PHOTOS: Breaking! Colton Haynes Turns 28 Today

Colton Haynes turns the big 2-8 today. That’s right, the still-out-but-no-longer-blonde Arrow star/fashion designer officially transitions from his mid- to his late-20s.

Related: PHOTOS: Freshly-Blonde-And-Out Colton Haynes Goes Shirtlessly S&M

One of the things we love most about Colton, aside from his boyish charm and perfectly defined pectoral muscles, is his sense of humor. He doesn’t take himself too seriously and his Instagram page is a treasure trove of silly and sexy images.

Scroll down for some of our favorite photos of Colton, and join us in wishing him a very happy birthday!

Related: Freshly Out Colton Haynes Is Relishing In His Newfound Gayness

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Man Comes Out As Gay And Athiest To Wife And Evangelical Family, Seeks Advice

If your biggest problem this summer is wondering if following up tequila with vodka is going to give you a killer hangover, at least one Reddit user wishes he were in your shoes.

Reddit user Club411 came out to his wife 8 months after marrying her, and she then forced him to come out to the rest of his family.

Even though he did it via this heartbreakingly vulnerable coming out letter, it wasn’t exactly an Afterschool Special.

I came out of the closet May 16th to my wife after being married for 8 months. Then shortly after she forced me to come out to my family. She put me in a situation where I had to choose between her telling them or me telling them, and she gave me a deadline. So I sent them all a letter (I can post it later if people are interested), because I wanted to be the one who broke the news to them so I could at least get my views across to them as they found out.

Shit has hit the fan. My family went crazy. I grew up very religious, and my family and ex are still very religious. I grew up in the evangelical Christian environment, with parents who were so religious they didn’t believe in birth control. I got grounded once for my Bible getting dusty. My father made jokes about killing gay people. Lots of bad stuff.

His friends have been great, but his family…not so much:

My sister told me that she hopes I hit rock bottom so I have no where to turn but Jesus. And I still constantly hear shit like this from my family.I’m getting divorced and I’m moving on. I got married due to religious and family pressures. My wife and I are separated at the moment. I’ve had sex with a few guys and it’s amazing! I also never did anything with anyone till after my wife and I separated. I’m also happier than I’ve ever been, but I’m also processing a lot of shit at once. So I would love to talk about it and hear advice from anyone.

The heretofore anonymous Club411 is blogging about his experiences in his new gay world at bengayforever.tumblr.com, and is answering more questions on reddit.

What advice would you give him, Queerty readers?

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Stephen Colbert Bids Farewell to Bernie Sanders, ‘Who Kept Pretending Not To Be Dead’ – WATCH

On Tuesday, Stephen Colbert bid farewell to Bernie Sanders, the latest fallen tribute in the 2016 Hungry for Power Games (aka, the 2016 Election; aka the actual Hunger Games). Colbert mourned the loss of Sanders, whom he described as “a man we actually lost months of ago but courageously kept pretending not to be dead.”

Colbert added, “the bar is closing and America has to go home with someone.”

Via Mediaite: 

Colbert joked that the joint rally slogan of “Stronger Together” was probably because Sanders wouldn’t agree to Clinton’s original idea: “It’s About F*cking Time.” Still, the Late Show host gave Sanders credit for “[exciting] young voters with his pure sex appeal,” and creating a political movement to stick it to the political elite.

To demonstrate, however, that the political establishment had won, Colbert ate a plate of caviar that spelled out, “Bernie”–something he joked he would later regret.

Colbert also compared Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton to Ned Stark’s endorsement of Joffrey Lannister Baratheon as the one true king of Westeros.

Said Colbert of Bernie in his goodbye, “Farewell, Bernie. No one else expressed the frustrations of so many Americans without blaming it on Mexicans or Muslims.”

Watch, below.

The post Stephen Colbert Bids Farewell to Bernie Sanders, ‘Who Kept Pretending Not To Be Dead’ – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

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Roger Ailes, Jupiter, Bachelorette Parties, James Stavridis, Pokemon Go, South Africa, Loving, Malta: NEWS

THIS FREE LIFE: Celebrating the lives of the LGBTQ&A community. Think about how at risk we’ve been in the LGBTQ&A community when it comes to rights. Why should we let risks to our health affect our community as well? Living tobacco-free and protecting our bodies is as important to our happy futures as achieving equality. These stories from the LGBTQ&A community show why the two go hand in hand. Check out the video and see if you notice any familiar faces.

