Clay Aiken thinks Donald Trump has chance to break two party ‘stranglehold’ in US

Clay Aiken thinks Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has a chance to shake up the US political system for the better with his headline-grabbing candidacy.

The American Idol runner-up who ran for a seat in the US Congress last year spent some time with the real estate mogul in 2012 when he competed on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice and finished second.

‘I think he has a really great opportunity even if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination to do something I think the country has needed for a long time, which is to try to break this stranglehold of the two-party system,’ Aiken, an openly gay Democrat, tells Billboard.com.

‘I kind of hope he decides to stick with it and maybe give people another option outside of the Republicans and Democrats.’

In 1992, another billionaire businessman, Ross Perot, ran as an independent candidate in a contest between Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton.

Perot benefited from populist resentment toward establishment politicians and at one point led Clinton and Bush in the polls just as Trump is currently leading his Republican rivals. In the end, Perot received 18.9% of the popular vote in the election won by Clinton.

Aiken says those who dismiss Trump at this point are being ‘shortsighted.’

‘I don’t think anybody should discount him,’ he said. ‘Nobody thought that we would see him in the position he is in right now. He is certainly the front-runner with no signs of that fading.’

The post Clay Aiken thinks Donald Trump has chance to break two party ‘stranglehold’ in US appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/clay-aiken-thinks-donald-trump-has-chance-to-break-two-party-stranglehold-in-us/

Seminary Compares Gay Sex To The Second Coming, Antigay Backlash Ensues

At least one antigay Christian is not pleased with a recent stunt pulled by a seminary based in Chicago.

At the 2015 Wild Goose Festival, an annual music fest held in Hot Springs, NC, each July, members from the Chicago Theological Seminary handed out free rainbow condoms with the following instructions: “Chicago Theological Seminary, Take Two (For the second coming!).”

Now, Christian blogger and self-proclaimed “teller of America’s betrayal” Bethany Blankley is taking personal offense to the condoms in a bizarre new op-ed.

Related: 10 Bible-Based Reasons Why Christians Should Love Homosexuality

“The text blatantly suggests Jesus Christ’s Second Coming relates to one needing two condoms for multiple partners or multiple orgasms,” she writes. “Alternatively, the ‘Christian’ seminary is likening the Second Coming of Christ to gay sex.”

(As anyone who’s actually had gay sex will likely tell you, this isn’t a far off comparison. But we digress.)

Blankley then goes on to accuse the seminary of blasphemy and heresy, and of exhibiting “an obvious representation of hatred toward God and His Word.”

“Only an apostate Christian and apostate church could celebrate or encourage gay sex or orgies,” she continues. “Only an apostate Christian and apostate church could advocate being ‘LGBTQ friendly.’ Apostasy is inherently anti-God.”

Then she spews a bunch of random quotes from the Bible before hectoring, “Jesus Christ’s apostles clearly admonished new Christians to stop participating in sexual depravity, specifically gay sex and orgies, because it was not of God!”

(Hmmm. We checked with an expert and, actually, that isn’t true. But whatev.)

Blankley concludes by writing: “Jesus Christ’s return is infinitely more important and incomparable to a joke printed on a condom package. Genuine Christians, who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, joyfully and anxiously await his return.”

Don’t hold your breath, Bethany.

Related: Five Bible-Based Responses To Common Arguments Against Marriage Freedom

Graham Gremore

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Filmmaker Matthew Cooke Shows You How To Race Bait: WATCH

In a new video, documentary filmmaker Matthew Cooke explains how race baiting and racism have become ingrained in American culture over the last four hundred years.

Cooke’s video covers a broad swath of history, from the colonial era to the present day. Speaking of police brutality against black Americans and institutionalized racism, Cooke says,

“Despite the existence of so many notable, heroic black, brown and white cops saving lives, and rescuing victims from unimaginable horrors across the country, righteous lawyers, wise judges, honest legislators doing great things that cannot and should never be overlooked, overall, Black America has never seen a substantive break in law enforcement’s service ever on the wrong side of history.”

Speaking of the Black Lives Matter movement, Cooke says,

“When we ally ourselves with a movement that’s been asking to just acknowledge for four odd centuries how overdue it is to say just three words, Black Lives Matter, then united we are a power that will shake the masters to their core.”

Watch Cooke’s stirring video, below:

The post Filmmaker Matthew Cooke Shows You How To Race Bait: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Filmmaker Matthew Cooke Shows You How To Race Bait: WATCH

5 'Fat' Women Pose In Lingerie To Reclaim The Stigmatized Word

As a self-proclaimed fat woman herself, Brazilian photographer Mariana Godoy wants to rid the negative stigma from the word “fat” and show that fat can be just as beautiful as any other body type.

Godoy’s new photo series “Empoderarte Me,” translated as “Empowering Me,” features plus-size women posing in lingerie. Some of the images feature the women with different slogans written on their bodies to protest fatphobia and encourage body love.

“The fat woman is so sexy and beautiful,” Godoy told The Huffington Post. “I want people to see that the word ‘fat’ is not an insult but a compliment. Being fat and loving your body is amazing.”  

