s choices and led me toward my personal destiny at age 47 to be diagnosed with HIV — after reporting on HIV/AIDS as a journalist for 20 years at that point.
It’s painful at times to know how the story turns out as I read about a younger me doing his best to navigate the treacherous waters of shame over growing up poor and being a ‘starving writer’ living in a wealthy city. It’s startling to realize how many men I had sex with back then! It’s also discomfiting to realize how extremely I valued my appearance — and devalued my other assets and accomplishments. It makes all that sex seem a lot less like youthful hedonism and what we gay men like to call “play” — and a lot more like a desperate plea for validation.
I was 32 and living in Washington, D.C. in 1991 when I wrote about the bars and the ambivalence my regular patronage of them raised for me, 10 years after I decided that fateful first summer of AIDS, to embrace the fact of my homosexuality and begin figuring out what ‘gay’ would mean for me.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, approaching my friend Rich at JR’s, on Seventeenth Street NW.
“About a drink and a half,” he said.
I recalled Prufrock saying we “measure our lives in tablespoons,” and thought, “We measure our lives in cocktail glasses.”
“Is this funny?” I asked myself. A clever twist of wit. “Is it pathetic?”
I worried. Are we really nothing more than tragic masks, haunting the bars — always dimly lit and smoke-congealed, perhaps so we can’t see each other clearly for what we are or our situation for what it is?
Many of us live alone. Others have roommates yet still live alone. Our hustle-bustle city lives bounce us from place to place to place over the course of our days. From bed to work to the gym to a restaurant to a bar and maybe to bed with one who was a stranger but a moment ago.
The bars are our meeting places, our fraternity houses. But that’s what bars have always been, not just gay bars. They are places we go simply to be, refuges from the world where the macro instantly becomes micro and we can find connection to our little piece of the human race.
Yet in our subculture the bars take on a power, an allure and force all their own. We are drawn to them for we know we will find others like us. All thoughts of how little we have in common with most of these people, save for our sexual objects, disappear as we slide through the door and up to the bar for the first of what likely will be several rounds.
For days afterward, even, if we are given to reflection, after the hangover passes, we may lament our foolishness. We’ll say again to ourselves that we really want to be with others who share our interests — in books, in the theater, in opera or in collecting antiques.
Then, a few days later, we walk past the bar and the sight of glasses being lifted to grinning mouths entices us inside once more.
“How long have you been here?” you’ll ask.
“About a drink and a half,” your friend will reply.
— 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.
Rick Santorum now wishes he had never compared homosexuality to bestiality
Rick Santorum now wishes he had never compared homosexuality to bestiality
Former US Senator Rick Santorum now regrets ever making the slippery slope argument when it comes to homosexuality.
Back in 2003, Santorum infamously made the claim that if people were allowed legally to have any kind of consensual sex other than heterosexual sex, it could lead to a legal ruling allowing ‘man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.’
‘I wish I had never said that,’ Santorum said Wednesday (22 July) in an interview with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.
‘It was a flippant comment that should not have come out of my mouth,’ said Santorum who finished second to Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2012.
He added: ‘But the substance of what I said – which is what I referred to – I stand by that. I don’t — I wish I had not said it in the flippant term that I did. And I know people were offended by it and I wish I hadn’t said it.’
Santorum has made many anti-gay comments in recent years from opposing same-sex marriage and allowing gays in the Boy Scouts of America, among other topics.
Maddow, who is an out lesbian, also asked Santorum if he believes homosexuality is a choice.
‘You know, I’ve never answered that question because I don’t really know the answer to that question,’ he said. ‘But I suspect that there’s all sorts of reasons that people end up the way they are. And I’ll sort of leave it at that.’
Then he added: ‘There are people alive who identified themselves as gay and lesbian and they no longer are.’
Santorum is finishing near the bottom of the polls in what is a crowded Republican field which is currently being led by Donald Trump.
The post Rick Santorum now wishes he had never compared homosexuality to bestiality appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
#31Reasons: Fired for Being Transgender
#31Reasons: Fired for Being Transgender
Carter Brown is a proud Texan, a loving son and brother. With 10 years of experience in the real estate industry in the Dallas metro area, he was a terrific employee, having received three promotions in two years and was earning a six figure salary.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/31reasons-fired-for-being-transgender?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Nine Pastors Facing Trial For Attending Same-Sex Wedding Of Another Church Pastor
Nine Pastors Facing Trial For Attending Same-Sex Wedding Of Another Church Pastor
Nine Methodist pastors in Michigan may face a church trial and for attending a same-sex wedding.
It all started when Benjamin Hutchison, Senior Pastor at Cassopolis United Methodist Church in Cassopolis, MI, married his long-time partner, Monty. He was forced to resign from his job for “violating church law,” which forbids pastors from marrying someone of the same gender.
Thirty pastors attended Hutchinson’s wedding with 15 joining together to officially pronounce Hutchison and his partner “husband and husband.” Of those 15, nine are now being threatened with disciplinary action by the district bishop.
Related: Pastor Single-Handedly Saves Church. Oh, He’s Gay? He’s Fired!
Michael Tupper was one of the pastors who officiated the wedding. He also signed the men’s marriage certificate. He said he did so to protest the church’s stance.
“I want to highlight the injustice, at the same time to witness to our inclusive God who does welcome all people and welcomes them whether they are gay or straight,” Tupper told the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive.com. “It’s just another opportunity to celebrate and witness to our inclusive God.”
Related: Another Methodist Minister Facing Charges For Performing A Same-Sex Wedding
h/t: The New Civil Rights Movement
Graham Gremore
Groundbreaking Study Finds Drug Cocktails Can Disable Sexual Transmission Of HIV
Groundbreaking Study Finds Drug Cocktails Can Disable Sexual Transmission Of HIV
UNC-Chapel Hill researchers announced this week that potent drug cocktails can effectively disable the sexual transmission of HIV reports The News&Observer.
AIDS researcher Myron Cohen revealed the new findings at the eighth International AIDS Society Conference in Vancouver, Canada, and specified that when AIDS medication is used consistently that it can effectively halt the sexual transmission of HIV. Cohen revealed the exact figure probability of transmission, while consistently using AIDS medication, after studying 1,700 couples over the last decade:
“If people are taking their pills reliably and they’re taking them for some period of time, the probability of transmission in this study is actually zero.
“Let me say it another way: We never saw a case of HIV transmission in a person who is stably suppressed on ART.”
Although a caveat of a study required all participants to use condoms along with the medication, researchers acknowledge that condoms are not always effective or used as several pregnancies were recorded in the study.
Researchers admit AIDS treatment is not a proxy for a vaccine and many of those infected with the disease don’t know they have it and are not taking medication for it. Researchers found that the sooner an infected personal takes medication, the quicker the virus is suppressed and sexual transmission of the disease is blocked.
The biggest issue for Cohen heading forward is the contagious interim period after a person infected with HIV starts taking medication:
“The soon-after-drugs-are-started is our biggest concern. We don’t understand how long people remain contagious.”
The study followed 1,763 couples in nine countries in Africa, Asia, South and North America between 2005 and 2010. The study ended in May with 97 percent of the couples involved were heterosexual. Cuba broke similar ground in HIV/AIDS and Syphilis research and treatment when the country nearly eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and Syphilis with a 95 percent rate of success.
The post Groundbreaking Study Finds Drug Cocktails Can Disable Sexual Transmission Of HIV appeared first on Towleroad.
Anthony Costello
Groundbreaking Study Finds Drug Cocktails Can Disable Sexual Transmission Of HIV
