Nick Jonas Says He’s Not Intentionally Queerbaiting You

Last week we learned that Nick Jonas’ character on Ryan Murphy’s soapy horror show Scream Queens is gay. It’s the second gay role for Jonas, following his turn as a closeted boxer in the MMA drama Kingdom.

Jonas, who has spoken of his love for his LGBT fans and has been accused of queerbaiting in the past, told USA Today his decision to play a role is “not based on whether the character is gay or straight” but instead focuses on “what the story is and what the audience is going to get out of it.” He added:

“In the case of Scream Queens, there’s comedy within the role and I think at its core it really is a social commentary about stereotypes and breaking down some of those barriers. Ryan Murphy obviously does that so well.”

RELATED: Yes, Nick Jonas Is (Sort of) Queerbaiting His Gay Fans. So What?

On the choice to play gay in Kingdom, Jonas remarked:

“With ‘Kingdom’, my character is going through a really different journey where he’s struggling with who he is. I think that’s a highly relatable story line that a lot of my fans, both gay and straight, have come and told me that that’s been incredibly important for them: to see the journey he’s on and to know they’re not alone, whatever it is that they’re going through in their life that makes them feel different or strange. There’s real peace and a community and a story being told that feels honest and grounded.”

We look forward to see what else Jonas’ gay roles have to yield.

The post Nick Jonas Says He’s Not Intentionally Queerbaiting You appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Nick Jonas Says He’s Not Intentionally Queerbaiting You

Oregon's Bisexual Governor on 'Heartbreaking' School Shooting

At least 13 people have died after a gunman opened fire on the campus of Umpqua Community College in southwest Oregon at 10:38 a.m. local time today, injuring as many as 20 other people, reports the Associated Press. 

Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin told reporters the gunman was killed while exchanging gunfire with law enforcement officials, according to NBC News. Police are currently investigating social media posts the suspect allegedly made Wednesday night that may have indicated his plans, notes CNN.

In a short address to media this afternoon, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced that the gunman was a 20-year-old male but declined to offer additional details about the shooter’s identity or possible connection to the school, according to the AP. 

“Today is heartbreaking for Umpqua Community College, the greater Roseburg community, and all of Oregon,” Gov. Brown said in a statement before she addressed the media. “My heart is heavy as details of today’s shooting become available. While it is still too early to know all of the facts, the effects of an incident such as this one are long-lasting. Please join me in keeping the victims and their families, as well as first responders, in your thoughts.”

Law enforcement officials speaking with reporters outside the two-year school located 180 miles south of Portland acknowledged that Umpqua Community College was a self-described “gun-free campus,” with a policy in place informing its roughly 3,300 full-time students that firearms were forbidden on the campus. However, the AP notes that the grounds are currently protected by a single security guard who does not carry a gun, despite recent conversations within the school community about strengthening security before the fatal attack. 

Shortly after Brown was sworn in as governor in February, making her the first openly LGBT governor in American history, she signed into law a stringent gun-control bill that requires universal background checks on all private gun sales. 

At press time, it was unknown how, when, or where the gunman acquired his weapon, and whether he did so legally.  

Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/crime/2015/10/01/oregons-bisexual-governor-heartbreaking-school-shooting

Jennifer Finney Boylan Talks Transgender Equality and Honored By GLAD (AUDIO)

I talked with Jennifer Finney Boylan, the first best-selling transgender author in the U.S. whose writings, teachings and activism have significantly illuminated and articulated the transgender experience. Jennifer is being honored by GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) with the Spirit of Justice Award on October 16th at Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts. Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of the best-selling memoir She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. A novelist, memoirist and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for transgender rights. She sits on the board of trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction as well as serving as the National co-chair of the board of GLAAD, the LGBT media monitoring organization. Recently Jennifer had an ongoing role on the groundbreaking E TV Network Reality Show I Am Cait and serves as a consultant on the Amazon Emmy and Golden Globe award winning show Transparent. I talked to Jennifer about being honored by GLAD with their Spirit of Justice Award and her spin on our LGBT issues.
LISTEN:

When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Boylan stated:

It’s what I’ve given my life to. After raising my children and being married to my wife I feel like LGBT rights are achieving the goal of a fair world. Especially for transgender people, it’s the mission that I have undertaken. Look, things went relatively well for me here in this little state of Maine in my town of Belgrade Lakes. I didn’t lose my family, I didn’t lose my job and I was able in fact to publish a book about it and tell that story and tell it the way I wanted it told. My experience especially in the first decade of this century may well have been atypical. The stories we tend to hear of transgender people are often the other kinds of stories. Particularly when we talk about transgender people of color, we’re talking about people who are on the receiving end of violence, who are likely to be homeless. All across our community you hear stories of people who have suffered loses and abuse of one kind or another and it’s intolerable and it has to stop. So I’m hoping to use my power as a storyteller to bring about that end. It can be a frustrating end and discouraging fight sometimes because there’s so much work to do and there’s so much hatred out there; but in my own experience there’s also love and understanding as well and what I would hope is true for me can be true for everyone.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is currently the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. Before coming to Barnard she was Professor of English for 25 years at Colby College in Maine. As an advocate for transgender equality she has addressed the National Press Club, been the keynote or plenary speaker at gender conventions nationwide and spoken on hundreds of college campuses including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Barnard, Wesleyan, Amherst, Duke and Dartmouth. Jennifer Finney Boylan will accept the Award at the 16th Annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner at the Boston Marriott Copley Place at 110 Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts on October 16th and then on Saturday, October 17th a Reading and Conversation with Jennifer Finney Boylan will take place at Danger! Awesome Event Space at 645 Massachusetts Ave at 11A in Cambridge, MA.
For More Info & Tix: glad.org

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REVIEW: Jefta van Dinther – Platform Theatre, London

This is an ambitious project from Swedish choreographer Jefta van Dinther.

His latest work, As It Opens Out, plays with scale, dimension and time – blurring boundaries and confusing the senses.

Van Dinther has created a technically impressive work – effectively using combinations of light, sound, and voice to create a context for the physicality of the dance and movement.

While there were some moments that really shone, overall this piece lacked the narrative or points of focus needed for it to be really engaging.

Read more from Gareth Johnson

Read more theatre reviews

The post REVIEW: Jefta van Dinther – Platform Theatre, London appeared first on Gay Star News.

Gareth Johnson

www.gaystarnews.com/article/review-jefta-van-dinther-platform-theatre-london/

Pat Robertson: Gays Want to Bankrupt, Jail, Persecute ‘Anyone Who Disagrees With Them’ – VIDEO

No doubt referencing Kim Davis as well as other so-called defenders of ‘religious liberty’, 700 Club host and noted bigot Pat Robertson today said that gays are on a vindictive mission to go after anyone “who disagrees with them.”

Robertson remarked that what the gay community really wants isn’t just civil rights:

“What they want to do is persecute anybody who disagrees with them. They want those people bankrupted. They want those people put in jail. Is that what the left wants? The answer is ‘absolutely.’ It is vindictive now. We’re not talking about having rights from the ‘poor oppressed gays’. We’re talking about taking away the freedoms of everybody who disagree with them. Do we want that in America? We’ve got to make a stand for these people. They’re being pilloried in the press, their being laughed at in the press because the press is in league with the gay rights people and they somehow think this is a civil rights issue. They better be careful with what they’re doing because they’re taking away the rights of everybody!”

Watch Robertson foam at the mouth, below:

[h/t JMG]

The post Pat Robertson: Gays Want to Bankrupt, Jail, Persecute ‘Anyone Who Disagrees With Them’ – VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Pat Robertson: Gays Want to Bankrupt, Jail, Persecute ‘Anyone Who Disagrees With Them’ – VIDEO

Behind the Scenes of Kim Davis's Meeting with Pope Francis

As LGBT Catholics express disappointment that Pope Francis refused to meet with them during his six-day visit to the U.S. but made time for an in-person meeting with defiantly antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, the clerk’s right-wing attorney is bragging about the planning that went into the secret meeting. 

Davis, the embattled clerk of Rowan County, Ky., who continues to make headlines for her ongoing refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was secretly ushered into the Vatican Embassy in Washington last Thursday, claims Davis’s attorney Mat Staver, chairman of the certified anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel.

Along with her fourth husband, Joe, Davis reportedly disguised her appearance for her papal audience in a meeting carefully planned by Vatican officials, Staver told The New York Times. While it’s unknown how exactly the couple and their attorney were surreptitiously shepherded into the embassy — out of view of the throng of onlookers and security constantly surrounding the pope — Staver said he drove the Davises to a prearranged location within or near the embassy, boasting to the Times that the top secret confab with the pope was “no mean feat” to arrange.

Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, suggested to the the Times that the pope’s meeting with Davis in Washington was part of his preordained schedule, unlike Francis’s well-publicized meeting last Friday with the Little Sisters of the Poor, which Lombardi said was a diversion from the pontiff’s public schedule. 