The images are undeniably powerful because each woman looks comfortable and happy in her own skin. “I chose lingerie because photographs of fat woman in lingerie are rare, so this was a form of protest and self-acceptance,” Godoy told The Daily Mail.

Godoy told HuffPost that “being fat is a fight” that she’s dealt with her entire life. “There is a lot of prejudice against the word fat there… people judge and condemn fat people,” Godoy told Cosmopolitan.com. “This is a fight I really want to win.”  

 Take a look below at some of Godoy’s gorgeous images of women reclaiming the word “fat.”

The images below may be considered NSFW to some viewers. 

Head over to Godoy’s Tumblr or Facebook page to see more of her work.  

H/T Cosmopolitan.com

Also on The Huffington Post:  

— 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.

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This is the moment a gay man was thrown to his death by ISIS militants in Iraq

Photos have revealed the moment that a gay man, blindfolded and bound, was murdered by Islamic extremists in northern Iraq.

Children are among the crowd as ISIS militants pushed the man off the top of a silo.

A jihadi appears to commentate on the killing using a microphone to talk to the baying mob below.

Tweeted by an ISIS Twitter account, it shows the victim at the top of the building with three extremists before he was thrown to his death.

These deaths are just adding to the dozens of killings of gay men under the depraved ISIS regime. ISIS have branded LGBTI people the ‘worst of creatures’. Many Muslims have criticized this, with some saying these extremists are misinterpreting the Qu’ran and that it does not state that homosexuality is a sin at all.

To ‘celebrate’ the US passing marriage equality, terrorists threw four gay men off a building in Raqqa, Syria on 26 June.

Mocking the message of victory, they posted: ‘Executed 4 GAY people by throwing him from High building in front of the people #LoveWins #IS.’

The post This is the moment a gay man was thrown to his death by ISIS militants in Iraq appeared first on Gay Star News.

Joe Morgan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/this-is-the-moment-a-gay-man-was-thrown-to-his-death-by-isis-militants-in-iraq/

Time for an Upgrade: National HIV & AIDS Strategy 2020

The updated National HIV & AIDS Strategy was released at the Morehouse School of Medicine last week. 
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/time-for-an-upgrade-national-hiv-aids-strategy-2020?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Time for an Upgrade: National HIV & AIDS Strategy 2020

The updated National HIV & AIDS Strategy was released at the Morehouse School of Medicine last week. 
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/time-for-an-upgrade-national-hiv-aids-strategy-2020?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Homophobe Attacks Two Gay Military Academy Grads, Gets His A$$ Kicked

Larry (left) and Daniel (right)

A homophobe in New York has learned the hard way why you shouldn’t pick a physical fight with someone who is bigger and stronger.

Daniel Lennox-Choate and his husband, Larry Lennox-Choate, were at a bodega in SoHo over the weekend when a man approached. First he started shouting antigay slurs at them. Then he threw a punch at Daniel.

Unbeknownst to this jerk, both Daniel and Larry, who were married in 2013, graduated from West Point Military Academy. In addition to that, Daniel served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Related: Study Finds Straight Men Still Think Gay Men Aren’t Masculine

“He left covered in his own blood with his tail between his legs after I handled the situation and tossed him in the street like the coward loser he is,” Larry wrote on Facebook

“We refuse to be victims and are thankful we can defend ourselves, but are saddened by the fact that idiots like this guy might not pick two guys who went through Plebe Boxing next time,” he continued.

Police say that no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

The incident happened just days after three homophobes stormed into a West Hollywood Starbucks and left covered in coffee sweet iced tea, thrown on them by none other than Leslie Jordan.

Related: Leslie Jordan Explains Starbucks Altercation: “It Was Sweet Iced Tea, Not Coffee!”

h/t: New York Daily News

Graham Gremore

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Man Banned From Food Bank Because He Supports Marriage Equality

A man in Winnipeg, Canada has been banned from a church’s food bank because he would not sign off on the church’s view that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Richard Friesen went to volunteer at the Winnipeg Harvest food bank at the Bethlehem Aboriginal church and discovered a clause in the church’s volunteer form that requires volunteers to “respect the relationship of only a man and a woman in marriage.” After raising questions about the clause, he says he was banned from volunteering at and using the food bank.

Friesen told APTN News:

“One particular thing that struck me as very very odd, especially with today’s world that we live in was the ‘must respect the relationship of only a man and a woman in marriage’ [clause]. To me that’s a very outdated way of thinking.

The church has since changed its volunteer form to omit the clause in question, but Friesen’s ban has not been lifted:

“I cannot go there and I cannot get food based simply on the fact that I had questions about a lifestyle agreement that they were then forced to change.”

Friesen’s father said they had contacted the Human Rights Commission and that what the church was doing “is not legal”:

“That can’t be. Like I say, the Church has since changed its application form, but in the mean time, they are still discriminating against my son.”

[h/t The New Civil Rights Movement]

The post Man Banned From Food Bank Because He Supports Marriage Equality appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Man Banned From Food Bank Because He Supports Marriage Equality

Americans for Equal Rights Is Shutting Down

The American Foundation for Equal Rights, the lead group that fought to overturn California’s Prop 8, has announced that it’s closing down following the marriage equality victory at the Supreme Court.

read more

Bil Browning

www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/08/04/americans-equal-rights-shutting-down