SIGNORILE. The complete moral bankruptcy of ‘LGBT for Trump’.

JAMES STAVRIDIS. Retired admiral being vetted as Hillary Clinton’s running mate.

JUNO. NASA Probe sends back first image from Jupiter’s orbit. “This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter’s extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We can’t wait to see the first view of Jupiter’s poles.”

NEW JERSEY. Gay teacher receives settlement over discrimination claim: “The Scotch Plains-Fanwood school district agreed to pay $110,000 to a former teacher who claimed he was fired because he is gay, according to papers filed in court. Matthew Richards, 29, agreed to the settlement last May to resolve the lawsuit he filed in October 2014.”

PTOWNIE. Bachelorettes, Party for None: “Provincetown has a long, storied past of welcoming all. In 2016, we welcome you, with the expectation that the default on Commercial Street is gay, and it’s a struggle for some in town to see how straight the visitors are becoming. This is a double-edge sword: of course we want to be accepted by all and to experience tolerance, but we’ve also carved out safe and sacred spaces for ourselves over the decades of intolerance and homophobia.”

SOUTH AFRICA. Homophobic U.S. pastor Steven L Anderson heads there to evangelize.

IDAHO. Police say transgender woman took photos of another woman in Target dressing room: “Bonneville County Sgt. Bryan Lovell says deputies were called to a disturbance at Target on 25th East just after 5 p.m. Monday. A woman told them a man, dressed in women’s clothing, had entered a fitting room in the women’s clothing section of the store. Deputies say the suspect was seen taking photos of a lady in a stall next to him while she was changing.”

CANADA. Anglican Church reverses course, approves gay marriage. “A day after the Anglican Church of Canada narrowly voted not to authorize gay unions, questions about the integrity of the voting process emerged Tuesday, leading to a reversal of the result with the church approving the measure. More than 200 delegates attending the six-day General Synod 2016 narrowly rejected the resolution Monday night after hearing from more than 60 speakers, most of them in favor of gay marriage.”

ROGER AILES. Anchor Bret Baier comes to his defense.

MALTA. Gay couple given green light to adopt in historic first. “One News reported that the go-ahead for adoption was given by the Family Court yesterday for the adoption by the two men.  The Civil Unions law gives same-sex couples the same rights as in marriage, including the right to adopt, although gay adoptions were never technically illegal.  ”

POKEMON GO. The Holocaust Museum and Arlington Cemetery aren’t appropriate places to play.

We do not consider playing “Pokemon Go” to be appropriate decorum on the grounds of ANC. We ask all visitors to refrain from such activity.

— Arlington Cemetery (@ArlingtonNatl) July 12, 2016

We welcome & encourage visitors to use technology to engage w/our exhibitions & programs while being respectful of our role as a memorial.

— US Holocaust Museum (@HolocaustMuseum) July 12, 2016

POKEBUTT GO. Pokemon erotica now on sale. “This work of thought-provoking fiction is a story of romance, transgression and, most importantly, some guy capturing Pokémon using the hidden power of his bottom.”

TRAILER OF THE DAY. Loving. “From acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols, ‘Loving’ celebrates the real-life courage and commitment of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga), who married and then spent the next nine years fighting for the right to live as a family in their hometown. Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry – and their love story has become an inspiration to couples ever since.”

HUMP DAY HOTTIE. Robert Oliveira.

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TV For Terrible People: ‘Difficult People,’ ‘Vice Principals’ And More TV This Week

Check out our weekly guide to TV this week, and make sure you’re catching the big premieres, crucial episodes and the stuff you won’t admit you watch when no one’s looking.

— Hulu’s terrible twosome, Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner, are back to terrorize the people of New York and viewers everywhere with season two of Difficult People, premiering Tuesday. Schadenfreude and shenanigans abound.

