It’s Lady Gaga v. Naomi Campbell In “American Horror Story: Hotel”
Supermodel of the world Naomi Campbell is coming to the already star-packed American Horror Story: Hotel as a rival of fellow fashion icon, Lady Gaga.
According to TV Line:
Campbell — who starts shooting next week — will play a fashion editor who pays the ultimate price for her critiques. In addition to Gaga, she will also have scenes with returning AHS alum Angela Bassett.
Ugh, all those cheekbones! How will we all survive?
Though creator Ryan Murphy promised this season of AHS would be “bloodier and grislier I think than anything that we’ve done before” this kind of plotting harkens back to the campfest of AHS: Coven. And those witches could dress.
But with designers “coming out of the woodwork” to dress the Lady, who will play an evil something or other involved in fashion, — and with Jessica Lange bowing out this season — the lqqks might be the real stars of the Hotel.
Les Fabian Brathwaite — stab across the room like Naomi Campbell
Les Fabian Brathwaite
Texas Supreme Court Disregards Rampant Forgery, Orders Houston To Place LGBT Protections On Ballot
Earlier we told you how Houston mayoral candidates are vigorously wooing LGBT support as voters prepare to replace term-limited Mayor Annise Parker, the first openly gay person elected to lead a major US city.
Now, the November municipal election has taken on much more LGBT significance, after the Texas Supreme Court ordered the City Council to repeal the recently passed Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or place it on the November ballot.
In a setback for LGBT equality, the court disregarded a district judge’s ruling that a petition to repeal the ordinance lacked enough valid signatures due in part to widespread forgery. The state’s highest court, made up of all Republicans, essentially determined that it doesn’t matter how many signatures on the petition were invalid, since the city secretary initially certified it.
Project Q Houston reports:
The state’s highest court also ordered the city to immediately halt enforcement of HERO, which prohibits discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing, public accommodations, and city contracting.
“But what of the City Council’s complaints of forgery, false oaths, and the like?” the all-Republican court wrote in its 12-page per curiam opinion. “Although these issues were addressed at trial and are now pending before the court of appeals, we note that the City Secretary never claimed the referendum petition was plagued by forgery or perjury. Yet the City Council decided, of its own accord, not to act, disregarding the City Secretary’s certification that the petition had enough signatures.”
The court’s decision likely means a ballot fight over LGBT rights in the nation’s fourth-largest city, which was the last major metropolis in the US to pass LGBT protections.
More from The Houston Chronicle:
One of the plaintiffs, former Harris County Republican Party chief Jared Woodfill, called the ruling “a huge victory for the people of the city of Houston.” He called on Parker, the first openly gay leader of a major American city, to apologize to the public.
“This is all about the mayor and her personal agenda,” Woodfill said. “The actions she took were unlawful, and now the court has said the people are going to have an opportunity to vote, and that’s all we’ve asked for from day one. I think this mayor owes an apology to the people of the city of Houston.”
The post Texas Supreme Court Disregards Rampant Forgery, Orders Houston To Place LGBT Protections On Ballot appeared first on Towleroad.
John Wright
Texas Supreme Court Disregards Rampant Forgery, Orders Houston To Place LGBT Protections On Ballot
Is It Ever Acceptable For The Media To 'Out' Someone?
Gawker is still reeling from the controversy surrounding a post, which has since been removed from the site, that revealed a male Condé Nast executive allegedly solicited a male escort on a business trip. Because the executive (who is married to a woman) was not a public figure, critics lashed out, classifying Gawker’s story as gay-shaming rather than journalism. But is outing ever acceptable? What about in the case of conservative politicians, whose private lives may color their public ones with hypocrisy?
HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill hosted a panel discussion on Wednesday about the ethics of publicly announcing someone else’s sexuality. The fundamental consideration, according to University of Minnesota media ethics professor Jane Kirtley, is weighing the benefits of outing against the pain it could cause in an individual’s life.
“The Society of Professional Journalists has an ethics code, and one of the things it says to do is to seek truth and report it,” Kirtley said. “But what it also says is that you’re supposed to minimize harm. And you think carefully about the good that’s going to be done versus the harm you’re going to cause.”
In the video above, Kirtley joins Gawker writer Rich Juzwiak and journalist Maria Bustillos to debate when outing an LGBT person is fair and when it isn’t.
Watch the full HuffPost Live discussion about the fallout of Gawker’s controversial story here.
Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!
