Bill de Blasio Urges Boycott of Chick-fil-A

The NYC mayor will not be endorsing the fast-food chain, due to the owner’s past anti-LGBT remarks.

www.advocate.com/politicians/2016/5/08/bill-de-blasio-urges-boycott-chick-fil

Obama Celebrates LGBT Moms in Mother's Day Proclamation

The president said mothers “regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status” create “a better and brighter future for their children.”

www.advocate.com/women/2016/5/08/obama-celebrates-lgbt-moms-mothers-day-proclamation

Video: Pat McCrory Continues Hypocrisy on HB2 on Fox Sunday Morning

Today, HRC and Equality North Carolina released the following statement on North Carolina after Gov. Pat McCrory said on Fox News Sunday that he requested more time from the Department of Justice to comply with a letter issued by the Department of Justice that HB2 puts Governor McCrory in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“If HB2 was passed in a day, it can be repealed in a day, too. Pat McCrory’s excuse that he needs more time to comply with the Department of Justice after he rammed through and signed HB2 in the dark of night in a matter of hours doesn’t hold water,” said HRC Communications Director Jay Brown. “Pat McCrory even admitted on national television that his biggest excuse for passing HB2 is a lie. He couldn’t cite a single example of threats to public safety from non-discrimination ordinances like the one in Charlotte. That’s because they do not exist. HB2 is breaking federal civil rights laws and has put billions of dollars in federal funding on the line. It must be fully repealed immediately.”

“Failing to meet the deadline set by the DOJ jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal funding for North Carolina. This is not the time to play political games. Governor McCrory needs to make the repeal of HB2 his number one priority before the deadline expires.” said Equality NC Director of Advancement Matt Hirschy. “HB2 was passed in a under a matter of 12 hours and was signed by Governor McCrory in the dead of the night. After months of economic havoc, and now with billions of dollars in federal funding hanging in the balance there is simply too much on the line to delay a full repeal of HB2.”

In his interview today, McCrory claimed he wanted to hear from the business community before responding to the Department of Justice when nearly 200 major employers have already called for the repeal of HB2 because it is bad for business and bad for North Carolina. 

The letter sent by the Department of Justice to North Carolina this week lays out the Department of Justice’s determination that HB2 puts Governor McCrory and the state government in violation of federal employment law (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) should the state comply with its recently enacted law.  

The letter also states that public schools and universities that comply are in violation of federal education law (Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972).  If the state insists on implementing HB2, it is now on notice that it risks a lawsuit by the Department of Justice. Further, for universities this puts 4.5 billion dollars in federal education funding at risk and endangers other federal funding streams as well.  Read more about how this bill puts Title IX funding at risk here.  

HB2 also eliminates existing municipal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people and prevents such protections from being passed by cities in the future.  Further, it revoked the ability to sue under state employment non-discrimination law on the basis of any protected characteristic, including race, religion, national origin, and sex.

HB2 forces transgender students in public schools to use restrooms and other facilities inconsistent with their gender identity, which is a clear violation of Title IX’s protections from discrimination on the basis of sex.  Both the U.S. Department of Education and a recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Case reiterate that Title IX’s protections from discrimination on the basis of sex require schools to provide transgender students access to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

HB2 requires – and Governor McCrory’s recent Executive Order confirmed – that transgender state and municipal employees would be denied access to restroom and other facilities consistent with their gender identity.  Private employers who lease publicly-owned property would also be forced to discriminate in the provision of restrooms.  These provisions are in clear conflict with Title VII’s requirement that employees not be subject to discrimination on the basis of their sex, which has been interpreted by the EEOC and multiple federal courts to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Polls of North Carolina have found HB2 is opposed by a majority of Tar Heel voters. Moreover, 61 percent say the law has hurt the state’s ability to attract and retain business and 61 percent say HB2 has hurt the state’s image across the country.

HB2 has led the NBA to reconsider next year’s All-Star Game in Charlotte, NASCAR has spoken about its opposition publicly, and the NCAA has said it won’t schedule events – including the Final Four – in cities that don’t have fully-inclusive non-discrimination laws. Major film studios and corporations, from PayPal to Deutsche Bank, have stopped investments in the state because of the new law. The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office has even warned its LGBT citizens of the risks of traveling to North Carolina.

www.hrc.org/blog/video-pat-mccrory-continues-hypocrisy-on-hb2-on-fox-sunday-morning?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Charles Pierce, The Great “Male Actress,” Continues To Influence Drag Performers Everywhere