— We like to imagine Christian Slater is continuing the fight he started in the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume as the titular anarchist hacker on Mr. Robot. The second season of USA’s hit thriller premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern.

— Episodes of The Great British Baking Show are like profiteroles, you can’t stop at just one. And we won’t stop shoving this delightful reality competition down your throat, either. The remaining contestants need to make bread sculptures for the showstopper challenge Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern on PBS. Beachbodies be damned, this show is worth carbo-loading for.

— If you’re already missing the tart-tongued workplace animosity of Veep, get ready to go to school with a new set of vices on HBO’s new comedy, Vice Principals, debuting Sunday at 10:30 p.m. Danny McBride and Walton Goggins play rival VPs that both think they’re next in line to step up for the departing principal.

What are you watching on TV this week?

The post TV For Terrible People: ‘Difficult People,’ ‘Vice Principals’ And More TV This Week appeared first on Towleroad.

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The Wallis and Los Angeles LGBT Center present tribute concert and conversation United FORlando

www.glaad.org/blog/wallis-and-los-angeles-lgbt-center-present-tribute-concert-and-conversation-united-forlando

Mary Lambert Skips Work to Hang Out With Real-Life Girlfriend, Rescued Puppies in Uplifting New Video

After almost three years of dating singer/songwriter Michelle Chamuel, Mary Lambert just released the couple’s first collaboration, “Hang Out With You.”

The Seattle-based singer, who was featured in 2012’s Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Equality anthem “One Love”, explained how “Hang Out With You” came about: she said the couple wrote the song on a day when Lambert said she was feeling under “serious pressure to write the next hit. I got so fed up trying to write something everyone else wanted me to write and at one point I just said, ‘I don’t want to write a song. I just want to hang out with you.’ Michelle yelled, ‘HOT DOG! That’s a song!’,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

It was a labor of love. Chamuel produced, engineered, sang backing-vocals and also appeared in the video, a sweet love-at-first-sight story, directed by Zoe Rain.

In it, Lambert plays a girl who decides to call in sick and, instead, takes her dog out for a walk on the beach. The dog plays cupid, brings her to hot-girl-on-a-bench, and then sparks fly, magic happens, life starts.

Lambert co-produced the video, and said she “wanted to build a music video around dogs,” which was something she’s wanted to do for a long time, she told the Advocate on an interview. “I love dogs,” she said, adding that she doesn’t have a dog yet, but she wants to get one.

“Hang Out With You” has over 20 dogs in it, which got her a huge thank you tweet from the Humane Society.

Thank you @MaryLambertSing for featuring @shelterpets in #hangoutwithyou video! We love it! #startastoryadopt t.co/kHxAeSxIRW

— Humane Society (@HumaneSociety) July 11, 2016

Watch the full video below:

The post Mary Lambert Skips Work to Hang Out With Real-Life Girlfriend, Rescued Puppies in Uplifting New Video appeared first on Towleroad.

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LA LGBT Center Blasts AIDS Healthcare Foundation For Denouncing PrEP in Powerful Video

The Los Angeles LGBT Center wants to spread the word about PrEP, and about AB 2640, a new California Bill which would educate people about PrEP and help stop the spread of HIV in California.

The bill is simple. If you test negative for HIV, you should get information about PrEP.

That simple.

AHF’s Rand Martin, however, doesn’t agree. He says that Truvada can be “toxic” and “it does have side-effects.” And if, for example, “a 45-year-old man who’s been married for 20 years, who has a fling and panics and gets tested, and is told that he should try PrEP, he’s going to be asked to be prescribed Truvada,” he says, so you are “condemning a person who should not be taking it to forever having to take this pill.”

Truvada can be as safe as aspirin, the video says, referring to a Buzzfeed article that said that “people who take Truvada, the once-a-day pill that prevents HIV, are no more at risk for dangerous side effects than those who take an aspirin a day to prevent heart attacks, according to a new study.”

Furthermore, the bill is not a mandate to anybody to prescribe anything, but instead it’s assurance that individuals who test negative will receive information about PrEP treatment.

Information can never hurt.

Dr. Robert Bolan, Medical Director of the LA LGBT Center urges for the passing of the bill, because it will save lives by “reminding medical providers” that they are also “educators.”