Also on HuffPost:
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It’s stigma that’s dirty, not people with HIV
Matthew Hodson
I was at a party the other day and found myself chatting to a guy I’d not met before. He was in his early thirties, seemed smart, funny and was kind of cute looking.
Honestly, I’m not using this column to try to pick people up.
I only mention that he was cute because you’d think that someone like that would have no problem getting a date or meeting someone for sex – but this guy did.
In fact, he told me, he hadn’t had sex in 18 months, ever since he was diagnosed HIV-positive.
Like most people who receive a positive diagnosis, it had hit him pretty hard. Even today, when medication means that HIV shouldn’t have too much impact on your life-expectancy, hearing that you have HIV, probably the most stigmatized virus of the modern era, feels like you’ve been punched in the stomach… repeatedly.
I don’t like to generalize; I’m sure that there must be men who have been diagnosed and who are genuinely blasé about it, I’ve just never met one. And I’ve met and spoken to a lot of men who have been diagnosed positive.
This guy at the party had made the decision that he was going to be open about his status with his sexual partners.
He’d tried hooking up with people through the usual dating apps, at parties and in bars and clubs; each time he had been rejected. His confidence was now circling somewhere around the ocean floor. I wanted to give him a hug, to tell him that things would get better, but he wasn’t able to hear that right then.
This guy was trying to do the responsible thing by talking to his potential sexual partners about HIV – and he was being punished for it.
Other people with diagnosed HIV choose not to tell casual partners and risk being ‘uncovered’ and vilified. Sometimes those same casual encounters become serious relationships and the guy with HIV then has to choose the right moment to disclose to his partner, not knowing what reaction he may get.
Although the number of gay men living with HIV in the UK has only ever increased year on year, the number of gay men who believe that they know someone living with HIV has gone down.
The reluctance to disclose (and become subject to the judgments and rejection that people who are open about their HIV status will often encounter), coupled with the impact that treatment has had in preventing the visible symptoms of HIV, means that HIV is becoming increasingly invisible within our community.
It’s obvious that this is a problem for guys like this chap I was speaking to, who had become miserable and desperate about his life.
What is more, this is a problem for all of our communities, if we, as gay men, through our inaction, our disregard or our fear, drive people to such a place.
Where is the support? Where is the love?
But combatting stigma isn’t just about supporting our brothers who are living with HIV, it’s also vital for HIV prevention efforts.
When we become unable to talk about HIV, we are unable to have those important health related discussions that can prevent transmission.
When HIV is seen as the worst thing that can happen to a gay man, we are telling people with diagnosed HIV that there is no longer any need for them to take care of themselves, physically or emotionally.
When the dread of acquiring HIV becomes too great, gay men are less likely to test – and as a result will be late to access the treatment that will both extend their lives and make them less infectious to their sexual partners.
So much has changed since the 1980s. People with HIV live full, productive lives. We work hard, sometimes we play hard, and we’re subject to all the same stresses and strains as everyone else, plus a few more.
We are not doomed, we are not ‘unclean’, we are not predatory or dangerous, just because we are living with HIV.
Until we have a magic wand, a vaccine or a cure (and don’t hold your breath waiting for any of these) we will continue to see the number of people living with HIV in our communities increase.
If we are going to be successful in reducing the number of new infections, we need to do all those things that stigma hampers: testing, talking, honesty and openness.
If you hear people talking about people living with HIV as if they have lost their right to a fulfilling, happy love-life, challenge it. When you hear people gossip about people who are living with HIV, challenge them.
When people talk about HIV as if it were a matter of personal hygiene, or a moral judgment, remind them that HIV is just a virus.
Stigma doesn’t just hurt people living with HIV, it harms all of us.
Matthew Hodson (@Matthew_Hodson) is the Chief Executive of GMFA. This article is Matthew’s own opinion and not necessarily the view of GMFA as an organization. This article first appeared in FS Magazine. FS relies upon funds from the community. To support FS, visit www.gmfa.org.uk/donate, or, if you’re in the UK, text FSFS15 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 (or £10, if you can).
Main image: Ted Etyan via Creative Commons 2.0
The post It’s stigma that’s dirty, not people with HIV appeared first on Gay Star News.
GSN Contributor
www.gaystarnews.com/article/its-stigma-that-dirty-not-people-with-hiv/
#31Reasons: Denied Shifts After His Boyfriend Stopped by His Place of Work
Luke Peterson has testified three times before lawmakers in Nebraska’s state legislature about the need for a state non-discrimination law — once for each of the times he believes he’s lost a job because of his sexual orientation.
