Petition calls for ACC baseball tournament to be moved from North Carolina

www.glaad.org/blog/petition-calls-acc-baseball-tournament-be-moved-north-carolina

Anti-Trump Protest in California Turns Violent (Video)

www.advocate.com/election/2016/4/29/anti-trump-protest-california-turns-violent-video

From Ted Cruz To Pat McCrory, Republicans Cannot Stop Talking About Going Potty

It’s been a banner week for discussion about bathroom regulation by Republicans. From high profile presidential campaigns to talk radio shows to small town city council meetings, it seems conservatives just can’t get their minds out of the toilet. Literally.

Scroll down for the latest in conservative bathroom propaganda, er, news…

Ted Cruz officially makes pooping and peeing part of his presidential campaign platform

In a series of campaign speeches across Indiana this week, the most hated man in the GOP suggested he will take the fight over public restrooms all the way to the White House, should he be elected.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all to let grown adult men–strangers–to be alone in bathrooms with little girls,” Cruz said at a campaign stop Monday. “And anyone saying differently is political correctness on steroids.”

He followed that up Tuesday by claiming, “If the law says that any man, if he chooses, can enter a women’s restroom, a little girls’ restroom, and stay there, and he cannot be removed because he simply says at that moment he feels like a woman, you’re opening the door for predators.”

He kicked his assholery up another notch later in the week with a transphobic and misogynistic joke with pedophilic implications:

“Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both agree that grown men should be allowed to use the little girls’ restroom,” he remarked. “If Donald Trump dresses as Hillary Clinton, he still can’t use the little girls’ restroom. And I apologize for putting that image in your mind.”

Pastor Rick Wiles threatens to pee all over the floor at Target

Pastor Rick Wiles, host of the rightwing radio show TruNews, went on a rant this week about Target’s new bathroom policy, which allows people to use the restroom of their preferred gender, by accusing the bargain department store of “defecating” all over the United States of America and then threatening to pee all over the floor in an act of protest.

“How about I just urinate on your floor?!” Wiles cried. “How about that, Molly?! Because you’re defecating on this nation! It’s either shut down Target or their type is going to shut down this nation!”

Riiiiight. Because whipping out one’s penis and pissing in front of innocent shoppers in the home goods aisle is so much less creepy and offensive than a person doing their business in the privacy of a closed stall.

Alabama town passes law charging trans people $500 for answering nature’s call in public

In the ongoing contest to be as cruel as possible to trans people, one Alabama town passed a law this week imposing a six-month jail sentence and/or a $500 fine for anyone caught peeing in a bathroom that town officials don’t approve of.

City council members in the town of Oxford, AL (pop. 21,232) crafted (we use that word loosely given the number of spelling and grammar errors) a new ordinance the reads:

Citizens have a right to quite [sic] solicitude [sic] and to be secure from embarrassment and unwanted intrusion into their privacy… single sex public facilities are places of increased venerability [sic] and present the potential for crimes against individuals utilizing those facilities which may include, but [are] not limited to, voyeurism, exhibitionism, molestation, and assault and battery.

The bill passed unanimously.

Gov. Pat McCrory tells Megyn Kelly he doesn’t want to be seen as the “bathroom police”

In an interview with FOX News, Gov. Pat McCrory told Megyn Kelly on Thursday that he has “no desire” to be thought of as the bathroom police… then proceeded to talk about policing bathrooms for five straight minutes.

“I do not want government to be able to tell private businesses what their bathroom policies should be,” McCrory claimed, before adding in the same breath that there is “an expectation of privacy that individuals have” in regards to going to the bathroom. Therefore, the government should pass laws regulating public restrooms.

Confused? So was Kelly. She replied by explaining that, unlike men’s restrooms that are equipped with urinals, women’s restrooms only have stalls. “We don’t see each other,” she said. “So why are you concerned about young girls exposing themselves or seeing somebody else exposed in a woman’s bathroom?”

To which McCrory awkwardly responded, “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”

We can’t either.

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Judge Rules Gay Sex Stings Carried Out by Long Beach Police Are Discriminatory

A Los Angeles county judge has ruled that gay sex stings carried out by Long Beach police are discriminatory and “indicative of animus toward homosexuals.”

Superior Court Judge Halim Dhanidina invalidated the arrest of Rory Moroney, 50, on charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure. Had Moroney been found guilty he would have had to register as a sex offender.

Moroney was arrested after allegedly exposing himself to an undercover police officer at a well-known gay cruising area.

Moroney was emotional in court after the ruling came down. Speaking outside the courthouse on Friday, he said, “It was really hard to … come out and be the voice, but I had to do it because I believe that Long Beach is discriminating against gay men.”

