LGBT community in Houston gets no help from Beyoncé
An activist claims he reached out to the singer’s camp in August after learning the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance would be up for public vote.
Carlos Greer
pagesix.com/2015/11/07/lgbt-community-in-houston-gets-no-help-from-beyonce/
Gay College Student Disowned by Parents Raises Thousands for Tuition
A teen whose parents kicked him out of the house and cut him off financially because he is gay now has a shot at his dream of graduating college thanks to the support of friends and strangers, reports The Oklahoman.
Joel Andrew, an 18-year-old freshman who was accepted in Oklahoma City University’s esteemed dance program, has raised more than $60,000 to pay for tuition after his dance instructor’s daughter set up a GoFundMe campaign sharing his story.
Andrew initially came out to his parents at 12, and was soon sent to a Christian reparative therapist for weekly sessions where he was forced to talk about the “gay” and effeminate things he was doing and was taught how to resist the urge.
“Every night, I would pray to God to make me straight,” Andrew told The Oklahoman. “It didn’t work.”
Andrew says his parents kicked him out of their home in Michigan after he began dating another guy, and refused to sign student loan documents so he could attend OCU after he told them he wouldn’t hide his sexuality. They also asked that he stop using his last name.
The crowdfunding page to support Andrew launched with a goal of raising $6,500 to pay for one semester. However, his story soon reached Dan Savage who helped bring attention to the campaign which has now raised $60, 446 – enough to pay for his entire college education.
Andrew’s parents have denied their son’s claims. However, several friends who spoke with Savage corroborate the teen’s story.
“What a few months ago seemed impossible now seems achievable,” Andrew writes in a thank you note to supporters on his GoFundMe page. “I’m blown away by the support and words of encouragement from friends, supporters, and strangers. If I had known before that so many people would love me and support me after coming out, I would have done it a long time ago. When I first heard the words ‘It Gets Better,’ I was skeptical; I didn’t believe it was possible. I thought I would be stuck in my small town, surrounded by people who didn’t like me, doing something I hated. Now I will have the chance to make something of myself and all of you have had a huge part in making that dream a reality.”
Now that Andrew has surpassed his goal, Savage encourages people to donate to the Ali Forney Center or the Point Foundation, telling The Oklahoman, “There are a lot of Joels out there.”
Watch The Oklahoman’s video report on Andrew’s story below.
(H/T Towleroad)
Jase Peeples
www.advocate.com/youth/2015/11/07/gay-college-student-disowned-parents-raises-thousands-tuition
Open Question: Do you think patriotism and conservative values instantly equate to racism and an inbuilt prejudice?
I’m just curious of peoples opinions on the matter because, well I’m British myself and I am quite patriotic about that fact and I hold my nationality to have great meaning for me. Granted this island has been the perpetrator of many atrocities which I am ashamed off, but at the same time great good has come from this island too.
Regardless I’m proud to be British and I’m proud of my nationality. I’m also quite Conservative in my beliefs and my world view.
Anyway, I was talking to a friend and they brought up the topic of immigration, my friend is actually American and quite liberal and they just made the instant assumption that because of my mindset of being quite patriotic and right wing I would instantly be opposed to immigration and I would be scared that Muslims might change the national religion of my country.
In reality though I’m quite open to immigrants, due to the present economy in Britain, etc I feel there should be a temporary closure of the borders until the British economy is back to a level where the people already here are able to get employment before letting others in. But overall, I have nothing against people wanting to immigrate and I have even less against asylum seekers especially considering quite a few problems in the world are the fault of Britain’s. Anti-gay laws in the Uganda for example.
Do you think patriotism and conservative values instantly equate to racism and an inbuilt prejudice? Just to elaborate on anti-gay laws in Uganda. I doubt before European colonisation Uganda was a Christian nation and was an import brought there by Europeans. I know it was common for missionaries to go to Africa to educate on the true religion of the world. A a Christian based British colonial law at the time was the sodomy law that outlawed homosexuality, still enforced in several former British colonies including Jamaica and I think it is a reasonable assumption that Uganda would have… …a less opposing view to homosexuality if it wasn’t for British/European colonisation. Hence Britain is at fault for the people who are LGBT presently being persecuted there and it is only fair Britain should take the burden of its actions. Just to point out when I said “the true religion of the world”, I was using it sarcastically. Already had one answering accusing me of being racist.