The blazing career of self-proclaimed “male actress” Charles Pierce was launched in the clubs of San Francisco around the time the struggle for gay rights was kicked into full gear with the Stonewall riots on the opposite coast. With his dead-on satirical send-ups of screen immortals such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Tallulah Bankhead, Pierce quickly earned a devoted fan following and it was common to see celebrities of the day (ranging from Lucille Ball to Anthony Hopkins) in his audience. One celebrity admirer, Bea Arthur, became a very close friend and paid tribute to him in her one-woman show. Before his death in 1999, Pierce had also racked up an impressive acting resume with guest spots on popular TV series Laverne & Shirley and Designing Women and in Harvey Fierstein’s seminal queer film Torch Song Trilogy. The late performer is the subject of a fantastic new book, Write That Down!  The Comedy of Male Actress Charles Pierce, written by Kirk Frederick. Queerty chatted with the author about how Pierce rose to prominence, how the AIDS epidemic had an impact on his career and his continued influence on drag performers everywhere.

Queerty: When you first met Charles Pierce, did you know who he was?

Kirk Frederick: Yes. I had just moved to San Francisco, and some of my friends told me about this great performer at The Gilded Cage. It was a small, exclusive space. Sold out. I couldn’t get in. I knew he was a comedian who did drag, but I didn’t see that show. Soon after that, I was cast in a new gay play Geese in June of 1969, the summer of Stonewall. We knew what was happening in New York, and we thought doing a positive gay play would be timely. It was a sweet show; its heart was in the right place. Hair was playing across the street, and The Boys in the Band was going to open in North Beach in San Francisco soon enough.

How did you get to know him?

Our producers were fans of Charles Pierce, and they took some of the cast members of Geese to see his show on one of our dark nights. After the show, which was great, we went backstage. Charles was out of drag already. He was attractive and charming. The next night, our producers announced that Charles was coming into the play as my boyfriend’s mother. So I worked with Charles in that show for a year — I saw what a wonderful actor he was. And my then-partner Peter (in the play and in my life) and I became part of Charles’s show on Mondays, doing song and dance, that kind of thing.

How did Charles take his success in San Francisco and parlay it into a larger career?

He played SF’s The Gilded Cage for six years. He got a chance to take the show to Los Angeles. The legendary Sunset Strip club Ciro’s (now the Comedy Store), was getting ready to close, and they offered Charles the opportunity to be their final act. The venue was great for him. A four-week engagement turned into three months. Lots of celebrities came to see us. I tell some of those stories in the book.

Was most of the act scripted?

The beginning, some of the middle, and the end were scripted, but he improvised a lot in between, based on audience, current events, and that kind of thing. He had to make quick costume and prop changes, so we all teamed together to make it work. Very quickly, we decided to video tape the shows so that we wouldn’t miss his off-the-cuff lines. That’s where my book’s title comes from: Charles would get a great laugh and then stage-whisper to us in the wings, “Write that down!”

Did you work with him continuously during these years?

No, I went back to San Francisco, and Charles stayed in Los Angeles. I got involved in the now legendary show Beach Blanket Babylon. That took a lot of my time, so he got a new dresser. For about three years, we did not see much of each other. But then I started working with him again, more as a producer, and that collaboration lasted the rest of his career. And I still stage managed many of his San Francisco shows.

What are some of your favorite memories of Charles performing?

Bette Davis was his best role. He was a comic impressionist; his “Bette” was not an homage, which of course would have been her preference. But he made Bette his own. At Ciro’s we realized that his Bette needed a bigger entrance, so we decided to set it up by showing the famous staircase scene from All About Eve, with the “Fasten your seatbelts” line. We made the screen of Ace bandages, so we could show the short clip and then Charles would step through the screen, in the same pose and costume. His first line, after the raucous applause, would be “Thaaan-kew!” It brought the house down every night. But he also needed a closer, so again we turned to All About Eve and the car speech—“Funny thing, a woman’s career.” Charles did it as a serious moment in the show: you could hear a pin drop. His range was astonishing.

Would you say that his career really took off in the ’80s?

Absolutely. He did a lot of talk shows — Dick Cavett and that kind of thing — and he played venues as large and prestigious as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles, where he improvised the line “Who knew that Dorothy Pavilion’s middle name was Chandler?” In 1984, the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel hired him for five summers in a row: he filled the room. This was a high-paying gig, and it gave him great mainstream press exposure in San Francisco, a decade after his earlier local fame. Maybe the most important role was being cast as the drag performer and emcee “Bertha Venation” in Harvey Fierstein’s film version of Torch Song Trilogy in 1988. Harvey allowed Charles to use some of his own material, and it was clearly a chance for Harvey to honor Charles as a drag pioneer. He also had “off stage” moments in the film, which again showcased his acting range.

Did the AIDS crisis impact Charles’s career?

