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Daily Archives: November 16, 2015
Antigay Utah Judge Is Off Lesbian Parenting Case
Antigay Utah Judge Is Off Lesbian Parenting Case
The Utah judge who last week ordered that a foster child be taken away from a lesbian couple, then reversed his decision, is now off the case.
“Seventh District Juvenile Judge Scott Johansen signed an order Monday referring all pending matters in the case to the presiding judge of the district, Judge Mary Manley,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Johansen had filed an order last Tuesday saying that the 9-month-old girl should be removed from the home of married couple April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce of Carbon County, because “it is not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples.” The women immediately planned to appeal, but Friday, Johansen struck that line from his order, along with another one saying the child should be placed with a heterosexual couple and a requirement that the child be moved within a week. He did, however, continue to question the appropriateness of parenting by same-sex couples, and another hearing in the case was set for December 4.
Johansen disqualified himself from the case just as many people were calling for sanctions against him. There are at least two petitions on Change.org urging his impeachment by the Utah legislature, and the Human Rights Campaign has filed a complaint with the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission seeking an investigation into his conduct. He has been reprimanded by the commission for “demeaning the judicial office” on other occasions. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert were also among those criticizing his attempt to remove the child from Hoagland and Peirce’s home.
Hoagland and Peirce have been planning to adopt the child, and they have the support of the girl’s birth mother and state-appointed attorney as well as the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. There have been no allegations of neglect or wrongdoing on the part of the couple. With Johansen’s move today, it is uncertain whether there will still be a hearing December 4, the Tribune notes.
“We are thankful that Judge Johansen has decided to step aside,” the couple said in a statement released through LGBT group Equality Utah. “Our greatest concern now is taking care of our beautiful baby foster daughter. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and support from people all across the nation. We are grateful that our family is now being treated equally under the law.”
Trudy Ring
www.advocate.com/families/2015/11/16/antigay-utah-judge-lesbian-parenting-case
Utah Judge Scott Johansen Removes Himself From Gay Foster Parent Case
Utah Judge Scott Johansen Removes Himself From Gay Foster Parent Case
A Utah judge who had ordered a baby girl taken away from her lesbian foster mothers and placed in a heterosexual home removed himself from the case Monday as criticism turned into calls for his impeachment.
Though Judge Scott Johansen had reversed his decision and allowed the 9-month-old baby to stay with the married women recommended by state welfare authorities, there were concerns he could still have the baby removed from their home in Price later on.
April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce asked for the judge to be disqualified, saying that the decision revealed a potential bias that broke the rules of judicial conduct, their lawyer Jim Hunnicutt said.
While Johansen disputed their legal standing to call for his removal, he nevertheless stepped aside nearly a week after the Nov. 10 order criticized by national gay rights groups, the state’s Republican governor and others.
The couple applauded Johansen’s decision and said they’re happy the family is being treated equally.
“Our greatest concern now is taking care of our beautiful baby foster daughter,” Hoagland and Peirce said in a statement.
Utah officials are pleased the child will stay in a nurturing home with the “very capable” parents, said Ashley Sumner, a spokeswoman for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
The case will be referred to presiding juvenile Judge Mary Manley. The couple feels like the change will make them much more likely to get a fair shot at adopting the baby girl they’ve been fostering for three months, Hunnicutt said.
“They are just two wonderful, normal parents with a happy baby to take care of,” he said.
In his initial decision handed down during a routine hearing, Johansen mentioned research showing children do better when raised by heterosexual families. The American Psychological Association, however, has said there’s no scientific basis for believing that gays and lesbians are unfit parents based on sexual orientation.
A gay rights group has filed a complaint with state judicial officials, and the watchdog group Alliance for a Better Utah on Monday called for state lawmakers to impeach the judge.
Johansen is barred from speaking about pending cases and a call to his publicly listed phone number went unanswered Monday.
Josh Kantor, the founder of the progressive-leaning Alliance for a Better Utah, said the judge’s move would not change the group’s push to get state lawmakers to remove him from the bench.
“This guy now has a pattern of doing these kinds of outrageous things,” Kanter said.
Johansen, who has been a state judge since 1992, has had previous questions about his conduct. He was given a reprimand from the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission after he slapped a 16-year-old boy who allegedly became belligerent and insulting in his chambers in 1995.
Three years ago, a woman filed a complaint against the judge after he told her to cut off her 13-year-old daughter’s ponytail in court in order to reduce the girl’s sentence for cutting off a 3-year-old girl’s hair.