Gay Iconography: The Strength of Bob Paris
The list of out athletes continues to grow with names like Jason Collins, Michael Sam and Gus Kenworthy becoming recent examples to make headlines. But long before they graced magazine covers breaking boundaries in their fields, gay bodybuilder Bob Paris was bringing LGBT issues to the mainstream.
“I think for a lot of us, we closed out possibility because of that queer element in our early lives and in the myth we grew up with that said, ‘You can’t do this, You can’t do that,’ whatever the limitations were,” he told Sports Complex in 1998. “So many of us grew up with ideas of limitations. For a lot of us those ideas of limitations where expressed in athletics.”
Throughout his nine year career, Paris was an accomplished competitor, including wins in the 1983 NPC American National and IFBB World Bodybuilding Championship. In 2006, Flex Magazine named him the No. 1 most aesthetic athlete in bodybuilding history.
Paris is more than just a chiseled physique. In addition to his physical accomplishments, he risked his bodybuilding career with his 1989 public coming out. Along with his relationships with Rod Jackson and Brian LeFurgey, Paris boldly advocated for the LGBT community long before it became as widely accepted as it is today.
See some classic clips of Paris below!
Heralded as “the second coming” of Steve Reeves. He placed first in the 1983 NPC American National championship. You can see him take the top prize above. He was crowned Mr. Universe the same year.
Paris officially came out in a 1989 issue of Iron Man Magazine. He told his story on talk shows, including appearances on The Joan Rivers Show, Donahue and Oprah. When asked why he didn’t stay in the closet, he told Oprah, ”You fall in love. When Rod and I met, we found a spiritual bond between each other,” Paris said. “If you bastardize it and you stick it back in your back pocket where no one can see it, then pretty soon you chip away pieces of that bit by bit, until you have absolutely nothing left.”
Paris spoke often about being married to Rod Jackson. The pair appeared together on television, on the runway (above) and even co-authored a book together, Straight From the Heart: A Love Story. The pair split after seven years. Now, Paris lives on an island near Vancouver with his husband Brian LeFurgey.
In addition to his work as a bodybuilder, author and activist, Paris is also an actor. He appeared on the stage alongside Bea Arthur, Sandy Duncan and Tyne Daly in the Broadway musical Jubilee. He also appeared in the short-lived ABC sci-fi drama Defying Gravity, which you can see a clip from, above.
Oprah caught up with Paris last year, and he shared more insight on how his coming out affected his career: “I lost about 80 percent of my business. Literally had doors closed in my face,” he said. “There were a number of times where my life was threatened. Some death threats came by phone, by mail.”
How do you think it’s changed for LGBT athletes since Paris?
The post Gay Iconography: The Strength of Bob Paris appeared first on Towleroad.
Bobby Hankinson
Keith Marais posted a photo:
Keith Marais is doing a tandem parachute jump in November 2015 to raise money for LGBT charity, Stonewall.
Stonewall supports individuals to work out how they can make a difference for LGBT people at work, home and in their communities. They equip people with the tools and confidence to connect with, influence and enable others in their communities, by challenging homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, celebrating difference and improving inclusion and visibility of role models.
Alabama Education Official Warns Of 'Homosexualist' Common Core Takeover
An Alabama Board of Education member is drawing criticism for making a number of outlandish claims about the Common Core during a recent GOP luncheon.
Betty Peters, the state school board member for District 2, in the southeast part of the state, spoke at a meeting of the Republican Women of Coffee County Oct. 21 during which she espoused views on the Common Core, “transgender values” and the “homosexualist” takeover of education in Southern states.
Peters tore into the Common Core standards as an example of federal overreach and claimed the program allows “homosexualists” to influence schoolchildren, The Southeast Sun, a newspaper based in Enterprise, Alabama, reported this week.
“I understand Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi are the three Southern states targeted by the radical, left, homosexualists to change our students’ perspective,” Peters said, according to the Sun. “We have gone past gay, lesbian and bisexual and we’re now into gender fluid spectrum.”
“As I said when I first campaigned and I’ve said it every time since, we need to get back to the basics: Reading, writing and arithmetic from first grade on,” Peters continued. “We need to be teaching the ‘c’ part which is Christian values, not Muslim values, not transgender values. We need to be teaching the old Biblical values.”
