Comedian Leslie Jones Victim of Revenge Porn Hack
Jones had recently been subjected to intense racist and sexist cyberbullying surrounding the release of her recent movie Ghostbusters.
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/8/24/comedian-leslie-jones-victim-revenge-porn-hack
Cher Laughs At Trump’s Promise To Protect LGBTQ Community: “Oh, Come On!”
Cher. Photo by David Carroll, CC 2.0.
When Donald Trump promised to protect the LGBTQ community in his fear-mongering speech at the RNC this year, only the most gullible fell for it. Count Cher as among those smart enough to know a conman conning when she sees one.
Cher spoke with Lawrence O’Donnell on his MSNBC program The Last Word on Tuesday and made clear just how silly she found Trump’s empty promises.
Related: Donald Trump Promises To Protect The LGBTQ Community, Twitter Reacts
After playing the footage of the speech, O’Donnell asked what she thought when she heard him speak those words.
“Oh, come on!” she said, laughing. “And he says it, he says those letters like a child that’s just learning the alphabet.”
“He’s the most disingenuous man I’ve ever seen,” she added. “And I want to tell you, my people will not believe him for a minute.”
Cher referenced his closed door meeting with 400 antigay evangelicals shortly after claiming to be more of a friend to the LGBTQ community than Hillary Clinton.
“How does he go from that meeting to telling my people that he will protect them?” she asked.
Trump has also said he sides with states like North Carolina when it comes to transgender bathroom laws like HB2, has routinely spoke out against same-sex marriage and in support of discriminatory Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) laws.
On top of that, he selected antigay Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, and together they are running on an antigay platform that’s so bad even the Log Cabin Republicans are upset about it.
“I fear for (LGBTQ) people, and not just for my son,” she said. “I fear for what (a Trump administration) will do to those people.”
Related: Trump Supporters Too Intolerant To Pass His “Extreme Vetting” Test
This is not the first time Cher has sounded off on Trump.
Speaking at a Clinton rally in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Sunday she called him a “f***ing idiot.”
“He doesn’t mean we want to ‘Make America Great Again.’ He means: We want to make America straight and white,” she added.
Watch the video below.
Iranian Man Says He Was Disowned By Family, Arrested & Raped After Being Outed In Documentary
A gay Iranian man says his life was all but ruined when a team of documentary filmmakers shot an undercover exposé of gay culture in his country, DailyXTra reports.
Farzam Dadashzadeh is a gay Iranian refugee currently living in Vancouver. In a lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia late last week, Dadashzadeh claims he was fired from his job, forced to drop out of school, disowned by his family, assaulted, and, ultimately, arrested and beaten by Iranian police all due to a documentary filmed without his consent.
Related: 14-Year-Old ‘Hanged From Tree’ For Being Gay At Iranian Boys’ Summer Camp
Out in Iran: Inside Iran’s Secret Gay World explores gay life in a country where homosexuality is still punishable by death. Dadashzadeh was a closeted, 19-year-old college student and part-time hair stylist at the time it was shot in 2007. According to his lawsuit, no one asked for his permission prior to filming him inside the Jam-e-Jam café, a popular gay hangout Tehran.
In the scene, filmmakers follow a gay man named Mani, who agreed to be featured, to the restaurant. “Most of the people coming here tonight are homosexuals,” he tells the reporters, then says they “can’t take the camera in there like this.”
That’s when Evan Solomon, one of the filmmakers named in the suit, comes up with what he thought was a brilliant idea: “We keep our camera hidden,” he says over the footage, before later assuring audiences that all of the people inside were made aware and gave “group consent” to being depicted.
This, Dadashzadeh, was a simply not true.
The lawsuit goes on to say filmmakers made no attempt at blurring out anyone’s faces, and that Dadashzadeh can be plainly seen several times, “including several lingering ‘close-up’ images of his face and other identifying features.”
Related: Exile Recounts His “Invisible” Life Growing Up Gay In Iran
After the film was broadcast by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it was uploaded to Youtube, where it garnered over 650,000 views. It was also shared on Facebook, where it can still be viewed.
Upon learning of the film’s existence, Dadashzadeh says he became “shocked and scared,” especially after his family found out. His parents disowned him and he “remains alienated” from them today, nearly 10 years later. On top of that, he says, the documentary brought unwanted attention to the Jam-e-Jam café. One day, a man who had seen the film specifically went there to cause trouble. He recognized Dadashzadeh and attacked him. When police were called, they took both men into custody.
And that’s when the nightmare went from bad to even worse.
Dadashzadeh says he spent two weeks behind bars. Police interrogated him about his homosexuality for hours. He was also “repeatedly sexually assaulted, which included being sodomized, beaten and kicked by other prisoners, with the knowledge and assistance of, and at the behest, of the police.”
After being released, he fled to Turkey before filing for refugee status and arrived in Canada in 2014. He has been trying to rebuild his life ever since.
Neither the filmmakers or the production company have responded to the lawsuit.
Related: WATCH: The Love Story “Aban & Khorshid” Explores The Plight Of Gay Iranians
h/t: DailyXTra
Gay GOP Congressional Candidate and Trump Supporter: Mike Pence Doesn’t Believe in Discrimination
Out gay Republican congressional candidate Clay Cope is opening about his support for Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and the GOP in general.
Cope is challenging Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Etsy in the Connecticut 5th–quite the challenge given just how deep blue Connecticut is. A former businessman who started a line of women’s clothing with his partner, Cope told NBC OUT that he described himself as “a lifelong Republican.” He says, “The first election I voted in was for Ronald Reagan when I was 18. The tent has widened, and now there are gay candidates and that’s great.”