“I do not deny that the meeting took place, but I have no other comments to add,” Lombardi told Catholic News Service of the pope’s meeting with Davis, refusing to elaborate on what actually took place at the gathering.

For his part, Staver claimed that Davis’s meeting with the pope was not organized through American bishops. While he did not disclose who exactly proposed and arranged the meeting, Staver claimed that “Vatican officials had been aware of Ms. Davis’s jailing and […] the meeting had been arranged through them.”

Davis told ABC News that, while only lasting 15 minutes, her meeting with the pope — which included just herself, her husband, and a few Vatican attendants — culminated with hand-holding, embraces, and a statement of gratitude from the pope for her alleged courage:

“I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me. And he said, ‘Thank you for your courage.’ I had tears coming out of my eyes. I’m just a nobody, so it was really humbling to think he would want to meet or know me.”

Staver says that during the meeting, the pope gave Davis and her husband two sets of rosary beads that the pontiff had personally blessed. Davis reportedly gave the rosary beads to her Catholic parents, as she and her husband worship at the Solid Rock Apostolic Church near Morehead, Ky. It is affiliated with the Apostolic Pentecostal movement, a Protestant denomination that has a literal view of the Bible, including the belief that homosexuality is a sin.

Staver is a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor who heads the tax-exempt legal group Liberty Counsel, which provides pro-bono legal counsel to advance its stated interest in “restoring the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family,” according to its website. It has a long history of targeting progressive, pro-choice, and LGBT groups, initiatives, and individuals. 

Back in 2000, Liberty Counsel threatened to sue Florida’s Jacksonville Public Library for awarding a Hogwarts’ Certificate of Accomplishment to children who read all 734 pages of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. At the time, Staver charged that the public library’s encouragement of childhood literacy was in fact promoting “witchcraft,” in violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause prohibiting the state from endorsing a particular religion. To avoid the cost of a lawsuit, the Jacksonville Public Libraries ceased the literacy program in 2000, according to American Libraries magazine. 

However, it seems the separation of church and state is precisely what Staver is seeking to dissolve with his current client, Davis, who is seeking to ignore federal orders that require her to do her job as a public servant (who issues marriage licenses) by serving all members of the public equally. Staver, on Davis’s behalf, consistently claims that his client is a good Christian woman, only seeking to follow her deeply held religious conviction that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. 

Noting that Pope Francis refused multiple requests to meet with disenfrancised LGBT Catholics and directly claimed he was only speaking generally about the “human right” of government officials to pursue a “conscientious objection” in refusing to perform duties that conflict with their faith, many LGBT people felt the secret nature of the pope’s meeting with Davis was a slap in the face.  

“The pope played us for fools, trying to have it both ways,” wrote award-winning gay author and talk show host Michelangelo Signorile at The Huffington Post. Signorile went on to stress:

“I would have more respect for the pope if he had publicly embraced Kim Davis and made an argument for her, as he did in his visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are battling against filling out a form to exempt themselves from Obamacare’s contraception requirement, claiming that even filling out the form violates their religious liberty — even though I vehemently disagree with the pope on that issue. I’d have more respect if he boldly, explicitly made a public statement (not the vague, general statement he made on his plane on the way home only in response to a reporter’s question about Davis), as he did in trying to stop the execution of a Georgia inmate who was put to death this morning. But by meeting with Davis secretly, and then at first having the Vatican neither confirm nor deny the encounter — and now having the Vatican say it ‘won’t deny’ the meeting while it still won’t offer any other details — the pope comes off as a coward.”

“It’s probably best not to interpret a meeting that the Vatican will not speak about, and also to be careful about swallowing wholesale the interpretation of those who would use this meeting to support their own agenda,” added James Martin, a Jesuit priest like the pope, in a Wednesday post for the Jesuit magazine America titled “The Pope and Kim Davis: Seven Points to Keep in Mind.” “Instead, there’s an easier and better option. Listen to the pope’s own words […] about individual conscientious objection.”

Whether “conscientious objection” is an apt legal definition of Davis’s refusal to carry out her professional duties as an elected official is debatable, since Davis has refused to resign from her post and is still collecting her $80,000 annual salary despite refusing to issue marriage licenses since late June. By comparison, “conscientious objectors” to military service routinely resign or refuse to serve when called, according to the GI Rights Hotline’s explanation. 