When asked to clarify why she believes Southern states are being targeted by liberals and the LGBT community, Peters said in an email that she did not have time to reply in detail, but sent The Huffington Post a link to this article.
The Republican Women of Coffee County did not immediately return a request for comment.
Alabama’s education board approved the Common Core in 2010. The educational standards, aimed at improving math skills and literacy nationwide, are a frequent target of conservatives who have often claimed the program is a liberal scheme to nationalize education.
Peters also made a puzzling critique of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national hate-group watchdog. According to Peters, the group is distributing coloring sheets featuring different clothing items and asking children to color in which clothes they want to wear in an attempt to “teach tolerance for transgenderism to four to eight year olds.”
“The Southern Poverty Law Center is going to be developing your children or grandchild or neighbors’ children into little social activists for social justice, as they define it, or else transgender stuff,” she said. “You will notice these are called outfits. I have never asked my son or my husband what ‘outfit’ they are going to wear. This is just crazy. I think all this stuff is mainly written by whacky feminists.”
Peters’ claims have drawn criticism from LGBT activists.
“It read just like an article from The Onion, only it really happened,” Equality Alabama spokesman West Honeycutt wrote in an AL.com op-ed.
Peters, who has served on the state school board since 2003, previously made headlines for her controversial call to remove a novel by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison from school reading lists, claiming the book was pornographic.
Also on HuffPost:
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Open Question: BLACK PEOPLE, when will you see that ambiguous terms like people of color are oppressive to you in society?
like human race and colorblind terms. i hate it even more when blacks use these term because they don’t realize they are throwing black people under the bus.
this is why white organizations like the naacp etc. help other races; women, human race, lgbt, immigrants etc despite the vast majority of its members being black.
there is no benefit in using these racist terms since they ignore issues pertaining to black people and expand them to all races. how racist is that.
why accept them?
Gay Mormons Distressed by New Rules on Same-Sex Relationships
Changes to the church’s handbook prevent the children of gay parents from being baptized until they are 18 and have disavowed homosexual relationships.
College Dance Student Raises $60K For Tuition After Parents Disown Him For Being Gay
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College Dance Student Raises $60K For Tuition After Parents Disown Him For Being Gay
byu/Chris_Zac inlgbt
‘Kill the Gays’ Pastor Says ‘We Are Messed Up’, Proves It with Epic Meltdown: WATCH
We’ve been writing about Kevin Swanson, who hosted Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday and today. Swanson has made some pretty insane remarks in the past.
But you have GOT TO WATCH this insane speech Swanson gave at the conference yesterday after interviewing Huckabee and Jindal.
Shrieked Swanson (an understatement):
“There are families, we’re talking Christian families, pastors’ families, elders’ families from good, godly churches, whose sons are rebelling, hanging out with homosexuals and getting married and the parents are invited. What would you do if that was the case? Here is what I would do: sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and I’d sit in cow manure and I’d spread it all over my body. That is what I would do and I’m not kidding, I’m not laughing….I’m grieving, I’m mourning, I’m pointing out the problem.
“It’s not a gay time! These are the people with the sores! The gaping sores! The sores that are pussey and gross, and people are coming in and carving happy faces on the sores! That’s not a nice thing to do! Don’t you DARE carve happy faces on open pussey sores! Don’t you ever do that! Don’t you ever do that!
“I tell you don’t do it. Sack cloth and ashes. This is what America needs. America needs to hear the message. We are messed up.
Watch, and figure out for yourselves who’s messed up:
Swanson has also said that the government should put gay people to death, warned that the Girl Scouts and the movie “Frozen” turn girls into lesbians and blamed natural disasters on gay people and women who wear pantsSwanson has also said that churches accepting gay couples will lead to the persecution, imprisonment and murder of Christians, and wished for the good ole days when country singer Kacey Musgraves would have been hanged for her pro-gay lyrics.
This is the guy with whom the Republican candidates are spending their time.
The post ‘Kill the Gays’ Pastor Says ‘We Are Messed Up’, Proves It with Epic Meltdown: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
Andy Towle
‘Kill the Gays’ Pastor Says ‘We Are Messed Up’, Proves It with Epic Meltdown: WATCH
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