For more information, or to sign a petition visit lalgbtcenter.org/ab2640.

Some of the facts highlighted in the video:

California has the second highest number of new HIV infections in the nation.

Expanding HIV testing, treatment and PrEP could slash new HIV cases by 70 percent by 2020.

One in four gay men should take the pill that prevents HIV, CDC says.

Only one in ten gay/bisexual men in California have ever taken PrEP.

Black and Latino men are least likely to know about it.

One in four latino gay/bisexual men are projected to get HIV in their lifetime.

Watch the full video below:

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2016 GOP Platform Proves It: Today’s Republican Party is an Anti-LGBT Hate Group

The Republican Party has done it again, taking a big step toward approval of its most staunchly anti-LGBT, hateful platform of all time.

The platform includes provisions supporting state laws to restrict transgender rights on bathroom use, support of conversion therapy for gay people “by saying that parents should be free to make medical decisions about their children without interference,” according to the New York Times. It also says “that ‘natural marriage’ between a man and a woman is most likely to result in offspring who do not become drug-addicted or otherwise damaged.”

The paper adds, “nearly every provision that expressed disapproval of homosexuality, same-sex marriage or transgender rights passed. The platform calls for overturning the Supreme Court marriage decision with a constitutional amendment and makes references to appointing judges ‘who respect traditional family values.’”

When gay Republican delegate Rachel Hoff attempted to add language that specifically noted LGBT people as targets of the Islamic state it was shot down by conservative delegates “who said they felt there was no need to single out any one group.”

The battle for the platform was combative, particularly on these issues, but social conservatives won the day over pro-LGBT delegates with Paul Singer’s American Unity Fund.

CNN reports:

Through hours of debate on topics ranging from federal lands to immigration to the economy to family values, a handful of delegates gathered for Platform Committee meetings ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention repeatedly challenged their peers to moderate provisions affecting gay and lesbian Americans. They were for the most part rebuffed by the 112-member panel, which approved a GOP platform that opposes same-sex marriage rights, supports efforts to restrict bathrooms to individuals’ birth gender and protects businesses who refuse services to individuals based on religious objections to gay marriage.

After failing repeatedly in their efforts, the group was buoyed by the number of delegates who voted in their favor, including about 20 delegates raising their hands in support of a proposal from D.C. delegate Rachel Hoff to revamp the party’s position on marriage to broaden the language to include “diverse” views on marriage and support the “strength of all families” While raising the amendment, Hoff also emotionally made public to her peers that she was gay. New York delegate Annie Dickerson said the GOP Platform Committee has been resisting an obvious trend in the country toward gay rights, calling same-sex marriage “settled law,” saying it is only a matter of time before federal nondiscrimination statutes protecting LGBT rights are enacted.

Other things in the platform: approval for a border wall along Mexico, support for teaching the Bible as a historical document in public schools, an order that lawmakers use religion as a guide when legislating, criticism of President Obama as weak, barring women from combat in the military, and a denunciation of pornography as a “public menace” which is harmful to children.

But the moderates will be heard at the convention, guaranteeing that these social issues will come up front and center: “The party’s approach to social issues now threatens to disrupt the convention next week. Moderate delegates pushing for gay rights language in the platform secured enough signatures on Tuesday to demand a vote on their proposals from all 2,475 delegates.”

The Log Cabin Republicans sent out this fundraising email shortly after the Party of Hate’s platform was approved:

There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.

Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history. Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.

This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s! When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

BUT…now is not the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Log Cabin Republicans has been officially credentialed for the Republican National Convention, and when it convenes in Cleveland in a mere 6 days’ time I want to be able to take a stand, but we’re going to need your support to do it.

Cleveland is rightly making the most of their time in the spotlight, and prices for advertising in area news outlets are sky-high. That’s why I’m writing to ask for your help.

Please give today and give generously — $500, $250, $100, or whatever you can give would go a long way to ensuring we don’t go quietly into the night.

Take back the Platform. Take back the Party. Stand up today and let the folks on the Platform Committee who paved the way to this foolishness know you’re not going down without a fight!

Sincerely,
Gregory T. Angelo
President

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