Cope says he doesn’t think much about being gay and in the GOP, explaining, “Did I have gay cereal this morning? No. The decisions I make are always what I think is the best for my constituents.”
Of his sexuality, he explains, “It’s such a non-issue for me. I know I am unique. I am a gay American. A Republican. I live with a Peruvian immigrant. We are blessed to live in a community and district that embraces us.”
Cope is also a supporter of Indiana Governor and VP hopeful Mike Pence, who signed into law the horrifically anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Restoration Act last year.
Said Cope, “I am liking what I’m hearing from Pence. He does not believe in discrimination. And neither do I.”
He adds, “I take him at his word. I have to think about what he is saying now.”
Still, Cope claims to be focused on “anti-discrimination” issues. He says the GOP has been “very welcoming” to him and adds, “I never had anyone question me about my sexuality, about my relationship with my partner.”
As for the GOP’s platform this year — the most rabidly anti-LGBT platform in the party’s history–Cope says only,
“I don’t think the party is the platform. Voters vote for candidates not a party platform. I don’t agree with every aspect of the platform, but I am focused on issues.”
Cope plans to continue evangelizing for the GOP: “[I want to] raise awareness about the party that I know and that I love. The Republican Party is a party of inclusion and non-discrimination — or I wouldn’t be part of it.”
[Photo via Facebook]
The post Gay GOP Congressional Candidate and Trump Supporter: Mike Pence Doesn’t Believe in Discrimination appeared first on Towleroad.
Atlanta Man Who Poured Boiling Water On Sleeping Gay Couple Found Guilty on All Charges
An Atlanta man who was indicted for having attacked a gay couple with a pot of boiling hot water while they slept was convicted on all charges on Wednesday.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:
After deliberating about 90 minutes, a Fulton County jury convicted the man accused of pouring boiling water on a same-sex couple.
Martin Blackwell [above left] was found guilty on all 10 counts, including aggravated assault and aggravated battery. He was awaiting sentencing following the verdict.
The victims of Blackwell’s attack were Marquez Tolbert and his boyfriend Anthony Gooden. More from the AP:
Prosecutors have said Blackwell faces up to 80 years in prison.
The 48-year-old Blackwell was a long-distance trucker and stayed with his girlfriend, Kim Foster, when he was in town. Gooden was Foster’s son.
During his trial, Blackwell’s attorney Monique Walker tried to downplay the crime, telling the court,
“It’s one act. It caused injury. It was distasteful, it was disrespectful. But it was not deadly. It was not intentional.”
The prosecution vociferously disagreed with Walker’s characterization of the attack, saying it was malicious and methodical. Assistant District Attorney Fani Willis told the jury, “You don’t have the right to hurt because you don’t like how they live their life.”
More from AJC:
“It was reckless, it was revolting. It was repugnant,” [Walker] said. “But it’s not 10 counts in an indictment. It’s not bringing in the kitchen sink.”
It was literally under a kitchen sink where Blackwell searched for the largest pot and filled it with water, Willis said. The scalding water required both men undergo skin graft surgeries, prosecutors said. Gooden spent nearly a month in the hospital, including two weeks in a medically induced coma, and Tolbert spent 10 days in the hospital.
Developing…
The post Atlanta Man Who Poured Boiling Water On Sleeping Gay Couple Found Guilty on All Charges appeared first on Towleroad.
Four More Gay Men Killed by ISIS, Including Two Members
In what’s becoming a horrifying pattern in Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city and one controlled by the radical Islamist group — the men were pushed off a tall building, falling to their deaths.
www.advocate.com/world/2016/8/24/four-more-gay-men-killed-isis-including-two-members
Clinton Spox: If You’re Troubled that Hillary Wants to Fight AIDS While President, Don’t Vote For Her – WATCH
Clinton Press Secretary Brian Fallon pushed back against the suggestion that the Clinton Foundation should shut down if Hillary Clinton is elected president.
Fallon sat down to talk with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell about a report from the AP that insinuated corruption at the foundation during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Fallon rebuked critics of the foundation and the AP report, arguing that the Clinton Foundation is being politicized because it’s an election year. Previously, “The Clinton Foundation has been widely praised by Democrats and Republicans alike,” Fallon said.
What Fallon thinks should get more attention in the press is the work that the Clinton Foundation does around the world, for instance helping to solve the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Said Fallon,
“Let’s look at what that foundation work is. They have given AIDS drugs to a 11.5 million people in the world…more than half the people in the world receiving AIDS drugs receive them from the Clinton Foundation. So no, the Clinton Foundation will not be completely shuttering its work even if Clinton wins the presidency. And for good reason, they want to continue this work.”
Appearing a bit agitated, Fallon pushed back further:
“And you know what? If any American voter is troubled by the idea that the Clintons want to continue working to solve the AIDS crisis on the side while Hillary Clinton is president, then don’t vote for her. But I think most voters are pretty reasonable on that point.”
Long-time Clinton ally Paul Begala tacked onto Fallon’s argument, tweeting:
Before @ClintinFdn, 200K people with HIV AIDS in poor countries got lifesaving anti-retroviral meds. Because of @ClintonFdn, 11.5M do now.
— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) August 24, 2016
Watch, below.
The post Clinton Spox: If You’re Troubled that Hillary Wants to Fight AIDS While President, Don’t Vote For Her – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
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