He did many, many AIDS benefits in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Lots of performers would come and do a song or something, but Charles could do one of his characters and bring down the house with laughter. He never made jokes about AIDS; he wanted to take the audience out of that history, even for just a few minutes. That was important to him.

How did his career wind down?

With a kind of perfect symmetry, actually. The Pasadena Playhouse, where he’d gone to acting school in the late 1940s, asked him to do an engagement at their smaller Balcony Theater. This was his show called The Legendary Ladies of the Silver Screen: All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing, All Dead. When we closed in October of 1990, he called me to say that he wanted to put away the costumes and take some time off. Turns out, he enjoyed retirement. He had become friends with Bea Arthur, and the two of them put together a show. The last gig I ever did with him was in 1993, with the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus. But that full circle at the Pasadena Playhouse was really his final act.

What is the legacy of Charles Pierce?

He had a forty-plus year career. He pioneered the art of female impersonation. Careers like RuPaul’s, Charles Busch’s and Lypsinka’s owe a lot to Charles. He had a great run. Since I have my own archive of his material, I thought I could create a book that would give Charles credit for what he had achieved. As early as 1973, I wrote a piece for the gay San Francisco magazine Vector, in which I talked about Charles as a cross-over artist. Already, that early in the movement, he was becoming a kind of voice for the gay community. I included that essay in the appendix of the book because it points to his legacy. That was twenty years before his final performance, and, for me, his longevity, the fact that he helped memorialize and even preserve some of the Hollywood legends, and that he made people laugh for so long is a legacy to be proud of. For years, I’d hear late-night comics using jokes that Charles made famous. So in Write That Down! I have been able to share his act with his fans, old and new. On YouTube, there are hours of Charles Pierce performances, and of course on stage is the best way to enjoy Charles’s talent. With the book, I’ve done the best I can to keep his legacy alive.

Watch Charles transform into Joan Crawford in full-blown Mommie Dearest mode below.

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/giUxEPU_0Y4/charles-pierce-great-male-actress-continues-influence-drag-performers-everywhere-20160508

Justin Bieber, Jodie Foster, Michael Phelps, Christina Crawford, George W. Bush, Sunday Worship: NEWS

TODAY. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in the world.

2016 ELECTION. Sanders open to Clinton VP spot: “‘Right now, we are focused on the next five weeks of winning the Democratic nomination. If that does not happen, we are going to fight as hard as we can on the floor of the Democratic convention to make sure that we have a progressive platform that the American people will support,’ Sanders said during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer broadcast on The Situation Room. ‘Then, after that, certainly Secretary Clinton and I can sit down and talk and see where we go from there.’”

.@BernieSanders leaves the door open to being @HillaryClinton‘s running mate t.co/IYC42qyyke t.co/0cle4STH3E

— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) May 6, 2016

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. DNC Chair Ed Rendell believes this is how it will go: “I think it’s gonna be a great convention, but of course the key to it is the Sanders people — Bernie’s gonna have his name placed in nomination, we’re gonna have a roll call, there’s gonna be a demonstration in support of Bernie, he’s gonna lose the roll call,” he said. “His supporters have to behave and not cause trouble. And I think they will and I think Sen. Sanders will send them a strong message.”

ITALY. Civil Unions bill heads to House floor on Monday: “The Lower House justice committee on Wednesday approved the Senate version of the government’s civil unions bill, paving the way for it to go to the House floor on Monday, May 9. Lawmakers from the center-right Forza Italia (FI) party, the rightwing populist Northern League, and the small centrist Area Popolare (AP) and DS-CD caucuses were absent in protest against Premier Matteo Renzi’s announced intention to put the bill to a confidence vote.”

ALABAMA. Gay rights rally takes place in Oxford following repeal of anti-trans bathroom bill:

MOMMIE DEAREST. Christina Crawford reissues book, gives first interview in years: ‘You never forget that,’ Christina says now, 55 years later. ‘It was up close and personal. She came this far from my face, and you could see it in her eyes, you can see if someone is trying to kill you.’

BIRTHS. Michael Phelps is a father: “Welcome Boomer Robert Phelps into the world!!! Born 5-5-2016 at 7:21 pm !!! Healthy and happy!!! Best feeling I have ever felt in my life!!!@nicole.m.johnson and Boomer both healthy!!! #boomerphelps 📷”

TITLE IX. Obama plans transgender rights push in schools: “With the Justice Department already locking horns with North Carolina over the state’s so-called bathroom bill, the administration plans to reaffirm its view that robust protections for transgender students are within the existing scope of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities. Multiple agencies are expected to be involved.”