Cleis Abeni

www.advocate.com/religion/2015/10/01/behind-scenes-kim-daviss-meeting-pope-francis

Scott Lively Could Face Fine For Anti-Gay Efforts

(RNS) The Rev. Scott Lively runs a Bible study four mornings a week at Holy Grounds Coffee House in Springfield, Mass. His Abiding Truth Ministries provides meals and movies for the homeless and hosts about 45 people at Sunday services.

But outside of Springfield, Lively is not universally loved. The 58-year-old Pentecostal pastor, husband and father of four is accused of persecuting LGBT people abroad, a crime against humanity under international law.

A lawsuit by Sexual Minorities Uganda, an LGBT advocacy group, alleges that Lively conspired with Ugandan religious and political leaders since 2002 to incite anti-gay sentiment in that country that has resulted in housing and employment discrimination, arrest, torture and the murder of gays and lesbians. The case, filed in 2012, is expected to go to trial early next year in a U.S. district court in Massachusetts. If convicted, Lively could face a fine.

“He’s very clear that you have to silence LGBT people and eradicate them politically,” said Pam Spees, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit that is representing the Ugandan advocacy group in the case.

Under the Alien Tort Statute,  people who are not U.S. citizens can bring suit in U.S. courts for violations of U.S. laws. The ATS has been used in cases of torture and genocide, but this is the first time it has been applied to persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Sexual Minorities Uganda and the Center for Constitutional Rights contend that Lively’s presentations in workshops in 2009 and 2012 influenced a 2013 Uganda law, which initially called for life in prison for people who engage in same-sex relations. Later the law was revised to also punish individuals or groups that support gays. After international outrage, the constitutional court in Uganda overturned the law in August 2014 on a technicality, but lawmakers have said they will revive the bill.

Critics say another proposed law, which seeks to restrict nonprofits from operating in Uganda, could also be used to outlaw groups working with LGBT people.

“The situation there is very fraught and perilous,” Spees said. “There are so many violations happening in Uganda, and people are suffering. This case is part of a larger effort to keep it from getting worse.”

Lively, who became a born-again Christian in 1986 and started focusing on homosexuality in 1991, says he “rejects the things that do not comport with the Bible and the kingdom of God.” A brochure on his website says the Bible “identifies rampant homosexuality in society as the harbinger of God’s wrath.”

He’s taken that message abroad, most notably to Uganda and Russia.

“The gay movement is an evil institution (that aims) to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity,’’ he said at a 2009 conference in Uganda.

Excerpts of Lively’s talk appeared in “A Prayer for Uganda,” aired in May on HBO’s newsmagazine “Vice.” In it, Lively compares homosexuality to pedophilia and says Uganda has “become like Sodom and Gomorrah.” He equates homosexuality with Nazism and fascism, blames the 1994 Rwandan genocide on gay people and calls AIDS “just punishment” for homosexuality.

Lively’s talk in Uganda also appears in the 2013 documentary “God Loves Uganda,” which blames American evangelicals for spreading anti-gay sentiment abroad.

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren has also been linked to Uganda’s anti-gay legislation. In 2009, he removed from his church website articles by Lively after both were accused of spreading hate and spurring violence against gays. 

“I do not know Scott Lively and have had no contact with him regarding Uganda or any other issue,” Warren wrote in 2009. “I would certainly not associate with anyone who denies the Holocaust, one of the greatest tragedies in human history.” Lively co-authored “The Pink Swastika” in 1995, which essentially blames the Holocaust on gays.

After a 2007 visit to Russia, Lively urged that country to “criminalize the public advocacy of homosexuality.” Russia’s parliament unanimously passed a federal law banning the spreading of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors in June 2013. The law makes it illegal to distribute material on gay rights and calls for fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law. It has spurred international outrage, especially during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“It’s one of the proudest achievements of my career,” Lively said of the law in 2013 on Bryan Fischer’s radio show, “Focal Point,” run by the American Family Association. During the interview, he called Russia’s anti-gay law “very, very good.”

Lively is an outlier even among conservative evangelicals, according to Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at evangelical Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

“At one time he might have been on the edge of mainstream, but his rabid support for criminalizing gays took him out of the mainstream,” he said. “He’s gripped by the idea that homosexuality is the evil of society.”

Lively, who holds a law degree, says he is motivated by love, not hate. “It’s putting forward a truth that will allow them not to participate in something that could hurt them,” he said, referring to LGBT people.

He said that the accusations against him are unfounded and exaggerated and that his comments on homosexuality are protected by the First Amendment. “Free speech does not end at the border,” he said.

Lively said he is confident he’ll prevail in court and has no intention of changing his message.