The Human Rights Campaign is also pressing their complaint with the Judicial Conduct Commission, which can recommend a judge’s removal. That group alleged Johansen discriminated against the couple based on sexual orientation and called for a quick decision ahead of the custody hearing next month.
Also on HuffPost:
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Following Backlash, Utah Judge Recuses Himself from Parenting Case
Following Backlash, Utah Judge Recuses Himself from Parenting Case
Jerry O'Connell Is Katya's Beau In '12 Days of Christmas' Video
Jerry O'Connell Is Katya's Beau In '12 Days of Christmas' Video
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 7 star Katya is treated to 12 days of bizarre gifts from a devoted beau, played by super-buff (and scantily clad) Hollywood actor Jerry O’Connell.
The gift exhanges take place in the hilarious video for the zany Russian drag queen’s version of “12 Days of Christmas,” which is featured in the brand new Christmas Queens holiday compilation.
Revel in good cheer as Katya receives six Slavic seamen, five NuvaRings, four pregnant piglets — you get the idea.
Watch “12 Days of Christmas” below.
Gina Vivinetto
Campus Racism Protests Didn't Come Out Of Nowhere, And They Aren't Going Away Quickly
Campus Racism Protests Didn't Come Out Of Nowhere, And They Aren't Going Away Quickly
If there’s one thing University of Missouri senior Alanna Diggs thinks people are getting wrong about campus racism protests, it’s the assumption that they’re something new.
The demonstrations at Mizzou this month resulting in the ouster of two top university leaders, partly over how they handled various racist incidents on campus, Diggs said, “were not a result of spontaneous combustion.”
“It was not an overdramatic reaction by a couple of angry black students, but a moment built up over time,” Diggs continued. “Many of us behind the scenes have been suffering and struggling with administration and students while trying to deal with class and work. The movement is not over. This is the beginning.”
The demonstrations at Mizzou’s campus in Columbia came on the heels of unrest at Yale University, and have been copied — complete with demands for resignations –at dozens of other colleges, including Ithaca College in New York, the University of Kansas and Claremont McKenna College near Los Angeles.
Protests staged on college campuses last week are the culmination of years of activism around inequality and everyday racism, and incidents pushing racial divisions to the surface. The demands activists are making are reminiscent of similar protests decades earlier. And scholars caution there’s no single switch colleges can flip to fix things — improving racial tensions on campuses will likely take years.
“What we are seeing is the beginning of a movement where students and student groups across campuses are finding the courage to speak up about what they have been experiencing,” said Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, a scholar of Latino and black male students, at Columbia University. “I think Mizzou is a catalyst, an inspiration perhaps, but not a one-off event. I think we are also witnessing a reprise to history — college campuses have historically been places where protest to inequality has taken place.”
Students are arriving on campus believing racism remains persistent in America today. According to an annual survey of more than 150,000 incoming freshmen by UCLA, the percentage of students who believe racism is no longer an issue has risen slowly over 25 years, from 19 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2015.
Students of color who’ve spoken with HuffPost say that does not surprise them, given that students are growing up witnessing high-profile deaths of unarmed black men and teens, like Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner. Those experiences are coupled multiple examples of fraternity and sorority parties featuring black face and caricatures of various ethnic groups, while Muslim students at some campuses have been subjected to spying by law enforcement.
“We’re not that much that different than the people being killed,” said Taylor Lemmons, a junior at Claremont McKenna College. “Just because we’re going to get a degree from these shiny institutions doesn’t mean we’re that much different.”
Read Student Activists’ Demands:
In some cases, students who say racism is still a prevalent issue have been proven right. The University of Alabama’s sororities didn’t begin accepting black women as members until 2013. In March, fraternity brothers in Oklahoma were caught on video singing and laughing about lynching black men — racial slurs included.
“We’re living in a time where issues that haven’t been appropriately attended to for a number of years are getting much more attention,” said Benjamin Reese Jr., Duke University’s chief diversity officer. “I don’t think students suddenly woke up to things. I think they’re reacting not only to the events on campus and incidents around the country.”
Brown University senior Armani Madison said part of his discontent with his school is fueled by demands made by black students in 1968, 1975 and 1985 that “have yet to be fulfilled, despite university promises.” Activists at Occidental College noted their demand for a black studies major has existed since 1968.
Students of color have organized campaigns at Colgate University, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and Harvard, among other schools, to highlight inequities. Some of these demands at Brown, Mizzou and elsewhere are for an increase in the percentage of minority students and faculty.
More selective colleges are still disproportionately white compared with the general population, data from the Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce shows. College presidents, football coaches and professors all are much more likely to be white, too. Black students are less likely to graduate within six years compared with their classmates.