HRC.org
This Handy Infographic Lists The Country’s 25 Most Handsome Cities
Thinking about moving to another city? Before you do, be sure to check out this handy new infographic from the folks over at GroomingLounge.com.
The website, which bills itself as “the nation’s premier resource for men’s grooming,” recently did a little research to figure out which cities in America are the “most handsome” using the following criteria: amount spent on personal care services per man, spend on personal care products per man, spend on shaving needs per man, spend on apparel per man and the fittest cities in the nation (based on a report from the American Fitness Index).
Related: An Infographic Of Global Internet Porn Habits
“While handsomeness may be subjective,” the website says, “the criteria in this survey measure the men in each city’s commitment to appearance.”
So which is the “most handsome” city of them all? Researchers found that the guys in Seattle spent the most money on personal care items annually (approximately $3,413). They also spent the most on shaving needs and the second most on services and apparel. San Francisco came in at a close second followed by Washington, D.C. in third.
Which other metropolitans made the cut? Check out the infographic below to see…
Graham Gremore
Houston Mayoral Candidate With History Of Anti-Gay Votes Tries To Buy LGBT Group’s Endorsement
With out lesbian Houston Mayor Annise Parker term-limited, candidates to replace her are vigorously seeking the backing of the city’s main LGBT group.
One candidate, state Rep. Sylvester Turner (shown above in last month’s Pride parade), even spent $3,040 to purchase at least 76 memberships in the Houston GLBT Political Caucus to try to win the group’s endorsement.
The Houston Chronicle reports:
Caucus President Maverick Welsh, however, said the campaigns’ efforts will not be enough to tip the scales.
“We know campaigns actively try to push as many people into the room as possible, and that’s why we’ve strategically tried to grow our membership over the last year and a half,” Welsh said. “I don’t think any candidate has enough members to be able to buy an endorsement.” …
“It’s kind of nice to be in the position of being the belle of the ball for once,” he said.
Project Q Houston notes that Turner’s decision to purchase memberships is particularly interesting given that he’s cast some anti-gay votes as a member of the Texas Legislature. He voted in favor of banning same-sex marriage in 2003. He also voted to ban gay foster parents in 2005:
Turner claims he’s since evolved on LGBT issues, but critics say his shift is politically motivated. Turner was dogged by gay rumors in the 1991 mayor’s race, but his spokeswoman, Sue Davis, said she doesn’t expect them to come up again:
“Twenty-three years ago, starting rumors that your opponent was gay was a time-honored political tactic,” Davis said in an email. “Times have changed. Politics is as rough as it always was – but for candidates, gay-baiting invariably backfires.”
The Houston Press detailed the gay rumors about Turner in a story in 1994 by reporter Wayne Dolcefino. Turner was apparently living with a man whom he had represented in an estate case involving another man who faked his death:
In addition to the suggestion that Turner had been involved in something crooked, the Channel 13 report, by its references to a “male model” and “hairdresser” and its film of the man Turner supposedly was sharing a house with, left viewers with another impression: that Turner might be gay. …
Dolcefino, in parts of his deposition cited by his lawyers, says that while working on the scam story he met with [private investigator Bill] Elliott in the parking lot of the Allen Park Inn, where he was shown a copy of a statement the investigator had taken from Cheryl Turner in which she professed to have recorded “graphic, sexually related phone conversations” between Turner and other men and identified “certain individuals with whom Mr. Turner was allegedly having homosexual relations….”
Regardless of the gay rumors, another candidate says Turner’s voting history demonstrates a lack of consistency on LGBT issues. Former Congressman Chris Bell voted against a federal marriage amendment in 2004 and received a 100 percent score from the Human Rights Campaign. From The Texas Observer:
“I think many Americans, if not most Americans, have evolved over the last 10 years on LGBT issues, and I include myself in that group, along with President Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton and so many others,” Turner said. “People evolve, and I think that’s what we want people to do.” …
“I think many of us evolved on the issue of marriage equality,” said Bell, a one-time board member for Equality Texas. “There are certain issues that weren’t marriage equality that were just basically trying to address outright discrimination, and that’s a course of a different color.”
The post Houston Mayoral Candidate With History Of Anti-Gay Votes Tries To Buy LGBT Group’s Endorsement appeared first on Towleroad.
John Wright
Houston Mayoral Candidate With History Of Anti-Gay Votes Tries To Buy LGBT Group’s Endorsement
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