The LA Times reports: 

Dhanidina said a review of evidence showed that Long Beach’s vice unit engaged in discriminatory practices because the squad uses only male officers as undercover decoys in lewd conduct stings. Several officers who testified at an evidentiary hearing earlier this month all said they had a [sic] arrested only male suspects for lewd conduct in their time working as vice officers, according to the judge.

Dhanidina rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Long Beach based its policing tactics on citizen complaints about lewd conduct, saying that the agency provided little to no evidence of citizen complaints about such conduct at men’s public restrooms where the bulk of the stings took place.

Dhanidina concluded that the Long Beach PD “intentionally targeted men who engaged in homosexual sex.” Dhanidina added, “It appears that the presence and tactics of the decoy officers actually caused the crimes to occur.”

Long Beach police have not said whether they plan to appeal Dhanidina’s ruling.

[Top photo via Facebook]

The post Judge Rules Gay Sex Stings Carried Out by Long Beach Police Are Discriminatory appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/pO94662XIPc/

Meet The Student Protesters Who Stood Up To An Alternative-Right Celebrity

For the roughly 150 American University students who gathered outside the speaking hall, free speech meant rallying for a “Say No To Milo” protest.

The post Meet The Student Protesters Who Stood Up To An Alternative-Right Celebrity appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/04/29/3774026/student-protesters-american-university/

Dept. of Education Publishes Institutions Receiving Right To Discriminate Against LGBT Students

Today, HRC praised the U.S. Department of Education for helping to increase transparency and accountability by publishing a list of educational institutions who have received an exemption from federal civil rights law in order to discriminate against LGBT students. HRC first called on the Department of Education in December to take action in light of this growing and disturbing trend by some religious colleges and universities.

“We commend the Department of Education for answering our call for greater transparency and helping to ensure no student unknowingly enrolls in a school that intends to discriminate against them,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The alarming and growing trend of schools quietly seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT students, and not disclosing that information publicly, is what spurred our call for greater transparency. We believe that religious liberty is a bedrock principle of our nation, however, faith should never be used as a guise for discrimination.”

Released by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the list of educational institutions published today can be found here.

HRC first called on the Department of Education to take action in a comprehensive report released in December called Hidden Discrimination: Title IX Religious Exemptions Putting LGBT Students at Risk. In the report, HRC spotlighted 56 colleges and universities based in 26 states across every region of the country – which collectively have nearly 120,000 students – that have requested religious exemptions under Title IX since 2013. These institutions have utilized a little-known provision in the law that allows educational institutions controlled by a religious organization to request an exemption from full compliance with the law if “application of the law would conflict with specific tenets of the religion.”

In the report, HRC specifically called for:

• The Department of Education to require schools to publish comprehensive information about the scope of the exemption they received, the characteristics or behaviors to which the exemption applies, and the way in which Title IX still protects students;
• The Department of Education to regularly report which educational institutions have been granted Title IX religious exemptions, the scope of those exemptions, the characteristics or behaviors to which the exemption applies; and
• Congress to amend the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) governing statute to require OCR to annually report the number of Title IX exemptions that were requested, granted, and denied.

While the Department of Education has little discretion to deny these requests for exemptions, HRC believes religiously controlled educational institutions should not be exempt from full transparency.

LGBT students face discrimination and harassment at an alarming rate. According to a 2010 study, lesbian, gay, and bisexual college students are nearly twice as likely to experience harassment when compared with their non-LGB peers, and are seven times more likely to indicate the harassment was based on their sexual orientation. In the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, one-fifth of transgender students reported that they were denied gender-appropriate housing, and five percent reported outright denial of campus housing. LGBT college students also suffer from higher rates of sexual assault and misconduct on America’s campuses; transgender and gender nonconforming students report one of the highest rates of sexual assault and misconduct.

www.hrc.org/blog/dept.-of-education-publishes-institutions-receiving-right-to-discriminate-a?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

The GLAAD Wrap: 'The Fosters' casting news, 'Boxed In' web series, new video from Tegan and Sara and more!

www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-wrap-fosters-casting-news-boxed-web-series-new-video-tegan-and-sara-and-more

Seth Meyers Blasts 'Bathroom Bills' and Ted Cruz

The late-night host attacked those who spread fearmongering of transgender people and restrooms.

www.advocate.com/media/2016/4/29/seth-meyers-blasts-bathroom-bills-and-ted-cruz

This Redneck Just Utterly Destroyed The Target Boycott

“You know it’s getting out of hand cause we’ve got white people boycotting Target,” comedian Trae Crowder says as he begins to dig into the bizarre bathroom hysteria sweeping through the popular retailer.

And he has a point.

“I hope you realize that Target ain’t even gonna think about giving a damn,” he tells so-called “protesters.”

Watch more of his glorious monologue below:

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/zaQMdxFkIO4/this-redneck-just-utterly-destroyed-the-target-boycott-20160429