But even increasing the percentage of students of color on campus is not enough, insisted Deborah Bial, founder of the Posse Foundation, which partners with colleges to place minority students.
“It’s the responsibility of every institution to be transparent to have as many ongoing conversations as possible, to create forums, to use every resource they have from the president to the students themselves,” Bial said. “And the conversation shouldn’t just be happening one time.”
Activists also are demanding changes to curriculum to address diversity and an administrative acknowledgement of barriers that students of color face.
Students of color say they’re constantly reminded that they are “different.” Reine Ibala, a senior at Yale, described either feeling “invisible” on campus, or like she was an intruder and couldn’t rely on bystanders to help if something happened.
“The thing about being black on a college campus in an urban area is that your color — in my case, my blackness — at times puts my status as a student in question,” Ibala said. “Here in New Haven, the assumption is first that I am a ‘townie.'”
Students protesting on campuses told HuffPost their demonstrations were not simply about offensive Halloween costumes, misguided emails from administrators or one person shouting the N-word. The emotional response,which sometimes receives backlash, comes from dealing with years of feeling like administrators aren’t trying to make things better for them.
“It shouldn’t take days of our tears and anger to move an administration to listen,” Ibala said.
Transparency during the next steps will be critical, said Reese, president of National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. Reese recommended including students in assessing what steps a college will take to address racial issues — something activists are demanding at Mizzou and Claremont McKenna, among other campuses.
But in the near term, both Reese and Bial emphasized that colleges will have to be quicker to respond to individual incidents of racism.
“It’s important to say this happened and we’re not okay with it, and it’s important for students to say it as well — I can’t emphasize that enough,” Bial said. “Students can’t give up the power they have to voice opinions about what’s okay and what’s not okay.”
Vernā Myers, a diversity consultant and author, said now that Mizzou has served as a spark, protests against campus racism won’t go away.
“This generation didn’t think they’d have to go through something like this,” Myers said. But now, they are empowered to do so, and “they’re going to help our country live up to what we say we believe.”
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Tyler Kingkade and Lilly Workneh reported from New York, Ryan Grenoble reported from Denver. You can contact the authors at tyler.kingkade@
— 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.
Utah judge who ordered child removed from lesbian foster parents takes self off case
Utah judge who ordered child removed from lesbian foster parents takes self off case
Judge Scott Johansen is now off the case.
The Utah judge who last week ordered the Department of Child and Family Services to remove a child from a home because the foster moms are lesbians has agreed to remove himself from the case.
Johansen had cited studies suggesting children are better off in straight households when he ruled against April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce. The Carbon County couple are married with two children and hoped to adopt the nine-month-old girl who they had been fostering for three months.
The couple had requested that Johansen be disqualified from their case and he reacted by disqualifying himself.
His decision last week had caused outrage and among those critical of it were Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and Utah Governor Gary Herbert.
Following the outcry, Johansen reversed his order until at least the next hearing but he remained on the case.
Meanwhile, a Change.org petition has been launched seeking to have the judge removed from the bench.
H/T: Towleroad
The post Utah judge who ordered child removed from lesbian foster parents takes self off case appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
Gym Employee Who Busta Rhymes Allegedly Called A Faggot And Threw A Protein Shake At Breaks His Silence
Gym Employee Who Busta Rhymes Allegedly Called A Faggot And Threw A Protein Shake At Breaks His Silence
Ole Hernandez says he had no idea who Busta Rhymes was before the rapper allegedly called him a faggot then threw a protein shake in his face. Now, he’s speaking out about the incident for the very first time.
33-year-old Hernandez works at the front counter of Steel Gym in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. On August 5, he found himself on the receiving end of a string of homophobic and racist epithets made by 43-year-old Rhymes after he told the hip hop artist he couldn’t bring a cameraman into the gym.
Related: Rapper Busta Rhymes Hurls Anti-Gay Slur Over Missing Ketchup At Miami Burger Joint
Speaking to The New York Post this week, Hernandez says Rhymes flew into a rage, allegedly yelling: “You don’t know who I am! I’m Busta Rhymes! I’m the real n–ga! You’re a f–king f–got, you are a p–sy! You are a Mexican crossing the border to come to this country! I will f–k you up!”
Surveillance video doesn’t capture the audio from the altercation, but it does show Rhymes visibly upset and reaching across the counter towards Hernandez before his security guard intervenes to pull him away.