“I’m not allowing anyone to stop me from defending biblical truth,” he said. “I’ll stand for the truth of God if it costs me my life.”

Lively is represented by Liberty Counsel, a Christian law firm that also represents Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was recently jailed for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He’s never met Davis but said he admires her “courage and commitment.”

These stories are part of a series on the intersection of faith, ethnicity and sexuality, brought to you with support from the Arcus Foundation.

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Alyssa Milano explains how she lost touch with Who’s the Boss co-star Danny Pintauro

Actress Alyssa Milano was in tears this week on The Talk when she talked about her former Who’s the Boss co-star Danny Pintauro’s disclosure recently that he is HIV positive.

Although her co-stars Judith Light and Tony Danza had long been aware of the news, Milano found out along with the rest of the public.

It seems the two former child stars did not stay in touch at all after the ABC sitcom ended its eight-year run in 1992.

Explains Alyssa: ‘Danny and I didn’t talk for many years after the show was over. When the show ended, it was a different time. We didn’t have cell phones or Facebook or anything. I would have been calling his parents house saying, “Hi! Can I talk to Danny?” (laughs). We didn’t have anything, no testing or anything. I’d lost contact with him for a long time.’

The two certainly went in different directions more than two decades ago.

While Pintauro graduated from Stanford University, he did little acting. Milano went on to become a cast member on Melrose Place then spent eight years on the TV series Charmed. More recently, she starred in the ABC series Mistresses.

The post Alyssa Milano explains how she lost touch with Who’s the Boss co-star Danny Pintauro appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/alyssa-milano-explains-how-she-lost-touch-with-whos-the-boss-co-star-danny-pintauro/

See How This Abandoned Gay Teen Turned His Life Around In One Year

In August of last year, two of the world’s worst parents were caught on camera physically assaulting their gay son, just moments after banishing him from their home over what they believed to be his “chosen” and “ungodly” sexuality.

Related: Watch Two God-Fearing Parents Assault And Kick Their “Disgraceful” Gay Son To The Curb

Daniel Pierce of Kennesaw, Georgia was 19 years old then, and walked out of his parents’ house for good that night.

He wasn’t left with much of a choice — in the video, he’s told:

“Since you have chosen that path, we will not support you any longer. You will need to move out and find wherever you can to live, and do whatever you want to. I will not let people believe that I condone what you do.”

Now one year later, local NBC affiliate 11Alive caught up with Daniel to see how life has changed, and things are really looking up for him.

That $95k he raised on GoFundMe certainly tipped the scales in his favor, but Daniel isn’t using the money recklessly. Sure, it’s helped him rent a place on his own and pay for medical bills (including the cost of hearing aids) now that his parents have dropped him from their insurance plan, but he’s also donated thousands to Lost-n-Found Youth, a shelter for homeless LGBT children.

Related: Georgia Teen Assaulted By Parents Raises Over $90,000 In Three Days

He also began volunteering with the organization after they helped him land on his feet. Now he’s on the board of directors and works in the shelter to help kids who find themselves in a similar position, minus the “going viral” part.

Watch below:

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/7roonaRS2MQ/see-how-this-abandoned-gay-teen-turned-his-life-around-in-one-year-20151001

Carly Fiorina Claims She’s Getting Crushed by System That Benefits the Wealthy: WATCH

Multi-millionaire and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina claims she’s part of a group getting crushed by a system that benefits the wealthy, Right Wing Watch reports.

Fiorina, who with her husband is worth nearly $60 million, sat down with Glenn Beck last night and made the claim. She said:

“Crony capitalism is alive and well. When you have big, powerful, complicated, costly government, only the wealthy, the powerful, the big and the well-connected can handle it and all the rest of us are getting crushed. And people see that, they feel it in the bones. In their bones, people know if something is so complicated I don’t understand it, I’m getting screwed.”

Watch:

In other Fiorina news, not a single HP employee has donated to her campaign, The Daily Beast reports:

Of the 302,000 employees at the company, not one has given a reportable amount to help Fiorina fund her 2016 presidential campaign, according to the campaign’s most recent FEC filings, which lists all donations over $200. HP’s corporate leadership also doesn’t seem keen on the idea of Fiorina in the White House. Among the 12-member board of directors, just one, Ann Livermore, has given a donation above that threshold.

The post Carly Fiorina Claims She’s Getting Crushed by System That Benefits the Wealthy: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Carly Fiorina Claims She’s Getting Crushed by System That Benefits the Wealthy: WATCH