INCLUSIVITY. Starbucks and Barnes & Noble join Target: “Starbucks, Hudson’s Bay Co. — parent company to Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue — and Barnes & Noble all told USA TODAY that employees and customers in their stores are welcome to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. Starbucks spokeswoman Jaime Riley said the company is ‘looking into additional opportunities to have more gender-neutral signage in our restrooms where jurisdictions allow it.’”

DISHONORS. George W. Bush is going to accept an award from the virulently anti-gay World Congress of Families. “Bush is set to accept the award at an event whose speakers include Putin allies, anti-LGBT extremists and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Along with Bush, this year’s WCF will feature prominent U.S. anti-gay activists including the National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown, who coordinated with WCF to travel to Russia to support the country’s anti-gay policies in 2013. Also scheduled to speak is Natalia Yakunina, the wife of former Putin ally Vladimir Yakunin, who was instrumental in organizing and funding the Moscow event, and Vladimir Mischenko, a top official at a foundation run by Yakunin.”

STAR. Jodie Foster finally got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: “They’ve asked me a number of times over the years and I made a big point — that meant something to me personally — that I really wanted to get a star on Hollywood Blvd. when I was promoting a major movie I was directing,” Foster told the Daily News. “I wanted to wait for that.”

SPLITS. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne split after 33 years of marriage: “This time around, however, drug and alcohol seem not to be the issue. While Ozzy remains sober, rumors are swirling that Sharon recently accused him of cheating with a Hollywood hairstylist.”

NEW INK. Justin Bieber got a cross tattoo on his face.

WYOMING. Judge who refuses to marry gays fights removal from the bench: “The Wyoming Supreme Court will decide if Pinedale municipal judge and circuit court magistrate Ruth Neely should be removed from her position. The Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics began investigating Neely in January 2015. The investigation was prompted by statements made by Neely to a Pinedale Roundup reporter, which were published in a newspaper article. After a federal judge in Casper struck down Wyoming’s gay marriage ban, Neely told the reporter that she would not be able to perform same-sex marriages.

SCIENCE. If you needed proof that you shouldn’t look directly at the sun, especially through a telescope:

SUNDAY WORSHIP. Alan Montes shot by Isauro Cairo.

The post Justin Bieber, Jodie Foster, Michael Phelps, Christina Crawford, George W. Bush, Sunday Worship: NEWS appeared first on Towleroad.

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Flustered NC Gov. Pat McCrory Lashes Out at Feds in FOX News Sunday Interview: WATCH

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory sat down with Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday. Wallace grilled him on how he plans to respond to a letter sent to him by the Department of Justice which gives North Carolina until Monday to say they’ll stop enforcing the anti-LGBT ‘bathroom’ law HB 2.

Should McCrory choose to defy the feds, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding is at stake.

McCrory notes that the Department of Transportation is also looking at cutting off funding for the state.

RELATED: Justice Dept. Says HB2 Violates Civil Rights Act; Gives Pat McCrory Monday Deadline…

McCrory says that three working days is not enough time to respond to “such a threat” and said that he asked the DOJ for an extension and they replied that they would offer a one week extension “if the governor admits publicly that their language regarding bathrooms does in fact discriminate.”

Adds McCrory: “I’m not going to publicly announce that something discriminates which is agreeing with their letter because we’re really talking about a letter in which they’re trying to define gender identity. And there is no clear definition of gender identity. It is the federal government being a bully. It’s making law by their interpretation…I’m discussing all of our legal options, all of our political options.”

Asks Wallace: “You call this a case of Washington overreach. Would it be overreach for the Justice Dept to send you a letter like this to say you cannot have bathrooms in the state capitol one for white and one for black?”

Replies McCrory: “We can definitely define the race of people. It’s very hard to define transgender or gender identity.”

Wallace explains that the Justice Department defines transgender people as a protected class like race.

RELATED: NC Gov. Pat McCrory Seems Angry and Prepared to Defy Justice Department on HB 2 Order: WATCH

Replies McCrory: “That’s what they say but that’s not what the federal law says. The federal law uses the term sex and Congress does not define sex as including gender identity…So right now the Justice Department is making law for the federal government.”

Says Wallace: “It sounds like you’re going to challenge this in court.”

When Wallace asks him how many cases have they had in North Carolina where people have been convicted of using transgender protections to commit crimes in bathrooms, McCrory doesn’t have an answer, so returns to his blaming the Democratic Party for HB 2.

Insists Wallace: :”If there’s no problem then why pass the law in the first place?”

McCrory, clearly flustered, keeps turning the blame back to the Left:

“There can be a problem because the liberal Democrats are the ones pushing for bathroom laws and now President Obama and the mayor of Charlotte wants government to have bathroom rules. We did not start this on the Right.”

Watch:

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