This isn’t the first time Rhymes has been accused of using antigay slurs. In 2013, he was accused of calling a lesbian fast food worker a “fag” and a “bitch” then trying to jump over the counter when she forgot to give him ketchup with his meal.
Related: Alec Baldwin Throws Yet Another Temper Tantrum, Calls Photographer A “C**ksucking F*g!”
The next day, Rhymes returned to Steel Gym to rehash the previous day’s beef with Hernandez.
Surveillance video obtained by The Post shows the two men exchanging words again before Rhymes throws the contents of his water bottle at Hernandez. Hernandez responds by throwing water back at Rhymes, who then proceeds to knock over a computer and swing punches before grabbing a chocolate protein shake and tossing it at Hernandez, hitting him with it in the face.
According to Hernandez, Rhymes’ security guards then raced behind the counter and slammed him into a door. That altercation, however, happened off camera.
Afterwards, Rhymes was arrested for felony assault and was ordered to attend anger-management classes. Hernandez tells The Post that he is “furious” the rapper managed to escape any jail time or fines.
As for having no idea Rhymes was at the time of the assault, Hernandez had this to say:
“I am a Mexican. I like mariachi. I don’t like rap.”
Related: Jonah Hill Yells Homophobic Slur At Photographer Complimenting His Outfit
Graham Gremore
News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG
News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG
POTUS. President Obama speaks at G20 conference in Turkey, responds to and fields questions regarding the terrorist attacks in Paris: “”If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan. If they think somehow their advisers are better than the Chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them,” Obama said. “And we can have that debate. But what I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region who are getting killed and to protect our allies and people like France. I’m too busy for that.”
MALE MODEL MONDAY. Nick Truelove.
XENOPHOBIA. GOP governors fail to grasp that they don’t have the legal authority to tell President Obama that they will not accept refugees from Syria: “The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the President “broad discretion,” as Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress notes, to accept refugees, including those from Syria. He adds, “there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president.”
BUSINESS. Marriott to purchase Starwood Hotels & Resorts: “The combined hotelier, to be based in Bethesda, would own or franchise 5,500 properties and be the only company to have more than 1 million hotel rooms. The cash and stock purchase marks the largest hotel deal since the private equity firm Blackstone Group bought Hilton Worldwide for $26 billion in 2007.”
SPORTS. OutSports talks to 5 gay college basketball coaches about living in the closet: They “represented just a sampling of the closeted men in college basketball we met or talked with those 72 hours in Indianapolis. Some of them are from major Div. 1 programs. Others are at Div. 2 or 3 schools. All of them are scared.”
PARIS. The lights are back on in the Eiffel Tower, now in the tricolor.
MENTAL HEALTH. New study shows lesbians may be better than gay men in handling depression: “While both gay and lesbian partners offer support to a partner who’s depressed, only lesbians tended to offer support back when they were depressed…Previous research showed that among straight couples, wives were more likely than husbands to offer support to a depressed spouse and they’re also more likely to try to shield their depression from spouses.”
MUSIC. Coldplay honors victims of Paris terror attack with cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
COMICS. Ezra Miller explains how his incarnation of The Flash will differ from that on the CW: “I hope to realize him as a person, and I think what’s most exciting for me in superhero mythologies is when we feel the humanity of someone who is heroic — or the heroism of someone who is a flawed, deeply human person.”
TELEVISION. First look at Queen Latifah and Common in NBC’s The Wiz Live!
HEADLINE MAGIC. “Justin Bieber will do anything to top One Direction.” “Sources say his team’s found ways to pump album sales including bundling his new release, ‘Purpose,’ with tickets to two Staples Center shows last week — ‘That would be nearly another 40,000 albums [sold] right there,’ said a source.”
INK. Adam Levine now has a not-so-little mermaid on his back.
FILM. Carol director Todd Haynes to reunite with Julianne Moore for film Wonderstruck: “Wonderstruck follows the intertwined narratives of two deaf children, Ben and Rose. Ben lives with his family in Minnesota in 1977, and runs off to New York following his mother’s death when a mysterious note shows up. Rose, who is locked in a house in 1927 New Jersey, also escapes to New York to see her idol, film actress Lillian Mayhew. The film is being produced by Christine Vachon, Pam Koffler and John Sloss.”
JUSTICE. RBG talks about the interconnectivity of feminism and the gay rights movement: “It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s “head and master rule,” that the husband was head and master of the house. Marriage was a relationship between the dominant, breadwinning husband and the subordinate, child-rearing wife. What lesbian or gay man would want that?”
The post News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG
Tituss Burgess Receives the HRC Visibility Award
Tituss Burgess Receives the HRC Visibility Award
